After Her (21 page)

“I haven’t decided yet,” I say. “I feel like I just got in my car and drove without thinking about the destination.”

“Excuse me?” He leans forward against his desk, gulping the rest of his whiskey in one shot and wincing at the taste.

“A series of odd events have occurred in my life recently and I want to know if you had anything to do with them.”

“If I were behind any sinister events disrupting your life, you’d know for certain that it was me,” he says.

“I didn’t come here to hear riddles Adrian. I might need your help.”

He pours himself a second drink in silence, appearing to ponder my words.

“Tell me what happened.”

“Yesterday when you dropped me off at my apartment, a man that I don’t know was waiting for me.”

“And you assume that I'm responsible for that?”

“You said you had some disgruntled clients. Do any of them know about me?”

“You want to know if I have any clients who’d go after you to get to me?” he asks.

“It’s silly, I know, but be real with me.”

He ponders my answer.

“I can think of a couple who might still have a grudge against me, but I don’t think any of them are crazed enough to resort to stalking,” he chuckles. “Even if that were the case, you know I’d protect you.”

I slap the flyer onto his desk. He doesn’t react at all to the words typed across it. He swigs his whiskey and gradually appears to express some semblance of interest after several seconds of ignoring me.

“What is this?” he asks dispassionately while examining the crumpled piece of paper.

“Someone left it under my windshield wiper this afternoon,” I say. “I think they were warning me.”

“Of what?”

“To stay away from Vivian, more specifically
you
,” I say. “I'm starting to think that the only thing I need protection from…is you.”

Adrian rises from his chair once more, leaving his glass behind. When he approaches, my instincts order me to move. My body does the opposite, planting my feet firm on the ground. It’s become a habit with him for me to expect the worst anytime he moves. I always feel like I'm bracing for impact.

He especially gives me reason for pause. I’ve caught a glimpse inside his head and didn’t like what I saw. His past actions have served as perfect examples as to why I shouldn’t let him get too close.

“Why are you here?” he asks again, his hands linked behind his back. “If this anonymous flyer was enough to establish every reason for you to stay away from us, then why are you here disobeying it?”

“I guess I wanted to give you the benefit of the doubt,” I say, my voice a rasp whisper.

He laughs so vociferously that his voice echoes, making the room sound like the inside of a tunnel, making me feel like I'm standing in the mouth of a canyon. When he turns away, it’s so abrupt that I flinch, expecting him to hit me.

“You didn’t have to go to such great lengths to get my attention, Cassandra.”

I clench my fists at my sides, wanting to restrain them, wanting to appear unfazed, but I’m not as practiced in the art of nonchalance like Vivian. I can’t hold myself together like her. When I feel something, it’s always apparent on my face as if someone stamps the word across my forehead.

“What?” I say.

“You travelled all this way with some bogus flyer with a vague warning typed on it just so you’d have an excuse to visit my office? Forgive me for finding this situation a little more than odd, if not amusing.”

“If anyone is desperate for attention, it’s you.”

“You still haven’t denied my previous accusation,” he replies offhandedly, leaving me to seethe in the aftermath of his words. With nothing to retort with, I march toward the door in a huff, wanting away from him.

“Cassandra, don’t leave angry,” he says just as my hand clutches the knob. “I didn’t mean to embarrass you.”

“I'm not embarrassed.”

“Is there some other reason why you haven’t stop trembling since you walked into my office? I can adjust thermostat to make you more comfortable or provide you a jacket if you’d like. Just come back and sit. We’ll discuss this in a more civil manner.”

“I'm not embarrassed,” I say. “If you really want the truth, I'm scared.”

“Scared?”

“I’ve never been stalked before, okay? Until I met you and Vivian, my life was pretty damn normal.”

“You’re scared of me?” he asks, his voice ripe with disappointment that surprises me.

“Give me a reason not to be,” I say.

“Don’t believe everything you read in those tabloids,” he says. “Those people are paid to make others look like monsters.”

“Some would argue that you are a monster.”

“I don’t believe you’d allow yourself to be alone with me in a soundproof room, if you actually believed that,” he replies.

I have nothing to argue against that assumption. On some subconscious level, I’m heavy with doubt. I dismiss these inhibitions and approach him, stopping midway to gauge the situation. He makes no sudden movements, permitting me to relax.

“Why
is
this floor soundproof?” I ask abruptly.

“If I told you, you might not like the answer,” he says with a light chuckle.

“At this point, nothing about you would surprise me.”

“Take a seat,” he orders. As usual, I'm tentative, but my curiosity is wielding control of this vessel right now. I sit and watch him pour himself another glass of whiskey. He presses some button on his desk and curtains automatically drape the windows, blocking the dimming light of sunset noon.

“Before Vivian became ill, she liked to visit my office a lot,” he says. “Every day at noon, we would have lunch delivered and toast wine. She loved that view of the skyline, spent hours just staring at it. I believe that she was happiest here.”

“So you two genuinely had a normal marriage at some point,” I say.

He chuckles at the nostalgia, briefly lost in thought.

“Anytime I closed a deal with a client, she’d show up in my office with a bottle of wine eager to celebrate.”

My cheeks flush; his smile wavers.

“Celebrate?” I say. “You don’t mean…”

“She liked to make love atop this desk,” he announces while stroking his fingers across the desktop. I watch those fingers move methodically
against the surface, spellbound by the wayward thoughts that venture into my head.

“No one ever walked in? Or overheard?” My voice rises in pitch like the squeak of a pesky mouse.

“That’s why the soundproof walls were installed,” he laughs. As his laughter subsides, his eyes appear sullen as if these memories drudge up a surfeit of dormant emotions for him. He’s almost as ephemeral as Vivian is, from one memory to the next.

Neither of them can maintain a grip on the present whenever reminded of the forgotten past. I'm sure they’d both rather fade into the past to recapture those days before the cancer, before the murder trial and the scandal.

“How long has it been?” I blurt without bothering to consider the nature of my question until it’s already escaped my lips. By then, it’s too late to censor myself, too late to filter the words. I bite my tongue, wanting to take it all back.

Adrian gives me an indiscernible look. It’s hard to tell from this whether I’ve actually offended him. With him, it’s never a simple hop and skip to uncover the truth behind his silence. He and Vivian are alike in that sense, neither of them ever willing the shed their apathetic masks long enough to allow anyone within their citadels. 

He clears his throat like an old man gnawing tobacco. It’s an obvious attempt to freshen the mood between us despite the fact that I'm the one that’s made it awkward. He downs the rest of his whiskey and pushes the glass aside.

“Are you questioning me about my sex life with Vivian?”

“I’m sorry,” I say, scrambling to excuse myself. “Forget I ever asked. God, I'm so sorry. I don’t even know why—”

“Two years,” he interjects. “She hasn’t let me touch her in two years. The cancer has destroyed her sex drive. When she was diagnosed, she started pushing me away. I'm allowed one kiss a day and an occasional hug, but her libido isn’t what it used to be. These days we virtually live like platonic siblings, not spouses.”

Vivian mentioned this, made a note of telling me how much she hates being touched. Her body at this point is something she’d rather keep to herself and I don’t blame her. I have seen the physical effects of the cancer and how she can’t stand being reminded of it anytime she notices the varicose veins streaking her inner thighs.

“Do you two talk about me when I'm not around?” he asks. My immediate thought is of Vivian’s proposition. I realize how easily I could expose this arranged marriage plot and put an end to all of this, freeing myself.

She’d hate me for it, I'm sure, but she’d get over it. Adrian should know. Vivian’s face cloaks my thoughts like a shadow, reminding me not to say a word like it’s some dirty secret kept close between a pedophile and victim.

“Cassandra?”

“Huh?”

“You never answered my question,” says Adrian who stares at me like I'm some dying thing lying in the street.

“Sometimes,” I say, wanting to sugarcoat the truth as much as possible. “She mentions you occasionally.”

“What does she say?”

“Can’t you just ask
her
these things instead of using me as a middle man?” I reply.

He chuckles to himself, beneath his breath.

“Vivian and I don’t talk much these days,” he says. “She spends most of her time busying herself with you. If I were jealous type, I’d say that you were trying to steal my wife.”

A spastic chuckle explodes out of me, making me stiffen in my seat, nailed to the chair. Adrian’s eyes lock to mine in search of something. Soon after, he sits back with a smile, amused by whatever he’s found.

“Listen,” he abruptly replies. “You won’t have to worry about this mysterious stalker much longer. I’ll get some people on it. Have it investigated. We’ll figure out who he is. I promise.”

“Should I be worried that you’re suddenly so cooperative?” I tease.

“Is that your new complaint? That I'm
too
…cooperative?”

When he says it like that, it sounds sillier aloud than it did in my head.

“I'm sorry,” I say. “It’s a habit of mine to always think the worse of you.”

“There is no definitive way to please you, is there?” he asks in a voice that suggests that his words mean more than what he’s actually saying. I reign in my immediate reaction, wanting to scold him for that vague innuendo, but feeling instead a curl of something sinful in the pit of my stomach.

“I should get home,” I announce. “Sasha is probably waiting.”

He doesn’t object. For some reason his lack of effort disappoints me. I imagine him ordering me to stay. Then I feel silly for wanting him to say anything at all. Before I can exit my chair, the door bursts open.

The pretty, brunette receptionist emerges in the entrance, leering in, first at Adrian then at me like some scorned spouse seeking to catch her husband in the act. Upon noticing the opposite, she quickly readjusts her distrustful expression to appear cordial.

“Francesca, I’m in the middle of a meeting. Can I help you?” Adrian asks her without bothering to raise his voice above a casual tone. His voice is one above an exasperated father, reprimanding his kid for interrupting an adult conversation.

“Mr. Delmarco called. He’d like to move that lunch to 1:30,” she says. “I’m sorry for the interruption. I just—”

“Thank you,” he interjects. “You can leave now.”

She glances once more at me. If she could, I'm sure she’d shove me from the seventieth floor window. In her, I sense something more than spite, something territorial. After a moment, she clears her throat and exits the room.

“Okay, that was weird,” I say.

“Disregard Francesca. She’s a bit uncomfortable with strangers in the building. She does her job too well.”

“By ‘uncomfortable’ you mean jealous,” I reply. “There is no way any girl would take the duties of an entry-level receptionist as seriously as she does. She hasn’t stopped glaring at me since I arrived.”

Adrian chuckles at some secret joke. I’ve yet to hear the punch line. 

“What’s so funny?” I ask.

“If you’re going to imply something, why not just say it outright?”

“Alright, if that’s how you want it…are you fucking your receptionist or is there some other reason why she feels the need to constantly mark her territory around you like a pissing dog?” I ask, no longer feeling the need to censor myself out of respect or common courtesy. Apparently, these social laws don’t apply to him.

“I’ll never understand why you feel the need to ask questions that you already know the answers to,” he replies.

“I’ll take that as a yes,” I say while approaching the door, moving my legs like sandbags through the mud. As I make my way to the exit, I feel him watching with strict intent. I grip the doorknob, but I don’t leave. Some unfinished business remains between us, some unsaid words neither of us have bothered to say.