“You don’t keep it locked?” he asked. “Someone could come in and take everything.”
Harriett grinned. He’d always been a bit slow. “Everyone in Mattauk knows better than that,” she said, stepping through the open door. “And just in case you get any ideas, so should you. Come in.”
Chase caught a glimpse of the interior and groaned. “Oh my God,” he said as he followed her inside. “I paid a fortune for those chairs. What’s growing on them?”
“We paid a fortune for those chairs,” Harriett corrected him as she stepped behind her workbench and searched through the cabinet where they’d once kept the booze. “And it’s moss. Here you go.” She handed Chase a jar filled with rancid-looking goop. “Rub this on the affected areas. The rash should be gone by morning. Tell Bianca it’s for external use only if she still intends to have children.”
“Thank you.” Chase set the jar down on the counter. “We managed to get rid of the fungal infection on our own. It took a couple of months and eight visits to a tropical medicine specialist, but it’s finally gone.”
“Then why are you here?” Harriett asked. “I haven’t seen you in ages. Don’t pretend this is a social visit.”
Chase’s chest swelled as he drew in a long breath. “I need you to remove the curse.”
Harriett found the idea amusing. “I don’t do curses, Chase. Fungi, yes. Rashes, sure. Infestations, absolutely. But curses, no.”
He took a step forward, his fingers woven together as if in prayer. “Harriett, I’m desperate,” he said. “If you want me to beg you, I will. I’ll give you the apartment in Brooklyn. You can have the Mercedes. I’ll do anything you want.”
“Well, you certainly sound serious.” Harriett was enjoying the conversation. “What’s the nature of this curse you’re under?”
“I haven’t had a good idea in forever,” he said as if he was certain she already knew the answer. “My instincts are totally shot. The agency has lost three accounts. We haven’t won a single new business pitch in ten months. Little Pigs is talking about putting the account in review. And if we lose that business, I’m out. They’ve already told me. I’ve been working sixteen-hour days and sleeping in the office. I need you to tell me what I can do to fix things. Please, Harriett.”
“Do you remember when you were pitching the Little Pigs account?” Harriett asked. “Remember the brilliant line that won the business?”
“Of course. And that’s all I need, H—to come up with a few more great ideas like that one.”
“But you won’t,” Harriett informed him. “And not because you’re cursed.”
“Then why?”
“Because it was my idea,” she said. “I gave it to you.”
Chase bristled, clearly offended she’d even suggest such a thing. “No, you didn’t,” he argued. “I remember being in the office that night. I had every team in the agency crammed into the main conference room.”
“Yes. And you called me in tears because it was three in the morning and none of them had come up with anything good. So I told you I’d think about it and send you something.”
“No,” he insisted. “That’s not how I remember it.”
“For fuck’s sake, Chase. I still have the email I wrote you,” Harriett told him. “I let you have the idea. I even let you think it was yours. Same with the vodka and deodorant campaigns that won you all those awards. I stood next to you and listened to people hail you as a creative genius, and I never once corrected them or let your secret slip. But deep inside, I always wondered what kind of person could take credit for something that wasn’t theirs. Now I know. It’s a person like you.”
Chase looked like a seven-year-old who’d just spotted Santa slipping out of his costume. “If that’s really what happened, why didn’t you call me on it?”
“I didn’t think I needed to. You see, Chase, I thought we were partners. You know, two people working together toward a common goal. But that’s not how you saw it. You convinced yourself that you were the one who made it all happen. It was your charm and brilliance and good looks that bought this house and the cars and that lovely suit you’ve destroyed. Now you’re here to ask me to remove a curse, because it’s easier for you to believe I’ve bewitched you than it is to accept the fact that I made you a far better copywriter than you ever would have been on your own.”
“You’re right.” Chase nodded. He wasn’t going to put up a fight. “I was an idiot. I should never have let things end the way they did. I’m sorry.”
She laughed—at his blatant attempt to manipulate her, and at the fact that she might once have bought it. The illusions of her youth had been removed with no anesthesia. She hadn’t expected to survive the experience. But she had. And now she was completely invulnerable.
“You don’t need to be sorry. It was time,” Harriett said. “I have no regrets.”
“Harriett,” he pleaded. “You have to help me.”
“No,” she said, “I don’t. You can have what you need. But this time, you’ll have to pay a fair price for it.”
“I’ll give you anything.”
“Anything?” she asked. He seemed so eager.
“What do you want?”
“Your firstborn child,” Harriett said.
Chase blanched. “I don’t know,” he said. “I’d have to talk to Bianca.”
Harriett couldn’t keep a straight face.
“So you were kidding?” Chase exhaled.
Harriett howled with laughter. “I never wanted a baby when we were married. Why the hell would I want one now? I want you to take me and my friends to Jackson Dunn’s Memorial Day party.”
He wasn’t quite buying it. “That’s all you want?”
“That’s it,” Harriett said. “I assure you there is nothing else I could possibly want from you. I wouldn’t even fuck you these days. Frankly, I find you rather repugnant.”
She hadn’t intended to be cruel. Those were just facts.
“You know, you’ve really changed.” Chase sounded wounded. “You used to be sweet.”
“That was before you set fire to our marriage and tried to steal my house.” Harriett walked to the door and held it open for him. “I thought it all would destroy me, but it didn’t. It just turned me into something new. And now that we’ve made our little deal, you should get out of my house. My friends will be coming back soon.”
“So this lady doesn’t have a car?” Nessa asked. The Stop & Shop where Amber Welsh worked was off a six-lane highway. The sixteen-wheelers racing by were streaks of red and white light.
Jo thought of the rusty Corolla parked in front of Amber’s trailer. “She has one, but it’s not running at the moment.”
“I don’t understand.” Nessa looked around. There were no sidewalks, and the shoulder on the highway was little more than two feet wide. “How does she get here?”
Jo had been wondering the same thing herself. “I have a feeling she walks,” she said.
“You’re kidding. She’s going to end up getting killed on that road.”