All This Could Be Yours, page 22
“I’m sorry,” Min said. “It could be, I guess, but I was kind of hurrying. I’m so sorry. I hope it doesn’t matter?”
“Not at all. Don’t give it another thought.”
“Mom?” The reedy voice came from the phone.
Min clasped her hands to her chest again. “So sweet,” she whispered, and fluttered a wave goodbye as she backed away.
“I’m here, honey.” The note could wait. It had to.
“I was resting my eyes.”
“I saw that,” Tessa said.
“It’s supposed to be a secret, Mom,” Zack said. “But if I tell you, then can I go to Maine with Tris and his mom? I really want to, Mom, I really do. And I saved the kitchen, didn’t I?”
“This is not a negotiation, Zackie.” This whole thing was out of hand, was what it was, but at least she knew there was a secret. And she did not need to pressure Zack to tell her. Not right now at least.
Tessa pushed the up button on the elevator. “So, does Tris have a dad? Have you met him?”
“He’s out of town, Tris says. He’s like always gone out of town. Tris doesn’t care. He says it’s easier to get stuff from his mom when his father is gone.”
Tessa hoped Zack did not hear the irony in his own statement. Then the sound in Zack’s bedroom changed. Footsteps.
“I heard you talking. Is Dad home?”
Linny’s voice.
“Where is he? Why didn’t he come to my room first?” Linny went on. “Why are you on FaceTime? I’m going to tell.”
“It’s Mom,” Zack said.
“This late?”
“It’s not late where she is, stupid.”
“Zachary. Linnea.” This was truly otherworldly, disciplining her children over FaceTime.
“You’re the stupid one,” Linny said, ignoring her.
“Hey!” Tessa called out. “Linny, come show me your adorable self, and stop tormenting your brother.”
“O-kay.”
The laptop video swished, and Linny had aimed the camera at herself.
“Hi, Mom.”
Her new haircut, even spikier after hours on a pillow, almost looked cute, Tessa had to admit. Her T-shirt, which she still wore, showed the splotch of yellow paint.
“Hi, swee—”
“Are you getting little soaps for me, Mom? I love those cute hotel soaps.”
“You are infinite-level dumb,” Zack said, off camera. “Soaps. So lame.”
“See, Mom?” Linny said. “Zack is the lame one. He’s super lame. You are infinite to infinity lame.”
“You two? Can we be civilized? I’m missing you like crazy, and I—”
“What are you two doing awake?” Henry’s angry voice came from down the hall, and Tessa heard his footsteps get closer. “And what happened to the dishwasher? The whole kitchen is—”
“It’s Mom on the phone,” Linny said.
And as Linny turned the screen toward him, Tessa saw the expression on Henry’s face.
54
Tessa waited. Her silence, she knew, said more than any words. It screamed louder than any rage, and rumbled darker than any thunderstorm. Henry wasn’t dead. And that was the only excuse that she would have accepted.
From the look on his face, he might be wishing he were dead.
She waited. Imagining Linny holding up Zack’s laptop, imagined her seeing Zack’s shredded Pikachu sticker on the back of its case, imagined the chaos of explanatory sentences that must be tumbling through her husband’s mind.
In the silence of the distance, and the distance of the silence, Tessa kept waiting; waiting him out. What Henry said next might change their lives, and what she said after that might do the same thing, and right now, standing on the thick jewel-toned paisley carpeting of the hotel elevator bank, aluminum sliding doors on either side of her, and with a mysterious message in a sealed envelope tucked into her purse, her world was on the verge of collapse.
Henry was wearing his favorite black T-shirt, a thin quarter-zip pullover on top, his hair tousled and his face bristly and unshaven. Clinically, technically, empirically, any person would think Henry was a fortysomething knockout, and Tessa was not surprised that some predatory and bored suburban housewives had set him in their sights.
Whoa, Annabelle said. Really?
Fine. She was being unfair and wrongheaded in every way, and yet Tessa could not decide whether she was being tormented by rage or by sorrow.
“Hi, sweetheart,” Henry finally said.
Her two children were in the room, hanging on every word just as she was, assessing their father, and assessing their mother, and assessing the ruined kitchen and Henry’s unexplained disappearance. She would not be the one to incite that battle. She would not.
“Hi back,” she said. Waiting. “What’s new?”
She could see Henry evaluate; watched his brain computing whether possibly Zack had not told her he’d been “out.” That extravagant dishwasher had been Henry’s undoing. And now he would have to own it. But she had control of how that would happen.
“You were right about the too-expensive dishwasher, honey,” Henry began.
“How so?” She longed to see the expressions on her children’s faces, but Linny was stolidly aiming the camera toward Henry.
Henry ran both hands through his hair, mussing it even more, which made him even more attractive. “Well,” he said, “apparently it was running, and God knows what went wrong but water is … was … It’s totally screwed up. It might be the hose connection.”
And here was the moment when she could pull the rug out from under him. She could confront him, right now, about the omission that he had not been home.
Henry had secrets, all right. Exactly like Zack said. And he was clearly in the midst of covering them up. But she couldn’t force the issue with her children in the room. Whatever he had done, wherever he had been, whoever he had seen or been with or whatever he had been sneaking around doing while he left their children alone—it had already happened. It could not be erased. But it did not have to be faced at one in the morning when her poor kids were exhausted and confused and afraid.
“What a mess,” Tessa said, meaning every word of it.
“We’ll handle it.” Henry waved off her concerns. “Don’t worry about a thing. But the kids are bushed, it’s late for them, but I’m glad they got to say hello to you—I didn’t hear the phone ring though.” He looked past her, apparently at Zack and Linny. “I thought you guys were sleeping.”
“Long story.” Tessa interrupted his obvious testing to see whether he could suss out the extent of her previous conversation with Zack and Linny. “Let me say goodnight to kid one and kid two,” she went on, “and you and I will talk in the morning, Henry.”
Linny turned the laptop to put herself on camera. “Don’t forget the soaps, Mom. I love the soaps.”
“Bring me something, too,” Zack called from off camera.
A whir of machinery in the background announced the arrival of an elevator, and if it carried curious and eavesdropping passengers, Tessa did not want to have extra company for this conversation.
“My elevator is here,” she said. “I’ve got an early plane, so good night, you all, and—”
“To Des Moines? According to your website?” Henry had turned the phone screen back to himself. “So did you sell books tonight? Did you find Locket Mom?”
“We’ll talk about it tomorrow.” She took a step toward the elevator, feeling more like she was walking a fraying rope bridge stretched precariously across a bottomless abyss. “I’m getting in the elevator, and I know the call will get cut off as soon as I do.”
“Safe safe,” Henry said.
The elevator doors opened, revealing no one inside. Tessa stared at the phone screen, where Henry’s face looked back at her, expectant.
Waiting.
Tessa walked into the empty square mahogany and mirror cube and the doors slid closed. And she hung up.
55
After her hotel room door closed behind her, Tessa flapped the security bolt and slid the chain, wondering what Henry was thinking. She had never ever not said “love love” in response to his “safe safe.” Not ever in their fourteen years of marriage. Neither dead bolt lock nor steely chain could make her feel safe; not here, and not anywhere.
Tonight Henry had gone somewhere and had not told her about it, not before and not after. And before that, Nellie and Barbara—“not a dogwalker,” Henry had said—had grilled Henry about Blytheton, and Tessa had avoided talking about it, because how could she not? Their marriage contract did not have “disclosure of material fact” clauses like her publishing contract did, but transgressions were equally devastating.
Some contracts don’t have to be signed, Annabelle said.
Zack had a secret. And she had a sealed envelope. It crossed her mind, as she examined the flat white thing—and even, so silly, held it up to the light—to tear it into sixty billion pieces and flush it down the toilet. Whoever had left it for her had no way of confirming whether Tessa had received it. Maybe the hotel had never given it to her. Maybe someone forgot. Maybe they’d lost it. Maybe they didn’t care.
She sat on the edge of one of the beds, exhaling, staring at the envelope as if that would reveal some answer.
Like Henry, she could pretend that whatever had happened that evening at home had not happened. Three thousand miles apart, she could simply pretend this envelope had not arrived.
The necklace. Sam’s postcard. The stolen suitcase. The earrings. The destroyed chocolates. The woman at the bookstore.
And now this note.
Connected or not, those were not “nothing.”
“Whatever,” she said out loud, and in one motion, before she could rethink her decision, she slid one fingernail under the flap of the envelope, peeled away the stubborn glue, ripped the envelope, and pulled out a piece of paper, not hotel stationery but anonymously white. And in careful felt pen, black superfine point, someone had written in meticulous penmanship:
San Diego was fun. Seattle, too. See you in Des Moines.
* * *
“Do you want us to send someone to be with you?” Olivette asked. The editor’s face, framed in the Zoom screen, was etched with concern.
Tessa’s suitcase was packed and zipped, but after she’d rolled it to her hotel room door this morning, she’d stopped. Was it safer in her room or in the lobby surrounded by people? Paralyzed by the See you in Des Moines note, she’d called her editor for advice. Seven a.m. in Seattle, ten in New York.
“And do not apologize, Tessa,” Olivette was saying. “You did exactly the right thing, telling me about the note. I’ll patch DJ into our call, and we’ll find an escort for you.”
“Like a bodyguard?” Tessa had an hour before she had to leave for the airport—and now sat in a lumpy brown chair in her hotel room, looking out the window at another fog-shrouded Seattle day. The night before had passed, with her pillow uncooperative and her brain reduced to smoldering ash, as if all time had stopped and each minute that ticked by on the green-numbered bedside clock lasted an eternity. “I don’t think that’s necessary, Ollie.”
But half of her yearned for a bodyguard. She wondered if there was such a thing as an emotional bodyguard, too. Henry, at home, was still only showing her the virtual views that revealed his curated reality—keeping the rest of his world a mystery. A secret, Zack had said.
Zack had not gotten to tell his secret last night. So it was still a secret. From her.
“Tessa? A bodyguard? Well, no, you don’t need that, do you?” Olivette sat in her office chair, talking via her laptop, stacks of books piled against the dramatic hunter-green wall behind her. Tessa saw a stripe of periwinkle blue in one pile, and wondered whether Olivette would someday regret that she had chosen to publish All This Could Be Yours.
“But no,” Olivette went on. “There’s a thing called an author escort, they have them in every big city. They’ll drive you, take you to the event, wait for you, make sure you have food, and back to the hotel. You don’t have to chat with them if you don’t want to, but they’re always knowledgeable about stuff. They take you to the airport, too, meet you at the hotel, so you’re never alone. We use one in Seattle, Evelyn Wickwire. I’ll see if I can get her. And then we’ll find someone in Des Moines. Don’t worry. Price of success, kiddo. Better than no one coming to your events, remember that.”
Tessa watched Olivette pick up her cell phone, tap in numbers, then give Tessa a thumbs-up. “Ringing. But other than that, you’re okay? I’m so sorry, Tessa, rabid fans are part of the—oh, hang on. Here she is.”
Tessa stared into the Zoom screen. The only way to beat this was to face it head-on. Face her. Him. Them. Whoever. She would not be a victim.
Someone was coming to Des Moines. Coming for her. Okay, then. Bring it on. If social media was supposed to connect people, then that’s exactly how she would use it. She’d examine the photos on her phone, try to find the same images in Phoenix and San Diego and Seattle. Burn that image into her brain, and when that person appeared in the audience, Tessa would corral her, and face her. Or him. Or them. Because running from a problem gave someone else the power. She had done nothing wrong. She’d been a kid.
Tessa sighed, and mourned her unexpected consequences. Because of her success, she’d lost control of her life. How could such a good thing lead to such darkness? But the door to darkness had been opened long ago, and Tessa had been forced to cross the threshold, and now she knew, in this random hotel room on the edge of the world, that no one had the power to go back. There was only forward.
I’m so sorry, Annabelle. She almost said it out loud.
“Hold on a second, Tessa, DJ is getting Evelyn, the escort. Don’t worry. Team Tessa is on it. You’re our girl.”
She wondered what Henry was doing right now, maybe putting soggy towels in the still-working dryer, and she bitterly hoped he was haunted by her calculated withholding of their special mantra. She had actively tried to hurt him. But what had he done to her? How much had he hurt her, doing something so inappropriate that he had to keep it secret? She would not be a victim there, either.
But though Olivette and DJ and Team Tessa—she almost teared up at the thought, the cadre of people who loved and supported her, for now at least—could call in an author escort to protect her, Henry was the one designated to protect her children.
What if a bad thing happened to them?
But if anything happened to her, she dared not imagine it, it would be only Henry who could take care of them. If someone came to … She could not face it.
You know it’ll all work out, Annabelle said.
“I don’t know that, Annabelle!”
Olivette turned back to her, quizzical. “I’m sorry, Tessa, are you talking to … me?”
“Just thinking out loud.” Tessa took a deep breath. “I’m pretty tired. And I truly hate to bother you. But we sold lots of books last night, and that’s a good thing. The bookstore seemed pleased.”
“Oh, def. Yes. DJ already forwarded me an effusive email she got from them. Hold on though, getting Evelyn.”
Tessa rocked her suitcase in front of her, pulling it back and forth in the contained space where she sat. The motion recalled the afternoons she had rocked a tiny Linnea and a squally Zack in their strollers, comforting her precious and unpredictable charges, with Annabelle whispering in her head. Some days she brought a notebook with her to the park, but when Annabelle began to speak so fast that she could not write it down anymore, Tessa had taken to dictating Annabelle’s story into her phone. Almost as if she were channeling another person.
She’d never questioned, not consciously, how she knew it was Annabelle. Or how this worked. The voice felt comforting, and benevolent, like Annabelle’s reassurance that she knew the bad thing had been out of Tessa’s control, and that Annabelle forgave her.
“Evelyn Wickwire will meet you in the lobby in thirty minutes.” Olivette’s voice interrupted her thoughts. She was holding her phone to her ear, as if someone on the other end was telling her what to say. “She’ll drive you to the airport, go with you inside as far as she can. I hate that she can’t go all the way to the gate, but we can do what we can do.” Olivette paused, held up one finger to Tessa as she listened to the person on the phone. “I’ll tell her,” Olivette said into the phone, nodding. “Thanks. You’re the best.”
Olivette tapped off the call, then looked at Tessa, satisfied, as if everything was done and dusted. “Listen, Evelyn appears to be one of the classic ladies who lunch. But don’t judge. She’s super tough. And ready to protect you. She wants you to know that.”
“But she doesn’t have a … I mean she’s not going to carry a—”
“Of course not. But it’ll be like having a really savvy aunt. You’re important to us, Tessa, and we don’t want you wasting brain cells on worrying. You don’t have to pay her or tip her, it’s all taken care of. You’ll recognize her not only because I’m sure she’ll be impeccably dressed, but because—and don’t tell her I said this—because her blond hair is always perfect.”
“Perfect? Hair? Like a … a wig?” She remembered how Dorrit had described the woman at the bookstore, and what she herself had said to Min in the lobby, using those exact words. “Perfect hair.” And now this Evelyn Wickwire, too?
56
“Back or front?” Evelyn Wickwire wore ladylike low heels and a possibly-Chanel suit, and her blond hair in a severe French twist. Not a wig, at least not today. She’d insisted on wheeling Tessa’s suitcase to her gray Volvo, where she popped the trunk and with one motion hefted Tessa’s bag inside. “I’m hoping you’ll hop in the front seat and confess everything.”
Tessa tried to calm the flare of alarm.
Evelyn slammed the trunk. “Or you can sit in the front seat and tell me nothing. Or grab forty winks in the back. No pressure. It’ll take at least half an hour on I-5 this time of the morning.”
