The news is on. Jenna is obsessed with it, but Rory is bored unless there is new information. He orders her to change the channel. She refuses.
I did not realize how Owen Oliver would affect our kids. Holly and Robin never had this kind of publicity. Now, they have been talking about Owen for weeks. Jenna may talk about Naomi forever.
This makes the good feelings I had start to fade.
I walk out to the backyard. In one corner, we have a large oak tree. The kids’ old playset is in the other corner; it has been wasting away for years. I forgot it was even here, but now all I can see is how faded it is, how the plastic is cracked and it must be dangerous. I go back through the house, into the garage, and get my toolbox. It is important, even crucial, that I take the playset apart and get rid of it before someone gets hurt.
The bolts hold tight, even though they are big pieces of childproof plastic. I break one with the hammer.
“What are you doing?”
Millicent’s voice does not startle me. In fact, I expect it. “What does it look like?”
“It looks like this could wait until tomorrow.”
“But I want to do it now.” I cannot hear her sighing, but I know she is. She stands behind me and watches me break another plastic bolt. “Are you going to watch me all night?” I say.
She goes back into the house. The sliding door slams shut.
Less than an hour later, I have worked up a sweat and made a pile of plastic. I leave the backyard looking worse than when I started.
No one is in the living room. I hear them upstairs; someone is in the bathroom, and someone else walks down the hall. I sit down in front of the TV. A sitcom is on, and the family is like mine, with two parents and two kids, but they are much funnier than we are. Their problems do not involve thirteen-year-old girls bringing knives to school or sons blackmailing their fathers.
During the commercial break, a preview of the news comes on, and I turn the channel to another show, and another, and I keep doing this until Millicent comes into the room and takes the remote away from me. She leans in close and hisses in my ear.
“Get your shit together. Now.” She tosses the remote to the other side of the couch and walks out of the room.
It may seem like I never stand up to Millicent, but that isn’t true. It may not be often, but it’s not unheard of. It happened once, at least, and I remember it well. It was important enough to stand up for.
Rory was six, Jenna was five, and Millicent and I were too busy to breathe. I had two jobs. In addition to giving private tennis lessons, I also worked at a health club. Millicent was trying to sell real estate. The kids were in two different schools—kindergarten and first grade—and one always had to be dropped off or picked up. We had two cars, but one always seemed to be broken. Still, we had food and a roof and all the necessities. Everything else was just a pain in the ass.
One day, a windfall. A weird thing I never saw coming. There had been a class-action lawsuit against a former employer of mine, from a job I had back in high school, and after ten-plus years it had finally settled. Maybe the class had been small, or maybe the lawyers were better than most, but my portion was $10,000. It was more than I’d ever had at one time.
Millicent and I sat at the kitchen table and stared at that check. The kids were in bed, the house was quiet, and for a while we dreamed of all the things we could do with it. A week in Hawaii or a month in the mountains. A trip to Europe. The engagement ring Millicent deserved. We had a glass of wine, and our dreams became more ridiculous. Custom-made clothes. A home theater system. Fancy chrome wheels for both of our old cars. Ten thousand dollars was not a vast fortune, but we pretended it was.
“Seriously, though,” she said, finishing off the last of her wine. “The kids. College.”
“Very prudent.”
“We have to.”
She was right. College was expensive, and it never hurt to save for it. Except it did hurt. It hurt us and our future, which could make everything better for all of us. “I have a better idea,” I said.
“Better than our children’s education?”
“Hear me out.”
I suggested we use the money to invest in ourselves. In the years since we were first married and had our kids, our economic situation had not improved much. Neither had our careers. Millicent was stuck selling condos and lower-priced homes. The more experienced agents had all the higher-end listings and sales. My private lessons were held at the public tennis courts at the park, and the clients were not consistent. I proposed we do something about this.
At first, it sounded like one of our ridiculous dreams. The Christmas gala at the Hidden Oaks Country Club cost $2,500 a ticket. But the gala was not just another party; it was a ticket to people we would not meet anywhere else. A new generation lived in the Oaks. Most never knew my parents or me. These were the people who could afford private tennis lessons and expensive houses. They would pay for our children’s education.
“Insane,” Millicent said.
“You aren’t listening.”
“No.” She brushed off my idea with a wave of her hand.
That made me dig in.
We fought for a week. She called me a child, and I told her she was shortsighted. She called me a social climber, and I told her she had no imagination. She stopped talking to me, and I slept on the couch. Still, I did not give up. She did.
Millicent claimed she was tired. I think she became curious. I think she wanted to see if I was right.
We spent half the money on tickets, and then bought a dress and shoes for her, a tuxedo and shoes for me, and a luxury rental car for the night. Millicent also got her hair, makeup, and nails done. By the time we paid the babysitter, not much of the money was left.
It was worth every penny. Six months after the gala, I was offered a job as the tennis pro at the club. Millicent met her first wealthy clients at that gala and started to move up in the real estate world. In one night, we had skipped a good five years of grinding our way up the ladder. It was like automatically leveling up in a video game.
We aren’t wealthy, not like our clients, but that night moved us closer.
And to this day, Millicent knows that it is because of me. Because I decided what to do with that money. She is reminded of this every year when we go to the annual gala, although, to be honest, I am not sure she cares.
Twenty-eight
At first, it was impressive that Rory had figured out a way to blackmail me. I can admit that. I was more annoyed with myself for getting caught than with him for catching me.
But now, he is starting to piss me off.
I am in his room. He is sitting at his desk. His computer is on, and Naomi is staring back at me. Forty-eight hours have passed since she was named as the only missing woman left. Her face is everywhere, all over the news and social media.
“Why are you looking at that?” I say, nodding to his computer.
“You’re changing the subject.”
He is right. I am avoiding the fact that he has just asked for hundreds of dollars to keep his mouth shut about my nonexistent affair. Or my one-night-stand, I should say, because I did sleep with Petra.
“How long are you going to keep this up?” I say.
“How long are you? I saw you sneak out just last week.”
It’s impossible to think of Rory as a child when he talks like this. Despite his floppy red hair and baggy clothes, he does not look like a fourteen-year-old. He looks like my equal.
“I’ll make you a deal,” I say. “I’ll give you the money, and we both stop. You will never see me sneak out again.”
“And if you do?”
“If I sneak out again, I’ll give you double.”
Rory’s poker face falls apart when his eyebrows shoot up. He covers his surprise by rubbing his chin, pretending to think about my offer. “I’ll be watching,” he says.
“I know you will be.”
He nods, thinks, and then says no to my offer. “I have another idea.”
I am already shaking my head at him, pissed off. Before, I was on the verge, and now I am there. “I am not giving you any more—”
“I don’t want money.”