When the phone rang, she jumped. The ringer sounded like a siren. She looked at the caller ID. It was a number she didn’t recognize from an area code in the middle of the state.
The phone rang again. She lurched for it and picked it up. There was static on the other end, a whooshing sound as if the caller was on a train. “Is Charles there?” a woman asked.
“He’s not.” Joanna said. “Who’s calling?”
“My name is Bronwyn Pembroke,” the woman said.
Joanna almost dropped the phone.
But it had to be a cruel coincidence. She was probably someone taking a survey. A telemarketer.
“Can I have him call you back?” Joanna whispered.
“Well, no.” The woman sounded dismayed. “I don’t … I won’t really be reachable by this phone. Can you give him a message? I need to change the time that we’re meeting tomorrow. It needs to be nine, not ten.”
Joanna watched her eyes widen in the hallway mirror. The reflection didn’t look like her at all but like some other woman, some person she thought she’d never be. She placed the phone back into the receiver.
The kitchen was apathetically still. All the little charging devices for Joanna’s cell phone, digital camera, and laptop blinked red, unfazed. The phone rang again, but she didn’t answer. The machine clicked on. Her voice. Thanks for calling, and then their phone number. Because out here in the suburbs, you didn’t say the Bates-McAllister residence. No one told their last names on answering machines for fear of giving too much away. When it beeped, there was only a dial tone.
When the answering machine clicked off, she grabbed the phone again and dialed Charles’s office number. Voice mail. She dialed his cell phone. Nothing. She listened to his polite, cheerful voice recite his outgoing message. She waited, considering, and then let the phone slip from her fingers. It landed on the floor and skidded toward the fridge. The operator eventually interrupted, warning that the phone was off the hook, and then that grating, pulsing noise began.
Breathing hard, she ran upstairs, opened Charles’s sock drawer and plunged her hands inside, feeling past his socks until she hit the drawer’s fiberboard bottom. She didn’t know what she was looking for. A picture of Bronwyn? A … what, a condom? She ran her hands over his patterned boxers. There was a pair with little dogs on them, a pair with breakfast foods, a pair with paisleys. Finding nothing, she shut the drawer and leaned against it.
A part of her had expected this, and yet she wasn’t ready for it at all. Was this why Charles had abruptly canceled on coming to Maryland? Was this what he was doing after his interview of the people in the nudist colony or whatever it was? He’d probably scheduled the interview in the morning and then blocked off the rest of the day for Bronwyn.
She stopped. Maybe there wasn’t an interview. Maybe the place didn’t exist. Maybe it was a test, something she should’ve seen through. Charles claimed he was staying here because of his job—he’d told her he had something with work that got in the way, and then he’d threatened to quit, and then she said he was being ridiculous. He’d manipulated it around and made it her choice. It was positively Machiavellian. Do the interview, she’d told him. We’ll figure this out later. She’d given him permission.
She had to get out of here. She took Charles’s suitcase because it was nicer. She threw incongruous things into the bag—heavy sweaters, filmy dresses, high heels, a raincoat. Throwing a toothbrush and soap into a toiletry bag took seconds. After a moment, she decided to take some of his things, too—his expensive moisturizer, his Polo cologne, the book he was reading. Then she stood back, both palms on the top of her head. Her mother would be surprised at how early she would be. She might still be asleep, resting up for her big appointment tomorrow. Joanna would make breakfast and coffee. She wouldn’t tell her about this.