by P. J. Vernon
My heart again thrums like a hummingbird’s. My sweaty fingers won’t touch the script until they absolutely must. Folded in two, it waits in the pocket of a pair of cotton trousers. My linen crew top is airy and pastel and harmless. Smart boys in head-to-toe Club Monaco don’t crib pills.
A technician at the drop-off counter shrugs a smile. I’m committed now. And rehearsed.
“Can I help you?” Braces cross her top teeth. A bit late in life for them. She’s not old by any means, but her mouthful of metal takes the edge off. My confidence grows as I size up my new opponent.
“Filling a prescription.” I’m deliberately flippant. No need to say what for. I’m a patient—not an addict—so I don’t care what treatment the good doctor decided on.
She takes the script and reads it back like a McDonald’s cashier. Let’s review my Big Mac order because the last thing she needs is someone with a pickle allergy throwing them back in her face.
“Penicillin. Five hundred milligrams every twelve hours for five days.” Her tone’s decidedly over it, and I’ve buried the ask in a list. “And Percocet, two-point-five milligrams and three-twenty-five acetaminophen every six hours as needed. Got questions about these?”
“Not really.”
“Give me twenty minutes.” Like that, she vanishes between towering shelves. Not even ten minutes pass and a rattling paper bag summons me to the pickup counter. She notes my temporary driver’s license information in a controlled substances log—I’ve been prescribed a narcotic, after all.
When she slides the bag my way, I thank her. If she replies, I don’t hear it.
Hyperfocus is another survival skill I’ve honed. Peripheral thoughts are painful at times like this. I fixate on the immediate future and bury the cost for it. As a dependent on Dr. Nathan Klein’s top-shelf insurance, I pay only ten bucks. My chest knots as I take the sidewalk faster and faster.
Sometimes the price tag on betrayal is deceptively small.
38
NATHAN
Tilly’s home. Safe. Sound. Alive.
But I still have business to take care of.
“Your destination is ahead on the right.” GPS makes a pleasant announcement, though there’s nothing pleasant about it. “You have arrived at Thirty-Nine Dahlia Street. Frederick, Maryland.”
It took everything not to confront Oliver—funny how little I mind conflict when I’m not the one with something to hide. I’d left him alone. Determined not to explore the sudden reappearance of MeetLockr or the X-rated photo of himself.
Or the ones of Tom—whose Audi is already parked street side.
When I challenge Tom, will he tell the truth? Not in the face of hard evidence—the nudes waiting patiently on my phone, but before. Would he be honest if I simply asked him to be?
Did you fuck my husband, Tom?
My car locks with a chirp-chirp. I realize the fentanyl is still in my white coat, and a tiny hint of something indulgent whispers.
He’d answer truthfully with that at his jugular.
The street with its darling storefronts. Quaint and cute and exactly like the last time I visited this studio. Number Thirty-Nine is a narrow brick front with tall windows. The hanging sign is turned to open, and a bell rings when I walk through the door.
“Nathan!” Tom makes his way from the back. More flowing than walking. Tight jeans. Gucci loafers. And an acid-yellow button-down spackled with tiny blue flowers.
He pulls me into a tight hug. My palm finds his spine, and I imagine Oliver’s fingers counting its ridges as the two of them lie in bed. Like he used to count mine.
Tom gives his take on the gallery: “This space is gorgeous.”
“Always my first stop for art. I need a new piece for the library anyway.” I grin. “So, who’s the guy?”
“Please.” He skips the question. “We’ll get to that. Art first!”
“See the nudes?”
“Oh my god yes.” He twirls, taking my hand and leading me to a far wall.
“Figured you’d have a thing for them.” My double entendre slips his radar. Narcissist.
“Guilty,” he says, and I can’t help but agree.
The entire back wall is covered in naked people—as I knew it would be. Men and women. Vivid colors and black-and-whites. Close-ups. Full bodies. From the overtly sensual to the deeply uncomfortable.
“Easy to see why you love it here,” he says, eyes dancing from piece to piece. Dick to dick.
“I’m captivated by the human form,” I say when his attention returns. “Actually, humans in general.”
“They’re fabulous.” Tom might find them a bit overwhelming but they are undeniably good. “And figures, Dr. Surgeon.”
“It’s not the anatomy of them,” I add. “It’s the soul. People are complicated.” A gallery worker heads our way. A pair of hot-pink pumps, and I think her name’s Amina. “These capture an emotional complexity you don’t see in the OR.”
“Uh. Sure.” Tom knots his brow. “You okay? You sound kind of off.”
“Dr. Klein.” Maybe-Amina greets me with a sharp smile and two flutes of freshly poured prosecco. “Lovely to see you again.”
“Can’t keep me out.”
“Art’s addictive.” She adjusts cat’s-eye glasses. “Are you looking again?”
“I am.” Tom takes a prosecco, and I follow suit. No hospital shift, so alcohol’s no problem. I lied to Oliver, and really, indulging is the only way I can get through this. We touch glasses, and bubbles tickle my throat like alcoholic pop rocks. “But I’ve mostly come for my friend here. Tom Vogt, this is—”
“Amina Khan. It’s a pleasure.”
“All mine.” Tom beams.
We trace her steps, heels clicking on polished pine, craning our necks at pieces along the way. When we pass one that’s more jarring than the others, I pull Tom to a stop and ask Amina, “What’s this?”
On canvas, a frail woman contorts her limbs unnaturally, holds her body up with the palm of one hand and the heel of her opposite foot. Her head is a blur of movement as though she’s shaking it side to side. Violently.
“Ah, a little grotesque, that one,” Amina starts. “It’s called Janus.”
“The Greek god of duality,” Tom says. A fitting name for the piece. The shaking motion gives the photo two heads.
“Very good. The model’s a contortionist,” she says. “She’s done Cirque du Soleil.”
“Breathtaking,” I add.
“It’s clearly speaking to you,” Amina says. “I’ll leave you both alone with it for a few minutes.”
As she makes for the back office, I turn to Tom. “I think it’s a little trite to define a human by any one thing. But you’d be surprised how much of a person you can capture with two.”
“Duplicity. And please, I wouldn’t be at all surprised.”
“Maybe you wouldn’t.”
“So?” Tom tilts his head, perhaps sensing a challenge. “What two things define me?”
“Idyllic and…” I tap my chin, but my thoughts return to the syringe in my pocket. “Impish.”
“Impish?” Tom squares his shoulders. “Like a prancing demon or some shit?”
“No, no.” I laugh, though my words are nothing if not serious. “More Faustian. Devilish.”
“Devilishly good-looking.” He smirks, then narrows his eyes to pretty little slits. “And yourself?”
“You tell me.”
“A bit knowing.” He sighs. “And yet still naïve.”
Naïve? Is he now challenging me? “Old, you mean. Old and dumb.”
“Not at all.”
“Then what are you saying?” I take a second gulp, much larger than the first. “Knowing and naïve?”
“That you’ve lived…a certain kind of happy living”—he tilts
his own drink back—“but you’ve got a different life ahead of you. You’re not anywhere near the end of your book, and the next chapters are going to surprise you. You’ve done the domestic bliss, the dog, the beautiful boy—”
“Husband.”
“Right.” He nods. “But there’s another you too. A version I think you’ll meet soon. And I want you to understand that he’s also happy. Just as much so.”
Another me. My cheeks warm as my mind wanders to scorpions. The malignant presence of feverish nightmares. Something inside me. Something other persisting deep down. Tom’s not so blind—he sees the scorpion.
But what does he mean by a different life ahead? If I didn’t know better, I’d say he was preparing me for something. Cushioning what he plans to say next. “And naïve?”
Tom’s smile falls. His lips go flat as a sidewalk. “Look, Nathan. I’m glad you called because the truth is…”
Is this it? A wholly unexpected and unprompted confession?
“…if you hadn’t, I was going to ask to meet.”
I’ve been sleeping with Oliver. I’m so sorry.
“There’s something I need to tell you”—his gaze wanders over my shoulder, searching for the presence of nearby ears—“about Oliver.”
I clench my jaw, and the swollen vein in his neck is growing more and more alluring.
“This isn’t going to be easy to hear. It sure as hell isn’t easy to say.”
I’m sorry, and I deserve to die.
“I…” Go on, Tom. Go on and say it. Fall on the sword. Take the responsibility we both know Oliver’s incapable of. Man. The. Fuck. Up. But the conversation veers: “The senator had a thing earlier today. A fundraiser. He’s shit with names, so I whisper who’s who as he greets donors. Anyway, that’s not the point.”
What is the point, Tom?
“The venue, it was at The Jefferson.”
Where are you going?
“And”—he bites his bottom lip—“Oliver was there.”
“Oliver wasn’t at The Jefferson.”
His teeth have drawn a tiny pearl of blood. “He was with someone else.”
Sunlight pours into the studio, but the whole space darkens. Sweeping canvases, photos, they all melt like candle wax.
“They were at the bar—”
“So?” My voice hitches. Fog rolls over the pink coils of my brain, and my throat tightens.
“Blond guy. Tall. Looked like a fuckboy if I’ve ever seen one.”
“How do you know he wasn’t a friend?” Another gulp, and I wipe my lips with the back of my hand. The prosecco’s gone, and no question, hard liquor’s up next because we both know Oliver has exactly zero friends that look like fuckboys.
“This guy? Straight out of central casting for, like, gay Swedish porn.” Tom talks, but all I see are two rows of perfect white teeth and the blood they’ve drawn from his lip. He punctuates his answer with spelling bee–like repetition. “Total fuckboy.”
My husband. The scorpion inside—the one that climbs my throat and skitters along the underside of my sternum and nests between my organs—stirs. It wiggles its way between lobes of a lung. Slips through with moist ease.
“They were alone at the bar. For ten minutes I watched them. Their legs were touching.”
“What are you saying?” My tone climbs because the arachnid’s reached my heart at last. The thumping knot of tissue and blood that beats for Oliver. Saved Oliver. Staked-a-claim-to Oliver.
My husband who’s been keeping secrets. Who’s strayed and who only gives a shit about himself. He’s trashed everything I’ve worked for—everything I care about—for the tritest of payoffs. Not once did he consider my humiliation, the fire-poker heat of shame I’d suffer from having this conversation with Tom. Or maybe Oliver did consider just that. And maybe he decided sacrificing me was a fair price for a few seconds of orgasm.
I’ve given him the world and he’s made me into a cuckold.
Resentment floods the wake complacency leaves. Perhaps even cruelty.
The syringe is heavy in my pocket. My off-ramp.
“Nathan, listen.” Tom swallows loudly, and the scorpion hoists its stinger—ready to plunge venom into its mark. “Your puppy is off his leash.”
39
OLIVER
To see Nathan’s face when his eyes find Tilly is to see Nathan happier than he’s seemed in an awfully long time. It was nearly midnight when he finally managed to get the rest of his shift covered. No on the way home text because there never is.
His book bag crashes on the floor and his arms stretch wide open.
“That’s my girl!” He beams. “That’s my good, good girl!”
A sliver of relief breaks through my guilt-choked heart. Nathan deserves this happiness for enduring my bullshit. It’s all my fault, but delivering him his dog still warms my body like a drug. I haven’t phoned Detective Henning yet, and Tilly in Nathan’s arms makes the delay easier.
Let him have this. Let him live this bliss before destroying everything.
My mind travels to the Percocet I’ve yet to touch. In a moment of half-assed accountability, I hid it behind the very same vent Nathan had already discovered. A big part of me wants to get caught because a bigger part will never do the right thing. Maybe he’ll find it. When he sees how dangerously close I am to relapse, maybe he’ll know what to do.
I sure as hell don’t.
* * *
• •
The next morning, the French doors to the library have been closed again, but the wall above the mantel is no longer empty. There’s a photograph and in it, a woman twists her body into a bizarre posture that shakes me. Her head blurs like she has two. At absolute best, it’s a lateral move from the Klein family portrait.
“Janus,” Nathan says from behind. He wraps his arms around my waist, and I flinch. “The Greek god of duality. Picked it out with Tom yesterday. What do you think?”
“Very sophisticated.”
“Tom also has some good news.” He moves beside me. Sipping coffee, he stares, satisfied, at his new decor behind the glass-paneled doors. “Said so when we hung out before my shift.”
“Oh?” News from Tom is never good, but at present, it could be catastrophic. My gut tightens.
“He wants to have dinner tonight to share.”
“You’re not tired?”
“Tilly’s back, and Tom’s got a reason to celebrate. You up for it?”
Tom wants to have dinner tonight. What an asshole. His proposition, his photos, the picture he pried from me. Now he wants to share a meal with his best friend and the man his best friend loves. The man he exploited. To navigate the world with Tom’s cruel efficiency requires a total lack of empathy. Kristian’s not the only sociopath keeping my company these days.
I bite my lip, and Nathan reads it for stalling.
“He met some new guy he’s crazy about. On MeetLockr of all places. I’ve never seen him fall so deep so fast. He’s turned fourteen and female.”
Nathan’s casual sexism would irk me if it didn’t come on the heels of that app. A fountain of bile climbs my throat. Is Tom implying I’m the new guy from MeetLockr? Secrets are your specialty, are they? You smug ass. Then a far darker thought stokes fresh panic. Maybe he’s met Kristian. Maybe said meeting was engineered because this is Kristian’s next move.
“I’d rather not.” I grasp for an excuse. “Tilly’s home. I want to stay here with her.”
“Of course.” Nathan kisses my cheek, drains the last of his coffee. “Funny though, right?”
“What’s funny?”
“Tom. He’s so jaded. Always so cynical.” Nathan wipes his mouth. “The way he talks about this guy—”
“What’s his name?” I interrupt. My jarring tone gives him pause.
“I’m not quite sure.”
“What is his name?” The edge in my voice is razor sharp.
Nathan arches an eyebrow. “Jeffrey or Jim or…Jeff, I think. What does it matter?”
I exhale. I know how Kristian works. If he found Tom, if he made the connection between vapid Tom and Nathan and me, he’d want me to know. He’d use his real name. If not his real name, something that says he’s closing in again.
“Just curious.”
Doubt flares in Nathan’s eyes. “Do you think you might know Jeff?”
I muster whatever fumes of confidence still linger and smile. “Not at all.”
Marked hesitation, then: “I’m going to hop in the shower. Do me a favor, would you? While I’m at dinner, follow up with Darryl. I’d like to use my own bathroom again.”
As Nathan vanishes upstairs, I shut my eyes and see only Tom and Kristian. When I open them, the floor vent down the hall suddenly holds a frightening gravity. A cosmic pull to a dark place, and one I can no longer resist.
SOUTH BEND, IN
In the eyes of an Indiana drug court, I wasn’t much danger to anyone but myself. An opioid epidemic, overcrowded prisons, and white privilege—not in that order—took jail time off the table. On the lazy Susan of self-destruction Judge Raza spun daily, I fell somewhere between could clean up and might still OD and save tax dollars.
Detox and court-ordered recovery in an outpatient program run at a regional psych clinic in South Bend. An offshoot from the main trauma center but still part of the hospital.
I showed up every morning at six o’clock sharp. Being late meant needing a damn good excuse for a waiting cop. Failing to show up altogether? Judge Raza had made the consequences of that brutally clear.
“You strike me as queer,” he’d mocked. “Doesn’t matter what you are, ’cause you’ll strike everyone at County just the same. Best case, son? Somebody likes your asshole enough to keep it from everybody else.”
I was punctual. Sitting pretty in the waiting room with the other addicts. We weren’t the worst of them. I mean, I hadn’t escalated to the needle, and I clung to that fact like a fucked-up honor badge. Funny what you take pride in at the barrel’s bottom.