Page 44 of The Tenant
I look around the room. The ringtone has stopped.
“Maybe we were wrong,” Krista says. She’s clearly not thrilled about invading Whitney’s space while she is out, but I couldn’t care less. “Maybe you left it in the bathroom. That makes more sense.”
“Call my number again,” I instruct her.
Obediently, Krista selects my number from her phone again. The ringing starts up again, and this time the source is clear. I pull back the crumpled covers on Whitney’s bed, and there is my phone, nestled in the sheets.
I scoop up the phone. There are two missed calls from Krista and a text letting me know she’s going to be late. But none of this explains how my phone got in here in the first place.
“Blake?” Krista’s confused voice is coming from behind me. “What’s this?”
I whirl around—what now? For a moment, I actually hope it’s something terrible like a wall of pictures of me with my eyes cut out so that Krista will see Whitney like I do. But all she’s got in her hand is a small white tube. I don’t even know what it is until she takes off the cap.
It’s lipstick.
“It’s the same shade as on your shirt collar,” Krista says in a shaky voice.
“What?” I say flippantly. “No, it’s not.”
Except that’s a lie. It is exactly the same shade. It’s the same lipstick Whitney was putting on the other day, right before I found the rotting fruit in the kitchen.
“Is this why you’ve been acting so weird about Whitney?” Krista’s voice is dripping with hurt. “Are you sleeping with her?”
“No!” I cry. “That’sinsane! IhateWhitney!”
Her lower lip trembles. “Then why was her lipstick on your shirt collar? Why is your cell phone in herbed?”
“She’s setting me up!” I throw up my hands. “Can’t you see it? She’s doing all these things to make you think I’m cheating on you. But I’m not.”
“Why would she want me to think you’re cheating on me?”
Damned if I know. I wish I did. I wish I knew why Whitney decided to target me. Because if I knew the reason, I’d make her stop.
“Krista,” I say. “I love you. I want you to be my wife. I would never,evercheat on you. I swear.”
Krista looks between the phone I’m clutching in my right hand and the lipstick in her left. “I…I don’t know what to think.”
“Please.” I am about five seconds away from getting down on my knees and begging. “You’ve got to believe me. Youknowme, Krista. I wouldn’t do something like that.”
She lowers the lipstick back onto the top of the dresser. She chews on her thumbnail, a troubled expression on her face. “It’s not just about this. You’ve been acting weird for months, Blake.”
“No, I haven’t.”
She arches an eyebrow.
“Okay,” I concede. “It’s been a rough few months for me after losing my job and all. But I’m coming out the other end. I swear.”
She plays with a loose strand of her silky hair that has come undone from her bun. “I don’t know. I…I think it might be a good idea if we took a little time apart.”
No.No. She can’t mean that.
But she means it. I follow her numbly as she goes back downstairs to the second floor and returns to our bedroom, then I watch in horror as she pulls her suitcase out of the closet.
“Krista, no,” I plead with her.
I can’t lose Krista. Ican’t. She’s the only good thing left in my life.
But now it looks like that’s going to happen. In a moment, Krista is back in our room, taking clothes out of her drawers, piling them into a suitcase. I want to yank the luggage away from her before she can fill it up.
