Chapter Thirty-Seven
I find my way backto our hotel. There was only one room left, a last-second cancellation, and we snapped it up.
God, I’m such a cliché. Husband is cheating on me with a younger woman. I’m contemplating her murder, and meanwhile, sipping cheap wine as I spy on other apparently happy couples. Fuck every last one of them.
On the balcony overlooking the water, I watch as a couple in their seventies mingles with thirtysomethings. They laugh, drink mojitos, and flirt as though they don’t know they are more than twice the age of their fellow beachgoers. Once I fell for Brian, I always assumed that would be us someday, that the passion wouldn’t die. I assumed he wouldn’t be sleeping with someone half my age and doing god knows what else.
I sigh and dial my sister, anything to shift my mind elsewhere as I wait for Ian to report back.
“Your dog pissed on my carpet,” she greets me.
“Did you take her on a walk?”
“Of course not! It’s a hundred and ten out. Or haven’t you heard of global warming?”
“Piper, you still have to take her out. She can’t hold it all day.”
Piper sighs. “I don’t want kids. I don’t want dogs. I don’t even want a cat. How am I going to be a single cat lady someday without a cat?”
I open my mouth, then snap it shut. I’m going to assume that’s a rhetorical question.
“So, how’s San Diego?”
“How did you know I’m in San Diego?” I stop with the tiny plastic bottle of wine halfway to my mouth.
Piper snorts. “Oh, please. Graham told me. And don’t try to give me the same BS story you gave him. You obviously suspect Brian is cheating on you. Something was going on the other night, and then he leaves town, and you need me to watch your dog and Graham to watch the girls last second?Andask us to not tell Brian about it? Psh. No way you’re going to all that trouble for a romantic evening in California.”
Well, okay, put that way it seems obvious. I’d tried to give the impression I was planning a surprise and needed them to keep it quiet.
“So, what? Is he cheating on you or not?”
Yes,I think, but I don’t want to open that can of worms, not yet. “I don’t know.”
“Why didn’t you just tell me? I would have helped you.”
I lick my lips. “I just—I mean, I didn’t want to tell anyone until I’m sure.”
“So what’re you gonna do if he’s cheating on you? Kick him out?”
Maybe this is a good thing. If she and my brother think he’s cheating on me, it’s a reason that Brian might suddenly disappear. I’ll just have to be sure to hide the body really well. Or get rid of it altogether.
“I was planning on killing him.” The words slip from my mouth.
She cackles. “Good. I’ll help you hide the body.”
“Haha,” I say, secretly wishing shewouldhelp me hide a body. Bodies are heavy—there’s a reason it’s calleddeadweight.
“So why are you calling?” she asks.
“Just…wanted to say hi. Drinking alone in a hotel. You know.”
“Oh, do I.”
We talk for another twenty minutes—mostly about the new fitness club location she hopes to open by next year. It’s around nine when we finally disconnect, Piper to take Bear on a much-needed walk, and me to skulk to the lobby for another mini bottle of wine.
I skip the elevator—so far, no one’s tried to make me collateral damage, but I’d rather not make it easy for them to do so. In the lobby, I peer through a glass-front refrigerator, staring at the cheap plastic bottles of rosé, pinot grigio, merlot. I’m no wine expert, but I am used to a certain quality, and the idea of another bottle of this crap makes my stomach turn. But the alcohol will at least slow this rising pressure inside me, this need to kill. Desperate times call for desperate measures, and cheap wine or no, it might keep me from murdering someone tonight.
I grab the rosé—the sweetness will likely disguise the cheapness—and hand over cash to the attendant. When I turn, I lock eyes with a woman watching me from across the lobby. She’s tall, blond, maybe forty-five. There’s something about her, and the way she looks back at me, I’d guess she feels the same way about me.
