“Did you give her one?”
I shake my head. He looks disgusted. So much for our idyllic morning. I should have waited to tell him. I should have lied.
He’s right. It was a stupid plan. I wanted it to be easy. I wanted it to be over. He is scanning my eyes, as if reading my thoughts. He flounces out of bed in annoyance.
“I’ve never done this before!” I add in undertone, still loud enough for him to hear, “I don’t want to.” I pull my knees up, try to look small. “Can’t you just do it?”
“Of course I can,” he says, taking off his shirt. “That’s not what this is about. It’s about you proving yourself.” He drops his pants. He is scolding me in his underwear, and it’s a credit to how handsome he is that he looks sexy instead of ridiculous. “You went against the family. How can I trust you? How can I ever trust you again?”
“You can trust me.” My voice is reedy. I thought maybe this directive was coming from Margo, but hearing Graham now, it’s clear it came from him. He doesn’t trust me. If I don’t get his trust back, I will lose him, his money and probably my life.
He marches to his closet. “By the way, we’re having dinner with Margo tonight.”
“Tonight?” My heart flutters. “Can’t we do it another time? I didn’t sleep very well in jail, if you can believe it.”
He disappears into the closet. “We need to meet. Discuss the situation.” Reappears with a dark blue suit draped over his arm.
“What situation?”
“The you situation.”
“You’re not going to tell her.” I know he is going to tell her. He knows Margo hates me, but he doesn’t see why that should affect their relationship. He doesn’t see why anything that upsets anyone else should be any concern of his.
“I called her when you disappeared.”
“Why would you do that?” He hates when I use that tone. He ignores me, slips on his shirt, buttons it all the way to his throat. I adjust my tone. “What did she say?”
He slips into his trousers. “Hmm?”
“When you told her I disappeared?”
Buttons and zips. “Wait forty-eight hours.”
I know I shouldn’t but I do. “. . . What did she think happened?”
“I don’t know.” He slides his arms into his vest. “You used to run away.” He is referring to the times early in our marriage when I would storm out over something, use his money to check into a hotel, usually down the street, hoping he would come find me. At first, he did. But when that game got boring, he just left me to cool off. “She said to keep an eye on my bank accounts.” He acts like he is doing me a favor by telling me the truth.
“Charming.” I get hot. What if something had happened? What if I had been kidnapped? Killed? Graham would call Margo. Graham would check his bank accounts. Graham would wait. I can’t even complain. It would be like telling him he doesn’t love me, and I can’t risk him believing it. For our relationship to work, we both have to believe the lies we tell ourselves.
“I had to call her.” He puts his jacket on last, the finishing touch. He looks so divine it should be criminal. He should be the one in jail for more reasons than one. He bends down and kisses my neck. “I was so worried about you.” He stands, adjusts his collar. “Demi didn’t say a word.”
I sit up. “What? You spoke to Demi?”
“I ran into her. In the courtyard. I came home for lunch to surprise you.” To check in on me, more likely. I did promise him a plan.
“And she didn’t even mention it? She didn’t even mention that she was with me?”
“No.”
“She lied.” She’s running a game. Maybe Margo did put her here. I am not just being paranoid. I am a king and my court is filled with secrets, machinations and whispered plans. “What is she playing at?”
“Not everything is a game,” he says, which is a truly exceptional statement from Graham.
It’s a statement that can only mean one thing: He’s lying, too.
LYLA
Margo’s garden is known in all the important circles. It was even featured in Architectural Digest. She let me in the family photo, because even I am preferable to a swinging single son. The three of us crowded in together on the lawn with the tower behind us, the Addams family with more money and fewer laughs.
The garden is terraced over nine levels. It’s themed. Each level represents a circle of hell. It’s a joke, of course, rich people humor, which is always about pushing boundaries. I can’t believe you said that! I can’t believe you did that!
We usually have dinners in Gluttony, but today Margo meets us in Anger. Ha-ha.
The Anger garden is stuffed with roses genetically engineered to be a darker shade of red, black birds-of-paradise and oleander. The flowers clash, but Margo likes the friction created by things that don’t go together. She would rather be different than beautiful, dangerous than safe. Many of the plants that grow on her hillside are poisonous. She likes to list them as if it’s an accomplishment.
We always drive to Margo’s house. Graham thinks walking is barbaric. We pull around her long, circuitous drive and the house gets closer, then farther, then pounces.
One of Margo’s staff arrives to park our car. I can see our garage from here. It’s ridiculous.
I observe the towers and turrets as we pass alongside the house, the way they seem to puncture holes in the sky, leaving scar-tissue clouds.
“Nervous, darling?” Graham purrs. You would think he enjoys it.
Bean meets us at the top of the garden stairs with a big grin. Then she trots along ahead of us, looking back every so often to make sure we are following.
When we reach the fifth terrace, we find Margo smoking a black clove cigarette behind a white table. Margo’s dinners are her masterpieces. They are always themed, but unlike Mitsi’s or any other themed parties, Margo’s themes seem to emanate from her, like she is the throbbing brain of the party animal. Walking into one of her dinners is like walking into one of her acid trips. You think you’re going mad but really you’re just going Margo.
Tonight, she is wearing a white dress with silver spikes along the shoulders, a silver headpiece that drips like silver sweat around her ears. She would look ridiculous anywhere else—but in her own garden, she looks divine. Even I can appreciate that.
“Did we catch you midbattle?” Graham says, kissing either cheek.
“Always.” She smiles wide at him as he takes his seat beside her. Bean puts her paws on Margo’s lap, careful to avoid the sharp bits. Margo squeals at Bean the way other woman squeal at babies. I was shocked the first time I heard it. Now it just makes me nervous. “Aren’t you the most beautiful girl?” she pleads with Bean. “Aren’t you the best girl?” She bounces her hands back and forth on her lap. Bean bobs along, chasing them, delighted. “You’re so good.”
“Nice to see you, too, Margo,” I say like she is talking to me.
“Lyla.” She smiles at me the way she always does, as if she has just been told a terrible secret about me and is about to spill. Bean drops to the floor, licks her crotch, then perks up like she hears something.
“What is it, darling?” Margo asks. “Do you smell something bad?” Bean is frozen, head cocked, ready for anything. Suddenly, she explodes, races to the stairs and bounds out of sight, wildly barking.
“What’s gotten into her?” I ask. No one answers. You don’t mess with Bean. Her bark gets more and more distant as she descends.
I take the chair Margo has set for me on the other side of the table. It’s a dining table I haven’t seen before—arctic white with a real silver inlay—and will probably never see again.
Margo ashes her cigarette. One of her staff appears behind her. “Gin martini. And what do you drink, Lyla?”
“Red wine with dinner.”
“Oh, yes, she likes that Spanish crap.” She smiles like a kid who’s made a dirty joke.