I have very little privacy.
When Graham told me he would work most of the day, I assumed I would be alone on the first floor of the house. I was wrong. A woman named Camila showed up at breakfast time, and after the meal was over, she cheerily started cleaning the living room. She is the “cleaning woman,” but it’s increasingly obvious her actual job is to keep an eye on me.
Which means it’s not easy to reach out to the phone number I found scribbled on my leg.
After I saw that message on my leg, I didn’t know who to trust. There was an entire letter I wrote to myself, in my own handwriting, warning me about Harry Finch. But the message on my own skin superseded that. The message on my leg was meant for my eyes only.
And what it comes down to is that I know I can trust Harry. I don’t believe he did anything terrible to me. He would never.
I just need to find a time to call him. When nobody will overhear.
Besides Camila and Graham, there are two other numbers on the favorites list on my phone. Lucy and my father. Two more people I would trust with my life. I’m desperate to talk to either one of them, hoping they can shed light on what’s going on, but neither one of them picks up. I leave them both rambling messages, begging them to call me back as soon as they can.
Camila spritzes our coffee table with a lemon-scented cleaning fluid and wipes it down with a paper towel. Everything in our house smells vaguely of lemons. I feel guilty that I’m not helping her, but at the same time, I’m not
even sure why she’s cleaning the coffee table. It’s spotless. The paper towel comes away clean.
“Is this your only job?” I ask Camila.
“Oh yes.” She bends down over the coffee table to give me an eyeful of cleavage. “This is a full-time job.”
I watch her furiously scrubbing the clean table, working at an invisible coffee ring. “Do you enjoy working here?”
She laughs throatily. “Sure. Why not?”
I shrug. “I don’t know. It seems like it would be kind of boring.”
“Every job has its boring moments, doesn’t it?”
I remember when I started up My Home Spa. I had always wanted to own my own business, and I loved every minute of it. I looked up the company on my phone and discovered that it took off in a big way. I wonder if I still loved it when it got huge. I hope I did.
My phone rings on the sofa next to me. My heart leaps in my chest and for a moment, I’m sure it’s got to be Harry. But no. The name flashing on the screen is Lucy. That’s almost as good. I snatch up the phone and click on the green button to take the call. It’s amazing how easy it is for me to work this phone even though I don’t remember having one before today.
“Lucy?” I say breathlessly.
“Tess…” It’s Lucy’s voice, but there’s something strange about her tone. I can’t quite put my finger on it. “Hey, sweetie. How are you doing?”
“I’ve been better.” My voice cracks on the words.
“I know,” Lucy says before I can explain further. “I’m sure it’s so weird for you. But I just want you to know that I have your back. I promise you that.”
“Thank you.” I squeeze the phone in my hand, but there’s an uneasy feeling in my stomach. I didn’t write Lucy’s name on my leg. I instructed myself to find Harry. “I appreciate that.”
“Of course.” There’s ruffling of papers in the background. “I’m busy at the moment, but maybe I’ll come by later in the afternoon and we can do something girly together. Like we can go to the mall and have a makeover.”
Why not? My face is already unfamiliar to me. May as well make it over. “That would be great.”
“Perfect!” Lucy squeals. “I know how you must feel right now, but we’re going to have so much fun together.”
I think about spending an afternoon with Lucy, and the sick feeling in my stomach dissipates just a little bit. “Thank you. I don’t know what I would do without you, Lucy. You’re my best friend.”
“Oh.” She laughs, and once again, I can’t help but notice there’s something off about her voice. “You’ve managed just fine without me. But I’m happy to help.”
“Can I ask you a question?” “Of course! Anything.”
I glance over at Camila, who is vacuuming on the other side of the room. I don’t know if she can hear me, but I’m willing to risk it. “Is Graham good to me?”
She hesitates. It’s a split second and if anyone else had done it, I might not have even noticed. But I know Lucy so well. “He’s a great husband to you, Tess.”
There’s something else. There’s something she’s not telling me. I want to grill her further, but I can’t do it in front of Camila. I’ll have to talk to her later, when we leave the house together. “Okay. Thank you. I… I’ll see you later.”
I almost hang up the phone, but before I do, Lucy’s voice stops me: “Tess?”
“Yes?”
“You’re my best friend too. And… I meant it when I said I have your back.”
She sounds so sincere. I’ve known Lucy forever. I’ve known her even longer than I’ve known Harry. And certainly longer than Graham, who I hardly know at all. I wish I could
talk to my father, but the truth is, I’m closer to Lucy than I am to him.
Maybe I should tell her about the phone number on my thigh. Maybe she could give me advice on how to handle this. Or maybe she can stop me from making a mistake. After all, how can I trust random scribbling on my leg? How do I even know for sure I was the one who wrote it?
I open my mouth to tell her everything, but before the words can come out, I clamp it shut.
Those words written on my leg were for my eyes only. I feel it in my gut.
“I’ll see you later, Lucy,” I croak.
“See you later, Tess. Hang in there.”
After I end the call, I notice Camila has turned off the vacuum and is looking at me from across the room. But as soon as she notices me noticing, she averts her eyes and gets busy with the mop. At this rate, our house is going to be the cleanest one on the block.
“That was my best friend, Lucy,” I say. I’m not sure why I need to explain myself to her.
She nods vaguely, like she wasn’t eavesdropping on my conversation. “Oh, that’s nice…”
“Have you met Lucy?” “I have. A few times.” “Is she around a lot?”
Camila frowns as she pushes her mop across the floor. “She’s here a good amount. But…”
“But what?”
She stares down at the splash of water created by the mop. If I’m not mistaken, she doesn’t seem like she likes Lucy much. I don’t know why I care though. I’ve known Lucy since college whereas I met Camila this morning. It’s not much of a contest who I trust more.
Yet there’s something about Camila that I like. Something about her throaty laugh. She seems like an honest person. Someone I could imagine being friends with
in another life. But there’s no way she’s going to tell me the truth about Lucy or Harry or Graham or any of that. She is our employee, after all. Not my friend.
“Are you married?” I blurt out.
Camila looks up at me in surprise, as if she was expecting another question, but then her lips twist into a grin. “Getting a little personal, aren’t we?”
“If it would help, you can ask me if I’m married.”
She lifts the mop off the floor. “No. I’m not married.” “Children?”
“No. No brothers or sisters. My parents are gone. I have nobody.”
“Oh.” I shift on the sofa. “I’m sorry.”
“No reason to be sorry. In some ways, it’s easier not to have anybody. I have less to lose.”
I grope for my phone, now nestled in my pocket. Talking to Lucy just now didn’t help at all with all my questions. It’s just created new questions. As soon as Camila goes upstairs to clean, I’m going to call that number. I can’t do it in front of her. Maybe she looks like an honest person, but looks are deceiving. I don’t know what she’s going to report back to my supposed husband.
“Have you ever been in love?” I ask her.
“In love?” She crinkles her nose. “No. Definitely not.” “You’re acting like it’s a bad thing.”
“I wouldn’t know either way.”
“I was in love once.” My voice cracks on the words. I don’t want her to know who I’m talking about, but I can’t help myself. It’s all I can think about. “I recommend it.”
“Mmm. Do you?”
“Yes. It was… nice. But I know what you mean about having something to lose.” I swipe at my right eye to prevent tears from falling. “Because once it’s gone, it’s all you can think about. It’s hard to be happy after that.”
Camila shoves the mop into a bucket in the corner of the room. She looks at me, her brow crinkling. “I’m done
down here. I’m going to clean upstairs.”
Our eyes meet, and my hands break out in a sweat. Does she know what I’m planning to do? Somehow, I feel like she might know. Something about the way she’s looking at me. And if that’s the case, will she tell Graham? Maybe the second she gets upstairs, she’ll go right to him and tell him what she suspects.
I hope she doesn’t. But I have to take the chance.
Once she’s gone upstairs, I take out the little piece of paper where I transcribed the number written on my leg. I’m not sure what to expect. The letter I wrote to myself said Harry is in jail. What if I can’t reach him?
But I know the answer. If I don’t reach him today, I’ll leave another note for myself. I’ll keep trying until I find him. My hands are shaking as I type the number into my phone. I hold it to my ear, looking up the stairwell to make
sure nobody is within earshot. The phone rings and rings.
And rings. Damn it.
He’s not going to pick up. I should have known. Who knows if that note I wrote to myself was even real. Maybe I was just delusional. The ten digits are probably just made- up numbers.
I was kidding myself to think I was ever going to see Harry again.
“Tess? Is that you?”
“Harry!” I grip the phone with both hands, immediately regretting the volume of my voice. I clear my throat and lower it several notches. “It’s you…”
“It’s me,” he confirms.
My eyes fill with tears. It’s really him. I can’t believe it. “I didn’t think you would pick up. I found this letter I wrote to myself saying that you… that you were in jail.”
There’s a long silence on the other line. “Tess, don’t make me lie to you. I don’t want to talk about myself. I want to help you. And today I’m going to do it. Once and for all.”
“Okay…”
“So here’s the thing.” He sounds almost breathless, like I caught him in the middle of something. “Every time I see you, you tell me you called your father, and he never returned the call. And I got to thinking how strange it was that in a whole month, he never once called back his only daughter. I mean, he wasn’t the warmest person in the world, but he loved you. He would never ghost you for an entire month.”
He’s right. Lucy returned my call, but my father never did. “So what are you saying?”
“I’m saying, that’s not your father’s number.”
I frown at the phone. I never memorized my father’s phone number. But the voicemail had his voice on it.
“Graham must have gotten a burner phone and recorded your father’s voicemail message onto it,” Harry explains. “So when you leave the messages, he never gets them. But I found your dad, Tess.” He pauses. “He never got any of your messages. Not a single one. And I’m driving to his house right now.”
“My dad…”
“Right. Your father.” There’s a loud honk on the other line. “When I tell him what’s going on with you and that asshole Graham, he’s going to want to get involved and help you. Your dad’s a good guy. And he’s family. No court is going to listen to me, but they’ll listen to him. He’s going to help you—I’m sure of it.”
“Oh,” I say.
It sounds almost too good to be true. Harry will tell my father what’s going on in this house, and my father will intercede and come save me. I can go live with him in a house where the doors don’t lock from the inside. Where I don’t have to write secret messages on my thigh to find the man I love.
Like I said, it sounds too good to be true. Nothing can be that simple, can it?
“Anyway, I’m almost there.” Another loud honk and Harry swears under his breath. “I’ll call you after I’m done talking to him. Okay?”
“Don’t hang up,” I start to say, but my words get cut off by the blast of a loud horn. And a second later, the line is dead.
I put down the phone, my stomach churning. This should be a good thing. My dad and I aren’t close, but he loves me. If he thinks I’m in danger, he’ll come to save me. I know he will.
But somehow I sense that Harry going to see my father is a horrible mistake.
