The Other Mrs. Miller

by Allison Dickson

  “You know, I’m really glad you came by,” Vicki says. “The last couple days, I’ve been kind of going out of my mind wondering if I did the right thing.”

  “You mean moving here?”

  “We took a bit of a crazy chance, and it’s been hard on all of us. I never imagined I’d come back to the Midwest. California will probably always feel like home to me.”

  “That’s right. Your son said you were from here originally.”

  “Oak Park, actually. But I was just a little girl then.” She pauses again, staring into her coffee. “When my mother fell ill, we relocated west to be closer to her family, but they’ve all gone now. But I grew up there, met Ron. Turned out he was an early transplant from here too. It’s what drew us together, I think, because we sure didn’t have much else in common.” She laughs. “Anyway, here we are again, coming full circle.”

  Why the sudden move back here when clearly Vicki didn’t want to do it? Phoebe wonders. But she knows that posture well: averted gaze, crossed arms, shoulders slightly hunched. It’s how Phoebe looks when the conversation strays too far in the direction of her father. Clearly, Vicki has some sore spots. Now isn’t the time to prod. Maybe it never will be, and that’s okay.

  “It’s not so bad here,” Phoebe says brightly, hoping to insert some levity back into the conversation. “The winters suck, but we have a lake that pretends to be an ocean, and our hot dogs are covered in salad so you don’t have to feel as guilty about eating them.”

  Vicki grins. “I don’t know whether to laugh or cry.”

  The door leading to the garage opens and Jake walks in, drenched in sweat, music leaking from his earbuds. When his eyes land on Phoebe, a jolt of warmth floods her belly like she’s just taken a shot of whiskey, and immediately she feels like a horrible person. The unexpectedly decent conversation with Vicki has stirred up a strange stew of competing emotions.

  “Hey, Phoebe.” He yanks out the earbuds and grabs a dish towel to dry himself off.

  Vicki raises her eyebrow at him. “Wow, manners much?”

  “She told me the other day I can call her Phoebe.”

  “That’s true. I did. And hello, Jake. How was your run?”

  “Sweaty. It’s really humid out there.”

  “I was using that towel, you know.” Vicki glares at him, but there’s enough of a grin to indicate she doesn’t really mind.

  “Calm down, woman. I’ll get you a clean one.” He tosses the wad of white terry cloth at her.

  Vicki catches it just before it hits her face. “Oh, gross!” She looks at Phoebe with faux exasperation. “You see what I have to deal with around here?” She slides the container of muffins toward him. “Eat something, you brat. Phoebe made these, and they are awesome. There’s a little coffee left too, if you want it.”

  “I’ll have some, after I grab a shower.”

  “Wait. Before you clean up, could you mow the grass? I swear I can practically hear it growing out there. The last thing I need is someone from the city knocking on the door, wielding a ruler.”

  “I would, but we didn’t bring a lawn mower, remember?”

  Vicki sighs and rubs her forehead. “Isn’t that just great? Another goddamn thing we’ll have to buy. Your father is going to be so thrilled.”

  “I thought you already knew.”

  “As if I haven’t had enough on my mind lately! Is it asking too much to get a little help around here with this stuff? Jesus.”

  Phoebe glances at Jake and sees him staring at his feet, like a scared, shamed little boy. Something has shifted between mother and son, taking the jovial vibe of moments ago with it. “Sorry, Mom,” he says, not looking up. “You’re right. I should have said something sooner.”

  Vicki rolls her eyes. “Forget it. I’ll just add it to the list of other crap I have to do still.” She looks at Phoebe as if remembering she’s still there, embarrassment spreading across her face. “Jeez. I’m sorry. You’ve only known me for five minutes and you’re already smelling my dirty laundry.”

  “Hey, don’t worry about it,” she says. “You have so much on your plate, I can only imagine how hard it is.”

  Her shoulders relax a little. “Thank you. Would your landscaper be able to come on short notice, by chance? I swore to Ron the lawn would get done today along with the rest of this stuff.”

  Phoebe wonders what Ron would actually do if his wife failed to follow through on that promise, and then she eyes the bruise on Vicki’s arm again and remembers the man she saw pacing the sidewalk the other day, screaming into his cell phone. Maybe this isn’t a conclusion she should be drawing so early about a man she’s never formally met, but at best, Ron seems like someone with an anger problem. She does, however, have a solution to the Napiers’ lawn dilemma. “I don’t know the landscaper’s availability, but I have a mower in my garage that you’re more than welcome to.”

  Vicki’s whole body sags with relief. “Oh my God, are you sure it isn’t too much trouble?”

  “It’s none at all. Sometimes Wyatt will mow between visits from our guy if we’ve had a lot of rain, but that’s rare. I think he’s used it once in the last two summers.”

  “You are a real lifesaver, Phoebe. You have no idea.” She doesn’t sound like she’s exaggerating, and that’s a little worrisome. “I’ll send Jake over to get it whenever you’re ready. Maybe he can get the number for your landscaper too.”

  “Actually, Jake can follow me over now. It’s time I get out of your hair anyway.” Phoebe stands, hoping she doesn’t look too eager, especially with Jake’s eyes now boring into her.

  “I owe you big. Come back over tomorrow, if you want. Ron’s working another shift and I should have this kitchen whipped into shape enough to cook us breakfast. No pressure.”

  She wants to decline. At this point in her life, this one social visit feels like it should do until at least Christmas, but it’s hard to say no to someone who could clearly use some friendly company. “All right then. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  “Maybe bring your book over so I can read it.” Vicki winks.

  “Very funny,” Phoebe says with a grin.

  Jake follows her out the front door. It’s grown a lot hotter since she was out here earlier, but she isn’t sure she can blame it all on the weather. What exactly is she trying to do, anyway?

  “So, you wrote a book?” he asks.

  “Not really.”

  “Well if you were to write one, what would it be?”

  “Something for the soccer mom S & M crowd. A sure blockbuster.”

  “Ah. I’m more of a sci-fi guy, myself. Make it soccer mom S & M in space, and I’ll definitely check it out.”

  She laughs. “I’ll keep that in mind.” Once they’re in front of the garage, she keys in the code to raise one of the doors, preparing herself for the reaction he’s about to have when he sees what’s inside.

  “Holy shit! Is that a 458?”

  Daniel’s precious Ferrari is a guaranteed show-stopper. She thinks of the scene from Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, when Ferris lusts after the forbidden one in Cameron’s garage, but she doesn’t reference this, despite knowing the dialogue almost verbatim and all the places where it was filmed locally. The movie is a decade and a half older than Jake is, much like her.

  “It’s actually a lot rarer than that,” she says. “Don’t really know much about it, though.” Don’t care, either, she thinks.

  “It’s yours and you don’t know about it?”

  “It was my father’s. He was a big car collector. For some reason, he thought I should end up with this one when he died.” She knew the exact reason she ended up with it. He’d been quite aware of how much she hated his compulsion to hoard anything remotely ostentatious, like, for instance, the rarest cars in the world. This Ferrari was his most prized of the whole lot, not just of his cars, but of everyt
hing he owned. It arrived here on a flatbed truck about three weeks before he died, with a note that said his two most precious treasures belonged together, a sweet enough sentiment to anyone who didn’t know what a manipulator he was. Daniel had counted on her feeling too conflicted to sell it, and he’d been correct. So here it sits, hidden away in her garage like a secret lesion. But she often fantasizes about taking a baseball bat to it. Maybe even a can of lighter fluid and a match.

  “Your dad sounds like he was an interesting guy.”

  Phoebe pastes on a grin. “He definitely wasn’t boring.”

  “Have you driven it?”

  “Oh God no. The husband did take it for a spin around the block once, though, but it was terrifying.” Like Daniel was, she adds mentally, while also noting her odd linguistic choice about Wyatt. Not “my” husband, but “the” husband. Already, she’s unmooring herself from her commitment in the hopes of seeming more available. But given the way things are going with her marriage, is a little detachment that far off base? “The guy I happen to live with” is probably the most accurate descriptor of all, but it would only make her sound weird. Honesty is not always the best policy.

  Meanwhile, it doesn’t appear Jake even noticed. He’s studying every swoop and curve on the Ferrari’s body.

  “It’s pretty ridiculous, isn’t it,” she says.

  “I would say ‘amazing’ is a better word.”

  She rolls her eyes out of his view. Outsiders never get it, even ones like Jake who haven’t exactly grown up poor. Maybe when he’s older, he’ll see what a distraction this kind of stuff is. Her father amassed so many things in life, hoping their sheen and exorbitant price tags would cover for the fact that he was a terrible person. It worked well enough when he was alive, but not so much now. He’s only lucky people didn’t come forward about him until after his death. Then again, he probably knew the truth bomb was coming and expected her to shoulder that burden too, like this goddamn car.

  “You’re a gearhead too, I take it?” she asks.

  Jake shrugs. “A little. But even if I wasn’t into cars, I’d still be drooling over this one.” His hands are clasped behind him, like he’s in a museum viewing a priceless artifact. It makes his already impressive shoulder muscles stand out in bold relief. She realizes now that they’re out of view of the street, and every part of her begins crackling with an energy she hasn’t felt in years. She remembers having this same sensation as a much younger woman easing into her sexuality, testing the effect she had on boys her age and older men alike. That’s when she discovered something that felt almost like a superpower. It wasn’t only that she was pretty and well developed, though that didn’t hurt. It was something more invisible, a deep, magnetic well of charisma that made anyone she used it on stupid for her. At some point, around the time she met Wyatt, she walled it off and gradually forgot it was there. It no longer felt like something she needed, not when she found someone who seemed content to be with her at her worst. But the mortar between those bricks is crumbling now, and she can feel a bit of that power again, even if it’s unwieldy in her older, out-of-practice hands.

  “You can touch it if you like,” she says, stepping a little closer to him. “Maybe I could even let you get inside.”

  She’s done it, and now she’s screaming internally. The words hang between them like a potent musk that could either bring him closer or drive him away. Or maybe he’ll be utterly clueless and take her at face value. In fact, maybe it would be okay if he was so absorbed in the allure of the Ferrari that he didn’t hear her at all. Yes, let that be the outcome, because this is stupid. So goddamn stupid. She isn’t seventeen anymore. Grow up, Phoebe. You want excitement, maybe go for a run instead. There are better ways to get an endorphin rush.

  He turns away from the car and looks down at her with the steady, confident gaze of a much older man. “I might embarrass myself if I did that.”

  There’s no doubt at all now that he heard her, in both text and subtext, and this is a pivotal moment for them both. The door between them is standing wide open. Either one of them is free to pass right through it if they choose. But he’s waiting for it to be her. Of course he is. How many girls has he been with at this point in his life anyway? One? Two at most? He might even still be a virgin. That’s the icicle that pierces the bubble for her.

  She clears her throat and takes a step back. Her craving has subsided, leaving room for sanity to reassert itself. The only thing she wants now is to be in her bed. Alone.

  “All right, let me show you where the mower is,” she says. Shame has won, for the time being, at least.

  ■■■

  INTERLUDE

  THERE’S A NEW family in the neighborhood, but when did you get close to them, Mrs. Miller? In all the weeks we’ve been locked in this standoff I’ve never seen you actually set foot outside your front door. It’s been so long I stopped hoping you would, so I could hardly believe my eyes when I spied you walking back home from the newbies’ house with a young piece of eye candy in tow. You were so engrossed in him you didn’t even notice me pulling up in my usual spot. Since then he’s been ’round several times, as has a woman who looks like she might be his mother. But never together. What are you up to, I wonder—playing house or playing with fire? Don’t get too distracted. I wouldn’t want you to forget who really matters.

  I’ve been a bit preoccupied recently too. I knew from the moment I met Jesse Bachmann that he was a Class-A jerk. It started with the way his dead-fish eyes wandered over my body like it was a nice coat he wanted to try on. It continued with the off-color jokes, usually about women, I’d overhear him make in the break room or by the loading docks with the soda vendors and other male employees, most of whom would grin out of politeness before retreating. I took notice of the way the other girls reacted around him too, tensing up and clasping their elbows, like a malevolent spirit had just entered the room.

  And did I mention this creep is the shift supervisor for customer service? He technically isn’t my boss, or anyone’s boss for that matter, but he likes to stretch the title as much as he can get away with. You might have even seen him. He’s the slouchy ginger whose idea of a smile is a slight lip curl, like someone trying to pass a particularly hard bowel movement. I would have been happy to continue ignoring him, but over the last week or so, I started noticing him skulking more in my peripheral vision, watching me when he didn’t think I could see. Oh, the irony.

  I think he’d been waiting for me to ripen on the vine a bit, to get more comfortable at the job before he made his move. I imagine this is what he’s done with nearly every woman at this place. So I started mentally preparing myself for the moment that finally came yesterday when I was clocking out and turned around to find him standing directly in my personal bubble, spewing cocky entitlement with every musty exhale.

  “The answer is no, Jesse,” I said.

  He jumped, clearly startled. This hadn’t been part of his rehearsal. Rejection, he probably did expect, if not hope for. Guys like Bachmann depend on rejection to fuel their worldview that all women are bitches and hate them. But preemptive rejection? They never see that coming, and it denies them the pleasure of seeing their targets squirm. “You don’t even know what I was going to say,” he sputtered.

  “The answer is still no.” I pushed past him.

  “So that’s it, then? I don’t even get a chance?”

  “No.” I never stopped walking.

  He muttered something under his breath that sounded suspiciously like “Fucking whore.” Right on cue. There always has to be a parting shot, and he went with the gold standard. My only mistake was thinking it would end there.

  But between late last night and this morning alone, I’ve received three anonymous emails from different addresses. I’ve also received a series of hang-up calls from various numbers that I suspect are all spoofs, and this morning, I stepped out of my car to find the
lovely c-word painted on the driver’s-side door in pink nail polish, which means he was right outside my car in the dead of night while I slept.

  So I guess I’ve gone and made myself an enemy. Normally I’m the one sneaking around in the dead of night. For now, Bachmann has my attention. He’s bought you some time.

  CHAPTER 6

  PHOEBE OPENS THE door to find Vicki holding what looks like a quiche and a bottle of white wine. She’s a half hour early. Then again, running a few minutes ahead seems to be Vicki’s default setting, as if she can’t wait any longer to be somewhere else. Phoebe can’t relate to this at all, but since she has nothing else going on in her life, she can accommodate Vicki’s quirk easily enough.

  “Good morning,” she says, stepping aside to let her in, glancing furtively over Vicki’s shoulder out of habit. The blue car isn’t here yet. Someone is running late. She pauses for a moment. It never showed up yesterday, either. When was the last time it was here? Her little notebook ought to tell her, but Vicki is already making a beeline into the house. It’ll have to wait.

  “I’m ready to dive headfirst into this,” Vicki says, hoisting up the bottle.

  “You really didn’t have to go to so much trouble.” Phoebe takes the quiche and pops it into the oven to warm up. “I only bought precut fruit. You’re making me look bad.”

  “Trust me, it isn’t any trouble. You know I like to bake.”

  It’s their fifth meal together in the three weeks that have passed since that morning in Vicki’s kitchen. Two of those meals have been at local eateries, upon Vicki’s insistence that Phoebe show her what’s on trend around town, though the subtle suggestion seemed to be that Phoebe needed to shed her hermit skin and get out more. She groused internally about it, but ultimately she would always be glad to chow down on a burger from the Lantern or sip on a mule at the Maevery Public House, spots she and Wyatt used to haunt regularly when they first moved up here. The rest of their times together have been spent in Phoebe’s kitchen or on her back patio, though she’s sure next time, Vicki will drag her out in public again. She’s already mentioned a few other spots that have caught her eye.