Page 52

Dodi

I have a top-floor meeting.

The executive worries her pen elegantly with the blunt tips of her white manicure as she considers the papers spread out in front of her.

“I can’t argue with the bottom line,” she says thoughtfully. She leans back in her chair and considers me with an expensive, veneered smile. “And who would say no to the offer of transformational change .”

Next to her a woman who could be her clone, but several decades younger, nods her head and flashes an identical smile at me. The executive bows her blond head over the contract, slashes her signature in four places, and engages me to cut problem employees from payroll and transform her organization into a healthier and more productive workplace. My consulting business has a growing reputation. No one knows quite how I get the numbers.

She has no idea her name is going to be at the top of the list when I hand it over to the company’s directors. She’s the biggest psycho here.

A door swings open, and both blond heads swivel to take in the new arrival: a man in standard-issue office attire, gray slacks, white shirt, thick-framed glasses. I narrow my eyes at him. I think I recognize him. A temp I run into from time to time as I circulate through the downtown office core. Funny how we keep crossing paths. He’s three steps in before he stops in his tracks and adopts a rueful smile.

“I’m interrupting.”

“Never, Jonathan,” the executive says, extending her hand to take her coffee from him. He passes a tea to the younger woman, and then he holds out the tray with the last coffee to me.

“I always get an extra,” he says. “Black, no sugar.” He shrugs apologetically.

“Exactly the way I take it.” I twist it free and look at the name on the side: Dolly . It always says that.

I raise one eyebrow at him, and he shoves his glasses up his nose with his middle finger.

The executive watches him lazily as he leaves, then turns to me. “When you start gathering your data…”

I let her blather importantly as I sweep up the contract and sample documents. The data has already been harvested, processed, and sorted into a comprehensive report. For the next month I will take over a cushy corner office in her headquarters with a temporary sign bearing my name taped to the door while I listen to podcasts on my earbuds and sexually harass the poor office temp. I shake the executive’s cool, limp hand, and then her daughter’s, and tell them I’ll see them on Monday.

In the hall outside I look to my left, then right. A near-identical stretch of hall extends to either side. I go still as a big cat about to pounce and sniff the breeze.

To the right.

I prowl down the hall, my heels clacking on the hard white floor. I round a corner and drag my fingernail along the wall until it catches on the frame of a door. I scratch my nails down the outside of the door, twist the handle, and step inside.

I guessed right.

He clicks the door shut, and all we can see in the dark is the band of light at the bottom of the door illuminating the edges of our shoes. The two lunatics are still working together.

“When are you going to quit temping and get a real job?” I whisper against his jaw.

“Never. It’s the perfect cover while I pursue my real interests.” His mouth drifts near my ear, and then down to my neck.

“Stalking?” I twist his tie around my hand.

“Yes,” he mutters.

“Casing your next victim.” I pull.

“That too.” The door thuds gently in the frame behind me as he presses me against it.

“And…perfecting your MO.” His stubble is rough under my fingertips. He needs a shave.

“Of course.” His fingertips are on my jaw, too. They drift down, and now they’re around my neck.

“Still a creep,” I breathe against his lips. “Show me?”

—

Now our life is like this:

There’s a living, breathing man in my bed when I wake up. Sometimes his eyes are already open and on me; sometimes I get to watch his thick eyelashes flutter in his sleep. Mornings are slow. We never rush. There’s time—so much time. All the work I used to have to do, split between two adults. He makes breakfast, he packs our lunches—our daughter’s and mine—he pours coffee into a thermos for me. By now are you seeing a pattern here? An MO taking shape? Don’t worry. I’ll circle back.

I drop my kid at school and commute downtown to meet with clients. I have a succession of corner offices I don’t pay rent for, with views of the bustling, writhing masses below, my kingdom for the conquering. I’m good at my job. I get results. I’m in demand.

If I finish early, I might do a speck of window-shopping. I’m materialistic. I like things. I like to acquire little… trophies to mark successes and important events. A heavy paperweight that fits just right in my palm, that I can keep on my desk near my right hand. Or maybe a tie, a dark green one—silk, so that the knot slides easily when pulled tight around the neck. I have someone to shop for now.

At the end of the day I go home, where it’s clean and smells like dinner, kick off my very expensive shoes, and play with Barbies on the floor like the card-carrying adult that I am. My family life is acutely wholesome, which is exactly what you’d expect of a murderer. We even have a new golden retriever puppy.

Jake’s slipped into a convincing facade of wholesomeness with me. He’s lost the dark circles under his eyes. I’ll never trust his big lunatic asylum smiles, even though they go all the way to the eyes now, but the twisty, shy half smiles, like he’s embarrassed at how happy he is? I know they’re real, because I do them too. And when the kid is in bed, and Grandpa too, and the house gets broody and dark, the wholesome family ruse slips away and we’re a pair of night creatures again. A glass of wine, a true crime show…or maybe date night, if Grandma is free.

The other day was our one-year anniversary: paper. In our case, in a neat little stack, which he pushed across the breakfast table to me. An itinerary for a belated honeymoon in a castle-infested forest while the grandparents watch the kid.

“Transylvania?”

“Antarctica’s a zoo this time of year,” he said apologetically. “And Cuba’s out, since vampires have to stay out of the sun.”

“There will be other anniversaries.”

“Maybe a few more,” he agreed.

“Maybe,” I said. And we’d looked at each other, shrewdly, suspiciously.

Because after all this time, I think we’ve figured out each other’s MO. I can see it when he looks at me, his expression dangerous and cunning. I know he sees it in my eyes, too—the dark motive behind every smile, every kiss, every I love you . We’re both playing the long game. We’re each waiting for the moment the other lets their guard down. But in the meantime we’re going to take care of each other, play games with each other, love each other tender and love each other true, for better or worse, through sickness and in health, until eventually, after a few decades, we finally, finally succeed, in loving each other to death.