My phone vibrates, and I break my hand out of his grasp. “I think this is the mechanic,” I say, and sprint toward the restroom.
The mechanic tells me it’s a fuel-pump issue. They can order a new one, but it will take until Monday at the earliest, since we’re heading into the weekend. I ask what could cause something like this, and I can practically hear his shrug through the phone. “These things just happen.”
“Hang on,” I say before we hang up. “I heard this story on a podcast about a woman whose car was being tracked so that a would-be thief could follow her home and steal the car later when the family was sleeping. He put something under the car, I think? Can you check for anything like that, or is that completely crazy?”
“We can check,” he says. “Can’t always guarantee we’d find something like that. For what it’s worth, I’ve never seen anything like that in my years doing this.”
“It would make me feel so much better if you could look,” I say with a sheepish laugh. “I know, my husband is trying to get me to stop listening to all this true crime.”
I thank him profusely, and he assures me that you can’t be too careful these days and he’ll do his best.
When I return to Waylen, he asks about the car and I tell him I’m stuck until Monday. He can barely hide how thrilled he is about this.
“I was thinking,” he says. “Do we really need two vehicles? I work from home anyway. There’s no reason we can’t share one. And your car has the most cash value. We could sell it, catch up on a few bills.”
Waylen was the one who insisted I get that car. I wasmore than happy with my dinky old Honda that I brought with me into our marriage. He was the one who wanted our lives to be perfect, right down to the smallest detail.
“Oh!” Waylen says, before I can respond. “We can use the extra cash to spend next Christmas in Hawaii.”
“Wow,” I say, trying desperately to stall for time before I commit to an answer. There’s no way I’m selling that car, and he must know that. Is he feeling me out for something? “Let’s wait and get the repairs done first. Then we can talk about it.”
“We won’t talk about it,” Waylen insists, standing beside a row of garland lawn reindeer. “We’ll argue once, maybe twice, and then it will hang in the air between us like all of our unresolved fights.”
It isn’t like him to be so insistent. Then again, it isn’t like him to rent a car just to stalk me. If he’s this desperate to get me to quit my work, what else has he done? What else would he be willing to do?
I have been neglecting him. I can admit that much. But then, that’s who he married. “I was never Carol Brady,” I say, keeping my voice measured, not just because we’re in public, but because I haven’t figured out what he’s angling toward.
He braces himself to speak the same diatribe he’s given a thousand times before, but I put a finger to his lips. He stays silent, his eyes wide with surprise.
You catch more flies with honey.
“I realize that I’ve been working too much,” I say. “I need to be better at the work/life balance, but that doesn’t mean I’m quitting my job, or that I’m quitting us.” Somewhere in the distance, a customer pushes the “try me” buttonon a dancing Santa, and a synthesized version of “Jingle Bell Rock” begins to play.
“How about this,” I go on. “Who says we have to wait until next Christmas? Our anniversary is in three months.”
His eyes light up with hope and warmth. “Really?”
“I don’t know about selling the car, but we have some money tucked away. We can make it work.”
He wraps his arms around me, hugging me right there in the aisle.
He smells like aftershave, coffee, and the synthetic fibers of his coat. He’s always so clean, somehow. His hair falling perfectly back into place even when he tugs nervously at it; I’ve never felt the barest prickle of a five-o’clock shadow; his nails are neatly trimmed and manicured, his hands broad and thick, but soft. Everything about him screams to my senses that he’s what I’m attracted to, the perfect man.
It’s always men who look like him, though, isn’t it? The ones who surprise you.
I imagine him creeping into Erin’s condo, lurking behind the door until she comes home from a trip to the grocery store. I imagine him threatening her, pinning her down when she tries to scream. Punching her in the eye with hard knuckles that hide behind his moisturized skin. When Elodie and I come to speak to Erin, we don’t see him hidden in the shadows, glaring at Erin so that she won’t betray his presence.
And then I imagine him taking the train into the city. Trying to intimidate Skylar the same way. But something went wrong, the struggle got out of hand, and she ended up dead. I can see him accosting her as she takes a brisk morning walk along the Hudson, shoving her so hard thatshe bashes her head on the railing before her body topples over.
Does he have it in him? The images play out like scenes in a noir film. Underlying them are the images of his tear-slicked face when he held our daughter for the first time. Or the gentle way he touches the small of my back as he passes me on his way up the stairs.
He loves me. He tells me every day. But does he love me so much he would kill to keep me safe?
Without my car, I begin to realize that I’m trapped. It isn’t as simple as getting a ride from one of the other carpool moms, or stealing away to make a private phone call. Waylen is watching me. He’s keeping track of me. And either I am making up elaborate scenarios that have no basis in reality, or I have underestimated him.
“Are you all right?” he asks.
I’m slipping. Usually I’m able to hide my pensiveness. This Bertram case has me all mixed up, and I’m getting distracted. It’s dangerous.
