Everyone's Dirty Little Secrets (11 page)

She’s going to Mrs. Dodge’s house, he realizes.  It’s not like he hasn’t been there.  Or by there, at least.  He knows where she lives.  So that’s clear early on.  But even with that settled, this smack
s
of intrigue. 
Some
kind of excitement.

He watches Jaime
pull in past the gate
, a friend in the passenger seat
. 
Siobhan
do
es
n’t lock it
,
he knows,
but it’s nice to have a gate, just the same.
  He circles
his car
around
the block
, parks on the street, not knowing how he’s going to navigate this one yet.  Straight up peep?  Or is it time to pull the party crasher
move?  That’s bold
for him.  He’s a peep.  A stalker, even.  But he doesn’t really have the balls, or the brains, to figure out how to be part of the action.

That’s why he
usually just
follows his luck.  He sees Dodge approaching in one of Siobhan’s cars, not long after Jaime.  This is more intriguing than he had expected.  He decides to start walking in, times it to be in front of Dodge, stepping into the gated driveway just before Dodge turns to pull in.

“Jesus, did she invite you too?” Dodge asks him through the passenger window.

Chuck
marvels
at how much Dodge looks like him, wonders if he could ever use that to his advantage.
 

He just grins and shrugs at Dodge.

Dodge throws open the door.  “Hop in, then,” he tells
Chuck
.

Chuck
acts hesitant, but he’s not.  After a moment, he slides slowly in.  “Thanks, Mr. Dodge,” he says.

Luck is a fickle mistress but she must be courted if she dances your way.

This is an easy rule to follow.  If that’s
your idea of a rule - do whatever comes your way.

Things don’t happen for a reason.

Reasons don’t matter.

*****

Jaime is surprised when Mr.
Chuck
steps out of Dodge’s car
, baffled at how the two
came to be together.  They d
on’t
really
know each other, though
they certainly saw
each other at the company party.  Maybe in the office.  They would recognize each other.  They look alike, after all - people tend to notice that. 

Brigitte
– the friend she dragged along -
splashes her
, diving
into the pool, and Jaime
chases her to the shallow end, sending a wave of water into her face.

Jaime likes playing it by ear.

There’s a reason for everything.  If you watch and listen long enough, you’ll figure it out.  Then you can make those reasons work for you.
  She knows she can handle both of these men.

She pretends not to notice Dodge and Mr.
Chuck
approaching the pool, jumping onto Brigitte and wrestling her head toward the water.
  She knows exactly how awesome this looks to the two men.

She knows how Dodge will behave. 

She worries about Mr. Chuck, though.

He’s a wild card.

But s
he’s not going to
fuss over him right now
.  There may be a reason he showed up, in the end.  Things like this end up being advantages a lot of the time, if you let them play
out - a
nd are smart enough to
turn them to your favor
.

She only has eyes for Dodge now, though.

He
looks really hot, still in his tie, loose and twisted from his race here, his dark shades with their big lenses, the scruff.  No matter how cool he plays it, though, she knows how hard he raced here. 
Especially after the second pic she sent.

After that, h
e stopped protesting.
  She c
ouldn’t get him to flirt at all, though.

That’
s his style, she knows.  She imagines he is a great
text flirter – he’s such a great writer - so she tries really hard.  But even the pics do
n’t work, for C
hrist’s sake.

Hell, Mr.
Chuck
would agree to stop following her for even just one of those.

He wouldn’t really stop. 

He would just agree to it.

Dodge only stares down at them for a minute from the edge of the pool, his
jacket
thrown over his shoulder.  Jaime practically drowns Brigitte wrestling with her to get his attention. 

He smiles, but walks away just the same, without a word.

She lets Brigitte breathe.

A few moments after he walks into the pool house, she follows.
  She’s not stupid.  She knows he’s watching.  She swims back to the deep end, leaving Brigitte to Mr.
Chuck
.  She feels bad.  But she can’t pretend she didn’t come here for one thing.  She doesn’t
know how long she has to get it
.
 

She emerges slowly from the deep end, taking each step with incredible care, leaning forward to display her best angles. 
She laughs at herself, shaking h
er hair to send water flying.  Actually, t
here are no angl
es on her body
– only curves.
  Hitting the top step, she faces the pool house.  The pool house wind
ows, to be precise, and runs her hands down her stomach, wiping loose beads of water off of her, before taking slow, deliberate steps toward the pool house, hoping Dodge is enjoying the show.

She pauses at the door, shivers with a memory.

The pool, the pool house – these things bring her back to her childhood
.

Not to the wonderful, fun family times a pool should recall.

Her father lived in a house not unlike this – what seemed like a mansion at the time, with the same kind of stamped concrete deck with its patterns of colorful tiles radiating away from the edge – the same turquoise shimmering beneath the glare of sunlight reflecting off the little waves in the pool.

When Jaime was four, her father left her and her mother for another woman – a wealthy widow - and they had another daughter
, Jane,
together.

The widow
had a son
too
– Mark -
a little older than Jaime from her previous marriage.
.

Her f
ather didn’t totally abandon Jaime
, but
she
stayed with her mother who, despite some alimony, struggled to get by on her own and raise Jaime.

A little
bleaker than
the more privileged life
of her step
siblings - with their beautiful pool, and the pool house
, and
all of the games and toys.

Her father took her on alternating weekends for a n
umber of years, until her teens, at least -
until about th
e time she started wearing bikinis.

Jaime
remembers being confused in those first few years after the split, especially after her half-sister was born.  Why her father left them. 
Why he didn’t take her.  Why his
life at the new house was so much better
than hers
– the gigantic house, the pool, the
manicured
yard, the snacks, cable TV
– all these things that she didn’t have.

Jaime’s not stupid, of course – she knows this is why she was so insecure.  She thought there was something wrong with her
, that her father left because of her, for some reason - until s
he
started to turn into the woman she is today.

That’s when she started to realize there was nothing wrong with her – that everything, in fact, was right.

Boys – men
, even –
cops, teachers, preachers
-
were swooning over
her.

Lining up.

It didn’t take her long from there to figure out how to get pretty much anything she wanted.

Except, of course,
her father -
who, while friendly to Jaime, never quite treated her like part of his new family – more like part of a dark, secret past.

It doesn’t take
a goddamned shrink to figure Jaime
out.
  She craves men’s attention, and likes to burn them once she has it.

Her father’s
new wife, of course, hated her.

Right up until she kicked Jaime
out of the house forever.

She shakes off the memory like water from her hair.

Dodge
is not at the
pool house
window like she expected, not in the front room at all.

He’s in the Jacuzzi
, she realizes.