The Stranger

Heidi shook her head. “Do the girls really fall for that?”

“Some, maybe. But I doubt too many. Most understand the score.”

It was as though Heidi had expected him to visit, expected this news. She was calm now, though he could still sense the devastation. “So they negotiate?” she prompted.

“Right. Eventually, they reach an understanding. It’s all spelled out in an online contract. In one case, for example, the young woman agrees to be with the man five times per month. They spell out possible days of the week. He offers eight hundred dollars.”

“Each time?”

“Per month.”

“Cheap.”

“Well, that’s how it starts. But she counters with two thousand dollars. They go back and forth.”

“Do they reach an agreement?” Heidi asked.

Her eyes were wet now.

The stranger nodded. “In this case, they settle for twelve hundred dollars per month.”

“That’s fourteen thousand four hundred dollars per year,” Heidi said with a sad smile. “I’m good at math.”

“That’s correct.”

“And the girl,” Heidi said. “What does she tell the guy she is? Wait, don’t tell me. She says she’s a college student and needs help with her tuition.”

“In this case, yes.”

“Ugh,” Heidi said.

“And in this case,” the stranger continued, “the girl is telling the truth.”

“She’s a student?” Heidi shook her head. “Terrific.”

“But the girl, in this case, doesn’t stop there,” the stranger said. “The girl sets up different days of the week with different sugar daddies.”

“Oh, that’s gross.”

“So with one guy, she’s always Tuesdays. Another guy is Thursdays. Someone else gets weekends.”

“Must add up. The money, I mean.”

“It does.”

“Not to mention the venereal diseases,” Heidi said.

“That I can’t comment on.”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning we don’t know if she uses condoms or what. We don’t have her medical records. We don’t even know exactly what she does with all these men.”

“I doubt she’s playing cribbage.”

“I doubt it too.”

“Why are you telling me this?”

The stranger looked at Ingrid. For the first time, Ingrid spoke. “Because you deserve to know.”

“That’s it?”

“That’s all we can tell you, yes,” the stranger said.

“Twenty years.” Heidi shook her head and bit back her tears. “That bastard.”

“Pardon?”

“Marty. That bastard.”

“Oh, we’re not talking about Marty,” the stranger said.

Now, for the first time, Heidi looked completely baffled. “What? Then who?”

“We’re talking about your daughter, Kimberly.”

Chapter 9

Corinne took the blow, stumbled back, stayed standing.

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“Can we skip this part?” Adam asked.

“What?”

“The part where you pretend you have no idea what I’m talking about. Let’s skip the denials, okay? I know you faked the pregnancy.”

She tried to gather herself, pick up the pieces one at a time. “If you know, why are you asking?”

“How about the boys?”

That puzzled her. “What about them?”

“Are they mine?”

Corinne’s eyes went wide. “Are you out of your mind?”

“You faked a pregnancy. Who knows what else you’re capable of?”

Corinne just stood there.

“Well?”

“Jesus, Adam, look at them.”

He said nothing.

“Of course they’re yours.”

“There are tests, you know. DNA. You can buy them at Walgreens, for crying out loud.”

“Then buy them,” she snapped. “Those boys are yours. You know that.”

They stood on either side of the kitchen island. Even now, even in the midst of his anger and confusion, he could not help but see how beautiful she was. He couldn’t believe that with all the guys who wanted her, she had somehow chosen him. Corinne was the girl men wanted to marry. That was how guys foolishly looked at women when they were younger. They broke them down into two camps. One camp made guys think of lust-filled nights and legs in the air. Camp Two made them think of moonlight walks and canopies and wedding vows. Corinne was squarely in Camp Two.

Adam’s own mother had been eccentric to the point of bipolarity. That had been what foolishly attracted his father. “Her crackle,” Dad had explained. But the crackle turned more into mania as time passed. The crackle was fun and spontaneous, but the unpredictability wore his father down, aged him. There were great ups, but they were eventually decimated by the growing number of great downs. Adam did not make that mistake. Life is a series of reactions. His reaction to the mistake of his father was to marry a woman he considered steady, consistent, controlled, as though people were just that simple.

“Talk to me,” Adam said.

“What makes you think I faked the pregnancy?”

“The Visa charge to Novelty Funsy,” he said. “You told me it was for school decorations. It wasn’t. It’s a billing name for Fake-A-Pregnancy.com.”

She looked confused now. “I don’t understand. What made you go through a charge from two years ago?”

“It’s not important.”

“It is to me. You didn’t casually decide to start checking old bills.”

“Did you do it, Corinne?”

Her gaze was down on the granite top of the island. Corinne had taken forever to find the exact shade of granite, finally finding something called Ontario Brown. She spotted some dried debris and started working it free with her fingernail.

“Corinne?”

“Do you remember when I had two school periods off during lunch?”

The change of subject threw him for a moment. “What about it?”

The debris came loose. Corinne stopped. “It was the only time in my teaching career I had that big of a time window. I got permission to go off school grounds for lunch.”

“I remember.”

“I used to go to that café in Bookends. They made a great panini sandwich. I’d get one and a glass of homemade iced tea or a coffee. I’d sit at this corner table and read a book.” A small smile came to her face. “It was bliss.”