Twenty-Three
“I’ll be gone a couple of hours. I need new typewriter ribbon, and then I want to leave fresh flowers for your mom.”
Alex was dressed in a white, pleated A-line skirt and matching sheer white blouse.
Her hair was styled, and she wore more makeup than I’ve ever seen her wear.
I wanted to tell her that ma didn’t care if she showed up in sweatpants, but the tension between us was at an all-time high and I was too tired to fight.
“You’re still working on the book?”
“Of course.”
“I never hear you typing.”
“You don’t hear a lot of things these days. Sometimes, I’m talking to you, but you’re zoned out.” She was using a compact mirror to avoid looking at me. Before leaving, she added, “I won’t be long.”
The last vestiges of summer have nearly vanished, replaced by a cool breeze and the dawn of a season when flora sleeps.
It’s comforting, as if I’ve found my proper place on earth.
The playground demolished, I could hear the birds and the occasional hum of a passing vehicle.
I’m drowsy, but don’t want to sleep because the nightmares, they will come.
The phone is ringing, but it isn’t. It sounds different.
Alex forgot to bring my cell phone with her.
There was a time when I was greedy for her affection, and while I’m of no use to her now, it hurts me to think that she’s become indifferent towards me because if the opposite was true, she wouldn’t have carelessly left the phone behind.
I could see it dancing as it vibrated on the dinner table and then it stopped.
Curious, I rolled my chair to the dining room and picked it up to browse the call history.
Most of the calls were made to our landline.
There were calls made to Nicky’s, the pharmacy, and the laundromat, but I didn’t recognize the last number.
Whoever it was, left a voicemail: “Hey Alex. I know I’m not supposed to call you on this line, but I have to cancel for Friday.
Don’t worry. I’ll still pay you. Sorry for the short notice. ”
Confusion muddied my thoughts. Someone was paying her for something, yet I haven’t seen a dime. My finger dialed instinctively like it had a mind of its own.
“Alex... hey.”
“Who is this?”
“Fuck. Sorry, man. I didn’t know she had a pimp. I said I’d still pay her.”
The bile rose to my throat, mixed with feelings of repulsion.
The word “pimp” evoked unholy images of body parts detached from the heart.
There was an old T.V. crime drama I used to watch.
The cop pretended to play along with the villain so he could get the information he needed.
I was about to play my own version of a deranged Columbo.
“I don’t recognize this number and Alex hasn’t mentioned you,” I said, swallowing bile.
“It’s not her fault. We agreed I’d stay anonymous. She doesn’t know my real name.”
His voice sounded normal which made it worse. Had he portrayed himself as psychotic, he would have been easier to blame. “How did you meet? I manage all her clients.”
“The bartender was talking to a couple of fellas at the Country Club. Said she’s the best in town. It’s an exclusive club.”
The asshole chuckled. He chuckled.
“Glad she’s popular among the elite. You said you’re anonymous. What does she call you? So that I can keep track from now on.” I was sickened by my own lies.
“Scarpetta. Don’t ask me. It’s some Italian word. I kind of like it. Reminds me of Baretta.”
Swiping my hand across my mouth, I wiped away the evil things that lingered on my lips.
“How long?”
“Have I been seeing her? A couple of times in the last three weeks. Listen, please don’t tell me wife. She just had a baby, and... well, you know how it is.”
I dropped the act, along with the last semblance of sanity that hung from a thread in my brain. “If you ever go near her again, I’ll fucking tear you apart. I’ll fucking tear your heart out and send it to your wife in a pretty little box.”
“Are you threatening me? This is a business agreement, pal.”
“A business agreement is what you have with your accountant, you ignorant parasite. I’ll fucking rip you apart. There’ll be nothing to bury, you fucking little...”
The dial tone filled my ear. I threw the phone clear across the room attempting to rid myself of the revolting truth. The love of my life was a harlot.
I could hear the key turning in the lock on the front door. My hands gripped the arms of my chair to prevent myself from slithering towards her like a snake, to poison her with my venomous words.
“I realized I forgot the cell phone. I hope you didn’t need me?”
Her outfit was appropriate; head to toe white like an anti-angel. “I did need you. I’m glad you’re back.”
“What’s wrong!? Do you feel sick?”
“Yes. I feel sick.”
“I’m taking you to the hospital,” Alex said, rushing around the room, panicking. “Where’s the Goddamn phone? I thought I left it on the table.”
“Oh, I don’t know. Check behind the kitchen island.”
The color drained from her cheeks when she found it. “What’s it doing on the floor?”
“I threw it.”
“Why?”
“Well, I was having a nice chat with a friend of yours but then he pissed me off.”
“What friend?”
She looked so sweet, like a child who’s been caught with her hand in a cookie jar. Tears of rage threatened to fall, but I tamed them, too intent to make her suffer.
“Said his name’s Scarpetta. He has to cancel for Friday, but he said he’d still pay you. I thought that was nice of him.”
She paled. I thought she would scream, or cry, or run, but she casually put her purse down and sat on the couch. We had a wordless showdown, simply staring at one another. It was all very grotesque.
“I wanted to tell you so many times,” she said emotionless. “But I was afraid.”
If we were before a judge, I’d hear the verdict in my favor. “You don’t deny it.”
“I want you to know that it’s not what you think.”
“That’s a little cliché, isn’t it, Alex? The ‘it’s not what you think’ line? Why don’t you explain it to me then? Because right now, I can barely stand to be in the same room with you.”
Finally, she broke down. Her head met her hands.
She tugged at her skirt that was already past her knees in an ugly display of modesty, and through garbled tears, she confirmed what I already knew to be a lie.
“We needed the money. I thought you’d agree to rehab if we had enough saved. I did it for us.”
“How noble of you. Except you forgot that Nick is already giving us money.”
“Where do you think he got it from!?”
“What are you saying?”
“I swore him to secrecy. I asked him to pretend it was coming from him. Please don’t be mad at him.”
“God damn you!” My best friend was dead to me.
“Pip, listen... please, love...”
“Don’t you fucking call me that!”
She looked like I had punched her in the throat. “Okay, okay. Please listen. It’s not about intimacy. It’s robotic. And it’s a lot of money in a short time. Far more money than I would make working a retail job. And if you want to know the truth...”
“Don’t make me laugh! The truth? You’ve been lying to me this entire time!”
“I was doing it before I met you. After Simon died,” she said, quickly. “To survive.”
When you discover someone is lying to you, you hate them for various reasons. One reason is that they help you realize how incredibly stupid you’ve been. “Jesus fucking Christ, is that what you meant by ‘public relations?’ Who are you!?”
Desperate, she kneeled in front of my chair and urged me to look at her. “Baby, please. I’m still me. I’ve always been me, and I swear to you that I have never cheated on you.”
“Are you out of your mind? What do you call it then?”
“It’s not about intimacy!”
“I don’t care! What we had was sacred, but you’ve let other men touch you and be with you. Other men, not just one, have been with the woman I thought I loved with all my heart.”
Alex stopped crying and stood tall so that I had to look up at her. She belonged on her knees, penitent. “Thought you loved?”
“You know I loved you. I fucking loved you.”
“Why do you keep using past tense!?”
“Because you’re whoring around!”
It was the kind of conversation I thought I’d only read in one of Alex’s horror novels.
“Whoring around? I’m trying to get our lives back,” she said through gritted teeth.
“I’d rather die.” I wished that I could kick her farther away from me. “I’m glad my mother isn’t alive. If she found out about this, it would destroy her.”
“How dare you? You think I enjoy it. Is that what you think?”
“Look at yourself. You look like you’re about to go to the fucking opera.”
“You’re so wrong. This,” she said, punching her leg, “wasn’t caused by one of them. I do it to myself. I hit myself. If I feel pain, I don’t feel anything else.”
The bruise she called a U.P.W. Part of me wanted to forgive her for her sins.
The other part of me wanted to cast the first stone.
The only thing I had left in my miserable life was Alex’s love, devotion, and loyalty, but being merciful meant losing the last ounce of dignity I had left.
Plus, she was dirty. My beautiful Alex was tainted, and everything we had dissolved in an instant.
“I know all about pain and wanting to erase it. But you once said that we should share everything. You didn’t come to me. All you did was lie.”
By now, her makeup had melted beneath sweat and tears, and she held her skirt scrunched in her hand where she had been beating herself. “I didn’t come to you? I’ve tried to talk to you a million times.”
“About this? No. Of course not.” And then the devil released my tongue. “No wonder it was so easy to pick you up at Nick’s that day. You’re pretty much a hooker.”
“You unfathomable bastard.”
The slap she gave me across the face was my only way out of this. I saw it coming. I didn’t stop her. “Get out. I can’t look at you. You’re going to go pack a bag and get the hell out of my house.”
“I... I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have hit you.”
“Go.”
“Where do you want me to go?”
“I don’t know. And I don’t care.”
She stomped away like a petulant child. I waited while she filled a bag with clothes and whatever else she needed to look appealing to the men in her life. There were no other words spoken between us; she left her key on the kitchen island and left quietly.
Wheeling myself into our bedroom, I found that God was on speaking terms with me again. What, exactly, He was trying to tell me, I didn’t know. Alex had left her crucifix on the bed.