BEWITCHING Exclusive Excerpt | 860 words
Wilson stood in the doorway, Tom Ford trench coat belted at his waist, the correct length of pinstriped trouser on view, trousers whose cuffs draped the precisely correct amount atop polished Prada’s. He was buttoned up against what she assumed was the spring chill but could also have been against whatever strange strain of virus he presumed was breeding out in the Brooklyn hinterlands. His dark brown hair was slicked back as usual, and his leather briefcase was gripped in his right hand, left hand free for retrieving his cell phone in case the office should call. The office always called. He was clean-shaven, his boyish face expressionless, tense around the eyes, but otherwise remote.
This didn’t bode well.
Hands covered in dirt, Annabelle went to him, stopped herself, and washed her hands in the sink.
“Have you seen Fern? She’s growing like gangbusters. Who would have guessed? Although I guess your run-of-the-mill forest floor gets only slightly less light than my living room does, so there you go. Doesn’t she look great?†Annabelle charged out of the bathroom and put Fern back in place, fussing a bit with her fronds before turning to face Wilson. They stood in silence.
Silence being a relative term: Annabelle could hear her heart beating in her ears.
“Aren’t you going to kiss me?†Was that her voice? That thready little squeak?
“I. I don’t know.†He leaned forward and put his copy of her keys on the dining room table, and then retreated a few more inches.
“What’s. Going. On. Please.†She was choking.
“Annie. I. I’m not in love with you anymore. I think you love me more than I love you.â€
Yikes. “Have you met somebody new?â€
“Annie. Let’s stay calm—â€
“What about the trip to Ireland in June?â€
From the front pocket of his briefcase he extracted a manila envelope.
“Proof of cancellation is in here, I took the hit on that. There are a few letter-sized envelopes with your share of receipts from the last two years. You may need them for tax purposes. Also the journal that you used when you stayed at the apartment—which I didn’t inspect, needless to say, and a few pictures that I thought you’d prefer to dispose of as you wished.â€
Frickin’ banker. She could feel an enormous rage beginning to boil, a feeling that was going to be bigger than her, bigger than him, bigger than Brooklyn if she opened her mouth. Whatever this dark whirling mass of emotion was, there was no way it was going to make it past the lump in her throat. She could say nothing. She could do nothing. She was barely there at all.
He continued to stand, holding out the envelope. She couldn’t look him in the eye, and so looked at it. How could their whole relationship fit into an 8 1/2 by 11 container?
He put the envelope down on the table. “I’d like your set of my keys, please.â€
In a daze, she went into her bedroom, and dug through her purse. Her purse was as supremely ordered as the rest of her life, yet she couldn’t seem to focus on finding… oh, that’s where the nail clippers had gone. She brought them to the gym with her when she went to the sauna last week and forgot to put them back in the medicine chest. She’d go do that now.
She stopped short in the doorway and it was like she didn’t recognize her own front room. There was a man standing there, a man who last night on the phone, told her he loved her. Now he was telling her he did not. One statement was true, one was a lie. One was a lie for only these past few minutes, one was a lie for a much longer time.
Keys.
She went back to her bag, rummaged, found them. Out the window, she saw Maria Grazia trying to hide behind one of the impossibly thin trees that lined Union Street. Thank God. MG was here.
She floated somewhere outside herself as she handed Wilson the key ring with the small clay heart that dangled from the chain. Shifting his briefcase under his arm, he removed the keys from the ring, and put the heart on the table. Who said he had no sense of the symbolic? No flair for the dramatic?
“I hope that we can still be friends.â€
Annabelle’s spirit snapped back to attention and a laugh—strangled, but still a laugh—squeezed out of her throat.
“I doubt it.â€
They stood and looked at each other. Or rather, Annabelle looked at him, this sudden stranger, and Wilson looked for his permission to leave. Annabelle turned away, he turned the knob, and the door snapped shut.
She stood, numb, the silence in her head shattered by the sound of the building door slamming shut, the ringing in her ears growing into an insistent buzz, a buzz that was actually the doorbell, rung not by Wilson who immediately changed his mind, but by Maria Grazia rushing in to help sweep up.
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