He pushed me off. “How can you love me anyway?”
He called Margo, and he shut the door on me. He spoke to her for over an hour. I would have given anything to know what she said to him, what he said to her, what they decided. When he came to bed, I thought something would change. But he slipped in beside me; he put his arms around me. He held me like a husband does. We never spoke of it again.
I tried to put it out of my mind, but every so often it bubbled to the surface, throwing me off-balance, catching me off guard. I told myself it was a trick, a lie Margo made up to scare me, until the night Elvira died. I saw the look on Graham’s face: not a smile, not a smirk, but his dimples were showing. And I wondered for the first time if it wasn’t a lie; if it was a mercy. He will destroy you and everything you love. It’s in our blood.
There my mind stops before it goes too far. It doubles back on itself. It promises me I’m fine. He married me. He must have had a reason. He must know, deep down, I’m good enough. He must love me, in some way.
He won’t destroy me, not by accident, not by design. I’m smart. I can keep up with him. I can’t give up. I need to stop thinking about it. All of it. It won’t get me anywhere. Elvira is dead. I need to stop dreaming about her. I need to focus on the game. It’s my turn. Once it’s over, things will go back to normal. Tragedy will take its place at a distance. I need to be the destroyer. I need to destroy Demi’s life fast so we can all move on.
I know I can win. I have it in me. I can prove to Margo and Graham that I belong with them. I’m out of practice, but I’m a goddamn killer. That’s how I got Graham. That’s how I got the house. That’s how I got everything that everyone wants.
I have a plan.
I’m going to do the most heartless thing a woman can do to another woman.
I’m going to make her my best friend.
LYLA
I am awake before Graham the next morning. I make him coffee, cut his grapefruit.
“I’m going to do it today,” I tell him. “I have a plan.”
Graham just nods sleepily. He is not a morning person. His eyes are dull. His skin is plump with sleep.
I wait until he leaves, until a sociable hour; then I get dressed. I select my grayest outfit, my most expensive understated shoes. A bottle of Mo?t for a housewarming present.
I step out the front door. A man is standing in our courtyard.
There is a homelessness epidemic in Los Angeles. They rent vans out in Venice for people to live in. Charities and churches offer swaths of lawn for people to camp. Downtown there are tent cities with shopping cart traffic.
It’s easy not to see it up here in the hills, in a city where no one walks. It’s easy to drive from one place to another and barely even glimpse it. To avoid it. Even so, there are times when I pass over a body on my walk to the reservoir, times when my car brakes suddenly as someone barges across the street, always bleeding from somewhere: a nose, an ankle, bloody fingers. Times when you notice a pile of trash and realize people have been discarded there, too.
This man is tall, over six feet. He stoops but it only makes him seem taller. He has dark dreaded hair and a hooked, crooked nose. He has a fancy woman’s jacket but no shirt. His chest is speckled with mud or blood. I look at him. He gazes back at me, over his shoulder with a grim expression, like we are locked in some endless loop, prisoners in twin purgatories.
I have this funny impulse to invite him inside. He could be my Rasputin. I could be his Alexandra.
“What—，” I start.
He coils, ready to run. My muscles clench. But instead of racing onto the street, he dives down the stairs toward the guesthouse. I follow him. My bra tightens. My heart appears in my chest, beating. I leap down the stairs. I hear Demi scream. She is standing in front of her door, face ashen.
The man freezes on the stairwell, halfway between her place and mine. He looks up at me, then down toward her, trying to decide who is the weaker link. He makes his choice, barreling down the steps so she falls flat against her front door.
He whooshes past, and as he does, she swings her fist and smacks him between the shoulder blades.
“Bitch!” he grunts in surprise as he crashes down the hillside.
“Don’t come back!” she roars as he dodges through the dense trees. A murder of crows explodes from the branches. At the bottom of the yard, he scales the lower fence and is gone.
Demi watches the yard, hand still clenched in a fist. Her feet are twisted into alligator pumps. When she is satisfied he won’t come back, she turns to me. Her eyes are wild with alarm.