She stayed curious about the videos. Maybe they were Davey’s, and he’d shot a surprise for her, like his snaps of Ed posing in his office making cute faces. She clicked on the first one but no, it was her feet. Her snowshoes, actually. She decided it must have been yesterday when the camera was dangling from her wrist as she wandered around the hemlock grove. She deleted it, and clicked the second one open. It was indeed one Davey had taken, and showed Ed with his back to the camera.
To Isabel, it vaguely sounded like two people talking… Ed and… was it a woman? Yes, it was, but with the breeze picking up, she couldn’t make out what they were saying. She moved onto the second clip, also Ed, but with more voices. Her eye caught a few flashes of green from the dome-shaped phone console on Ed’s desk. He was talking on speaker, that was clear, yet the call couldn’t be private or confidential since Ed was turning towards Davey to wave happily at the camera. He’d even signed: Hey son, what’s up?
Isabel packed up her sketchpad, pencils and glass and brought them inside, then booted up her laptop to view her shots on the larger screen.
As she scrolled through them, first hers, and later Davey’s, she leant back and smiled at Davey’s snaps—of Isabel and George, her with Ed, the three of them together, and Ed in his office. It was such a shame that she couldn’t bring him this trip but she would next time, she promised herself. Again.
With the video clips, she toyed with the sound as she enjoyed how Ed’s shoulders never slouched, not even in private. But when his hand started rubbing across his buzz cut, a gesture he made when he was nervous or excited, she started wondering who was he talking to? Not that she cared. Or that’s what she pretended. Maybe it was just Davey?
Eventually, after trying various sound settings, she succeeded.
“You still there?” It was a woman… a familiar voice, but not one Isabel placed immediately.
“Davey’s just come in… with his new camera,” said Ed.
“I should give him some lessons,” laughed the woman. Niki Abbott? Was it Niki?
“Not with what you’d teach him!” Ed sniggered.
“Funny man. I know he can’t hear, but shouldn’t…”
Isabel watched Ed wave his fingers at Davey and poke his pinkie up his nose playfully before turning, but unlike Davey, she wasn’t amused, and her spine was stiffer than Ed’s.
“I’ve got my back to him,” said Ed. And to me, too, Isabel noted. “Where were we?” he asked.
The woman continued, “You were saying it’s two hours till she leaves.”
She? For Isabel, this was developing a very uncomfortable edge.
“I’m getting wet just thinking about this.”
Wisely, Isabel placed her glass on the coffee table.
“No dirty talk.”
“Ed, he’s deaf!”
I’m getting wet?
Niki.
Niki Abbott and Ed?
“I don’t care,” Ed said. “Our other call’s…”
The clip cut Ed short, and Isabel slumped back into the sofa, taking one of the cushions and holding it to her chest.
Eventually she stood, a little shakily, and faltered over to the fire, placing her hand against the mantel to steady herself and let the heat sear her face dry, chalking her cheeks with two streaks of salt. She felt suffocated and wanted to rip open her throat to let in more air. She had to breathe… to do something.
The bastard… the fucking bastard. Wait till she got home. But that wouldn’t be till tomorrow afternoon when the chopper came for her, and she had no means of calling it to come sooner. Damn this sanctuary shit, she screamed to herself.
She sat back in front of her laptop, staring at it like it was her enemy. The gossip… the snide innuendo. All through the campaign, she had dismissed the barbs, parking them beside malice or just plain jealousy. But here it was front and centre. True.
An image of Spencer Prentice wagging his manicured finger invaded her thoughts. He had been right, she knew that now. In his own genteel way, he’d always seen Ed as a scheming bastard who was using her. And what had she done? She’d laughed it off.
She wasn’t chuckling now.
The acid of the betrayal was etching dark lines under her eyes and the scar on her neck bleached against the flush of red drowning her. Every one of her senses heightened. Her skin burned. The mustiness in the shack returned, but this time it stank so she couldn’t stand it.
Had Ed loved her at all? Ever…? She slammed her fist on the arm of the sofa because plainly she had no idea.
Breathe deeply, she told herself.
Bésame… Fuck that song! Why did it have to enter her head right now?
Isabel played the video clip again. And again. With her hand trembling, she shook a few more drops of Tabasco into her drink and swirled it with her finger. She forced down a slug of the fiery liquid and then rested the glass, though well away from the table’s edge. Both her hands rose to steeple just below her nose and she gritted her teeth. An observer might think she was praying, and in a way she was.
There had to be an innocent explanation… Maybe, she hoped, the second clip would give one.
She licked her finger and for several seconds it lingered, poised over the ‘play’ button but not quite ready. Pressing it could only lead to two outcomes, one good, the other unbearable.