Chapter 6
6
I had managed to wrap the chat with Detective Clooney without deviating much from my first statement to the police. I returned Victor’s blazer—it always makes me nervous to wear borrowed expensive garments when I’m a well-known stain magnet. I didn’t drop by my own apartment to put on socks, sneakers, and a second, warmer sweatshirt though. Instead, I was now knocking on David’s door. And even if it was a well-practiced gesture, it still felt bizarre.
“Querías hablar,” I told him when he opened the door, letting him know I was there to talk.
“Pasa.” He let me in.
And just like that, I was inside David’s apartment for the first time.
Not really.
Technically, I’d been in his studio apartment many times. Only it had always been late at night, and I have a sort of doctrine: What happens around midnight is all the fabric of dreams.
Since I’d only been there in dreams, and for very different purposes than a chat, I didn’t know how to act or what to say when I crossed David’s front door. There was a smirk on his face as if he saw I was being bashful and thought it hilariously hypocritical of me.
“Can’t find my favorite T-shirt. Did I leave it at your place?” he said, the smirk still on his lips. I was dumbfounded.
“You wanted to talk,” I repeated, this time in English in case he hadn’t heard me the first time. I had no intention of breaking our unspoken rule of never acknowledging what went on between the two of us at night. And I had no plans of returning his T-shirt anytime soon. I was there because he’d seemed quite adamant about his need to talk and even if I pretended I didn’t care, I couldn’t resist him. The thought of him being distressed pained me. And he had looked sort of uneasy when he’d told me he needed a chat.
“Should we perhaps synchronize our police approach going forward?” he finally said.
“Probably,” I conceded. “You’ve talked to Clooney as well, right?”
“Clooney?”
“The detective in charge of this investigation,” I said, impatiently. This visit to David’s place in the middle of the day was taking way longer than I had previously anticipated, and I needed to be out of there.
“Elena, en serio. He’s called Rooney. Could you please not color everything with a Hollywood veneer?”
And there it was. Another one of the many irreconcilable differences that had broken us apart. He wasn’t exactly a showbiz fan.
“Okay, Mr. Serious Reporter. But tell me, why aren’t we using the perfect alibi that we have for last night?”
“Do you think we need an alibi?” he asked.
“You tell me! Detective Rooney was all nosey and asking all kinds of questions about Dashing Henry,” I said, feeling sullied just by speaking that name. “I’m a bit confused about something though.”
“?Qué te tiene confundida?” he asked me in his LA-accented Spanish with notes of Mexican and Porteno.
Tú , I almost blurted out. You are the one who’s confusing me . But I didn’t.
“What was Dashing Henry’s body doing here? Did he live in the building?” I hadn’t asked the cops that because I didn’t want to sound more clueless—or more guilty-looking—than I already was.
“You literally have no idea who lives here, right?” He laughed.
“Nope, and I intend for it to remain that way. But seriously...”
“To the best of my knowledge,” David said, and I knew that was code for I have three sources who’ve confirmed it , “he didn’t live here, no.”
“So what was he doing here?”
“I’m afraid that’s what the cops want to know. Also, apparently he was found right next to where my car is parked, and that’s made them suspicious.” I remembered George mentioning the body was found in the parking area of the building.
“David, we should have told the cops the truth,” I said then. I didn’t like the idea of him being a suspect in all of this.
“Aren’t you worried about your boyfriend finding out that you spent the night with someone else?”
I gaped at him. This was the first time he’d referred to Victor as my boyfriend or anything else, really. But the word boyfriend coming from his mouth when it wasn’t to describe his relationship to me felt bizarre. Then again, David and I didn’t exactly do much talking lately.
“We’d be telling the police, not him,” I said.
“Police talk,” David continued.
“Right,” I said, realizing I wouldn’t mind that much if Victor found out. Is it bad to say that, by then, I was quite frankly bored with Victor? In any case, David didn’t have to know that. “What are you up to right now?”
He was searching all the surfaces of his apartment, looking for his notebook. His favorite black rollerball pen was already in his hand, and I had an inkling about his intentions.
“Nothing,” he said sheepishly, but I knew he was lying. Add that to the long list of irreconcilable differences: When it came to his job, David lied. Or, at least, he wasn’t always completely honest. But I’ve told you about David’s lying tendencies already, right? They rub me the wrong way.
“I know I was wrong before, when I accused you of calling the press,” I told him, trying to affect as much of a serious tone as I could. “I know you didn’t call them because you’re the one who wants to write about what happened.”
He blinked at me and opened his mouth, likely to say something defensive, but I cut him off.
“Don’t. I’m not telling you not to do it. I’m only asking you to let me help you. For all we know, right now you’re at the top of the cops’ list. Let’s figure this out together, investigating as a team so we can prove you had nothing to do with it. I’m sure telling them that you were home alone all night is not helping your situation.” I didn’t want to question the reasons behind it too deeply, but I needed to help him investigate and make sure he’d be all right. And we both knew that wasn’t the first time we’d cracked a case together.
“I appreciate the offer,” he said, and for an instant I thought he was going to accept it. I felt thrilled about the idea of helping him. It was a sensation I hadn’t felt in a long time. I was genuinely concerned about him. I knew that in the cops’ eyes he was probably the most plausible perpetrator, and I needed to dissuade them from that notion.
But David didn’t take me up on my proposition.
“Listen, there’s still something I need to tell you. The reason I told you we needed to talk. It’s important.” You can add his flair for melodrama to that running list of irreconcilable differences. I hate drama. I write drama, but I don’t want it in my life.
I didn’t even try to conceal my exasperation at his words.
“I know you still don’t want to talk to me,” he said. “Pero no podemos seguir así.”
I didn’t see why things couldn’t stay the way they were, but I relented.
“Okay, but we have to have this conversation at my place because I need to change. I’m meeting my agent in less than an hour and can’t be late for that—again.”
···
“Are you worried at all about this?” I asked David.
We’d both come up to my apartment using the stairs—the elevators were thankfully still off-limits. I don’t think I could have been inside such an enclosed space with him even for half a minute.
I was in my bedroom, smelling the clothes piled in different states of cleanliness around the space and trying to unearth the one top my sister had gifted me not even two weeks before.
“What should I be worried about?” David answered from my living room. He was fishing for his misplaced UCLA T-shirt among the wreckage that was my apartment. I hadn’t exactly had time to tidy up that morning. And he’d still not let out a single word about whatever he thought we needed to talk about.
“About Dashing fucking Henry appearing dead where you live a week before the trial was about to start.” I kept my volume loud from the bedroom.
I finally found the top I needed buried under the pillows of my unmade bed. Had I worn the garment the night before perhaps? In any case, it didn’t smell too bad to me.
“The trial was going to be a total sham. My lawyer is confident we were going to get a win or even a dismissal of the libel charge,” David said, as if both of us didn’t have a close relationship with said lawyer and knew well that the attorney in question wasn’t exactly an expert in defamation law.
I was going to call David out on that but I caught him.
He was eyeing me through the open space between the kitchen/living area and my bedroom. One thing about the Eastern Columbia: the whole building had been designed with a wall-less concept in mind.
“Are you checking me out?”
I’d taken off the WGA West hoodie and was wearing just my pajama pants and a bralette from the now defunct les girls les boys. I may be awful when it comes to outerwear and have committed such crimes as wearing Birkenstock sandals with socks, but I have impeccable taste in underwear. And David’s eyes were fixed on my body in my bedroom mirror.
“Should I not be staring at you?” He locked eyes with my reflection in the mirror.
I turned around and walked in his direction, still in nothing but my sheer mesh bralette and my low-hanging pajama pants. I stopped in front of him, a mere few centimeters between the two of us. My eyes were playfully fixed on his the whole time.
Something electric crackled in the air. It was always like that between the two of us lately, but seeing each other’s faces during the daytime heightened it. So did the fact that we were somehow talking and not just communicating in grunts and monosyllables. The temperature in the room heated even more than it had on previous recent occasions.
I thought he was about to kiss me. I know I was going to kiss him.
But the doorbell buzzed.
“Elena, it’s me!” I heard Victor’s voice on the other side of my front door. He knew I never answered the doorbell or opened that door unless I was zealously waiting for a package to be delivered.
Fuuuuck! I thought but managed not to say out loud. I wanted Victor to leave and for me and David to be about to kiss in plain daylight. But the moment had been fleeting.
“Right,” I said and, against my own desire, left David standing in the middle of my living room. I went to my bedroom to grab the top I was supposed to be wearing. I hurriedly put it on and went to open the door.
“Been looking for you all over the building. You weren’t home before,” Victor said when he saw me. His eyes fell on David. “Ah, you’re also here.”
“I was actually leaving,” David said. He exited without attempting to make an excuse. “I’ll text you later. We still need to talk,” he told me.
David left and I realized he was going to start investigating the case without me. I had asked him to join in, and he wasn’t interested. He only seemed to want to talk to me about something even if he wasn’t telling me what it was.
I assumed that Victor wasn’t going to ask about David’s presence at my apartment or what we supposedly needed to talk about. The nature of my relationship with Victor had always been uncomplicated, incurious, and open. (See, I told you there had been no cheating.) He made his way to the kitchen and opened the fridge.
“What was that about?” he asked, checking the sparse contents of my refrigerator.
“What was what about?” You can decide whether to believe me, but I truly had no idea what he meant.
“Why do you need to talk?”
It didn’t escape my limited deducing skills that he was not looking at me but pretending to be thoroughly hypnotized by the non-contents of my fridge because he was avoiding conflict.
“Why don’t you go and ask him?” I told Victor, annoyed. “He’s the one who says he wants to talk. For all I know, he may be having second thoughts about letting me keep the fifth season of The Wire on DVD when we split up. It’s the one about a newsroom.”
Victor opted for a change of subject with judgment still directed to my fridge. “Where do you keep the sparkling water?”
“I don’t.”
“What?” he exclaimed as if not having sparkling water could be equated to not having Wi-Fi—or running hot water. “You have a SodaStream or something, right?” He sounded distressed. On second thought, maybe the source of the distress wasn’t my lack of posh water but the fact that I had been caught with my ex and wasn’t going to talk about it with him. But at the time, I remained unaware of that possibility.
“Nope. I hate bubbles.” My tone lacked even a hint of apology.
And that said so many things about our relationship of convenience. He didn’t know that I abhorred fizzy liquids. I’m sure he was still convinced that because I was technically European, I had to like sparkling hydration.
I was aware of his water preference but made no effort to keep any in the house. My sister would be able to find her favorite kind of chocolate—Hu Hazelnut Butter Crunch Milk Chocolate bar at the moment; Amelia knew the diverse array of kombucha cans inside the fridge was there solely for her enjoyment; and I kept Guayakí loose leaf yerba mate for those rare nights in which David felt like having it. But there was no sparkling water.
I was certain Victor wasn’t at my place to pick a fight or to talk about our relationship—he just wanted to tell me something about the case. But I’m going to make you wait for it since I guess this is as good a moment as any to tell you a bit more about him. About us . Because I know you must be wondering, What is she doing with him exactly? And perhaps more specifically, What is he doing with her?
To be completely honest, I’m not sure.
Victor arrived in my life the moment I most needed him. He was like no one I had dated before. I didn’t even know I liked blonds until I met him and his eternally freckled if perennially tanned skin.
Of course, it was my mother who introduced us. She approved of him, which was much more than I could say about any of my previous partners. And I didn’t hold that against Victor. He’s sexy, he can be funny (in private and when he’s completely sure that nothing he says will end up online and ruin his future political prospects) but, above all, he’s easy.
I’m perfectly aware that he was probably with me because of how well connected I am. He’d never leave me so he didn’t lose access, and that made the relationship quite effortless. I never had to worry about saying the right thing, buying the right birthday gift, or wearing the right clothes. He didn’t mind that I don’t even try. Our relationship felt almost like work, and I know how to work.
Which was why I expected Victor not to say a single thing about my ex being there when he arrived. And then he did. And I can genuinely say that I didn’t see that plot twist coming.
“I know David and you are friends or whatever,” Victor blurted, and I would have been a bit taken aback by the euphemism if I didn’t know how much of a true politician he was. He was a master in the art of not saying what he implied. “But you should probably be careful.”
“What do you mean?” Was that his way of telling me he was jealous or something? Did he want to have the exclusivity chat? Because I sure wasn’t interested.
“Too many things against him. First, he bylines an article that gets Dashing Henry canceled but somehow David ends up being fired by the newspaper where he published that article. Then Dashing sues him for libel. And now the actor turns up dead at his door a week before the libel trial was set to start.”
“If you put it like that...” I don’t think Victor realized how much the mention of Dashing Henry unsettled me. I was hit with a wave of discomfort at his name and not because I thought Victor could be jealous of David. “I mean, it wasn’t technically his door but the parking area.”
“Same thing. The cops like him for this. Don’t be seen or photographed with him,” Victor continued. “I don’t think your mom would appreciate the fact that her oldest daughter was linked to a suspected killer.”
You have to give it to politicians. Victor wasn’t really worried about my safety if David was indeed Dashing Henry’s killer. He wasn’t even jealous or, if he was, he was making an effort not to show it. What concerned my pretend boyfriend was the possibility of my image—but especially my mother’s image—getting potentially damaged if I was seen in the company of the wrong person.
I’m embarrassed to admit that even though I’m a writer and I think myself clever, I couldn’t come up with anything sharp enough to counter Victor’s comment. So he probably thought I was acquiescing to his advice. In reality, I was simply stunned—and fuming.
After that, I asked him to leave.