Dead to Her(43)

“Who else?”

“No one! We went to a bar, had some food and drinks, danced a bit. I just fell over, that’s all.”

He stared at her, his granite eyes cold. She knew that look too well. It was Uncle Yahuba’s expression when she’d held money back for herself, a look that wouldn’t be argued with, not without consequences. She’d never expected to see it on Billy’s face. Had she run full circle? Still, her story didn’t add up and she knew it. The dress was filthy and had mud in places it shouldn’t. And it was torn, as if she’d been running from someone or something through a forest.

She bristled. Attack was always the best form of defense. “So what are you suggesting? That I went out with your friend’s wife and rolled around in the dirt with some random guy I met in a bar? What was Marcie doing at the time? Watching? Taking a piss?” She glared at him. “Or are you taking the piss?”

He flinched as if her crudeness were a bullet. “Keisha, don’t talk like that.”

“Well, if you’re going to speak to me like I’m a tramp, I may as well talk like one.”

“I don’t think you were out screwing other men, and if you don’t want to tell me how your dress got in that state that’s your business, but don’t expect me to be overjoyed about it. Maybe you were too drunk to remember. Maybe you both were. It’s not as if Marcie’s an angel, however she likes to dress herself up now. Jacquie was the one with class. I knew everything I needed to know about Marcie when she set up that godawful tacky boutique that ended up costing Jason upward of a quarter of a million. It’s good that you’ve made a friend, and sure, for now, she’ll do. But there are better friends to have. The tennis girls. The other club wives. Jason’s a good man, but he was a slave to his dick when he married Marcie.”

Keisha listened, stunned, to his rant. This was a revelation, this meanness. At least Marcie had tried to work, which seemed more than most of the other women she’d encountered. Maybe their men were all like Billy. Maybe they wanted them to simply stay at home and make sure they looked pretty. No job, no escape route. All this wealth, both inherited and earned. What did it do to people? Entitled, judgmental, devious. Is that what they were behind the smiles and laughter? In that moment she hated him and all of them, but she needed to placate him. To think like Dolly or her family and look out for herself whatever it took. Billy was the key to her future, and she wasn’t losing that.

“I made an effort to be friends with her because she’s Jason’s wife.” Smooth, charming, handsome Jason. Did Billy love him as much as he professed or was there too much competitive edge for that? “I thought you’d be pleased.” She paused. “But you’re right. There were more drinks than there should have been. I don’t know if we were trying to impress each other or feel more relaxed or whatever but we definitely drank too much and ate too little. I tripped in the garden at her house by the sprinklers, that’s why there’s grass and mud on my dress. I was so embarrassed I didn’t want to tell you.”

The relief flooded his face. Whatever he’d said about not thinking she’d been fucking someone else, the need for those little blue pills hung heavy over him, and there was no kind of paranoid jealousy like an old rich man’s. Rich men didn’t like to share their things.

“I feel like I’m always messing up,” she continued. “Everything here is so different. I’m not used to worrying about what people think of me.”

“Maybe I’m overreacting,” he said. “Eleanor understood privilege. How to behave and what was expected of her. It was in her heritage. She didn’t have to learn it all. I forget what a big change you’re having to go through. I’m not an idiot, I know all about your life in London.” He paused to sip his wine. “Even the bits you tried to hide from me.”

Keisha’s skin prickled. Was that a veiled threat? What did he know about? Dolly? Her family’s scams? Her chest tightened with horror. The boy? No, he couldn’t know about that. The boy was a ghost. No one knew about the boy, her made-up boy, the boy who was never there, but always there, the vanishing boy. The cause of her curse.

“Did you think I wouldn’t get you checked out? Trust me, I know there’s grime on you but grime can be washed away. You’re my Cinderella. I wanted to save you from all that.”

“You did save me.” Her voice was small, diminished in her body as she was in this enormous house. He’d had someone dig around in her life? Her skin crawled, violated. When? While he’d been romancing her, all puppy-dog eyes and expensive gifts?

“You just need to forget that life now. How you were then. That’s not you, I can see it. You’re better than that. You’re not Cinderella anymore, you’re the princess.”

He saw this as a fairy tale. He’d just told her he spied on her and now he was trying to make it romantic? Did he really see himself as Prince Charming? A mockery of one maybe. She was tired and her mood was spiraling downward, dipping toward the darkness she feared one day falling into forever. Tears stung her eyes. This was so much harder than she’d thought it would be back at the start, way back at the beginning in London. A lifetime ago now. That snakelike voice in her ear. Marry him, then get rid of him.

“Hey, don’t cry,” he said, suddenly tender, the tree of his moods swaying once more.