Pretty Ugly Lies: a gripping and chilling domestic noir Read online

  Was it too late to go back to that?

  “I know I screwed up,” I continued, my voice softer now. “And I can’t fault you for blaming me, because I’ve been shouldering my own guilt more than you could ever assign me. Something you would have seen if you had even looked at me since it happened. It’s tearing me apart. Tearing us apart, and I know it’s my fault. If I can just find her, fix this, I know I can save the rest.”

  Silence.

  As I pushed past him, he wrapped his arms around me and pulled me to his chest. I had forgotten how soft his lips were as he pressed them to my forehead, hugging me tighter.

  “I feel like I’m losing you.”

  “That’s just it, Jay. I’m lost without Amelia. We’re lost.”

  “But you have us, babe. Me, Preston, Abby—you’re not alone in this. We need you, just as much as you need us.”

  His lips trailed down my cheek to my lips, soft and tender and passionate and greedy. Closing my eyes, I felt our shared need as he slipped his tongue in my mouth, tugging on my lower lip with his teeth. For a moment I let myself be swept away in a hunger for affection, and I kissed him back. Until an image of Amelia, hunched in a dark cavern, entered my mind and drained the connection. The moment fizzled out as quickly as it had ignited and I pulled away.

  “I’m sorry, Jay. I just can’t.”

  I turned and left him standing there with a dull sadness in his eyes that once sparkled. I simply couldn’t bring that sparkle back, not until Amelia was safe. Heading into the bedroom, I crashed onto my bed, my own little world of torture as I waited to die a little more each hour.

  I didn’t need or want anyone but Amelia. I don’t know how the rest of my family got lost in the dark, but I couldn’t see them, feel them, hear them anymore. All I heard were Amelia’s cries for her mommy. All I felt were her fingers reaching out for mine. All I saw was my baby drifting away from me. I had become a ghost, wandering aimlessly, searching for a way to come home. But I couldn’t come home until I found my little girl. She was my only redemption.

  Chapter 19

  Ellie

  When I saw her I knew my life was over. She was perfect in every way. But not the short-term-fling dumb-bimbo kind of way. The gorgeous-new-trophy-wife kind of way.

  Long honey chestnut tresses framed a flawless face, her smile white and sparkly as she laughed at something Denny had said. Her bare arms clung to my husband in flirty possession. It was a casual grip, like she was saying, He’s mine, but I don’t need to hold on too tightly because he’s not going anywhere. Her silver dress clung to her in a silky embrace, running down her perky breasts and tight butt like cool water. As I admired her taste in high fashion, I glanced down at my own oversized sweatpants and baggy T-shirt. I’d become a bum. How did this happen? It was no wonder he went looking for something more.

  His new lover dressed in Neiman Marcus while I dressed in Target. Her skin was soft and supple while my creases grew deeper by the day. Her hair curled in natural wavy tendrils down to her waist while mine hung limply in a frizzy ponytail. Her laugh echoed in the streets while my sobs bounced off the car’s windows.

  She was light, spicy, exotic. I was dark, bitter, plain Jane. I couldn’t compete. It was over.

  “Who’s that with Daddy?” Darla asked from the backseat.

  “That’s his new lover.”

  I hadn’t meant to be so blunt, but the toxic pain slithering through me overcame any sense of discretion. The kids might as well know the truth. The end was inevitable, so I should prepare them for it.

  “She’s pretty. Why don’t you ever look like that?” Darla asked more casually than I could handle.

  “Is she going to be our new stepmom?” Logan added.

  No sense of outrage. No indignation at witnessing their father’s betrayal firsthand. Just a blasé faire acceptance.

  The bite of their questions branded all-new fears on my flesh. I couldn’t win Denny back no matter how hard I tried. I couldn’t even win my own children back. My existence had been trampled under $2,000 Manolo Blahnik stilettos.

  “It looks that way,” I finally answered after a long beat.

  From behind the glass, I watched Denny guide my replacement from the office door into his car, my breath steaming up the window. I wondered what life would look like as a divorcee: arranging holiday kid swaps, picking up the kids every other weekend with that twenty-something woman greeting me at the door in a sexy kimono and skin-tight tank top that my flat over-nursed boobs would never fill. And what if they had children? Their new family would gradually push me out as my children spent more time with Denny than with me, and I would become obsolete, disappearing into nonexistence.

  It was the curse of motherhood—when the children turned against the one who raised them, the one who gave up everything for them. I couldn’t let that happen. I would rather die than become nothing to them. But why should I be the one to die when they’re the ones who abandoned me?

  I became a snake shedding its skin as I fed on my anger. I dropped the mask that I hid behind, letting my inner monster loose. In a hot moment of bubbling rage, I imagined killing them all, giving the thankless leeches what they deserved. I wanted them to writhe in suffering, to drown in their tears, just like me.

  It was only a fleeting thought … that hung on just a little too long.

  My emotions hop, skip, and jump from one extreme to another. One minute I want to watch the life bleed from Denny in a long, drawn-out, painful death so he can feel a fraction of what he’s putting me through. Another minute I’m sobbing into my pillow, desperate to win him back.

  I’m currently in a strategizing how-to-repair-my-marriage moment.

  I can’t give up. Not yet. I blame myself for the state of our marriage. I haven’t been as attentive as I should have. I haven’t met Denny’s physical needs. I’m sure this is only about sex; it usually is. One look at his mistress tells me everything I need to know: midlife crisis. Denny wants strange, new, exciting. I’m stable, predictable, endearing. But I have a prediction. After one nibble of new, he’ll realize his tastes haven’t changed after all. It’s me he’s always savored. He’ll come back, I know it. Because sex eventually gets old with anyone, and it’s always about sex. It has to be.

  I can’t think about the alternative—that if it’s not about sex, then it’s about me specifically, and I just can’t accept that. I’ve done everything for him, so how could he possibly stop loving me? No, it has to be the sex … or lack of it. This, I can fix. I’ll do anything he needs for fulfillment. I just hope it’s not too late to pry her claws out of my husband’s flesh. If it is, I don’t know what I’ll do. Go crazy, I guess.

  Three hours passed before Denny came home. Three hours of graphic scenes playing out in my mind, scenes of them touching, tasting, whispering, fondling, sucking. I felt my pulse quicken and my vision blur and my stomach cramp as my brain went wild with scenarios, like I was watching an amateur erotic film. It also gave me three hours to contemplate what I should do—or could do. As angry as I was with my husband, I still wanted him back. I know—stupid, ignorant girl that I was, but when you spend a lifetime with someone, when you build a family and a home and plan your future and happiness around that one person, it’s not so easy to let go.

  In a blink I was taken back to our wedding day. An intimate affair with only forty guests on a deserted North Carolinian beach. The lowering sun had sent most sunbathers home for the evening, casting an orange glow as our pastor wedded us, me in my $70 white gown I had found off the rack, Denny in a linen button-down shirt and drawstring pants. So young, so free-spirited, so effortless.

  June had spent hours curling my hair just right, touching up my makeup to cover the sunburn I’d acquired earlier that day, and I felt like a princess marrying her prince. We had written our own vows and afterward I had stolen Denny’s handwritten copy from his white pants’ pocket that you could see through when the sunlight hit them just right. I had kept that folded piece of p
aper in my wallet ever since. Every anniversary I read it back to him while we fed each other white cake with raspberry filling and buttercream frosting, frozen and saved from our wedding reception.

  Out of all the memories we’d created together, that was my favorite. And I clung to it now, wishing I could recreate it.

  I dare anyone who truly feels the burning brand of love to walk away without turning back, without some last-ditch effort to regain what was lost. There is nothing simple or matter-of-fact about it. The heart wants what it wants, and mine wanted Denny, cheater or not. Love always has a cost, whether it be vulnerability or pain. Right now it was costing me both. As far as my love was concerned, his sins against me melted into the background, even though my brain saw them as flashing neon warnings about the danger that was to come.

  Knowing that it could only end badly, I still needed to try to win him back. And I knew one way to do that. One irresistible, magical, heady offering that Denny would never turn down.

  A streetlight set our bedroom curtains aglow when Denny walked in well past dark. Candles and fabric rose petals that I’d had since our honeymoon led a path to the master bathroom, where I had prepared a bubble bath in the Jacuzzi tub. It’d been eons since we last used the tub, a novelty that always sounded better than the effort was worth. But tonight would be different. Tonight I would wine him and win him with relaxation and overdue sex. Scenting the bathwater with drops of lavender essential oils that I had impulse bought at a neighbor’s essential oil party, I finally put the purchase to use. Those damn oils would save my marriage tonight.

  I heard the bedroom door close and Denny call out, “Ellie? You in here?”

  “Come find me,” I toyed. The bubbles nearly overflowed the tub as I pushed myself up out of the water just enough to give him a peek of bare skin. Closing my eyes, I exhaled the weight of vulnerability that pressed down on my chest. I was petrified he would reject me. But he was still my husband, still a man, still ravenously sexual.

  “You taking a bath?” he said as he popped his head around the doorjamb.

  “No, we’re taking a bath—together. Come join me.” I playfully splashed at him, luring him closer.

  “What’s gotten into you? We never take baths together.” He looked at me with a crooked grin, his eyes narrowly scrutinizing me.

  “No reason not to start now. C’mon. Get in. I’ll massage your back—and maybe some other parts, too.” I held up a bottle of massage oil and winked.

  He leaned down and kissed me on the forehead. “It’s sweet, but there’s no room, babe. Just enjoy yourself. I’m tired anyways. Gonna watch some SportsCenter then hit the hay.”

  “I’m not taking no for an answer.” I grabbed his wrist before he could walk away. “Please, I want to have some fun together. I promise to make it worth your while—name your fantasy.” At this point I was willing to do anything—even requests I would have otherwise never even considered—to keep him. Yes, even that.

  Denny roughly pulled his arm away from me. “Seriously, Ellie, I’m exhausted and not in the mood. It’s been a long day. Maybe some other time. Okay?”

  As Denny walked away, the drum of his polished dress shoes treading across the floor, I realized it was too little, too late. I had lost him, and his heart was nowhere to be found.

  Chapter 20

  June

  “That’ll be $23.42,” the familiar girl at register nine told me while a kind, disabled man who often chatted with me started bagging my groceries—just the basics to get through the rest of the week until payday. That’s how we lived, from paycheck to paycheck, but with Mike out of work, we’d be living from credit card bill to credit card bill.

  In the shopping cart seat Juliet squealed to get out, while Kiki, whose hand I gripped so she wouldn’t wander off as she was prone to do, wriggled free. I’d lost sight of Austin and Arabelle, then found them playing with the broken stuffed animal vending machine. I breathed a sigh of relief.

  I slid my credit card through the payment slot and waited.

  It buzzed angrily back at me.

  “Sorry, but the payment was declined,” the girl said, clearly embarrassed for me. “Do you have another form of payment?”

  “Oh, uh, yeah, sorry about that.” I smiled crookedly, feeling my cheeks redden. The line behind me grew as I searched through my purse for another credit card, my fingers frantic and trembling under the eyes of the growing crowd.

  I pulled out another card and swiped it.

  Another irritating buzz.

  “Um, that one got rejected too,” she said, trying to be sweet about it but annoying me nonetheless.

  “Yeah, I heard the sound. It’s pretty obvious,” I muttered. A quick check of my vacant emergency cash pocket and my last hope was eradicated. I was out of credit cards, out of cash, out of patience, and now out of groceries. “I’m sorry.” I shrugged. “I’m just going to go. Can someone put these back for me?” I waved at the bagged groceries and pulled Juliet out of the cart.

  “Sure, ma’am. I’m really sorry …” The checkout girl didn’t know what to say.

  I didn’t know what to say either. It was utterly humiliating. I’d never be able to show my face there again.

  I fumbled with the cart, trying to push it out of my way, until I was stopped by a hand on my shoulder.

  “Wait, honey. Let me help you.” The voice was syrupy sweet and Southern, with a hint of belittlement.

  I turned around, coming face to face with Eloise Benson. To put it mildly, I detested Eloise with every fiber of my being. She wasn’t just some girl Mike dated before me. She was “the one who got away,” his dream girl who broke his heart and left him battered and bruised. I was Mike’s rebound from Eloise, though I’d often wondered if he dreamt of Eloise while lying in bed next to me, or on top of me, for that matter.

  I only recognized her from old pictures I’d found of Mike with his arm around her at a fancy Christmas party, them kissing in the Virgin Islands, her sunbathing on a Floridian white sand beach, Mike hugging her while they hiked through the Appalachian Mountains. All funded by her well-to-do parents who spoiled her with gifts and trips because they believed love could be bought. Maybe it could.

  I burned every last picture I found, gleefully watching the flames lick the colorful prints as they curled up, then fell into a heap of gray ash. But the memories were still buried somewhere in Mike’s brain, memories I could never disintegrate or replace with our own.

  I’d found myself wondering why Mike and I never did the adventurous things he did with her, but he’d always reassure me that he didn’t need that kind of entertainment with me. I was “enough,” he’d say. But I usually walked away from those conversations thinking he simply didn’t want it with me because he’d already given up on us.

  “No thank you,” I stated coldly, shrugging her manicured fingers off of my shoulder. “I’m fine.”

  “Oh. My. God. June Merrigan. I can’t believe it’s you! It’s me, Eloise Benson.”

  I couldn’t force a grin no matter how hard I tried. “Yeah, I remember.”

  “How’s Mikey doing? And look at you—four kids? You look amazing for pushing out that many. Me, I’m still living wild and single like always.” Her lips parted in a sparkly montage of condescending smirk and pitying frown.

  “No kidding.” I felt the pleading stare of the register girl wishing me on my way as the line behind us grew restless. “I gotta go.”

  “Oh! Of course. But I saw you were having card trouble. I insist on helping you out.” She handed her credit card to the checkout girl. “You can put her groceries on my card.”

  Thrusting my arm out, I knocked her hand aside. “Absolutely not. I’m not a charity case, Eloise.” There was no way I was letting this bimbo buy my children anything.

  Popping her hip out, she rested her knuckles on her jutting hip bone visible beneath her cropped top, which was way too indiscreet for a woman her age. “So you’d rather keep your pride than feed your childr
en? Oh, hush.”

  The blood rushed to my head so fast I swayed. How dare this woman who knew nothing about raising children accuse me of negligence! “Excuse me? Are you saying I can’t take care of my own children?”

  “Not that you can’t. That you won’t. But whatever—it’s your family, not mine.”

  “Exactly, it’s my family, so back off.”

  My adrenaline was boiling by this point, and I had no idea what I was doing or saying. With Juliet in the crook of one arm, I leaned forward and pushed Eloise with all of my frustration and resentment and jealousy and fury, smashing my hand into her big, fake boob, sending her stumbling backward into the man behind her, which then created a domino effect of bodies slamming into bodies all the way down the line.

  No one said anything as I collected the kids to leave.

  As I muttered a hasty thanks to the handicapped bagger for his wasted time and practically ran out of the grocery store, I wondered if that same future awaited Austin. At age five he could barely put six words together. A decent job or a wife was probably out of the question. It was inevitable I’d be taking care of him for the rest of his life, for the rest of my life. The dismal thought followed me out of the automatic doors and through the parking lot to the van. As I loaded the kids but no groceries to carry us through the week, I realized we had hit an all-time low and I didn’t know how we could ever recover. No, we hadn’t hit rock bottom. Rock bottom was high above us now.

  With four kids huddled behind me, I knocked on the door of the one person I could fall apart to. The one person who knew me and got me. The only person who could help me push my stuffing back inside when my life was coming apart at the seams.

  Ellie Harper was my eye in the tornado, my anodyne in a world gone mad.

  She answered, took one glance at me, and dragged me into a hug. With arms limp at my sides, I stood there, allowed her tenderness to wash over me, then puddled into tears. I sobbed into her shoulder, my chest heaving, shoulders quaking, nose dripping for a good, long minute, until she let go and pulled me inside.