I’ve tweaked and tweezed, depilated and buffed. Finally I put on the pearl necklace, tight against my throat like a lover’s hand. My heart sings. Waves of anticipation wash over me.
There’s still an hour before he gets here. I pour a large glass of wine and drink most of it. Then, still wearing the necklace, I head toward the shower.
There’s a sound from downstairs. It’s hard to identify, but it might be the squeak of a shoe. I stop.
Hello? Anyone there?
There’s no reply. I grab a towel and go to the top of the stairs. Edward?
The silence drags on, thick and somehow meaningful. I feel the hairs on the back of my neck prickle. Hello? I say again.
I tiptoe halfway down the stairs. From there I can see into every corner of the house. There’s no one here.
Unless they’re directly below me, hidden by the slabs of stone. I turn backward, taking one step at a time, peering through the gaps.
No one.
Then I hear another sound, a kind of snort. It seems to come from above me this time. But as I turn toward it I become aware of a high-pitched whine, a frequency right at the edge of human hearing. It gets louder and louder, like a mosquito. I put my hands over my ears but the noise penetrates right into my skull.
A lightbulb pops in the ceiling, the glass blowing out and tinkling to the floor. The noise stops. Some malfunction of the house’s technical systems. In the living area, my laptop’s rebooting. The house lights slowly fade down to nothing and then up again. Housekeeper’s homepage appears on my laptop screen. It’s as if the whole house has just reset itself.
Whatever the glitch was, it’s over now. And there’s no one here. I pad back upstairs toward the shower.