I can’t look Corinne in the eye as I get ready for work, although I kiss her goodbye when I leave. It’s chaste, but it’s still on her mouth.
“I’ll call you tonight,” she promises. But she won’t. I know that. For the first time in a long time, I’m okay with that. I’m not annoyed, because I’ve got something else to focus on. Maybe this weird flirtation thing with Zoe is actually good for my marriage.
Ha. That’s rationale at its finest.
I drive down the road, and I get the first text when I’m sitting at a stoplight.
Did you like that?
It’s Zoe.
I stare at the words, knowing that the girl who just licked another girl is typing them. She’s focused on me now, and she’s wild and unrestrained. It’s the most exciting thing that’s ever happened to me.
The light turns green, and I don’t text her back, because I might be perverted, but I don’t text and drive. It’s another five minutes before I hit another red light and I can answer.
Of course. Wasn’t that the point?
Because I truly think it was. Something tells me she did it on purpose. She somehow figured out where I would be—did I mention to her that I jog in the morning?—and made sure that I’d see. It should make me uneasy, but instead, it turns me on. She went to all of that trouble just for me? The blood pulses through me, and I feel alive for the first time in months.
There are three bubbles now. She’s replying. But the light turns green, and even though I hear the ding of a new text, I fight the temptation to look until I pull into my parking spot at the office. I’m barely parked before I yank the phone up to read it.
It was—it was all for you. Smart boy.
I was right. She meant for me to see them. The exuberant feeling carries me through the morning, fueling me through my appointments. The memories of what they did together keep me hard on and off, and I have to fight to keep my focus on my patients.
At lunchtime, I’m like a little boy at Christmas when I pull my desk drawer open to check my phone.
There are two texts from Zoe, and none from my wife.
God, it turned me on to have you watch us.
I’m going to show you how much.
As I hold the phone, three bubbles pop up, and I’m practically shaking in anticipation when a third text comes through.
A video.
Zoe is in her waitress uniform, standing in a public restroom. She’s fingering herself, and the camera zooms in to her fingers. She’s so wet that I can hear it as her fingers move.
God, I want you, Jude, she murmurs in the background.
I swallow hard, because all of a sudden, this is real.
I’m really in my office watching a girl masturbate while she whispers my name.
I’m married.
I’m married.
Yet Corinne hasn’t called or texted all day. If I’m out of her sight, I’m out of her mind, and that’s so fucking frustrating.
This girl, though... This girl is making it difficult.
I watch the video again, then again.
God, I want you, Jude.
The whisper imprints in my head, and I hear it again and again through the rest of the day. The feeling it invokes is like a drug, and I can’t help but want more of it. It lights a fire in me that I haven’t felt in such a long time, and it’s no excuse, but I want to feel more of it.
That’s why, after work, when I get another text from Zoe and it says, I want to see you tonight, I answer her.
What time?
I lay my phone down before I can change my mind, before I can ponder what an asshole I am.
And then my phone rings. I startle, thinking Zoe is calling. But it’s not her. It’s my wife.
A pang of guilt shudders through me, and I let the call go to voice mail. I can’t talk to her right now. Not right after I set a date with another woman.
She’d hear it in my voice. She’d know.
And that would kill me.
19
Seven days, twelve hours until Halloween
Corinne
Jude doesn’t answer his phone.
I don’t know why. But something feels odd, something nameless is heavy in the pit of my belly. I can’t place it, I can’t name it. It feels like something is wrong. Only, I have no basis for that feeling whatsoever.
I guess it’s because he’s never not answered his phone before.
I leave him a voice mail, then look around the ER.
It’s quiet for once, almost still. Brock comes out of exam room one, and he pauses to look at me.
“You look like shit, Cabot.”
“Thanks.”
“Well, you do.” He sits next to me, opening a chart. “You should go lie down. I’ve got this.”
I don’t argue, because while I might look like shit, I guarantee that I feel five times worse. I head for the doctors’ lounge, to the soothing darkness, and collapse onto a cot. My stomach is rolling, uneasy and nauseous. Saliva pools in my mouth, and I fight the urge to vomit.
Surely it’s not just because my husband isn’t answering his phone.
That’s dumb.
“Jude is fine,” I whisper to myself. Nothing is happening to Jude. He’s safe. He’s just busy. There’s no reason to worry.
I close my eyes and try to ignore the feeling of foreboding in my gut. After a while, I open them again to distract myself, to watch the crack of light under the door, to watch the shadows pass by with the nurses as they walk, allowing it to lull me into sleep.
Before long, I’m dreaming. Only, my dreams are memories.
“Your father was supposed to be home for dinner,” my mother tells me, pacing by the phone. “I don’t know where he is.”
Jackie and I look at each other, nervous and edgy. I think I know where he is, and I can tell Jackie does, too.
My mom stops at the sink, her worn dress hanging from her thin frame. She’s been smoking too much lately. She’s losing weight.
“Mom,” Jackie starts out, and she’s hesitant. “I saw him earlier. He was in the park with Melanie Gibson.”
I kick her under the table. We did see him, when we were walking home from school, and he was too close to Melanie, way too close, but we shouldn’t tell my mom. I don’t know what’s going on, but it can’t be good. Not with the way Melanie was looking at him with stars in her eyes.
My mother’s head snaps up, and she stares at Jackie intently.
“What do you mean, Jacquelyn?”
Her words are abrupt, pointed. I kick Jackie again and she winces.
“Nothing, Mama,” she says now. “I thought I saw him, but I don’t know.”
“You were mistaken,” my mom says. “He was at work earlier. He couldn’t have been in the park, you silly girl.”
She paces again, though, and she lights one cigarette after another, smoking them in a chain.
She dishes macaroni out onto two plates and hands them to us. “Jackie, are you trick-or-treating tonight?” she asks, trying to sound normal.
Jackie nods. “Yes, Mama. I’m going with Trish.” Her best friend.
My mother nods. “Good. And you, Corinne? Are you still babysitting for Melanie?”
She tries her best to sound casual, but her words are loaded. She knows that I am, and she knows that something is going on with my father and Melanie. I can see it in her eyes, and I can hear it in her voice. I know I should tell her what we saw, but I can’t. Because she’ll hate us for it.
“Yes, Mama,” I answer instead.
“Well, see that you’re not late,” she tells me. “Hurry up and eat your dinner.”
The dream morphs and changes and I awaken with a start, and as I try to calm down, I force the images from that night out of my head.
I had eaten my macaroni, and I had not been late.
I didn’t say a word to my mother about what I knew...or what I feared I knew.
And I’ll always wonder how things might’ve been different if I had.
A bit of vomit rises in my throat, and I swallow it down, the bile bitter and gross. I gulp some water and curl up on the cot, my skin clammy. I wish I were home with Jude, curled up in our soft bed instead, where he could hold me and tell me that everything is going to be okay.
Because for whatever reason, I feel like it’s not.
As crazy as it might sound, I feel like something terrible is about to happen.
20
Seven days, eleven hours until Halloween Jude
What am I doing?
I stare into my rearview mirror, and my eyes are hooded and closed.