Page 65 of The Wife Upstairs
The silence feels loud, weighted, my sweat cooling so fast on my skin that now I’m cold, and when my phone trills, I shriek.
My hands are even shaking slightly as I pull it out of the little pocket in my yoga pants, and I see Eddie’s name on the screen.
“Hey, gorgeous,” he says when I pick up, and he sounds so relaxed, so casual, that my heartbeat slows a little, some of the fear draining from my veins. “Just calling to see how your day was going.”
I can hear noise in the background, thethwapof hammers on boards, a distant buzzsaw, so I know he must be on a job site, and I try to picture him there, his shirt rumpled, his sunglasses on.
“You just saw me two hours ago,” I remind him. “Miss me already?”
I try to sound flirty, sexy, but Eddie must pick up on something in my voice because he asks, “Hey, everything alright over there?”
“I’m fine,” I tell him, even as I keep my ear cocked toward the ceiling, still listening. “I just heard something in the house.”
“Like what?” Eddie asks, and suddenly I feel very young, getting spooked by a noise in the house, like a kid left on her own.
“Just a thump,” I tell him, shaking my head even though he can’t see me. “Or a few thumps. It’s so stupid, I know. Now I’m creeping around upstairs like I’m in a gothic novel or a bad horror movie.”
I expect him to laugh, or make a joke. Instead, he says, “It’s a big house, Jane. It makes all kinds of noises, especially in the summer.”
“Sure,” I say. “Like I said, stupid.”
“Why don’t you go back to bed, Nancy Drew?” he says, cajoling, and a spike of irritation shoots through me, angry and hot.
But I shove it down. He’s trying to be nice, and I can’t keep doing this, I can’t keep trying to destroy a good thing that’s right in front of me.
“Well, right now, I’m all sweaty and gross, so maybe a shower instead,” I say, and he makes a low sound that would usually send desire spiking through me.
“Wish I were there and not here,” he says, and I make myself sound appropriately intrigued as I reply, “You could always come home for lunch.”
He sighs, and I’m actually a little relieved when he says, “Would that I could. But it’s a big day on the Connors’ place, then I need to drop by Southern Manors. I’ll be home before five though, promise.”
“I will hold you to it,” I say, and after Eddie hangs up, I stand there in the hall, hands braced on the now-empty table.
There’s a mirror over the table, and I look into it now. I’m pale despite my run, my hair scraggly and slightly greasy, and there are dark flakes of mascara under my eyes.
“Get your shit together,” I mutter at my reflection, scraping my hair back from my face with both hands. The girl in the mirror looks feral, and I bare my teeth before shaking my head at myself, laughing softly.
And then the knocking starts again.
25
When I used to walk dogs in the neighborhood, I sometimes thought about where people like Campbell, Emily, and Caroline went during the day, when they pulled out of Thornfield Estates in their oversized SUVs.
Not far, apparently. Today, we’re at Roasted, for a meeting of the Neighborhood Beautification Committee. Campbell and Emily are both wearing athleisure, but I’ve dressed a little nicer, pairing a gray pencil skirt with a pink blouse and matching heels. I’m still not quite as tan or as glossy of hair as they both are, but I can see myself reflected in Emily’s giant sunglasses, and I know I look a lot more like both of them than I did just a few months ago.
Making a mental note to ask Emily where she gets her hair done, I reach down into my bag—another new purchase, this massive leather purse that could probably hold Adele—and pull out the binder I’ve carefully labeledTENBCin a pretty, swirly font.
“Look at yooooouuuuu,” Emily says, reaching out to playfully shove at my arm. “So organized!”
I smile, not mentioning that I was up until 1A.M.working on this and that it took a stupid amount of concealer to cover the circles under my eyes.
Or that while I sat on the floor of the living room, cutting pictures out of magazines and sliding them into the binder’s plastic folders,I’d heard those thumps from upstairs again, the weird sounds Eddie had said not to worry about.
Just a couple, and faint enough that I hadn’t jumped or shrieked this time, but I’d still made a mental note to call an exterminator.
Now, though, I’m all smiles as I lay the binder out on the table, my ring flashing in the sunlight.
Campbell leans forward to look more closely at the ring, just like I’d hoped she would.
