Page 85 of The Surrogate Mother

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It takes about halfan hour to fill Shelley in on the entire story from beginning to end. By the time I finish, culminating in my visit to Cynthia’s apartment, her mouth is hanging open. I don’t know if she’s shocked or if she thinks I’m nuts. The former, I hope.

“Wow,” she breathes. “That’s…”

I hang my head, staring into the depths of my mug of coffee. “I know. You always used to say Sam was a little too perfect. Guess you were right.”

“Well,” she says thoughtfully, “he wasn’tthatperfect. He wasnice. But…”

I frown. “But what?”

“Well, he was boring sometimes, wasn’t he?” She takes a sip of her foamy drink. “I mean, sometimes he was fine, but other times, you’d ask him some innocent question, and he’d turn it into some big mathematical problem. Like that time we were getting soft-serve ice cream and I told him to be careful not to fill it too high because it would fall, and he started trying to calculate to what height you’d have to fill the cone before it would tip over.”

I smile to myself. Shelley got so pissed off when he got out his pen and started making calculations on a napkin at the yogurt place. “Monica would probably love that.”

“And the math jokes? Ugh.”

“She likes those too.” I squeeze my coffee cup so hard, it burns my hand. Monica is so perfect for Sam in so many ways—I can’t even blame him for falling for her.

No, that’s not true. I can blame him. Cheating asshole.

I stir the coffee listlessly with my spoon. “So you thinkit’s really true? About Sam and Monica?”

Shelley hesitates. “Honestly?”

“Of course honestly!”

“Yes. I do.”

My heart sinks. Shelley knows Sam very well, and if she believes it could be true, it’s a bad sign. “Really?”

“Well,” she sighs, “I don’t know. There was always something about him I couldn’t put my finger on…”

“You never said that before!”

“I don’t know. I thought it was all in my head.”

My phone buzzes within my purse. I pull it out and see a text message from Sam:

Where are you? We should talk.

I look up and Shelley has her eyebrows raised. “Was that Sam?”

I nod. “He wants to ‘talk.’”

She takes a sip of her coffee, peering at me over the rim of the glass. “Are you sure it’s safe to be in the apartment with him?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean,” she says, “if he and Monica plotted to kill Denise, he’s capable of anything. What if he and Monica are in the apartment right now, armed with a knife and duct tape?”

“Oh my God, he wouldn’t do that!”

“Wouldn’t he?”

I look down at the text message from my husband. I don’t know what to think anymore. I hesitate before typing back:

I’ll be out late tonight. Let’s talk tomorrow.