The Jealousy Game novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: The Coffee Dean Left

At four a.m. in her bakery Lena learns Brett sold the game to her friends as therapy she never had, takes Dean's whistle, and finds her forty-eight thousand dollars moved into Brett's own account.

I didn't sleep, so I was at the bakery by four.

I took Maddie's key ring with me and dropped it in the flour drawer under the counter.

Then I turned on the ovens and started the rye.

My father used to say you can't think and knead at the same time, and you should pick one.

I picked kneading.

By five-thirty the front windows had fogged and the whole shop smelled like caraway.

The bell over the door rang before I had flipped the sign.

"We're closed," I said without looking up.

"I know."

It was Dean.

He still had his coaching jacket on, and under it the whistle hung on its blue lanyard.

He held out a paper cup of coffee from the gas station, the one he bought me every morning before a game.

I looked at the cup and kept my hands in the dough.

"I'm not going to take that."

"Okay." He put it on the counter anyway and stayed where he was. "Len, I didn't sleep. I keep seeing your face."

"Good."

"I wanted to ask you something." He cleared his throat. "Why did you take your ring off? I thought the game was helping. You were doing so much better."

I stopped kneading.

"Better at what?"

"At the jealousy. You used to cry at his cousin's shower, and now you just say the thing and it's over."

"Dean." I wiped my hands on my apron slowly. "What did Brett tell you about the shower?"

He looked surprised that I asked.

"That you got upset in the bathroom because a woman hugged him too long. That it's been happening since college. That you saw a therapist about it, and she said you needed to practice trust in small doses, with people you were safe with."

"Which therapist?"

"He didn't say her name. He said you were embarrassed."

"I don't have a therapist, Dean."

Nobody spoke.

A regular came in behind him, the woman who buys a loaf of rye every morning at six, and stopped by the door.

"Don't mind me," she said, and found a very interesting spot on the pastry case.

Dean's face went slack.

"He said you asked him for it."

"I cried in a bathroom for four minutes at his cousin's shower, Dean. A woman had her arm around him for most of a song. He came in and held my hand and said he had an idea. Three weeks later you were standing in a restaurant with a whistle."

"He said the doctor wanted it to be public. So the fear had witnesses."

"Did you ever ask me?"

"I..." He looked at the floor. "No."

"You blew a whistle at me thirty-one times."

"I thought I was helping."

"Thirty-one."

"I know the number, Lena."

"So does Casper. He wrote it down."

The woman by the pastry case turned her head a little.

Dean said, quietly, "I didn't want to look at his notebook. I never read it."

"Why not?"

"Because it was Casper's job. He's always writing something down."

"Give me the whistle."

He pulled the lanyard over his head and held it out, and I took it, and it was warm from his neck.

It was an ordinary silver coach's whistle, with teeth marks in the mouthpiece.

I put it next to the coffee.

"You can keep the coffee," I said. "You can't keep the whistle."

"Len. I'll make it right."

"Then start by telling me who texted you before each strike."

His mouth shut.

"I'm not saying he did," I said. "I'm asking who told you when."

"I..."

The woman at the pastry case coughed, set a five on the counter for her rye, and left without the change.

Dean watched her go.

"Everyone's going to hear this by lunch," he said.

"Yes."

"Okay." He wiped his face with his sleeve. "Okay. I'll tell them whatever's true."

"You can start by knowing what's true."

He nodded and went out, and the bell rang behind him.

I picked up the coffee after all, because it was hot and I was cold, and I stood in the fogged window drinking it with the whistle at my elbow.

My phone buzzed on the shelf.

It was my bank, a routine alert, and I almost swiped it away.

I opened the app instead.

The wedding account was where I put the bakery's savings last winter, so Brett and I could pay for the venue and the dress and the flowers.

It had a joint name on it and a balance I remembered clearly.

It was forty-eight thousand dollars.

The balance on the screen was nineteen dollars and six cents.

I pressed the transaction list.

On Monday, a transfer had gone out for the full amount.

The destination said: B. Hallam, Personal Savings.

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