Every Single Secret(6)
The house was painted a deep crimson—the wood siding, the shutters, even the intricate gingerbread trim. Except for the door, which was a vibrant mustard yellow. The facade was dominated by a large overhanging gable, but the rest of the thing was a collection of off-center wings, jutting eaves, and precarious spindled balconies. There was an L-shaped wraparound porch and a hexagonal tower that rose from the top floor. An orgy of Victoriana.
The place was grand, but this close, it was impossible not to notice the faded, peeling paint and mildew-rotted eaves. The way the tops of the window frames sagged. How the roofline and walls joined at odd angles. And the house was wedged into the side of the mountain, too, good and tight. No place for me to go jogging, not unless I wanted to risk falling off a cliff.
I did an automatic count—two doors, four chimneys, eighteen panes of glass on that large, front-facing gable that appeared to be an enclosed balcony. I felt a little better, then. It was important to stay calm. I couldn’t let myself slide into panic.
“How in the world do people find this place?” I said.
Heath hoisted our bags from the trunk. “Dr. Cerny’s retreats are all based on word of mouth and referrals. Under the radar, super exclusive. Word is, he’s the guy who handles Bill and Hillary’s tune-ups.”
“I wonder if we’ll get their room. Sleep in their bed.”
He dropped our bags. “Would you like that?” He raised his eyebrows and we shared a smirk. For a moment, just a moment, things seemed perfect between us, like the conversation at Divine had never happened. Like we were just a normal couple who’d gotten out of the city for a last-minute mountain getaway. But I couldn’t pretend.
The night before, when I’d gotten home from Divine, I’d spent an hour on the computer, first Googling Baskens Institute, then rescheduling the rest of my appointments for the upcoming week so I could leave the next day.
The search results were sparse: there was no official website for the retreat center and only a smattering of pieces written about it, most of them years old. One, an article in the Wall Street Journal about Baskens’s reputation as a center for platinum-level relationship rescues, emphasized the exclusivity of the place. Nondisclosure agreements prevented clients from leaking any details about Cerny’s unconventional methods, but rumors of juicy scandals abounded—celebrity dirt or perverse deeds the Baskens surveillance cameras may have captured.
I moved on to shuffling the upcoming week’s tasks onto Kevin and Lenny. I dashed off a succinct, overly cheery email to each of them, glad that it was late enough not to have to deal with a million questions I didn’t want to answer.
Yes, Daphne Amos, who scoffed at psychotherapy, was accompanying her fiancé up to the mountains for a full week of it. No, I wasn’t taking part; I was tagging along to cheer him on and, in the process, dumping a crap-ton of extra work onto my partner and our employee. I could practically hear Lenny screeching in disbelief when she read the email.
Moving on to my final task, I opened Instagram, and, holding my breath, typed in a name. I’d heard it only once, from Lenny, that very first day I’d met Heath. Annalise Beard.
On Instagram, she was @fairlyweirdbeard, and she was a prolific poster. Of frosty, fruity drinks, beach sunsets, and a wan-faced cocker spaniel, mostly. The scattered selfies showed a long-limbed woman with tangled blonde beach hair, a knowing twist to her lips, and an impressive collection of fedoras and ankle boots. Actually, she looked a bit like me. Or maybe my prettier, more socially confident sister. I followed her, then clicked over to type in a message.
After I was done, I powered down the computer, tucked it in the bottom drawer of my desk, and went to bed. Later—much later—Heath slipped between the covers and curled against me. He was cold and smelled like the autumn night air and fallen leaves. He must’ve been out walking, not hanging out in the bar, drinking, like I’d been imagining and worrying about.
In relief, I rested my hand on his bare chest and draped a leg over one of his. I told him that yes, I would go with him to the retreat, but I still refused to meet with Dr. Cerny. We made love for the first time in weeks. As I drifted off to sleep, I tried not to think about pretty Annalise Beard, whose help I now so desperately needed.
Heath slept peacefully the rest of the night and woke in a good mood. Which was something, I guessed. And on the way up to the mountains, he’d seemed unusually lighthearted, chatting and singing along with the radio. Now, standing in front of the rambling crimson Baskens, I resolved to act supportive, even if I didn’t feel that way. Even if I was low-level panicking at the very idea of being an overnight guest at a relationship-research facility.
I inhaled and sent Heath a sly grin. “If sleeping in the same bed where Bill and Hillary slept is what it takes to save us, I will do it,” I said. “I will find it ironic, but I will do it.”
He caught my wrist and pulled me closer. I buried my face in his shoulder and inhaled his scent—soap and deodorant and the stuff he put in his hair. Who needed therapy when you had your own personal, six-foot-two mood stabilizer?
The whiskers on his jaw scratched my temple. “Always us,” he said in a low voice.
“Always us,” I replied. “And Bill and Hillary, if need be.”
A young man with a shiny face, tortoiseshell glasses, and a swoop of muddy brown hair shouted a greeting at us from the porch. He hadn’t been there when we’d first driven up. Maybe he’d seen us approach on the hidden cameras. He bounced down the porch steps and across the expanse of grass.