Girl in the Rearview Mirror Read online

  Tina was exhilarated. Her favorite games were the up-and-down ones, the rush of jumping into the lead, the tension of falling back, the final thrill of a win. She wanted to dance, and tugged him into the group. Her body was warm, crackling with energy.

  After midnight, Philip and Tina snuck away, spread out a blanket, and made love in the dark. Gradually, the party broke up. Philip and Tina stood, brushing themselves off. The fire had died to embers, and the park was in near-total darkness.

  Here was the Jeep. Philip drove, and Tina stood in the backseat behind him, arms around his shoulders. Another player rode shotgun, though I hardly considered him; he was a blank, an extra, outshone by Philip and Tina, and the tragedy that awaited them.

  The sides were open and the cold night air blew in. Philip started down the mountain. The going was more difficult than he remembered, sharper turns, steeper descents. He’d expected a short drive, that’s what he remembered, but it went on and on, the road an eel before him.

  The wheels left the road with a startling grinding noise and Tina hooted into the night. Philip sped up, wanting to make her shriek again.

  Or maybe Tina leaned forward to kiss his ear, and his attention drifted, and he loosened his grip on the wheel.

  Or he was drunk or stoned, and he fell asleep, just for a second.

  For whatever reason, Philip took a turn too fast. For a horrifying moment, the Jeep skidded as if on ice, two wheels lifting off the ground and hanging in midair, and then the car tipped onto its side, spun shockingly fast, and struck a rock wall with violent, deafening force.

  The noise of the crash rang in the night. Philip and his teammate were breathing loudly, quickly, unmistakably alive. The driver’s side was on the ground, and Philip’s mouth was against rock, which tasted of blood. He panted, laughed, swore. Shock delayed his reaction. Then he realized Tina was gone.

  After the accident, after Tina’s funeral, after the indignant editorials and palmed whispers, after the end of his football career, after sitting stock straight in classrooms with eyes crawling over him, Philip graduated. He left. He spent two itinerant years in Europe, where history hung thick as ivy over the buildings and streets, and Arizona’s lemonade light and gleaming boulevards seemed not just distant but alien. He spent less time pacing museums and pondering art than he spent reclining on thin European mattresses and coughing through cigarettes at pubs and cafés. His brooding silence and hefty muscles inspired people to call him cowboy, to trot out clumsy John Wayne accents. Philip didn’t explain himself. Didn’t bother learning any languages. In every city, even the smallest, there was a group of Brits and Americans hanging around, familiar with the topography of the night, accustomed to passing weeks and even years doing nothing more than drinking and seducing women and getting worked up over the local soccer team’s fortunes on a fuzzy bar TV.

  Eventually, the Senator cut off Philip’s spending money, and so Philip moved to New York City, another place with nothing in common with Arizona. Ten years passed.

  At thirty-five, he was featured in a New York magazine profile of prominent city transplants. I paid $9.99 for digital access to the article and found it disappointingly brief. Philip was a partner at a developer’s office. He’d grown up. He still had that golden glow, but where his face had been bright and open, it had settled into a guarded expression, competent and inscrutable. He was engaged to a woman he’d known back in Phoenix.

  A year later, Philip married Marina at the Fairmont Princess resort in Scottsdale. She wore a white gown with a long slit up the leg and not an ounce of frill.

  They moved back to Arizona after Philip’s mother died. Marina insisted that his father needed family nearby. She’d always liked the Senator, and vice versa, even back when she was a teenager and dating perfect, too-good-for-anyone James.

  The years moved fast. The net tightened around Philip. Once he said yes to attending a party, hosting one was only natural. After he agreed to serve on his father’s eponymous scholarship committee, sitting on a few boards of directors was just good business sense. When his real estate projects sailed through red tape with ease, Philip couldn’t deny that his name had helped him, even if he preferred not to think about it.

  No one could remember who first suggested Philip might run for office himself. The idea seemed to arrive fully formed, not merely a possibility but a plan. The Senator clearly felt it was natural and right that his son follow him; Marina desired it with a nervous energy; and Philip . . . Well, he went along with it.

  I thought I knew Philip well. I’d built up his story in my mind, so when he drifted to the outskirts of a party, or went suddenly quiet at dinner, I imagined he was thinking about what might have come out differently.

  I wanted to confide in him about my own past, the ghosts I saw in the mirror when I dressed to go out with Bryant, or woke to my dark apartment and felt for a panicked moment as though I were lying on rising and falling water, the noise of a crash echoing. Sometimes, Philip’s voice in my ear, his hand on my hip, watching his profile as he drove his car, I felt as if our secrets bound us together more tightly than our formal, public bonds.

  It had never occurred to me that he might have this effect on plenty of women. After my dinner with Iris, a litany of possibilities ran through my mind. The bartender with the peroxide hair, the sleek contract lawyer, the willowy interior designer, Marina’s sculptor friend with the boots up to her thighs.

  And Iris.

  If anyone found out about her, it would be the end of Philip’s secondhand ambition.

  10

  Because I skewed my own truth, invented and omitted and pretended, I thought I knew about lying. I believed Iris had had an entanglement with Philip, that they’d slept together, maybe more than once, but I didn’t buy the love story. Maybe he’d said, You’re special, wonderful, amazing—words to placate, not to commit. I pictured him turning away, standing and pulling on his shirt, if she said she loved him, if she sleepily reached for him, asked for more.

  After my dinner with Iris, I wanted to do something, go somewhere, forget. But what would I do with Bryant out of town? So I went home. I hung my dress over the shower, took off my jewelry, washed my face. I climbed into bed, just a mattress on the floor surrounded by a plush white rug. My apartment was mostly negative space. Bare walls, a few ceramics on a shelf, design books piled on the floor. A potted jade plant sat in front of the sliding glass door to the balcony, surrounded by a confetti of dead leaves.

  The apartment was more than I could strictly afford, almost half of what I made in a month. After electric and cable and internet and food and Target and student loans (the $95 monthly payment adjusted to my income), I usually had about $100 left, if I was lucky. Just enough to make one of my strategic clothing purchases, usually a new dress or shoes for an event. If Bryant minded paying every time we went out, he didn’t say. If I stayed in, I ate eggs or salad from a bag. My frugality was hard learned. For the first months working for the Martins, my paycheck had seemed generous compared to what I earned as a waitress. I’d gone a little crazy spending, on what I couldn’t even remember. My credit card bill was still swollen, interest ballooning the balance every month even though I was so careful.

  I lay back and stared at the ceiling, where fifty-seven origami swans (painstakingly folded under the instruction of a perky YouTube star) hung in a bristling orb, concealing an ugly light fixture. Images of Iris and Philip scrolled through my mind. Stealthy meetings, cheesy dialogue, tawdry lingerie. His eyes on her. Her self-conscious poses.

  By the time I called him, I was furious. His cell went straight to voicemail. I tried The Grove, but the hostess said he wasn’t there. Her tone was knowing, as if women called him all the time. I couldn’t risk Marina answering at the house. I left a second, strained message on his cell asking him to call me, and then I waited.

  I was glad Bryant was in Washington for the weekend. I didn’t know how I’d keep this from him, though I instinctively knew I had to. If I told hi
m, he’d tell the Senator, and this had to be a secret so buried no one else would ever know.

  The weekend passed slowly. I went for aimless drives in Bryant’s car on the smooth freeways north of the city. I drained the tank and filled it, anxious that I was using the wrong pump, startled by the price of premium unleaded.

  Sunday afternoon, I still hadn’t heard from Philip. I drove to Starbucks. I spread my GRE book on a table and tried to concentrate. If Ron, Matt, Sarah, and Lisa have birthdays in March, and a particular set of facts is true, who is youngest? If Dana must walk nine dogs, and follows these arbitrary rules, how many walks will she take? If a handsome, successful middle-aged man commits adultery, is he more likely to leave his family or his mistress?

  I shut the book. My temples ached. The espresso machine hissed violently. People streamed in and out, never removing their sunglasses. The barista’s shouts were pointed as darts. Myra! Felix! Isaac! Names that, for an instant, sounded like Iris, like Philip.

  So when Philip pulled up to the drive-through window, I thought I was imagining things. Then the barista laughed, frothy and flirtatious, and I knew it was him. I grabbed my purse and went out the door, waving wildly.

  But Philip didn’t see me. He paused at the exit, consulting his phone, then turned right.

  I hurried to the BMW and swung out of the lot. At a red light, I was caught a few cars behind him. I called his cell. It rang and rang, but no answer. Impatiently, I waited for the people in front of me to turn. Philip got onto the freeway, heading south.

  I followed.

  For several miles, I was trapped in a flock of slow cars. Philip darted from lane to lane, tailgating so closely he continually had to hit his brakes. Not how he drove when Amabel and I were with him.

  By the time traffic thinned, we’d passed all the exits I expected him to take, beyond the familiar territory of our lives. It might have meant nothing; his business carried him all over. But it was a Sunday afternoon, when Marina dropped Amabel at riding lessons and had her spin class, and afterward they went for a treat. A time Philip was routinely alone.

  The freeway split, and he headed south on the 10. I could have swung around and gone home. Instead I stayed behind him.

  The suburbs thinned, restaurants and big box stores replaced by convenience stops, McDonald’s, Kum & Go, Circle K, Holiday Inn Express. The road kept getting emptier and emptier. Philip’s gleaming coupe stayed resolutely in the left lane. I kept five or six telephone poles behind.

  The land opened up. Flat bare fields, baked dry. The highway was a straight ribbon you could see down for ages. Now and then a low hill rose at the horizon, the dip before it flooded with water. It was an optical illusion: heat made visible in a shimmering haze.

  After we’d been driving an hour, I wondered if I was wrong, if Philip was going to Tucson on campaign business. I imagined him listening to Springsteen, drumming his steering wheel. Oblivious. Already wisps of sherbet orange striped the sky.

  Stray buildings began to appear, widely spaced then denser and denser, as a town gathered itself. Abruptly, Philip veered over and barreled off the exit ramp. I followed, narrowly cutting off a semi. Its horn bellowed accusingly.

  Philip drove slowly, as though he wasn’t familiar with his surroundings. We passed a plaza with a shuttered red-roofed Pizza Hut, a liquor store, a boutique selling candy-colored quinceañera dresses. Past a one-pump gas station, he turned into a drive marked with a faded wooden sign, The Sunset Motel, the o drawn as a setting sun. A red placard nailed to a corner spelled VACANCY in acid yellow letters.

  The motel was a crumbling stucco wedding cake. Three stories, white, with a scalloped tile roof and balconies edged with elaborate cast iron railings. A boy in denim cutoffs trotted down the winding staircase and slipped through a gate to a greenish pool, where a chubby couple floated like dumplings. A Danger sign affixed to the gate rattled as it slammed.

  Philip parked in the last row, so I pulled into the front, facing a sun-faded Coke machine. He lingered in his car. Maybe performing some preparatory ritual, removing his wedding ring, chewing a mint. Maybe she’d come out, he’d take her to dinner, stop by the liquor store on the way back to the room.

  My chest felt heavy, as if pressed under a lead vest.

  One of the motel doors opened, a few yards from my parking spot. I tensed, but instead of Iris, a man emerged. Bent and squinting, like a mouse from a hole. He paused as if stunned by the heat. Thin, colorless hair hung like Spanish moss over his shoulders.

  It was the man from Philip’s office.

  He crossed the lot, swinging his gaunt arms. I watched in the rearview as Philip got out and shook his hand. Sunglasses concealed his expression. He handed the man a white object—a folded paper, or an envelope—then glanced over his shoulder.

  The next minute, Philip was back in his car. He must have left the engine running, because he swung out of the spot immediately, tires squealing.

  The man had tucked the envelope away and was coming toward me. He passed by my passenger window, so close I could see the pinched skin of his elbow. I froze, expecting him to lower his face to mine. But he kept up his slouching walk back into the room. Number 107. The door slammed behind him.

  I stopped at the dinky gas station. It took me ages to scrub away the bugs stuck to Bryant’s windshield like eggs to a pan. The place was deserted, the squeak of my squeegee the only sound.

  Philip had come all this way to hand a man an envelope. No conversation, nothing. I assumed he’d gone north, back home; I didn’t try to follow him again. Frustrated, I worked over the car until it was perfectly clean. As the air cooled, heat rose from the ground like steam.

  When I got home, I texted Iris. Have you heard from him yet?

  She replied immediately. No, why? Did u talk to him?

  Later, she wrote again, Hello? Whatd he say?

  I can’t reach him. I’ll text you later.

  I was lying in the sun. Water splashed me. I opened my eyes. Philip was in the motel pool, though the building and the parking lot weren’t there; we were in an open field. He beckoned to me, then leaned back into the green water, sinking out of sight.

  I wanted to go to him but the sunlight soaked heavily into my skin, pinning me in place. I heard breathing behind me, and the coyote sauntered past. His fur was thin, bristled and sticky in patches where he’d gnawed at fleas. His ribs swelled and receded as he panted. He went to the pool and drank.

  Philip surfaced and swam to the edge. I wanted to warn him, but before I could, he reached out to the dog and ran a hand down his flank. The coyote jumped over the water and loped into the horizon, vanishing. Suddenly I was sitting on the side of the pool, Philip’s hand on my ribs. A whisper soft in my ear said, Jump in.

  I woke, desire thrumming between my hipbones. I shut my eyes against the cottony dark of my room and pretended to myself that I was going back to sleep.

  11

  When I arrived at the Martins’ the next morning, Marina wasn’t rushing around the kitchen as usual, but sat at the table gazing out the glass doors to the balcony. She wore a white dress with a white cardigan over her shoulders, matching the pristine white kitchen. When she turned to me, her face was bleached with tiredness.

  “What a terrible weekend,” she said. “Did you hear?”

  My arms froze in the act of pulling a water glass from a cabinet. I shook my head, not trusting my voice.

  “Gonzales? The town hall? It was horrible. I wasn’t ready for it to get ugly yet.” She shook her head sadly, her gold earrings catching the light.

  I eased the cabinet closed, relieved. “I’m sorry. What did he say?”

  “Oh, he went on and on about the land deal. Suggesting we’re out of touch. Too—” Anxiously, she smoothed her crisp collar. “As if we’re different from anyone else. We work hard, don’t we?” She blinked at me. Her fumbling fingers had raised a red flush on her throat; her skin was so delicate, so thin.

  “Of course.” All I could thi
nk was, She has no idea. “You work harder than anyone I know.”

  I’d overcompensated, sounded sarcastic. I turned and rummaged in the fridge for a grapefruit. I sliced it in half and began carving each segment with a little curved knife.

  Marina sat stiffly, embarrassed. “We have help, I know. But we give back. We’re part of the community.”

  “People won’t listen to those personal attacks,” I assured her. “They’re tacky.” But I’d said the same thing to Bryant, and he’d scoffed, told me I was wrong.

  Marina rolled her shoulders. “You’re right. I shouldn’t pay attention.” She stood and set a teacup and saucer out on the counter. “Would you mind staying late tonight? Tonight I’ve got a dinner thing, and Philip had to rush up to Flagstaff this weekend.”

  “Really?” I tried to sound casual, but the grapefruit knife slipped. It was too dull to cut me, but the slice stung. “When did he leave?”

  “Yesterday. He’s helping Jim rally. Of course it’s important, but the timing couldn’t be worse. The gala is Friday, and he might not get back until Thursday. I have three dinners this week, so I’ll need you to be available.”

  The shriek of the kettle interrupted her. She poured boiling water into her cup, one hand unconsciously massaging an earlobe.

  I filled the coffee grinder with beans. The motor’s roar nicely filled the silence. Flagstaff was two hours north, in the mountains. “I can work all you need. Is there anything else I can do?”

  Marina shook her head. “Luckily the caterers seem with it this year. Jim will be there, so we’ll have to set up some security. I can’t make everyone climb through metal detectors so we’ll have to figure something else out. It will be an ID-only event, so don’t forget yours.” She sipped her tea, wincing. “Hot. I don’t know why I made this anyway, I’ve got to go.” She dumped it down the sink. “Once I start to list, there’s more to do. Typical of Philip to leave.” She gave a bright laugh, as if she were joking.