Chapter 13
PAIGE
Paige wakes up earlier than usual. She takes a mug of coffee and goes out front in her robe to water her marigolds and let Christopher eat the dandelions in the garden against the house.
She hears a baby crying incessantly and sees Lucas and Georgia’s baby sitting in a pink mesh playpen on the porch.
Usually she’d scream at any careless parents to shut their kid up the way she did at an Applebee’s a few months back, as she took crayons and coloring menus away from two toddlers and shoved them in her purse, to their parents’ horror.
Maybe not coincidentally, that was the last time Grant tried to force her out to a restaurant.
This time, she remembers meeting little Avery and she feels something—a tightening around her heart, an ache that makes her want to run over and pick the child up—but the mother is skittish and makes Paige uneasy, so she doesn’t follow her instinct.
She can’t quite understand why she wants to protect this baby, but she shakes it off when she sees Lucas come out onto the porch.
It’s not just Lucas. She sees him slam open the screen door and hold it, impatiently, a scowl on his face, as the wife walks out very slowly.
It looks like she’s limping. Or something doesn’t look right, anyway.
She looks either really hungover or...maybe she’s sick and they’re hiding it, and that’s why they’re so odd.
He gestures impatiently, angrily toward the baby, and Georgia goes to the child immediately and kisses her several times.
He sees Paige watching them and waves. She doesn’t wave back.
Everyone is a suspect, and that weird son of a bitch isn’t getting a wave from her.
When he goes inside, she notices Christopher making circles, so she instructs him to poop on the Kinneys’ side lawn.
“Go right there, bubs. See? Over there. Good!” she says in the high-pitched voice she uses when she talks to him, and he obeys.
She lies on the couch and watches Dr. Phil and House Hunters until noon.
She remembers what seems like such a short time ago, when Caleb sat in the recliner to her right while Dr. Phil was on.
He asked how she watched this crap. There was a woman on that episode who had put bleach in her eyes to fulfill her “lifelong dream of becoming blind.”
“Who is this supposed to be helping? The show says it’s trying to show a cautionary tale and help other people avoid...what, exactly? How many people want to blind themselves? It’s so exploitative,” he’d ranted.
Grant always joked that they should wrap up an actual soapbox and put it under the tree at Christmas so he’d have something to stand on when he argued with the news or broke down exactly why her shows were garbage.
Paige smiles to herself at this, and then the familiar stinging behind her eyes threatens, so she gets up and pushes the thoughts away.
She needs a distraction, so she decides that it’s time to see if the plans she has set in motion have begun to take hold. She’s surprised Finn hasn’t called her yet since the other night, but she knows he’s pretending to be aloof for Cora’s sake.
She texts him. Hey, sexy. Miss me yet? She waits ten minutes before a reply comes back.
Who is this? it reads. Is he fucking serious? Okay, it’s his wife’s friend, maybe he wouldn’t have a reason to have her number, but she thinks he’s more likely just playing a game.
Was the other night so forgettable? she texts.
Now this is vague because she knows he’s sleeping with a motel-hooker.
She probably wouldn’t have his number, though.
But she can’t be sure. She is sure, however, that he’s sleeping with Charlotte, too, so maybe he is just biting off more than he can chew, juggling it all, forgetting who’s who.
He very probably has a secret phone for the exchanges with these other women.
He’s probably panicking that Cora will see his real phone.
She looks out the window and sees Cora and Finn raking leaves together. Aw, how sweet. If he left his phone on the front step next to his gardening gloves and coffee mug, Cora might have seen the text pop up. She didn’t, but he still looks furious. How scandalous of Paige.
You can’t text me like this, the message comes back. She sees him standing in the middle of the yard, looking down at his phone.
Why not? she replies. There is a long wait before she gets a response.
She watches Mia come out of the house in leggings and an oversize hoodie.
She goes right up to her dad, and Paige watches his face go white as he is startled by her and pushes the phone deep into his pocket.
She holds her hand out and he gives her a set of keys.
They say something Paige can’t hear. Then Mia goes to the car and gets in.
Cora yells something to her—“Bye, honey!” it sounds like—but Mia doesn’t pay her any attention.
Poor Cora, Paige thinks, but only for a moment because she is distracted by Finn, who looks like a man in quite a predicament.
He stabs his rake into a pile of leaves and goes to sit on the stoop and sip his travel mug of coffee.
She watches him sigh and lean his head in his hand a moment.
Cora doesn’t see this because she is distracted by Georgia, Paige notices.
She watches Cora watch Georgia try to lean over to pick up her baby and then hold her side in pain.
Then she kneels and breaks down the easy-assemble mesh sides of the playpen so she can move to Avery and be next to her.
Odd, but she’s not thinking of that now.
She watches Finn start to text, then he looks up.
His look seems far away for a moment, like he’s trying to think, but instead he meets Paige’s gaze from her front window.
She waves at him. He looks back at Cora to make sure she doesn’t see; he’s stunned for a moment.
Then he stands up abruptly and goes inside.
I’m not sure why you’re texting me like this, the message says. Oh, she sees what he’s doing. He’s skilled at this. He’s covering his tracks, playing stupid in case Paige were to show Cora the texts from her side of things.
Meet me to discuss if you don’t want me to text you.
..or call you, she replies. She could be more threatening, but she should tread lightly so he doesn’t back away even more.
There is nothing for a good while. She watches Cora look around for him a moment, but it seems like she’s not bothered that he’s gone because she walks off across the street.
Dear God, I hope it’s not to bother poor Georgia.
A half hour later he replies, Wild Roast Coffee Shop at 4.
Well, well, she thinks. That sounds just perfect.
Paige slips into her soaker tub, which she has filled with scalding water and eucalyptus-scented bath salts. She takes her time shaving her legs with baby oil and thinks about what to wear.
She feels guilty about misleading Cora. She was going to try to get evidence for her, but things have changed, and now she wants more. They aren’t right for each other anyway, but that part will have to wait.
When she pulls up to Wild Roast, Finn is already there, which annoys her because in some subtle way it gives him an upper hand, choosing the table, settling in with his coffee.
She comes in, tossing her long, glossy hair over one shoulder and taking off her tight suede jacket to lay over the back of her chair.
She hoped he would stand and help her, but he does not. She sits.
He doesn’t smile or greet her; he just furrows his brow and sighs.
“So what’s this about?” he asks.
“Excuse me?” she says. That was not what she was expecting.
“If I want you to stop texting, I have to meet you. Was that some kind of threat?” He leans back and folds his arms.
“Uh. Seriously? No, I was saying it would be easier to meet if you don’t want Cora to see your texts. Are you at least gonna get me a coffee before you give me the third degree here?” she says, flustered, trying to take back some control.
“Yup,” he says, angrily, both hands slapping on the edge of the table as he gets up.
“Skinny latte,” she says with a smile, tucking her keys into her handbag and hanging it on the back of his chair. He surprises her by sitting back down a second and leaning over the table.
“This is not a thing,” he says, pointing back and forth between them.
“Just so we’re clear.” Then he stands and goes to the counter.
Paige is rattled, hurt if she’s honest, but she also sees an opportunity she needs to seize.
She saw him open his phone at least a dozen times that night at the bar.
His password is a weak swipe in the shape of an s.
She didn’t mean to see it, but it was right in front of her all night; she couldn’t avoid it.
Okay, fine. She meant to see it. And now, she finds, it will prove very helpful.
She checks to make sure his back is to her in the coffee line.
Then she opens his phone and quickly scrolls through his contacts, taking photos of the ones she wants with her own phone.
She sees a memo app, and since he has a couple people in front of him in line still, she opens it.
One of them is titled Passwords. Yes, please.
She clicks it, takes a photo of a few of them quickly, and then she turns his phone upside down on the table so he won’t notice the glow of the screen if he comes back before it times out and turns off.
Very interesting, she thinks. Something I bet he wouldn’t want Cora to see.
She’ll save her new information for a later date if she needs it.
When he comes back, he puts her paper cup of coffee down and sits. He looks defeated and exhausted.
“I was drunk, okay? So just tell her if you’re gonna tell her. Or what? What do you want, exactly?” he says.
“What makes you think I want something?” she says, countering his frustration with a calm voice. He scoffs, looks at the ceiling and then back at her.
“Then, why are we here? If you didn’t want something, you’d chalk it up to a fun night, move on. Don’t get Cora involved.”
“Oh, so you did think it was fun,” she says, smiling over her cup at him and then blowing at the hot steam.
“Games. This is what I’m talking about. It shouldn’t have happened,” he says, and she interrupts whatever is coming next.
“But it did,” she says, not smiling anymore.
“So then, what, for God’s sake, what? Get to it already. What do you want from me?”
“For a guy trying to hide a secret from his wife, you sure are coming in pretty hot at the one person you might think about being a little nicer to,” she says, but he only gets more agitated.
“Because there’s no point, Paige!” he shouts, and they both glance over their shoulders to make sure nobody they know could be within earshot. He lowers his voice.
“You think I didn’t stay up every night since—just knowing I was fucked?” he continues. “I fucked up, I know. So just, what? What are you gonna tell her, exactly?” Desperation cracks his voice ever so slightly.
“I don’t want to tell her either. Why would I want to do that?”
He doesn’t respond, he just looks away from her, not buying it, waiting for the punch line.
“I can deny it, you know. You’re not exactly the most stable person around,” he says, but she doesn’t let it get to her.
“I just want to see you. That’s all,” she says.
“What?” he says in an exaggerated tone, overenunciating the t at the end and raising his eyebrows.
“Why not? You seem like you could use somebody a little wild and...unstable. Maybe that’s just..
.a better match for you. Look at Grant. He’s the nicest guy in the world, but we outgrew each other.
Can’t we just have some, I don’t know, fun?
Dangerous fun,” she adds, laughing a little.
He looks at her, making eye contact. She can’t read the look.
“I’m not that guy,” he says. Liar. “So if you wanna tell her, go ahead. I’ll deny it, and you’ll lose a friend.”
“Wow,” Paige says. “You sure about that?”
“I don’t know what you’re trying to do here. I said no to this whole thing that night when you drove me home, and you still come back, all up to something the other night at the party. I don’t trust you,” he says, punctuating the last few words like he’s made a good point.
“Me? I came back? I had sex with myself in that bathroom? I’m sorry. You’re the one who doesn’t trust me? Ha!” Her voice is high and pinched. This combative facade of his should signal danger and make her let it go, but she does not.
“You have no proof, so...”
“How do you know that?” she says, and he stands and shoves his phone in his pocket.
“I think we’re done here,” he says. He turns and walks out of the café to his car.
That’s cute. He thinks we’re done.