My chair squeaks. “What was she like?”
“Small.” He shrugs. “But she has a sort of toughness to her. You can tell she’s poor.”
“I thought she was quite pretty. Like an ingenue.”
He grunts. “Don’t fall in love with this one, too.” Like he doesn’t do the same thing: obsess, search for himself inside of a stranger, search for a version of himself he can live with and then find—surprise! He is still the same monster after all.
“How can I fall in love? I’ve hardly even seen her.” I gaze at my untouched plate. “I think she’s avoiding me.” The more I think about it, the more it does seem like a setup. It’s hard to believe that Margo would share the rules of the game with an outsider but maybe she did. Maybe she is trying to throw me off-balance. Maybe she is trying to scare me.
He moves his salad across the plate, concentrating. “What’s your plan?”
“I’m still getting to know her—”
“They’re all the same.” He coughs into his fist. “They want what we have, and they can’t get it.”
“I want to impress you,” I say. “Do something really spectacular.”
“Well. You’re taking forever.”
It’s been only a couple of weeks. I don’t want to rush it. They don’t. Once Margo took six months to cuck a separated banker. Even Graham takes his time, setting up elaborate scenarios with lost bunnies and wild horses. He draws them in, then pushes them away, bringing their longing to an artful crescendo. Of course, when it’s my turn, it’s suddenly not fast enough.
But it’s not just that. I can see it in Graham’s face, even with no stars out. His temples are tight. His jaw has a light pulse. What happened last time plays on his features, threatening to deepen his shallow.
It was frightening. It caught us all by surprise. It changed the game.
LYLA
That night I can’t sleep. Graham smells his strongest at night, all that exposed skin and the single malt whisky he drinks pushing out through his pores, forcing his scent into the air, where it hovers like a mind-bending fog over our rumpled white bed.
When I shut my eyes, I see Elvira, her dark hair in the fountain spiraling so it was almost indistinguishable from the tendrils of blood.
Some nights, when I’m especially tired or especially drunk, I have dreams about her. In my dreams she’s always played by Nicole Kidman, and she’s the one targeting me. I’m at my parents’ house before they disowned me. I’m sitting in the corner in time-out when she knocks. I’m at school taking a test and she shows up, note in hand, to get me out. I’m working at a hot dog stand and she’s next in line and she says, “I want you. Let’s go!” I always wake up at the point where I get in her car, so we never escape. We never go anywhere. She just keeps showing up with the promise that we can leave now forever.
But tonight, I can only see her dead. The way her face was turned up out of the water, like she could still breathe. How she looked like a doll of herself, something you could buy, and break, and discard.
I think of Demi in the courtyard rattling the gate like she knew, like Elvira’s ghost told her: Escape. Escape this place where death blooms like a body at the center of a fountain.
Graham’s eyelids throb as his sleep deepens. If he could see what I see—but maybe he can. I called him as soon as I found her body. He was away on one of his golf trips. “Don’t call the police,” he said. “Wait until I get there.”
When he got there, three hours later, he just stared at the body. He had a new expression—not a frown or a smile but one that revealed his dimples. The first thing he said was “It’s so interesting, isn’t it? When people surprise you. I’m never surprised anymore.” And then he called Margo and she called her police.
I am sure she paid to keep it quiet. “It’s the scandal,” Margo explained to the police unnecessarily. “We’re worried about how her family will take it.” Elvira didn’t have a family—Margo was always careful with that—just a sister in some bumfuck town. A sister who managed to track down our house number.
I picked up the phone when she called one afternoon. She kept repeating, “I just want to know why. I just want to know why.” I hung up and called Margo. Elvira’s sister never called again. Margo probably paid her, like she does everyone, to disappear. Like she once tried to pay me.
On my wedding day, she called me into her dressing room and asked me, “What’s your number?” Simple. Straightforward. Just like that.
“You’re kidding,” I said. “We’re getting married in an hour.” I was already in a state. My parents had yet to show up. My dad was supposed to walk me down the aisle. My mom was supposed to help with my dress. They weren’t there. Their phones were both switched off.
Margo sat before a long mirror so I could see her once in reflection and once in real life. Her makeup table was littered with high-end products. She wore a white dress and a veil cut so stately that no one would ever confuse her for the bride. “I was sure he would leave you at the altar. I would have put money on it, but now I’ll put money on you.”
“I don’t want your money.” My phone vibrated in my robe pocket. I glanced at the number, but it was just Mitsi, my maid of honor, probably wondering where I was.
“They’re not coming.”
My throat caught. “Who?”
“Your parents.” She ran her hand over the products on the table, not looking, not touching, like a psychic feeling out a sign. “You’ll never see them again if you marry Graham.” Her hands closed around a tub of La Mer.
My first reaction was disbelief. I was new to Margo, new to Graham. I didn’t understand how easy things were for them. How easy it was to make something happen. How easy it was to make something appear or to make something vanish. “What did you say to them?”
“The same thing I said to you: What. Is. Your. Number?”
Back then I was so holy with my own intelligence. I believed in myself. I had a wedding, four thousand guests, a dress made of lace made by monks. I had Graham. So I said, “I don’t have a number.”
She pursed her lips. I thought I detected a genuine sadness in the leftover corners of her redone face. “I don’t think you understand. We’re bad people. We do bad things. You weren’t meant for this life. You weren’t meant to be this rich.” She took two scoops of La Mer, slathered it on her face. Then she rubbed. It took her ages to rub it all in.
I stood tall, a Dickensian hero. I thought she would be moved. I thought she would be impressed. “I love him.”
Her face was cold and heavy, the ghost in the shell. “Then you don’t see him. Graham is unlovable.”
I tipped my chin. “You’re wrong.”
She shook her head. “You’re too young to understand, so you’ll have to trust me: My son and I are the same. We’re destroyers. We destroy people. All at once or incrementally, he will destroy you and everything you love. It’s in our blood.” She reached for me and I jumped at her touch, not realizing we were so close. She squeezed my hand so hard, I felt my bones. “Take the money. No one will ever offer you something of more value.”
I thought she was trying to trick me. Graham had warned me his mother liked to play games. She was ruthless in getting what she wanted. She would say anything, do anything, pay anything.
I didn’t understand then. I don’t know if I understand now. But sometimes I wonder. Maybe she was telling the truth. Maybe honesty was a tactic, the last card she had to play. I think of Graham’s expression as he watched Elvira float.
But I never could have seen it then, never could have understood. It’s the things you want that kill you. The things you want but never get. Back then I still believed I could have everything, have anything. Maybe my parents wouldn’t come to my wedding, but they would come around eventually. I would earn Margo’s respect. I would earn Graham’s love. They and the world would relent.
I was young, and I was dumb, and I was sure I would get everything I ever wanted.