We Could Be Beautiful (37 page)

I suddenly felt more awake. “My sister Caroline?”

“Yes, that one.” He chuckled.

“Why?”

“Well,” he said, appearing in boxers and a plain white shirt, “why not?”

“Okay, but why?”

“Are you upset?”

“I don’t know. I…I don’t know.” I hadn’t talked to another human being since Marty had left at noon, and it was hard to find words. “I mean, why didn’t you invite me?”

“It was spur-of-the-moment, darling. Caroline happened to be downtown, and so we met for drinks and then ended up having dinner. I’m sorry, I didn’t intend to be so late. You must have been worried.”

“I wasn’t worried. I assumed you were out with a client.”

He sat on the bed, put his hand on my thigh. I wanted him to take it off so badly, but I didn’t tell him that. “Next time we’ll invite you,” he said. “I’m sorry if you feel left out.”

He still hadn’t noticed how puffy my eyes were. “What did you talk about?”

“Bob, mostly.”

“What else did you talk about?”

“Nothing of import, I would say. We remarked on how nice it was to get to know each other better. We are going to be family soon. I thought you would appreciate it that we made this effort to bond.”

“Does she want to sleep with you?”

He took his hand off my thigh, put it over his heart. “Excuse me?”

“Just answer. And be honest. Caroline’s in a weak and destructive place right now, so it’s probably not even about you, but I still want to know. Does she want to sleep with you?”

“No,” he said. “The answer is a firm, firm no.”

It wasn’t his words that convinced me. It was the look on his face. The idea of sleeping with my sister apparently repelled him. But that didn’t mean it would in the future. Anything could happen. The future was always full of doubt.

“I don’t want you to see her again unless I’m there.”

“Whatever you want, Catherine.” He furrowed his brow. Two wrinkles above his nose. Little indents, barely there.

“William.”

“Yes?”

“Were you ever a smoker?”

“No,” he said, disgusted. “Smoking is vile.”

“It is vile,” I said slowly.

After a long silence, he said, “How was your day?”

“Fucking hormonal.” I knew he didn’t like it when I cursed, and it felt so good when I did. In this small way, I was being true to myself.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “Let me rub your feet.”

I didn’t want him touching me at first, but then I got lost in the feeling of feeling good. I’d had a long day. I deserved to have someone rub my feet at the end of a long day. He turned off the TV and put on classical music instead, something light and soothing.

“You know,” he said, “I would never do anything to hurt you, Catherine.”

“I know.”

He moved from my feet to my legs, and up from there, and by the time his warm body was hovering over mine, I did want to kiss him. Was it to remind him that he belonged to me? Herman’s bark rose above the music until he got tired and stopped. I may have cried while we made love, but not much, and afterwards, I let him hold me because I was cold.

•

In the morning he was gone. He’d left a note. No words. Just a drawing of a heart with a smiley face inside. I didn’t know if that was cute or kind of lazy, but either way, I liked it. It was better than nothing.

I needed a Tums. I might have been abusing Tums because I felt so nauseous all the time. I grabbed my purse off the floor, pulled the bottle out of the side pocket, took two. Took one more. Got out of bed.

•

“Lucia?”

“Miss Catherine?”

I followed her voice to the kitchen, where she was unloading the dishwasher.

“You would like a coffee?”

“No, I need you to run some errands for me today, please. I need you to get fresh flowers from the Upper East Side, from where my mother used to go. Eighty-Third Street—do you remember?”

“Yes, okay, I remember, but why we no get flowers from Tommy?”

“I want them from Eighty-Third Street today.”

Lucia looked at the flowers on the countertop, which had been bought the day before and looked perfect. “These no good?”

“I want new ones.”

Lucia shrugged. “Okay.”

“And pick up the dry cleaning, too.”

“Yes, Miss Catherine, okay. I see you feeling better today, yes?”

“I don’t know, Lucia. What does
better
mean?”

“Eh, okay? I don’t understand.”

“Never mind. Just go, please.”

“I go now?”

“Yes, you go now. And take the subway.”

“No taxi?”

“Subway.”

She looked displeased, and I felt guilty, so I gave her $40. “And take yourself to lunch.”

After she’d gone, I locked the deadbolt and returned to William’s office. There had to be something. There had to be more. There had to be a reason he didn’t want me in here.

The pictures again, the drawers again, the locked computer again. My tree outside the window again, losing more of its leaves. I expanded my search to the whole den. I looked behind the TV, behind the blankets in the cupboards, under the couch cushions, under the couch. Under the carpet. What did I expect to find there? Maybe a trapdoor he had built? I’d seen too many movies. I was going insane.

And what exactly was I looking for? Papers, an object, many objects? How big was it?

I had to sit down, I was going to throw up. I put his little trash can between my legs and waited. I needed more Tums.

And then I was opening the drawers again, looking again for secret drawers under the real drawers, for hidden compartments. A safe, maybe, a key to a safe, a gun. I didn’t know.

I thought I heard my phone ringing upstairs. I waited, waited, waited. I couldn’t decide whether it was actually ringing or not. I sat very still, made no noise. And then my eyes settled on the X-Acto knife. Why would William have an X-Acto knife? What would he possibly need this for? I remembered how he’d said he made cutouts as a kid but wasn’t very good at it. Was he trying again now? I picked the knife up, pushed out the blade. There were little tiny bits of paper stuck to the serrated edge.

So I was looking for paper, cut-up paper. Nothing in the drawers; I already knew that. And then I looked at the books. Books were made of paper. I started opening them. I would flip through the pages of every book, and then I would call this mission off and go check my phone. William’s books were alphabetized. I hadn’t noticed that before. They were mostly coffee-table books, big sturdy things with big pictures. Of art and architecture and the castles of Scotland and the gardens of Europe.

Michelle Bellario’s book. How had I not seen this in his library before? The cover was a subdued green that didn’t stick out. Pictures of her sculptures. Yes, there were the pillows. Right, some of them had been installed in a park upstate. But there were so many books and Lucia would be home soon and I didn’t have time to linger right now. I flipped quickly.

I almost missed it. I could have blinked a split second too early or late and missed it. But in the flipping, I saw a flash of green. A square had been carved through the pages of the second half of the book. With an X-Acto knife, probably. In the square, a pack of Kools.

“No.”

Shock. I expected to cry, scream, something, but I stayed very still instead. William was a smoker. William was the guy. Mae was right. This stupid pack of cigarettes showed me everything I hadn’t wanted to see. William was a liar. He was a person I didn’t know.

They were menthols. Was this why he smelled like mint? And he was not only a smoker, but he smoked Kools? I would have expected something classier. Djarums, maybe. American Spirits maybe. Marlboros even. But Kools?

William was a person I didn’t know at all.

I stared at the square. It was creepy, how well he had cut it. He hadn’t done this just to be practical. He hadn’t been in a rush. He had taken his sweet time. He had obviously used a ruler. He had felt proud making this little house for his secret.

40

A
t first I thought, A hammer. I need a hammer to remove the hooks in the wall. But I didn’t know where the hammer was in my house. I walked to the tapestry. I touched it. All the work it had taken to make this, all those tiny pulls of string. I would get the ladder—I knew where that was, it was in the closet downstairs—and I would look for the hammer. But then something took over. I pulled. I pulled harder. I yanked violently. I broke into a sweat. Nothing mattered but taking this thing off my wall. The corners ripped. The fabric landed in a soundless heap. I’d like to say I forgot the image immediately, but I didn’t. The hollow eyes of that woman. Even now I sometimes think of her.

•

I sat at the dining room table and waited for him. I’d put Michelle’s book on the table. That would say everything. And then I would ask him why. Why had he come back? What did he want from me?

My phone beeped. William. “I’ll be home in five minutes.”

Good. He would explain why he had done this and then we would…what? Wait? Wait together for the baby to be born? Split the proceeds, never speak again? I had a hard time imagining he would leave quietly. And the next six months, waiting—it would be unbearable. There would be fighting. If I confronted him now, it would be worse. This was a bad idea.

I ran down to the office. I put the book back on the shelf. Just as I walked into the entryway, he opened the door.

“Hello darling,” he said. “Oh dear, did I scare you? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

“No, no.” I smoothed my hair.

“I thought we might order in tonight. What do you think?”

Herman came sprinting down the stairs. William picked him up off the ground. “Hello, little guy,” he cooed, and kissed Herman’s head. “And one for you, my darling.” He leaned in to kiss me.

I turned a cheek.

“Is something wrong?”

“I think you have dog hair on your lip.”

“Oh dear,” he said, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.

We walked up the stairs. “How do you feel about sushi?”

“I’m pregnant. Raw fish?”

“Oh, right, I’m sorry, I wasn’t thinking.”

“Let’s just order a pizza,” I said. “That’ll be easy.”

“The path of least resistance,” he said as we reached the top of the staircase, “is always a good way to go.”

•

It wasn’t until we sat down to eat that he noticed. “Oh, the tapestry.”

“I know,” I said, looking straight at him. “It fell.”

William scanned the wall. “Odd. The hooks are still in place.”

“Very odd,” I said.

We didn’t like our pizza the same way. I liked cheese and he liked the works, so I’d ordered it just like that, half and half, split down the middle. It was passive-aggressive of me to ask for jalapeños on his side—I knew that—but I couldn’t stop myself, or I didn’t try hard enough. The words just came out and I let them. William hated jalapeños.

He bit into his pizza. He hadn’t seen them. And then he was coughing, and spitting the pizza into a napkin, and sipping the wine I had poured him, which I might have spiked with cyanide if I had known where to buy cyanide. He was still coughing, his eyes red and watery. Herman was freaking out.

“Are you okay?”

“Yes. Ahh.” He drank more wine, caught his breath. “Jalapeños.”

“Oh no. I’m sorry—I just said ‘the works.’ I didn’t realize it came with jalapeños.”

“Usually it doesn’t.” He swallowed hard. “May I have a slice of cheese?”

I looked at the pizza like I really cared about it. “I was going to save my leftovers for tomorrow. I’m trying to be thrifty.” I held his eyes. “That’s what you want, isn’t it?”

He sat back in his chair, studied me. “Are you angry with me, Catherine?”

“Fine,” I said, “have some of my pizza.” And then, because he was still staring, I said, “I know, it’s only pizza. I can save in other ways. But like you’ve been saying, I don’t get my monthly deposits anymore, so I should pay better attention to money. And I really agree with that. Darling. I think it’s a great point.”

“Yes, but now things are different. We don’t need to be so frugal. When the baby is born, we’ll be okay again.”

“Will we?”

“It’s a lot of money.”

“It is, but we’ll spend it, and what then?”

“I’m not sure. Maybe we’ll have two children.” He laughed. “Or three!”

“I’m almost forty-four years old, William. It’s a miracle I got pregnant once.”

He nodded in a serious way. “Well, one will have to be enough then.”

“I worry nothing will ever be enough.”

He took a slice of cheese. “Thank you for sharing with me.”

“You’re welcome.”

“Catherine,” he said, “this financial scare has put a good amount of fear into you, hasn’t it?”

“I guess it has.”

“Well, let’s think logically now. Caroline mentioned that she received her payment two to three weeks after each baby was born. It takes that long to process the paperwork, apparently.”

“She just happened to mention that in passing?”

“I suppose she did, yes. The point is, when we receive those funds, we can invest them properly so that they will last as long as possible. I’ll make sure of that, trust me.”

“Don’t worry, I trust you.” When I heard those words come out of my mouth, so cool and convincing, I knew that Marty was no longer right about me. I had become a good liar.

41

W
e awoke in separate bedrooms. After he’d fallen asleep in the guest room, I went back to the master. I couldn’t sleep next to him. It was like the pizza. This was how things would be now. Together but separate. For the next six months, plus the few weeks it would take to process the paperwork, we would exist like this: side by side and never closer than that. I would avoid him as much as possible.

Before work, he came into the bedroom and said, “What are you doing here? Did you slip out during the night? I thought the Tempur-Pedic was out of the question.”

“I changed my mind.”

He knotted his tie. “Well, I’m happy to return to it.”

“I want to sleep alone for a while, if that’s okay with you. I can’t sleep when I’m lying next to you. It’s not you, it’s me. It’s the pregnancy. I just…is that okay?”