by Kate Myles
“Then stay till tomorrow.”
“I’ve never missed my mom’s birthday.”
“My father is in the hospital!” I stopped trying to control my yelling.
“And my mother is old!” He was louder, topping me. “I don’t know how many birthdays she has left!”
I peeked over at the nurses. They were going about their business, pretending not to notice us. “We stay till visiting hours are over,” I said.
Doug helped me into the passenger seat of his Cessna for the flight home, his hands under my butt, boosting me up through the door. “This is humiliating,” I muttered.
He climbed into his seat and took my hand. “We’ll get you on the board of the American Lung Association.”
I sighed. “Why would I do that?” I asked.
“Some good has to come out of this.”
“Does everything have to be momentous? Can’t I just be sad for a while?”
“We need to think bigger,” he said. He had no idea how much I hated him. “What would the Kennedys do in a situation like this?”
“Oh my fucking God.”
“They’ve had so much tragedy, but do they sit around and mope? No. They run for office. They start foundations.” There was a light in his eyes. An energy that seemed to come from an external source. I wondered if he was high. He pointed to the observation deck, to a family dressed in cheap, spangled tube tops and XL graphic tees. “Look at those people!” he yelled. “That’s not us!”
He started the propellers without shouting clear prop out the window.
“Doug, have you taken anything?”
“Of course not.”
“Seriously. If you’re on drugs, I need to know.”
“Don’t be ridiculous.”
I’d married a bozo. He was going to get me killed. I grabbed the window strap as he taxied to the end of the runway. He sniffed and requested permission to take off.
“I’m uncomfortable flying with you right now,” I said.
Air traffic control gave him the go-ahead. He gunned it. I closed my eyes and imagined us sliding sideways off the runway, nose-diving once we were airborne.
Of course, I realized. He can die in a plane crash.
CHAPTER THIRTY
DOUG
Doug’s parents’ kitchen smells like sausages and maple syrup. His mom sits at her usual spot at the breakfast table with the Union-Tribune splayed out before her. It’s early, but she’s already wearing lipstick and earrings, her chunky gray bob set and styled. Doug kisses her cheek and hands her a bouquet of sunflowers. He takes his place across from her, in the spot he sat as a child.
“Emily says happy birthday.”
His mother pours him coffee and places the pot back on the warmer. “How is she feeling?”
“She’s huge,” Doug says. “I’m trying to get her to the gym.”
“Leave her alone,” his mom says.
His dad comes in and sets his mug down. His mom tops off his coffee. An effortless interaction. They don’t even need to speak. Doug tries to remember why he was so anxious to leave La Jolla after college. Life is uncomplicated here. You make money. You work out. You live in a nice house. It’s no different from what he’s doing in LA. But LA is harsher. It’s full of strangers.
“How is her father?” his mom asks.
Doug shrugs. “They’re sending him home today.”
“Poor thing.”
Doug’s dad smirks at him, showing off the tiniest gleam of white, capped teeth. He’s eighty-two and radiates good health and good life choices. Emily’s father is, what? A decade younger? It’s disgraceful, how badly the guy has wasted his body. Doug has only seen those oxygen tubes slumming it in the sadder Vegas casinos.
“Dr. Maryn,” says his dad. “Where are we with that?”
“Haven’t heard a peep.”
“What about that guy? That tech guy.”
“Erik? He’s an asshole.”
“A real cocksucker,” says his dad.
A chalky taste hits Doug’s tongue. It’s been weeks since the confrontation with Dr. Maryn. But the memory, the shame of this woman invading his office, interrogating him in front of his employees, it keeps attacking at odd intervals.
He wants to ask his dad what to do about the girl, Chloe. But he can’t talk to his parents about it. He needs them to know he’s not a screwup anymore. He decided not to fire her, not to stir up more drama. Besides, her crazy tweets were a useful distraction. He’s even sensed his employees taking sides, rallying around him.
“What did you tell your people?” his dad asks.
“That her tech developer had a breakdown, turned criminal. This is fallout from that.”
Doug’s dad raises his mug of coffee for a toast.
“What about the injunction?” asks Doug. Doug’s lawyer was ready two weeks ago to file a motion to stop Maryn from releasing the tape.
“No,” says his dad. “Media people don’t respond well to that kind of thing. You’ll just provoke her. Keep it boring. It’ll stay boring.”
Doug props his chin on his hand. His dad’s advice is like a bedtime story. He wants to close his eyes and rest.
“This will blow over,” says his dad. “If she actually thinks there was a security breach, on her own company, it’ll look bad that she’s sitting on that news right now.”
Of course. His dad is right. Dr. Maryn can’t do anything without implicating herself. A feeling makes itself apparent to Doug. Fear combined with relief. He didn’t understand until just now how afraid he’s been. But maybe this can stay private. And whatever is wrong with him, and yes, something is definitely wrong, it won’t be amplified in the news or social media. He won’t be publicly weakened. And then the women. His old employees. They’ll have no reason to think they’ll get away with violating their nondisclosures.
There will be no pile-on. No unraveling of his entire life.
Doug lowers his head onto the counter and hides his face in his arms. He starts crying, sobbing. He can’t control it. His parents rise from their stools. His mother puts a hand on his shoulder.
“Why don’t you skip church,” she says. “We’ll see you at the club.”
Doug flies back to LA later that afternoon and circles the Santa Monica Airport. It’s peaceful in the air. He doesn’t want to land.
Strange. On some level, he’s grateful to Dr. Maryn. She’s a sign. You have to pay attention to what the universe throws your way. That other girl, Sheralyn. He’s helping with her doll business, but she still won’t sleep with him. These are messages: evolve or devolve.
His muscles relax away from their battle-ready position. Yes, he has a problem. But he can fix it. He’s been given another chance. All his trips to rehab, the promises to his parents, the way he betrayed every ex-girlfriend. They were dress rehearsals for this. A genuine crisis. This time he’ll change for real. He has to.
He stands at the top of the stairs when he gets home. He listens. Emily has on new age music. The breathy voice of a lady guru sounds through the ceiling speakers.
“Take a cleansing breath, iiiin through your nose and oooouuuut through your mouth. Imagine a pool of light in front of you . . .”
Doug takes off his shoes and creeps to the living room. Emily is reclining on the floor against a pile of cushions. Her stomach dwarfs the rest of her tiny frame. She opens her eyes at the sound of him.
“Keep going,” he says.
“I can’t visualize anything,” she says. “I think I was born without an imagination.”
He turns off the stereo and sits cross-legged in front of her. “Keep it simple. Just focus on your breath for ten minutes.” She sighs. The look in her eyes. He doesn’t remember her ever showing so much contempt for him. It’s all the time now.
“I can’t keep apologizing,” he says. He takes her hands in his. What he’s about to do is healthy. Bringing the darkness into light. Everyone struggles. It’s how you deal with it that counts. “I need to go away for a l
ittle while.”
She says nothing, but the room turns vivid. More real. It’s what he’s been craving. Intimacy. Honesty. Emily brings a pillow to her stomach.
“Sweetheart.” He edges next to her so they’re sitting side by side. “I think I might be a sex addict.”
She scoots back to face him. “You want to do this now?”
He swallows. “This is hard for me to talk about.”
“What is your problem?” She raises her voice.
“I’m doing this for us. For the baby.”
“Are you fucking your receptionist?”
“Of course not. It’s porn. I can’t stop watching.”
Emily leans forward onto her hands and knees. Doug tries to help her stand.
“Don’t touch me!”
He backs up and looks at the floor. “There are places in Utah,” he says.
She shoves her finger in his face. “You son of a bitch,” she says. Her voice is low and shaking. “I’m having a baby.”
“Emily, it’s—”
“Shut up!”
He closes his mouth.
“I am going to need your help. Do you understand?”
“Okay.”
“Physical, practical help. And whatever this is.” Emily waves her hands at him dismissively. “Fucking table it. Give me six weeks. Can you do that?”
“Okay.”
“If you really have an issue, hire a sex worker. You have my blessing.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
DOUG
The hookers are an amazing idea. Doug can’t believe he’s never thought of it before.
Once the first day, and then twice the next, and then, fuck it, for a few hours every weekday morning, he enters this hermetically sealed gorging on time and flesh and oh, sweet Jesus, his desire. It turns into a thing that he can breathe in and push against and mold into the shape of himself at his most basic. He was a prude before, and he didn’t know. Dancing around the edges of true sex with sorry facsimiles of affection. Now it’s him and only him getting serviced in luxury hotels, in midrange motels, and then, fuck it, in the front seat of his Tesla on Vermont Avenue.
He’s free finally. Free from context. From whatever the hell other people want him to be doing. No more cajoling. No more failed passes.
It’s a Thursday morning in a nondescript hotel, and he has two girls today. He tells them to wait. He has a surprise for them.
The lighter blonde, the tougher looking of the two, stands at the foot of the bed and squints at him. She puts her hands on her hips. “We’re really not into surprises.”
“Relax,” Doug says. “It’s just drugs.”
The mechanic, his old dealer, calls up from the lobby. Doug tells him the room number, and the whole transaction takes ten seconds. Things have changed. Doug didn’t even need to take out cash. He just Venmo’d the garage.
He moves to the head of the bed and rubs the palm-size baggie between his fingers, savoring the slight crunch of powder beneath plastic. He opens the Ziploc and taps a tiny pile of cocaine onto the glass-covered bedside table. He stares at it like he’s a kid and this is a birthday cake with mounds and mounds of sweet icing. He cuts three lines with a credit card and turns to the women.
“Here,” he says.
The women look at each other. The darker blonde says, “I have to pick up my kid later.”
Doug motions to the lighter blonde to come closer.
“Not my thing,” she says. “Do you have any weed?”
Fuck these girls. They’re not going to ruin his good time. He rolls up a five-dollar bill and chases the line down the surface of the table like it’s an escaped animal. He lies back on the bed. The surface of his skin crackles with energy.
Afterward, he has to work quickly. He has six or seven minutes before his mood changes. If it happens in the room, with the hookers lingering and making small talk, his satiety will solidify. It will turn heavy and invite in a sense of gloom. Or guilt. Whatever. He doesn’t have time for that.
“I’m going to take a shower,” he tells them. “If you’re gone by the time I come out, I’ll ask for you again.” He gathers his clothes and his watch and locks the bathroom door behind him.
On the freeway, on the way back to work, he marvels at how easy it is to remove the morning from his mind. It’s like a trick, like he’s escaped from the inside of a balloon without letting out any helium. He even throws his baggie of coke out the window because he’s done. Done with this little experiment, and thank God he’s stopping before he gets hooked again.
“Goddamn!” he screams.
They give him space, the hookers. He can be there for his wife now, through the birth and afterward. He can finally love her the way he’s supposed to because he doesn’t have to spend emotional currency on anyone other than her.
Doug hums to himself as he descends to his office’s underground parking lot. But then he brakes before turning into his spot. Someone is there. A bony vulture of a person hunched on the concrete block. She lifts her head as he edges the grille of his car to just a few inches from her face. She stands and grips her elbows, trembling. He shuts the engine off.
Chloe is turning into a problem.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
CHLOE
Chloe stands in front of Doug’s car. It’s okay that he won’t look up from his steering wheel, that he keeps his hands at ten and two o’clock. She’s prepared for a standoff. This is the most resolve she’s felt in weeks.
There was a break today in the ostracism, a few moments when no one was paying attention, resuming their routines in starts like the first trickle of shoppers returning to a bombed-out market. Chloe tested it, the normalcy. She sat back in her chair and let her face muscles relax. When no one reacted, when the gaggle of ladies near the elevator didn’t let out a flurry of outraged clucks and there were no taunting double entendres like I guess there’s no such thing as bad publicity, Chloe bolted to the garage to wait for Doug.
The thing she can’t do anymore is sit at her desk and let it morph again. That’s what it does, the ostracism. It shifts and sways to the cadence of everyone’s daily moods like octopus tentacles smacking her in the back of the head and letting her regain her composure before poking her ribs and jabbing her from the other side. The most aggressive stare her down. They look at her in mock surprise and say, “You’re still here?” But the worst are the ones who ignore. Even when Chloe is feeling brave, when she tries to say something as simple as hi, they look away.
It’s not about the tweets anymore. Chloe knows this. Nobody stays mad over the same thing for that long. She’s unearthed something, some self-perpetuating madness. If she were just a little less available up there in reception. If she could close a door so that the know-your-place people and the I-never-liked-you people and the moralists and power trippers had less access.
The elevator opens behind her. Chloe turns to the glass vestibule to see Clive from client services stop at the sight of her. Clive’s eyes move to Doug. He shoulder checks the door as he slips back into the elevator.
Doug gets out of his car. “I can’t be talking to you like this, Chloe.”
“Clive is a good person,” she says.
“This isn’t the time.”
“You can tell the nice people because they seem embarrassed by the way they’re acting.”
Doug’s words come out slow and forceful. “I’m sorry if you’re unhappy working here.”
“Would you stop? I’m not going to sue you.”
His face closes in on itself. He wipes his nostrils with his knuckles. “Okay, we’re done,” he says.
This is it. This is her only chance. She reaches for his arm as he moves past her but pulls back before touching him. “Please,” she says. “I’m dying.” She has to tell him how bad things are. If he only knew, he’d put a stop to it.
Doug slumps in exaggerated annoyance and spaces his thumb and forefinger a teensy measure apart. “You have this much capital left with me.�
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“Call off your dogs,” she says.
“I don’t know what that means.”
“The people in there. Teddy is the worst. I think he wants—”
“I can’t force anyone to like you, Chloe.”
No. He’s not allowed to pretend that this is okay. “You do nothing,” she says. “It’s like a weapon, the way you don’t do anything.”
He sighs. But he’s listening now. He crosses his arms. “Chloe, you started this. I didn’t tell you to post insane tweets about me.”
“I didn’t use your name.”
“And I didn’t fire you.”
She places her palm on the cement bollard behind her and leans. Doug is right. If any other employee had done what she did, he’d have gotten rid of them. A shiver of elation spreads up the back of her neck, like it was poised there, ready to spring at the smallest hint he still cared.
“Tell me what to do,” she says.
“You’re a grown-up.”
“Can I go on unemployment if I quit?”
Doug cocks his head. He raises an eyebrow. “So it’s my understanding you no longer want to work here?”
Oh God. Oh no. He’s trying to trip her up. She wants to scream that she doesn’t have any money. Why is he being like this? But losing her cool, that will be the end of her.
“I wasn’t saying that,” she says.
“What do you want?”
“My group. We submitted the invoice to Dr. Maryn’s husband, but he’s not paying us.”
Doug makes a show of considering. “So you want money?”
She gasps. He wants to trap her, harm her. If she only had the right words: magic words, legal words. “I’m a human being,” she says.
“I can’t help you if you’re going to act like this.”
He swings open the vestibule door. No, no, no, no, no, no. This is her only chance. She catches the door before it closes.
“Doug, I’m sorry.” He presses the elevator button. She runs to his other side and presses a fist to her chest. “My heart,” she says. “It’s agitated.”