𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐁𝐄𝐆𝐔𝐈𝐍𝐄

𝐒𝐄𝐕𝐄𝐍, 𝐈𝐈

7. | THE DEVIL AND THE DEEP BLUE, II

❝...Fate seems to give my heart a twist
And I come running back for more.❞

●

BEVERLY HILLS, CALIFORNIA.
~8:00 P.M.

The light on the answering machine was flashing. In the darkness of the living room, it goaded her to answer, to give in to its power. She moved outdoors to fight it, watching as the last remaining fissures of daylight shimmered across the surface of the pool.

Whenever her world was like this—isolated and disordered—she thought of her girls. One by one, they would appear, and behind them would come their hopes and dreams, all so simple and unmired by reality. It was those three little faces she poured herself into, knowing if she failed at this one thing—love—they were the thing she had gotten right. From the moment they were born, they were right. Failed love affairs and divorce aside, they were the ones that helped her make sense of the world when it was flipped and turned upside down. They gave her the power and the focus to keep pushing when self-doubt was a flesh-eating disease gnawing away at her haunches and when the ache for a want she didn't need tore her from the inside out.

But tonight was different. For once, they were not enough to keep the thoughts away, not enough to help her evade the truth.

While the phone rang, she paced the floor. From the sliding glass door to the credenza in the hall, the phone called to her and died. Sometimes, the calls came one after another, faster than it took for her to take a breath, quicker than the hope he had finally given up. And yet, in the most convincing silence, there was something: the bleep of the answering machine noting another message or the phone waking to life again, just when she thought she could roam her own home in peace.

At one point, she answered, wondering if it was Gene calling to let her know his rendezvous with the group had been canceled. I'm circling my way back to you, she could hear him saying, slurring his words in that self-assured way of his, but the testy, agitated voice that came belonged to someone else.

For several minutes, she stood in the living room, waging a fruitless war. Stomping her foot, gnashing her teeth, clenching and unclenching her fist. Michael was back at his condo, away from the prying eyes and ears of his family, and had all the energy in the world to match her thunder. Eventually, she slammed the phone on the receiver and went about her business, deciding the old coat closet in the hall needed a good cleaning before winter, all as the screams of the phone spliced through the air.

She was arms deep in fur coats when she snapped.

From one end of the house to another she went, pressing the plastic, tiny flaps of each phone jack as she jerked them from the wall. The one in the kitchen had no visible jack so she simply left it dangling, and from the poolside, she watched it swing.

Time did change things, but one thing still rang true: she sure did know how to pick 'em.

The night was chilly, far from poolside weather, but she pulled her cardigan closer and sank into a chair. The water wrinkled, the trees swayed, and the bottle of wine in her hand let out a jingle as it connected with concrete.

She wasn't fully aware of how long she sat there. It had to have been a hell of a long time because when she heard the intercom at her gate going off, the wine was still at the neck of the bottle and her ankle was aching from the prod of her high heel.

Michael was in rare form today. Bold and intrepid. She almost had to give it to him. It took courage to incite an argument when a guest was right down the hall, and a good, steely pair of balls to evoke her past. The cherry on top would be if he showed his face at all for the next several weeks.