Unfaithful: An unputdownable and absolutely gripping psychological thriller

by Natalie Barelli

  She bends down to take a closer look and I see the word in its entirety again instead of as a series of angry score marks. My high from moments ago has crashed like a bad trip. Now I feel like I’m going to cry. I bite the side of my thumb, expecting her to say something like, Whore? Why? What did you do? But she stands up straight and says, “Kids. Unfortunately it’s a bit of a problem around here.”

  “It is?”

  She sighs. “They’re bored. There really should be more youth facilities for them. We really need it in this neighborhood. But look, it’s just the surface. There’s a good auto body place on Bellaire; I’m sure they’ll fix that easily.”

  “Do you think?”

  “Yes, I’m sure.”

  We both stare at the car for a moment.

  “Don’t worry,” she says finally. “They’ll have it as good as new, you’ll see. Go to your dinner, and have fun. It’s nothing.”

  “I know, it’s just that I’m supposed to meet my family now and I just don’t want to do it with that!” I point at it. “My son is only ten,” I add.

  She makes a face. “No, you probably shouldn’t.”

  The sky turns gray, suddenly, and a gust of wind sends dust into my eyes and I screw them shut, rub my fingers over them. “I’ll have to leave it here. I’ll call an Uber.” I take out my cellphone and start tapping.

  “Would you like me to take your car to the auto body place? It might be a good idea not to leave it here too long, and you can probably pick it up from them tomorrow.”

  “Oh my god, June, would you? I mean, I wouldn’t be putting you out?”

  “No. It’s no problem, really. Go on, you’ve had such a great day. Don’t let this thing get in the way.”

  I put my hand on her arm. “Thank you. That is so good of you.”

  “It’s no problem at all. Hey, there you are.” She turns to point at a black car that has stopped beside us. The driver is leaning to signal to us through the passenger window.

  I motion to him to wait and hand her my car keys. “Thank you, June. I’m so grateful to you. I really am.”

  “Hey, it’s no trouble, really. I’ll ask them to call you when it’s ready. See you tomorrow, Anna. Have a great time!”

  I step into the back of the Uber, waving at her. June is right, of course, I think, as I click my seatbelt in. It’s nothing, just kids. A prank. Then I close my eyes and remind myself that I’m a winner, and a little bit of vandalism is nothing, and I would be stupid to let it ruin my evening.

  Sixteen

  It always fills me with pride when I go out with my family. I imagine the other diners glancing at us and thinking, What a lovely family. Look at those children, so well-mannered, and so sweet. And what a handsome couple they make.

  Luis says we were lucky to get a table, that they were full, even though this is mid-week, but he explained his wife had just won a mathematics prize for work that’s going to change the world, and they shuffled a couple of reservations around to make room for us.

  “You’re kidding,” I say.

  He smiles, his lovely, sexy smile and a lock of dark hair falls over his forehead. He pushes it back with two fingers. “You got me.”

  I laugh.

  Then Carla hands me a small package. “Oh, honey, what’s this?”

  “It’s not just from me, it’s from all of us.”

  Luis is watching me with a twinkle in his eye. “Open it!” Matti says.

  I rip the paper off quickly and open a small purple box. Inside is a pair of heart-shaped earrings in delicate silver filigree with small diamonds. Luis and I were waiting outside a jewelry store recently—I don’t remember why anymore—and I pointed them out, because they were heart-shaped. This is what the new, improved me does now. Reacts to heart-shaped jewelry when my husband is within earshot, because everybody knows heart-shaped jewelry is cute and sweet and equals love and I want to remind him that we’re in love and we’re cute and sweet. But this is even better. Buying your wife heart-shaped jewelry is a message, it’s loud and clear and I’m so touched he remembered that my eyes swim.

  He kisses me on the lips. “Congratulations, babe. I knew you were incredible, and I didn’t think you could surprise me anymore, but I was wrong. You are something else.”

  You’re incredible. I remember those words too, imprinted as they are on my retina, and sent to someone else. If I was smiling before, now I’m positively grinning.

  “Can we eat now?” Matti asks, and we all laugh. Everyone gets their favorite and we agree we will eat here as a family at least once a month from now on, which sends Mateo’s eyes rolling back in his head.

  Carla is telling us about some coding camp she wants to go to when Matti stops eating, fork up in the air, eyes firmly on the window.

  “What is it, sweetie?” I ask.

  “There’s someone watching us.”

  I turn around to follow his gaze, but all I see is a guy looking at the restaurant, the way you might when you’re wondering if it’s a nice place to eat at.

  “Who’re you talking about?” Luis says.

  “Outside,” Matti says.

  Then I get it. That young man is not gazing at the restaurant, or the menu that is displayed outside: he’s staring at me. But I have no idea who he is, except all of a sudden, I do. I know those eyes.

  My stomach rolls. It’s Ryan. Ryan without a beard. Clean-shaven Ryan. Definitely Ryan, but he looks so young. His cheeks are flushed from the cold and the corners of his mouth are turned down, like he’s upset about something.

  “One of your fans?” Luis says, turning back to his food without looking at me.

  Hardly, I think. But I laugh. “Probably.”

  “He doesn’t look like a fan,” Matti says. “He looks angry.”

  I don’t think he looks angry, I think he looks confused. Luis squeezes my knee under the table and looks at me questioningly. I give him a quick shake of the head and go back to eating my food, wishing Ryan would go away, except he just stands there, still as a statue. I push pieces of duck around my plate and try to make light conversation. But my heart is beating too fast, too hard, and it’s making the silk fabric of my dress visibly shudder with every beat. What if Ryan walks in and… what? Confronts me in front of my family? Tells everyone I rolled around on the carpet with him?

  “I’ll go and find out,” Luis says, throwing down his napkin.

  I quickly put one hand on his arm. “That’s okay,” I say, trying to sound cheery, and failing. “It’s someone from work.” I stand up so fast the table scrapes and shudders against my thighs, almost tipping our glasses over. I walk quickly outside into the cold air, unsure what I’m going to do or say, my stomach twisting a little more with every step. But Ryan isn’t there anymore. I look around, but he’s gone.

  “You work with some weird people,” Matti says under his breath as I return to my seat.

  I laugh, embarrassed. “Someone from work?” Luis asks, one eyebrow at a sharp angle.

  “Yes, that’s what I said. I hadn’t recognized him at first. He works in the law department. He must have seen me and hesitated about coming in. I don’t know. He was gone when I got outside.”

  I pretend to laugh again, but I feel my mouth tremble with the effort of it. All I can think of is the word WHORE scratched on my car.

  The following Monday I go straight to June’s desk with a small potted green plant.

  “For you,” I say.

  She beams as she takes it from me, reddens a little. “What for?”

  “For helping me out with my car, of course. It’s called a ZZ plant, and the florist assures me they’re unkillable. Not that I doubt your nurturing skills, obviously, but you know, in this place, between the Fluro lighting and the unreliable aircon…”

  “Thank you! And you’re very welcome, Anna! There was no need for that.”

  “There was, and I wanted to. You’ve been so nice to me.” For some reason as I say this, I feel my lips tremble. It’s the stress of e
verything, it’s the car, the vandalism, Ryan. Obviously I don’t think it was kids anymore, but I don’t tell her that.

  She tilts her head at me. “Everything all right?”

  “Yes, everything is great. I just need to…” I wave my hand vaguely in the direction of the elevator. “Anyway, I’ll see you later, all right?”

  I leave her to find the right spot for her plant and march right out of the building and over to the law faculty, up the stairs and down the corridor to the admin office where I last saw Ryan. I walk in with clenched fists, a thumping heart and a determined chin. The door to the admin office is opened and I see him immediately, his back to me, sitting at his desk in the corner. I’m nervous, even shaking a little, but deep down I am seething with anger. What do you think you’re doing? Did you do that to my car? Are you trying to intimidate me? Why?

  “How dare you?” I bark when I reach him, but the man who snaps his head around is not Ryan. He just looks a little bit like him from the back.

  He startles. “Excuse me?”

  I begin to stutter. “I’m—I’m looking for Ryan.”

  “Ryan?”

  “He works here.”

  “Oh. Sorry. I don’t work here. I mean I don’t work on this floor. I’m only using the scanner.”

  “He’s left,” says someone. I turn around. A woman with short brown hair, older, is taking her glasses off and wiping them with a small piece of cloth. “Ryan the IT guy, right?”

  “I think so, I mean his name is Ryan and he was working in this office a few weeks ago.”

  She nods. “The IT guy. He left a couple weeks ago. He doesn’t work here anymore.”

  “Where did he go?”

  The woman shrugs. “Search me.”

  I nod, try to think of what to do next. “Do you know where I can get an address for him?”

  “No idea. Try HR.”

  Back at my desk, I pull out the university directory that lives in my bottom drawer and find a number for HR. I put my query forward. I am looking for a contact address for someone called Ryan.

  “But you don’t have a last name?”

  “Unfortunately, I don’t. He was an IT guy. That’s all I know.” I should have asked, of course. I was over there, in his old office, talking to someone who clearly knew him. But I barely slept last night and I am not thinking straight. “I could get a last name, if I must. But do you have many Ryans in IT who left the university recently?”

  “What was his position exactly?”

  “I don’t know. IT.”

  “I know, but more precisely. Support desk? Network specialist? Hardware acquisitions?”

  “He worked in the law building, does that help?”

  “No. There are no IT people who work directly in the law building. He must have been there on a specific job. And you’re in the math building, is that right?”

  I rub a hand hard across my forehead. “Yes, that’s right.”

  There’s a pause. “The thing is, Dr. Sanchez, even if I did track the employee’s home address, I’m not sure I’m at liberty to give it to you without his express permission. We have very strict privacy guidelines here, and I don’t—”

  There’s a rap at my door. It’s June.

  “Right, thank you, you’ve been very helpful.” I hang up. “Yes? What is it?”

  She taps her watch. “They’re waiting for you. In 16B. Your class?”

  “Oh, shit. I’ll be right there.”

  She narrows her eyes at me. “You sure you’re okay?”

  “Yes, I’m fine, thank you. Actually, June…”

  “Yes?”

  “Maybe you could help me with something?”

  “Of course, what can I do?”

  “I need to track down someone called Ryan, who was working in IT but he’s left.”

  She waits for more, one hand on the door handle. I’m busy gathering my things for the class so I don’t have to look at her.

  “I don’t understand,” she says. “Do you need someone from IT to fix something?”

  “No, I need to find this Ryan person.” I look at her now, gnawing at my fingernail. “I don’t have a last name. I called HR but they can’t help me. I was thinking, maybe…”

  “I’m sorry, Anna. I don’t know anyone called Ryan who was in IT, if that’s your question.”

  “I was hoping you could talk to HR. There can’t be thousands of Ryans who worked in IT and were assigned to do a job at the law faculty recently, right?”

  “But you said you already asked them.”

  “Yes, but if you ask they might tell you because you’re admin too—maybe admin people help other admin people, I don’t know. Look, you know what? Don’t worry about it. It’s fine. I’ll figure it out. I was just thinking out loud.”

  I slip past her and out the door.

  “I’m happy to help if—”

  I raise a hand. “No, it’s fine. Thank you!” Then I stop, turn around and say, “Forget I said anything, okay. I’d be grateful if you didn’t mention it to anyone.”

  “Mention what?”

  I sigh. “The Ryan thing. Just forget it, okay?”

  I don’t track down Ryan in the end, but I am on the alert, and it’s only after a few days during which nothing happens that I begin to relax. He would have contacted me if he wanted to speak to me. He knows where I am. The ball is in his court, and there’s not much I can do.

  Tonight, the university hosts a dinner in my honor. And I mean, a real dinner. Not the cheese plate and dips version; this is a linen and flowers and crystal glasses and silverware affair, all hired for the occasion and set up on long tables in the main hall. The dean, who is retiring at the end of term, gives a warm speech where he thanks me for making the last year of his career the proudest and most memorable.

  Luis is looking very handsome in his tuxedo. He’s chatting to Rohan about art and mathematics, I think. I’m chatting to Bernie, one of my post-doctoral students. He’s telling me about a robot who can make an omelet.

  “Shouldn’t that be a robot that can make an omelet?” I say.

  Bernie pulls his hair back and ties it into a ponytail with a rubber band that was around his wrist. “People are more likely to trust robots that exhibit human traits, like gazing and nodding and shrugging. I like to think about robots as people. It makes me care more.”

  Then June walks up to us, holding a flower arrangement in both hands, like an offering. She’s smiling. “These just came for you,” she says.

  She puts the arrangement down on the table and Bernie stands up, brandishing an empty bottle of wine. “I’ll get us a refill.”

  “I’m sure the waiters will fix you up,” I say, but he’s already gone and June sits down in his place.

  I pull the arrangement closer and unfasten the clear cellophane. Purple lisianthus and daisies set in a white cube.

  Luis turns around and peers over my shoulder as I open the card. “Who’s it from?” he asks.

  I roll my eyes. “Who do you think? My mother.”

  Congratulations, Anna. I’m very proud of you.

  “That’s nice,” June says.

  I raise an eyebrow at her. “Not really. She could have come. I invited her, you know. It wouldn’t kill her to make the trip once in a while.” I point at the flowers with my chin. “She always sends the same whenever there’s a birthday in the family. When she remembers them, anyway.”

  June helps herself to the jug of water. “You’re not close?”

  “You could say that. I never see her. She doesn’t even come to visit her grandchildren.”

  “No!”

  I shrug. “She’s not a caring person, not in that way. And she’s become a recluse of sorts in her old age.” I fan myself with the card. “That’s beside the point anyway, as we were never close. I know this is going to sound strange, but my mother didn’t like me very much.”

  June scoffs, shocked I think. “I doubt that.”

  “Please. You don’t know her.” But I c
an tell she doesn’t believe me. Maybe she thinks I’m exaggerating, or that I’m put out because my mother hasn’t shown up for me.

  I bring my chair closer to hers. “The thing is, both my parents were scientists. Physicists, to be exact. That’s all they thought about. Science. And they had ambitions for me, because they believed—unscientifically, I might add—that all of their talents would be funneled into me. That I would be Their Best Work. My mother especially. I think my father just went along with her because it was easier for him. She, on the other hand, had this idea that I would be some kind of Marie Curie or Rosalind Franklin. She was obsessed with turning me into the perfect scientist. When I was eleven, she told me not to have children. I’m not kidding, June. She said ‘They only interfere with The Work.’ She always talked about The Work like she was devoting her life to humanity or something. ‘Children serve no purpose,’ she said, ‘other than the survival of the family tree.’ And just to reiterate here, my mother said this to me, her only child.”

  June is watching me, mouth open. “Oh, Anna. That’s awful!”

  I shake my head. “I could never be like that to my own children. I smother them in hugs and kisses every day just to balance her out.”

  June takes the card from me. “You are their best work, Anna.” She points to the words. “And she is proud of you.”

  “Oh, yeah.” I take the card from her and throw it on the table. “Imagine waiting your whole life for this crumb.” But I feel a prick of tears and pinch my nose. I want to tell June about my mother forcing the Pentti-Stone on me at such a young age, all the pain she put me through with her hare-brained ideas, but I don’t. “You’d think she would have come, for this,” I say.

  June is silent for a moment. “What does Luis think?”

  I check over my shoulder to make sure he’s not listening, then lean closer to her. “He’s so angry with her. She didn’t even come to our wedding, can you believe that? He says I should just drop contact altogether. Not that we have much of that.” I laugh.