Something She's Not Telling Us - Darcey Bell Page 0,84

grandparents and run off to Arizona the way my mother did.

And now I envy Charlotte. Why does she get the beautiful loft, the cute husband, the brilliant daughter? Why does she get paid for fooling around with flowers? Why does her mom get to live in a cool house in Mexico with a servant and tons of friends? Why does everyone get everything, and I get a dark apartment over a superfund site in Greenpoint and a job at a start-up that never started up?

Oh, and I forgot. I get an alcoholic fiancé who is breaking off our engagement.

Envy is a disease. Your sick soul tells you that you want to have what that other person has.

I don’t want to take Daisy. That’s not what I mean to do. She loves her parents. She thinks Eli is her real dad, which is probably better for her. She loves and needs her mom and dad. But I don’t see why I can’t borrow her for a while. I don’t understand why I can’t just spend a day with her as if she were my daughter, why I can’t have some fun with her, just for a day . . .

I’d been thinking about it. About taking her without asking Charlotte, who would never let me do it.

But I wasn’t planning to do it today. And maybe I wouldn’t have if Rocco hadn’t said we were breaking up. If he hadn’t accused me of hurting Reyna. Which I would never ever do. It’s true I texted her, pretending to be Rocco. But I only wanted to talk to her, to tell her to stay away from Rocco, who was so obviously attracted to her.

I wouldn’t have taken Daisy today if things hadn’t lined up so perfectly. One thing led to another so smoothly—it would have been stupid not to make this day the special day I get to hang out with Daisy. And I knew that if Rocco and I do break up, I might never get another chance.

Rocco started drinking again on the plane. It was late when we got home. He was acting weird. I understood why he’d had to quit drinking. He grabbed me by the arm, which he’d never done before. He’d never done anything like it.

He said he knew I had a bottle of something stashed away, that I was only pretending not to drink when he was around.

“Busted,” I said. “Whatever.” I got the scotch from the back of the closet, the wine from under the bed. I retrieved the six-pack from my laundry basket and put it in the fridge.

He drank everything I had, and then he passed out. I kept checking to see if he was still breathing.

This morning he woke up just long enough to tell me that we were breaking up. He’s leaving me. He isn’t even sorry.

He accused me of attacking Reyna. Which I never did. I told Rocco that I’d gone out and met the driver in the park near where Reyna got hurt. I said that the driver had lied, and that his conscience had started to bother him, and he wanted to give us back the money.

Rocco was in no shape for me to start an argument. We’d deal with all that later. We should probably have a serious talk about what happened in Mexico, especially if we’re going to start telling his family that we’re engaged.

FOR NOW I just want my passport back. That’s why I’m going to Charlotte’s. I know she has it. She took it. It was in my purse in the van—and then it wasn’t. I wasn’t imagining things. I don’t make mistakes like that.

There’s only one explanation. She did it to keep me in Mexico, so I wouldn’t come home and blow the whistle on her. So I wouldn’t tell her charming husband what I’d heard from her horny therapist, Ted.

Getting the truth out of Ted was the easiest thing I ever did. Basically all it took was one “session” in his office, during which he told me that he couldn’t “treat” me since he was already “treating” Charlotte. I was dying to go through his files and find the notes on his sessions with Charlotte, but he didn’t leave me alone long enough. So I had to find another way.

“Okay, Doc,” I said. “How about if I ‘treat’ you?”

Two bottles of wine at a bar, and he was so loaded he didn’t even know I was taking his picture so I could