The Interview

by Alice Ward

  The fourth night was when I realized I was losing my resolve. My phone was propped on my knee as I sat on the couch, my leg jiggling and nearly sending the cell tumbling to the floor. Every few minutes, I picked it up and went into my text messages with the intent to reach out to her, but I got ahold of myself and decided against it until I was struck with the impulse again. I was floating in a sea of unknown. Never seeing Sadie again wasn’t a fate I wanted to live with, but at least knowing if that was what I had to look forward to would have allowed me a measure of peace. A small measure, but something.

  When the screen lit up, and the phone chimed, I practically sent it flying in my haste to answer. It wasn’t her picture and name looking back at me, though. It was Artie’s.

  “Hey,” I greeted, trying my best to keep the disappointment out of my tone. “How’re you doing?”

  “All’s good over here, brother. Just wanted to see how you were doing. I figured I would’ve heard something from you by now.”

  We were all waiting for someone, apparently. “She’s not talking to me, Art.” God, I sounded so helpless. Pathetic.

  “Did you piss her off?”

  “Not that I know of.” I scanned through the entire trip in a flash again, unwilling to miss a single detail that could point to a reason behind Sadie’s extended silence. “We got back, and she said she needed time.”

  “It was a lot for her to find out, man. You can’t blame her for needing time.”

  I ground the heel of my sneaker into the rug as a passive release for my unsettled storm. “I don’t blame her for that, but I don’t know where we stand, and it’s killing me.”

  “So, why don’t you ask her?”

  “Her not talking to me is a pretty good sign she’s not ready to answer that question, don’t you think?”

  He hummed. “Not necessarily. She’s probably working through some stuff, trying to figure out if she can be in the relationship. We come with a past a lot of people wouldn’t know how to handle, bro. She might not want to deal with it.”

  “She wanted me to open up, and I did.” All the frustration and anger I’d had building inside me since Sadie started closing herself off was peaking, and it spilled out onto Artie. “I opened, and she closed!”

  “Ironic, right?”

  I growled into the phone. “Ironic, yeah, fricken hilarious.” My hand slammed down on the couch armrest beside me. “I don’t know, maybe you were right this whole time. It was stupid for me to unlock the demons. I only knew her a month, right? Who throws everything away after a month?”

  Artie snickered, which surprised me enough to calm me slightly. “You know what? When I said that to you, I really believed it, but I don’t anymore.” My brow furrowed, and I stilled. “After meeting her and seeing you two together, I think you were right to trust her. She’s not going to screw up your life, even if you two never make it happen.”

  “Well, maybe I just wasn’t ready to open up to her yet, then.”

  He hummed a second time, sagely. “Actually, I think you were ready to open up. Not just to her, but in general. I think you’re ready to drop all the secrets and be yourself, and that’s why it’s bothering you so much that she’s not reaching out. You’re scared, Ty. You’ve pulled out the skeletons, and you don’t know what’s going to happen next.”

  I’d stopped breathing somewhere in the middle of his theorizing — or maybe it was when he used my old name — and my apartment was so quiet I could’ve heard a pin drop. “No, I don’t know. It’s driving me insane, but I feel like I could handle whatever will come if I have her.” Sappy, but honest.

  “If I read her right, she wants to be with you too.” He didn’t sound like he was making up a white lie to soothe my anxieties. “She probably doesn’t want to build a future with secrets, though. If you’re together, your secrets become her secrets. You realize that, right? People will ask her things about you and try to get you to slip up and reveal personal details. She’s going to have to be tight-lipped. I doubt she wants to live that like.”

  “Who would?” I murmured. An idea was starting to form in my muddled mind, but I couldn’t put it into action if I didn’t have Artie’s approval first. “What are your thoughts on lifting the curtain?”

  He sighed. “Honestly?” The sigh mutated into a groan. “I think it’s long overdue, but I still don’t want to deal with the fallout.”

  “What if we found ways around that, so you didn’t have to deal with any of the attention?”

  “Pfft. Then, what the hell would I care?” He shrugged. I couldn’t see him, but I knew him well enough. “Do what you feel is right, Ty. I know you’ll make sure I’m okay. You always do.”

  The idea started to form legs and materialize into a solid concept rather than a misty possibility. My heart was beating faster than normal, and hot adrenaline skated through me. I went to the kitchen where The Apple issue with Sadie’s interview still sat on the counter next to the coffeemaker. “Start packing, then. You’re moving, and I’m moving forward.”

  “Right on.” He laughed. “Later, brother.”

  The call had barely clicked off as I set my phone down and started flipping through the newspaper. I was looking for something in particular, a certain name, but I wasn’t sure where I’d find it. Sadie’s article pulled my focus for a second, and I allowed myself to skim it and reminisce about that night, then I continued hunting.

  When I found what I was looking for, I picked up my phone again and punched in the number. My hands began to sweat as the first couple of rings played in my ear. Nobody was answering, and I was six rings in before an electronic, recorded voice greeted me and requested I leave my name and number. I listened for the beep.

  “Hi, Jenna, my name is Tate McGrath. I know you’re one of Sadie’s best friends, but I’d like to ask you not to tell her I’ve gotten in contact with you.” I paused to take a steadying breath. “The reason I’m calling is because I’d like to set up a place and time to meet. I want to do an exposé. Full disclosure, no question left unanswered.” My insides were shaking, but I was buzzing from head to toe. “I need to do this, Jenna. I need to get Sadie back.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  Sadie

  I was experiencing some severe déjà vu.

  Two intimate, horrifying, revealing, shocking days in California with Tate and the hope of clarity and reconciliation dangling in front of me like a carrot had brought me right back to lonely nights at home performing menial tasks to occupy myself. In some ways, it was like the whole trip had never happened because I was back on the bathroom floor with a screwdriver clenched between my teeth, though I was updating my wall socket plates this time.

  But the trip had definitely happened. It was haunting my dreams and darkening my thoughts no matter how much I tried to put it out of my head. I would close my eyes and drift off only to be bombarded with images of an achingly beautiful little boy standing over the lifeless body of a battered woman, and then that same boy as a teen lying atop the body of a woman twenty years older.

  In my waking hours, I was equally disturbed by gut feelings about Tate scrambled with arguments against those feelings. I was so distracted, in fact, that my editor had sent back my latest review three times for changes, which was absolutely unheard of for me.

  There was no escaping my troubles.

  As I screwed the new plate onto the wall, I spiraled down into the rabbit hole. Even my self-imposed distractions weren’t distracting enough. Something I’d been wrestling with since returning home drifted almost lazily into my head, and I paused mid-twist with the screwdriver as its meaning blanketed me.

  It was easier losing Tate than it was being with him.

  I hated that thought. I might as well have dunked my arm in a pot of boiling water and watched the skin melt off my bones for the pain it caused me. There were too many things keeping me embedded in that pain, though, to simply ignore it and act as though it didn’t exist. I couldn’t stand the thought of being wit
hout him, but I couldn’t stand the thought of being with someone who I constantly doubted even more. Someone I’d have to lie to be with too.

  The screwdriver slipped from my hand and clattered against the cheap floor, rolling unevenly behind the toilet. I didn’t bother fetching it. Those tears that had been at the ready, like unwanted guests who habitually showed up at the worst times, stung my eyes, and I sank against the wall limply.

  All the red flags I had tried to buzz past in the romantic race that was our relationship flapped in my face. Keeping me out of the public eye. Refusing to go anywhere we might be seen. Lying to me in the interview and letting me find out from a stranger. His past, and all the baggage that was certain to come with it.

  Even the sex…

  It was incredible, and just thinking about it made my knees tremble, but it somehow always devolved into an erotic twist on Romeo and Juliet. At the time when we should be our most intimate selves with each other, he made me a character and played one himself.

  Maybe I knew him.

  Maybe I didn’t.

  What I did know was wanting to believe him wasn’t a good enough reason to discard all the red flags and trust him blindly and naively. His taking me to California was a huge step in his being trustworthy, but it wasn’t enough. I had hoped it would be, though, and that was why it killed me to be sitting on my bathroom floor alone instead of being wherever Tate was.

  One thing from the trip continuously stood out to me, and that was my phone call to Jenna. What she had said about my setting a bar too high kept worming its way through my ever-drifting bubbles of thoughts. In a weird way, it had almost been like she was playing devil’s advocate in Tate’s favor, which was totally unlike her to do.

  Jenna tended to live by the “every man is replaceable” creed, as she’d demonstrated by dragging me to the club and practically shoving me into the arms of the dark-haired dancing guy. For her to point out that my issues with Tate were exactly that — my issues — was an occurrence so rare I hadn’t even recognized it for what it was until I’d been back in New York for a couple days.

  So, it might be me.

  Tate’s indiscretions weren’t consequence free, but I had to examine the possibility that they weren’t as severe as I was making them out to be in my own mind. I would’ve been a fool to expect him to tell me all about his past from Day One, especially given our relationship had started with me as a member of the media and he a celebrity.

  My qualms were borne from feeling as though he never intended to share that part of himself with me regardless of the amount of time we spent together. But was I just projecting my insecurities onto him?

  “God, what the hell is wrong with you?” I threw my head back against the wall and covered my eyes with my fists, grinding my knuckles into the sockets. “Why are you so screwed up?”

  The question was lost to the abyss of silence my single-resident apartment possessed, but it didn’t matter. I already knew the answer.

  ***

  The room was thick with perfume, a sultry, floral scent that reeked of a retail store signature. Egyptian cotton sheets carpeted the hardwood floor in creased bundles, and the comforter was hanging off the end of the four-poster bed. Drawers dangled open in antique bureaus with their contents strewn about, lamps with hand-carved designs were separated from their equally ornate shades, and the regal curtains of rich eggplant clung to their rods by only a couple overstressed rings. A room that had once been the essence of exquisite tranquility had become the site of a life-changing war, and I’d been an unwitting accomplice.

  My father stood in the columned doorway to the en suite bathroom with his forehead in his hand and his shoulder leaning on the frame. Standing on the opposite side of the room was my mother. Her chestnut hair had loosened from her neat updo, standing around her head in a frizzy halo, and her makeup was running down her face to her chin. She was breathing in haggard wheezes with her shoulders heaving dramatically. Two buttons on her blouse had come undone, and her navy pumps were discarded somewhere in the mess.

  “How long, David?”

  Dad shook his head and closed his eyes. “It doesn’t matter.”

  “It matters to me!” She lunged for the bed, grabbing the comforter in shaking fists and throwing it over the mattress. It crumpled to the floor at his feet. “She was in our bed!”

  My pulse quickened. I inched a little farther into the room, but neither parent noticed me. The sound of the front door closing downstairs could be heard in the quiet space between Mom’s bellowing and Dad’s deadpan reply.

  “Not long. Okay?” My father bent down to collect the blanket and place it back on the bed in a much neater fashion than the occasion called for. “Not long.”

  “How long is not long? A week? A month?”

  He shifted back into the door, and I finally caught his eye. “Marla…”

  “TELL ME!” I didn’t even recognize her voice. The woman who’d tucked me into bed when I was afraid of monsters and gently chided me when I snuck a cookie before dinner was gone. A wild-eyed beast was in her place, and she was on the verge of unleashing a fury unlike any other.

  “Control yourself,” Dad hissed icily. He shot an arm out toward me, finger extended. “Your daughter’s here.”

  Mom’s gaze flicked to me so briefly her irises were a flash of green. “Good! She should know what you’ve done!”

  “She already knew.”

  My muscles turned to ice, and the walls started moving. I tried to flee, but my feet wouldn’t move. Both sets of enraged eyes were on me, boring into me, raking the flesh from my body and jerking the bitter truth from my soul.

  “You knew?” Never in my life had someone addressed me with such betrayal, and it speared me to the core to hear it coming from my own mother.

  “Yes,” I whispered. My lips were numb.

  She stared at me openmouthed for a beat, like she couldn’t understand what I’d just told her. Then, her already anger-flushed face deepened to an unholy shade of violet beneath two layers of powder foundation and blush as she rounded on Dad again.

  “Look what you’ve done!” Her voice reached a cracking pitch that would make dogs shudder. “You’ve ruined our family!”

  He didn’t shout back at her like I expected him to do. He didn’t roll his eyes or storm away. In fact, the room became eerily silent as he stared at his shattered wife. Without a word, he went to the closet, which was already thrown open in what I assumed was my mother’s doing and began removing the few articles of clothing left hanging from their hangers. Neither Mom nor I spoke as he dug a suitcase out and started layering collared shirts and pressed pants.

  She was trembling from head to toe. A vein in her neck was visibly throbbing, and her eyeballs were bulging a little too far out of their sockets. If I had seen this woman on the street, I would have crossed to the other side. She looked completely insane.

  “So, you’re just going to leave?”

  “I think we both need some time to ourselves.” Dad tucked several identical pairs of loafers into the luggage before closing the top and zipping it shut. He hadn’t even remembered to throw in socks or underpants.

  “You’re only leaving so you can keep FUCKING that homewrecker.” I’d never heard my mother say so much as “crap,” let alone “fucking.” I wasn’t just watching the most stable relationship I knew fall apart; I was watching the people in that relationship fall apart with it.

  Dad turned the suitcase onto its wheels and extended the handle for easy transport. “Think what you want, Marla. Lord knows you haven’t listened to a word I’ve said for the last twenty years. I can’t imagine you’d start now.” He whisked past her with luggage in tow, pausing when he reached me. His gray eyes were sunken, and they had more lines in the corners than I’d ever noticed before. “Make sure you lock the doors at night and tell the gardener to start watering the grass twice a day. We’re supposed to be headed for a drought.” A more somber man had never existed. “See you later,
Sadie.”

  Two minutes later, I heard the front door close again, and I wondered how many cars would separate my father from his mistress on the highway.

  Mom sank to the floor and let out a deep, aching sob. Her hands hid her streaked face and her hair settled around her ears, but she looked the epitome of despair. Timidly, I padded toward her and tentatively reached for her shoulder. The second my fingers made contact, however, she threw herself forward out of my reach.

  “Don’t touch me,” she hissed through her blubbering.

  I was taken aback by the venomous response and left my hand hanging in midair. “Mom, I just—”

  “You knew? You knew he was screwing that nurse, and you didn’t tell me?”

  My stomach started to hurt the same way it did when I ate too many gummy bears in one sitting. I shook my head. “No, I didn’t know for sure. She was here once when I came home early from French Club, but she was on her way out the door.”

  “Why wouldn’t you tell me that?” Her hands were still on her face with two bloodshot eyes peeking through her fingers.

  “Dad told me not to say anything.” Actually, with hindsight being twenty-twenty, I realized he hadn’t so much told me as begged me. “He was afraid you would take it the wrong way.”

  “Oh? He was afraid I would take it the wrong way?” She let out a laugh more akin to a witch’s cackle, and it made the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end. “If his dick being in her whore pussy is the right way, I would LOVE to know what he considers the wrong way.”

  With pearls still around her neck and the five-carat diamond ring glinting in the lamplight, it was safe to say my mom had officially gone off the deep end. I reached for her again, desperate to bring her any bit of comfort I could, but she recoiled from my touch with a vicious glare.

  “Go away, Sadie. Get away from me.”

  I couldn’t help getting angry. “Why are you treating me this way? I’m not the one who hurt you!”