I Set the Sheets on Fire, Then the Clubhouse novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: The Bed
Becky finds her husband in their bed with the bartender while the club hides it, asks who knew, gets silence, and lights the sheets; as the clubhouse burns, the president orders her into his truck.
Dario's Harley was parked behind the clubhouse at noon on a Wednesday.
He was supposed to be in Oklahoma.
At six that morning he had texted me, "Tulsa bound, no signal, love you."
Boone had said the same thing over my coffee an hour later. "He's fine, kid. Go to work."
Boone never lied to me, so I had stopped checking.
He was the only man in the club who never called me an old lady.
I was always "kid" to him, and every March third a card with no name on it showed up in the clubhouse mailbox with a folded twenty inside.
I figured it was a club tradition for the wives.
The clinic closed early when a water main burst, and I drove home with a bag of tacos on the seat.
Then I saw the bike, and the tacos felt very heavy.
Our apartment is over the clubhouse bar.
Forty patches use the stairs I climbed, and I knew every step that creaked.
I opened the bedroom door.
Dario was sitting against our headboard with his shirt on the floor.
Elena Barraza sat beside him, the bartender who poured my drinks on Fridays.
The sheets were knotted around their legs.
His wedding ring lay on the nightstand next to his phone.
Elena had pulled on a faded gray T-shirt.
It was mine, and I had slept in it on Monday.
She didn't cover herself or look away.
She looked at me like I was the one who'd walked into the wrong house.
Dario reached for his jeans first.
"Becky," he said. "This is not how I wanted you to find out."
I did not say a word.
I turned around and walked out.
He caught up with me at the top of the stairs and took my arm.
"Don't go down there," he said, low and fast. "We handle this ourselves. Don't embarrass yourself."
I looked at his hand on my sleeve until he let go.
My chest went completely still.
I went down the stairs and into the main room.
It was lunch, and every table was full.
Nobody was cooking, and nobody was playing pool.
I stood in the middle of the floor with my keys still in my fist.
"How many of you knew about this?" I asked.
Forty men looked at the table, the bar, the floor.
A man I had fed at Christmas studied the label on his beer.
Pearl, who cooks for the club, had stopped with a ladle in her hand and her mouth open.
She hadn't known either, and I saw that in her face.
Boone sat at the head table with his arms folded.
He didn't look at me.
Not one person said a word.
My knees nearly went.
It wasn't one man who had lied to me, it was this entire room, and for how long?
Cade Ostrow was standing by the pool table.
He is the road captain, and he was the only one who looked straight at me.
His jaw tightened, and then he looked at the floor too.
That was the answer.
I walked out through the kitchen door to the garage.
The red fuel can sat where it always sat, beside the generator.
It was full.
I picked it up and carried it back through the kitchen.
Nobody stopped me.
They thought I was going to cry upstairs, the way a wife is supposed to.
I climbed the creaking stairs a second time.
Dario was dressed by then and standing in the doorway, holding his cut.
Elena was perched on the edge of the bed.
"Becky, put that down," he said, and he almost laughed. "What are you going to do?"
I didn't answer him.
I looked at the sheets I had ironed on Sunday.
Then I made my choice.
"Get out," I said. "Both of you. You have ten seconds."
Elena stood up so fast she tripped.
Dario said my name again, and this time it sounded different.
They went past me and down the hall, and I heard Elena's bare feet on the stairs.
I poured the fuel over the bed.
I took the lighter from my pocket, the one I kept for the pilot light on the stove.
The sheets caught first.
Flame ran up the blanket and across the pillows in the time it takes to say it.
The curtain went next.
The alarm started screaming, and below me the room erupted.
Chairs scraped and men shouted my name, and Dario yelled, "Becky! Get out of there!"
I went through the apartment and checked every room.
The bathroom was empty and the kitchen was empty.
Everyone I had passed that day was already downstairs, and not one of them had been inside.
My throat closed up.
Tears came before I could stop them, hot and fast, and I let them.
I had nowhere to go back to.
I walked down through the smoke and out the front door with the can still in my hand.
The whole club was standing in the gravel lot, forty patches and Pearl, watching the second-floor windows turn orange.
Black smoke rolled over the roof.
I stood at the edge of the lot and didn't run.
The fire reached the bar below, and I heard the first window go.
Boone walked across the gravel to me.
He did not look at the building, only at my face, and his own face was gray.
He opened the door of his pickup.
"Get in the truck, Becky," he said quietly. "Right now."
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