Authors: Delphine Dryden
She knew almost before she opened it what it must be, and a fit of giggles threatened to overtake her as she split open the seal on the envelope bearing her name and pul ed out the familiar gift certificate, made out for an amount identical to the one she’d just given Karl.
“Merry Christmas,” he chuckled, “now get out of my brain.”
“Merry Christmas,” she replied, shaking her head at the coincidence. “I’m pretty sure I got there first, though. So you get out of
my
brain.”
He smiled and kissed her, an easy, casual kiss. A Christmas-morning-under-the-tree kiss, the type that was being passed around between almost every couple there.
Elyce looked at her gift card, anticipating the boots she would buy, how comfortable they would feel, how much she and Karl would enjoy using them next time they were at the cabin…
And then she remembered, with a sick thud of reality, that there would be no next time. And her holiday spirit evaporated.
And then, from across the room and down the hal , she heard the distant ring of her cel phone from her purse on the table by the coat closet. Excusing herself, she jogged to catch it in time before flipping the phone open and answering breathlessly.
She had expected her mother, and it took her a minute to catch up with the drift of what the person on the other line was saying. It was Andrew, sounding as though his holiday spirit had long since evaporated. If indeed he’d had any to begin with.
“Andrew, slow down, I missed the first part. Merry Christmas, by the way.”
“Oh. Merry Christmas. My mother gave me some underwear and a pair of jeans.”
“That’s very practical. Did everyone like their presents?”
“Yeah, it was al a big hit. Thanks. But I didn’t cal to tel you merry Christmas.”
“Oh.” Elyce felt a little let down, but remembered that he’d sounded upset when she first answered. “Is everything al right?”
“I thought you should know that Nash started work on that site a few days ago. One of the interns cal ed me from Tahoe. They’re already leveling it.”
A slick, cold chil slid from Elyce’s throat to rest in her stomach, roiling the coffee and pastries, making her look around for a chair to sit in. She’d forgotten, in her shock, that she was on a cel phone and could walk anywhere she liked provided the reception held.
“I… That can’t be right. We had a deal. Karl… Nash and I, we’d worked out a deal. Your intern must have made a mistake.” In her mind’s eye, she could see the shoreline, see the trees chopped down and fal ing with muffled crashes onto the snow-packed ground, see the bul dozers spewing black exhaust that dul ed the winter landscape to a dirty brownish-gray.
“No mistake. Whatever you thought you had worked out, I’d say you’ve been had. Which is probably right on several levels. Isn’t it?”
Ignoring his underhanded remark, Elyce shook her head, though of course he couldn’t see it. “Karl wouldn’t do something like that. He would never—”
“This is Karl Nash we’re talking about, right? Son of Wil iam Nash, the development baron? Grandson of whomever his grandfather was who started the company?
Elyce, grow up. Of course he would do that. He got you out of the way and did what he wanted to do. It’s what people like him
do
. Look, I’m sending you the picture that the intern sent to me from his camera phone.
”
Elyce stared numbly at her phone, at the flashing message notifying her that an image had been sent. Did she want to view it? Of course she did not, but of course she pressed “Accept” and looked at the picture in horror while Andrew waited on hold.
Though the image took longer to load than usual and was of course tiny on the screen of her phone, it was surprisingly sharp and she had no trouble making out the details. A gigantic redwood fel ed close by the water’s edge, its topmost branches trailing down into the lake, the wound made by the chainsaw bright and raw against the darkness of the wet bark. The snow around the base of the tree was muddy, tracked into a slushy mess by heavy work boots.
One crisp boot print was clearly visible in the foreground of the shot, and Elyce found her eyes drawn to it as though she might actual y recognize it, somehow link it directly to Karl’s foot. With a lump in her throat, she clicked back to the cal and held the phone back up to her ear, her hand shaking.
“Al right,” she said, not knowing what else to say, not wanting to talk to the messenger any longer.
“I thought you should know.”
“Al right. Thank you.” She heard her own voice, stiff and cold, and wondered if he realized, even as she did, that regardless of what happened with Karl she would not be seeing Andrew again on a social basis.
“You’re welcome. So what are you going to do now?”
“I’l let you know,” she answered, her mind a blank.
“Thank you. Merry Christmas.” And she snapped the phone shut, not knowing or caring whether Andrew had more to say.
For a minute or two, Elyce could do nothing but stand there, propped against the wal , stunned into dul ness by what Andrew had just told her. Shown her. Then the knowledge that she had been so stupid, so gul ible to let Karl take advantage of her, began to creep over her until she was shaking with suppressed rage.
She had gone to his bed, wil ingly, and he had not only encouraged it but demanded it of her. Part of the price, he had implied, although she had assumed it had to do not with the bargain but with their relationship. He said it was because he loved her, needed her too badly to resist.
Evidently not. If al this were true, it had been nothing but another means to distract her.
A heavy price indeed—and she had paid it for nothing.
For
nothing
.
She thought she might actual y throw up, and had to press the back of one hand to her mouth until the feeling passed. With the anger, fear had gripped her, an oily, icy lurching in her gut. What would he do if she went back into the great room with this news, with this photo, with a confrontation about his betrayal? Despite what Karl had done, did his family deserve to have their Christmas day shattered by something like that? They were good people.
But then, she had thought Karl was a good person. A person who had made an unfortunate career choice, yes, but fundamental y a good person.
She had been very near contemplating the idea of going back to him, in fact, because of her realization that he was so good at heart. She had thought there might actual y be a way to work things out, or that at least she owed it to herself and Karl to try. And now…
Gripping the phone so hard her knuckles whitened, Elyce turned and made the long, long trip back down the hal and into the brightly lit room, where the family stil gathered in happy ignorance around the Christmas tree.
And there in their midst was their golden boy, Karl, upon whom so many of their hopes for the future rested.
* * * * *
She hadn’t known in advance what she would do or say, once she found herself at Karl’s shoulder after what seemed an infinitely long walk across the enormous room.
When a break in the conversation presented itself, she tapped his shoulder more gently than she was feeling inclined and asked quietly if they could speak in private.
“Sure,” he agreed, puzzled but amiable enough. “I heard your phone ring, is everything okay?” Then, real y looking at her for the first time as they walked toward the stairs, “Honey? You look like you’ve seen a ghost. Is something wrong?”
“In private,” Elyce repeated numbly, trudging wearily up the stairs as though it were the end of a long and tiring day rather than the start of a new one. Once at “their” room, she closed the door and handed him the phone, on which she had pul ed up the tel tale picture.
Karl looked at the picture and then back at Elyce with a puzzled expression. “Okay. So…what is it?”
Astonished at his nerve, she glared at him. “You know very wel what it is. Or do you have so many construction projects going on up there that you can’t tel one from another?”
He cocked his head, acting as though he were genuinely confused. “Construction projects? What are you talking about?”
“Are you actual y trying to stand there and act like you don’t know that they’ve started leveling that site? Please!
You’re a micromanager, Karl, you always have been. You even cal ed yourself a control freak the other day. You know exactly what’s going on, and I’m just disgusted with myself for not seeing through al this sooner.” With the rage final y simmering to the top, Elyce found she needed something to do with her hands, something to do to help her avoid slapping Karl right in the face.
She yanked open the closet and pul ed her suitcase out, then started throwing her clothes from the drawers into the open case.
“What are you doing? What is al this about? Elyce, I have no idea what this picture is. If you’re talking about the Tahoe project, there’s no leveling going on. There isn’t
going
to be any leveling—there never was. Wel , maybe for the bathrooms or the information building, but they’re not anywhere near the shoreline.”
“What?” It was Elyce’s turn to look confused, though her confusion was heavily laced with suspicion. What trick was Karl trying now? She had actual photographic proof of his treachery, and here he was trying to bluff his way out of it?
“Elyce, listen. The project on Tahoe was never going to be a big development. I don’t know where you original y got that idea. I admit I let you go on thinking it, I didn’t tel you differently, but then you real y never gave me much of a chance to.”
“Bul shit, Karl. I’ve seen documentation—I’ve seen the proposal, for heaven’s sake. What was al that, just forged?
And you just played along?”
Karl sighed impatiently. “No, there is a project. But you admitted yourself that you didn’t read the proposal. And it’s clear that you haven’t actual y looked at the documentation very closely. If you had, you wouldn’t have been in my office that day, busting the door down and looking like you were going to start smashing up my desk set. And also looking amazing, I might add.” His eyes shone with an admiration that felt out of place, throwing Elyce off her stride.
“What are you talking about? If there’s a project, there’s going to be development. That’s what a project
is
. That’s what your company does.”
“No, not this time. If you had read the proposal, you’d know that the only development wil be a restroom building, an information building and a parking lot. And a lot of trails.
Okay, and some picnic sites. We haven’t decided on whether to have a covered pavilion or not, for nature talks or for people to rent for parties or whatnot. It may come later though.”
Utterly confused, Elyce dropped the pair of shoes she’d been planning to throw into her suitcase and sank down on to the bed. “That’s just a…a park.”
“The Nash Nature Conservancy Foundation Preserve.”
“Nature Conservancy…”
“Foundation.”
“The development is just a
park
?”
“Wel , a nature preserve real y. But yes, essential y that’s what it’s going to be. A little pocket of no lake houses or casinos.” He was looking down at his feet, with almost an “aw, shucks” look, as though he were a little sheepish about the project.
Or, she realized, about being found out in a deception of such magnitude.
“But why…” She paused for a moment, gathering her thoughts, trying to pick just one question from the dozens that were crowding her mind. “Why did you offer to stop development if I came up here? If there wasn’t going to be any development—”
“Because I wanted you here for Christmas. I
missed
you.” He spoke softly but earnestly. “And because my grandmother real y would have been devastated to find out about the divorce right before the holiday.”
“But Andrew said his intern was on the site, he took this photo
on the site
and sent it to him.”
Karl shrugged, looking uncomfortable. “I don’t recognize it. I’m as confused as you are.” But clearly he was implying without words that the faulty information wasn’t coming from
his
end of things.
He was, Elyce thought, too nice a person to say what he was obviously thinking.
“So Andrew is just lying.” She voiced the thought for both of them.
“I don’t know the guy,” Karl said. “I real y couldn’t say.”
“So he’s lying to try to get me away from you, and you’re…you’re manipulating and yes, also lying, to try to get me back. I guess maybe I should be flattered, but you know what? I’m real y not.”
Silence fel , heavy and stifling, roaring almost as loud with its implications as Elyce’s racing thoughts.
“Would that have gotten you away from me?” Karl final y asked. “If al that had been true, and he had cal ed and told you, would that have won you over? To him, I mean?”
“No,” she said immediately, not needing to think. “I’m never seeing him again. I wouldn’t, either way.”
Karl seemed to mul this answer over, not with the smug satisfaction Elyce might once have expected. He simply seemed to be digesting it, filtering it for truth, seeing where it fit into his changing picture of their relationship.
“But you believed him at first, didn’t you? I can’t believe you would think that of me,” he commented, though not angrily. Just disappointed and weary. Like Elyce herself felt. Not sure how to feel, not sure what happened next. Not sure anymore what could or could not be believed about another person.