Dead to Her(61)

Clouds hung heavy and damp over the late afternoon and the humidity crept into the house through the narrow gaps around doors and windows, clinging to Marcie’s skin like her dark mood. Jason got home at dusk, tired and uncommunicative.

“How was your day?” she asked perfunctorily.

“Tiring.” He grabbed a beer from the fridge, one silent, judging eye on her gin glass. “Been sorting shit out at the office all day making sure everything is on track to be back online. Most are taking a half-week vacation from tomorrow.”

Sorting shit out at the office. Her blood boiled. She was trying so hard to make it work between them and still he was lying. “William came by,” she said coolly. “He told me you hadn’t been in the office. All day.”

“What?”

“You weren’t in the office, Jason.” Her heart raced as her face burned. She couldn’t make this marriage work all by herself. “So where the fuck were you?”

“Don’t curse at me, Marcie.” He headed for the sitting room, and she followed. This time she wasn’t letting him off the hook. She’d given up Keisha for their future.

“And don’t walk away from me, Jason. Where were you?”

“What did William want?”

“Why won’t you answer my question?”

He spun around. “Get off my back, Marcie! Sorting shit out at work doesn’t necessarily mean being in the office. I meant for the office, not in the office. Jesus, what are you turning into now, some kind of nagging paranoid housewife? I’ve had a hard enough day without coming home to whatever this is!”

Marcie shrunk slightly against the wall as he shouted but her anger didn’t fade. Nagging paranoid housewife. Screw him.

“So do I need to call William?” Jason asked her. “Was he looking for me?”

“No,” she said quietly. “He was looking for Keisha.” She turned and headed for the stairs. “I’m getting in the shower. If you want dinner, you’ll have to figure it out yourself.”

A long day sorting shit out at the office. That’s what he’d said. Not out at meetings or at the club or wherever else he schmoozed clients. At the office. He’d lied to her and if he thought she was stupid enough to buy that explanation, then he didn’t know her at all.

Later, in bed, Marcie stared into the gloom, trying to make sense of the thoughts knotting in her head as her anger bubbled under the surface. William’s face when he’d asked if Marcie had heard from Jason. The suspicion there. Keisha had been out all day in a terrible state, God only knew where and with who. Jason had been out of contact apart from one text and he’d lied about where he’d been. Maybe Keisha had gone to Jason after her? Had Jason been the manly shoulder to cry on? Or, of course, maybe Jason had been with Jacquie?

Outside, thunder rumbled but no rain fell. A storm was brewing somewhere, perhaps slowly moving toward the city, but for now there was no respite in the crackling tension, either in the house or beyond. She looked over at Jason’s back and for the first time since she’d known him, despite her own ambitions, despite how she needed him, she felt a small shiver of revulsion in her own spine.





38.

The storm hadn’t broken and the tension in the air was almost unbearable. The sky over the city was the color of a dust cloud, a grainy yellow-gray filter that made you squint even though there was no hint of a bright sun, and as evening fell into a hot gloom there was no relief.

Marcie didn’t envy those who’d spent the afternoon at the Magnolia Park parade or the various other outdoor celebrations to mark the Fourth of July holiday. At least here, at Iris and Noah’s place, there was the slight breeze from the creek even if the proximity of the water also made her a feast for the midges and mosquitoes that seemed to favor her out-of-state blood.

“We should be able to see the Tybee Island fireworks from here, even with these awful clouds,” Iris said and everyone nodded and feigned excitement. The atmosphere in the room was as palpable as the humidity outside, even as they smiled and chinked glasses of perfectly chilled wine and nibbled at their meals. It was a strange reunion and Marcie wondered if their hosts, Iris and Noah, could sense the shifts that had occurred while they’d been away. Maybe. Iris hadn’t mentioned the Magnolia invite to Marcie. Perhaps she didn’t know yet. That gave Marcie some unease. Would Iris speak against her to the group? No. Iris wasn’t like that. She’d give her a chance at least.

Marcie swallowed the last of her wine, for once glad her glass hadn’t been refilled. The room was a forest fire of hidden resentments waiting to flare up and it would take only one spark in a comment to get it started and she didn’t have the energy for a fight tonight. Instead, she sat back as the coffee arrived, stirred in some cream and sugar, and tried for once to be invisible, an observer of their staid circle rather than trapped within it.

Jason was doing a fine impersonation of joviality now that the systems at work were apparently mended again, but Marcie knew that in truth his mood was as sour as it had been before. He was starting to drain her. Maybe she’d wait until the takeover was all done and dusted in a year’s time, and she was firmly in the bosom of a group of well-connected women, and then file for divorce. See how he liked them apples. It was an empty threat and she knew it. She wouldn’t give him or any of the rest of them the satisfaction of their marriage not working and the prenup would limit what she walked away with. If he wanted to leave her, he’d have to do it himself.