Chapter One June #2
“Well, bits of it. I know this isn’t our permanent place, but I got you the fountain head.
It’ll be a nice bit of statuary in the meantime, until we find a house outside of the city.
We can put it in storage until we have our own proper garden.
Then, we’ll get the fountain set up and put him on it.
We’ll have to drill up through it and figure out how to route the water. All of that’s a matter for later.”
“You know you make my dreams come true, Danny,” I whisper, choked up. “No one has ever been so good to me before.”
“Well, you’re my dream girl, Junie. My fantasy in the flesh. Now, I’ve got some boring dinner to sit through with the investors. I’ve got to go be terribly charming.”
“You don’t even have to try, baby. Knock ‘em dead.”
“Will do. Um, let me see... Ugh, I’ll just have to shoot you a quick text tomorrow. Our time zones and my meetings don’t mesh at all.”
“It’s okay. I’ll tell you when the present gets here.”
“All right. Good night, darling.”
It’s still sunny over here, but I smile and make a kissing sound. “Good night, lover boy.”
THE NEXT DAY IS LIKE my version of Christmas.
I drive Daniel’s car—a sleek, cream-colored Mercedes SUV—to the garden center in Pine Ridge, buy some tarps to cover the trunk and the upholstery, and load it up with everything that will fit, all in pinks, lavenders, light blues, and creams. Gentle colors for a girl who has to be tough all day—well, from late August to early June, anyway.
In case you're wondering, it’s not just growing up in a sometimes rough area.
It’s my job. I’m a TSS at a middle school—that’s shorthand for Therapeutic Staff Support.
The official job description in my employment contract claims I’m a highly trained support person for students with special needs, a person with educational and psychological training that helps kids regulate their behavior and emotions so they can learn their best. You know, making better futures for kids.
(I mean, that’s the idea they were selling when I was like “What do you mean I can’t do anything with an associate’s degree, you bastards at community college? ”)
My current position with an underfunded public school in the Philly area treats me more like crowd control and anger management for kids who aren’t getting the actual support they need within the classroom because the teacher is trying to teach pre-algebra while confiscating phones, vapes, and dodging actual blows, kids who are dealing with extreme sensory overload, many of whom may be off of their meds because their families couldn’t afford them.
Every day I have to wear an ugly polo that’s made of scratchy material, shapeless khakis (well, not actually shapeless, because this ass is assin’), and sneakers that can race after kids escaping from their classes or starting fights.
What do you get paid for such a challenging and supposedly rewarding job, you ask?
Ha. Girl, you'd better sit. I have a year-round salary for a ten-month position, but that salary covers about seven months of actual bills. Until I met Daniel at a Christmas tree lighting in Center City, my idea of a big splurge was grabbing coffee in the morning and dinner out the same night, not looking at a trunk full of baby hydrangeas and a front seat full of a healthy azalea bush. Don’t even get me started on the flats of white and purple irises and pink daisies in the backseat.
I text Daniel as soon as I’m bouncing along the mountain road north of town, up through the foothills over Pine Ridge.
The road is curved and rugged, narrow in spots, with lots of twisty little paths and lanes off it, but in the Benz, it’s a smooth ride.
“Hey, send a text to Daniel,” I tell the car’s Bluetooth system.
“Just spent like six hundred dollars for plants. That’s my Christmas present taken care of. ”
Daniel doesn’t text back, but I don’t really expect him to, what with his meetings and everything.
I can’t help but enjoy a little moment of greedy joy when I think that I can go back again to the gardening center and get more tools, more flowers, and just plain more, all because Daniel loves me, and he doesn’t care that I’m the “broke one” in the relationship.
I’ve never met someone so generous and full of surprises.
And I can’t believe he’s even sending something else, something on a jet.
“Hey, send a text to Daniel,” I say again, turning up the windy road to our lodge.
“You know you spoil me like crazy, right? Like this is too much. I’ve never had a guy fly me a present before.
I love you, gorgeous. Back to our ‘summer home.’ Oh my gosh.
Summer home. Okay, I have to go unload a couple hundred pounds of plants!
Call me tonight if you want, I don’t care what time it is.
Oh. And in case you forgot in the last sixty seconds, I love you. ”
WHEN MY PHONE RINGS in a couple of hours, I flop my gardening gloves off, stand up, push my sweaty hair out of my eyes, and grab the phone excitedly.
It’s almost five, and my package isn’t here yet, which is totally fine.
I’m going to keep gardening until it’s too dark to see, which will be pretty late.
It’s close to the summer solstice, after all.
“Hello?” I don’t recognize the number, but it has a UK country code, which means it’s Daniel, probably calling from his hotel room. Really, really late, though. Oh, well, I told him I didn’t care when he called me.
But the voice on the other end is polite and robotic.
“Hello. This is HB Bank of London. Your account has been temporarily locked due to unusual activity. To unlock your account, please log in to your account through the HB Bank of London website and follow the steps listed there. Please note, a representative will never call you and ask for your account number or card number. If you have any questions, please call the number located on the back of your card or on the top of your most recent electronic statement.”
I roll my eyes, already rushing back into the house to snag my laptop off the spacious kitchen island, kicking off my grassy, earth-covered flip-flops.
“Robot lady! It’s me, I did it. Oh geez...
” I mutter to myself and scroll through my phone, looking for the photo I snapped of the login info Daniel insisted on giving me, along with his duplicate card.
“Great way to repay the nicest guy on earth. Sorry, honey, while you were working your ass off to spoil me, I got your account locked up. Why are they calling so late, though? Oh, shit, what if he needed his card to pay for a client dinner or get a cab, or...”
My mind is spiraling, and my fingers are racing to punch in everything. Maybe it was someone else’s turn to pay? Maybe it was a day on site, doing boring paperwork, and he’s safe in bed now, and in the morning I’ll explain, and we’ll laugh...
I follow the steps to unlock the account and breathe a sigh of relief when it works.
But my charges aren’t the ones listed as flagged.
The debit account that Daniel is sharing with me isn’t even the one marked with asterisks to denote suspicious charges. I blink and read the tiny print, almost white letters on a pale blue box.
“For the last six billing cycles, all of your expenditures have come from account 455-552. Today, we noticed several thousand pounds being withdrawn from account 455-553, which has been inactive for the last six billing cycles. If you want to ensure that your account isn’t accidentally locked in the future... ”
I stop reading and stare at the screen.
Daniel has two accounts under one umbrella. That makes sense, I guess. One is probably for life in the USA, and one is for when he’s in the UK. Or maybe personal versus business.
Except he’s been back to England and Northern Ireland at least three times since I’ve known him.
One might be savings. One might be a retirement account. I’m being nosy.
But I also feel like somehow, it’s my fault for using the duplicate card for the first time, and racking up so much money on it—and when I look at the charges, I notice that there are a bunch of charges from yesterday and today—from places with Scottish addresses and my charge from NY.
I notice one to Promises Kept, Pine Ridge, NY.
The handyman service delivering the present.
A weird feeling tickles the tip of my nose. My nana always called it the “suspicious sneeze.” My mom and all of my aunts have it. When something is off, our nose itches, and then we—
“Ahchoo!” The sneeze rips out of me, and the queasiness sets in.
Daniel is a good guy. He loves you. He proposed, like, two weeks ago. What are you doing, being so nosy and suspicious?
Just call him.
So I do. And he doesn’t answer. It’s only a little after eleven there.
He could still be in a meeting or having post-dinner drinks. Maybe he took clients out to a play. Gotta impress the big spenders.
Another sneeze almost knocks me off the kitchen stool where I’m perched.
Another call. A text that says I need him to answer, it’s urgent.
Nothing.
“Shit, I’ll tell him why later,” I say, then open the other account, the one that’s not been used in six billing cycles—since he met me.
My eyes widen at the string of red charges, all flagged.
Aphrodite’s Dungeon, Soho. Aphrodite’s Dungeon, Soho. Kitten’s Lounge, Soho. Barely There Apparel, Soho.
In seconds, I open another tab, and I’m typing in the location on a search engine.
Maybe Daniel’s card got stolen. That’s probably it.
Oh, my gosh, what if he’s lying unconscious somewhere while some pervert has his card and—
My train of thought derails when I see that Aphrodite’s Dungeon is a “Fetish and Lifestyle Club” catering to Britain’s swinger and BDSM scene.
Kitten’s Lounge is a strip club.
Barely There Apparel? I don’t even have to look for it. It has its own menu on Aphrodite’s Dungeon website, an in-house boutique where you can buy “playtime accessories and lingerie.”