The Other Mrs.(13)

“Yes, of course,” Officer Berg says. “It’s such a terrible thing. She must have really been hurting to do what she did,” he says, and again, my eyes go to Will. I know that Officer Berg doesn’t mean to be rude; in his own awkward way, he’s offering his sympathy.

“I liked Alice a lot,” he says. “She was a lovely lady.”

“Indeed she was,” Will says, and again Officer Berg mumbles, “Such a shame,” before he says a final goodbye and goes.

Once he’s gone, Will heads quietly to the kitchen to start dinner. I let him go, watching out the narrow pane of glass alongside the door as Officer Berg pulls his Crown Vic from our drive. He heads uphill, about to join his cohort at the Baineses’ home, or so I think.

But then he doesn’t go to the Baineses’ home. Instead he pulls his car to the end of the drive across the street from theirs, at the home of the Nilssons. Officer Berg steps out. He leaves the car running, red taillights bright against the darkness of night. I watch as Berg places something inside a mailbox and closes the door. He returns to his car, disappearing over the crest of the hill.



CAMILLE


I disappeared that night after Will and Sadie met. I was full of anger, of self-loathing.

But I couldn’t stay away from Will forever. I thought about him all the time. He was there every time I so much as blinked.

Eventually, I sought him out. A little internet surfing told me where he lived, where he worked. I looked for him. I found what I was looking for. Though by then he was older, grayer, with kids, while in all those years, I hadn’t changed much. My gene pool was apparently a good one. Age couldn’t touch me. My hair was still the color of rust, my eyes an electric blue. My skin had yet to betray me.

I put on a dress, a black off-the-shoulder dress. I put on makeup, perfume. I put on jewelry. I did my hair.

I followed him for days, showed up where he least expected to see me.

Remember me? I asked, cornering him in a deli. I stood too close. I grasped him by the elbow. I called him by name. Because there’s nothing that excites us more than the sound of our own name. It’s the sweetest sound in the world to us. Corner of Madison and Wabash. Fifteen years ago. You saved my life, Will.

It didn’t take but a moment for him to remember. His face lit up.

Time had taken its toll on him. The strain of marriage, of parenting, of a job, a mortgage. This Will was a burned-out version of the Will I met.

It was nothing I couldn’t fix.

He just needed to forget for a while that he had a wife and kids.

I could help him with that.

I gave him a wide smile. I took him by the hand.

If it wasn’t for you, I said, leaning in to whisper the words in his ear, I’d be dead.

There was a spark in his eyes. His cheeks flushed. His eyes swept me up and down, landing near my lips.

He smiled, said, How could I ever forget?

He lightened up; he laughed. What are you doing here?

I tossed my hair over a shoulder, said, I was outside, just passing by. I thought I saw you through the window.

He touched the ends of my hair, said it looked nice.

And that dress, he said, followed it up with a long, low whistle.

He wasn’t looking at my lips anymore. Now he was looking at my thighs.

I knew where I wanted this conversation to go. As I often did, I got my way. It wasn’t instantaneous, no. It took some power of persuasion, which comes naturally to me. Rule number one: reciprocity. I do something for you, you do something for me in return.

I wiped the mustard from his lip. I saw that his drink was empty. I reached for the cup, refilled it at the soda fountain.

You didn’t have to do that, he said as I sat back down, slid his Pepsi across the table, made certain our hands touched as I did. I could have gotten it myself.

I smiled and said, I know I didn’t have to. I wanted to, Will.

And just like that, he owed me something.

There’s also likability. I can be extremely likable when I want to be. I know just what to say, what to do, how to be charming. The trick is to ask open-ended questions, to get people to talk about themselves. It makes them feel like the most interesting person in the world.

There’s also the importance of touch. Compliance is so much easier to achieve with a single touch to the arm, the shoulder, the thigh.

Add that to the fact that his and Sadie’s marriage read more like a guidebook on abstinence, from what I’d seen. Will needed something only I could give to him.

He didn’t say yes at first. He grinned sheepishly instead, turning red. He said he had a meeting, somewhere else he needed to be.

I can’t, he said. But I convinced him he could. Because not fifteen minutes later, we were slipping down an adjacent alleyway. There in that alley, he leaned me against a building. He eased his hand under the hem of the dress, pressed his mouth to mine.

Not here, I said, thinking only of him. I’d be fine doing that there. But he had a marriage, a reputation. I had neither. Let’s go somewhere, I said into his ear.

There was a hotel he knew, half a block away. Not the Ritz, but it would do. We raced up the stairs, into the room.

There, he threw me on the bed, had his way with me. When we were done, we lay in bed, breathing heavy, trying to catch our breath.

Will was the first to speak. That was just... He was tongue-tied when we were through, but radiant, beaming.