“I thought you didn’t want to.”
She snatched the coffee from my hand and looks at me over the rim.
“Of course I want to, but I would look like a bad person if I didn’t object at all.”
I shrug. I stopped trying to soothe my conscience years ago, but to each his own.
“Your car. He’s never seen it, so we have less chance of being spotted.”
She nods while grabbing a duffel bag off the couch.
“Do you know where this joker lives?”
“I totally know,” I mock her tone and follow her into the garage. “I am his lawyer—duh!”
“Yea? So, what position do they—” At this point Cammie says something really crude. I flinch. I have grown to dislike the ‘f’ word. Pretty and delicate Cammie started swearing after Steven, who cheated on her twice and stole seventeen hundred dollars from her dresser drawer. Ever since that fateful afternoon when she found Steven copulating with his secretary, she developed an obsession with saying the ‘f’word, and calling girls ‘trashy bitches’.
“Probably the same position Steven and Tina were in when you found them doing the nasty,” I say.
“Touché,” she replies. “So are we spying on the trashy bitch, too, or just Mr. Wonderful?”
“Caleb,” I say decidedly. “I want to spy on Caleb.” Cammie nods her head and puts her black SUV onto the highway.
“Call his office.”
“Why?” I ask rummaging around in the duffel to check the supplies.
“So we know where he is and what he’s doing today, genius.”
“I can’t,” I say my finger poised above the buttons. Cammie snatches the phone from my hand and dials herself.
“Weakling,” she mutters and then, “Hello, hi, I’m with Sunrise Dental and I’m trying to locate Mr. Caleb Drake. He missed his appointment this morning and…oh yes? Really? Well that’s perfectly understandable then…all right…I’ll call back to reschedule, thank you.” She hangs up the phone and smiles triumphantly.
“They’re out of town!”
“Okay,” I say shaking my head in confusion. “Why are you so happy?’
“Because now we can break into their house!” she states, making a truly demonic face at me.
“You are crazy,” I say turning away from her and staring out the window. “Why is it that I need to vomit all of a sudden?”
“You’re going to love it, trust me. I broke into Steven’s place after he screwed that trashy bitch and found all kinds of interesting stuff—he had this thing for Asian…men.”
“You broke into your ex’s apartment?” My head was swimming now. “How do I not know about these shenanigans and when did you turn into me?”
“You’ve been busy. Lucy and Ethel didn’t break in to spy—Ethel broke in to find her grandmother’s earrings which she had left there.”
“Okay, first of all, stop referring to yourself in first person, Ethel and second of all, I am not breaking into their house!”
“Since when did you become the moral police?” she took a violent sip of her coffee.
“I am a lawyer.”
She frowned.
“And an adult.”
She snorted.
“And I have already caused a lifetime’s worth of trouble for that man.”
That last statement seems to enrage her because she starts sputtering. She comes back at me in full Texan drawl.
“And he for you!” she points a finger at me and then slaps the steering wheel. “He keeps coming back! Damn it Olivia, he keeps finding you and you have the right to know why. He’s messed up your life at least four times now. I HATE IT WHEN PEOPLE DON’T USE THEIR TURN SIGNALS!” She bares her middle finger at a Mercedes as we speed past. “Besides, let’s not forget that Leah did a little of her own breaking and entering back in the day, when she went all Fatal Attraction on your apartment.”
That was oh-so-true.
“I know their house alarm code,” I say weakly.
“How?” her eyes are wide with admiration.
“Something set it off once while Caleb, Leah, and I were in a briefing and the alarm company called his cell to verify the code before they would deactivate it.”
“Now all we need is a key,” she smiles at me and turns off the Parkland exit.
“They keep a spare in a birdfeeder in the backyard.”
“How do you know that?”
“I heard him telling the maid on the phone when she locked herself out.”
She swears at me, uses the “f” word and calls me creepy.
“Yes, and you’re a trashy bitch.”
We are standing in the foyer of Leah and Caleb’s mammoth house. I, guiltily, while biting my nails, and Cammie without concern is strolling around touching their things. I watch her and wonder who would win if she and Leah were to get into a fight.
“Look at this?” she says, lifting a filigree egg from an ornate gold table. “This is worth at least a hundred Cartier purses.”
“Put it down,” I hiss at her, spitting a piece of acrylic from the corner of my mouth. Their house was a museum and Leah was its main attraction. Everywhere I looked there were paintings and photographs of the red-headed beast, some of them gracious enough to include Caleb. I shimmied out from under her gaze and went to stand under an alcove.
“We’ve already broken in, we might as well make the best of it,” she chirps at me.
I follow her to the kitchen, where we look inside their fridge. It is stocked with everything from Bulga caviar, to Jell-O chocolate pudding. Cammie extracts a grape from a bunch and pops it into her mouth.
“Seedless,” she mumbles. Juice squirts from her lips and onto the refrigerator door. I wipe the smudge off with a paper towel and toss it into the trash.
We make our way up a winding flight of stairs, our heels clicking against the butter colored marble.
Cammie pauses at what appears to be the master bedroom door.
“Uh, uh I’m not going in there,” I say, backing up a few steps. I would rather sever a hand than see their bedroom.
“Well, I’m looking,” and with that she pushes the door open and disappears inside. I stroll in the opposite direction. I walk down a long hallway that is lined with 8x10 black and white photographs. Caleb and Leah cutting their wedding cake, Caleb and Leah standing on a beach, Leah smoking a cigarette in front of the Eiffel tower—I turn away disgusted. I don’t want to be here anymore, this is their place; where they laugh and eat and have sex. I can’t believe how things have changed. I feel slightly left behind; like I am waking from a coma and finding out the world moved on without me. Why do I still feel the same when everyone else is different?