Beautiful Illusions (15 page)

I made a face. Hide? Why would I hide from Alexis? In spite of myself, I was starting to consider her to be a friend.

I ran up the stairs to the guest bedroom with the artwork from the unknown, where I spent the first night in this house.

Alexis was pounding on the door. “I know you’re in there, you little shit!”

Ryan looked panicked. I was up above, looking down at him. He looked shaken.

“Let me in there right now! I mean right now!”

He ran up the stairs as I retreated back into the bedroom. “Stay in here!”

“What’s going on?”

“She’s really high. I knew it the second I looked out the door at her. Her pupils are dilated beyond belief and she looks a mess.”

“High on?” I didn’t know too much about heroin, still her drug of choice, but I did know that it didn’t make people act the way Alexis was acting.

“I would say cocaine.”
Cocaine. What are we, back in the ‘80s?
“She’s also probably manic. She tends do more cocaine when she’s manic, which, of course, just makes it that much worse.”

Oh, she’s bipolar? That explains a lot. “Why didn’t you tell me she has bi-polar disorder?”

“I don’t know, it probably didn’t come up.”

Alexis was pounding, louder and louder. “You open up, or I’ll kick your precious stained-glass bird in, I swear I will!” At that, she started kicking the door, on the wood part, just below the bird. The door was enormous and solid, but the bird was not. Alexis would shatter that bird, there was not a doubt.

“Stay here! Don’t move,” Ryan said, as he ran back down the stairs.

He ran to th
e door, unlocking the deadbolt.

“Where is she?” Alexis demanded.

“Where is who?”

“Who do you think?  What do you see in that toad, anyhow?”

Hey! I mean, I know that I’m not supermodel status like you are, Alexis, but I try. I don’t think I’m exactly a toad.

“She’s not here.” Ryan didn’t address the “toad” comment, but I guess that it was just as well.

“Well, then, I’ll wait. What do you have to eat?”

“Why do you want to talk to her?”

“Nunya.”

“It is my business, Alexis. Why do you want to talk to her?”

“I saw Nick today. I ran into him at the liquor store.”
Him? Nick is a him? What the hell?

“Oh, shit. Alexis, you wouldn’t…”

“Oh, wouldn’t I? Listen, I don’t have anything against your little rando of a girlfriend. She seems pretty nice, actually. I’m only looking out for her.”
Oh, now I am a rando? She thinks that I’m just a random person in Ryan’s life?

“Alexis, please.” Then he lowered his voice, but I could still hear what he said. “I haven’t told her about that.”

Told me about what? Oh, lord, what now? What next?

“Why are you lowering your voice?” Alexis was no dummy, even when she’s high. She immediately figured that I was somewhere in the house because Ryan lowered his voice. “She’s here, somewhere, isn’t she?”

“I told you, she isn’t here.”

“Bullshit.” Now she was coming up the stairs. I hid in the closet
. She was immediately in the room. She opened the closet door. “Oh, in the closet, huh?” Ryan was right behind her. She looked back at him. “How appropriate. Now you’re both in the closet.” Alexis laughed wickedly at her own joke.

What does that mean? And who the hell is Nick?

She rubbed her chin, looking at me. “Nah, I can’t do it.” Then she turned to Ryan. “You know what I want. I want that Cezanne. I know where all the bodies are buried. Every last body. I will burn you to the ground. To the fucking ground.”
I hope that the she is using “buried bodies” as a figure of speech.

I didn’t speak.

“I’m going to go now,” Alexis said, stumbling down the stairs.

Ryan was on the phone with Daniel. He knew that she couldn’t drive, although she apparently drove over here
. Daniel was over in less than five minutes. “Oh, hell no. I’ll drive myself,” Alexis said upon seeing Daniel. However, Ryan had already gone through her purse and taken her keys. “Where are my keys? Give me those fucking things.”

“Here, Alexis, drink this glass of water before you go.”

“I don’t want water.” But she drank it anyway. Ryan nodded to Daniel, who was standing in the doorway. Within 10 minutes, Alexis was passed out on the couch. Ryan and Daniel picked her up and put her into the Escalade.

“Thanks, man,” Ryan told Daniel.

“Of course. We have to stop meeting this way.”

“Don’t forget to bring her back to her car when she sobers up.”

He nodded. “I know the drill by now.”

“You’re a lifesaver, buddy.”

Daniel nodded and drove off, with Alexis passed out in the passenger’s seat. I wondered what kind of drug Ryan gave her to make her pass out like that, when she was so wired before. Must’ve been something pretty potent.

I looked back at Ryan, who looked shocked and shaken. He was literally shaking, too.

Now you’re both in the closet. What the fuck?

I was scared to ask. “What was that about?”

“Excuse me.” He took his phone into the other room. “Yes, Dr. Halder? Thanks for answering the phone so late. No, no, I’m ok. Do you have an afternoon open sometime this week? As soon as possible? I need about three hours of your time, if possible.” He stood, silently, on the phone for about five minutes. “Wednesday. Anything sooner?” Then “Yes, yes, I understand. Thanks for clearing your schedule for me on Wednesday.”

He came out. “Uh, what are you doing on Wednesday at 1?”

“Well, let’s see,” I said, looking at my iPhone. Ryan bought that for me as a gift the first week that I moved in. “You need to be better organized,” he explained when he bought it. I couldn’t argue with that. “Uh, I have a couple of new intakes. I could always reschedule them.” I was a little bit upset about getting into the rescheduling business again. I was trying to be more responsible. I couldn’t lose my practice now, because then I would be a total loser. Ryan wouldn’t want an unemployed loser living with him.

“I normally wouldn’t ask you to do that, but this is important.”

“You want me to go to your therapist with you.” That was a statement, not a question, because I knew the answer.

“Yes. Please.”

“Ok.”

Then I was on the phone with Melinda. She wasn’t happy. “You’re rescheduling again? You were getting so much better.”

“Yeah, I know, but this is an emergency.”

“Ok,” she grumbled.

“Thanks.”

I turned to Ryan. “Done.”

He took a deep breath. “Ok, now you have to promise me something.”

“What’s that?”

“You won’t ask me a single question about what Alexis said, or what you heard Alexis saying, until we can sit in Dr. Halder’s office together.”

Shit, that was in three more days!. My curiosity, and, I admit, panic, was killing me
.
“Deal,” I said, faking a smile.

He let out a deep breath
. “God, I love you.” Then he was back on the phone. “Yes, Dr. Halder. It’s Ryan again.” Pause. “Yes, I hope that is ok if I bring my fiancee in as well on Wednesday.” Pause. “Thanks for accommodating us.”

I looked at him.
Fiancee?

I suddenly felt terrified for some odd reason.

The three days that I had to wait to see Ryan’s therapist was sheer hell. Over and over again I heard Alexis’ words “Now you’re both in the closet,” and I couldn’t stop obsessing about who Nick was
. Now I knew that Nick was a man, and…
No, no, stop that. It isn’t that
. I was sorry that I ever agreed to Ryan’s condition that I not talk to him about what Alexis had said before Wednesday.

It wasn’t exactly fun being around Ryan, either
. There was an elephant in the room that neither of us could address just yet. My mind was going 1,000 miles an hour, considering all the possibilities. While Alexis chose not to reveal Ryan’s secret to me that night, she did plenty of damage without coming right out and telling me what’s going on. Perhaps that was her objective.

She played her hand perfectly.

I realized that one of her main goals was to get Ryan back any way she possibly could. Yes, she wanted material possessions, but it had always been clear to me that for her, he was the ultimate prize.
You screwed up lady, now your trash is my treasure.
Not that Ryan could, or should, be considered to be anybody’s “trash.” So, who knows? Perhaps she was just putting something out there that wasn’t true at all in an attempt to put doubt in my brain about Ryan. With me out of the picture, she could worm her way back into this good graces, perhaps.

These were all the thoughts which were going through my mind as I tried to concentrate on work. Such concentration was impossible. Unfortunately, I had a custody hearing on Tuesday, the day before the fateful trip to the therapist. My head was not in the game, and my client, the mother, wasn’t the most reasonable woman in the world.

I blew the hearing. I barely had looked at the file, and did not review the depositions, so my cross-examination of the sleazy father on the stand left much to be desired. The hearing went down in defeat, as I knew that it would, and the mother stormed out of the room.

“I’m sorry, but, you know, these cases are hard to win.” Which was true. The mother was seeking a temporary custody order restricting visitation, and these cases are really difficult to win, because the judges are so inclined to give liberal visitation to each parent. The burden of proof was really high.

“That’s ok, I understand.”

Of course, it turns out that she didn’t understand
. Upon alighting in my office, Melinda let me have it with both barrels. “Rachel called and she wants her money back.”

I rolled my eyes. “She’s not getting it.”

“She’s really pissed and wants to go to the bar. She says that you committed legal malpractice on the stand.”

She does have a point
.
“Here’s an accounting of my hours. She actually owes me money.”

“I’m telling you, she’s going to be trouble. She says that you were not prepared at all.”

“Whatever.”

“She needs the money back so that she can hire another attorney.”

“She’s not getting anything, and that’s that.”

“Listen, you spent the entire day on the computer in your office, surfing the Internet instead of reading her file
. You owe her an explanation, and I think that you should give back the money.”

I did spend the day on the Internet, looking at crazy cats and reading message boards for trashy television, that was true. I didn’t review the file, also true
.
Guilty as charged.
But I’m the one who is supposed to be giving orders to Melinda, not the other way around. Unfortunately, I couldn’t hit her with the fact that she, herself, spends too much time on the Internet, because that just wasn’t true. She was a hard, diligent worker, and I never once caught her surfing when she was supposed to be working. I had no defense to the charges.

“I’ll think about it.
” I was realizing, anew, how burned out I was on the whole practice of law. I just wasn’t very good anymore. I never did have much passion for it. The law never burned inside of me. It was simply a means to an end.
So, what’s the worst that could happen? I get my wrist slapped for not diligently representing a client. Happens every day.

But my performance in the courtroom nagged at me
. I did suck in there. But I couldn’t afford to repay her retainer. I was still living hand to mouth, although things were admittedly better since moving in with Ryan. He wasn’t charging me anything to live there with him. He owned the house outright, so there wasn’t a mortgage, and he wouldn’t take money from me anyways. I no longer had to worry about rent or utilities.

I worried anew about my future prospects
. Ryan was crazy about me, but I currently have a somewhat respectable position. He wouldn’t be too embarrassed to introduce me to his board members or his high society friends. However, if I decided to walk away from the practice of law to work at Whole Foods, then that would be a different story. Plus, Alexis, for all her craziness, was a highly respected attorney herself. She was a partner at a large firm, and she was educated at Yale. That’s who he should be with – a beautiful law firm partner. But, he had chosen to be with me, so I had to bring something to the table. I just had to suck it up.

It was very discouraging. I was dealing with the reality of my burnout, at the same time that I was anticipating a major bombshell from the therapist.

I wasn’t having a good day.

I came home, and Ryan was waiting for me. A huge bouquet of roses was on the table
. There was also candle light, and I could smell dinner waiting for me. He opened a bottle of his wine.

“Love, I know that you’re stressed out. I’m so very sorry about all of this
. I’m sorry to make you wait to find out what’s going on. I wish that there was something I could do. I know that dinner and roses won’t take away your anxiety, but I just wanted to make the gesture.”