"I want to do exactly what you do. You know, test people for infidelity."
I stared at her in disbelief, and then spun my head around the coffeehouse. Was this a joke? Was I being set up by Zoë or Sophie, or somebody?
When my eyes returned to hers I could see absolute sincerity in her face. She was 100 percent serious, and was now waiting for my response. My advice.
I leaned forward. "You want to be a fidelity inspector?" I confirmed in a low whisper.
She nodded her head firmly.
"Why?" I asked, leaving my mouth disturbingly agape as if I were asking someone why they would want to be dunked under water three times and only brought up twice.
She looked down at the table and rubbed her temples. At that moment, for the first time since I had walked through that door, I saw the same pain on her face as I had seen a month ago in her father's office.
She swallowed hard and looked up again. "Because I want to devote the rest of my life to making sure the cheating scum of this world are brought to justice."
I continued to massage my burned tongue against the inside of my cheek. I opened my mouth warily and said, "Lauren, I think you're overreacting here. I understand that you're feeling hurt and betrayed. But I doubt you're thinking rationally right now. You should probably let this whole event settle and clear your head before you start thinking of ways to get revenge on the male species."
She shook her head stubbornly. "No, I
am
thinking rationally. For the first time in my life. Ashlyn—" She stopped abruptly. "Wait, that's not your real name, is it?"
I folded my arms across my chest. "No," I said with a definitiveness that implied she would not be learning my real name any time soon.
She nodded her understanding, not pressing the issue. "Well, whoever you are, you opened my eyes. You showed me something that probably would have taken me years to see on my own...if I even ended up seeing it at all. And that's an amazing gift to give someone. I want to give it back to as many people as I can."
I considered her argument. It was a good one. After all, it was the same one I used to use. "Well," I began admitting, "the truth is most people don't exactly see it the way you do...at least not right away. I mean, gratitude is hard to come by in this job. It's an assumption you have to make on your own. So if you're looking for instant gratification, this isn't the place to find it."
I paused. "Plus, it's a
very
difficult thing to go through with."
"I realize that," Lauren said. "But I can do it. I know I can. I mean, if I can fix outsourced programming code for a customized app without ever learning the business process, I can certainly handle this."
I shot her a puzzled look.
She continued. "Sometimes at night, when I'm lying alone in my bed, I think about how if it weren't for you I would have married that guy. And God knows how many times he would have done exactly what he did. While I stood by, faithful, loyal, and completely naive. I can't
not
do this."
She looked at me with a determination that I hadn't seen in anyone in a long time. A determination I used to see in myself. Every time I looked in the mirror. Give people the gift my mother never got.
It was what had kept me going every day. What had gotten me out of bed every morning.
And then suddenly, as I listened to her familiar words and sympathetic quest for purpose, I came face-to-face with a cold, hard realization.
What was going to get me out of bed now?
What would be my purpose...now?
"The truth is," I began, "I retired a week ago."
Her ears perked up. "You did? Why?"
I should have told her everything. All the ugly aspects of this business: the lies you have to maintain, the secrets you have to keep, the double life you have to lead, and even the revenge that some people will seek. Because believe it or not, not everyone thinks of this as a service to humanity. A lot of people – people like Raymond Jacobs – think of it as grounds for retribution.
But I didn't tell her any of these things, because I felt it wasn't my place. And I knew that when I was in her shoes, when I had come face-to-face with the decision to sink or swim in my sea of regrettable mistakes, I had chosen to swim. I had chosen to find purpose in those mistakes. And if someone had warned me of what was to come, I doubt I would have listened. I doubt it would have put me off my mission for even a second.
I saw that willpower in Lauren's eyes, and I wouldn't have done anything in the world to try to take that away from her.
"It was just time to stop," I said simply, in response to her question.
"So, do you have any advice for me? A place to start? Where to begin?"
I almost had to laugh. It was as if she were seeking business advice from a tax attorney. Should she set up an LLC or a corporation? And in that case should she opt for an S corp or a C corp? And what the hell did I know about C corps?
I had stumbled into this job... and in all honesty, I had stumbled out as well.
I shook my head. "Not really. I don't really know what to tell you. I can refer all my future business to you, if you'd like."
Lauren's eyes lit up like a car's headlights illuminating a dark country highway. "That would be perfect. Thank you!"
I smiled back at her, but frankly, the whole thing just felt very odd. Like I was being asked to pass on my legacy key to the next lucky recipient. Although I honestly wouldn't use the word
lucky
to describe her.
But I suppose
legacy
was accurate enough.
Ashlyn had certainly left her mark on the world. And I suppose it would be difficult to follow in her shoes. But as I left the café that night, I felt a pang of emptiness. Like a part of me was missing. A part of me that I had gotten very used to over the years. And I supposed I truly would miss Ashlyn from time to time.
She did have some really nice shoes.
WHEN YOUR entire house is decorated in white, you would think that one, tiny out-of-place object would stick out like a sore thumb. A red stain on a white sofa. A piece of black lint buried inside the white Burberry carpeting. An unsightly blue pen mark stretched across a whitewashed wall.
So the fact that I hadn't noticed the small, mysteriously misplaced object under my dining-room table until that night, when I came home from the coffee shop, was somewhat surprising to me.
I tilted my head in bemusement as it caught my eye all the way from across the living room. When you live in a place as immaculate as mine, strange, unfamiliar articles don't go unnoticed for long. So I immediately wondered why I hadn't seen it earlier, like when I was leaving. Or the other day when I came home from Raymond Jacobs's office. Or the morning I arrived home from Paris. (Although that day should be omitted given the nature of my condition at the time – I probably wouldn't have noticed a herd of elephants sitting around my table smoking cigars and playing poker. Or rather, I probably wouldn't have cared.)
But I certainly noticed it now.
Granted, it was mostly white itself, thus lending an obvious rationalization to its extended oversight. But as I drew closer, crouching slightly to get a better look at the peculiar trespasser, I noticed that it wasn't
completely
white. It was speckled with some type of black markings. And upon even closer inspection, I concluded that the markings consisted of handwriting in black ink.
As I approached the dining room, I stuck my foot far beneath the glass table in an attempt to trap the item under my shoe and drag it out into the open.
But my foot couldn't quite reach it.
So I reluctantly got down on all fours, crawled underneath the table, and retrieved the object by hand.
As I pulled myself to my feet and casually flipped the item over in my hand, I immediately felt a strong wave of nausea flow over me.
It was Jamie Richards's business card, showing up once again at the most inopportune time. Evidently (and appropriately) knocked from its coveted place atop my glass table and landing facedown on the white carpet.
I fought back the queasiness in my stomach, and with a deep, surrendering sigh, I walked into the kitchen, opened the trash compactor, and held the card dangerously over the top. Then, with one last look at the name I'd read and touched a thousand times, I released the card, and watched it float aimlessly into the bin.
And just as I was about to close the trash compactor drawer once again, flip the switch, and bring it to life, I stopped and thought back to all the times I'd picked up that card. Some had been to call Jamie for a confirmation, some had been to attempt to cancel a date, and some had just been for the sake of staring at his name on a piece of a paper.
But there was one thing
all
of those times had in common: never once had I noticed writing on the back.
As I reached into the trash and picked up the card again, I thought back to the day I had first received it:
"I think it's my last one. I've been saving it for you,"
Jamie had said, handing it over.
"Look, it's even got some of my random scribbles on the back from when I ran out of scratch paper."
I flipped over the card and read the so-called random scribbles.
September 26th. 11:00 a.m. 1118 Wilshire Blvd.
I scrunched up my face in confusion. Why did that date and address sound so familiar?
September 26, 1118 Wilshire. September 26, 1118 Wilshire.
I quickly fished my Treo out of my bag and navigated to last month's calendar page. September 26: Recall on Range Rover. Eleven A.M. Location: 1118 Wilshire.
I scratched my head and looked again at the back of the card.
That was weird. Jamie and I had the exact same car appointment time. At the exact same location. But I guess I already knew that because that's when and where I bumped into him. My surrender to the universe.
Well, the universe certainly had had its fun with me, hadn't it?
I shrugged and turned back toward the trash compactor, ready to flick the now slightly grimy card right back where it belonged. But then I caught sight of the oven in front of me. And my mind flashed back – just for a moment – to the day I was
told
about the recall appointment.
Marta had been cleaning the oven when she informed me that the Range Rover dealership had called to schedule an appointment. And oddly enough, I wasn't even
in
the appointment book. And come to think of it – even more oddly enough – my car model wasn't even marked for a recall.
I suddenly froze: the card in one hand, my phone in the other, as everything slowly started to make sense.
That business card had made its way from the back pocket of my jeans where I had placed it the minute Jamie had handed it to me to the top of my kitchen counter, where Zoë later picked it up and interrogated me on it. And there was only
one
person who'd had access to it in the meantime.
Marta.
She had found the card in my jeans pocket, noticed the handwriting, told me about a bogus recall appointment, all so I could bump into Jamie again?
It was almost too orchestrated to fathom.
I sounded like I was reading what I hoped to be the winning combination during a game of Clue. Marta Hernandez, in the kitchen, with the business card.
And I didn't even know she
knew
the word
recall.
And what interest did she have in whether or not I bumped into Jamie again?
Then suddenly another idea hit me. I sprinted into the laundry room and started searching frantically through the cupboards and cabinets. I felt like I was on a wild-goose chase, hunting for clues to lead me to my next destination. And God knows what I would find there.
But what I found in
here
was exactly what I thought I might.
In the cabinet under the sink, carefully hidden behind the Drano, the Windex, and the roll of spare paper towels, was the laundry detergent I thought I had never bought. The laundry detergent that Marta interrupted me for while I was in the middle of trying to place a very important phone call, one that would have put an end to my third date with Jamie before it even began.
The laundry detergent she convinced me I didn't have.
There it was. Way, way in the back. And
I
certainly hadn't put it there.
Marta Hernandez, in the laundry room, with the detergent!
This whole thing was mind-boggling. How did she even know who Jamie was? Had she tapped my phones? Bugged my house? Implanted some type of mind-reading device in my brain while I was asleep?
Here I was tiptoeing around big words and complex English phrases so I could be sure that she would understand me when I spoke to her about how to wash my favorite pair of jeans. But all along she'd been devising complicated masterminded plots to intervene in my love life.
And all I could think was,
What else?
What else had she been intervening in all this time?
I stood in the middle of the living room and walked slowly in a complete circle, surveying every inch of my immaculately clean house. And just when I'd almost made a full rotation, my eyes stopped at the TV.
The TiVo!
Desperate Housewives
in Spanish?
Or more important, the
one Desperate Housewives
episode that
happened
to feature a plot to expose and incriminate one very dishonest husband?
Oh, this was just too much!
And I couldn't decide if it was comforting or just plain creepy, but Marta had single-handedly been responsible for not only initiating and later preserving my relationship with Jamie, but also for leading me to my victory against Raymond Jacobs.
"She saved me," I said aloud.
This whole time, she knew everything. And she saved me from it.
She was like my guardian angel. Watching over me. Protecting me from afar. Not just from the city's dirt and grime that I dragged in on my heels every day, but from the city itself.
Batman may have had Alfred.
But I had Marta.
I sunk into the couch in a stunned silence, Jamie's business card still clenched between my fingers. I felt like a hurricane had just swept through my life and all I had been left with was this little white card.