Hush Hush (7 page)

Transcript of Interview with Poppy Widdicombe, Treemont Hotel, March 11

“One more,” Silas said

“Last one?” Melisandre said.

“Last one.”

The final combination was two crosses, two uppercuts, two jabs. It would be easy to get sloppy. Who cared about the last minute in a ninety-minute workout? Melisandre cared. She believed it was the final set that showed one’s mettle. She focused on form, making sure to put her full weight behind each punch, pivoting so her midsection was engaged, especially on the uppercuts, trying to land the punches so that each one made a sweet, perfect thud when she connected with the flat pads that Silas used.

Melisandre wore her own gloves, ordered after her first session with Silas because she didn’t like having her hands in gloves that others had used. But the real offense had been the color of the gym’s boxing gloves, a bright, girlie pink. It took Melisandre a while to
find what she wanted—gray gloves, with black trim. The good thing about owning her gloves was that Silas had to tell her, in advance, if they were going to do a boxing workout. He couldn’t spring it on her.

Melisandre liked to know, as much as possible, what was going to happen each day. She made a schedule every night, writing down not only the appointments but everything she expected to happen—the hour she would awaken, the times at which she would take her meals, what she planned to eat, television shows she might like to watch, time for reading. Her calendar could be mistaken for that of a very busy person.

She had begun keeping this detailed daybook after her release from the hospital and the move to Cape Town. She had wanted to be as far away as possible. To be in a place where it was hot when Baltimore was cold, where there was almost no shared popular culture—that helped, as much as anything could have helped. She regretted giving up the girls, but it was too late. She had tried to talk about it with the psychiatrist assigned to her at Frostburg, but she couldn’t explain the entire situation, so it made no sense. “Legal custody, whatever you signed—it may curtail certain rights, but nothing can stop you from being a part of their lives,” he would say, well-meaning man. She couldn’t confide in Poppy, either.

Poppy. Although Melisandre generally didn’t watch dailies, she had gone into Dropbox and opened that file last night. It was a shame Poppy kept talking about money. And that she didn’t remember anyone on staff affirming that there were suspicions about Melisandre. Harmony had taken Poppy through the interview four times, but just as Harmony had warned Melisandre, such retellings f lattened the stories out, made them seem more rehearsed. In the hospital, Poppy had been able to talk for what felt like twenty minutes straight without a pause. She had driven Melisandre crazy sometimes with her incessant chatter. But she had been a friend, in her way. Melisandre really had believed the
friendship might continue once they were both released. But it was hard to know who you were going to be, once outside again. It wasn’t that she had been insane before she was admitted. Melisandre was stabilized long before she was sent to Frostburg. The hospital had been a sop to the judge, a way of letting him acquit her without causing a political uproar. It was sometimes reported that it was part of a plea bargain, but that was inaccurate. The judge had found her not guilty by reason of insanity, after receiving assurances that she would seek treatment.

“Good work,” Silas said. He was at least fifteen years younger than Melisandre, maybe twenty, with the long, lean look of a yoga teacher. She didn’t want a muscle-bound trainer. She didn’t really want a trainer at all, but she couldn’t achieve the stamina and strength she wanted without someone else pushing her. That hadn’t been an issue until she hit her forties. She had followed her mother’s example—walking, gardening—and that had been enough to stay thin. Then her metabolism had taken the hit of age and other things, and she’d had to find help. She hated the fact that Stephen was married to a trainer. An ex-trainer now, from what Melisandre could discern, not that she had ever met the woman. If she had, she would have probably said something like “Oh, honey, Stephen makes all his wives quit their jobs. You think it’s your choice, but it wasn’t.”

“Tea?” she asked Silas. To pacify Brian, who disapproved of this off-site workout, Silas picked Melisandre up at the hotel and then walked her back, staying for tea if he didn’t have another appointment. She suspected that he had begun to plan his mornings around having tea with her, not out of some cougar fascination but because he liked this glimpse into a privileged life—the view from her suite, the porcelain cups that Melisandre had unearthed from her storage locker when she returned to Baltimore, the matching sugar bowl.

The sun had barely straggled into the sky. How Melisandre hated daylight saving time’s early start, which was new to her. Back home
in London—she stopped, corrected herself,
London is
not
home, you didn’t even have an apartment there, you just ended up there after Mother died because you had to close up her apartment, take care of things
—the clocks wouldn’t be reset until the end of the month. Melisandre had awakened at first light all her life, and she felt deprived of an essential birthright when she had to rely on an alarm clock, as she had this morning. The eight-block walk to the gym in darkness was a misery. But the walks to and from the gym were also highlights of her day, among the few times she was allowed out without Brian, who took his job much too seriously. She was determined to live without him once she was in the new apartment. Not that she had told him that.

Silas chattered amiably on the walk back to the hotel, and Melisandre listened with the top of her mind, making the correct comments at intervals. It was not unlike talking to Poppy, back in the day. Silas was a nice young man. If Melisandre were inclined toward cultural cliché, she would seduce him. But it was unthinkable to her, and not just because Stephen had married a trainer. Melisandre preferred protectors. She was aware that was her downfall, but she wanted a man who could take care of her. That had been Stephen’s charm, even if he was a bit of a rebound, not that anyone had suspected as much. Stephen seemed like Prince Charming to everyone else—rich, decent-looking, not in a wheelchair.

They reached the Four Seasons and went up to her rental apartment. Lord, she was sick of hotels and corporate apartments. She realized this was an entitled, bratty thing even to think, but Melisandre’s family had always had money, although they had been rich in the old Baltimore way, not making a show of things. Money was like skin. She had been born with it, she was used to it. Money offered her some protection, some comfort, and she couldn’t live without it. But it didn’t make her invulnerable. It had not saved her in her darkest days and it could not get her what she wanted now, except indirectly. She should have come back sooner, but she hadn’t been
strong enough to face Alanna and Ruby. She was so ashamed of what she had done. But with her mother’s death, and then the news of Stephen’s new child, a son, she knew she had to return. Not that she believed Stephen would neglect the girls in favor of his new child, but one never knew.

In the kitchen, she made a cappuccino for herself, a tea for Silas. A vegan and very pure, almost sanctimonious, about what he put in his body, Silas had one interesting dietary tic: He adored sugar. She used to adore it, too, she told him. Had been famous for it among her boarding school friends. That was one of the things that her anonymous taunter knew. But her note writer didn’t know that she no longer loved sugar. Sweet things tasted like ash in her mouth now. She watched Silas heap sugar into his green tea until it was practically a soda. She liked him better for this one weakness. Melisandre always liked to know what others’ weaknesses were. Silas had been a fat kid, and this sugared tea was one of the highlights of his day. She left him to it, heading to the shower. Soaping herself, she wondered idly why she didn’t want to have sex with Silas. She hadn’t been with anyone for a while. Perhaps it would take the edge off? Maybe it was because he brought out something maternal. She saw the fat kid, not the buff young man. She had figured out his history before he shared it, asked him point-blank:
You were fat as a kid, weren’t you?
Stephen had once accused Melisandre of not caring about other people’s feelings. If anything, she cared too much. She could feel other people’s feelings sometimes—and it was terrifying. When Isadora had cried, it was as if Melisandre had colic, too.

Showered, she changed into clothes that were really just a more luxurious version of her gym gear—velvet leggings, an Armani T-shirt, a loose cashmere sweater, soft ankle boots—and fluffed her hair, an entity with which she had made peace long ago, although she still sometimes resented it for all the attention it received. She did not wish to be loved for her curly hair alone. Checked her phone:
Brian had texted that he would be three minutes late and, knowing Brian, that meant he would be two minutes, fifty-nine seconds late. She hoped—

Just then, she heard a thump from the living room, then the sound of something breaking. Clumsy boy. That sugar bowl was an antique.

But it was not just a bowl that had fallen. Silas was on the floor, body in spasms, surrounded by fragments of his morning treat, the rug soaked with tea.

Melisandre was still standing there when Brian arrived. He dropped to his knees and felt for the young man’s pulse, then called 911.

“I froze,” Melisandre murmured. “I just—froze. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I just froze.”

She had no idea how much time had passed. And that frightened her even more than the young man convulsing on the floor.