Heteroflexibility Read online

  “It could have been something important.”

  “It could have been a kid punching buttons.”

  “We don’t have any kids on the second floor.” The chest again. Uggh. A self-aggrandizing elevator man.

  He released the stop button. “I know every resident.”

  “Could have been a guest.”

  He restarted the elevator. “So who’s your friend?”

  “I have lots of friends.”

  “Fourth floor? Has to be the doctor, the lawyer couple, the divorcee, or the hottie harlot.”

  “The what?”

  He nodded his head at the mattress. “I figured. Her place is a revolving door.”

  “I don’t know what you mean.”

  He nodded. “She doesn’t get paid for it. I already checked.”

  The elevator slid to a stop, and he smoothed his hair. “You’ll put in a good word for me?”

  “What?”

  “With the hottie.”

  The door opened, and I rushed down the hallway. The last thing I wanted to do was broker Fern’s next lay.

  And so I used the stairs for the other three boxes.

  Finally, hot and exhausted, I set the last one on the stack and fumbled with the spare key. “You home?” I called as I pushed through the door.

  A thump from the next room was followed by a crash. I hurried for Fern’s bedroom, flinging open the door, “Fern, you—”

  I froze. Fern’s boss, the movie director, was swinging from a contraption made of satin rope, chains, and steel hooks. He was naked.

  Fern knelt on the floor in black leather, shoving shards of glass into a corner. The broken body of a lamp lay nearby.

  I backed away. Oh jeez.

  Manny wiggled his fingers, his wrists tied with black cords. He crossed his legs in a small gesture of modesty, setting a loose chain to wild motion, narrowly missing the remaining lamp on the opposite side of the bed. “Good to see you again.”

  I whirled around and raced through the living room. God, god, god, god, god. Would this sort of stuff happen every day? I paused in the front door, not sure what to do. Move my boxes in and wait? Go back in the hall?

  I spied Fern’s laptop on the coffee table. I could borrow it and work on photos in the lobby.

  I pulled the front door shut behind me, ready to snag my flash cards and portable reader when I remembered Elevator Boy. A revolving door. Apparently he knew his building.

  And he might be hanging out downstairs.

  I built a barricade with my boxes so that he couldn’t see me should he step outside the elevator, hunkering down with the laptop.

  The walls were well insulated, or else Fern and Manny had settled down, as the corridor was silent. The padded carpet smelled faintly of lilacs.

  I wanted to get all the latest pictures online before I left town for the wedding in hopes they’d order shortly after I got back, padding my meager funds. I’d need to open a new bank account, away from Cade. So much to do.

  Fern’s laptop had a password, but she hadn’t changed it from “password,” so I got in easily.

  The images began transferring, the women in their purple dresses.

  Marge. I remembered her at the funeral, less girthy and still quite beautiful, decked in a black sheath and dramatic hat with netting, like a Betty Davis film.

  Mom was laid out in a polished redwood coffin at the front of the room at the funeral home. Marge approached it as recorded organ music played some dirge, a black lace handkerchief held to her nose. All she needed to complete the picture was elbow gloves.

  Dad sat next to me and tensed when he saw her, putting me on alert. He’d been calm and quiet throughout everything. Of course he had. He wasn’t there when I found her collapsed on the floor of the bedroom, worn out from chemo and unwilling to admit how bad she was feeling. When the paramedics came and laid her on the stretcher, she’d awakened a bit and looked around as though she’d never see the place again. “Don’t forget to dust the television,” she’d said to me. “You never remember to move the picture frames.”

  Marge turned from the coffin, bent over as if grief-stricken. I hardly knew her except through an annual Christmas party and mom’s caustic remarks. Mom managed a thrift shop that was staffed by volunteers from some charity, including women like Marge who seemed offended that someone actually got paid to work at a place they served for free. Tack a religious angle onto the whole mess and Mom got a daily dose of negativity.

  Marge reached for Dad’s hand and patted it with enthusiastic affection. “I’m so sorry, Ben. Eleanor was such a dear.”

  Dad nodded politely but I could see him trying to extricate his hand.

  Marge released him and straightened her skirt. “I do wish you’d followed my suggestion of holding the service at Our Lady of Guadalupe. It would have been so lovely.”

  A muscle in Dad’s jaw ticked. “This will do just fine, thank you.”

  Marge tugged several Kleenexes from her bag and handed them to me. “Poor little Zest. In case you need them.”

  I didn’t reach for them, and they fluttered to my lap. Marge leaned forward, reaching out as though to cup my chin, and I ducked and took off across the room.

  “Poor overwrought thing,” I heard her say as I pushed out the doors and to the bathroom.

  I poked the keys on the laptop harder than necessary as I copied the images over to the hard drive. I should never have even booked that session. The pictures were useless as samples. The women probably wouldn’t even order any. Morbid curiosity, I bet, led them to call me at all.

  I loaded Photoshop Bridge to look at them at full size but paused when the most recent of Fern’s images opened in the viewing pane.

  A girl. An arresting girl. Dark-haired, smooth-skinned. Serious.

  And familiar.

  I glanced at the file names. Aud-at-concert. Aud-smiling. Aud-birthday.

  Audrey’s Aud! All over Fern’s computer.

  Now it was clear why Fern had so much interest in the Hoebags. Fern had been with Aud. But when? I switched to detail view to check the dates.

  About a year ago. All the pictures were taken in a one-month period. Hadn’t Aud said she and Audrey had been together two years?

  I didn’t want to know. I’d just put the laptop back where I found it. Pretend I hadn’t looked. I could do the women’s images later. I closed Bridge and deleted the purple dress images from the drive.

  I slipped back through the door and returned the laptop to the coffee table. I heard a loud squeak of metal and an abrupt shout. Manny.

  Fern responded, “You’re in BIG trouble for breaking Mommy’s lamp!” Then the snap of a whip.

  Time for me to go back in the hall.

  Chapter 11: 24-Karat Hearts

  The Volvo idled with a gentle vibration as I waited a half block away from my old house. Someone had wrecked my life. I wanted to know her name.

  The house looked deserted. If I could be certain Cade—or the bimbo—wasn’t there, I was going in.

  I cut the engine. Cade should have gone to work a couple hours ago and didn’t usually come home for lunch. But just in case, the mission would end well before then.

  Leaves crunched as I strode along the sidewalk on the opposite side of the street. Despite the heat, I pulled my hoodie up over my ears to hide my signature hair.

  I passed the house, walked past two more, then crossed the street and doubled back. As the two-story limestone grew near, I stuck close to the trees. I could enter the garage by a side door and see if his car was there. If not, I could go in and really do a thorough search.

  The second spare key—one I had made months ago after locking myself out while Cade was out of town—slid easily into the lock. Cade would never have to know I had it. Besides, the house was still half mine. Who knows, maybe I’d decide to fight him on it, just to be difficult.

  Sunlight crossed the empty cement floor as I eased open the door. Awesome.

  I ran up the stairs
, knowing exactly where I wanted to go. While waiting in the hall last night, I’d thought about the box of sex toys that had been in plain sight, stowed beneath the liquor. I was the drinker of the family, not him. He intended for me to find it.

  Then I’d remembered something else. A lipstick. A stupid pathetic cliché lipstick. In his coat pocket no less. It had been cracked and scratched up, and I had just assumed he’d picked it up off the ground in a fit of not wanting anyone to Mess with Texas, especially since it was nestled with a beat-up matchbook from some podunk bar—Billy Bob’s something or another. No place he’d ever go. The idea that Cade—the clueless, unromantic, hairless wonder—could be having an affair seemed about as likely as, well, me having one.

  I was pretty sure there would be other things stowed where he figured I’d come across it, putting together the clues that would make the divorce filing less of a surprise.

  I’d just been more clueless than he’d figured.

  Cade had one funny little quirk about his laundry. His underwear had to be folded. And they weren’t boxers. They weren’t even tighty whiteys. He like wearing Tommy Hilfiger, Abercrombie & Fitch, or Calvin Klein bikinis. And not plain. Red, sapphire, black, leopard print. He even had some with a lightning bolt. I’d discovered this back when we were dating and found it endlessly amusing.

  So one of the things I did for him was to fold them. A small thing, surely, but I had never begrudged him this service, even though my own underwear was wadded into a mass of cotton and lycra.

  If he wanted to hide something and yet make sure I would find it, he’d put it there.

  As I entered our bedroom, I felt accosted by images. Photos of us lined every wall and rested on each flat surface. I’d taken so many as I practiced en route to becoming a professional, before my hobby became my job.

  Over the bed, we ate ice cream, laughing because I’d gotten Rocky Road on my nose. Next to that we leaned against a tree in the backyard, me pressing into him, his arm draped across my shoulder, staring at each other in a romantic engagement-style pose. From the pictures, a casual observer would assume we had a normal courtship. That, I knew, was the power of photography. It could document, but it could also disguise.

  I lifted a frame from the dresser top, a serious shot. I’d set the self-timer, as always, but I thought it wasn’t going to fire. We’d dropped our smiles and looked at each other, me almost accusing, him bemused. I’d run a copy of the image because the profiles were so striking, but looking at our expressions, I could see myself clearly—annoyed, cynical, expecting things to go wrong.

  And they had. Which came first? My cynicism or the unhappiness of our low-joy relationship? The desire to cheat or the opportunity?

  I felt like pitching the picture through another window. I glanced back at the pane I’d smashed that first night. Cade had covered it in cardboard.

  I set down the photo and rooted through the drawers. He’d apparently moved back yesterday because everything was back in its place. Folded undershirts. Perfectly matched sets of socks. I pushed aside a set of long johns to sort through underwear.

  But I didn’t find anything. I’d been wrong on that.

  This might take longer than I thought, especially if I had to go through the enormous walk-in closet.

  I started with the other drawers. Stacks of sweaters yielded nothing. Winter pajamas, nada.

  His collection of t-shirts with logos from concerts and random advertisements barely fit in its compartment. As I pushed them down to close it, I felt something. A hard squarish lump. I pulled it out.

  A velvet box.

  I sat on the bed, completely unsure if I should open it, what I might find.

  A ring for her? Now that she was pregnant, did he plan to propose? Did he want to or had he gotten trapped? I remembered his swagger, the self-pride on that last night when I caught him packing. No, he was right where he wanted to be.

  I closed my eyes as I popped it open. The sun filtered through my eyelids, staining the light red through the blood of my veins. Unshootable, like the shadows in a bedroom at dawn, or the grays of night.

  I drew a breath to steady myself and looked in the box.

  A locket.

  The gold heart gleamed against the red backing. I lifted it with a fingernail and flicked it open.

  On one side, a photo of me, turned to the side, laughing. On the other, Cade, with a closed-mouth smile. I hadn’t taken these pictures. They might have been at a picnic, last spring, hosted by one of his coworkers. I studied the bit of visible background, trying to remember the moment. Yes, I had worn that white v-neck.

  I turned the locket over. An engraving etched the back side. I angled it toward the window.

  For Zest, my love. 5 years.

  It had been meant for our wedding anniversary—almost two months ago.

  And he hadn’t given it to me.

  Tears threatened. Cade never put love on a card much less engraved in gold. Something had happened to inspire out-of-character behavior.

  I leaned against the bed, the gold now warm in my hand. So the affair had begun between the time he’d bought this locket and our actual anniversary. By the time the date arrived, he hadn’t wanted to give me something sentimental. What had been his gift instead?

  Oh, right. A copy of The Photoshop Bible. He’d been nothing but supportive of my photography work, perfectly unperturbed when I worked late or missed weekends for a wedding.

  Of course. This was when he saw her.

  I wanted more. I wanted to know when it began. And I wanted her name. She’d wrecked my marriage. He’d been happy a few months ago, happy enough to have a locket engraved. Maybe he’d even broken up with her, ready to present the gift, when she’d found out she was pregnant.

  Shit. Of course. So when had I been working? And where had he been? I ran down to my home office and flung open a box I hadn’t been able to move yet, full of order receipts. I rifled through the folders and tugged out August. Just before our anniversary, I’d spent two days shooting a high school reunion. Exhausting days for very few orders.

  But I’d come home, and Cade hadn’t even been here. Back then I didn’t think anything of it, simply going to bed, but now…I walked across the hall to Cade’s office. In his desk, he kept all the credit card statements. Did he buy anything that weekend? Go anywhere?

  I found the folders 2006, 2007.

  Almost all of 2008 was missing.

  Oh, I would not be thwarted.

  I sat in his chair and flipped on his computer. It blinked on and presented me with a request for a password.

  That dog. He never had a password on the machine before.

  I paced the room a moment. He had the memory of a dandelion in the wind. He wrote everything down. I jerked open the desk drawers. Pens, scissors, paper clips.

  And a folded index card.

  I tugged it out, wanting to laugh. He could have at least hidden it. Sure enough, in his scrawled handwriting, “PW: radiohead.” His favorite band.

  I typed it in, and the computer logged me on.

  The Quicken accounts were up to date. I scrolled to August. He meticulously listed each expenditure—our anniversary dinner at Chez Zee, groceries, gas, a wedding gift for a friend. Even the locket, $152 from James Avery. Then, oddly enough, several charges that were simply marked, “Stuff.” On the weekend I had been away, he had created five line items in that category.

  I right-clicked on “stuff” and printed a quick report of all the entries labeled that way.

  Two solid pages.

  I held them up to the light, hands shaking now. Hundreds of dollars in charges, thousands maybe, all unmarked.

  They dated back eleven months.

  That bastard had been banging her for a year.

  Chapter 12: Emergency Paps

  Rock bottom sounded like bliss. How much lower could I really go?

  The Volvo sputtered at the light, as if to remind me—hey, I could quit working too. I glanced down at the gas
tank. Close to empty.

  I had only change in my wallet. But I did have Harry Histrionic’s check. I would have to cash it to keep driving. Thankfully a branch was close and a gas station waited across the street.

  The notion of rock bottom stuck with me as I got my meager cash and spent half of it on gas. I hadn’t been brought up religious, so I didn’t have any spiritual guides. Jesus sounded pretty useful at times like this. Mom had invoked him a time or two, although she’d never dragged me to church.

  Grandma had been full of euphemisms. Count your blessings. Every cloud has a silver lining. When God closes a door, he always opens a window. I had missed her funeral, five years ago, off on my honeymoon cruise without a cell phone or email.

  Did all the women in my family die young? Grandma had been maybe 62. Mom had been a mere 37. Both had died of cancer.

  A car cut in front of me on the freeway and I slammed on my brakes, narrowly missing his bumper. I pulled over, breathing hard. Count your blessings, Zest. I could be dead right now. I could be sick, dying of cancer. At that very moment, a pain shot up my body, originating in the most tender of places.

  I almost let my foot off the brake but held on. I knew that pain. I’d been ignoring it for a couple weeks, realizing with each one that I should call my OB for my annual exam, which was overdue.

  I knew not to miss. Mom had died of cervical cancer a mere seven weeks after her diagnosis. It was a silent killer. The signs were easy to ignore, especially if, like her, you didn’t bother to go in for pap smears. And hereditary as hell.

  I shifted in my seat. Another pain shot up. I’d given up my health insurance to get on Cade’s. Which would be gone with the divorce.

  I slammed my hands on the steering wheel. Karma had caught up with me. I’d said and thought too many mean things. I was going to rot away, starting with my sex organs. Just like my mother. We would meet up on Bitch Lane in hell.

  Traffic whizzed by on Mopac. It was dangerous to sit here in the narrow shoulder. But it was dangerous to pull out. Dangerous to live. I glanced over the side of the freeway. The barrier was strong, but a truck had gone over the side a year or so ago, blown right through the concrete. The police said there were no brake marks. He’d meant to go sailing into the sky.