Never Have I Ever(64)

I gave her the shrug I’d practiced for my husband. “I was at work, like Davis told you. I’m home now.”

I meant to indicate that she should go, but she turned away, walking back into my keeping room.

“I have to change,” I told her, following. “I need to meet Char in five minutes or she’ll come down here looking.”

Roux sank back onto the leather sofa, like she was about to grow roots into it and live there. “So change,” she said, as if it made no never mind. “I’ll wait. But I’m walking with you.”

That was unacceptable. Oliver was really struggling now, so I closed the baby gate and let him down. He went speed-crawling off toward the coffee table.

“You’re angry with me, and it’s tense. It could tip her off. You’re not going,” I told her.

“I’m not mad,” she said, and it seemed true, actually. She was perfectly relaxed on my sofa, legs crossed, leaning back. “You don’t get mad at a cat for shitting in a box. It’s what cats do.”

My eyes narrowed. I was so tired of being told that I was like her. I was so tired of her breathing air, using it to make words at me.

“If Char catches on that something’s up with us, I will never pay you. Understand me?”

She smiled. “I more than understand. I believe you. It’s very interesting, actually. A topic worth exploring, but I’m not done with this one yet. Where did you go?”

I shot a glance at Oliver, happy on the area rug, banging Rattle Bear’s head against the floor. It looked satisfying. I wanted to be down there with him.

I wasn’t ready. I hadn’t practiced, and right now this one shot was all I had. But she was forcing my hand.

“I went to see Tig Simms,” I said.

She leaned forward, and it was clear that I’d surprised her. “Of course you fucking did.”

“Stop talking like that in front of my baby,” I said.

She ignored that, her face avid and interested but still not angry. “Tell me one good reason why I shouldn’t fuck your life from here to Tuesday. Right this second.”

“Because you want the money,” I said, my eyes as hard as hers now. “No, let me correct that. Because you need the money. Fast.” This part was all true, no need to practice. I was correct on this and knew it. I let it show on my face, in my righteous stance, feet planted, shoulders back. “When Tig met you, you were in a crappy stolen car in Eastern Jesus, Alabama. The second you had a line on me, you blew a ton of cash to fly to Boston and honey-trap Boyce. Boyce, I’m guessing, lives above his means, because all you got off of him was his car.” I was into it now. These words hardly felt like my words. It was if I were speaking in tongues, a flame alive inside my head, showing me her language. “You’re running from something, and my guess is it’s close behind you. My guess is you’re close to broke. You need money, and you won’t say a thing about me, to anyone, because I’m going to give you some. Not a quarter mil. Nothing like. But I’ll give you enough to let you move on down the road, find another fat-pocket sucker. You need it too bad to mess with me.”

She was looking at me as if I were some kind of fascinating bug, one she’d never seen before. Aghast, and yet almost admiring. “You have been busy.”

I gave her a tight smile. “You have no idea.” I held my phone up where she could see it. I pushed play.

Tig’s tinny recorded voice filled up the room. I let the whole message play, even the “fuck off” at the end. Oliver was still busy banging Rattle Bear’s head, and he did not yet speak English, and, God, I wanted her to hear it. I wanted to say it myself, but it was better from Tig anyway. Tig, after all, had been her lover. He and I had only kissed once, and then I’d betrayed him. In spite of all these things, he’d come in on my side. That meant Roux, the amazing sex goddess, had lost a man. To me. I liked how that felt, honestly. I liked grinding it in.

She watched me with bright eyes, her face perfectly composed. It had to be a mask. I’d taken her most potent threat away, and yet she wasn’t railing.

“Are you finished?” she asked.

“No,” I told her. My phone buzzed in my hands. Probably Char, texting to see if I was heading down to meet her. Any minute she would come looking for me, if she wasn’t doing just that already. But I had begun, and there was no way out but through. “I’ll be honest with you. I don’t want my family to know about my past. I’ll pay for that. A little. Say twenty-five thousand. That’s enough to get you set up somewhere else. Take it or leave it.”

“What if I pick leave it? What if I out you?” she asked, and it wasn’t rhetorical. She was interested in my answer.

I shrugged, practiced and small. “Well, that will embarrass me. But only twenty-five thousand worth. You can’t send me to jail. I don’t think you can break my marriage. I weigh my old lie against a new baby, and Oliver wins. It isn’t even close. So. Go ahead. Tell Davis. And get nothing.”

It was a straight-up lie, wrapped around a misdirection. Telling Davis was not the worst thing she could do to me. Not by a long shot.

She stayed silent, sizing me up for a few seconds. “You know, usually when people say, ‘I’ll be honest,’ it means they’re lying.”

I didn’t react, though every passing second was an agony, ticking like Char’s busy feet, coming down the road toward my house. “I’m not lying.”