Callie reached over and pressed the button to turn off the engine. Sidney had left the keys in the cupholder along with her phone and her wallet. Callie looked around the garage, searching for a hiding place for a video tape, but the space was a clean white box. Even the floor was spotless.
“Do you swim?” Sidney was reaching under her shirt to take off her bra. “I’ve got an extra suit that’ll fit you.”
Callie had a moment of darkness as she thought about the scars and track marks underneath her long-sleeved shirt and jeans. “It’s too hot for me, but I love to watch.”
“I bet you do.” Sidney slid out her bra through her sleeve. She fumbled with the buttons on her shirt, opening up a V-shaped view of her cleavage. “Fuck it, you’re right. Let’s just get wasted in the air conditioning.”
Callie watched her disappear into the house. Her knee caught as she got out of the car. She tried to register the pain, but her nerves were dulled by the chemicals coursing through her body. She had been careful at the restaurant, making sure she didn’t let herself get too out of hand. The problem was that she really, really wanted to let things get out of hand. The receptors in her brain hadn’t been on stimulants in such a long time that it felt like every second a new one was popping awake, begging for more.
She found another Xanax in her purse to bring her down a notch.
Andrew’s house beckoned her inside. Sidney had left her bra and shoes on the floor. Callie looked at her Doc Martens but the only way the boots would come off was if she got on the floor and pulled. She made her way up a long, white hallway. The temperature dropped like she was walking into a museum. No rugs. Stark white walls and ceiling. White fixtures. Black and white art showing extremely sexy women posed in artistic states of bondage.
Callie was so used to hearing gurgling aquarium filters that she didn’t register the sound until she was in the main part of the house. The view was meant to showcase the backyard but Callie ignored it. An entire wall had been dedicated to a magnificent reef aquarium. Soft and hard coral. Anemones. Sea urchins. Starfish. Lionfish. French angelfish. Harlequin tuskfish. Lipstick tangs.
Sidney was close beside her, shoulders touching. “It’s beautiful, right?”
All Callie wanted in the world right now was to sit on the couch, take a fistful of Oxy and watch the colorful creatures float around until she either fell asleep or met Kurt Cobain. “Is your husband a dentist?”
Sidney gave one of her husky laughs. “Car salesman.”
“Fuck me.” Callie forced herself to look around the giant living room, which had an Apple Store meets Soviet Union aesthete. White leather couches. White leather chairs. Steel and glass coffee and side tables. Floor lamps dipping their white metal heads like leprotic cranes. The television was a giant black rectangle on the wall. None of the components were showing.
Callie joked, “Maybe I should start selling cars.”
“Fuck, Max, I’d buy anything you were selling.”
Callie hadn’t gotten used to being called by her fake name. She took a moment to recalibrate. “Why pay when they’re giving it away?”
Sidney laughed again, nodding for Callie to follow her into the kitchen.
Callie kept her pace slow, listening for the hum of electronics that would supply the television. There were no bookshelves, no storage bins, no obvious hiding places for a VCR, let alone a video tape. Even the doors were obscured, nothing but a thin black outline indicating they existed. She had no idea how they opened without doorknobs.
“His mom controls the money.” Sidney was in the kitchen washing her hands at the bar sink. They had both left their masks back at the restaurant. “She’s such a fucking bitch. She controls everything. The house isn’t even in his name. She gave him a fucking allowance to furnish it. Even told him which stores he was allowed to go to.”
Callie felt her teeth ache at the sight of the ultra-modern kitchen. White marble countertops, high-gloss white cabinets. Even the stove was white. “I guess she’s already gone through menopause.”
Sidney didn’t get the period joke, which was fair. She had a small remote control in her hand. She pressed a button, and music filled the room. Callie had expected more pounding n-words, not Ed Sheeran crooning about being love drunk.
Another button was pressed. The lights were lowered, softening the room. Sidney winked at her, asking, “Scotch, beer, tequila, rum, vodka, absinthe?”
“Tequila.” Callie sat down on one of the torturous, low-backed bar stools. The romantic ambience had thrown her, so she pretended it hadn’t happened. “You wouldn’t be the first wife who didn’t get along with her mother-in-law.”