You'll Thank Me for This Page 5

  “Hey, sorry, I picked up just a second too late,” Lila said. “Everything okay?”

  That was the natural question. Lila and Grace were not likely to converse unless there was some kind of family emergency, and if Martijn was unreachable.

  “Oh yeah,” said Grace, trying to think fast. “I was just thinking maybe the boys had forgotten…”—she looked around the kitchen for an idea—“their school lunch boxes.”

  Ugh. The boys were thirteen and fifteen, and had never used lunch boxes. They smeared bread every morning with whatever they were eating that day, liverwurst or filet Americain or slapped on a slice of cheese and stuck it in a paper sack.

  “Yeah, no, I don’t know,” said Lila, confused and, thankfully, distracted. From the sound in the background it seemed as if the apartment over there was full of monkeys. “Hold on.” She went away and came back. “Sorry, the delivery company is just in the middle of bringing in Jasper’s new bed. Can I call you back?”

  “Totally unimportant,” Grace said, grateful for someone else’s chaos. “No need.”

  “Okay,” said Lila. “All right, then. See you Sunday? Tomorrow.”

  “Right.”

  Grace hung up the phone and plopped down onto the closest chair. Jesus, what was she thinking?

  It was far too late to ask Lila any questions about Martijn. She’d already committed herself to the man. Anyway, women didn’t ask other women about their histories with men, even though that probably would have been the practical thing to do. Of course, the real question wasn’t really whether she should have asked Lila all about what Martijn was like in relationships but rather if she would have listened.

  Right, time for a bath. She managed to haul herself upstairs to the bathroom, turning on the tub faucet all the way and running the water very hot. There must be some bubble bath here somewhere, she thought as she began to unbutton her blouse and kicked off her shoes. She wrestled with her pants until they fell onto the floor and she didn’t bother to pick anything up, just left the clothes in a mound on the floor, as if her body had dematerialized suddenly and her costume was all that had been left behind.

  And then she glanced up and saw herself in the mirror. The image astonished her. She looked, plainly, awful. Her hair was tousled and unkempt, and her skin was splotchy, with darker continents of melasma drifting across her cheeks, but these signs of aging and personal neglect weren’t what concerned her. It was her eyes. She had always had slightly olive-toned half-moons under her eyes, but now they were an unhealthy shade of purple and more deeply sunken. Her eyes, too, seemed somehow dimmed, ransacked of their sparkle.

  She pulled out the drawers under the sink and rifled through to find a hand mirror. Tentatively, she raised it and tried to hold it over her shoulder to make a double reflection in the larger wall mirror over the sink. There wasn’t enough light in the bathroom to see anything, so she opened the shutters wide and turned on the lights above the sink. Still, it was hard to see. She hoisted herself onto the edge of the sink to get a better look.

  Moving the hand mirror like a target, finally she found the right spot. There it was, just below her shoulder blade and above her scapula on the right side of her back. A red spot in the shape of a kidney bean, with a small bloody slice through the middle. It was, in truth, not a bad cut, but it had bled a little. She searched the bathroom drawers for cotton swabs and ran one under cold water, adding soap. She would use it after her bath.

  Thinking of how suddenly he’d become so angry that morning, Grace felt it in her bones: something was really wrong. She had to at least try to figure out what.

  Chapter 7

  Lady of the Flies

  “Oh, come on!” said Karin, exasperated by the stupidity of Dirk standing there with his giant stick. “Can’t we just get going on the trail? I’d like to get to the campsite before midnight.”

  “They’re going to have hot chocolate and sausages,” added Lotte hopefully.

  “Who is going to be the king of the forest?” said Dirk, meaning it. “We’re here, no Scout guides for the first time. Now it’s just a question of who gets there first.”

  “Um, no, it’s not,” said Karin. “This isn’t a competition. It’s a group activity.”

  Dirk laughed. “Ugh, group activity.” Margot looked at him and laughed too. “So we all walk along in the woods together and get there on time? That’s seriously boring. Can’t we make some fun out of it? Let’s split up and see who makes it there first. Margot and I will give you guys the lead, even.”

  “Duh, you think we don’t know that you’re just trying to get rid of us so you can have Margot to yourself?” Lotte said. Karin was again pretty impressed with her. It was cool that she would say those kinds of things out loud. Karin didn’t dare to.

  “There’s no rule that says we all have to go together,” Margot said.

  “Um, yes, there is,” Karin said. “That’s actually the first rule. That’s the main rule.”

  Margot crossed her arms over her chest and rolled her eyes. “Well, it’s a stupid rule.”

  “O-M-G, guys,” said Lotte. “We don’t want to be all alone in the forest; it’s getting dark out here, and there aren’t any grown-ups. The whole thing is to stay together. Let’s just keep going, okay?”

  “Okay,” said Karin. “Cool. Let’s just go.”

  Dirk leapt into the air and came down from the top of the hill, not far from where Lotte and Karin stood. “You’ll have to get through me first!” he said. “That means you’ll have to battle me.” The giant silver stick came a little too close to Karin’s face.

  “Jesus, you could’ve hit me in the head with that,” she said. “Quit fooling around.”

  Dirk’s eyes met hers, and they were not friendly. They were darkening into narrow slits. “Why do you think you’re in charge, little miss lady? Aren’t you the youngest? I’m the oldest,” he said. “I’m the fastest, the strongest. I’m also the smartest.”

  Margot giggled, maybe without meaning to. Karin and Lotte glanced at each other, Lotte rolling her eyes. This was probably not the reaction Dirk expected. “Stop being such a…a…boy,” Lotte said. “I’m getting really tired of it.”

  Without even a pause, Dirk swung the giant stick at Lotte, crying out, “Hack!” She jumped, missing the biggest part of the stick, but one of the smaller branches hit her on the side of the calf. She cried out in pain and grabbed for her leg, falling over. Then Dirk started laughing, like some kind of psychopath.

  “Dirk!” cried Karin, but he seemed not to hear.

  From the heath, Lotte stared up at Dirk, wildly.

  “You jump pretty well,” he said. “I’m impressed.”

  “What the…What is wrong with you?” said Karin. “Seriously! That is not at all funny.” For a second time, she found herself crouching down beside Lotte. This was so crazy. He was being such a shit.

  Karin could not believe it was going like this. She wished so hard that she had her phone so she could call someone and complain. Before she stood up, she decided to try to disarm him. Get that crazy stick out of his hands.

  From a crouched position she sprang up, like a frog, her hands out in front of her. She managed to knock him over, probably just because of the surprise of it, and the stick toppled backward onto the ground behind him.

  “I’ll get it,” called Margot, and for a second Karin thought she was going to join the girl team against the crazy boy. But no. A second later Margot was standing holding the butt of the giant silver branch toward Karin like a spear. “Don’t you move,” she told Karin. “Or I’ll…”

  She didn’t finish her sentence, but Karin didn’t think she had it in her to do anything. Margot was pretty athletic, but she wasn’t brave—Karin knew that much. She climbed on top of Dirk and tried to jab her elbow into his chest right in the center of his rib cage, where it might hurt. But she had misjudged Margot, who somehow got up the courage to jab the stick right into Karin’s butt. “Owww!” Karin cried out, reachi
ng back to touch the place where she’d been wounded. “Fuck! That is so crazy. What are you guys doing?”

  Dirk took the opportunity to stand up, while Karin and Lotte were still on the ground. He stood over the two of them, wiping his hands against each other. “You guys are too easy,” he said. “You barely put up a fight.” As if it was all just a big joke.

  “Why are you being like this?” Lotte almost whimpered from behind Karin. “This is so seriously wrong.”

  Dirk tried to fake a big yawn. “You guys are so boring,” he said. “Come on, Margot, let’s just go on our own. They’ll figure it out for themselves.” And just like that, they took off again, on the trail, over a mound through the purplish heath. Of course neither Karin nor Lotte wanted to follow.

  They both sat there on the ground for a few minutes, trying to figure out what had just happened. Karin thought about this book that her mom had given to her to read in English called Lord of the Flies. It had given her nightmares. It was about boys deserted on an island after a plane crash, without any adults. They have to fend for themselves, but about half of them were just nasty and caused problems, while the other half tried to get back to civilization, like by sending out smoke signals and stuff like that. But the little kids went missing in the end; the bad kids won. She couldn’t quite remember, but was one of the boys killed by the others?

  “Do you think he did that just to get alone with Margot?” Lotte asked after some silence.

  “Probably,” conceded Karin.

  “Geez, I would have told them to just go off on their own if they just asked,” said Lotte. “Who wants to be with them anyway?”

  “I know,” said Karin. “Exactly.”

  Karin looked at Lotte’s leg, which had a red mark on it where Dirk had hit her with the branch. “I wish we had some ice for that,” said Karin. “My mom would always put ice on it. Or arnica.”

  “Arnica,” said Lotte. “My mom is crazy for that stuff. She smears it on everything.” Then she thought. “Oh, I might actually have some in my bag.” Lotte scooted herself on her butt across the sand to grab her backpack, which had fallen a while ago. She rooted around and actually found the cream. “That was so weird,” Lotte added. “I really can’t believe it.”

  “I know,” agreed Karin. “Can you look at my back? Margot really stabbed me with that thing.”

  Lotte finished putting the arnica on her leg and scooted over a little bit to sit next to Karin, who leaned forward and lifted up the back of her shirt to show Lotte. “Hmm,” said Lotte. “It might sting if I put this on.”

  “Is it bad?” asked Karin.

  “I mean, not really,” said Lotte. “But we have to tell Rutger or whoever about it later. That’s really weird, what they did. Just to get away from us? What do you think they plan to do?”

  Karin just shook her head. She literally had no clue. Smoke pot? Have sex? Here, in the forest? That didn’t sound at all appealing to Karin.

  Truly, Karin could not figure out how Margot could be attracted to Dirk. She did not get the whole thing about boys, not really. At school she felt a little flutter sometimes when she passed a certain boy named Isaac, who wore round glasses. But she’d never spoken to him. She’d liked other boys when she was littler, like Jimi in her Group 8 class, who was calm and placid and beautiful, with blue eyes and angelic blond curls. But since starting secondary school this year, she had noticed that other girls were kissing boys and talking to them in a whole new way, and Karin didn’t have any idea how to begin doing all of that. She was a little afraid of the whole thing of people touching each other, under the shirt, in their pants—yuck.

  What was it with Dirk, though? Karin had kept saying how the whole idea was to work as a team, but then he’d just accused her of wanting to “take over.” It didn’t make any sense.

  The girls didn’t have to say anything about it anymore. No way were Karin and Lotte going to chase after the other two. They’d just find their own way, with their half of the map. They’d probably make it to the campsite a lot faster than the other two anyway.

  Without talking about it anymore, they both got up and brushed themselves off. Lotte pointed toward the trail that seemed to head northwest, not the one Dirk and Margot had taken, obviously. So what if they were just two twelve-year-old girls? They were both pretty smart, and not at all crazy. They were way better off on their own.

  Chapter 8

  Accounting

  Grace, now in Martijn’s terry robe, her skin still warm and doughy after a long drench, climbed the stairs and looked up at the door to his office, which was at the top of the house, in a converted attic reachable only by a ladder. It was an A-shaped space with a single window that offered a view across red-tiled rooftops, including the steeple of the church tower, with its bright blue imperial crown. It was a lovely view but one Grace had only ever seen a few times, because Martijn had claimed the room as his private office.

  She had been very respectful of the idea of his “man cave”—understanding at a basic level that he might need a space of his own—although it had made her slightly uncomfortable to think that part of their house was off-limits to her. In any case, he kept it so messy that it gave her a headache to even look inside, so she hadn’t bothered to make a fuss. He wouldn’t even allow the cleaners who came once a month to vacuum in there or to run a duster along the exposed surfaces; he liked to say that it was his “own private pigpen.” Fair enough.

  Now, though, she looked up at it with a kind of curiosity that amounted to hunger. Since he wasn’t home, she could at least enjoy the view for a few minutes, right?

  As she put one foot on the first step of the ladder, she acknowledged to herself that this was an obvious betrayal of trust. He’d explicitly asked that she not go in there. If he found out she had, he would definitely be upset. But despite his admitting it was work that was bothering him, Grace worried he’d change his mind about saying anything more. What if he came back and nothing changed?

  Anyway, he was gone for the whole night—and did he need to find out? She could be careful, make sure she didn’t really touch anything. Plus, she shouldn’t have to be afraid of her husband, right?

  So she climbed, putting one foot and then the other on the ladder, until she had to grasp the handle and push up through the trapdoor. Then she hauled herself up into the room. She was immediately hit by a stench of old food, mildew, and—could it be?—cigar smoke. Did Martijn sit up here in the evenings puffing a Cuban? Was that his big secret?

  She looked around at the drab office furnishings, the desk with its black Dell desktop computer, a metal filing cabinet from the 1970s, a bookcase with lots of dusty old volumes she was sure he hadn’t touched in years. There was a single plant underneath the window, but it was half dead already, poor thing. The only thing that was respectably new in the room was his office chair, an expensive ergonomic model he’d probably purchased with a company discount.

  Keeping her little promise to herself, she went to the window first, to catch her glimpse of the view. It was a cloudy night, so she couldn’t make out the moon or many stars. She could see the silhouettes of the canal houses, all triangles and pentagons jutting up into the sky at odd angles. Somehow it made her think of being under the water in an ocean of sailboats, seeing only their hulls. It was pretty. It was nice. But it wasn’t why she was really here, was it?

  Grace took a few steps back and let herself fall into the soft trampoline-like seat of his high-priced chair. She swiveled it back and forth a couple of times, getting a lay of the land. The desk was covered with dark gray three-ring binders stacked on top of one another, many of them bursting with papers. How could a man who was supposed to be a rationalist keep his files in such a chaotic state?

  On the spine of each one was written a name, presumably of each of his accounting clients: VELDKAMP; VISSER; VRIES, DE. These were the Vs. On the other side of the desk was a manila file labeled OPERATIONAL SUPPORT, which seemed to contain nothing but financial sprea
dsheets. Boring, she thought. Just a lot of boring numbers. This couldn’t be what was keeping him up late, what was making him so tense, what was absorbing all his energy, could it? How did he really keep himself occupied up here?

  Grace turned toward the filing cabinet, pressed the latch, and pulled out the top drawer. Did he keep his secrets here? A bottle of scotch? A pair of panties? A secret stash of porn? It was ever so slightly titillating to think, for even a moment, that he had a whole erotic life hidden away up here.

  But no, Martijn’s files, Grace found, were all that filled this cabinet, and they were meticulously orderly and alphabetized. They seemed to be labeled with the names of clients: AARDEN, AUGUSTINE, BEEK, BEYL, BROUWER, CORNELISSEN…alphabetical. Ah, here was the evidence of the rationalist she’d married.

  While thumbing through his files, she mused how strange it was that he basically never talked about his work with her, not ever. What a contrast he was to Pieter, who had so captivated her with his work stories that she’d fallen not really into his arms but into the universe of his job. Well, at least an accountant wasn’t someone who would find himself in the crosshairs of a sniper’s rifle. Boring, in this case, was safe.

  The top drawer stopped at the Gs; she closed it and opened the next, walking her fingers forward through the folder labels to HOOGENDIJK, since one always does seek out one’s self. As in Pieter Hoogendijk, since he had been a client. Or in this case, GRACE AND PIETER HOOGENDIJK.

  Grace had met Martijn for the first time at Pieter’s memorial service. He’d approached her during the reception, seemingly out of nowhere, and pressed his business card into her hand. MARTIJN VAN ROOSENDAAL, it had read. ACCOUNTING. She had looked at the black print on the plain white rectangle, and in her haze of grief had grasped only the spiritual sense of the word “accounting,” as in reckoning.

  It was in that same bewildered spirit, still lost in grief and seeking answers, that she had dialed the number on Martijn’s card a week later at 11 p.m., after hours of weeping, hoping that this mysterious man, shrouded in a very large dark-brown beard with kind green eyes, would somehow help her make sense of what had happened. It hadn’t occurred to her immediately, or in any concrete sense, that he was the actual accountant of Pieter’s personal finances.