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“I can’t do that,” I declare vigorously. “It’s illegal.”
“Could you if that woman were fucking your husband?”
“No,” I tell her, but then I picture Ethan with someone else and I’m forced to admit, “I don’t know.”
“You do know, Sadie. You do.” Ann motions with the nod of her head. “Now don’t dilly-dally—she won’t be in there long—trust me, as soon as she finds out there’s no one waiting for her, she’ll be out the door.”
“Ann, I can’t.”
“You know…I get calls every day—multiple times a day—from women just like Kelsey. Lives are destroyed by women just like that one, Sadie. Kelsey wants to die but part of her already has. Sometimes,” she says, “It’s all we can do to even the score.”
I take a deep breath in and mull over what she’s just said. “I’m sorry,” I tell her. “I can’t.”
Ann studies my face very carefully. Then she does that thing with her eyes she does when she gets angry. “Fine,” she tells me before she snatches the knife from my hand, very deftly I might add, like she’s practiced at it. “I want you to listen, Sadie,” she says. “Are you listening?”
The blade glistens in the sunlight. I’m all ears.
“I want you to hop in the driver’s seat, put the car in gear, and watch me.”
And watch her, I do. I’ve never seen anything so efficient in all my life. Sweat beads at my hairline. My heart races. My throat goes dry. I forget to breathe, until I realize I might be suffocating. I’ve never felt so alive.
I expect that people will notice what Ann is doing. The coffee shop is a busy place.
I am wrong. Everyone is too busy staring at their phones, too preoccupied with feeding their afternoon addictions, to notice what is happening right under their nose.
She goes around to the passenger side of the woman’s car. I’m thinking, who will believe me that this happened? Maybe we are going to jail. Maybe we are Thelma and Louise. We are not Thelma and Louise. The coffee shop probably has cameras. Everyone does these days. I’m an accomplice.
I don’t even notice I’m digging my nails into my palm, not until I see Ann walking briskly back to the car. She opens the passenger door and climbs in and orders me to drive.
When I’m pretty sure we’re in the clear, I ask if she does this often.
“Only when I need to feel something.”
I wait for her to expand on that but she doesn’t. She tells me to hold my thoughts. She has to text the woman with the boots.
“This, Sadie,” she says, “This is one way to know you’re alive.”
I wonder what other ways there might be.
“God!” she exclaims as she brushes her bangs out of her eyes. “Doesn’t it feel good?”
It does feel good, I admit. Watching Ann do the kind of terrible things I thought she might be capable of feels very good indeed. It feels like the kind of rush I haven’t felt in a very long time. “Who was she?”
She shrugs. “Hell if I know.” Her voice is expressive, almost giddy. The exasperation from earlier is gone. “Sometimes I just like to pretend I’m someone else,” she says. “You know?”
I don’t think I do. But I’m learning.
“I found her on one of those dating apps that married people use to get some on the side. We’ve been chatting for two days now. You should see the stuff she told me, Sadie. You wouldn’t believe it.”
When I look over, Ann is staring at her phone. She glances up and laughs. “I just texted her my apologies. Told her I got caught up at work.”
I wait for her to offer more. But the next time I look over, she is staring straight ahead, smiling manically. “God, Sadie. Some people are so gullible. Bet you anything she was planning our future—and we hadn’t even met. That’s how desperate people are. They’ll believe anything you tell them. She thought I was a plumber named Rob. I wasn’t even original—I didn’t have to be. I mean…how boring is that? You can just say whatever…it’s literally that easy.”
Plumbing is actually a very intricate profession. But I don’t think Ann wants to hear this.
“Oh, and Sadie,” she says, as she adjusts her seatbelt, “I’m investing a lot of emotional energy in you—in this friendship.” She motions between the two of us. “It’s important you understand—I’m very careful about who I spend time with. Back there, that was your one free pass. If you can’t hang,” she tells me, “You can’t hang. Better I know sooner rather than later.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
