This Is Not Over Part 23

"Bulls.h.i.+t."

"I'm not saying I wouldn't come after, but first, I do you. Head to toe, every part of you." He moans.

He keeps talking, telling me where he's licking and kneading and how my body responds, and then it does respond, involuntarily. I shudder to a stop, without having moved. He did it all.

But I don't make a sound. I won't give him the satisfaction.

Only he must sense what's happened, because he gets his anyway. In growls and snarls and yelps, like a dog whose chain has just been cut. I've never heard a man come like that.

"Dawn," he says, again and again.

I'm silent, staring at the door. I came on my couch with a man who's not my husband, when I knew Rob could return any minute and find me. That's part of what made it so hot.

"Where are you?" he says. "I want to see it in my mind. The exact spot where I made you come."

"You didn't 'make' me anything." I'm suddenly furious, though I keep my voice low. Rob could be walking up the building stairs right now.

"I could feel it, Dawn, even if I couldn't hear it. I know you couldn't let it out with Rob around. How far away is he? The next room? On the other side of the bed?"

"It's eight o'clock, a.s.shole. We're not in bed."

"Why are you so p.i.s.sed?"

"Because you used me. And I'm telling you, I did not come. I didn't get anything out of that. It was all about you, and not me, and don't ever pretend otherwise."

He's quiet for a minute. "I'm sorry. I never meant to use you. I wanted to be close to you. I thought you'd like it."

"I didn't like it. You don't respect me. You don't respect my marriage."

"You're right about the marriage part. Sorry to break this to you, but there's no way that guy is satisfying you if you're texting me all the time."

"You're texting me all the time!"

"I can be an a.s.shole, that part's true. I just, I don't know, I feel like there's this connection between us."

That connection, insanely enough, is his mother. But he couldn't know that. Could he? Could this whole thing be a way for him to get back at his mother?

I know he dislikes Miranda. He hasn't said that much, but it's pretty obvious.

"Am I wrong?" he asks. Pleads, really. "If I'm wrong, if there's nothing here, I'll stop texting. I won't call you again. Is that what you want?"

"I don't know what I want." But I know I don't want him to go away. I just can't tell him that, not right now.

"I'm sensitive to rejection, is the thing. My mom"-it's hard to believe we're going to talk about his mother less than five minutes after near-simultaneous o.r.g.a.s.m-"she messed me up. She was all up in my business, but cold. She could give a lecture, but f.u.c.k if she knew how to give a hug."

The hug thing again. I'm guessing he's learned that the way to draw women in is to play the bad boy who, deep down, is just wounded and hurt, who needs a good woman to love him. I'm more susceptible to that ruse than most, because I think it might actually be true. We're made bad by our bad parents. So who did it to me, really, my father or my mother?

The funny thing is, I'm most drawn in because of who Thad's mother is. Because Thad holds the key to Miranda, and Miranda holds the key to something that I can't yet understand.

"I should go," he says.

"You get what you want and you hang up?"

"You mean you don't want me to go?"

He's a tricky son of a b.i.t.c.h. Ha ha, son of a b.i.t.c.h. He really is. "No, you should go."

"I wasn't trying to use you, Dawn. I feel like I'm falling for you."

"Don't."

"Like that's ever worked. Do you know how many times I touched hot stoves growing up?"

I laugh. "You warned me you're an idiot."

"An a.s.shole. I never said idiot. But I'm a fool for you."

"You're corny, that's for sure."

"Can I call you again sometime?"

"Let me think about it."

But I already know my answer, and I'm pretty sure he does, too.

38.

Miranda

Kimberly Zhou was born in Hong Kong and speaks eight languages fluently. She is able to bring international flair (and international buyers) to the Westside real estate market, with an emphasis on the beach neighborhoods. In the past three years, she has broken records in Long Beach, Pacific Palisades, Marina del Rey, and Venice. She plans to break more.

It's been on the tip of my tongue all morning, my confession, but I look at Larry and I remember his rigid body beside me the night I said Thad's name and I just can't bring myself to speak.

Confess, and I subvert Thad's blackmail. I take away his power.

Confess, and Thad will likely have destroyed my marriage.

I tell myself that addiction has recalibrated Thad's moral compa.s.s, that he's not entirely to blame, that he's not trying to destroy me, he's just trying to meet his own needs, rapaciously. But in his increasingly sporadic texts to me and his much more consistent tweets to the world, he sounds so upbeat. His conscience isn't eating at him at all; he's completely fine with what he's done. Maybe he's even happy with it. He's turned the tables on his manipulative mother, and secured himself double rent. This is as enterprising as Thad gets.

The word that comes to mind is "soulless." And if that's true, then the world isn't what I thought it was. If Thad can do this, then there must be no bounds for someone like Dawn.

I'm torn up by betrayal, anger, and fear, yet I'm doing my best to keep up appearances. Right now, I've got a frozen smile on my face as I tour the Santa Monica house with Larry and Kimberly Zhou, the Realtor who came highly recommended by Larry's colleague. She's pet.i.te and lovely. She doesn't walk so much as levitate; her steps are that light. She plays it up, in silver ballet flats and a diaphanous dress. Her hair is black and absurdly l.u.s.trous, cut in an asymmetrical bob with the straightest bangs I've ever seen. She must get her hair cut every three days to maintain it.

Her personality is just as blunt. "I don't blow smoke," she says repeatedly, and presumably the end of that sentence, left unspoken, is "up your a.s.s." Even though I'd dislike any Realtor at this moment, I especially dislike this one. She hasn't said a kind word about the house yet, just a series of "mm-hms" and the occasional "you'll want to put some money into upgrading this." Her proprietary air suggests she knows she's got the job as our sales agent, it's just a matter of whether she wants to accept.

Larry likes her, I can tell. He's amused by her go-getter affectations.

She pulls back the curtain on the tub in the back bathroom, a move that seems inappropriate to me, too intimate, as if she's saying she thinks we might be hiding the body in there. Given her demeanor, I suspect she'd sell a house where a murder had recently occurred, qualm-free; she would just want to make sure she represented both the seller and the buyer for double the commission.

I fight the urge to yank the curtain back into place, but then my eyes follow hers to a ring of dirt in the white tub.

Kimberly raises an eyebrow. "That's not permanent, is it?"

"No," I say. "The cleaners must have missed that."

There's no way they missed that. They might have forgotten to put out toiletries before, but they would never commit an oversight this egregious.

It has to be Dawn. This is the answer to my groveling e-mail: "You want a stain, I'll give you a stain." The war is raging on.

She's saying she can get to me, whenever she wants. After all, she's entered both my houses, in a week's time. Or someone has, at her request. I'm not safe, not at all.

I can only pray that I'm wrong. My mind searches for alternate explanations. For example, the cleaners could have been less thorough than usual because they knew it would be their last time working for me. It could be another fluke, like the dead rat that's indigenous to Beverly Hills.

But I don't believe it about the rat, and I certainly don't believe it about this ring. Two "coincidences" makes a pattern, even if I can't get Officer Llewellyn to see it. I imagine his eye roll to the colleague at the next desk if I call him about this one.

Is part of Dawn's scheme to rob me of all confidence and credibility? Has anyone ever been so diabolical?

"Have those cleaners come back out and take care of what they missed the first time around," Larry says. He sounds irate, and it takes me a second to realize it's at me, not at the cleaners. He clearly thought I should have done a walk-through myself before Kimberly arrived. I'm supposed to take care of everything in our lives, no grime left behind. "You coming?"

I give him a sharp look that he fails to notice; his focus is on Kimberly. I trail behind them. She's got a suggestion about adding some wainscoting, though we can talk more about that later. Larry is lapping at her feet.

I feel faint as I walk behind them down the stairs. We're headed for the back door, and I know she'll have problems with the yard. It's just a rectangle of gra.s.s. My parents wanted as little upkeep as possible, and despite my love of gardening, I can't bear to change an inch. I can still hear my dad when he realized that you can't get a teenager to mow a lawn anymore, "not even for twenty bucks," and I remember how we all shared a laugh at his incredulity, and he pinched my mother on what he called her "keister," and she swatted him with a dishrag, still laughing. Landscaping would feel like a betrayal of that idyllic scene.

But I've got bigger problems than the lawn. We approach the back door, next to the laundry room, and I see muddy footprints across the linoleum. The footprints are large, men's. They must have been made by someone Dawn is manipulating, or paying.

Paying might be worse for me. A mercenary might have no limits as to what he's willing to do.

Just a few minutes ago I was mocking Kimberly about representing a house where a murder had happened. Now I'm worried that I'll be the victim.

I'm blowing this out of proportion. A rat, some footprints, a tub ring-it's not like it equals . . .

This all started with some sheets and $200. I've already refunded her double. Anyone else would have dropped this long ago. Dawn really must be nuts, capable of anything.

"If you hadn't already laid those cleaners off," Larry says, "I would tell you to fire them immediately." He yanks open the back door.

Kimberly is rattling off more ideas about the cheapest way to improve the yard, ASAP. "It absolutely can't stay like that," she says, "but maybe we can get away with just buying a play structure. That could mean we're cultivating parents with young children, which has its advantages and disadvantages, especially since it's only a two-bedroom. Let me think on it more."

We return to the living room and Kimberly delivers her findings. "I want this listing," she says. "Someone will pay top dollar for it, I'll see to that. But I won't blow smoke." She thinks we need to stage the house-"this nautical thing is not doing you any favors"-which she'll pay for, but we'll also need to do some renovations, which we'd need to cover ourselves. "I'll tell you exactly which types of fixtures, enamels, trims, et cetera. You'll want to follow my recommendations exactly."

"Why's that?" I ask. My social graces are gone by this point.

"Because with the Santa Monica tech boom and the right upgrades, we can get four and a half million for this house."

Larry shoots me a glance of barely concealed pleasure. That would be an improbably huge profit-almost triple what my parents paid in the span of ten years.

Larry turns back to Kimberly with his poker face. "And how do we know you're the one for the job?"

Kimberly pulls out her portfolio: glossy pictures of houses she's sold, and the listings of nearby comps, highlighting the records she's broken. Larry grills her for a little while but it feels purely de rigueur. He's already sold, and he's convinced that she'll do the same for whoever comes in the front door.

"You're on a walk street, and location is everything," she says. "Plus, the house is gorgeous. The views are spectacular." Her voice is affectless. She seems unaware that it's the first compliment she's paid to the property she's declaring to be worth more than four million dollars. It occurs to me that this could be a strategy on her part. We expect Realtors to fawn all over us, the customer is always right, blah blah. She's playing hard to get. Based on Larry's expression, it's working.

Now she's explaining what a genius marketer she is, all the different themed open houses she's done, the creativity she'll bring, the catering, the high-end staging, all on her dime. "I haven't broken any records yet in Santa Monica, and I want to. I think this is the house to do it."

"We'd like that, too." Larry grins at her.

"The views are the star, but," she warns, "the improvements have to be made. A $100K investment will net you half a million. We'll have a bidding war, I guarantee it."

"Four million plus a bidding war?" I can't contain my skepticism. The hubris of young people-the Kimberlys, the Dawns, the Thads-is revolting.

"We price it at four million, or just under, and we'll end up where we want to be. Trust me, I know what I'm doing."

"There's something I should mention," Larry says, and it has a sound like he's putting on the brakes. I look at him hopefully. "The house needs a new foundation. To the tune of thirty-five thousand."

"Well, that will need to be taken care of before we sell, absolutely. We need to do it fast, just like the rest of the renovations. We want this on the market during the summer months, July at the absolute latest. We want the option of families, and kids start school in August."

Larry takes the foundation estimate out of his wallet. I feel stricken. I didn't expect him to actually bring it here, to hand it over to another woman. It's like he's just felt her up right in front of me.

As Kimberly scans the paper, she adopts a look of overblown horror. "You cannot go with these people. Where did you ever find them?" She might as well have asked if I got a degree from Moron University.

This is how she talks to a potential customer? I look at Larry, expecting him to be offended, but instead he just says, quietly, "Miranda found them." Like I've embarra.s.sed him. Like he's losing faith in my judgment by the second. Instead, he trusts Kimberly, whom he met a half hour ago, the woman least likely to understand a sentimental attachment.

"They came recommended," I say.

Kimberly shakes her head. "Good thing I came along. I have my own guys. They'll give you a great deal, plus they'll work fast. You might not need as much work as you think." She holds the estimate back out to Larry, as if it's dripping with blood. "These guys are notorious for upselling. You might need a minor repair, and they'll tell you it's a total replacement, like they did here."

That's what I was counting on.

My face flushes. How long until Larry's onto me?

I won't just sit and wait. I flash on the tub, and the muddy footsteps. Dawn's taken this battle straight to my door and beyond the threshold, literally. It's time to stop playing defense.

"Would you excuse us for a moment?" I say, implying that Kimberly should step out.

"Of course." She doesn't budge from our couch. She's staggeringly impudent, that's the only word for it. Well, there's another. b.i.t.c.h. This is an ent.i.tled b.i.t.c.h. She's gotten everything she's ever wanted. I do not want her to have this listing, especially if it's worth four million and change.

Larry follows me into the kitchen and I commence whispering. Whispering, in my home! Because she's planted on our couch like an azalea bush, like she's the native.