Chapter 9 Rachel
Rachel
Itore open a thin pack of cashews and considered the best way to reenter this situation. My initial thought—to scramble up the ladder and storm into the house—I’d paused, to make sure that I properly assessed the situation.
Also, I needed a moment to cool down because I was a little afraid that if I burst into the same room as the two of them, I might just try to kill someone.
I really thought I knew Jules. I mean, the woman made decorative book nooks in her spare time.
Who would have thought she was a blow-job-crazed psychopath the other twelve hours a day?
Not me. Not when I moved into this neighborhood and accepted her slightly burned apple strudel and invitation to stretch class.
I helped her wax her upper lip last month. We discussed a girls’ weekend to a scrapbooking retreat in Sonoma this November. She burped when she drank too much wine and had an elastic band she added to the waist of her favorite pair of jeans so it didn’t squeeze her too tight.
The violation from her felt intensely sharper than the one from Jake.
I wasn’t shocked at the idea of him having an affair.
I’d suspected the cute barista at Corner Coffee, the one who always drew a heart on the lid of his coffee and chirped out his order before he had a chance to open his mouth.
Or maybe the housewife who was always walking around our neighborhood in matching, skintight sets, her boobs bouncing with each pump of her arms, her makeup always perfect, face fresh, despite the boiling summer heat.
An affair, a side piece, an occasional one-night stand . . . While all of those would have hurt, I’d already been steeled for that reality for months now.
But this . . . this wasn’t just confirmation of a lost marriage. This was also the destruction of my closest friendship.
Plus, it was also Exhibit A in a very watertight case that Rachel Is a Gullible Idiot.
Look at me, trying to entice emotion in a man who wanted me dead.
Putting together all of this in a stupid attempt to Fulfill His Needs.
I emptied the remainder of the cashews into my mouth and balled up the empty bag, then tossed it down the well.
Placing the tablet on the metal platform next to the remnants of my lunch, I stood up.
Okay, time to get out. Once on land, then I could decide how to confront the two of them without going all killer banshee, a strategic move since Jules outweighed me by a good forty pounds of muscle.
There were metal handholds built into the side of the well—only five of them, but enough to get you in and out of the hole. I had hooked my fanny pack through one of them and reached up to detach it. First order of business, I should rewrite my will to . . .
The grate I was standing on tilted steeply to one side, and I shrieked at the movement beneath my feet.
I looked down, and the grate was now crooked, the right side a good foot above the left.
I carefully moved my feet, putting one sneaker on the higher part of the metal and one on the lower, in an attempt to balance my weight.
The tablet slid, in slow motion, to the end of the grid and dropped off the edge.
Dammit. There was a slow creak, and I eyed the hinge that held the grate into place, one that was secured by a pin that I had planned to pull out but was now bending under my weight.
Okay, Rachel, time to move. I gripped the closest handhold with both hands and pushed off the grate. The platform gave out, banging against the stone sides of the well, and I dropped, my arms stretched over my head, my muscles shrieking in protest at the sudden strain.
This was bad, and I flayed my legs, trying to find something to hook my toes into to take the strain off my hands, which were slipping on the moss-covered handle. I lost my grip and was down to my knuckles, then the tips of my fingers . . .
I plummeted down, through the darkness and into the ice-cold water.