Look Closer

I imagine Emily thinks I’m one of those uber-rich, uber-brainy eccentrics for whom the expense of an office and receptionist is just pocket money, who just wants a place to call an office. But she doesn’t complain. Why would she? It’s a perfect fit for her. She has morning and night classes at DePaul and only works afternoons for me. She spends almost all her time doing homework at her desk. To keep up appearances, I let her pay the company’s few bills and give her research assignments now and then. But this job is a walk in the park for her.

Just after eleven, my phone rings. Not my regular cell phone. My burner, the one I use for Vicky. She doesn’t know that I have a special phone for her, but it’s necessary. Once I take her money, I need to cut off all connections between us, remove any trace of myself from her life, and hers from mine.

“I need to talk to you,” Vicky says, breathless.

“What’s up? You okay?”

“No, I am definitely not okay. Where are you?”

“At the office.”

“I don’t want to come to your office. Can we meet somewhere else?”

—

Vicky is standing in the alley by my garage when I pull my car in. She is dressed in a sweatshirt and blue jeans, no makeup, her hair a mess. I’ve never seen her like this. I don’t mind it—I actually dig the look—but the tight expression on her face is making me nervous.

She hikes a blue bag over her shoulder and says, “Upstairs,” when I get out of the car.

I follow her up the stairs to my apartment. She pulls a laptop and a green notebook out of her bag, places them on the kitchen table, and points at them like they’re kryptonite.

“He’s going . . . to leave me,” she says, her voice shaking. “He’s going to file for divorce before November . . . November third.”

“Wait, what?” I say. “Just . . . hold on a second.”

“‘Hold on a second’? Okay, I’ll hold on a second while that tramp steals Simon and his money. My money. My fucking money.”

“Who—who’s a tramp? Will you just—”

“Lauren,” she spits out. “Lauren Lemoyne. That skank he dated when he was a teenager. Remember?”

“Um, yeah, you said somebody broke his heart—”

“Well, apparently, she won it back. She’s back in town and they’re together and they’re going to get married!”

“I’m sure you’re overreacting.”

“I’m overreacting?” She opens the laptop, the screen dark, and types in a password. The screen comes alive.

It’s a court document. I’m not an attorney, but I’ve seen my share of divorce filings in my day, among the many women I’ve targeted. It says “Petition for Dissolution of Marriage,” the official phrasing. Simon Peter Dobias, petitioner, v. Victoria Lanier Dobias, respondent, in the Circuit Court of Cook County. “Irreconcilable differences have arisen between the parties that have caused the irretrievable breakdown of the marriage. Past efforts at reconciliation have failed, and future attempts at reconciliation would be impracticable.”

Fuck me. Simon’s divorcing Vicky.

“Still think I’m overreacting?”

“Hang on, hang on.”

I open the notebook with a green cover. Some kind of a diary, handwritten in pen. With dated entries. The first one, the Fourth of July.

“God, I can’t believe this,” Vicky says. “I am nine days away from our tenth anniversary. Nine days!”

I clear my throat and read from the first entry. “‘The whole reason I came to the club today, my first time in several years, was that I thought you might be at the Fourth of July festivities,’” I read. “‘I’d been thinking about you since that day in May—’”

“Oh, yeah, apparently he spots her on Michigan Avenue last May, and his pathetic little heart goes pitter-patter. And then he’s rehearsing lines in the mirror for when he sees her again.”

The next entry, July 15. Simon and Lauren are meeting at some café. “‘And then the kiss,’” I read aloud. “‘Had it been up to me to initiate it, I’m not sure it ever would have—’”

“Had it been up to him.” Vicky snorts. “It never would’ve been up to him. She set her sights on him. She gamed out this whole thing. She’s playing him like a fiddle. She wants his money!”

“You don’t know that,” I say. “Let’s—”

“Um, I think I do know that. Keep reading. Cut to the end if you like, so I don’t have to listen to more descriptions of that little slut spreading her legs for him and talking dirty to him and manipulating the shit out of him. She has him wrapped around her skanky little finger.”

I read the last few entries, sitting down now, the initial shock ending and a growing ache forming in the pit of my stomach.

“She’s pregnant?”

“That’s what she told Simon,” she says. “My ass, she’s pregnant.”

“You think she’s making that—”