Then
Monday, July 6
Brooklyn, New York
It was weird as hell.
Sitting at Mary’s kitchen island in her massive brownstone, surrounded by her family. Scratching a nail over her bougie soapstone counters. Propping my ass on one of her barstools. Drinking from one of her coffee mugs.
And the worst ones, of course.
Sleeping with her husband.
Pouring Cheerios into a bowl for her son.
“Mo! Mo!” Alex yelled with abandon.
The kid loved abundance, wouldn’t touch his Tupperware if it was anything less than halfway full. I guessed it would work out for him, in the end. He was all set to live an abundant life.
You shouldn’t know this. You shouldn’t know the eating preferences of her son.
This was why I didn’t con women. This was why I didn’t make friends.
Mary’s most recent text had come only last night, when I was in her bed with her husband, enjoying the feel of her thousand-thread-count sheets.
Willa, have I upset you in some way?
It was the most direct she’d been since I stopped talking to her weeks ago.
It had touched me, it really had, how she kept on trying. It was almost like she really cared about me. Not for my looks, for the sex, for the status of having a skinny platinum blonde draped on your arm. Not for the way I shouldered the mental load, took care of the kids. She cared about me for me. She laughed at all my dumb jokes. She wanted to know my history. And I knew she felt, as I did, too, that when we were together, there was no need to play a role. Ironic, of course, because I was playacting in so many ways, but in the ones that mattered, I was true true true.
I wanted to respond to her text, but I’d promised myself I wouldn’t. Didn’t want to give her any hope, much as I missed her. Ghosting seemed the kindest option, all things considered.
“You really are good with kids,” George said, breaking my thoughts as he broke eggs into a pan. He wore a crisp white button-down and deep-indigo jeans.
“I used to babysit a lot,” I said. “Growing up.” George didn’t ask where I was from, and I knew he didn’t care, so long as I was an easy fuck. Mary had asked.
Alex shoved a handful of Os into his mouth and began to chomp. It was way too many, and instinctively, I reached my hand out, let him spit out the ones that he didn’t want. Tossed them onto my napkin to throw out later like I’d seen Mary do so many times.
“And you won’t say anything, right? I mean, should you ever . . . I wouldn’t have even had you and Alex meet—I know it’s so early—but the nanny had a family emergency.” George raised an eyebrow, and I knew that at least part of him questioned the nanny’s story, as he would question any working-class person who inconvenienced him in any way. He was bred well enough not to say it out loud—“you just can’t get good help these days” was too on-the-nose for his generation—but he was thinking it. They were always thinking it.
“Our little secret,” I said with a smile, glancing to Alex. “Right?”
Alex nodded and popped more Os into his mouth.
Meeting Alex had been unplanned. Accidental. Most of the time, George came to my place anyway—or his place, rather. A few days after Jack Senior fucked me in a bathroom and hung me out to dry, I told George they were doing renovations in my building, that it was miserable to stay there and that’s why I couldn’t have him over. That night, he’d offered me the keys to a studio apartment his family owned that was off the market temporarily, told me I could stay until the end of July. Something to do with locking in a higher rental price if you waited until August to let it. Oh, the ways the rich find to screw us.
I’d said yes, obviously. Moved my meager possessions from a hotel in Sunset Park up to the place in Brooklyn Heights. Found myself looking out over the cobblestone streets and wondering how it was so easy for some. Apartments waiting at the ready for the mistress of the moment.
Alex had never been part of the equation. George had texted me at ten last night, just back from a holiday weekend in the Hamptons—because, of course—begging me to come over. We’d fucked in George and Mary’s bed while the occasional sounds—and lights—of exploding fireworks, left over from the Fourth, went off around us. The only reason I’d agreed to stay the night was because he’d promised that the nanny would be picking Alex up to take him to soccer in the park by eight a.m.
Then this morning, I’d woken at eight fifteen to see George gone from the bed. I’d headed downstairs, frozen at the sound of Alex’s voice the second my feet hit the hardwoods, stiffened as Alex came running to me, wrapping me in a hug.
“Wow,” George had said. “He’s not usually that friendly with strangers.”
“I’m Willa,” I’d said quickly, before the little guy could give me away. “Nice to meet you.”
So now I was sitting here, counting on Alex’s very limited vocabulary to not entirely blow up my spot. He wasn’t yet at the age where he’d run back to Mary and tell her everything. The most she’d pry out of him were one-word answers, yeses and nos. Or, for Alex, yeh and nuh.
Did you have a nice time in the Hamptons with Dada? Yeh.
Did you see any fireworks? Yeh.
Did you later run into the woman who I thought was my friend but was actually a con artist intent on scamming your father?
Luckily, Mary didn’t know to ask that one.
The front door burst open. A young girl, likely no more than twenty-five, with red hair, vintage overalls, and tattoos circling her arms, rushed in. “I’m so sorry I’m late, Mr. Haywood,” she said earnestly, scratching at her elbow. “It won’t happen again, I promise.”
Alex kicked his feet excitedly and stretched to get out of his high chair. I unclipped him and set him down and he ran to the girl, yelling, “Gigi! Gigi!”
George didn’t introduce us, but the girl couldn’t help looking my way, her eyes, lined in bright purple, widening just slightly. I could have been you, I thought. I could have nannied, could have earned my paycheck the proper way, and yet I hadn’t wanted to cart the kids around and go home to a crap apartment. I wanted to sleep in the proverbial brownstone myself. I wanted the spoils of a lifestyle I never would have had otherwise. I wanted the key to the golden fucking city, and with each new man I got it.
The girl kept on staring, and I shot her a look, daring her to judge me, and she quickly averted her eyes, getting Alex’s backpack, a water bottle, and a spare change of clothes together as fast as she could. Alex kissed George, waved to me. Then they were gone.
“Don’t worry,” George said. “We pay Genevieve loads, and we’re connecting her with a Columbia professor so she can get a good reference letter for a master’s program. She’ll be discreet.”
I nodded.
“But with Alex gone,” he said, raising an eyebrow, “I don’t have to rush anywhere.”
So there we were, kissing again. Making our way up the staircase. Pawing at each other.
There we were, lying on his bed after. And then there it was again, the sound of shuffling downstairs.
George leapt out of bed, as if caught. My own body tensed up, too, fearing it was Mary.
He peered out the window, then turned back to me. “The stroller’s on the sidewalk,” he said. “Genevieve must be back.” He sighed. “Let me go down and see what she wants.”
“Should I—” I started to get up.
“No,” he said. “I’ll be right back.”
He was downstairs for at least a couple of minutes. I wanted to get up, examine the safe a little more, but it was too risky.
Then the door burst open, and George walked in. “Fucking private soccer instructor has to be paid in cash,” he said. “And fucking Gen Z nanny thought she could Venmo him. That’s Park Slope for you. Sorry. Mare—I mean, Alex’s mom—she usually takes care of it. Give me a second.”
Of course Mary does. All the help in the world, but you couldn’t pay someone to take on the mental load. It was the one thing you couldn’t hire out.
George opened the nightstand drawer first, the one I’d stolen forty bucks from, but evidently whatever was in there was not enough for a private soccer coach for a two-year-old.
My heart beat fast, excited at this gift, this incredible blessing. One I hadn’t even had to orchestrate myself.
Without a word, George slid the painting above his nightstand over a touch, my pulse rushing now, my eyes following his.
This was what I’d been waiting for, all this time.
George was making it so goddamn easy.
I needed a reason to stare, a reason that didn’t make it seem like I was after the goods locked inside.
“A safe behind a painting,” I offered. “How very old-fashioned.”
George laughed. “It does the job.”
He went at the code quickly. I caught a one to start, then another number I couldn’t quite see, but was down—possibly to the right? Then George’s finger went back up top, a two. Then a three, another one. The last digit, I couldn’t catch, but with all the important dates I’d collected from Mary, I figured I could fill in the blanks.
The safe beeped. The door opened.
I looked at my phone, acted like I couldn’t care less about his stupid safe.
But my fingers were tingling. My hackles were up.
I was getting closer now.
It was almost time.