The floor stretches all the way to the glass so it seems to go beyond that, way out into the sky, where we live. I hear the scratch of the new tenant downstairs.
“Should we celebrate?” I hold up a freshly opened bottle of Mo?t.
He’s been edgy ever since that night, unsure about me. “Celebrate what?”
“Nothing,” I say. “Isn’t that what we celebrate?”
“Pour me a glass.” I do. Mine is already filled and on the counter. He lifts his glass. “To the new tenant.”
I clink his glass. “To the game.”
He takes a sip, makes a face. “I hate Mo?t.”
“Me, too.”
We eat at the dining table, him on one side, me on the other. As he eats, he tugs at his collar. He breaks a sweat. “I feel very . . . peculiar.” He coughs. “All of a sudden.” He pushes his plate away, takes another gulp of champagne.
“You’ve hardly touched your food.” I turn mine over on the plate.
“Yes.” He gags, pushes his chair from the table so it scrapes the floor. Coughs. “Did you”—cough—“poison my dinner?”
“Of course not.” I take a big scoop of potatoes. “I’m eating it, too.” I stuff it in my mouth.
He grabs his champagne but his hands are shaking. The glass drops, shatters on the floor.
“Can I get you another glass?”
Our eyes meet. “The Mo?t.” He fumbles in his pockets for his phone. On the other side of the table, I hold it up.
He smiles. Sweat is dripping down his face. He coughs. “I knew you were the woman of my dreams.” He starts across the house, toward the door, toward Margo’s house. He won’t make it. And even if he does, it’s empty, hollowed out, midrenovation. His knees are starting to buckle. I finish my glass and follow him out to the courtyard. The air is crisp and cold. “You’ll go to prison.” He collapses by the fountain, coughs blood into the water.
“You’re the only person who knows I’m not Demi.” Him and Lyla, but he doesn’t know that. And I trust her. We were victims of the same game.
I sit on the edge of the fountain as he pulls himself up, sits heavily beside me.
He tugs his collar so hard, a button pops off. “What did you poison me with?”
“Flowers. From your mother’s garden.”
“Shit. She loves poetic justice.” He coughs and blood spurts down his suit. “How long do I have?”
“Too long,” I snap.
Weak, he puts his head on my lap. “Can you tell me one of your stories?” Cough. “Make it a good one.” Choke. “A real struggle.”
It takes him forever to die. I keep thinking he might survive and sue. I tell him my stories and I pet his wet hair. He’s a good sport about it. I don’t think he was ever a great fan of living.
When he does finally die, its chilling how beautiful he looks. Even dead. It’s all really just so fucking unfair.
LYLA
There is blood in the fountain turning the water an eerie rust color. I call someone to drain it.
I lead him to the fountain, at the center of the stone floor. It gurgles, desperate, like a person drowning. I stand over it, see my gray cashmere tinged dark in my reflection. “I want you to drain the fountain.”
He steps forward, almost timid. His face wavers in the murky pool. “What is that?” He reaches with his hand, dips a finger so it undulates the surface, then brings it to his nose.
“How should I know?” I cross my arms. “I just want it out.”
“It smells like blood.” He shakes the water from his hand. His tool bag slips from his shoulders. It hits the ground with a crack. The tools rattle together. The sky is blue and glazed with clouds and there is blood in the fountain and I want it out.
“I don’t know what it is.”
“This is your house, isn’t it?” He unbuttons each sleeve, rolls them slowly past his elbows. “Got a wall around it.” He nudges his chin at the walls on all sides, high walls, the kind you can’t see past.
“I don’t see what that has to do with anything.”
He snorts.
“It’s not my house, as a point of fact. It’s my mother-in-law’s house. Margo. She lives above us, see? With the pointed roof.” I indicate the tower, whittled to a point like a thorn crown. You can see it from our house. You can see it from almost anywhere.
Margo is not there. She is on a self-designed religious pilgrimage. She is finding God, but make it picturesque. She has left the upper house exactly as it was. She has left everything exactly as it was. I think she believes that once she finds Him, she will pay Him to give everything back.