I locked our bathroom door and ran the tub until it was full, stepping in with a moan as I sipped the ice-cold beer. I should drink more beer. Wine was so pretentious, the elaborate sniff-and-swirl event of it all. Ice-cold beer—with a lime; I should buy some—that was more in line with my live-like-Taylor approach. I sank into the hot water, submerging up to my chin, and set the bottle on the side of the tub as I let the heat cook my tired muscles. I’d never walked or jogged so much in my life. After just a week of working there, I was stepping across wide gaps from docks to boats with ease, carrying twenty-pound bags of iceinstead of tens, and could almost run from the ship store to the farthest dockage without pausing to catch my breath.
I drifted my hands under the water, running them across the stiff peaks of my nipples and then lower, my legs opening up, eager for the contact. I closed my eyes and focused on Mike, then a sexy soap opera star, before finally, reluctantly, I gave in and let myself think of David.
That confident smile.
The way his eyes lingered on me.
His fingers, drifting up along my bare thigh.
The brush of his facial hair along my neck.
The soft press of his lips.
How would they feel along the curves of my breasts?
How would he feel between my legs?
I closed my eyes, and mentally, I surrendered.
ONE MONTH BEFORE THE DEATH
CHAPTER 23
LILLIAN
@themysteryofdeath: I am taking a hiatus from social media. Maybe I’ll come back, maybe I won’t. Ciao for now ...
David’s gift sat on our desk in the study, beside the landline phone. Each morning, I would check my email, read some news, and pull off the prior day’s page to unveil a new fact. The gift was a bit cumbersome, due to a speaker on the front that announced the day’s date if you pushed a button. It was an unnecessary feature that, if I had been a calendar buyer, I would have shaken my head over. But critical review aside, I didn’t mind the heft and enjoyed the interesting facts.
Today’s was interesting, if not slightly morbid.A sea slug’s head, if severed, can grow itself a new body.Peeling a tangerine, I scrolled through my email. All junk. Closing the browser, I sat back in the ergonomic chair and popped a wedge of the tart fruit in my mouth. Stretching out my legs, I admired the cut of muscle along the top of my thigh. It was liberating, the changes I was starting to feel and see in my body. And the freedom of setting my own schedule was heaven.
I had assumed it would be a shoulder job—something to give me some cash while I figured out what my next move would be—but I was having fun.
Every day at the docks was different. I walked dogs—small, medium, and large—and sometimes Arch Billow’s parrot. This week, I’d bought groceries for a dinner party and driven to Sonoma to pick up a case of custom wine. On Tuesday, I’d met a semitruck in the parking lot and watched as they’d slowly backed an off-white Ferrari down the truck’s ramp and over to a freight boat. Last week, I’d called someone’s teenage daughter, pretending to be the airline, and told her that her upcoming flight was canceled. I did whatever was asked, without question, and enjoyed every minute of it.
The extra pounds that I’d carried around since Jacob’s birth were starting to melt off as I went from a sedentary life to one of activity. On my wrist was a new watch, one that counted steps and calories, and I rejoiced over my daily averages, ones high enough that I could eat anything I wanted.
The money was good, and the boat owners were a wealthy chocolate box of variety.The Greedy Girlowners had crawfish boils for two hundred guests and brought out their fiddles and sang Cajun songs at sunset. The tattooed gentleman ofSanta’s Babyplayed chess with me and slipped me beef jerky with his fifty-dollar tips. A lesbian couple had visited for four days aboard a superyacht—one a famous actress, the other a tech exec—and given me a box of Cuban cigars that I had passed on to David.
I was learning terms likeafterdeckandhatch, and spent an entire day waxing the front of a Benetti. Afterward, I’d collapsed onto David’s couch sore but happy. And when he pulled at the strings of my bathing suit top and lowered his body on top of mine ... I didn’t think of my husband and son. I’d met his kiss and felt like the entirely different woman I was growing into.
It was like I was a sail, coming free of its mast and whipping wildly into the wind.
Untethered.
Unpredictable.
Happy.
I popped another orange wedge into my mouth and smiled.
CHAPTER 24
MIKE
Every once in a while, I followed my wife. I’d been told that this wasn’t normal, that most husbands didn’t have GPS trackers attached to their spouse’s car, that most husbands didn’t sit in a parking lot, a pair of binoculars in hand, and study their wife’s movements as she downward dogged in the local yoga studio.
But most husbands weren’t me. They didn’t perform risk analysis for a living. They didn’t understand the minute actions and decisions that could lead to catastrophic and life-altering consequences. If someone dissected every aspect of my life, they’d find two weak links. Thanks to Lillian’s snooping, I had removed one.