I opened the front door and paused.
Nothing.
He must have spent his entire day in his office again. I rolled my eyes and crept up the stairs. Half the fun of buying too much was getting it into the closet, where I could state with a bold face, “I bought that ages ago.”
His version of ages and mine differed, a lot.
The third-to-last stair made its usual creak. I’d forgotten to step to the side again. I stayed frozen and a little bit scared. This was my excitement for the day.
He didn’t call out. Whew, I’d made it. That deserved an extra glass of pinot later. I turned the handle and slipped into the bedroom.
The rest was choppy, not a fluid memory but flashes of bad things.
Long slim fingers grabbing the headboard.
The pounding of his hips into her rounded ass.
A cape. What the fuck, a cape? Was he in costume?
His hand was woven into her long, blonde hair, yanking it back a bit as he grunted and rutted. Yes, rutted. It was the only word I could use for what he was doing to the poor girl. He rutted in a cape. Why a cape?
He was not the only one in costume though. She had some kind of garter and bustier situation going on. It was like walking into someone else's house. Only it wasn't. It was mine. The blue pill stopped me from really feeling it. I knew I was upset, but I couldn't find it in my sinking chest.
Of course, she seemed to be enjoying it. In the mirror above the bed, I could see she was making those ridiculous lips…duck lips… and looked back at him like a porn star would. Who actually made that face whilst someone rutted with them? Who actually wore that amount of makeup early evening?
CHANEL almost slipped from my fingers but I gripped her. I would need her later, I knew that.
Long red nails, face like a porn star, lets a man take her from behind and pull her hair without buying her diamonds… she was a pro. Oh God, she was on my sheets… in my goddamned shoes. Oh God. MY JIMMY CHOOS!
I backed up, out of the room, amazed she hadn’t seen me when she was looking back at him. Her duck lips never even stopped as she faked her orgasm.
She gave a moan, “Fuck me, Mr. Bernard!” and instantly I recognized her. Gripping CHANEL like she was my lifeline, I lifted my fingers to my lips as I stepped back farther into the hallway where I became frozen.
“Oh God.” She pushed back into him.
I had one thing in the whole world I feared. It was quicksand. Quicksand and whores wearing my fucking Jimmy Choos.
Luckily, I lived in the rich part of New Jersey, where I would never come in contact with such a substance. However, there I was frozen; my feet wouldn’t budge. They made me watch the whole thing. They refused to walk away until it was over. He collapsed on our much-younger neighbor. Somewhere in that frozen moment, his eyes lazily looked back to see me. He didn't seem to comprehend what he was seeing. His face made the quicksand disappear and I turned and fled from the house. I ran across the courtyard and threw the bags into the backseat, slamming the car door so hard, I was scared I’d damaged the damned thing.
“JACQUELINE! STOP! JACQUELINE!”
I didn't turn back to see his naked body out the open window. I had a pretty good idea how it looked.
Why couldn’t it have been Eleanor? She was my age at least.
I backed up like I was driving to a fire. The tires skidded the entire way back and forward… until I was nearly to the end of our huge driveway.
My hands shook as I left Short Hills. I didn’t think a single thought until I turned onto the Garden State Parkway. I merged and let my frozen mind start to work.
Was she even eighteen? Was she a minor? Was he a pedophile? Oh God. I racked my brain to recall if we’d been invited to her eighteenth birthday or nineteenth.
I pressed the Bluetooth button and spoke softly, “Brandi.”
The phone rang.
My sister answered right away, “Hey you, I just called your house a couple hours ago and Phil said you were with the wedding planner.”
My heart was beating a mile a minute, “Right, yes. I was. Did you happen to recall what birthday it was we went to for Ashley Andrews? Like how old she was?”
She was silent for a moment, “The neighbor girl whose party you dragged me to? Her mother had that annoying laugh?”
I swallowed all the bad things I wanted to tell her and nodded, “Yes.”
“Are you alright? You sound funny.”
I could see the look in my eyes when I glanced in the rearview. It was a funny look to go with a funny sound. “I’m just picking out a gift card; I forgot to give her one.”
“Oh, uhm yeah… she was nineteen because she said she was going to Canada with friends to party legally. Quebec, I think.”
At least she wasn’t a minor. Not that it made a difference. She was a child compared to us. I was twenty-eight and he was thirty.
I sighed, “Well, I should go. I’m at the cashier counter and I hate it when people talk on the phone and ignore the cashier. It's uncivilized.”
I could hear the tension and disbelief in her silence, “You sure you’re alright? You sound like you’re in the car.” Being my older sister, she was like France. She could read me like a book.
“Yes, it’s the air conditioning unit I’m next to.” I shook my head, “Anyway, I’ll call you later when I get home.” I hung up and took deep breaths. “Air conditioning unit? What store has an air conditioning unit?” I sighed and felt my lower lip start to protrude, “Nineteen? Nineteen?” She was a kid and he was a pervert and I didn’t even know.
A flash of something hit my memory. I pressed the Bluetooth button again, “Home.”
The phone rang only once.
“Jacqueline, I can explain?”
I cut his pathetic attempt at lying off, “Phil, can you check the closet and see if I have red satin Jimmy Choos? I’m heading back to the shops and I was thinking about getting some for the bachelorette party, but you know how I am. I may already have them.”
“What?” He had that after sex voice. I almost screamed at him but I stopped myself. I wanted him to misunderstand everything that was happening. I wanted him to panic and not know what I was going to do.
“Shopping, now? Can we just talk about this, please? I know you’re probably very angry but…”
“The shoe closet—can you have a peek
and see if I own red satin Jimmy Choos?”
“Y-yes. You do.”
Fucker. He should have told me no. He should have lied and said I didn’t have them. He was fucking a girl in my shoes and was planning on putting them back in the closet? After she’d worn them and him at the same time? Even after he was caught red-handed and caped.
I was breathing so heavily, I was certain I was going to have a heart attack. “Excellent. Thank you.”
He sounded annoyed, “Are you coming home? I need to explain. I have a sickness; I never wanted you to see that side of me.”
I looked around, shaking my head, “I know about the world we live in, Phil. I understand how we all are expected to live. I need to adjust. I have never been unfaithful to you, so I just need to get used to the idea we will be stepping outside of our marriage for sex and other things.”
He sounded furious, “Jacqueline, it doesn’t have to be this way. This is nothing. I swear. I fucked up. We don’t have to be like our parents or anyone else. I love you. Come home.”
I shook my head, “I’m taking a drive after I get some new shoes, and then I’ll be home when I get there. I’ll call you.” I hung up the phone and felt the first tear threaten my eyes. I forbid it. It needed to be far more dramatic than a single tear on the parkway in a BMW. It needed to be Casablanca dramatic or a Love Affair type of drama. I drove until I came up with a plan. I filled up twice, driving in some crazy circle, hopping states before I saw my destination clearly.
I stopped next in Virginia Beach. I had drunk far more coffee than I imagined people capable of, and at the last stop, I started to realize I wasn’t anywhere near Manhattan any longer. My heels clicking against the cold, white linoleum had been the only sound in the gas station. Everyone else was stopped, staring at me like I was a circus freak.
I sped away, eating my pastry that tasted far more like freezer food one would eat in desperation or an apocalypse maybe, and got back on the highway.
My next stop was a little place called Hampstead in North Carolina. I started to notice the air was warmer, more loving and understanding. I couldn’t remember exactly where I was going. I knew there was a tiki bar, a beach, and it was in South Carolina. Why had I not paid more attention when he spoke of the damned beach house?
I looked at the water and I swore I saw the things that were my fault. The things I might have done better. I should have listened to my mother.
No, screw that. I should've let the bartender have me, even if it was only for an hour.
I got gas and more food from packets. Everything was salty and dry, like the moisture had been sucked away in the heat of sealing the plastic wrappers.
The sugar and coffee were mixing in my stomach. It wasn’t happy.
Tuesday
I bypassed Charleston and continued heading south. She was a beautiful old city that deserved my first visit under better tidings. Seeing her through the cloud I was stuck under wasn’t fair. She would be tainted by the rage bubbling on simmer inside of me. The last blue pill was holding off my hate rage, but I knew eventually it would leak out.
I ended up in a beach resort-looking area that reminded me of Florida, the richer sections. I never liked Florida, too tanned and obvious about plastic surgery.
I had driven all night, getting lost and found, slept on the side of the road for a while at one point, and then driven the rest of the way. The trip had been twenty hours, to be exact. Twenty hours of huge circles and getting completely lost before I found myself. My phone had rang twenty-eight times. I’d driven some ungodly number of miles and drank a horrendous amount of caffeine. I had one hundred and fourteen text messages and twenty voicemails. My poor phone was near dead. Of course, I had forgotten my car charger.
