Chapter 6 #2
She smiles to herself as she pulls away from the seedy motel and back onto the main road.
She got what she came for. She should bring it directly to Cora and let that be that.
She won’t do that, though, because there’s a bigger picture here, and she has plans for Finn Holmon. A hooker photo is not enough.
When she gets home, she feels breathless and anxious. She makes her coffee and sits in front of her computer, clicking around for YouTube videos to learn how to transfer the data from her complicated camera to her desktop file labeled Finn Holmon.
She can’t quite believe it. It’s not that she didn’t trust Cora’s instincts, but she expected a mousy receptionist he could easily impress and manipulate, not animal-print-clad prostitutes at the Royal Inn. What the hell was he doing? If this is what you want, why be married? is all she can think.
He’s always been the type of guy who will comment on the waitress’s backside or the nice rack on the blonde news anchor.
It’s the kind of passive comment designed to make any other woman in his company feel lesser-than.
Otherwise, why say anything? Why does anybody care what gives you a boner?
Not his wife, she can promise him that. Nobody is interested in who you’d like to stick your dick in, she thinks.
But that’s really what a comment like that implies, and it takes a certain kind of person—maybe a narcissistic one—to freely make these sorts of proclamations to make those around them feel uncomfortable.
She remembers how he’d once said, while at Paige and Grant’s restaurant—and Cora was in the restroom—that the legs on the teenage waitress went “all the way to heaven.” Grant never gave the courtesy laugh or grunt of agreement Finn was fishing for, though.
He always changed the subject and pretended not to hear him.
She knows the person Finn is. So why does she need more? She thinks she might have finally lost her mind.
That afternoon, Paige calls Cora, even though she knows the kind of frenzied state Cora gets in every time she’s helping to host one of her many charity events.
She lives for them, and they have to be absolutely flawless.
She doubts Finn will be there tonight because it’s Cora’s thing, or so he always says, and he rarely accompanies her. But where will he be? is the question.
“Hey, just calling to see if you need any last-minute help,” Paige says to Cora, praying she doesn’t.
“Oh, that’s sweet, but actually I think it’s under control so far.”
“Will Finn be joining you tonight?” Paige cuts to the chase and hears the hesitation in Cora’s answer: she knows Cora is not completely sure about this whole scheme of theirs.
“Uh, no. He’s got plans with some buddies—I think beers at O’Sullivan’s.” Paige scribbles this down. “Mia bailed, so...”
“Huh. What time?” she asks.
“Sorry?” Cora says.
“The beers at O’Sullivan’s,” Paige says. Cora is silent a moment.
“Paige, I—” Cora starts to say but then is interrupted by Mia, it sounds like. She hears a moment of muffled conversation, then, “Hey, I gotta go, but you’ll be at Moretti’s tonight, though, right?” she asks.
“I’m actually a bit under the weather,” Paige lies.
“I’ll see how I’m feeling later.” When they hang up, Paige feels terrible.
She should be there for Grant tonight, and she and Cora should probably call off this whole crazy plan, she knows that.
It was a ridiculous idea that Cora agreed to out of desperation, and now Paige is exploiting that.
Something inside her is stirring, though, changing like a vagary of wind shifting directions.
Grief is supposed to come in fits and starts, but hers has been unceasing, breath-stealing.
It felt like the world was tilting and she had to claw and grip the earth so she didn’t slide off—a constant, all-consuming effort every waking moment.
So even though she knows it’s fucked up that she’s finding this flicker of hope—is that what this is?
—in Finn Holman, in Cora’s husband, she just knows she needs to do this.
She’s going to the salon for a blowout and manicure and then to the boutique on Sixth Street to see if that cute silk cami is still in the window.
O’Sullivan’s is busy when Paige arrives.
She’s in skinny jeans and heels with the black silk camisole top from the shop window.
She’s been told she has Sandra Bullock hair, and when she does herself up, she’s quite the knockout.
She hasn’t changed out of sweatpants in weeks, nor has she applied makeup or taken her hair out of a scruffy ponytail for as long as she can remember—maybe Caleb’s funeral was the last time she’d made any effort for any reason.
She feels like a different person tonight.
Part of it is that she feels human again—more than human, desirable even.
She doesn’t care about being desirable outside of the necessity of the job at hand, but it does make one feel lighter, a bit confident, even.
This new focus—to trap Finn—has breathed new life into her somehow.
She walks through the dark pub and sits at the bar.
The place smells like years of beer spills dried into the carpet along with a stale, smoky tinge from the decades of smoke yellowing the walls, back before smoking indoors was banned.
She doesn’t waste any time. She orders a beer and gulps half of it, less for liquid courage and more to appear as though she’s been there awhile and therefore not stalking him.
She spots him near the pool tables with a couple guys she doesn’t recognize.
She half expected him to be with a woman but supposes not even he would do that so openly in a local hot spot.
She carries her beer and looks down at her phone, pretending to text as she meanders over that way.
He has to see her, and not the other way around, for this to feel organic.
And he does. Well, she’s made it impossible for him not to.
She lingers close to their table, looking engaged in her phone.
“Paige!” he hollers, cupping his hand around one side of his mouth to be heard over the noise. He holds up a beer and gives a sort of What are you doing here? shrug of disbelief.
“Oh. Finn. Hi!” she says, pushing her hair from her face and putting her phone in her purse.
“Hi. What are you doing at Sully’s? I’ve never seen you here before.”
“Oh, just meeting a girlfriend for a drink, but her sitter called—a fever or something—and she had to go.” She likes how easy and slippery these lies feel: she’s playing a character, and it’s invigorating.
He doesn’t ask why she’s not at Grant’s thing, and she doesn’t ask him either.
They should both be there, supporting their other halves.
Well, at least he should. Paige is separated.
There is less obligation. This omission on both their parts seems appropriate for the situation.
“Well, join us,” he says with a wide smile.
“Oh, no. That’s okay. Looks like a guys’ night. I couldn’t intrude.”
“Look, I’ve known these sad sacks since college. We have nothing new to say to each other, and if I hear Jesse bitch about his wife not letting him join a rugby team one more time, I was gonna leave anyway. Come on. You’ll be a breath of fresh air. I’ll buy you a drink,” he says.
“Uh, yeah. Okay. I guess...for one,” she says, and he waves down a tiny blonde waitress holding an impossibly full tray of teetering bottles and pint glasses.
“When you get a chance,” he says and gestures a sort of circle with his finger. “A round of...” He looks to Paige.
“Oh, uh, Heineken,” she says, and the girl nods and disappears into the sea of patrons that seem like giants next to her.
They end up sitting on stools at the high pub table next to the billiards area.
His friends shoot games, and he is mostly invested in a football game playing on the many flat screens around the bar.
He looks like a teenager in his backward UMass ball cap, fixated on the TV and stuffing loaded fries into his mouth.
She stares at him, momentarily transfixed.
Something about the hat makes her heart flutter. He looks back at her.
“What?” he asks, chewing a mouthful of food.
“N-nothing.” She smiles and nervously looks down at a cardboard coaster that she picks at until the drinks come.
She feigns interest and tries to make the right noises when something exciting or disappointing happens on-screen, but she was hoping for a little more conversation in a quieter place that would allow it.
She can tell he’s getting a little drunk by the increasing amount of high fives he gives her.
Also, he doesn’t notice her finding ways to dump her beer into other people’s empties every time a new round arrives. She needs to keep her wits about her.
Once the crowd thins and his friends leave, she realizes how late it’s getting.
She has sort of just existed in the background of Alabama Slammer shots and bad referee calls all evening, and that was not the plan, but he doesn’t seem to be much of a conversationalist. She isn’t sure about the best way to do this.
Too blatant an approach could be dangerous, but now that he’s nice and loose, she tries to flirt, even though she feels she may have forgotten how.
“I bet you played football in school,” she says and immediately wants to gag at how lame it sounds.
“Oh, no. I was a big theater nerd,” he says, and she almost spits out the sip of her drink she’s just taken. She feels it burn in her nasal passage as she snorts it back.
“Sorry,” she laughs. “That’s just not what I was expecting you to say. At all. Cora never mentioned that.” Damn, she shouldn’t have brought up Cora. The last thing she meant to do is remind him she’s friends with his wife.