Dating was a blast. I’d heard charity could be rewarding but had never given it a try, until then. How entertained I was as I watched the psychological contortions she went through to shatter long-held assumptions about herself. Her tight little forehead would scrunch right up. Not lovable! Not attractive! Prepared to settle! Well, with me, she started to believe that she could be more than that. She began to pry off all the dirty, old badges she’d applied to herself and create new ones.
“Why me?” she asked me once, after we’d been intimate. “You could have had anyone.” She often likes to talk after sex, as if it’s unlocked something in her. I like how much she needs me in those moments, but the talk can be tiresome, and we’re intimate often because I take some pleasure in the tight, needy forms of her body,in my ability to make her relax beneath me, to render her vulnerable, to control her.
I thought before I answered. I wasn’t going to tell her that I couldn’t have the one person I wanted. Eventually, I said, “Because I love you,” and felt a tremendous energy gather itself within her, a raw hopefulness. And afterward, looking at my reflection in the bathroom mirror and remembering the moment, I chuckled.
Don’t judge me. Jayne’s an adult and a highly skilled one, at that, and adults should be responsible for themselves. I might have married her for show, so people couldn’t suspect me of loving and wanting Edie, but at least I didn’t stoop as low as Paul and pick up a girl young enough to be my daughter or settle for a woman as tiresome as Ruth. Wow! Toby bit off more than he could chew there. Ruth always was an emotional accident waiting to happen. A perfectionist to the point of self-destruction.
I look at Jayne. She’s been silent for much of this drive. I told her she didn’t need to come with me, that she’d been through enough, but she insisted. Of course, she did. My apparent concern for Paul has got under her skin, made her doubt her own assessment of the situation. She’s in the game with me now. Later, if necessary, she will be able to vouch for me, to relate my concern.
“Did you know that Edie suffered a psychotic episode when she was younger?” I ask.
Untrue, but I need to lay the ground for the scenario I’ve set up and that I’m hoping everyone will buy into. It’s plausible, but only if I can get people to believe that Edie would leave her daughter to start a new life with Paul.
I mean, honestly, that part is correct in a way. Her body is on top of his in the freezer.
Everyone knows it’s not the hardest thing in the world to paint a woman as unstable. There are road maps. Centuries of examples of best practice by gentlemen such as myself who are willing to indulge their heinous tendencies.
I’m watching the road, but I can feel Jayne’s eyes drilling into the side of my head.
“I didn’t know,” she says, as the car turns onto Paul and Emily’s road. “Is that why you all rally around her?”
“She’s more vulnerable than people think.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
I pretend I didn’t hear that question and I hit the brakes to make the turn between the gates into Paul and Emily’s driveway.
We get out. The sound of our car doors slamming shatters the peace in this suburban idyll.
I have a key to Paul’s house. I put it in the lock.
“Shouldn’t you ring the bell?” Jayne asks. So proper. Fancy maintaining your manners even on a day like this! She’s a blast.
“It’s fine,” I say and turn the key.
Darrell locks up his unit at the industrial yard. He’s got twenty-three lawnmowers inside. Eighteen needing attention and five waiting for collection.
There’s been something on his mind all day. The man who rented the unit down the end. The one who backed his car so far in that he looked trapped. It was the second trip he’d made there this morning, and something wasn’t right about him.
He was very flustered, and it looked like he had nothing in the unit except for a massive chest freezer.
Darrell’s husband, Pete, arrives to pick him up as he’s pondering this, and Darrell shares his thoughts.
“A big chest freezer? Did you see what he was putting in it?”
“No, but he was sweating like a pig. Whatever it was, it must have been heavy.”
Pete stares at him. “What? No! Don’t be silly. You’ve beenwatching too many crime programs. Come on, let’s go. Shall we get takeout tonight?”
“Listen, I’m not saying he’s got a body in there, but what if he’s doing something illegal? That’s the last thing we need.”
“Let’s have a look then.”
“What?”
“If you’re so worried, we’ll have a look. Then we can go home.”
“He’s got a massive padlock on it.”
