Good Rich People(44)

I force my eyes away from Michael. I set my sights on her: a Hitchcock blonde, rose lipped, anatomically correct. Perfect.

I tell her, “That would be wonderful,” in my richest voice.





DEMI



I stand on the threshold as she opens the door and the whole house appears, all at once, like some well-harvested dream, like a house in a reality show, like someone motioned from inside the screen and said, Come in, it’s real! It only looks pretend!

A woman is cleaning in the far corner. She looks at us, then looks away.

The light settles in pools as my eyes trace the windows, locked together by nearly seamless seals.

“It’s so dark downstairs—”

“I like it,” I say like she might snatch it away.

She looks at the windows and nerves grip my spine. If she looks down, she will see Michael waiting on the other side of the fence, maybe climbing back inside, maybe walking up the path, maybe opening the door. What will she think? What will she do? Seeing him will finally make her see—really see—me. She’ll know I’m not Demi. She’ll know exactly who I am.

“Do you want tea? Or coffee?” She slips into the room and my nerves go into overdrive. I am having a panic attack, as always, for no reason. But I think, She wants to kill me. I believe, She wants me dead. She is looking at me with a hunter’s eyes, down a scope, as I shrivel.

“No, thank you.” My twisted instincts tell me to run. Go back downstairs, close the curtains, keep the lights out. Hang on as long as I can. It’s dangerous here. I can sense it. I can see it, but my eyes also want to swallow it whole. They traverse the lines of her house, eating everything. The wedding portrait on the wall, her grinning with surprise and maybe a little fear as Graham tightens his grip around her waist, smiles tirelessly, a slight sheen to his temples, a sharpness to his lips. He’s packaged her off, his freshly purchased queen, and my chest aches like I wish somebody would buy me, too.

“Water?”

“I can only stay a second.”

Silence falls like a gavel. All the light is tightening and I don’t belong here. I should leave. A pair of his shoes is discarded in the hallway, like Graham stepped out of them midwalk. It’s beautiful but frozen. It’s like time has stopped up here, and if you told me she had paid for that, too, I’d believe it.

I feel like a fraud. I feel insecure. I think of the person I was days ago, dragging a body under a freeway, sawing off hands and feet. And yet here I am in a fancy living room with a fancy person, thinking, Oooh, I wonder if she hates me! I wonder if she can sense I’m worthless!

“So. You work in tech?”

“Yes.”

“How is that?”

I shrug. “A job is a job.”

“What do you like to do for fun?”

“Nothing.”

“You do nothing for fun?”

I shift and peer out the windows, trying to find Michael below. “I should really go.”

“Wine?”

“I don’t drink.” I do, but I have to keep my wits about me with her.

“Me either. I mean, hardly. Alcoholic parents. You, too?”

“My parents are dead.” Be positive.

“I wish mine were.” What the fuck? “They’ve basically disowned me.” She waits for me to ask her about it but I don’t want to know. It’s creepy that her parents think of her as something they owned.

The trees feather and fan, dancing for the audience below. I see Michael, perfectly framed, climbing over the fence. Shit. “I’d better go.”

“No. Please, stay.”

“I can’t.” I can hear Michael rattling leaves as he climbs up the mountain.

“You seem very cagey.”

“I have work—I have a really important work call. Sorry.”

She moves as if to stop me. I freeze on the threshold, petrified. Why am I so scared? Is it because of what I did? Or is she really looking at me through crosshairs? “Did Margo put you up to this?”

My throat is dry, but my mind is confused. “I don’t know who that is.”

“This is her house, and yours—you’re living in her house.”

Stupid. That’s why this is dangerous. That’s why I can’t come back here. By wanting more, I am only guaranteeing that I will lose everything. “Oh, that Margo. I got her mixed up. I’d better go.”

“Another time.” Why does she insist?

I leave. I pass through the courtyard and hurry down the stairs. I see Michael waiting down below, but in my head I see something else: I see Lyla and me upstairs, like I have left another me behind. We are sitting down together, laughing at some little thing—the same thing—huddling closer when it gets dark until we switch the lights on, shove the shadows back.





DEMI



“You hit me,” Michael says, too loud for my liking.

Quiet, I mouth.

I unlock the door, shepherd him inside.

“Take it easy,” he says, suddenly unhurried. He hunkers back into his corner, makes himself comfortable.

“What were you thinking, running through the gate like that?”

“A red dog was chasing me.”

“If you run, dogs chase you. Stop running.” I shake out my frustration. “You can’t let her see you. She’s going to get suspicious.”