The Better Liar(32)

I squatted to look under the bed. Nothing—not even dust bunnies. I lifted the pillows.

There—my first secret. A flat silver tablet. The screen was dark, but the tablet hadn’t shut down. It was still running, overheating; the bottom nearly burned my palm as I picked it up and pressed the power button. The screen lit up immediately, no password needed.

Dave’s tablet. He’d been logged in to Facebook, and now he was logged in from his work computer, so that everything he did showed up on the tablet in my hands. Dave was messaging with someone named Elaine Campbell, whose profile picture showed a tiny figure on a snowboard. Goggles covered the top half of her face, leaving only her smile visible. She had dental-assistant teeth.

    They’d started chatting just a few minutes ago. I scrolled upward to the timestamp, and started reading even as the chat spooled out below.


9:53 A.M.


me: Joanna’s eyes are following you around like you a steak girl

Elaine: She can’t do anything about it ;)

me: No but I guarantee you we’re about 5 minutes from another email

“Just a reminder, the employee dress code applies to everyone!!!”

Elaine: Maybe she has a crush on me

me: I’d attend that wedding

Elaine: It’d just be me and her, bare knuckle boxing in a field

Whoever knocks out the most teeth gets to take home the registry gifts

me: lololol

Elaine: You’re lookin fly today too btw

me: It’s that dress code chic, I know you don’t know about it

Elaine: Haha

I do like your hair though, it’s all soft today

me: Ran late this morning

Elaine: Are you bringing the smallest Flores over this week?

me: Not sure yet.

Elaine: Last week was fun :)

me: Yeah :) I’ll think about it



Elaine’s icon showed ellipses for a few seconds, then went blank. The chat was over. I scrolled up again, this time to their earlier conversations. Last Thursday, 2:55 P.M.:


Elaine: I got a lil sloppy

me: Uh-uh it was amazing

You serenaded us

Elaine: You loved it

me: Who wouldn’t

Elaine: I’m ugly pink in the face right now

me: Let me see



    Before that, a conversation about some project, small talk about the coffee machine, an exchange of Beyoncé gifs…I got bored and clicked on Elaine’s profile. Jesus! Sixteen thousand friends…All of the most recent items on her wall were autoposts from her Instagram. She’d posted a photo of herself that morning in the car with a Cheerio stuck to her cheek. It was captioned, Literally did not notice Brody’s “decoration” until I went to take a picture of my makeup today…#toddlergifts #realglamour #ifeelpretty #ohsopretty #momlife.

I scrolled down. Shiny hair, pretty house…smaller than the Floreses’, but nicer-looking inside, with bright colors accenting every corner and professional frames for her children’s drawings hanging on the walls. Elaine had two kids, one maybe kindergarten age and the other a little older than Eli. No husband in any of the pictures.

Halfway down her wall, Eli appeared, his face turned away from the camera, toward a funny-faced cat in the distance. She’d posted it this weekend, when Leslie had been away.

Last week was fun :)

I thought about the way Dave had singsonged to me in the dark last night, flirting almost reflexively, just as I did. I felt the same tone in his messages to Elaine. Was it just something he did with everyone, or was it serious? I couldn’t tell.

If Leslie knew…if she’d been through his Facebook as well…

Maybe to Leslie, fifty thousand dollars was divorce-lawyer money.

That gave me a certain relief to imagine. The Flores house, with its real grass and kitchen-drawer organizers and matchy chandelier, creeped me out. Walking around in it alone was like being a mannequin in a showroom. If Leslie and Dave were falling apart, maybe that was the only reason it felt so strange to be a guest here. Maybe there was nothing more sinister to it than a rotten marriage.

It was almost a perfect theory. I closed the lid and replaced the laptop under the pillow, smoothing the comforter where I’d left an ass print. Then I let myself think it: if the money was for a divorce and not to save the house, then Leslie hadn’t only been lying to Dave. She’d lied to me.





23


    Leslie


I pulled into the daycare parking lot and shut off the car. I meant to go in right away, but the late-afternoon sun filled up the car with warm mushy air so quickly that I felt as if I’d been plunged into a hot tub. I sat back against the seat, momentarily paralyzed, as my face heated.

Get up, I said into my own skull.

I didn’t move.

Get fucking get up.

Inside the daycare, a sheaf of kids sat along the duct-taped line on the floor—the “quiet line.” Miss Alma sat in front of them on a small beanbag chair, reading aloud from I Want My Hat Back.

Eli wasn’t among them.

Miss Alma saw me enter and raised her eyebrows at me over the kids’ heads, pointing toward the back door.

“What do you guys think?” she said as I headed for the door. “Where is his hat?”

“There!” chorused the toddlers.