The Silent Wife (24 page)

Alison arrives in full makeup and stiletto heels, in spite of
it being a quiet dinner at home. She smells like heaven, and her silver bracelets festively clink as she lifts her arms to fix her hair. Jodi has never seen Alison in any other mode. It's like she always has a party or a hot date lined up for later. Alison can make an occasion out of anything.

She accepts a glass of wine and says how worried she's been. “You can't
do
this to me. Last time I saw you, in case you've forgotten, when we left the restaurant you could barely even stand. Would it kill you to pick up the phone and call?”

The scolding is benign and makes Jodi smile. They take their glasses into the living room where the panorama of the sky, ashen and sickly throughout the day, has deepened to a lusty blue-black. Jodi circles the room switching on lamps. She turns up the flame in the fireplace and settles next to Alison on the sofa. On the coffee table in front of them is a plate of canapes that Jodi placed there earlier: slices of toasted baguette topped with a savoury olive relish.

Alison knows nothing of Jodi's present dilemma. The last thing they discussed was Natasha's pregnancy and the possibility of Todd and Natasha getting married. Alison doesn't know that—according to Dean—a date has been set for the wedding. She hasn't heard about the eviction notice and is unaware that Jodi has dug herself in like a hobbit. She doesn't know what Barbara Phelps had to say or even that Jodi has been to see a lawyer. Jodi has kept these things to herself in the belief that even Alison, the most indulgent of her friends, is unlikely to support her decision to protect her home by never leaving it.

But she is wrong about Alison. Given her line of work, Alison has witnessed a lot of injustice, from everyday petty tyrannies (girls having to dance in the blast from an air conditioner; girls required to remove even their G-strings on stage) to out-and-out abuses of power (girls entertaining the manager's friends; girls providing special services to officers of the law), and she does not take a philosophical view of such matters, does not hold with playing the game or going with the flow or following the path of least resistance. Alison has a history of sympathizing with the underdog and taking on other people's problems. She is not a vigilante; she knows better than to kick up a fuss and call attention to herself in her place of employment. It's more Alison's style to short-circuit a switch or spike a drink or place an anonymous call to a man's wife or mother. She's even been known to take advantage of an officer's improper behaviour by relieving him of his weapon. Jodi has heard that Alison can get out the bigger guns, too, but until tonight she had not formed an image in her mind of what that might mean.

They move from the sofa to the table and tuck into the seafood risotto. Alison talks about Crystal's ex-boyfriend's bad behaviour and the restraining order that Crystal is trying to get. She goes on to describe a feud taking place between two of the girls, Brandy and Suki, which has escalated to the point where they're shredding each other's costumes. Jodi listens politely but can't help feeling inwardly distracted. It's her own fault of course that Alison is focusing on other people's problems when she, Jodi, is in such terrible straits. She longs now to open up to her friend, tell her everything, but still she prevaricates. Alison will
laugh at her for burrowing in the way she has, making things harder than they need to be, when it can't make any difference in the end.

But then, after dinner—after they've pushed back their chairs and recrossed their legs and switched from wine to coffee—Alison surprises her by saying, “Is Todd going to marry that girl?”

And here's where Jodi understands what Alison is made of, because as the story comes out in all its humiliating detail—especially the part where Jodi becomes a pathetic shut-in—Alison is nodding and agreeing, could not in fact be more approving or supportive.

“You're doing the right thing,” she says. “You can't let him get away with it.”

“But he
will
get away with it,” says Jodi. “Nothing I can do is going to stop him.”

“Wrong,” says Alison. “We can make this problem go away.”

“We can make
this
problem go away?”

“Without a doubt.”

“Ha ha,” says Jodi. “That would be nice.”

“You think I'm joking,” says Alison.

“Not joking. But how is it possible? Even the lawyer couldn't help me.”

“It's possible,” says Alison. “We just need a little time to arrange things.”

“Okay,” says Jodi.

“How much time do we have?” asks Alison.

“I don't follow you,” says Jodi.

“Do we know when they're getting married? Because once that's done, your options are going to seriously drop off.”

“You want to know the date of the wedding?”

“Didn't your friend tell you? Dean?”

“The second Saturday in December.”

“What's today? Okay. I think we can cope. The one thing we need to be sure of is the will. As long as you're still the beneficiary …”

“Well, I am. As far as I know. I mean, he could have changed his will.” She hasn't given any thought to Todd's will. The realization that he'll undoubtedly be revising it in favour of his wife and child, if he hasn't already done so, is a new kind of slap in the face.

“He may not have changed it yet,” says Alison. “Chances are he hasn't. He's getting married, so why bother, that's what he'll be thinking. Because the second he's married any will he has is going to be null and void.” Alison is folding and refolding her napkin, smoothing it out, turning it over, making it into a rectangle and then a square. “The law doesn't give a damn,” she says. “The law will keep you jumping through hoops till you've lost everything, including your self-respect. I've seen it happen a million times. Forget the law. I make one call and you get your life back.” Thrusting her napkin aside, she turns her attention to the items on the table—salt shaker, candlestick, water glass, coffee cup—lining them up like soldiers.

Jodi gets up and fetches a bottle from the sideboard. “This is a really nice Armagnac,” she says. Carefully, her movements
concentrated and spare, she pours out the amber liquid and hands her friend a glass.

A revolution is taking place within her, as though a lifetime's experience could be outdistanced in the span of a conversation. Like a moulting snake she finds herself shedding her useless defiance, pathetic innocence, and sense of being a noncontender—the butt of a legal joke. The beauty of it is that there is no point at which she has to make a decision. She is not required to decide, for example, if she can overcome her reservations, work herself into enough of a rage, do the deed in cold blood, cope with consequences. Lost in a desert, you drink the tainted water that your friend is offering. Fatally afflicted, you put yourself in the surgeon's hands. The pros and cons no longer count. The options have run out. Survival is what's now on the table.

“Renny is blue-chip,” Alison is saying. “He makes a rotten husband but he has a good Rolodex. And he owes me a favour. And could use the money, of course. But don't worry, he'll give you a fair price.”

Jodi is captivated by this alternate world in which her problems simply disappear, not just the immediate problem of keeping her home intact, but the prospective problems as well—the problem of putting Natasha in her place, the problem of the endless days ahead and living through them as Todd continues to eat, sleep, and fornicate in another part of town. The world without Todd in it is not just a new concept but a new
kind
of concept, one that even now is forging a fresh neural pathway within her, like a tunnelling worm. But the real surprise is Alison.
She has always liked Alison but sees now that she has failed to give her proper credit and at this moment is regarding her with virgin eyes.

“It has to be cash,” Alison says. “But forget about taking it out of the bank or getting a cash advance on your credit card. Those kinds of transactions can be traced. If they see that you've made a large withdrawal, they'll be on you like a pack of wolves.”

Jodi understands that by “they” Alison means the police, the judge, the jury, the prosecutor—the whole law enforcement community. “I don't have much in the bank anyway,” she says.

“You will. But why don't you just sell something? Your jewellery. Some of these knickknacks.” Their two pairs of eyes light on various objects in the room. The gold Peruvian figurines, the Matisse cut-paper lithograph, the Rajput painting in its gilt frame. “And don't go through an agent. Look for buyers online.” She lifts Jodi's hand and peers at the stone in her ring. “Stick with smaller things that are portable. Insist on cash. You'll have to move fast. And get enough to take a trip while you're at it. You'll want to be away when the moment comes.”

24

HIM

It's morning. He's sitting at his desk. His BLT wrappings are in the trash can by his left foot, along with the cardboard cup from which he drank his first coffee of the day. Coffee number two is still on the go. The caffeine notwithstanding, he's feeling groggy, just barely awake, and yet keenly alert to the small animal stirring in his gut. He's been helping himself to Natasha's sleeping pills, but they haven't affected this gnawing, spitting, scratching presence that never seems to rest and prevents him from sleeping deeply or for very long. It's a new-old feeling for him, this sense of the fractious lodger within. At one time, not so long ago, he naively believed that Natasha could banish his anxiety forever, as if their love were a form of enchantment that could keep him always safe.

Hearing Stephanie come in he looks at his watch. Stephanie has always put a loose interpretation on the notion of office hours, but lately she hasn't even bothered with excuses. He resents the presumption on his good nature and generosity. He ought to speak to her, outline his views on punctuality. In a better world he might even give her a warning. The trouble is she could conceivably walk out on him, the way she's been. Distant verging on rude, which no doubt has to do with her loyalty to Jodi.

He can hear her moving around out there—rinsing mugs in the washroom, picking up her voice mail, making a call. Her cherry-gum perfume hits his nostrils with a twang, soon followed by the darker aroma of the coffee she's brewing. Stephanie, never without a coffee at hand, lives in defiance of the coffee break. Every week she goes through two or possibly three bags of a premium Starbucks blend that must be costing him ten dollars a pound, taking the position that she buys and brews it for the office and overlooking the fact that he drinks his entire daily quota of coffee before she arrives in the morning, which leaves only Valerie, the bookkeeper from 202, and Kevin from the printing operation in the basement to join her in a cup, which they are happy to do on a regular basis. He ought to be docking her pay not only for the coffee but for the time she spends gossiping with his tenants.

He makes up his mind to confront her, but when she appears in his doorway, coffee mug in one hand, files and notepad in the other, he takes one look at her churlish expression and decides not to push his luck. Besides, he's distracted by the
sweater she's wearing, one he hasn't seen before. The scoop neck reveals more of her collarbone than usual, and her breasts—nipples foremost—assert themselves against the soft weave. The urgent feelings that arise from Stephanie's daily presence in his life can at times leave him groping and bankrupt. On an ongoing basis he fantasizes more about Stephanie than he does about any other woman.

What she says as she traverses the room and sits down facing him across his desk is: “I don't know why you drink that crap from the deli when our office blend is as good as it gets. What are you paying for that—a buck fifty, two bucks a cup? It adds up, you know.”

Blood rushes to his head but he holds his tongue and lets the moment pass. “Am I still underwriting Jodi's credit cards?” he asks.

“Of course. Nothing has changed.”

“How many are there?”

“Six. Seven. Seven if you count Citgo, which you also use.”

“I want you to close out all her cards. Pay them off in full and cancel them.”

“Citgo too?”

“Yes. Anything she has access to. Make sure you get them all.”

She hesitates, pen poised over paper.

“What?” he says.

“I hope you're going to forewarn her about this.”

“She'll find out soon enough.”

Stephanie drops her eyes to her notepad and says nothing,
but he gets her disapproval, plainly conveyed in the set of her shoulders and tilt of her head. Too bad. Her defiance doesn't affect him as much as she would like it to. Stephanie should tend to her own affairs. He needs to get serious with Jodi, show her that her freeloading days are over, that he's not fooling around, that he means business.

With the meeting at an end, as she gathers up her files, he says, “I hope it goes without saying that what happens in this office is strictly confidential.”

He waits for a reply but doesn't get one.

When Stephanie has gone and shut the door behind her he gets up and moves around the room with clenched fists and an odd gait, doing his best to defy an urge that is all but irresistible, a defiance that crumbles in less than a minute, giving way to a fit of scratching, frenzied and hysterical. It's like he has electrodes taped to his balls or a live wire sizzling in his pants. His poor little penis could light up the world. And even in his pain he feels ashamed—that he can't keep still, can't keep his hands off his crotch, as if he were a dirty old man with a case of the crabs. Which is not even the worst of it. The worst of it is that his frenzy is marbled with terror. What if it never goes away? What if it doesn't just persist but worsens and spreads until he can't think or eat or sleep, can't do anything but scratch? What if he has to go to the hospital, and even so what could they do for him there other than bandage his hands or strap him to the bed or put him in an artificial coma?