Wife 22 (40 page)

“I
took the job,” says William.

“What job?”

“The direct mail job, Alice. What other job would I be talking about?”

It’s been two days since I got the email from Helen, and—nothing.

“But
we
didn’t talk about it.”

“What’s there to talk about? We’re both out of work. We need the income, not to mention the benefits. It’s done. To be honest, I feel relieved.”

“But I just thought—”

“No. Don’t say anything else. It’s the right thing to do.” He leans back against the kitchen counter, his hands jammed in his pockets, and nods at me.

“I know. I know it is. It’s really great, William. Congratulations. So when do you start?”

William turns around and opens the cupboard. “Monday. So, interesting news. Kelly Cho was let go from KKM.”

“She was let go? What happened?”

“I guess they did a major restructuring,” says William, grabbing the flour. “I was only the first round.”

It’s Friday. Tonight, Nedra is throwing a celebratory dinner (for friends and colleagues that won’t be at the ceremony—she even invited Bunny, Jack, and Caroline), and tomorrow is the wedding.

“What are you prepping?” I ask.

“Cheese puffs.”

“Sorry—I overslept,” says Caroline, walking into the kitchen.

Bunny follows her in, yawning. “Please tell me there’s coffee.”

Caroline pours two cups of coffee and sits down at the table with her pad, frowning.

“We’re never going to get all this done.”

“Delegate,” says William.

“I’ll help,” I say.

“Me, too,” says Bunny.

Caroline and William glance at each other.

“How I can put this nicely?” says Caroline.

“Right,” I say. “Our services are not desired. Bunny, should we retire to the deck?”

“I’m really very happy to peel something. I’m an expert peeler,” says Bunny.

“Fine, Mom, I’ll call you when we get to the potatoes,” says Caroline.

Bunny takes a sip of her coffee and sighs. “I’m going to miss this.”

“What? My nearly dead lemon tree? Living with the constant threat of earthquakes?”

“
You,
Alice. Your family. William. Peter and Zoe. Having coffee with you every morning.”

“You really have to leave?”

“Caroline’s found an apartment. She’s got a job. It’s time for us to go home. Promise me we won’t fall out of touch again.”

“That won’t happen. I’m back in your life for good.”

“Marvelous. That’s just what I wanted to hear, because I’ll imagine we’ll be going back and forth quite a bit on this.”

“On what?”

“I read your pages. There’s some really good stuff in there, Alice, but I’ll be honest. It needs work.”

I nod. “Let me guess.
People don’t talk that way in real life,
right?”

Bunny chuckles. “Did I really say that to you? Oh, goodness, that was a long time ago, wasn’t it?”

“Is it still true?”

“No. You have a good ear for dialogue now. Now the challenge will be disclosure. Moving past your vulnerability. Your work is autobiographical, after all.”

“Some of it.” I make a face.

“I’m being too nosy? I’m sorry.”

“Oh, don’t be. I need a kick in the ass.”

“A kick in the ass is the opposite of what you need. What you need is a cupping of the chin,” says Bunny, turning to me and cupping my chin. “Listen to me. Take yourself seriously. Write your goddamn play already.”

“You’re not going to believe it!” says William, an hour later.

I’m in my bedroom closet, attempting to figure out what to wear tonight. I rifle through my clothes. No, no, no. Too fancy, too outdated, too matronly. Maybe I could get away with wearing the Ann Taylor suit.

“I just got an email from Helen Davies.”

“Helen Davies?” I try and look surprised. “What does she want?”

“Do you remember she posted her firm was looking for a VP of Food and Beverage?”

I shrug.

“Well, I didn’t pay any attention to the posting because the job was in Boston, but she just wrote to me and asked if I’d be interested. They’ve decided to move the division to the San Francisco office.”

“Seriously?”

“Yes, seriously. She thinks I’d be the perfect person to head it up.”

“I can’t believe it.”

“Me either.”

“It’s unbelievable timing.”

“Eerie, isn’t it? It feels like fate. Like everything that happened twenty years ago is just circling back around. It feels good, Alice. Good!” He twirls me out of the closet and waltzes me around the room.

“You’re crazy,” I say.

“I’m lucky,” he says, dipping me.

“You’re a kook,” I say. He swings me back up and our eyes find each other.

I bury my face in his shirt, suddenly feeling shy.

“No, you don’t. You’re not allowed to hide,” he says, pulling me away from him. “Look at me, Alice.”

He gazes down at me and I think
it’s been so long,
I think
there you are,
I think
home.

“We’re going to be okay. I have to admit I was worried. I wasn’t sure,”
says William, tucking my hair behind my ears. “But I think we’re going to be okay.”

“I hope so.”

“Don’t hope so. Believe it. If there was anytime you needed to believe, it’s now, Alice.”

He takes my face in his hands and tilts it up. His kiss is tender and sweet and doesn’t last a second longer than it should.

“Whoa. I’m dizzy.” I untangle myself from him and sit down on the bed. “All that twirling.” And kissing. And gazing. And being gazed at. I feel breathless.

“I’ll need to make a few hires. I was thinking about Kelly Cho.”

“Kelly? Wow. Well, I guess that would be a really nice gesture.”

William goes on, musing out loud. I haven’t seen him so animated in months. He does a two-step around the bedroom. He doesn’t notice when I open my laptop.

I
’m about to close my Lucy Pevensie account for good, but before I do, I poke around on John Yossarian’s wall one last time. It’s been such an intense couple of months and Researcher 101 has played such a big part in my daily life. Even though I’m ready to say goodbye, and I know it’s the right thing to do, I still feel bereft. It’s a last-day-of-camp feeling. I’m bittersweet, but ready to pack it up and go home.

On Yossarian’s information page, I see a link to a Picasa album, which contains his profile photos. Suddenly I wonder if he’s disabled his geotag function. I open the album and click on the yeti photo. A map of the United States pops up with a red pushpin stuck smack in the middle of the Bay Area. No, he has not disabled his geotag function. I zoom in on the pushpin. The photo was taken on the Golden Gate Bridge. I exhale with pleasure. This is dangerous. This is titillating. There’s a part of me that’s still curious, that will always be curious. Even though we had a certain kind of intimacy, in truth I know nothing about him. Who is he? How does he spend his days?

I repeat the same process with the photo of the horse and once again the pushpin is stuck in San Francisco, but the location is Crissy Field. He’s got to be athletic. He probably runs and bikes. Maybe he even does yoga.

I click on the photo of the dog, but this time the red pushpin appears on Mountain Road in Oakland. Wait a second. Is it possible he lives in Oakland? I just assumed he lived in San Francisco, based on the Netherfield Center’s proximity to UCSF.

I click on the photo of the labyrinth and the pushpin again shows his location as Oakland. But this photo was taken minutes from my house. In Manzanita Park.

I click on the photo of his hand, my heart thudding.
Stop this, Alice
Buckle, stop it right now. You extracted yourself. You just said goodbye.
A map of my neighborhood pops up. I enlarge the map. It zeros in on my street. I drag the icon of the little yellow man onto the pushpin, wanting more detail, and an actual photo of an actual house appears. 529 Irving Drive.

My house.

What? The photo was taken from my house? I try and process this information.

Researcher 101 has been inside my house? He’s been stalking me? He’s a stalker? But this makes no sense. How could he have gotten into my house? Somebody is always home, between school being out and Caroline working only part-time, and Jampo would have barked his head off if somebody broke in, and William never—William … Jesus.

I zoom in on the photo of the hand. And when the familiar details of that hand come into focus—the big palm, the long, tapered fingers, the little freckle on the top of the pinkie, I feel sick because—
it’s William’s hand.

“Alice, can I borrow some conditioner?” Bunny stands in the doorway wrapped in a towel, clutching her toiletry bag in her hand. Then she looks at my face. “Alice, dear God, what happened?”

I ignore her and go back to my computer.
Think, Alice, think!
Did Researcher 101 somehow hack into our family’s photo library? My brain feels folded over, like an omelet. Researcher 101 is a stalker, Researcher 101 has been stalking me, has been stalking William, William stalking, William is a stalker, Researcher 101 is a stalker is William is Researcher 101.
Oh, my, God.

“Alice, you’re mumbling. You’re scaring me. Did somebody get hurt? Did somebody
die
?” she asks.

I look up at Bunny. “William is Researcher 101.”

Bunny’s eyes widen, and then, to my surprise, she throws back her head and laughs.

“Why are you laughing?”

“Because
of course
it’s William. Of course! It’s too perfect. It’s—delicious.”

I shake my head in frustration. “You mean duplicitous.”

Bunny steps into the room and peers over my shoulder as I frantically
scroll back through our emails and chats, seeing them in an entirely different light this time.

“I can’t believe it. The nerve of him. The Piña Colada song?” I shriek.

“My God, that’s clever,” says Bunny. “I guess he was tired of his lady; they’d been together too long.” She winks at me and I scowl back at her.

“Oh, yes, very funny, so funny, so terribly funny, William, ha-ha,” I say.

“Do you recognize that dog?” asks Bunny.

I look at the photo more closely. “Goddammit. That’s our neighbor’s dog. Mr. Big.”

“Your neighbor is Mr. Big?”

“No, the dog is Mr. Big.”

“How could you have missed that?” asks Bunny. “It’s almost like he wanted you to know, Alice. Like he was giving you clues.”

“That son of a bitch,” I say.

“Mmm. Sounds like he’s been reading a bit too much Eckhart Tolle,” says Bunny.

I groan. “He was toying with me the entire time!”

“One person’s toying is another person’s dropping clues and waiting to be discovered. Maybe you were just slow on the uptake, Alice. Besides, I have to tell you that so far, I haven’t read one thing he’s written that wasn’t true.”

“What?
Everything
was a lie. Researcher 101 was a lie. He doesn’t exist!”

“Oh, but he
does
exist. William couldn’t have made him up if Researcher 101 wasn’t somehow a part of him. Or a
him
he wanted to be.”

“No. He played me. He just told me what I wanted to hear.”

“I don’t think so,” says Bunny, chuckling.