Hey I have a surprise for you
Guess where I am
where are you text me back angelpie xxo
“What’s that?” Lucas lifted her phone from Doe’s hand. It was one of the habits she wanted to kill him for. She lunged for it.
“You bitch!” Lucas tossed the phone back at her. “I think you scratched me.”
Why was she here? She knew they were done. Lark was in the city for “maintenance,” which meant hair and skin. A hurricane might be coming, or at least a bad storm. Hurricanes terrified her.
As a child Shari had always thrown hurricane parties, and Doe associated high winds with adults too drunk to put up the shutters and take in patio furniture. Once a chair had blown right through their window, shattering the glass and sending the adults screaming and stumbling away, some of them laughing in hiccuping shrieks. A giant of a man had stepped on Doe’s hand with a big callused bare foot. The pain was commensurate with the gross-out quality of the injury. The curved yellow toenail had caused her to wail uncontrollably. Shari had stuck her hand in the ice bucket.
So when Lucas had texted her, saying Adeline was away and the house was his, she was tempted. She wouldn’t be alone.
Anxiously, she looked out at the wind-whipped bay. It was like a living thing, malevolent and liable to rear up and swamp her at any moment. She didn’t want to get trapped here. She had listened to Lucas robotically, idiotically, to ride out the storm. He had promised good wine; he had promised a binge watch of whatever she chose. He’d planned to be at a party on Shelter Island, but his friend Hale had been too “chickenshit” to pick him up by boat. The outdoor party had been canceled, anyway. It was typical of Lucas to tell her all this, letting her know that she was second or third choice. Yet she was here.
Lucas lay back on his elbows on the bed. “You are so mysterious with that phone.” He raised his eyebrows.
“We’re all mysterious with our phones,” Doe said. “That’s where our secrets are kept.”
Lucas laughed. “Word.”
“What would I find on yours?” Doe asked. “I bet your passcode is one-two-three-four or your birthday. Would I find out things you don’t want Adeline to know?”
“I don’t give a shit about Adeline.”
“If you hate her so much, why do you stay here?”
“Bad luck. I thought she’d be living with Mantis and I’d be crashing there on weekends. Instead she sticks me in bofuck Long Island.” He flipped through his texts.
“You know what I’ve noticed about you?” Doe asked, leaning against the dresser. “You blame Adeline for everything.”
“Everything is her fault. She gives me a job with no responsibility.”
“Please note she gave you a job. Let me guess, there might be opportunities for advancement in the Peter Clay Foundation for you.”
“No thanks. I quit this week. I had enough.”
“It can’t be that hard to get another job.”
“Excuse me, who died and appointed you my career counselor?” Lucas scowled. “I’m his son, and she gave me a crap salary.”
“You seem to be doing fine.”
“Well, I’m not. It’s ridiculous that I’m short of cash all the time.”
“So be an actor. I mean, actually commit to it. You basically just post selfies on Instagram.”
“I’m developing contacts, okay? You should see my followers.” Malice glinted in his eyes. “What about you? You girls all have pretend jobs. Then you get engaged and show the ring at the office, and within the first year you quit because you’re trying to get pregnant and it’s just too stressful. Please.”
She laughed, not because he was wrong—he had just described some of Lark’s friends—but because she wanted an end to the hostilities. He was on edge today. There was an undercurrent between them that had never been there before.
“Though I can’t see you doing that,” he said. “You’re not like the girls I know. You live here year-round, which is weird. What’s your story?”
“You’re not interested in anyone’s story.”
“Maybe if you were nicer to me you could be part of mine.”
“Even though I’m a year-rounder?” She kept her voice light. She must have been crazy to come here. She was no longer the least bit attracted to him. She missed Lark.
“Adeline’s got one, why shouldn’t I?”
Doe didn’t ask who. She knew Lucas would tell her.
“Your boss’s husband,” he said.
“Catha?”
“No, the other one. With the hunky carpenter.”
“Mike Dutton?”
“That’s the one. Bingo. Lots of blue-collar banging going on in this house.”
“Ruthie’s not my boss anymore, she quit.”
Lucas raised up a bit, interested. “She did?”
“She was kind of forced out.”
“Yeah, well, downsizing sucks, I hear.”
“It’s not downsizing. That’s just a word to you, isn’t it. Jesus.”
“It happens to be a word. You know Ruthie pretty well?”
“She was my boss, so, kind of but, you know, not friends.”
“Losing her job was pretty bad, huh.”
“Yes, Lucas, when people lose their jobs it’s bad.”
He flipped over and leaned his head on his hand to scrutinize her. “What are you, a Marxist?”
“I’m a human with feelings,” Doe said. She stared back at him, stretched out like a lion on the veldt of a bedspread, tawny and lazy, blinking at her in his beauty, but able to take her head off. “What about Jem?”
“The hot daughter?”
She gripped the phone. “You know, you might want to consider what happens when you fuck a fifteen-year-old.”
“I’m just having fun. I like blondes with legs. Don’t worry, I like tiny little brunette girls, too. Girls I can put in my pocket.”
He patted the bed, but she ignored him. “Maybe you should rethink the flirting.”
“You’re cute when you’re jealous. Okay, okay, I’ll have the fat girl check out my corn from now on.”
“Annie isn’t fat.”
“All right, the girl with such a pretty face can take my money.”
“I’m just skeeved out at a twenty-three-year-old hitting on a kid.”
“Relax. I didn’t fuck her. She had a pool party and I went. What’s it to you?” He raised himself up and then flipped off the bed. A pillow fell on the floor and he whipped it sideways to toss it back on the bed with a hard stroke. It knocked over a water glass. Lucas ignored it and walked toward the door. “You know what’s nice about high school girls? They don’t give you any shit. Come on, let’s find the champagne. This is supposed to be fun, remember?”
Doe saw a watch on the dresser, casually thrown facedown. The back was transparent and she saw the workings, the tiny, tiny wheels and gears whirring so perfectly. It was the most beautiful object she’d ever seen. Doe reached for it. Something about it was familiar, like she’d seen it before. Yet she was sure it hadn’t been on Lucas’s wrist.
She felt her phone buzz.
From: Annie Doyle
To: Doe Callender
Hey, your mother’s here? Shari? She’s looking 4 u
She’s going to check at the museum is it open? I told her to wait here, the storm and all
From: Doe Callender
To: Annie Doyle
DON’T LET HER GO TO MUSEUM TELL HER TO STAY I’LL BE RIGHT THERE
…
please
“Are you going to pay attention to me or your fucking phone?” Lucas asked, turning back to glare at her.
Doe looked up, trying to swallow. She’d forgotten where she was, and that he was here. The rain had intensified, she could hear it pounding on the roof. The bay was dark pewter, ruffled with white.
“I have to go.”
“You can’t go!”
“I have to take care of something.” Where was her purse?
He put his hand on her wrist. “What is this shit? You’re not leaving me alone in this storm!”
His grip was too tight, making her panic. “Let go!” She pushed him and he hadn’t expected it and stumbled back, hitting a chair. She tried to get past him and he grabbed her elbow and yanked her hard so that she fell backward on the bed.
Not a good position for a woman. She felt something new in the air, like a burning wire.
He snatched her purse from the floor and swung it by the strap. “Come and get it,” he said in a singsong voice.
He was between her and the door, the only exit. She reached out for her purse and he lifted it higher, cackling in a high laugh she’d never heard before.
She wasn’t going to deal with this shit. She came up fast, the top of her head connecting with his chin. He howled and stepped back, dropping the purse.
“Bitch!” He felt his chin, his eyes wet and aggrieved. He grabbed her by the arms, and it pinched her skin.
She didn’t like being restrained. It reminded her of an old boyfriend and that made fear settle in her belly. Impulse overcame caution and she jerked her arm, flipping his wrist so he had to let go, and hit him in the face.
Her ring cut him, and he touched the blood. “What the fuck,” he said. He reached out to steady himself on the wall, and left a tiny smear of blood. “That’s my face.”
He took a step toward her. “Don’t even fucking think about it,” she said.
All she heard was their breathing. In out, in out. Everything was so clear, the water glass on its side, the pool of water, the pillow, her purse, his bare feet, his fists.
He turned and walked out, and her breath left her all at once. She felt everything drain out of her and she was trembling but she needed to find her shoes and pick up her purse.
The watch had fallen on the carpet. She considered kicking it under the dresser, but he would find it. He deserved to lose something so beautiful. Something he carelessly tossed on a dresser. She put it in her pocket, found her things, and left while he was examining the cut in the bathroom mirror and calmly saying she’d better get out or he’d fucking kill her.