‘We should go to a club,’ Ben’s boss says on TV.
Elena stands, rushes to the downstairs bathroom. Richard is calling after her as she kneels, head in hands, skin hot and cold all at once.
‘Elena, are you OK?’
‘Yes,’ she whispers.No. No, I’m not OK. How is this story on TV?
He’s standing outside the bathroom door when she comes out. Her lovely Richard, so unlike Kyle.
‘You’re jetlagged.’ He kisses her clammy forehead. ‘I’m wrecked too. All the solo-parenting I’ve been doing. Why don’t we go to bed and watch the rest tomorrow night?’
‘I’m fine, let’s keep going. I don’t want to give in to jetlag.’ And she needs to see what happens next.
Back on the couch, Richard presses play.
Ben’s boss has suggested they all go to a club called Pulse, and Ben and Marcia readily agree. Elena leans closer, scrutinising every detail. Therearedifferences. The dinner party is with Ben’s boss, his wife, plus two of Ben’s colleagues and their husbands – eight people in total. At the real-life dinner party, there were only four. The house is different too, that’s clear. Ben and Marcia’s spiral staircase, for example – the house Elena and Kyle shared was beautiful but not quite so architectural. There are differences ... but there are more similarities. How could anyone know this story?
Onscreen, Ben’s boss and his wife get into a cab as Ben and Marcia lock the front door.
‘Did you unlock Jane’s room?’ Marcia whispers.
A brief pause. ‘Sure,’ Ben says. ‘Of course I did.’
‘You’re certain?’ Marcia asks.
‘Yes.’ Impatient now. ‘Anyway, she’s out for the count, she won’t even know we’re gone.’
Marcia frowns, clearly uncomfortable. But she doesn’t push it.
Elena feels prickles of sweat again, remembering the long-ago cab, the whispered conversation about unlocking Kristina’s door.Oh god.
‘Uh-oh,’ Richard says. ‘This is not going to end well for someone, but I can’t tell who yet.’
For Kristina, Elena thinks, her heart thundering in her ribcage.It doesn’t end well for Kristina.
‘I bet the roommate goes nuts, breaks out of her room, then lies in wait for them,’ Richard says.
No, Elena thinks.No. It will be a fire.
And then there it is. As Ben and Marcia and their dinner party guests drink champagne in a nearby club, the grill at the house catches fire. The crème brûlées. The goddamn crème brûlées, and they’d forgotten to turn off the grill. Black smoke thickens and snakes its way through the house as flames take hold, engulfing the kitchen.
Elena thinks she might be sick again but she has to keep watching. The next part almost breaks her.
On TV, Jane is awake.
Elena has always told herself Kristina never woke up, never knew what happened. That it was painless. But in this TV version, it all plays out. Jane getting out of bed, seeing black smoke come under the door. Grabbing the handle, turning it. Realising the door is locked. Feeling for the key that’s always there, always on her side of the door. Only this time it’s not. Shouting for help. Trying the door to the kitchen, the door to the garage, over and over. Searching for the phone that’s not there. Running to the window, her arm over her mouth and nose. The small, triple-glazed window in the converted home office. A locked window with no key. Not for any good reason, not to trap her, not even to keep burglars out. Just a missing key the way sometimes keys are missing.
The action switches to the nightclub – Ben and Marcia leaving, grabbing a cab. Happy, excited, champagne-giddy. The promotion is in the bag, Ben says, leaning over to kiss Marcia as the cab takes off towards home. Towards what’s left of home.
As the credits roll, Richard tops up Elena’s wine, oblivious to her horror. Someone knows the story. Who and how?
‘So, what do you reckon – did Marcia really believe Ben had unlocked the door or was she just going along with it?’ Richard muses.
‘I think Marcia believed the door was unlocked,’ Elena says, her voice low, halting. ‘Marcia thought Jane could get out, that Ben was telling the truth.’
Richard hauls himself off the couch to go to the bathroom. ‘Will we watch the third episode?’
Elena nods, her eyes on her phone, Google open.
