Page 6 of Dear Wife

“Make sure to smile pretty.” I pull my bag onto my shoulder, a sign that this conversation, an interview and marching orders at the same time, is over. “The pin is 2764.”

Nick reaches for his coffee cup, still full but no longer steaming, then thinks better of it. He leaves it on the table and stands. “I bet that happens a lot, doesn’t it?”

“What does?”

“That people underestimate you. That they think you’re greener than you actually are. And before you roll your eyes at me again, you should know that’s not a bad thing. If things get hairy, you can use it to your advantage.”

Now, finally, he gets a grin from me. “I’m counting on it.”

JEFFREY

I jerk awake on the couch, and the crystal tumbler balancing on my stomach pitches over a hip. I roll away from the spill, shifting to one side, but I’m too late. The liquid has already seeped through my jeans, dripping a good two fingers of expensive bourbon down my leg and into the fabric of the cushion. With a groan, I plunk the glass on the floor, push myself upright and try to get my bearings.

The half-eaten pizza I ordered for dinner sits cold and congealed on the coffee table, and I flip the box closed. Images of a house fire flicker on the television on the wall, a handful of figures in slick yellow gear under a dripping arc of water. I reach for the remote and hit the button for the guide. Tiny numbers at the top of the screen tell me it’s 11:17 p.m.

Shit. When I stretched out on the couch, it was quarter to nine. The four days of travel, of being ‘on’ all day at the conference, must have worn me out more than I thought.

“Sabine?”

No answer, but then again, she’s probably sound asleep. I picture her upstairs in bed, her long hair like silk across the pillow, and a familiar fire burns in my chest. Why didn’t she come in to say hi? Why didn’t she wake me?

I click off the TV and stand.

The downstairs is quiet, the lights still burning bright in the hallway. I flip them off on my way to the stairs, pausing at the doorway to the kitchen. The counter is still spotless, and the three matching pendants over the island light the air with a golden glow. Sabine might be a slob, but she hates wasting money as much as I do. If she were here, if she’d sneaked past me on her way upstairs, she would have turned off the lights.

Unease tightens the skin of my chest.

I jog across the kitchen tiles and yank open the door to the garage, getting a faint, heady whiff of gasoline. My car, right where I parked it. In Sabine’s spot, nothing but an oil stain on the concrete. My heart gives a painful kick.

I take the stairs by twos and threes, sprinting down the hallway runner and into the bedroom, even though I already know what I’ll find. The comforter, still unturned from where I’d made it. The pillows, still stacked and fluffed.

The bed, empty.

BETH

I stand at the bathroom sink of room seventeen in a grubby motor lodge on the outskirts of Tulsa and take inventory in the mirror. Chalky skin. Eyes shaded with purple circles. Hair too long, too thick to style.

You’re always telling me never to cut my hair. You say you like it long—dark, thick strands streaked with shiny ribbons of bronze, with just the right amount of curl. It’s the kind of hair you see on commercials, the kind women pay hundreds of dollars a month for. But it’s more than just hair to you. It’s a plaything, a turn-on, something to plow your fingers through or moan your orgasms in whenever we have sex.

But this hair you claim to love so much? You also love to use it as a weapon. To drag me by it from room to room. To pin me down. Hair is so much stronger than you think it’d be, the roots like barbed hooks in your skin. The scalp will rip open sooner than a hank of hair will break. I know this from experience.

I pick up a handful and a pair of shears and slice it in an uneven, stubby line.

It’s a lot easier than I thought it would be. A hell of a lot less painful than when you grab me by the ponytail and lift me clear off the bed. The strands tumble down my chest, sticking to the white cotton of my shirt. I feel lighter. Unencumbered. Free.

I keep chopping, brushing the strands into the sink to toss later, not because I think you’ll track me here, but because I believe in karma. One day very soon I’ll need a job, and it’s not unthinkable I’ll end up in a hotel room like this one, scrubbing someone else’s hairs from the drain. Not exactly what my parents were hoping for when they paid for my college, but a better paying job, a job I’m actually qualified for, would send up a smoke signal you might spot.

I’ve never cut my own hair before, and I don’t do a particularly good job of it. I was going for a pixie cut, but it’s more of a walk-in salon hack job, or maybe a sloppy bowl cut from the seventies. I pick up random chunks, pull them between my fingers like a hairstylist would, and slice in asymmetrical layers. When I’m done, I fluff it with my fingers and study myself in the mirror. With a bit of hair gel, it might not be half-bad.

You are not who you used to be. You are Beth Murphy now.

“I’m Beth,” I say, trying on the name like a questionable shade of lipstick. It’s the name I gave Nick, the one I signed on the hotel register, but only after forking over two twenties so the man behind the counter didn’t ask for my ID again. “My name’s Beth Murphy.”

Beth with the crappy haircut.

I dig the box of hair dye from the CVS bag and mix up the color. In my previous life, I was one of those brunettes who never longed to be a blonde. Blondes are louder, bolder, more conspicuous. Flashy and competitive, like sorority girls and cheerleaders. Not good traits when your goal is to disappear.

The picture on the box advertises an ashy blond, the least in-your-face blond of the blonder shades. Blond for beginners. I paint it in lines across my scalp with the plastic bottle, then slip off the gloves and check my watch. Ten minutes until we find out if what they say is really true, that blondes have more fun.

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