The Pajama Affair (3 page)

“If it’s a secret, why would I tell you?” He yawned.

Why, indeed, she thought. He never told her his secrets. Why start now? After a moment of thoughtful silence she realized he was asleep. She listened to his deep, heavy breathing for a while, and then she closed the phone. Would he have fallen asleep if Scarlet had been the one to call him? That was always the question that tormented her. How different would he act if he was crazy in love with her? If it was Scarlet, would he have immediately immersed himself in the mystery of where the tape came from? Would he have rushed over to check the house in order to make sure there was nothing amiss? Or, as with her, would he have immediately chalked the whole thing up to one of her personality quirks and quickly forgotten it? If she knew him, he would never mention it again.

Chapter 3

Liza lay awake and thought about the piece of tape for a long time. When it was finally time to get up for church she felt sleepy again, but she forced herself to get out of bed. There was nothing for forcing away anxiety like a morning spent at church.

Then she stole into the bathroom, caught sight of her hair, and stopped short with a gasp. Somehow she had forgotten the trauma of her hair. If anything, it was worse this morning. Now it stood out in spikes all over her head, the exact color and shape of a dandelion. She hoped a shower might wash away some of the chemicals, but it was a vain hope. At least it lay down after she blow-dried it, although as she stood in the tiny bathroom she felt like all the light in the room was being absorbed by her hair. She watched closely to see if it would pulsate like a living thing, but it remained stiff, dry, and unmoving.

Faced with yet another bowl of tasteless cereal she groaned and forlornly opened her cupboard. She wanted something different, but she couldn’t go out now, not with hair the color of the sun. She took out the box of cereal, and then she perked up. There was one place she could go where no one would care about her hair. She quickly wolfed down a piece of whole wheat toast, sipped her coffee, picked up her phone, and dialed.

“Hello,”
Marion
said. She didn’t answer until the sixth ring, but Liza was used to that.
Marion
was forever losing her phone and dashing around madly in search of it when it rang.

“Mar, want to hang out today?”

“Puck and I are having a day in.”

“Oh.” Liza tried and failed to keep the disappointment out of her tone.

“Come for lunch. Puck’s cooking,”
Marion
hastened to add. Unlike Liza,
Marion
was a horrible cook. Puck had spent two years as a culinary arts major before moving on to something else.

“I don’t want to intrude,” Liza said, although she did want to intrude. Very much. She was lonely.

Marion
snorted an indelicate laugh. “Right. Puck and I have planned a perfectly romantic day of reading the paper and doing the crossword together.”

That did sound romantic to Liza. She and Dirk rarely did mundane things together, unless eating supper together counted. If there was one thing Dirk truly appreciated about her, it was her cooking skills, and he made no secret of the fact. She usually cooked supper for them a couple of times a week and while they ate they talked about their lives like a real couple. To her those meals together were the foundation of their relationship. What were they to him? A chance to get a home cooked meal for free?

“Hello, are you there?”
Marion
asked.

“Hmm.” Liza shook her head and snapped to attention. “I’m here. Lunch sounds great. What time?”

“It’s brunch, actually. Come over now.”

“But I just ate breakfast.”

“So?”

“I’m going to be too big for my pants by the end of summer.”

“I’ll loan you some of mine,”
Marion
said dryly.

Liza smiled affectionately at the phone as they disconnected.
Marion
was a few inches shorter than her, and what they liked to call, “pleasantly plump.” She had made peace with her weight, though, because she liked to eat and hated to exercise.

“I would rather be unhappy with my body and happy with my food than starving and able to fit in a size six,”
Marion
often said. Occasionally Liza wondered if this was a snipe at her. She was a size six, after all. But then she would erase the thought.
Marion
wasn’t catty, and besides, she knew Liza liked to eat as much as she did. The fact that she was better at stopping and more disciplined about exercise was the only thing that kept her in her size sixes.

Speaking of exercise, she would need to do that today. It was more difficult to maintain her disciplined schedule of running in the summertime without the daily grind of school to keep her on track.

She shoved a baseball hat over her head and stared at the mirror with a frown. She wasn’t one of those girls who could pull off wearing a baseball hat. She looked more at home in a skirt and sweater set than casual wear. The only reason she owned a hat was because Dirk gave it to her. It bore the promotional logo of his car dealership, and he said it would be good advertisement for him if she wore it occasionally.

“I’ll let you paint a billboard on my back, but it’s going to cost you,” she had replied.

He had smiled at her in a way that sent her heart thrumming, even after five years together. “How much?”

“I charge by the letter,” she had said, a little breathlessly.

“Maybe we can work out a payment plan,” he had said, and then he kissed her.

She came to with a start. Was it sleep deprivation that was causing her to daydream today, or something else? She started to leave the house but remembered the piece of tape, so she left her car running while she jogged to her bedroom. She stuffed the tape in her pocket and set off for the short drive to
Marion
’s house.

Marion
lived in the old historic part of town. To say her neighbors hated her would be an understatement. Initially when she bought the house she had good intentions of keeping up on it. But with
Marion
intentions never panned out. Soon her house fell into mild disrepair and her yard was perpetually overgrown and oozing lawn ornaments. It was a stark contrast to the other homes in the neighborhood who proudly displayed their historical heritage with crisply painted gingerbread trim and immaculate, barren lawns. To his credit, Puck occasionally did something to help the struggling house, but only when he felt like it and had nothing better to do.

“One of your neighbors just flipped me off,” Liza announced when she let herself into the house.

Marion
exited the kitchen to meet her and rolled her eyes. “They are so passive aggressive,” she said unconcernedly. “Which one was it, the middle-aged man or the old lady?”

“The middle aged guy,” Liza said on a laugh. “Does the old lady really do it too?”

“With both hands,”
Marion
said.

She turned to go and Liza followed her, picking her way around the piles. The only thing that kept
Marion
from being a hoarder was her strange obsession with cleaning her floors, toilets and sinks. She scrubbed them almost every day, which was why Liza never felt averse to eating at her house, crowded though it was. Transversely, old piles of papers, books, and knickknacks grew unabated on every surface. The dishes might also have piled up if not for Puck. The kitchen was his domain, and it was mostly clutter free. Even though he had his own apartment
Marion
respected the space as his and left her mess out of it.

“Whoa,” Puck said when Liza entered the kitchen. His eyes zeroed in on her hair, which was now taking on a life of its own by lifting the baseball cap off her head.

“It’s not that bad,”
Marion
insisted. Liza knew if not for her guilt she would say exactly how bad it was. Brutal honesty was one of the best parts of their friendship.

“It is that bad,” Liza said. “But hopefully it’s only temporary.” She took off the hat and tossed it onto a stool.

“Better not let Dirk see you wearing his hat on that hair,” Puck said.

Liza frowned at his back. Puck and Dirk had never met. Why did Puck sound like he knew Dirk’s reaction, and how had he guessed correctly? Then she realized he sounded exactly like
Marion
. He must have formed his impression of Dirk through her. It wasn’t that Dirk and
Marion
didn’t get along. They were polite to each other, and sometimes they even had fun together. But when the three of them were together the atmosphere felt strained with tension for some reason. If Liza didn’t know better she would think they were jealous of each other, but of course that couldn’t be it. For
Marion
it was most likely protectiveness. She was wary of Dirk and suspicious of his relationship with Liza.

As for Dirk, he didn’t appear to have a jealous bone in his body, at least when it came to Liza. She was convinced if he walked in on her making out with another man he would calmly ask what was for dinner and then wait patiently for her finish up and cook. Not that she had ever had cause to test her theory. In five years no other man had so much as looked at her, much less hit on her.

Brunch was delicious. Liza almost forgot her original purpose for wanting to get together. It wasn’t until she stuck her hand in her pocket for her lip gloss that she felt the piece of tape.

“I have to tell you something weird,” she prefaced.

Marion
gagged and choked on a sip of coffee. “You’re pregnant.”

“What? No,” Liza yelled before making herself relax. “Why would you even guess that?”

Marion
shrugged and wouldn’t meet her gaze.

“
Marion
,” she pressed.

“It would be a guaranteed way to get Dirk’s attention and snag a commitment.”

Liza’s cheeks flamed.
Marion
knew her better than anyone in the world. The fact that she thought she would stoop so low was a blow, and also a revelation. Had she sunk so low in her pursuit of Dirk?

“What was the weird thing?”
Marion
asked tentatively. Her eyes were apologetic. She knew she had given offense, but she hadn’t meant to.

Liza sighed and tried to brush aside her bruised feelings. “This,” she said. She pulled the piece of tape out of her pocket and set it on the table.

“It’s a piece of tape,” Puck said, clearly unimpressed.

Liza nodded. “I found it in my pajamas.” She told them the strange tale of waking to find the tape in her pajamas.

“I’m sure it was there all along and you missed it,”
Marion
said reasonably.

“But the tape wasn’t wrinkled, and the ink is fresh. You know how masking tape looks when it goes through the wash,” Liza argued.

Marion
shrugged, clearly disinterested. She stood and began to clear the dishes.

Puck leaned forward intently, his eyes gleaming. “Was there anything else unusual lately, anything out of the ordinary you noticed?”

Liza pressed her lips together and thought hard. “The lock on my front door was sticky, and the mat was askew.” She frowned, remembering. “And when I came inside I caught a whiff of strange cologne.” She had forgotten all that in light of the tape. But those were all such little things. They couldn’t mean anything, could they?

Puck smiled triumphantly and brushed a lock of long bangs out of his eyes. He was really quite cute, in a little boy sort of way. “Aw, man, I can’t believe this. This is awesome.”

“What is awesome?”
Marion
asked the question Liza was thinking.

“Don’t you see? Someone broke into Liza’s place and left that message in her pajamas.” In his excitement he rocked back and forth a couple of times as he spoke.

“Who leaves messages in pajamas? A disgruntled Fruit of the Loom?”
Marion
asked, although she spoke affectionately because she was looking at Puck with a smile.

“Nah. Come on, Mar. Think about it. What better place to leave a message than the pajamas of an unsuspecting schoolteacher?” he said.

“Anywhere on the planet,”
Marion
replied, then giggled when Puck drew her onto his lap and bit her neck.

Liza looked away and fought back the sudden sting of tears. Such a simple, loving gesture, but one Dirk had never performed with her. In fact, she had never sat in his lap, and she didn’t remember him ever touching her in a way that would make her giggle. This was why they never double dated with Puck and Marion. Not only because it was difficult to imagine stable and conscientious Dirk spending the evening with someone named “Puck” but also because it would be a glaring example of all that was lacking in their relationship--the causal intimacy, the little touches and looks. The
romance
.
 

“Seriously, though,”
Marion
said, straightening. “What possible motive could someone have for leaving a message in Liza’s pajamas?”

“That’s what makes it brilliant,” Puck said. “There is none.” The two women were looking at him in confusion. He sighed in exasperation. “Don’t you see? If you wanted to hide something, really hide it, you would put it in the least likely place. If someone was looking for that message they would search all the usual places, but they would never think to search somewhere random. It’s like instead of making your computer password the name of your dog, you make it the name of your third grade teacher’s dog. It’s so remotely connected to you that no one would ever guess it, but you’ll know what it is and why you chose it.”

Maybe she had been spending too much time with Puck lately because he was beginning to make sense to Liza. What if someone selected her on purpose because she was random and her randomness would keep the message hidden?