by Mel Gough
They told the officers who responded to Eric’s call for backup about the smashed patio door, and about what Victor told them that morning. Eric went with the cops to sort out access to the footprint from the flowerbed and the stalking notebook.
“It’s hard to believe,” Brad agrees. “Who’d ever think this, looking at her? Her life’s perfect, she has everything. How didn’t she snap before?”
“I guess that pregnancy thing really threw her,” Damien muses. “I just don’t understand why.”
“Victor hinted that she really wanted a baby, and that she took it hard that he couldn’t give her one.” Brad stops there. He wasn’t going to bring this up now, but they’re so far into the whole thing, he might as well ask. “Damien, you don’t think she’s really pregnant, do you?”
Damien immediately shakes his head. His eyes flit to Brad, and a blush starts creeping up his neck. “No,” he says. “Not by me, anyway. You see, Zoe…she was an accident. Me and Idil, we didn’t plan her, we…” His voice breaks, and tears bead his lashes. “I love my little girl, Brad,” he says, his voice pleading.
“Hey, I know you do,” Brad says, alarmed by the sudden fresh surge of grief and wondering what’s brought it on. “Nobody says you don’t…”
“I didn’t want her,” Damien whispers. “As soon as Idil told me she was pregnant, I went and had a vasectomy. I…I never told anyone. I felt ashamed after. I was going to convince Idil not to have the baby, but I couldn’t bring it up, in the end.” Tears flow freely now. “I thank the heavens every day that I didn’t have the guts, but I was scared. With my job and with the migraines, I just didn’t think I could be a good dad…”
“Well, you are a great dad, as it turns out,” Brad says, fighting his own emotions. “Hush now, c’mere.”
He pulls Damien into a hug, and Damien clings to him for a long time, his breathing ragged and his body shaking against Brad. Eventually, he pulls away. He doesn’t look at Brad, but he doesn’t let go of his hands either. “Viv snapped when I told her the baby couldn’t be mine. I didn’t think…it never even occurred to me. We only had sex once without protection. It was stupid, I know that. I…I was in a real bad place that time… If I’d known…”
“You didn’t do this,” Brad repeats. “You couldn’t have known what was in her head. She seems to have gone off on her own fantasy train. But she’ll get help now; we’ll do what we have to, to make sure of that.” He looks at Damien’s tousled curls, the only thing of him he can see. Damien’s eyes are fixed on their intertwined hands. “You need to go to bed now.”
Damien nods and straightens up. “Yeah, all right.”
“And tomorrow,” Brad adds, “we’re going back to Brooklyn. I think we should get away from the city for a while. This will be all over the news soon enough.”
“You still want us to live together?” Damien ask.
Brad sighs and stroke’s Damien’s hand. “Of course I do.” He takes a deep breath. “But I think I should be looking for a different property.” He grins without humor. “Something more easily defensible.”
“But you love that house!”
Brad shrugs, trying not to feel the stab to his heart at the thought of giving up the brownstone. “I do…or I did.” He tightens his grip on Damien’s hands. “But other things are more important than brick and mortar, and a designer living room.”
Viv can’t remember the days after the incident at the penthouse, and it’s her own fault. When the paramedics and uniformed cops came up the stairs she struggled against Moretti, who still held her by the shoulder. Her last memory from the penthouse is Damien’s shaking back and the damn detective saying something about attempted suicide. Then a paramedic leaned over her, there was a prick to her upper arm, and oblivion.
Every time she wakes up, someone sits by the bed. The face, blurred by the sedatives, varies, but the green scrubs stay the same. Viv doesn’t know where she is, and for a long time that’s okay. But with every, increasingly more lucid waking, her confusion grows. Soon she can make out details in the room. She isn’t in a hospital. This tiny box of a room with an empty shelf and a small table and chair bolted to the floor is too small. There’s a toilet and a sink, too. The door, which looks to be made of solid metal, is always closed.
She first wakes in near-darkness, then in twilight, then with gray daylight flooding the tiny room. When it gets dark again someone in a white lab coat sits on the floor-bolted chair, and she thinks he might’ve been saying her name. “Do you know where you are, Miss Aubert?” he asks.
“No,” she answers truthfully.
He frowns. “This is the Metropolitan Correctional Center.” He lets that sink in for a moment. “Are you surprised?”
“No.” The name means nothing to her, other than that this is a prison. Viv pushes herself up and leans against the wall. The bed is hard and narrow, and the sheets smell of her own sweat.
The doctor—a shrink, she assumes—frowns again, but he doesn’t challenge her. Instead, he asks, “Do you still want to kill yourself?”
“No.” Viv tries hard not to smile. She’d never planned to. At least that bit of her performance seems to have worked.
The doctor gets up to leave when Viv’s brain, which still feels slow and sluggish, suddenly springs into action. “Doctor,” she says breathlessly, “is my baby okay?”
Maybe the frown is permanently etched on his face, she thinks as the doctor faces her again. “Miss, there is no baby, and there never was one.”
Viv bites back a retort. He waits for her to react, but when she doesn’t give him that satisfaction, he shrugs and leaves. The door falls shut with a loud boom that reverberates in her bones.
She’d known he would say that. Damien said the same. She’d lost her cool with him, but she won’t make that mistake again. She’ll make them all eat crow by having this child, and then they’ll be sorry.
Viv dozes again, disturbed at regular intervals by the little window in the door opening and closing. After the third time she knows what this must be. Suicide watch.
A female guard brings her food on a tray and a stack of folded orange clothes. Viv shrugs out of the hospital nightgown under the guard’s watchful eyes and puts on the orange prison uniform. She would love a shower, but she doesn’t ask. The uniform’s fabric feels scratchy against her skin and smells of disinfectant. It hangs on her loosely, and she has to hold on to the pants whenever she stands up.
Nothing happens for a long time after that. No longer tired, Viv lies on her cot during the night, listening to the faint sounds of the prison around her. She scratches at her neck, where the uniform starts to irritate her skin.
By the next evening, the itching is unbearable. When the guard comes with her dinner, Viv pulls aside the top of her shirt to reveal her blotchy skin. The guard makes a face. She disappears and is back after a few minutes with a long-sleeved white shirt and some antihistamines.
That night Viv sleeps soundly again. The Benadryl knocks her out.
She’s awoken early the next morning by her cell door crashing open. A different guard stands in the doorway. “You’ve got a visitor.”
Viv rouses herself and precedes the guard from her cell, holding up her pants again. The woman leads he down a long corridor, painted in white. Viv thinks of asylums as they walk.
For a wild moment, she imagines Damien waiting for her in the visitors’ room. She knows it’s not him. She isn’t crazy, regardless what everyone thinks.
But when the guard opens a door at the end of the corridor and motions Viv inside, she’s in for a surprise. Stef sits in one of the metal chairs bolted to the floor on the far side of a wide table. The door falls closed behind Viv with a clang. She sits down opposite her former assistant, facing a mirror behind Stef that she knows is a one-way window. Stef gives her a smile. Her hair is different, cut into soft layers and luminous with highlights. Her clothes look expensive. Viv is almost impressed with the transformation, and it makes her angry.
&n
bsp; “Why’re you here?” she snaps.
“Victor is…unable to come. He sent me instead.” Stef’s voice is firmer than Viv remembers. She eyes Viv with frankness. Viv wonders if Victor is sleeping with her.
“What do you want?” Viv has no interest in Victor’s charity, and the thought that his stupid little mouse will report back to him and they’ll laugh about her together makes her livid.
The cowed assistant briefly shows on Stef’s face at Viv’s words, but then she squares her shoulders. “We wanted to make sure you’re okay. That you have everything you need.” Viv raises an eyebrow and takes a deep breath to reply. But Stef isn’t done. “That you…understand what’s happening.”
“I haven’t gone soft in the head,” Viv snaps. “Of course. I understand what’s going on.”
Stef says nothing, but her face does all the talking. She, too, thinks her former employer has gone insane.
“I suppose I’ll need a lawyer,” Viv says. She has the sudden urge to convince the girl that she’s not crazy.
Stef nods. “Victor has hired Stuart Murray.”
Viv scoffs. Of course he has. Murray is the most expensive criminal defense lawyer in New York City, and he’s famous for getting all sorts of minor and not-so-minor celebrities off. The only reason that Victor even knows him is that he’s an old family friend of Viv’s mother. But if Viv is honest with herself, she would’ve hired Stuart herself.
“Why hasn’t he been to see me then?” Viv ask.
“Well, you’re still on suicide watch,” Stef says. “We thought we’d wait until you’re…less distressed.”
Her frequent use of we hasn’t slipped Viv’s notice. That little bitch is definitely sleeping with her husband. Not that it matters, of course.
“Well, go make yourself useful and tell Murray to get a move on,” she snaps, easily slipping back into her usual commanding tone with the girl. “I want to get out of here.”
Stef looks uncomfortable at those words.
Viv frowns. “What?”
“You…you’ve already been denied bail. Victor got Murray on that right away. But the…,” Stef takes a deep breath. “The judge thinks you’re a flight risk.”
Viv nearly laughs, even though this stings. She can see the logic right away. She has the financial means to disappear, if they let her out and she chose to. No matter, she’s patient.
“Tell him to come here, then,” she says, changing tack. “We’ve got work to do.”
Stef nods, then stares down at her lap for a moment. When she looks up again, her eyes are almost sad. “What really happened, Viv?” she asks.
Viv considers just ignoring the question. She has never trusted Stef, and she definitely won’t now, when the girl has finally given up that demure façade. She can’t bear being pitied by the woman she’s sure will crawl into bed with Victor the moment she gets home to LA.
But Viv is also a pragmatist. She knows that she needs all the allies she can get.
“I suppose I lost it for a moment,” she confesses, attempting to laugh it off. “I suppose the baby’s made me a bit cuckoo.”
There’s pity in Stef’s expression now. Viv has to fight down the urge to lunge at her across the table. “Viv, there’s no baby,” Stef says.
Viv stands up, battling down the hatred she’s feeling deep inside. “Tell Murray I want him here tomorrow.” She hitches up her pants, walks to the door without another word, and raps on it sharply a few times. When the guard appears, Viv walks out ahead of her, hands balled to fists on the waistband of her prison pants. She doesn’t spare Stef another glance.
The rage boils in her gut like lava. The short journey back to her cell is a blur. But as the door falls closed behind her, the anger vanishes, as if someone has thrown a switch.
For a moment, Viv stands very still. She places a hand on her belly. She can still feel it, that little spark growing in there, slowly taking shape. The baby will never judge her. To her daughter, she will be perfect.
The watery sun has broken through the clouds for the first time since she’s been in here. A ray of light shines through the narrow window high in the wall. Dust motes dance and swirl in its glow.
Viv steps over to the chair bolted to the floor. Holding on to the backrest she climbs onto the seat, then onto the small table. She can’t see out of the window, but as she angles her body the sunshine catches her face. She can feel the warmth flood through the top of her head, and she smiles.
Let them think she’s crazy. Let them lie and hide and deny the truth. She’ll show them all, and then they’ll be really sorry.
SIX MONTHS LATER
Damien chucks his house keys onto the hall table, drops his carry-on bag on the floor by the door, and shrugs out of his leather jacket. He yawns. Winnipeg to New York is only a five-hour flight, and he had to be up at the crack of dawn to catch the first plane of the day. He couldn’t wait to get home.
The loft apartment is quiet. Damien smiles as he crosses into the open-plan kitchen. Brad and Zoe don’t expect him back until tomorrow. He imagines the surprise on their faces when they come through the door. Brad will be home soon, he works a half-day today so he can be home for Zoe. Damien has ascertained that on the phone the night before. As he preps the coffee maker, he calculates in his head. Rose will bring Zoe around four, so Damien and Brad will have a couple of hours to themselves. The coffee foams into the cup, and he daydreams about how they’ll celebrate their reunion.
He takes the frothy cappuccino over to the window in the living room. It’s a murky, chilly March day, but the view of the Manhattan Bridge is breathtaking in any weather. Pooling their money after selling both the Chinatown penthouse and the beautiful old brownstone on Garfield Place in haste has bought them a comfortable, luxurious two-floor apartment on the top floor of one of DUMBO’s prestigious warehouse conversions. It might not look very cozy from the outside, but its 24-hour doorman and central location convinced them both that it was the perfect base for the next few years. Brad, with his knack for hiring and instructing the best decorators, has made sure their shared apartment becomes a home, and a pleasant place for Zoe to grow up in. The color scheme is warm, the furniture maybe more playful and squishy than Brad would have chosen for himself. He picked out every piece only after consulting Damien’s little girl, and Zoe still proudly talks about how they went to the furniture shops in Chelsea to try out all the sofas.
Damien regards the huge, comfortable couch with fondness. Zoe chose well; this monster is big enough for all three of them to curl up on together and watch Disney movies.
He sits down now, relaxing into the softness with a sigh. For a few minutes, he just enjoys the peace, sipping his coffee. Then Brad’s key turns in the lock and Damien straightens up.
“Damien?” comes Brad’s voice from the hall, and a moment later, he appears through the high archway into the living area, beaming. “What are you doing here? We didn’t expect you until tomorrow!”
“Surprise!” Damien says and makes to get up. But Brad steps over to the sofa in a few quick strides and sinks down next to him, wrapping him up in his arms before Damien has made it out of the squishy seat.
“Good to see you,” Brad murmurs against his hair, his hands stroking Damien’s back. Damien blindly extends his arm until he can feel the mug making contact with the coffee table. Then he hugs Brad back.
“Good to see you, too,” he replies with a smile. “I missed you. And I missed home.”
Brad holds him for a few more moments. Damien is surprised. Brad isn’t the most demonstrative with the TLC. When he finally lets go, Damien studies his face.
“You okay?” he asks.
Brad nods. “Sure. Just glad to have you back. Though a week isn’t much time.”
“But then it’s only six more weeks, and I’m done with Gaukur for good,” Damien says. The thought doesn’t exactly fill him with joy, but the separation from his family is starting to wear him down.
“Until you find your next
gig, and who knows where that’ll be,” Brad says, not sounding reassured.
“Actually,” Damien says, and takes Brad’s hands, “I do know.”
Brad looks up, surprised. “Yeah?”
“Remember the auditions for The Boys in the Band, that Off-Broadway play I tried for in January?”
“How could I forget?” Brad says with a chuckle. “I read the script with you so many times they could cast me in pretty much any of the roles.”
“Maybe they still need a grumpy extra,” Damien says, grinning. “Brad, I got the role of Michael!”
Brad’s eyes grow wide. “Really? Oh wow, congrats!” He hugs Damien again but then pulls back. “Why didn’t you tell me sooner?” he asks, sounding put out.
“The call came yesterday, just after we got off the phone. And then the director told us we’d finish shooting early and get today off, so I rebooked my flight to tell you in person.”
Brad beams. “So if you’re on Broadway—”
“Off-Broadway,” Damien interrupts him.
“Whatever,” Brad continues. “If you’re doing theater in New York you don’t have to leave again anytime soon?”
“Not for work, no. We start rehearsals at the beginning of June, and the play’s initial run is all the way into December.” Damien smiles. “But I’d like to take you away somewhere, maybe in May. Ever been to Italy?”
“Italy?” Brad echoes. “All the way to Europe?”
“No, the Italy experience at Disney Land,” Damien says, rolling his eyes. “Of course Italy in Europe, doofus! Rome, Tuscany, Venice. And then, maybe, before we come back, we’ll stop in Paris for a couple days.” He holds Brad’s gaze. “What do you think?”
A smile spreads over Brad’s face. “I think I’d love that,” he says, and kisses Damien long and hard. When they break apart, he adds, “Hey, speaking of travel, guess what!”
“What?” Damien echoes.
“Eric and Neal are in China right now,” Brad beams.
“No way! Did they get approved?”