His nostrils flare. “Because.” And then he gives me the eyes. The eyes that say you-know-why.
Oh, yes, I suppose I do. It’s a guise. Beau knows something, and he wants to talk. It feels like my insides are bathing in a blender. “Okay.” I roll the window back up and wait for him to walk back to his car before securing the lever beneath my seat and sliding back a few notches.
I put the car in drive, lift my foot off the brake, and ease away from the curb. I barely turn the wheel when the blast of a horn makes me jump. I glance over to see an SUV in the passing lane.
“Sorry,” I call lamely through the glass.
The mother sneers at me and shakes her head.
“Why the face?” I ask louder than I mean to. “I said I was sorry, lady. Calm down.”
I watch the woman’s vehicle as she passes and spy a toddler in the back seat throw his sippy cup at a mounted, fold-down TV screen. It’s playing a cartoon, so loudly the driver couldn’t have heard me. That’s probably for the best.
As I pull into the slow-moving traffic, and wait at the crosswalk while kids with backpacks and jackets head toward the school, I imagine myself getting arrested for fighting with a fellow parent in the school pickup lane. I’m volatile lately. Unstable and almost always trying to mend the ever-growing gap between my comfortable lie and the unfathomable truth. It’s the hot potato from that stupid game; I don’t want it. I don’t even know what I’ll do with it once it’s in my hands. Let it burn me? Or let it drop to the ground where I can bury it beneath flimsy explanations that get harder to conjure every day.
When I pull into Sliders, I opt for the first parking spot I see.
Beau pulls his black Mercedes into the stall beside me and rolls down his window. “Over there by the wall,” he says, pointing toward the brick wall behind the establishment’s seating area.
I do as he says, put it in park, and watch as Beau pulls up behind me. I stay put as he grabs a blanket from his trunk and heads toward the passenger side rear of my car.
He drops the blanket and moves to open the passenger side door. It’s locked, so I hit the lever, and he tries again.
Is he going to sit in here with me?That would look weird. We’ll be the ones looking like we’re having the affair.
But Beau only cracks open the glovebox, digs around a bit, then snags a small package in his grip. “Come on.”
So he reallyisfixing the brake light. I step out and join him next to the rear passenger side of the car.
“Go ahead and sit,” he says, motioning to the blanket.
I glance over my shoulder; the seating area is vacant for now since Sliders doesn’t open until ten. Between our two cars and the brick wall, Beau and I are mostly hidden from the outside world, which makes me feel shifty. I don’t want it to even look like I’m hooking up with another man.
Still, I lower myself onto the blanket, and Beau hunches beside me. I hadn’t noticed, but he’s holding a small screwdriver in his fist. He sticks it into a small hole in the red, plastic cover and starts to twist.
I sigh. Maybe this is the extent of it, and I got myself worked up over nothing.
“Trish got an extra phone,” he says without looking at me. “When I confronted her, she said it belongs to her friend, Sheila, whose husband is an abusive d-bag and that she’s holding it for her.”
“Do you believe her?” I ask.
He shakes his head. “No.”
“Did you tell Trish you don’t believe her?”
Beau shakes his head again. “No.”
“Do you know the number to her extra phone?”
Beau pulls the screwdriver out of the hole and motions toward my hand. “Take this.”
I pry the tiny screw off the tip, and Beau moves the screwdriver to yet another hole in the cover. “She said it was locked, so no.”
“Hmm. Greg keeps his locked too. But I got into it the other night. I checked the calls during times he was away, and while we were at the hotel. The same number shows up during those times, some incoming, but most outgoing.”
He pulls the other screw out, and I take that one too. “Is Greg leaving town tomorrow?”
“He left this morning,” I say.
