Page 3 of The Liar in Room 5

I was following but refused to pick up what she was laying down. It wasn’t possible. Jonathan and I had been together for two years. He was my boyfriend. We were going to grow old together.

“Call me Jeanne, and it means you’ve been replaced.”

“Replaced?” I echoed her words as if I hadn’t heard them, but how does one replace the man they love? “I’m his boyfriend. How do you replace that?”

“Andrew, stop. You’re the help with good shoes.”

“Mrs. Callo— Wait… Why did you tell me to call you Jeanne? You’ve always been Mrs. Calloway.”

“Because I don’t have to play the game with you anymore. Andrew, it’s always been this way, and you know it.” She was so matter-of-fact that it was hard to argue with her certainty.

The sound of the waves crashing into the rocks below the house filtered into the kitchen, and for half a second, I thought about how nice it would be to be sitting down there right now.

“Where are you going?” Mrs. Calloway asked.

“Going? I have no idea. Do you think I had some fallback plan? Because I definitely don’t.”

I’d fallen down the rabbit hole where black was white and up was down. Was she under the impression I was secretly rich? Spoiler alert: I wasn’t.

“Oh. That’s a problem.”

“Oh. My. God. This was why my card wasn’t working, isn’t it? I tried to get a coffee at the airport, and it was declined. I used the last of my cash to pay for the cab.”

The more we talked, the more reality slapped me in the face. Jeanne let me sit with that reality for all of two minutes. It felt rushed.

I had been replaced. Again. Forty was knocking on the door, and I was out on my ass…maybe?

“Did Jonathan mention anything about…?”

“Money? No, nothing like that. But you haven’t really needed to spend your own money since you’ve been here, so I’m sure you’ve saved some.” She looked at me expectantly. Unless she had a time machine, I was out of luck on that front too. “You haven’t saved anything?”

I shook my head.

“You can go back to doing what you did before Jonathan.”

“Uh, yeah, about that…” I tried to remember the last time I’d had a real job…possibly college. Well, college before I dropped out because I was failing anyway and took a job at a coffee shop for all of three weeks. I’d been a professional boyfriend for years, but this was the one I’d thought would be forever. “It’s been a while since I had a real job with a paycheck.”

Jeanne nodded knowingly and said, “Ah, you’re one of those.”

The walls were closing in, and I needed some space before my foolishness became more humiliating.

“Can you hold that thought? I’d love to know what ‘one of those’ is, by the way, but I need the bathroom,” I said with as much dignity as I still possessed this afternoon. It wasn’t much, but it was what I had to work with.

Jeanne nodded and slid off her stool. With my head held high, I headed back toward the hallway we’d come through earlier.

“Andrew, the staff bathroom is that way,” Jeanne said, pointing to a door at the other end of the kitchen. Point made, she turned and occupied herself at the sink. “First door on the right, around the corner.”

With an abrupt about-face, I slunk in the correct direction and found the staff bathroom. It was clean but simple, nothing like the exotic wood and marble of the room I normally used. I collapsed against the vanity and tried to catch my breath. When that didn’t work, I dampened a hand towel I found under the sink and pressed it against the back of my neck.

I was slightly overheated, but at least the danger of passing out had passed.

Lord, this was a mess.

In an attempt to distract myself, I did the worst thing I could think to do at the moment. I studied myself up close in the mirror.

Bad choice.

I looked every minute of my thirty-nine years, and then some. At least I didn’t look frumpy. I’d spent hours studying everyone near Jonathan to make sure my outfits blended with theirs. I’d nailed it: boat shoes, tasteful beige slacks, open-weave light-blue button-down. Subtle and luxurious. I looked the part of a wealthy man’s boyfriend.