Never Have I Ever(52)

“I’ll ask. She likes me,” Roux said, smiling blandly.

That was patently untrue. Tate was a natural queen bee; she didn’t like beautiful women. I bit my lip. Unless Roux had dirt on Tate? Was my possibly ally Tate Bonasco, of all people? If so, then my gut was right; Tate was having an actual affair with Phillip. Because what else could Roux’s leverage be? I didn’t want to get distracted, but I had promised myself I would find out, for Char’s sake.

“What do you have on Tate?” I asked.

The question caught her off guard. I saw surprise flash across her face. I didn’t think she’d expected me to be so blatant.

“Tate doesn’t owe me anything,” Roux said, but that was not an answer.

“Neither do I. I owe ‘the universe.’ Isn’t that what you said? Why is Tate going to loan the universe her pool?”

“Touché!” Roux said, almost admiringly, and that weird head tilt was back. Birdlike, or maybe reptilian. She smiled, and it was genuine. She actually did like me, I thought, in her odd, carnivorous way. If we’d met in California, I would have liked her back. Now she leaned in, confiding. “I’ll say this—it’s not karma with Tate. It’s just psychology. Tate thinks she has a nicer house than me, what with the pool and that brand-new IKEA dining set.” Her voice dripped disdain, but it was wholly aimed at Tate—and possibly most of the other women in our neighborhood. I had the sense that I was outside it. She was speaking to me almost as a peer. “She’s competitive, especially with other women, so she’ll like it that I have to ask for a favor. I’ll make it sound as if I’m coming, too. She wants me to see her house, her things, and compare them with this shit here. She wants a win with me, and so far she’s zero for try-hard.”

That sounded like the Tate I knew. It didn’t let Phillip off the hook, though. Roux might be covering for Tate exactly because Tate was a client, which left me still on the fence about what, if anything, I should say to Charlotte. It also sounded as if Roux would not come with Luca for lessons. I didn’t ask, though. It might be bait, like when she’d asked me how long it would take to liquidate the money. I wasn’t going to snap fast at any opening she dangled. I was learning.

“Fine,” I said, flip as I could. Maybe I could make it work for me—get Luca talking about his mother. He might let something useful slip. “He can start the book work today. Can you line up Tate’s pool for tomorrow and Friday? Then Saturday and Sunday, we’ll drive over to the jetties for his open-water dives.” Maddy was going to be ecstatic about scuba all weekend with Luca, so that was a teeny upside.

Roux was shaking her head, though. “No jetties. Book us on a boat. You have some prime wrecks around here. I love a wreck dive.”

She grinned at the face I made. Not what I wanted, to spend the last of my precious days out on the ocean with her, but I had no better option at this moment.

“Fine,” I said again.

“After this, when our paths cross, we won’t discuss our arrangement. Even when we’re alone. We’ll chat about casserole recipes that use those yummy cans of soup, or whatever passes for banter around here. Then Monday meet me here at noon. You’ll transfer the funds to an account I give you, and I’ll be gone. Really gone. Won’t that be nice?” Roux asked, stretching, lithe and pleased in her body at the thought of all my money. She straightened, leaned in again, and captured my gaze. “Or you screw with me. And I blow your life and this town, easy as I blew your lawyer.”

“Fine,” I said. It was starting to feel like the only word I knew.

“I’ll go tell Luca to get ready. You can take him with you.”

I shook my head. I had plans.

“I need to go to Divers Down. I have to borrow some equipment,” I told her. It was even true. Like most scuba junkies, I had a walk-in closet’s worth of backup dive gear, but I needed to pick up full tanks and a new open-water book with blank quizzes. Plus, every wet suit and BCD I had at home was cut for women.

She sized me up, and then she came to a decision. “Okay. I’ll send him your way in an hour or so.”

I stood, keeping my shoulders tense so I didn’t telegraph relief. I couldn’t let her see how much I wanted this stolen hour. She was taking me seriously now; twice today she’d even come close to confiding in me. She’d dropped her provocateur’s mask, as if I were her peer. I threw a final glance over my shoulder, trying to look nervous and resigned. I needed her to underestimate me. I hoped she was. If she was estimating me exactly right, then I was screwed.

I went home, got my Subaru, and headed out of the neighborhood. If I was really going to do this thing she called playing and I called fighting for my life, I had to go to Waverly Place. I pointed my car north, away from Divers Down, away from the ocean, driving myself directly toward my own long-buried past.





9




Time felt audible, tangible, counted in the pound and pulse of my own heart. Five days to learn how to play Roux’s game. Five days to find a way to win.

It felt surreal to see this neighborhood again. I’d been back in town for close to seven years now without once going near it. It was a carefully curated blank spot on the map, present but unexamined. Only twenty minutes from my current neighborhood, yet I felt I was driving toward some dark and distant made-up place, dystopian and bleak.