Eliza Starts a Rumor(49)
“I think so, if you don’t mind.”
She texted Andie the question and fixed them a nice lunch of fresh fruit, yogurt, granola, and a locally sourced artisanal honey recommended on the bulletin board while they waited for a response. They sat down at the kitchen table, where neither of them did more than pick at their bowls.
“Remind me to thank Spencer for this awesome ‘lose the baby weight’ diet that this torture has inspired.”
Alison smiled and moved the granola back and forth without taking a bite. Olivia noticed.
“You might as well spill it while we wait.”
Alison was happy for the release. “Should I start with the good or the bad?”
“Your choice.”
“OK, I will start with the good because I don’t want the sperminator to take any more away from me than he already has. My date was so great and so hot. Is it possible that this gorgeous, smart, funny, sweet guy was just waiting for me in the suburbs to spice up my mundane life?”
She realized she might have gone too far, considering what Olivia was currently dealing with. It felt like buying a pair of Manolos, two pairs actually, in front of an unemployed friend. Olivia’s face assuaged her concern. She even saw a hint of that old sparkle in her eye.
“Wow! That’s amazing, Alison. I’m so happy for you!”
Alison felt embarrassed. Gushing over a guy was so out of character for her. She backpedaled. “It was just a date. Who knows if I’ll even see him again?”
“Of course you will. It’s good for you to do stuff like this. Circle Time can’t be your only weekly thrill,” she added sarcastically.
Before Alison could tell her the night didn’t exactly end as she hoped, her phone vibrated, signaling that Andie had responded to her text. She read it out loud:
Does it have touch ID?
“I don’t know,” Olivia responded. “How would we know that?”
Alison dutifully typed:
How would we know that?
You don’t until you try it. Sleep hack him.
Olivia looked confused when Alison read it out loud. She explained, “I’ve heard of people doing this before. When he’s sleeping you put his thumb on his phone and if he uses it, voilà—you’re in. Is he a heavy sleeper?”
“Only when he wants to be. If he wakes up, I’m totally caught.”
“Yes, but I think we are past worrying about that so much, right? If he had come clean about his missing second phone, I would be all Team Happy Marriage. But this behavior is extremely suspect.”
Olivia took a beat as Alison’s phone vibrated again. She read it out loud:
Once in, she should register her own fingerprint on his phone as well. Then she can slip it back to him and gather more evidence.
“You can do that?” Olivia asked.
“If Andie says so, then absolutely.”
Olivia felt overwhelmed. “Let’s just take it one step at a time. I will overserve him at dinner and take it from there.”
“OK, call me as soon as you know.”
“It’s going to be in the middle of the night. Are you sure?”
“Yes! I’m up and down all night with the baby anyway.”
Olivia promised to do so and went on her way.
* * *
—
At dinner that night, Olivia nursed a glass of Merlot while discreetly pouring Spencer three. Add in the fact that he was up at 6:00 a.m. to “run” and he barely made it through the nightly selection process of their ten o’clock television show. Of course, it didn’t stop him from insisting he got his choice. Things that had hardly bothered her about Spencer before were suddenly all-consuming. She wondered if it was a defense mechanism. Maybe the less she liked him at the time of implosion, the less it would hurt? She doubted that was true.
Within minutes of the opening credits he was out cold. She changed the channel to a mindless reality show and noted the time. She had researched when the deepest sleep should occur and decided to proceed in an hour; right after her show was over.
Between exhaustion and anger, there was little room for fear. She took his thumb in her hand and placed it on the phone—presto, just as Andie had said. She went downstairs with it, poured herself the remnants of the bottle of wine from dinner, and got down to business.
The phone’s home screen was quite sparse. It had his old AOL account with a bunch of junk mail on it; an app called Map My Run, which does just that; and another called Charity Miles that turns your miles into charitable donations. There was an iTunes account with his running playlist, and even the photos were of nothing more than early-morning sunrises and random shots of bridges and landscapes. So far it looked like it was just a phone for running—odd, yes, but also oddly plausible for Spencer. She wondered why, if that were the case, he hadn’t taken it running the day she found it. She assumed it was because of his work call. She finished the glass of wine and braced herself for what she knew would be the final word on guilt or innocence. Her delay in not diving into the text messages right off the bat made her wonder just what she wanted to find. Before she dug in, she clarified her thoughts out loud: “Please let him be innocent.”
She breathed in deeply and pressed on the green thought bubble at the bottom of the screen.