—
BUT SHE DIDN’T drop it. Instead, about twenty minutes after I got home, when I’d already been doubting myself, and doubting Finch, and generally feeling like shit, Grace sent me three photographs of Finch’s car parked in the driveway of a big brick house, along with a text that said: Look who went straight to Polly’s.
My heart sank. After all, it was one thing to text his ex, it was another to go over to her house the second he dropped us off. I still wasn’t convinced that Polly hadn’t taken the photo of me, but I decided that it really didn’t matter. Either way, it seemed pretty clear that they were working as a team, and that Grace was right. The Luke Bryan tickets were a bribe of some sort. A last-ditch effort to win me over.
I scrolled back through my text thread with Finch, starting around one o’clock, when he’d first asked me what kind of music I liked.
A little bit of everything, I’d written back, trying so hard to be cool. I kept reading, cringing at myself, wishing that, at the very least, I’d played a little harder to get.
Finch: Top 5 fave artists?
Me: That’s too hard!!! So many!
Finch: K. Just 5 ur listening to lately?
Me: Walker Hayes, Bruno Mars, Jana Kramer, Jason Aldean, and Kirby Rose (new artist, but love her).
Finch: Cool…So mostly country?
Me: Yeah.
Finch: What about Luke Bryan?
Me: Love him.
Finch: He’s playing tonight. Wanna try to go?
Me: Seriously?
Finch: Yeah. Why not? Let me see if I can get tix.
Me: OMG. That would be amazing!
Finch: Got four tix. Wanna go with Beau and one of your friends?
Me: Yes! I’ll ask Grace!
Me: Grace is IN!
Finch: Awesome. Did you mention Polly?
Me: I told her y’all broke up.
Finch: But the rest of the stuff?
Me: No.
Finch: Thx. Don’t want the drama. Have enough already!
I scanned the rest of the thread, which was a discussion of logistics about the concert, followed by my final text, which I’d sent from Grace’s driveway, thanking him. He had yet to reply to that one, of course. Picturing him with Polly, maybe hooking up, or maybe just laughing at me, I told myself I had to do something. At the very least, I had to let him know that I wasn’t as stupid as he thought. My mind raced with all the things I could say to call him out, but I played it a little safe, settling on a snarky Having fun?
I stared at my screen, waiting. Seconds turned to minutes. Just as I was about to give up and take a shower, my phone rang. It was him. My hands shaking, I answered with a snippy hello.
“Hi,” he said, sounding oblivious.
“Where are you?” I asked as I sat down on my bedroom floor.
“In my car,” he said. “On the way home.”
“On the way home from where?” I said, hugging my knees with my left arm as my hair formed a protective curtain around me.
“I just dropped Beau off. We ended up going to The Flipside,” he said, lying so easily I got a chill. “Why do you ask?”
“Why? You tell me why,” I said. “Why are you lying to me?”
“Why do you think I’m lying?”
“Because you are,” I said, trying to channel Grace. Any strong girl. Or at least someone who didn’t care enough to get hurt like this. I thought of my mother—how nothing really fazed her, at least not that she’d ever shared with me.
“What are you even talking about?” Finch said.
“I know where you were tonight. After you dropped me and Grace off. I’m not stupid.”
I braced myself for more lying—since that’s what liars do. But instead he folded immediately. “Okay, Lyla. You’re right. I’m sorry. I wasn’t with Beau. And I didn’t go to The Flipside. I was with Polly.”
“You’re an ass,” I said, welling up. “A total ass.”
He said nothing, though I could tell he was still on the phone. Seconds passed before he sighed and said, “Okay. Can I please just explain?”
“No,” I said, telling myself to hang up on him but knowing I wouldn’t. Instead, I just sat there, waiting and listening, a sick part of me hoping, once again.
“Polly knows about you,” Finch said.
“What about me?” I said.
“She knows I went to the concert with you. She knows I like you. And…” Finch said, pausing dramatically as the hope expanded in my chest so quickly that I felt as if my heart would explode. “She knows I’m going to tell the truth about what she did to you.”
Right after Finch left for the concert, I poured myself a glass of wine. It crossed my mind that I was doing this too often and that drinking alone was a sign of a “problem”—much like the one I sometimes accused Kirk of having. But I rationalized that wine was simply the nighttime version of coffee—more of a ritual than anything else—especially if you had only a glass or two.
At some point, I called Kirk, partly because I was feeling lonely. But also because I was feeling guilty for keeping secrets from my husband. No matter what mistakes he’d made, I wanted to be honest. He didn’t pick up, though. So I left a message, telling him that I hoped he was feeling better.
A few minutes later, he called me back. Only he hadn’t—at least not purposefully. He’d simply made an inadvertent pocket dial. I called out his name a few times, but when that didn’t work (it never does), I listened, more out of boredom than any real curiosity or concern. Even after I heard a woman’s voice, I told myself not to jump to paranoid conclusions. Yes, he’d said he had a migraine and was going to bed. But that didn’t necessarily make this nefarious. Hell, she could be a female concierge, helping him get his headache meds from a nearby pharmacy. My service industry explanation calmed me for a few seconds, but then their interaction continued, an easy, back-and-forth rhythm suggesting a certain familiarity. Mostly, it was Kirk talking and the woman laughing. It reminded me that my husband could be really funny and charming, and I felt a pang for a dynamic that had seemed to slip away as gradually as Finch’s open-bedroom-door policy. I couldn’t remember the last time Kirk had had this much to say to me, let alone the last time he’d actually made me laugh. I strained to make out their words, but everything was too muffled. Even the volume was coming in and out, as if they were in motion, in a car or walking somewhere.
Then, suddenly, their voices got clearer and louder, and I heard the woman say “Honey” followed by my husband’s unmistakable “Oh shit.” Then he hung up on me. I sat there, stunned, yet still struggling to give him the benefit of the doubt. Maybe I’d misheard her honey. Maybe he’d said oh shit about something else. He could have made a wrong turn. Or stepped in a wad of gum. Or realized he’d left his credit card at a store where he’d bought me a sweet token of a gift. It could be anything, really. People said oh shit all the time in the normal course of things. And some people just used terms of affection like honey. It wasn’t as if I’d just heard him having sex with a woman—or professing his love to her. It wasn’t as if I had irrefutable visual evidence. Maybe he hadn’t hung up on me at all. Maybe he’d just lost the connection at that instant.
This was an exercise I’d engaged in before, especially in recent years, one on which I actually prided myself, believing that it said as much about my self-confidence as about my faith in my husband. But I didn’t feel very proud or confident in that agonizing moment, as I sipped my wine, waiting for my husband to call me back.
When after several minutes my phone still didn’t ring, I told myself to be proactive and try him again. It went to voicemail. I left a message, then texted another. And another.