I avoid him as the week goes on, plead too much work and avoid meetings. He throws me a look of contempt whenever he passes me, and I pretend I don’t notice. After a few days I think it’s not so bad; soon, I’ll forget it ever happened. Everything will return to normal. Meanwhile, Mila is still at me, like an over-enthusiastic puppy, nipping relentlessly at my ankles. “Did you remember to bring your notes, Anna? I’m holding off publishing our interview until I get that material. I can’t wait to see them! I’d love to know how you did it, how your brain works! Oh, no? What a shame. Where do you think they might be? I mean, you must have something, right? You didn’t pop this work out of thin air, did you? You’ll be in trouble if you did! Ha ha!”
Is that a coincidence, this fixation she has about my notes? Did Geoff speak to her about his doubts? I can’t stand it anymore, this paranoia that’s twisting my insides all the time, like no matter which way I turn, someone is out to get me.
“Mila, please. Why don’t we leave it for now? I have The Forrester Foundation lecture to prepare for.”
“Okay, I get it, you’re a perfectionist like me. But it would be great if I could have your notebooks before the lecture. After all, we are your university. It would be nice to have this information before you present it. Like a scoop.” She chuckles at her own wit.
“Of course. I’m on it.”
She gives me a small nod, like she doesn’t really believe me. “So how about Friday then?”
I can’t think of anything so I tell her Friday is good. I’ll have to think of something before then. I’m already exhausted thinking of all the excuses I’ll need to drum up before she leaves me alone.
“All sorted then,” I lie.
Over lunch June and I dissect the Isabelle situation. “I think it’s an excellent idea to have her over for dinner. Make sure she sees how happy you and Luis are.”
Friday comes around, and I’m walking out of a class trying to avoid the students piling out into the corridor as I turn my phone back on. There’s a message from Isabelle and for a moment I think she’s going to cancel on me, that she’s got cold feet, and I’m already annoyed because I spent all week designing the menu: baked oysters and cheese puffs for entrées; venison Wellington with scalloped potatoes and cremini mushrooms in a cream and rosemary sauce; chocolate brownies which I stayed up until midnight last night to bake, to be served with mascarpone cream plus a dash of Grand Marnier for the adults; and I left work early yesterday so I could shop for it all and still have time to cook dinner for my family.
I call her back, the phone wedged in the crook of my neck, one hand holding my satchel open, the other shoving a bunch of papers inside.
“We’re still on for dinner tonight?” she asks. She sounds so sweet, so eager.
A bell rings and students pour into the corridor from various directions, out of one class and into another. Sorry Mrs. S, they mutter as they bump into me.
I picture the necklace and feel my pulse quicken. I decide to sound forgetful, because I can’t help myself. “Dinner. Tonight.”
“You don’t remember?”
“Oh, yes. Of course I do.”
There’s a pause. “Anna, it’s okay if you want to change plans…” Suddenly I think maybe I was too convincing, while another part of me—I am made of many parts—is thinking, Yes, please. I’m so tired. How about we do it another day and I’ll just go home and put everything in the freezer and curl up in bed and tell Luis I’m sick, and can he please deal with the kids and empty the dishwasher.
But I rally.
“No, of course not! There’s a lot going on here and my brain is like a sieve. I’m really looking forward to it.” I reel off the address and she says Luis already gave it to her, and can she bring something?
“Nothing at all, just you,” I say.
“Okay, I’ll bring some wine then. I’ll see you tonight.”
The upside of this, is that when Mila turns up to my office, tapping her watch, telling me she’s been waiting for me and did I bring my notes? I get to apologize profusely and tell her I’d completely forgotten.
“Brain like a sieve, I swear.”
I buy flowers on the way home, a bunch of cellophane-wrapped white lilies to cheer myself up. I’m so tired my feet are shuffling instead of walking. It’s going to be a long night.
Twenty-Two
I’ve put the flowers in a vase and I’m running an eye over the living room, checking every detail like a forensic scientist at a murder scene. I want everything to look perfect. I want everything to look happy. This is a happy home, I tell myself as I plump up cushions and wipe a wine stain from the glass coffee table. In the kitchen the surfaces are gleaming and still I run a cloth over them. Sometimes I go to other people’s houses and the first thing I see is the dirt crusted in the corners of the window frames or spots of tomato sauce on the splash-back behind the stove, and I have to fight the urge to pick up a sponge and scrub the place.
I’ve already made the cheese puffs, so they just need to be warmed up. The venison is cooking gently on one shelf in the oven, and I’m getting the potatoes and mushroom dish ready to put on the other oven shelf when the doorbell rings. Isabelle isn’t due for another forty minutes so it can’t be her, which is just as well because I am not ready. I’ve done my hair but I still have to do my make-up. I bought a contouring kit—completely unlike me, my make-up kit consists of one tube of mascara and one tube of lipstick. It goes without saying I’ve never used a kit before, but I checked out a couple YouTube videos on how to make your cheekbones higher and your eyes wider and your chin more defined, and your face more desirable, generally speaking.
I wipe my hands on the tea-towel, and for a crazy moment I think maybe it’s Geoff, that he has come to my house to… no. I’m going insane. Of course it’s not Geoff. Still, when Carla bounds down the stairs I put my arm out to stop her while I peer around the blinds.
But it is Isabelle after all, and I’m strangely disappointed. I would almost have preferred if it was Geoff, or Ryan even; anyone but Isabelle, because I am absolutely not ready for her.
“Hello!”
She stands there, a bottle of wine in one hand and a white box with a pretty pink ribbon in the other.
“I know I’m early,” she says, biting her bottom lip daintily. She looks stunning in her white coat and light blue woolen dress—even the snow crystals scattered throughout her thick blonde hair look magical, like she’s just glided over from the set of Frozen. Now I’m really nervous. I wish Luis was home but he chose this very day to help his dad trim a tree that was in the way of the TV aerial. When I pointed out there was a lot to prepare for this evening, he insisted—conveniently, I thought—that it had to be today. He won’t be back for a while, maybe even another hour. And I’ve already drunk half a bottle of wine, which was possibly a mistake.
“I slightly underestimated how far you live. Is that okay? I could wait in the car if you prefer and come back later. I was going to do that but I then I thought the wine should be in the refrigerator, so I here I am. And this is pecan caramel cheesecake, by the way. And I didn’t make it, in case you’re wondering.”
I take the box from her. “I wasn’t,” I say, recognizing Mario’s Patisserie’s sticker on the cake box, thinking I wish she’d told me, I wouldn’t have made the brownies if I’d known, but then I tell myself it’s sweet and that it’s going to be a long night if I’m already over-thinking things, so I should just stop right now.
“Hello,” Carla says.
“Sweetheart, this is a friend of mine, Isabelle.”
Carla tilts her head at me as if to say, Friend? Don’t be silly! You don’t have any friends.
“She’s a friend of Daddy’s too,” I say. A very good friend of Daddy’s.
“It’s nice to meet you, Carla. You look just like your mom. How old are you?”
“Fourteen,” Carla says, pulling her sleeves over her hands and standing with one socked foot over the other.
“Fourteen is a great age, isn’t it, Anna?” And I’m thinking, Is it? Not where I came from.
“Very. Come in, Isabelle. I’ve only just started cooking but you can sit and fill me in on what you’ve been up to since, well, since you were born, I guess.” I laugh. Carla stares at me sideways, trying to understand why I’m being weird. Isabelle is too polite to do so.
I take her coat and immediately scan her throat for the necklace, but her dress has a collar and I can’t see it. I consider saying something like, Oh wait, you have a leaf stuck there, let me get it for you, just so I can tug at it, but I don’t.
I touch my hair self-consciously as I lead her through to the kitchen. She looks so fresh and well put together, whereas I look like the local drug dealer with my messy hair and my gaunt, unmade face. Maybe once Luis finally gets home I could sneak upstairs and slap gallons of whatever is in that contouring kit on my face.
“I’d better finish dinner!” I laugh for no reason whatsoever. “Would you like something to drink, Isabelle?”
“Yes, how about this?” She brandishes the bottle of Chardonnay and I wonder if she caught me looking at it greedily moments earlier.
I pull out a glass for her, which makes me think of the elegant tall stem glasses in Luis’s studio, which makes my hand twitch and I spill some of the wine on the table. I tear off a paper towel, laugh again, this time in a way that threatens to reach maniacal proportions, and wipe it off. It really is going to be a very long night. I check on the venison to steady myself, then finally I ask, “Where do you live, Isabelle?”
She takes an olive and drops the stone into her palm. I quickly put a small plate in front of her.
“Ohio City,” she says.
“Oh, that’s nice. I go running there sometimes.”
I don’t know what’s the matter with me. I just seem to blurt out things for no reason whatsoever. Now of course she says, predictably, “Oh, that’s so funny! So do I! We should go running together sometimes!”
“Well, that’s a coincidence!” I say, one hand on my hip. I smile, sort of: it’s hard to smile when your whole face is so tense it feels like rigor mortis setting in. But I’m just pleased the kids have disappeared right now. Because they would absolutely exclaim, What’s wrong with you, Mom? Why are you lying?
Then, mercifully, I am alerted to Luis’s arrival by the excited barks of Roxy.
“God, it’s cold outside.” He pats Roxy then rubs his hands together and suddenly I feel like I’m in a play, and my kitchen is just a set and we are all very bad actors delivering our wooden lines.
“Well, it’s warm in here, come on in,” I chirp.
We all laugh and they say a friendly hello which I can’t help but keep a check on, but so far so very peck on the cheek. He comes over to me and kisses me on the lips, so that’s nice. Then Carla and Mateo erupt into the room to greet their dad, as they do, and suddenly the atmosphere feels warm and festive. Luis opens another bottle of wine and the kids settle at the kitchen table, fascinated by this new guest who is a friend of their parents.
Isabelle asks them lots of questions, none of which are How do you like school? or What do you want to do when you grow up? which in their eyes is a definite tick. Then Luis says, why don’t we sit down at the dining table? and I’m thinking, Maybe because I’m here cooking? but everyone else seems to think it’s a good idea and they disappear, leaving me in the kitchen with a stained apron, sweating over a three-course gourmet meal for my husband and his floozy. Only then does it occur to me that maybe I didn’t think this through.
I knock back the rest of the wine.
“This is nice,” I say, pointing over baked oysters and cheese puffs at a silver ring on her index finger, even though it’s not, not really, but I’m hoping it’s from Patrick. I just want to hear her say it.
“Isn’t it?” She slips it off to show me.
“It’s interesting,” I say, handing it back to her. “Kind of like a wonky bagel.”
“I don’t know about that!” she says, although I note she purses her lips as she slips it back on, so that’s nice.
“He’s a very interesting metal artist,” Luis interjects. “French.”
“Well, ooh la la!” I quip, then laugh, but they don’t and I wonder, How does he know, anyway? Did he give it to her too?
“Are you and Patrick married, Isabelle?” Though she doesn’t wear a wedding ring.
“No, we’re not, but we’re talking about it,” she says coyly.
“Really?” Luis asks.
“That is such wonderful news,” I say, only just restraining myself from clapping. “What a shame Patrick couldn’t make it this evening.”
“He travels all the time, that’s the downside of his work, to me I mean, not to him. He’s an athletics recruiter.” The whole time I’m staring at Luis, searching for clues and finding none.
“How interesting!” I say. “And how did you two meet?”
She says something about being introduced through friends of friends, then Mateo pipes up.
“Mom and Dad met at school.”
“At college, sweetie,” I say.
“And Mom fell in love with my dad”—he punctuates this with a mini eye roll, something about the word love—“but he was going with another girl, then she died from eating a peanut, so Mom could be with Dad!”
He smiles, like it’s a fairy tale with a happy ending. No one says anything except for Isabelle, who gives a little gasp. Luis stares at me accusingly. I should never have told that story to Matti.
I laugh. “What an imagination you have, Matti! It wasn’t quite like that, sweetie.” I turn to Isabelle. “It was awful. What was her name, Luis?”
“Monica.”
“That’s right.” I turn back to Isabelle. “Monica had a peanut allergy, and she was usually very careful about what she ate, wasn’t she, Luis?”
“Yes, very.”
“So why did she die?” Carla asks. I desperately want to get off the subject, but I know my children. It’s better to tackle things head on and move on.
“She used to bring back cake and sweet things to her room after dinner—we all did—but that one time she got it wrong.” I sigh.
“Didn’t she have an Epipen?” Carla asks. “At school there are two girls with a peanut allergy. They have to carry an Epipen with them all the time around their neck. There’s even a spare one in the school infirmary.”
“I should hope so!” I say.
“She did have an Epipen but it got misplaced that day,” Luis, who has barely spoken throughout this exchange, replies. And it’s my turn to shoot him an accusatory stare. It might be the truth, but I don’t think it’s right to say it in front of the children. It’s the kind of tale nightmares are made of.
He catches my eye and smiles. “And then I married your mother, and you two monsters came along. How lucky was that!” He gets to his feet and starts piling up the plates. “Okay, who’s for dessert?”
Matti screams “Me!” and Luis pretends to cut him into pieces to serve on plates. It’s a standard joke in our house. So, of course, Carla screams, “Me! I’m for dessert!” And Isabelle is laughing so much she’s holding her stomach. I don’t know if she really thinks it’s that funny, or she’s just playing it up for the kids. Then Luis asks again, “Who’s for dessert?” and the kids scream, “Isabelle!” But Luis says, “What about Mommy?” Which is nice because Mommy never gets to play this game. Mommy is never for dessert. Maybe he tried once but I wriggled out of it, I suppose that’s why. I laugh, extend my arms ready to be cut up to pieces but they’re insistent. “Noooo!!! Isabelle’s for dessert!” And I can see Luis doesn’t want to do it. He steals sideways glances at her, probably hoping she’ll saying something like, “No, not me, please cut up Mommy instead.” But she doesn’t and the kids are over-excited and they won’t let up so he relents, does his thing, cuts up Isabelle in pieces and serves her up on a plate. And I have to say, she’s a natural, completely comfortable with my hus
band’s hands on her and my kids pulling her limbs apart.
“I’ll get the cheesecake,” I say.
Twenty-Three
The first time I ever saw Luis was at the college library. I was scanning the shelves for something and he appeared beside me. He smelt of something warm and sweet, like the whiff you catch as you walk past a bakery.
“Sorry,” he whispered, reaching across me.
I fell in love with him the moment I saw him. Later, I found out he was going out with a girl from my dorm. Monica. I hadn’t forgotten her name earlier, I just pretended to. He told me once that she was the first girl he loved. I rolled my eyes when he said that. I mean, every guy was in love with Monica, and it also betrayed a striking lack of imagination. She was the quintessential pretty girl next door. Perfect white teeth, bouncy blonde hair held back with barrettes. Barrettes. I couldn’t see what she and Luis had in common, although she liked to draw, I remember that. I don’t think she was any good though. She used to do portraits of some of the other girls and they all looked the same, with long heart-shaped faces and wide almond-shaped eyes, like a cross between Barbie and Bambi. A gaggle of Barmbies.
We didn’t hang out, just passed each other in corridors on the way to the bathroom, her in cute animal slippers, tying the belt on her powder blue bathrobe, me in nylon pajamas and flips flops.
Somehow, Luis and I became friends. I say somehow as if it was random, but really, I sought him out, bumped into him on multiple occasions until he recognized me enough to say Hi! I remember what his smile did to me back then. Made me weak at the knees. We hung out sometimes, at the library mostly. I studied a heck of a lot more than he did, and we were not in the same classes, but we would still end up at the library at the same time, and we’d sit together at the big table downstairs, me revising physics, him reading about philosophy. He’d raise his head and catch me watching him, I’d blush furiously and he’d smile, that gorgeous sexy smile. This only happened whenever Monica was in class, obviously. I asked him once, long after we became a couple, if he knew then how deeply in love I was with him and he just smiled that same smile and didn’t say anything.
Unfaithful: An unputdownable and absolutely gripping psychological thriller Page 14