Love After Layoffs novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: Six Forty-One

Janine wakes dressed in Brooks's hotel suite, gets her husband's photo and a threat, and walks home to find her clothes in trash bags on the porch.

I woke up with my shoes on.

My blazer was on, my jeans were buttoned, and a hotel blanket had been laid over me, tucked in at the edges.

The room was gray with early light, and a clock on the nightstand said 6:41.

I lay there for a full minute with my heart going like a drum.

Then I turned my head.

Brooks Hale was asleep sitting up on a velvet couch across the room, still in his wrinkled jacket, with his glasses folded in his hand.

One of his shoes was off.

Nothing had happened.

I knew it the way you know your own hands.

I also remembered, with horrible clarity, every second of the kiss.

I put a pillow over my face and groaned into it.

"There's coffee," Brooks said.

I pulled the pillow off.

He was awake, rubbing his eyes with the heel of his hand.

On the table by the window sat two paper cups and a plate with a muffin cut in half.

"I woke up at five to order it," he said. "I wanted to be here when you opened your eyes. So you wouldn't wonder."

"I wondered for a full minute."

"I'm sorry."

"Did I say anything terrible?"

"You told me you'd been picturing my teeth for two years."

I laughed, then winced, because my head felt cracked.

"I also cried a little in the elevator," I said. "I'm fairly sure of that."

"You did. About your mother's piano."

I stared at him.

"You remember that?"

"You told me about it in the bar," he said. "Twice."

He handed me a coffee.

It was black, and it was exactly how I take it, and I realized I had once mentioned that in an email a year ago.

"I slept on the couch," he said.

"I took off your shoes at some point."

"Then you woke up and asked me to put them back on."

"I was afraid I'd have to run."

My phone was face down on the blanket.

I turned it over.

Fourteen missed calls, all from Justin.

Then a text from 6:41 that morning.

It was a photograph.

It showed me in the Allegheny Hotel lobby with my face against Brooks's shoulder and his hand on my back.

The photo was timestamped last night, and under it Justin had typed: "Adultery. Hotel. I have witnesses. Enjoy the street."

My mouth went dry.

"What is it?" Brooks asked.

I held up the phone.

He read it, and I watched his face change.

First it went blank, and then something hard came up behind his eyes.

"That's the man in the gray coat," he said quietly. "He was in the lobby."

"Justin had me followed."

"Somebody did."

"Do you know him? The man who took it?"

"No." He took off his glasses and rubbed the bridge of his nose. "But I'm going to find out."

I stood up too fast and caught the back of the couch.

"I have to go home."

"I'll drive you."

"No." I looked at him. "If he's watching, a second photo is worse. I'll take a car."

"Janine."

"Thank you for the blanket," I said. "And for stopping."

He gave me a small, tired smile.

"I'd still like the sober version," he said. "Whenever you're ready."

I took the stairs down to the lobby because I didn't trust my face in an elevator.

The sun was just coming up over the river when my car pulled into Squirrel Hill.

Our street has old brick houses and maple trees with the last red leaves hanging on.

My mother's money had bought the porch I was looking at.

On that porch sat three black trash bags, tied at the top.

Two of them had split open.

I saw my gray cardigan hanging out of one, and my good boots, and the purple bra I'd been saving for something.

The woman next door was in her bathrobe, picking up her newspaper, and she pretended not to look.

A man walking his dog slowed down on the sidewalk.

I stood at the bottom of the steps and breathed in for four and out for four.

My mother taught me that when I was twelve.

Then I went up the steps.

I did not touch the bags.

I took the key out of my purse, the one I had carried for six years.

I put it in the lock.

It turned.

Justin hadn't thought to change the locks.

I walked in, and the neighbor said, quietly, "Good for you, honey."

Justin was in the kitchen in his bathrobe, scrolling on his phone with a bowl of cereal.

He looked up and smiled.

"You got my text," he said.

"I did."

"I have a photograph of my wife coming out of a hotel with a client manager at dawn."

"Do you know what a judge does with that?"

"Nothing happened."

"That's not what the picture says."

"It's what happened."

"Then you'll have to prove a negative."

He took a bite of cereal and chewed it slowly.

"You're a smart girl."

"Sign the house over and I'll keep the picture to myself."

I put my purse down on the counter.

"My mother's money paid for this house."

"Your mother's money is in a house with my name on the mortgage."

He shrugged.

"And your friend Hale has a boss."

"One phone call from me, and he'll be carrying a box out of that tower, just like you."

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