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I leaned against him and breathed him in.
*
I was soaking the effects of our fucking away in the bathtub when my phone rang. The theme song from Requiem for a Dream, since it was the most dramatic piece of music I could think of. What else would I give Sadie, my most dramatic friend?
Drunk on fine bubble bath and great sex, I crawled over the lip of the tub toward my phone. It stopped ringing before I reached it, so I waited for the ding of a voicemail.
Instead, it rang again.
I frowned. Usually Sadie was content to leave me a voicemail or text me. She'd been dispatched this afternoon to interview bands for the reception, since that's the sort of thing Sadie does best. Maybe she got mugged? Worried, I picked the phone up.
“Hello?”
“I'm coming over,” Sadie blurted on the other end of the line. “Don't go anywhere. I'm coming over.”
There was a nervous tremor in her voice. I could hear it even over our crappy connection.
“What?” I said. “Why? What's wrong?”
“Just... don't do anything. Don't turn on the TV. Don't look at the internet. Lis, I am so fucking serious, wait for me to get there.”
Dread curdled in my stomach. “Why?” I demanded. “What's going on?”
“Just wait for me!” she pleaded, and hung up.
I stared at the dead phone in my hands. My hands were like lead weights at the end of my arms, but I was already starting to shake. What had happened?
Don't turn on the TV? Don't check the internet? I grabbed my towel and wrapped it around me quickly. What the hell could Sadie have meant by that?
Another terrorist attack on the city? Another giant hurricane headed our way?
Then a thought occurred to me. What if it had something to do with Anton? He'd left the house at noon, promising to be home to take me out to dinner. Was he in an accident?
Was he dead?
Fear like I'd never known shot through me and I fairly ran out of the bathroom, not even bothering to pull the plug on the bathtub. The colder air of the bedroom sliced over my still-damp skin like a razor and I started to shiver as my skin broke out in goosebumps. Running over to the small, distressed-white armoire, I opened the doors to reveal the ultra-thin flat-screen TV that Anton never watched. The remote sat next to it and I snatched it up, mashing the power button.
Nothing happened.
Of course. He probably didn't even have it hooked up. Like Anton Waters had time to watch Dancing with the Stars or whatever. He was too busy fucking his wife.
Running back to the closet, I grabbed one of Anton's perfectly fitted cashmere sweaters from where it sat folded neatly on a shelf before reclaiming a pair of jeans I'd left strewn on the floor two nights ago. Dressed semi-decently, I ran back out to the bedroom and skipped down the stairs to the fourth floor where Anton kept his office, a cozy room full of mahogany furniture and even more books than he stored in his bedroom. The dark green and cream walls made the place look like a gilded-age smoking room where the gentlemen would retire after dinner to discuss things while the women complained about how bad their husbands were in bed over cocktails.
Anton's desktop computer—a sleek, overpowered thing that intimidated me with its sci-fi aesthetic—sat placidly on his desk. Wiggling the mouse, I put the password in, though the shaking of my hands meant I had to retype it three times, and opened a browser window.
Google stared back at me and I put my fingers on the keyboard. Then I paused. Perhaps I should wait for Sadie like she told me? Certainly she would have said something about Anton being dead... right?
So this is something else. Something really bad that needs a friend to intervene. A buffer.
Hoo boy.
For once in my life, I decided to listen to Sadie. She was usually right about things, and I wanted to trust her. Restlessly, I wandered out of the office and downstairs to make myself some coffee, a nervous, aimless task, but at least it gave me something to do with my hands. Just as I switched the coffee maker on, the doorbell rang.
I jogged to the front door and peered out, then heaved a sigh of relief. Sadie stood there. I opened the door.
"Hey Sa—" I began.
"Okay!" she shouted, pushing past me and into the house. Under her arm was a stack of garishly-colored tabloids. "Don't freak out!"
