Money to Burn

41

MALLORY POURED HERSELF ANOTHER GLASS OF WINE, EMPTYING THE bottle. She needed a shoulder to lean on-even cry on a little-and she found it in her friend Andrea.

“Let’s open another,” said Andrea.

Mallory grabbed a key from a hook on the wall. “Here,” she said, sliding it down the bartop to Andrea. “Michael’s personal stash is locked up in the cellar.”

“No offense, but do you really want to drink the good stuff in your condition?”

“Yesh,” Mallory said, slurring. “And the bottles we don’t drink we can pour down the drain. Bottom’s up, Michael.”

Andrea walked inside the climate-controlled cellar behind the bar, came out much too soon to have made an intelligent choice, and placed her selection on the bar.

Mallory made a face. “Damn, girl. You picked the twenty-dollar bottle of Italian toilet water that Michael’s grandfather gave us for our first anniversary.”

Mallory started to get up, but the effects of too much wine rushed to her head. She lowered herself back onto the bar stool, suddenly guilt-ridden. “Sorry, Papa. I shouldn’t take this out on you.”

“You’re sloshed,” said Andrea.

“I had a few glasses before you got here.”

Andrea smiled as she came around the bar and cozied up. “Good. Now I get to hear all the secrets.”

“You want to know a big one?”

Andrea leaned in closer, her eyes eager. “How big?”

“Huge,” said Mallory. “Get this: I think Michael’s first wife is still alive.”

“Ivy what’s her name? I thought you said she was eaten by a shark.”

“I don’t think so. Not anymore.”

“Have you lost your marbles?”

“I’m totally serious,” said Mallory.

“Okay, I’ll bite, no pun intended. What makes you think Ivy has literally risen from the depths?”

Mallory attempted to cross her legs, and Andrea grabbed her just in time to keep her from falling off the stool. Mallory gathered herself, speaking with the forced precision of a drunk trying to sound sober.

“Do you have any idea what it feels like when your husband sleeps around?”

“I’ve never been married, but it can’t be good.”

“It’s horrible. When I caught Don-asshole number one-with his second girlfriend, I said, ‘Never again. I am never going to let a man make me feel like this again.’”

“But you said Michael wasn’t cheating on you.”

“He wasn’t. But I was getting that same horrible feeling. Like I wasn’t his one and only. That was when I started sleeping with Nathaniel.”

“What does that have to do with Ivy being alive?”

Mallory blinked hard, fighting through the alcohol to get back on track. “Ah, excellent question. I was paranoid that someone would find out about Nathaniel and tell Michael. So every night when Michael went to sleep, I crawled out of bed and checked his voice mails, his text messages, his e-mails-just to see if anyone snitched on me. Sure enough, he got one two weeks ago. A text.”

“He got a message you were cheating?”

“Yeah, but I deleted it. He never saw it.”

“What did it say?”

“Something like ‘Mallory is cheating on you,’ and then ‘beware the naked bears.’” She drank more wine, then continued. “I’ve never heard anyone call someone’s lover a ‘naked bear,’ have you?”

“No,” said Andrea. “Definitely not.”

“I Googled it, and all I found were old gay men with hairy bodies. Gross.”

Andrea’s glass was empty, so she took a sip from Mallory’s. “Focus, Mal: How does any of that make you think Ivy is alive?”

Mallory walked around the bar, hanging on to the rail as she came to Andrea’s side.

“Because it was signed ‘Just Between Us.’ And I happen to know that the song ‘Just Between Us’ had special meaning to Michael and Ivy.”

“You know what their song was?”

The way Andrea had said it made Mallory feel pathetic. People just didn’t understand. “You think I’m sick, don’t you?”

“No, not at all,” said Andrea.

“You’ve never seen Ivy’s picture. She was beautiful. Smart, too.”

“So are you, Mallory.”

“But I didn’t use my brain to build a successful career in Michael’s world. I quit teaching dance and spent all my energy on something much more difficult: trying to make him want me.” She shook her head. “What a mistake.”

“Don’t go there,” said Andrea. “You sound jealous of Ivy.”

“I wasn’t jealous. I just needed to understand. So I snooped through Michael’s stuff. I read every card and every letter Ivy ever sent him. That’s how I discovered the special meaning of ‘Just Between Us.’”

“So the message was signed ‘Just Between Us,’ and you knew it was from Ivy.”

“Mmm…no. At the time, I figured it was someone Michael was friends with when he and Ivy were together. Someone who didn’t want to get involved but who was trying to tell him that his new wife was no Ivy Layton. It just set me off.”

“What did you do?”

“I could have kept it to myself, bottled it up like I always do. But this time I was so pissed that I used it in a special birthday e-mail I sent him.”

“Used it how?”

Mallory did her best in her state to effect the posture of a vintage-1960s sex symbol. “Nathaniel filmed me singing like Marilyn Monroe.”

“How funny.”

“It wasn’t just a joke. In the subject line of the e-mail I wrote ‘Just Between Us.’”

The doorbell rang.

“I’ll get it,” said Mallory, but she had trouble rising from her bar stool. Andrea told her to stay put and answered it.

“Hey, Mallory?” Andrea called out from the foyer.

“Yeah?”

“It’s the police,” said Andrea, sounding worried. “They have a search warrant.”