The Miracle Falls Mall was cool and quiet at that hour, hardly anyone there, most of the stores still closed, steel grates pulled down across their wide entrances. The gate was pulled up at Boost Yer Game, but the two dudes who had the morning shift were just horsing around, taking three-point shots on the basket located in the center of the store. Their happy shouts and the squeak of their sneakers echoed all the way down the corridor to the central atrium.
Becki didn’t see anyone else the whole walk to Devotion Diamonds, except for Kellaway, the top cop in the mall—although of course he wasn’t really a cop at all. Rog said the real cops didn’t want him, that he’d done some skeevy Abu Ghraib shit in Iraq and had been discharged in disgrace. Rog said Kellaway would follow black kids around in the mall, fondling his foot-long flashlight, like he was just looking for a reason to crack some skulls. Becki and Kellaway were both head ing in the same direction, but she fell back a few paces, let him march away from her up the central staircase. He had oddly colorless eyes that gave an unsettling impression of blindness. He had eyes the hue of very cold water over very pale stone.
Devotion Diamonds was at the top of the stairs, the Plexiglas doors halfway open. She turned sideways and slipped between them.
The display area always smelled like money to her, like the inside of a new car. The gems weren’t out yet but still locked away in their drawers.
When it was closed, the door to the office blended in with the fake cherry paneling in the back of the shop, but at the moment it was partly ajar, looking into a cube of fluorescent light.
She pushed it the rest of the way in. Rog was behind the desk, wearing a yellow shirt and a wide brown knit tie. He was smoking, which surprised her. She had never seen him smoke in the morning. The big window at the back of the room was cranked open, probably to air out the smell of the cigarette, which was funny, actually. He was letting more smoke in than he was venting, the haze from the Ocala fire giving the air a filmy texture. He typed something on his big silver iMac, clicked a key, and pivoted in his leather chair to look at her. He flicked his cigarette out the open window without looking to see where it went. His gestures were jerky and abrupt and unlike him, and it made her nervous.
“Hey, Bean,” he said.
“What’s up?” she asked. The thing about calling her “Bean” unsettled her even more. That was what he had called her right up until they started fucking. He called some of the other girls who worked for him “Bean,” too, a term of fatherly endearment.
He squeezed the bridge of his nose between his fingers. “So one of my wife’s friends told her to look at your Instagram feed.”
Her stomach cinched tight, but she kept her face expressionless. “Yeah? Who cares? There aren’t any photos of us together.”
“There’s a photo of you on my boat.”
“How would anyone know it’s your boat?” She narrowed her eyes, trying to visualize what had been in that picture. A selfie, her grinning up into her phone, holding a green appletini in one hand, a drink that matched her lime-green bikini top. The caption read something like, Until we go to the south of France, the only place to sunbathe naked is on bae’s yacht! LOL. “It could be anyone’s boat.”
“You think my wife doesn’t know my boat when she sees it?”
“So . . . tell her I asked if I could use it. Tell her I was out with my boyfriend.” She put her hands on the edge of the desk, using her arms to squeeze her breasts together, and leaned in to kiss him. “You won’t even be lying,” she breathed.
He wheeled back from her in his chair, putting himself out of reach. “I already told her a different story.”
She straightened up and hugged herself. “What’d you tell her?”
“That you took the keys out of my desk without asking me. That you must’ve gone for a joyride. She asked if I was going to fire you. I said you’d be gone by the time we opened.” He pushed a small cardboard box across the desk. Until he touched it, she hadn’t noticed it there. “I had some of your stuff in my car. And you had a few personal items in your cubby. I think I got all of it.”
“Well, shit. I guess we have to start being more careful. Sucks you have to fire me, though. I made plans around my next few checks. It also sucks that your first instinct was to lie to your wife in a way that made me sound like a skeeve.”
“Bean,” he said. “I don’t regret one minute of it. Not one. But I will if there’s one minute more.”
So. There it was.
He gave the box another slight nudge. “There’s something else in there for you. Token of my feelings.”
She folded back a flap and picked out a small black velvet box on the top of the mess. It contained a silver bracelet, crafted to look like a stave on a piece of sheet music, with a fake diamond G clef set on it. Cheap junk they couldn’t give away.
“You were the music in my days, kiddo.” That sounded cheap, too. It would’ve been corny in a sympathy card.
She dropped the black velvet box on the desk. “I don’t want that shit. What do you think you’re doing?”
“You know what I’m doing. Don’t make it any harder. It’s hard enough already.”
“How can you pick her over me?” Becki found it hard to breathe. The room had a bitter blue campfire smell, the stink of the Ocala blaze, and it was impossible to get enough air. “You hate her. You told me you can’t stand hearing her voice. You spend all day trying to figure out how to avoid spending time with her. Besides. What do you have to lose? You told me you had a prenup.” Thinking that sounded very adult, calling it a “prenup.”
“I do have a prenuptial agreement. Her prenuptial agreement. Becki . . . these stores are all hers. I don’t keep the shirt on my back if she walks. I thought you understood that.” He looked at his watch. “She’s going to call in ten minutes to see how it went. Plus, I have to open. We better go over the ground rules. Don’t try to meet up with me. Don’t come back to the store. I’ll send you your last check. Don’t text.”
Her throat tightened some more. It was the blunt, almost impersonal efficiency in his voice. He might’ve been discussing store policy with a new employee.
“This is bullshit,” she said. “You think this is how you get to end things? You’re out of your fucking mind if you think you can just throw me out like a used rubber.”
“Hey, now.”
“Something you blew a load in and don’t want to look at anymore.”
“Don’t. Bean—”
“Stop calling me that.”
“Becki.” He laced his fingers together and looked tiredly down into the bowl of his palms. “Things end. Cherish the good times.”
“And get the fuck out. With my shitty half-price bracelet.”
“Keep your voice down!” he barked. “Who knows who’s walking around? Anne Malamud in Bath & Body Works is friends with my wife. Personally, I think Anne is the one who told her to look at your Instagram feed. She must’ve seen us together, making out in the Lamborghini or something. Who knows what Anne has said to my wife?”
“Who knows what I might say to her?”
“What’s that mean?”
“It would teach you something, wouldn’t it?” What she wanted to say was, if his wife knew about them, then there wouldn’t be any reason to break up anymore. If it was a choice between his wife’s forty-eight-year-old pussy and hers, she had a pretty good idea which one Rog would pick.
“Don’t go there.”