by Kate Myles
PART FOUR
EMILY, DOUG, AND CHLOE
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
EMILY
Yes, I saw the bite. Of course I did. Doug would never have been able to keep something like that from me. By that point, at eight months pregnant, I was in a state of constant vigilance.
My belly had taken over, making it so I couldn’t run, couldn’t walk up the steps to my bedroom without losing my breath. The baby was merciless, kicking me over and over, stomping, poking, swiping its tiny extremities across my bladder. “Enough!” I’d sometimes explode in a harsh whisper, clamping my hands over my stomach.
I hated being a woman, sentenced to these months of lumbering, viscous indignity. And I resented my husband. I’d lie in bed in the mornings and watch him pull on his gym shorts, seething at the sight of his unburdened physique, the ease with which he could simply escape if he wanted. I hadn’t understood, until then, what it meant to be vulnerable, and I found myself dwelling in fear, imagining my plodding waddle from a house fire or active shooter. For the first time ever, I wanted protection.
If we’d had a normal relationship, a loving one, I’d have shared these thoughts with Doug. But I couldn’t bring myself to be open with him, knowing he’d use my vulnerability to his advantage. It didn’t matter that I said nothing. The more pregnant I got, the more dependent I became. And then he simply intuited how trapped I felt, how unlikely I was to leave. His behavior turned reckless, spending nights away with the flimsiest excuses. He’d even brought a woman into our bed. I could smell her on my pillow.
She’d used my razor.
That was when my reflux started, at my discovery of another woman’s body hair clogging my Oui Shave single blade. I gulped back the acid scalding my throat as I sat at the edge of the tub, scraping out the hair. It was still wet. I saved the bits in a Ziploc bag.
At that point, the logistics of a breakup—the packing and moving boxes and potential nastiness—the idea of these was paralyzing. I was about to have a baby. I couldn’t just leave him. Divorce required careful planning.
I started by turning on location tracking for his phone. He spent a lot of time at an apartment building in Van Nuys. I began documenting everything, saving screenshots of his locations, making notes in a Word file when he didn’t come home.
The morning after Dr. Maryn’s party, when Doug went for a jog, I took the towels out of the bathroom, betting he’d take the Band-Aids off his shoulder when he showered. I didn’t know what was underneath them. All that mattered was that he didn’t want me to see it.
“Em!” he yelled from the bathroom. “Where are the towels!”
I brought in a fresh one and stopped when I saw the bruise. I hadn’t expected it to be so incriminating, so mouth shaped. He lifted his hands to the sides by way of apology.
“I’m an idiot,” he said.
I didn’t respond. I left the bathroom and sent myself an email describing it. I wrote, Bite probably from receptionist, Chloe. She is unstable.
It had to have been Chloe. I knew her story now. Her shirt gave her away. There was no way she could have afforded this season’s Prada.
I’d watched her in Dr. Maryn’s foyer as she’d bent to pick up a pair of socks. Her hair fell forward. All I needed was one strand of that hair, just enough to test her DNA against the gunk from my razor. I moved to help her. Plucking it would be quick, a little strange of me, but I didn’t care. She’d say Ouch! and I’d make up something about wayward grays.
She skittered around me, though, out the door, before I could get close. I looked at Dr. Maryn, and we laughed.
“Maryn, you have to let me help you with the entertainment,” I said.
She held up her hand. “That’s Stan’s department,” she said. “I have to keep him busy.”
She walked me through the house to her backyard, which overlooked Los Angeles. Her new decorator had done well, mirroring the expanse of city lights below with row upon row of hanging lanterns. I stood for a moment, taking in the various social groupings. The most famous person there that night, an actress client of mine starting her own lifestyle brand, was safely surrounded by my colleagues. I spotted a guy, behind the bar, in a mask just like Chloe’s. I approached him and asked for a cranberry and soda.
“I’m not really the bartender,” he said.
I nodded and waited. I pulled a swizzle stick from its dispenser and pointed it at him. “That girl, Chloe,” I said. “She’s your friend?” I thought back, almost with a tinge of nostalgia, to when I’d met her, that tender, deluded afternoon when I’d actually thought Doug had stopped cheating on me.
The masked guy didn’t answer but started making my drink. I raised my voice, just a touch, and asked, “Does Chloe live in Van Nuys?”
Stan was nearby. He perked up and rushed over like a good host, heading off uncomfortable scenes. He said he wanted me to meet some people and led me to a group near the firepit that included Alonso, a theatrical-looking choreographer. We stood together for a while, making small talk about my due date and gawking at the train wreck of Chloe’s performance group. I made a joke about being married to the moron who’d suggested them.
“This is LA,” I said. “I could stick my finger in the air and find better talent.”
“And that one is twisted,” said Alonso, pointing at Chloe. I startled as she bowed low in front of my actress client. Any other time, I’d have been on top of Chloe, grabbing her by the arm and escorting her away from the celebrities. But Alonso had information.
“Really?” I kept my tone nonchalant, not letting on that I knew Chloe. He would clam up if he sensed a desire for anything but idle gossip.
“She worked for me,” he said.
“What happened?”
“Oh, she was always late, and she got a third warning from the stage manager. Now, the stage manager was snarky, but then it was like, bam!” He made a cymbal-smash motion with his hands. “Chloe slapped her across the face. No one did anything at first. We were all in shock. But then Chloe just dove at her. It took five of us to calm her down.”
I kept my expression casual, fascinated, while something like a low-pressure system blew through my body. The people around me, the architecture of my world, froze in place as Chloe, on the other side of the yard, kept bending and scraping.
My peers and I could do anything to one another—steal clients, destroy reputations—as long as our behavior fell within the genteel confines of passive aggression. We had to remain cool. We weren’t allowed to hit each other.
I glanced around for Doug but didn’t see him. I wanted to hiss in his ear, You brought a lunatic into our lives! He found me soon after. His body relaxed in relief as he spotted me and navigated across the crowd to the firepit. He moved behind me as Chloe and her group passed us on their way out. He rubbed his shoulder. Something had happened. I’d never seen him shaken before.
“This is a major fuckup,” I said.
He nodded. “I’m sorry. I’ve seen them perform. Normally they’re really good.”
“I have to find Dr. Maryn and apologize.”
“Do you want me to come?” He touched his shoulder again.
I had an edge over him for just a moment, an opportunity to extract a favor. “I want you to cool your friendship with Stan,” I said. “I can tell Maryn isn’t happy about it.”
He nodded.
I left him and walked down the side path, to the edge of the front courtyard. I backed up against the rosemary bushes and watched as Chloe exchanged intimate words with the performer who’d made my drink. She got into her car, a wonderfully tragic sedan with fading paint and a missing front hubcap.
I had no real plan then. I just knew that she lived in Van Nuys, couldn’t afford a presentable car, and had a propensity for attacking people. I had no experience with violence. I tried to imagine what it would feel like to shove someone or shoot them, but I couldn’t get past the embarrassment, the tackiness of it. As she pulled away, I remembered how nervous s
he’d been in my office and how eager she’d seemed after I’d started showing interest in the conversation.
Chloe didn’t have to be a threat. She could be a weapon.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
CHLOE
The digital clock on Chloe’s bedroom floor reads 6:57 a.m. She’s had three and a half, maybe four hours of sleep. Her head is thrumming, and she closes her eyes, hoping to get back to the dream she was having. She usually doesn’t remember her dreams, only the recurring one with the old lady screaming. But just now, before she woke up, Doug was in front of her. He picked up a pair of socks for her and told his wife and Dr. Maryn to stop being so mean.
She opens her eyes. She pulls her covers back and reaches for her phone on the floor. The battery is dead. Her empty screen reflects her image back at her, scolding her. Of course she isn’t allowed to see whether Doug texted. She left her one and only charger in the car.
She wanders into the kitchen. Sheralyn’s phone is plugged in on the counter. Chloe switches it out for her own phone just as her roommate’s bedroom door swings open. Sheralyn appears in a long tank top and boy-short briefs. The tops of her arms are red and pimply.
“That was so messed up last night,” Sheralyn says. She looks down at her unplugged phone.
“Your battery was almost full,” says Chloe. “I hope you don’t mind.”
Sheralyn shakes her head and moves past Chloe to the coffee maker. She opens an airtight bin and spoons fresh coffee grounds into the basket. An apple appears in the center of Chloe’s screen.
“We’re almost out of coffee,” says Sheralyn.
“I’ll get some,” says Chloe.
“Yeah, right.”
Sheralyn presses the brew button on the coffee maker and disappears into her room. Chloe’s screen goes black. Come on, come on, she thinks as the icons load onto her home screen. She starts as she sees a red bubble indicating a new text. She opens the messenger app. The text is from Dylan:
Let’s take time to decompress. Meet in two weeks?
She closes out Dylan’s text and opens her conversation with Doug. At 10:15 last night, she texted:
I have anger issues, but I’m dealing with them!
At 10:43, she texted:
Hey!
At 10:45:
Can you call me?
At 10:55:
Sorry for the lash out. R U okay?
At 10:58:
Sometimes I don’t know my own strength lol.
At 10:58:
Sorry about performance too.
At 11:43:
Seriously, please let me know u r okay.
At 1:30:
I get that u r mad but please let me know things are alright.
Please, oh please, she thinks. She pets the phone like it’s a living thing. All she needs is a tiny answer from him. Just a word.
Chloe hears Sheralyn’s shower. The coffee carafe is filled halfway. She pours herself a cup and steals a splash of Sheralyn’s milk from the refrigerator. She opens the cabinet. Sheralyn has labeled her sugar carton with a giant Sharpied S!!!! Chloe opens the spout and pours a spoonful into her coffee. She heads back into her bed and pulls the covers up to her chin.
This feeling, it’s disturbing. It won’t stop, the sense that she’s owed an answer. She wants it clear, in words, what last night’s consequences are, what Doug is thinking. She wants to be able to argue back. She picks up her laptop off the floor.
She googles bite.
Then bite person.
bite boss
bite boss boyfriend
affair not texting me back
doug markham
doug markham bite
doug markham dr maryn
dr maryn husband
stan dr maryn
dr maryn emily webb
emily webb
emily webb agent
emily webb pregnant
emily webb hometown
emily webb bitch
emily webb bitch agent
i hate emily webb
It was disgraceful, the way Emily started to help Chloe with the socks, like she was pretending to be kind. But Chloe is the soft one, the nice one. She opens her bookmarks and clicks on Emily’s Instagram.
Shit.
The account is now private. She types Emily’s name into Facebook. There is no longer such a person. Doug’s wife has blocked her.
Chloe jumps up. She paces her room. Did Alonso recognize her? Does Doug’s wife know? She sinks to the floor and imagines Doug and his wife in bed, the bed that Chloe’s slept in. She pictures them laughing at the rabid girl getting kicked out of the party.
She opens her messenger app. No. She’s been texting too much. She’s starting to look crazy. She opens her email. She starts writing I hate you I hate you I hate you but thinks better of it.
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Subject: Hey
Hey,
I just want you to know that yesterday was kind of a shock for me. I DIDN’T KNOW your wife was pregnant. (Congratulations by the way!)
Honestly though, it was hard for me. I found out something about myself. I didn’t really know what jealousy was before this. I mean I THOUGHT I knew what it was, but last night it kind of overtook me, and I know this will sound crazy, but biting you was the most NATURAL THING to do at that moment. It’s almost like it wasn’t me that did it—it was this thing OUTSIDE of myself. And I’ve never experienced anything like that before.
It makes me wonder if jealousy is something different. Maybe it’s not really an emotion like sadness or happiness. It feels more like something from the atmosphere and you’re not supposed to disturb it or it’ll get mad and take it out on people or something.
It’s making me see why people are mostly monogamous—like maybe marriage is there for a reason.
So I think you should just be with your wife. That’s what I think now.
I want you to know that I cared about you and was falling in love with you. That’s why I did what I did.
Love,
Chloe
She reads it over. She deletes the falling in love part and types I love you I love you I love you after her signature. She holds her breath and deletes the I love yous. She hits “Send.” The click of the touch pad recoils through her like a rifle shot.
Sheralyn knocks and speaks through the closed door. “I’m going to the store now,” she says. “Don’t bother buying coffee.”
“No, don’t,” says Chloe. She rushes to her door and opens it. Sheralyn’s hair is wet. “I’ll go. I’m sorry. I just broke up with Doug.”
Sheralyn steps back. “Was that his wife last night? The pregnant lady?”
“Yes!” says Chloe. “And I’m so not a home-wrecker, you know? Can you read this email I just sent?”
It’s like Sheralyn’s a hippo, the way she doesn’t move, the way she fills up the doorway. Chloe brings her the laptop. Sheralyn’s eyebrows draw together as she reads. “You’re gonna get fired,” she says.
“That’s not even what I’m worried about.”
Sheralyn hands back the computer. “You think you’re gonna end up with him?”
Her words. Chloe would never say those actual words out loud. Not yet, anyway. “His wife is awful,” says Chloe.
“Do you have enough for rent if you get fired?”
Chloe lifts her chin. “I have money.”
“Do you have five dollars for coffee?”
Doug doesn’t respond to her email. Chloe doesn’t leave the apartment. She can’t. She waits. She checks her phone. She sleeps three hours Saturday night and sits up in bed at first light Sunday morning. She checks her phone again.
Nothing.
Doug. Oh, Doug. Oh, fucking Doug.
She put so much work into that email! She typed it and retyped it. She was honest and raw, and the whole time she kept thinking, Am I doing the right thing?
She clenches her teeth and pounds open the
ir text conversation. She writes, Do you know how much courage it took to send that email? and holds her finger over the send symbol. No. She deletes it. He’ll never know how much courage it took. No one will.
Chloe is alone.
She drops her phone and bends to the floor, sobbing.
She wakes at 5:00 a.m. on Monday. She stands at her window and watches the brightening strip of indigo peeking through the apartment buildings across the street. It’s a workday. She texts him:
Weirded out. Should I come in today?
As soon as the message sends, she’s flooded with a sick, sticky sensation. She should have stopped writing two days ago. But then her phone chimes. It’s him:
Relax
He told her to relax one night as he massaged her with the lavender oil from a hotel gift basket. She kept thinking she should be doing something, arching her back or reaching up to kiss his neck, but he whispered, “Relax. Just relax.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
DOUG
Doug closes his office door behind him. He pulls his wallet out of his pocket and drops it on his desk. He doesn’t sit.
What did he plan to do? He’s forgotten. It’s not as if he’s never known this feeling. The sense of being underwater. When simple things like reading the LA Times and going for a run become tinged and hot with missing the person you were sleeping with the week before. He has feelings, for Christ’s sake. He’s not a robot.
He grips his chin with his thumb and forefinger. He likes Chloe. He gave her a polite grimace as he passed her desk a few moments ago. She blurted, “Hi!” and then, “Hi!” again, all breathless and desperate. Just that small interaction has softened him. He’ll give her a good reference.
He waits until noon and asks her to meet him near the community center at Virginia Park. Open space is better than a restaurant. She’ll have room to get upset if she needs to. He’s been through this. Better to get it all out in one shot rather than let it fester. He finds a shady spot near the splash fountain and watches the children run through the water spouts, their shouts muted by the gurgling water. “Bat! Bat!” screeches a toddler as she slaps a puddle. Cute. His baby will be doing that in what? A year? A year and a half?