“He was huge. Weren’t you scared?”
I am more scared of her. I remember the real Demi’s warning, that Lyla was “totally bonkers.” She does seem a little off. She is like a painting where the artist got everything right except the feeling you get when you look at it.
“I’m not scared of anything,” I lie.
“Do you want to come upstairs? Get to know each other?”
My instinct is to say, No, I would not like to come upstairs. I would not like to get to know you, if there is a you beyond the seamless, crinkle-free exterior.
But when I glance into the yard, I see Michael peering over the sloppy side of the fence, waiting. And I think, What if? What if I could get more, climb higher than this? What if I didn’t stop? What if I kept going? I am so close, I can taste it. This might be my only chance.
I force my eyes away from Michael. I set my sights on her: a Hitchcock blonde, rose lipped, anatomically correct. Perfect.
I tell her, “That would be wonderful,” in my richest voice.
DEMI
I stand on the threshold as she opens the door and the whole house appears, all at once, like some well-harvested dream, like a house in a reality show, like someone motioned from inside the screen and said, Come in, it’s real! It only looks pretend!
A woman is cleaning in the far corner. She looks at us, then looks away.
The light settles in pools as my eyes trace the windows, locked together by nearly seamless seals.
“It’s so dark downstairs—”
“I like it,” I say like she might snatch it away.
She looks at the windows and nerves grip my spine. If she looks down, she will see Michael waiting on the other side of the fence, maybe climbing back inside, maybe walking up the path, maybe opening the door. What will she think? What will she do? Seeing him will finally make her see—really see—me. She’ll know I’m not Demi. She’ll know exactly who I am.
“Do you want tea? Or coffee?” She slips into the room and my nerves go into overdrive. I am having a panic attack, as always, for no reason. But I think, She wants to kill me. I believe, She wants me dead. She is looking at me with a hunter’s eyes, down a scope, as I shrivel.
“No, thank you.” My twisted instincts tell me to run. Go back downstairs, close the curtains, keep the lights out. Hang on as long as I can. It’s dangerous here. I can sense it. I can see it, but my eyes also want to swallow it whole. They traverse the lines of her house, eating everything. The wedding portrait on the wall, her grinning with surprise and maybe a little fear as Graham tightens his grip around her waist, smiles tirelessly, a slight sheen to his temples, a sharpness to his lips. He’s packaged her off, his freshly purchased queen, and my chest aches like I wish somebody would buy me, too.
“Water?”
“I can only stay a second.”
Silence falls like a gavel. All the light is tightening and I don’t belong here. I should leave. A pair of his shoes is discarded in the hallway, like Graham stepped out of them midwalk. It’s beautiful but frozen. It’s like time has stopped up here, and if you told me she had paid for that, too, I’d believe it.
I feel like a fraud. I feel insecure. I think of the person I was days ago, dragging a body under a freeway, sawing off hands and feet. And yet here I am in a fancy living room with a fancy person, thinking, Oooh, I wonder if she hates me! I wonder if she can sense I’m worthless!
“So. You work in tech?”
“Yes.”
“How is that?”
I shrug. “A job is a job.”
“What do you like to do for fun?”
“Nothing.”
“You do nothing for fun?”
I shift and peer out the windows, trying to find Michael below. “I should really go.”
“Wine?”
“I don’t drink.” I do, but I have to keep my wits about me with her.
“Me either. I mean, hardly. Alcoholic parents. You, too?”
“My parents are dead.” Be positive.
“I wish mine were.” What the fuck? “They’ve basically disowned me.” She waits for me to ask her about it but I don’t want to know. It’s creepy that her parents think of her as something they owned.
The trees feather and fan, dancing for the audience below. I see Michael, perfectly framed, climbing over the fence. Shit. “I’d better go.”
“No. Please, stay.”
“I can’t.” I can hear Michael rattling leaves as he climbs up the mountain.
“You seem very cagey.”