with her gilded world of perfection, would have her own struggles and a pile of secrets. And I certainly wasn’t planning on those secrets changing everything for me.
The city was a seductress. It dragged you through slushy, freezing hell, and then gave you a brief window of sunshine and made you fall in love with it all over again. It was one of those days, rays of sun warming the huge windows of the Brantley home, my eyes continually pulled back, moment after moment, bits of the outside beckoning. Finally, after organizing Nicole’s scarf drawer and syncing her Spotify playlist with her iTunes account, I decided to take Chanel on a walk. We didn’t go on a lot of walks. She had a pee pad on an upstairs balcony and did her miniscule bathroom breaks out there. Her exercise was taken care of by running around five stories and six thousand square feet.
I dressed her in a leopard print jacket, one with a fur-lined hood and put her booties on. The booties she hated, but Nicole had a tantrum if she stepped on the “dirty street” without foot protection, so I made Chanel suffer the indignity, whispering apologies to her the entire time. Last week, I had wasted a good fifteen minutes counting her shoes. The dog has seventy-three pairs. Too bad I can’t wear her size.
Chanel didn’t really want to go out. She lay down when I put on her harness, the diamond-studded piece making her transition to hooker dog complete. I laughed and pulled on the leash, causing her bejeweled body to slide along the wood floor. She ignored my tough voice, only jumping to her feet when I reached for the treats.
I glanced at my watch as I stepped off the last step, the house behind me too quiet. When Nicole was home, you heard it. Her television, her phone, her music, her voice. She lived in a constant state of interaction, fed on it. I checked the time, wondering where she’d gone and, more importantly, when she’d be back. The prior week, I’d been out getting creamer for her coffee, and walked into a full-blown hissy fit, her fury at my absence way overdone. This stroll outside was the first time I’d left the house since, my fear of her too great to risk. But on a rare sunny day in winter, I felt bold, certain that she’d want Chanel taken out.
I stepped down the sidewalk, Chanel skittering ahead, her enthusiasm mounting now that she was out in the fresh air. “Easy,” I said, holding her leash tightly. On the street, a black hearse passed, the rumble of its engine catching her attention for a brief moment.
Looking back, there were so many signs, so many omens. I should have known that something bad was coming.
20. Stepping in Shit
One block over and back from the Brantleys, I dodged a puddle and tugged at Chanel’s leash. She was distracted by a discarded Starbucks cup, growling fiercely at it when I glanced down the street and came to a stop.
There was a stranger, leaning against a streetlight. Not an odd sight in this city, but it was the woman in his arms that held me in place. Nicole. He said something to her and his voice floated innocently through the air, like he had no worries, certainly not little ol’ me fifteen feet away. I was close enough to see Nicole’s breath frost in the air as she leaned in and smiled up at him. Close enough that, when his hand reached down and palmed her ass, I could see the crease in her leather pants. Close enough that I noticed her grip on the top of his jeans, the top of her fingers slipping in between material and skin. Close enough that I worried, when I gagged a little in my mouth, that they heard me.
I’d known Nicole wasn’t perfect. The sweet bubble of kindness that I met the first day had popped. I’d seen her tempers. Her high maintenance ways. The insecurity that she tried desperately to hide. The woman had everything but wanted more. I knew that, but still … she was MARRIED. Not that I knew anything about being a wife, but monogamy seemed to be the number one rule of the union. And yet his mouth was coming down on hers, her hand digging into his hair. It wasn’t a first kiss; it was natural, like they’d done it a hundred times before. I