Chapter 3 #2
Corrine opens the door wider and steps back like a gracious host. “Have a drink with us first.”
The room is massive, ceilings slanted like an attic, two twin beds pushed into an L shape against one side and the rest a considered living space.
There is a television too big for the wall between the windows, a bad leather couch and matching bad leather chairs.
Campbell has taken one, Henry the other, and he is watching me with the same controlled dispassion with which he used to tell me to arch my back.
I feel like I’ve waded into a cold spot in turquoise bathwater, the currents bringing in something dangerous from the deep.
I’m petrified, but I force myself to face him.
Henry has the darkest blue eyes you’ve ever seen.
He is all warm undertones, rosy cheeks and lips, sandy brown hair, but his eyes are like two inkblots from a psychological exam administered to someone who may or may not be a psychopath.
I feel crazed looking at him this close after all this time, to see that while he still has the healthy flush of a kid who’s been playing outside in the fresh air, the bow-shaped, girlish pink mouth, that in other places his features have hollowed and sharpened.
It is him, but it is not him, like buying a vintage designer bag.
Even in great condition, nicks and scratches have accumulated from a lifetime with another woman.
“Ladies,” Win says to Emma and me with a performative kind of gallantry, “meet our great friend Henry Spalding.”
Henry rises from his chair in his languid, predaceous way.
He hunches as he offers Emma his hand, like a dog pinning back its ears to let you know he’s not a threat.
Henry is so tall he has to duck through doorways; he used to have to bend at the knees to hear me when I was upset about something and explaining it in a quiet, hurt voice.
Emma’s hand disappears into Henry’s and her tanned chest burns scarlet.
I am instantly flooded with a possessiveness I usually only experience around work, which bitch got which gig that was meant for me.
I wanted Henry when everyone else thought he was Campbell’s scary friend with the sweet and boyish face, before he grew into himself and became objectively hot to a tight little twenty-two-year-old.
I go and sit at the far end of the couch, catty-corner to Campbell’s chair, before Henry can be the one to snub me. My hands are numb. I shake them out, wonder if I am having a stroke, if Henry would call 911 for me if I were.
“What is Faye, chopped liver?” Win says.
“Behave,” Corrine says to Win with a small, fond smile that only eggs him on more.
“Ohhhh,” Win says, glancing between Henry and me with mock concern. “Is this the first time you two are seeing each other? You know, since the episode?”
Emma blinks innocently at Henry. “That was about you?”
Often in my new life, I have to think about what to do with my face. Right now, I decide it’s okay for it to reflect the heinousness of the situation. Yes, this is the first time I’m sharing oxygen with the person who inspired a character of mine who the public unanimously reviled.
“Win?” Campbell addresses his brother-in-law in a sharp voice. “Relax, please.”
Win plops down next to me, putting his feet up on a coffee table that I just know used to anchor some palatial Connecticut mansion in the early aughts. “Tell Emma to stop playing dumb while you’re using your dad voice.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Emma shrills, her shiny lips parted in outrage. At some point between outside and in here, she has applied a fresh coat of lip gloss.
“You’re, like, the president of the Faye Heron fan club. You know that episode was based on real life.”
“But how would I know it was about a person I just met?”
My discomfort has grown hair and teeth at this point, like one of those monster tumors that lives undetected in the alleyways between your organs.
Win glances over at me, his head cocked in concern.
“You’re making my girl uncomfortable, Emma.
” He drapes an arm around my shoulder, loosely, like we’ve been dating for years.
From Henry’s corner of the room, a pulse, a raptorial focusing of those cold eyes.
“You should really ask first,” Henry says in a quiet voice I feel to the quick.
“That’s not what I heard,” Win returns in taunting singsong.
His fingers type a gentle code on my upper arm.
Too gentle. I’ll need a bleach bath later.
I pick up Win’s hand by his thumb, nose wrinkled like it is an animal carcass I am carrying to the edge of the canyon in my backyard, and unwind his arm from around my shoulders.
“Look.” Campbell raises his hand, litigation style. “We are talking about something that happened a long time ago, and everyone has grown up—”
Corrine seal-barks a laugh.
“Sorry, sorry,” she says, patting her cheeks with cool palms, trying to compose herself.
“I just know,” Campbell tries again, “that Henry has something he’s been wanting to say to Faye for a long time now.
” And he shifts his knees in Henry’s direction, as if to say, The floor is yours, and I am on the edge of my seat but turned around in every which direction as well.
What could Henry possibly have to say to me?
“Quite the segue,” Henry says with polite contempt.
He stares at the floor a moment. “I’m sorry, Faye.
” He looks at me then, in that way he has, his eyes searching and searching for my tenderest pressure point.
When he finds it, pins me down, I can’t get a good breath.
“I should have said that a long time ago.”
The room goes still awaiting my response.
I feel like I’ve been proposed to in a public setting, that I cannot say anything other than yes, though I have a long list of reservations.
I suppose, if you only watched the episode, you would believe that Henry is the one who owes me an apology.
It’s not that he doesn’t; it’s just that I am nowhere near blameless.
“Thank you,” I say.
Henry twists the gold wedding band on his finger because he can. I stopped wearing mine a few months ago. It was giving me a rash—make of that what you will—and so I left it home one day, and then again a few days later, and then it became as routine as it had been to put it on in the first place.
“I’m going to—” I stand, indicate the makeshift bar station on top of the mini fridge.
I peel off a Solo cup and uncap the bottle of tequila with the intent to give myself a healthy pour.
I have never understood people who drink to dull the pain.
Alcohol goes down easiest when I am ripped through with adrenaline.
“Taking off,” I hear Henry say from behind me. I right the bottle as quickly as one can when they’ve been mortally wounded.
There are the sounds of hands clapping backs as I stir my plain tequila with a plastic knife and give myself a quick talking to.
I am starved for attention for various reasons and just because Henry looked me in the eye with that old look, told another guy to ask before putting his hands on me in that old voice, does not mean there is something unfinished between us.
“Good to see you, Faye,” Henry says.
“You too,” I say with my megawatt Hollywood smile, like I am not bleeding out right in front of him.