Cellar Door

Makenna

During a storm, there’s a moment between the flash and the strike where I hold my breath. A charged, suspended moment, as oxygen pulls in like the receding tide. Pressure builds. The current in the air penetrates my atoms.

I don’t breathe.

Then, like the crash of a wave, I’m released. The roll of thunder resounds through my body as I exhale the tension from my muscles and sinew.

In the seconds before the strike, I’m only aware of the wait, the anticipation, the dread, for what comes next. It’s a relief when the lightning crashes—a confirmation that storms go unchanged.

Most people spend their lives in a sort of waiting pattern. A mantra built around the same tune: I’ll do it when it happens.

In other words, we wait to start living—really living—for when life falls into place. For that perfect thing we’ve been yearning for to land in our lap. A promotion. A significant other. Being thinner. Smarter.

I’m just as guilty. In the city of Seattle, securely nestled by water and concrete and everything trendy, I set up shop in the Lower Queen Anne district, heaving my bloated career over the hurdle of my last major failure. I got this space because I can view the Space Needle from my industrial, corrugated metal balcony. It was a beacon for resurrection.

Carpe deim.

Only I never quite seized anything but my grande mocha from the corner café across the street. Two months in my loft, and I’m still staring at the Space Needle from my glass desk, counting the seconds before the strike.

And waiting for what comes next.

File in hand, I ease out a breath with the bass roll of thunder, then flip to the first page. Jennifer Myer sits across from me in my loft apartment. She’s thirty-seven. Dyed blond. Dressed in a Chanel pantsuit. And likes to spend her husband’s millions.

Mr. Myer has recently put a cap on Mrs. Myer’s spending allowance due to “the economy,” and it’s made her suspicious. Especially since Mr. Myer hasn’t stopped spending money. Receipts she discovered for hotel rooms, nightclubs, risky lingerie boutiques, and other various, skeptical activity.

She wants to hire me to eke out Mr. Myer’s cheating ways, so she can file for divorce.

I sip my mocha and set the file on the desk. “I’m not cheap,” I say to Jennifer.

She lifts her chin, collagen-filled lips pursed in firm resolve. “I have my own bank account,” she assures.

Good to know. I jot down a note on the back of her background check. I always do a surface check on anyone who wants to retain my services. That’s a given. But Jennifer is special. I already know she has no priors, other than a handful of parking tickets. She hails from the California coast, where she dropped out of college to marry Milton Myer and raise their son.

Now that she’s no spring chick anymore (her words; not mine), she fears being traded in for a newer model, like the Bentley convertible her husband just upgraded to. She wants to strike first.

I lean back in my comfy swivel chair, interlace my fingers over my stomach. “I’ll need a list of your husband’s automobiles, along with a sure time he’ll be away from home for at least two hours.”

Her sharply groomed eyebrows draw together. “Why?”

“I need to install GPS trackers on his cars.” And search the residence.

Most men aren’t as secretive—or stealthy—as their women counterparts. You’d be amazed at what one can discover right out in the open. Credit card receipts left in pockets. Hotel registrations. Lingerie purchased for a mistress. I’m not even joking. I once found a silk nighty in the closet of one client—the nighty three sizes two small for said client.

“Fine,” Jennifer says. “Of course.” She uses her own pen to make a list of cars, then glances up as she slides the notepad across the glass desktop. Her watery blue gaze flicks to my ponytail. Messy brown, natural strands escape the band. I can feel her disapproval.

“Thank you.” I slip the list into her file, noticing first the four cars listed. Nice.

Even if nothing pans out, this will still be a worthwhile job.

Jennifer flips her silky blond hair off her shoulder. She flips her hair with purpose, in a way that states every woman she’s ever

met must be envious of her.

And truthfully, I am.

I envy her very simple, uneventful life—a life where her biggest worry is fine lines cropping up around her eyes, so she tries not to smile as much.

Maybe I’m being too judgmental but, according to her background check, I can’t believe Jennifer Myer has suffered any real pain, the unbearable kind, where it hurts to breathe, to move, to live. Come on, her marriage is a farce.