The House Guest: A Novel

FRIDAY

ONE

Alyssa swirled the icy olives in her martini, thinking about division. She stared through her chilled glass to the mirrored shelves of multicolored bottles in front of her at the hotel bar. Division, as in divorce.

Not only the physical division, hers from Bill, but what would happen after the lawyers finished. They’d already created a ledger of their lives together, then started the Macallens’ financial division. Which would be followed by the devastating subtraction.

Bill had subtracted her from his life, that was easy math. With a lift of his chin and a slam of the front door and a squeal of Mercedes tires. She’d asked him why he was leaving her, begged to know, yearned to understand. But Bill Macallen always got what he wanted, no explanation offered or obligatory. She had done nothing wrong. Zero. That’s what baffled her. Terrified her.

She jiggled the fragments of disappearing ice. Division. The Weston house. The Osterville cottage. The jewelry. Her jewelry. The first editions. The important paintings. Club membership. The silver. Money. The lawyers, human calculators who cared nothing about her, would discuss and divide, and then Bill would win. Bill always won.

All she’d done for the past eight years was addition. She’d added to their lives, added to their social sphere, organizing and planning as Bill’s wife, fulfilling her job to make him comfortable and enviable and the image of benevolent success. She’d more than accepted it, she’d embraced it, and all that came with it. And then, this.

I need a break, he’d told her that day. She pictured that moment now, a month ago, could almost smell him, a seductive mixture of leathery orange-green aftershave and his personal power. Bill talking down to her, literally and figuratively, wearing one of his pale blue shirts, expensive yellow tie loose and careless, khaki pants and loafers. A break! As if his life with her was a video he could casually put on pause while he did more important things. What things?

The music from the speakers in each corner of the Vermilion Hotel’s earnestly chic dark-paneled bar floated down over her, some unrecognizable tune, all piano and promises, muffling conversations and filling the silences. A couple sat at one end of the bar, knee to knee. On vacation, on business, clandestine. Impossible to tell.

At the other end, a sport-coated man, tie askew, used one finger to fish the maraschino cherry out of his brown drink, popped it into his mouth, and licked his fingers before he went back to scrolling the phone in front of him. Alyssa was in the middle. Alone. She drew in a deep breath, all peaty scotch and lemons and strangers and elusive perfume. Alone.

Alyssa felt her shoulders sag, assessing the other parts of her life grouped on Bill’s side of the ledger. She understood, she did, it was difficult when a couple split. Social allegiances were tested. Loyalties strained. She jabbed at the closest green olive with the little plastic stick. But Bill had taken the friends. Every single one of them.

And now—at the Club, at the gym, at the mall—Alyssa got only pitying glances. Fingertip-hidden whispers. As if they, in their hothouse world of affluence and connection, understood something she didn’t.

When she and Bill first met, that night at the charity event, they both had big plans. Now only he had them. When she wasn’t Bill’s wife anymore, who was she? And did she have the power to change that?

Her phone lay on the zinc bar, its glowing screen taunting her with the proof. No matter how many times she looked at it, her calendar messaged her new reality.

You have no events. No. Events. Only blank days, one after the other, calendared out in front of her. She scrolled back through her past, the listings grayed out now, ghosts of occasions. Charity balls, gala dinners, speeches by successful entrepreneurs, and a fundraiser where they’d auctioned off A Day with Bill Macallen. That went for thousands. Everybody loved Bill, and somehow, calculating again, Alyssa was the plus-one. Now, in the excruciating math of marriage—addition, division—she was the minus.

Nothing had changed for him. Bill was always jetting off, to New York, or Chicago, or someplace exotic. She reached into the shoulder bag hanging from the curved back of her barstool, slid her hand into a side pocket, and pulled out a postcard showing palm trees, like they used to see in St. Barts. Bill, she knew it was Bill, had sent the unsigned postcards, pictures of tropical flowers and cobalt skies, simply to provide his own manipulative entertainment. Here’s where you aren’t. He was taunting her, distant and nasty and gloating. Here’s where you will never be again.

Here in Weston, where she was, she had slush. Spring in Massachusetts. Her husband, fifteen years older, was off having fun. That didn’t seem fair.

She imagined Bill walking in and seeing her, alone on a Saturday night, on this well-worn stool at a suburban hotel bar. Her brown roots showing. Manicure failing. And courtesy of the doomed-to-divorce diet, gone almost scrawny at five pounds thinner. If Bill had caught her here—which he wouldn’t, she’d picked this place because it was out of their orbit—he’d have sneered that dismissive sneer at her vodka with three, now two, olives. Alyssa Westland Macallen, almost-divorced at thirty-five.

May I get you another? The bartender, high cheekbones and multi-pierced ear, paused in front of her, wiping out a champagne flute with a blue striped towel.

She looked at her watch, pretending. Oh no, she said. How did it get to be so late? Everyone will be expecting me.

Ah. The bartender held up the flute to the row of tiny lights twinkling above them. Of course. If you’re sure? Alyssa watched as he checked the glass for spots, then, turning away from her, slid it into place on a thin wooden rack.

Bill. William Drew Macallen. Where are you? And with who? There could be no other reason but that he was prowling for wife number two.

She stared at the pale place on her finger where, for eight years, three months, and twenty-seven days, her wedding ring had been. A piece of jewelry the universe prescribes to indicate one is married, and happy, and off-limits. There was no piece of jewelry denoting sorrow, or confusion, or disequilibrium. Or fear. Now her once-welcoming home was empty; and when the nights got dark and long, it terrified her. She knew Bill was lurking. Watching. Waiting. Bill was present in every shadow. Every noise. She hated being alone in that house. Hated it.

She’d rather be in a random bar alone than be by herself in that house. Maybe she’d simply drive around. Forever.

Just the check, she said to the bartender.

But it’s early.

The voice beside her—inquiring, hesitant—startled her. She hadn’t noticed anyone walking up behind her, and Alyssa was not here to find companionship or conversation. In fact, the last thing she wanted was to talk to anyone. What would she even say? Even the simplest of questions—How are you?—could send her to tears.

The newcomer’s fingernails were bitten and nubby, and her pilling sweater just the wrong shade of blue and uneven across the shoulders. She slung a raveled canvas tote bag over the back of her stool. Her curly-wild hairstyle had been an unfortunate decision, as was her hair’s artificially not-quite-auburn color.

But that was … unfairly judgmental. And the world wasn’t all about Alyssa Westland Macallen. It felt like it right now, but this woman was proof it wasn’t. To this newcomer, the world was about her. That was just as valid. Alyssa should at least be civil.

Early? Oh, well, maybe, but I have to get home, Alyssa said. No reason to take out her personal bitterness on a complete stranger. Tough day, she added, explaining.

Tell me about it. The woman shot her one sarcastic glance, then looked back down at the polished metal bar.

Not a chance, Alyssa thought. She poked at her last olive. The well of her loss could not be filled with chitchat. But a weight seemed almost visible on this woman’s thin shoulders. She’d made herself as small as she could, elbows close to her body, bare legs twisted around each other, one chunky heel of her scuffed black shoe hooked in the rung of her barstool.

Alyssa fingered her right-hand diamond, embarrassed at its extravagance. Her birthstone, a gift from Bill during the first April they’d known each other, and not even her seething annoyance with him would convince her to take that off. She turned her hand palm up, hiding the ring.

I’m sorry, Alyssa said. Better days will come.

Huh, the woman replied, more a huff than a word. She shrugged, one pilled blue shoulder briefly raised. Have a nice night.

She’d hardly looked up, which gave Alyssa a chance to look at the newcomer in the expanse of mirror across from them. Dancers, the skilled ones, can express themselves with simply a gesture, or a posture, becoming a dying swan or an ill-fated fairy. Poor thing, the words came to Alyssa’s mind at this woman’s body language. She swiveled her stool toward the stranger. Not an invitation, simply an acknowledgment of shared humanity. The music from the dining room behind them drifted in, silkier now, an encircling shimmer.

You okay? Alyssa had to ask.

Sure, she said. Thanks.

Alyssa recognized the sorrow in her voice. Maybe—defeat.

Get you something, miss? Even the bartender’s voice had softened.

My treat, Alyssa said, surprising herself. She hadn’t meant to say anything.

Oh, I— The woman had turned on her stool, and now looked almost grateful. Couldn’t possibly.

I insist. Alyssa felt her shoulders square, and a glimmer of empathy. Even the background music had shifted to a major key, optimistic. This was good. This was positive. This was progress. Maybe if she heard someone else’s troubles, it would diminish her own. It couldn’t make them worse.

TWO

Alyssa smiled for the first time in she didn’t know how long. Everything I start to say comes out wrong, she confessed. Like a bad movie.

The bartender had placed a square gold-bordered white napkin on the bar in front of the newcomer, and a dark globe of burgundy on top of it. He slid a tiny bowl filled with salted brown and orange bits, nuts and crispy things, next to it. Enjoy, he said.

How about—what’s your sign? The woman took a sip of wine, signaled her approval to the bartender, and angled her body toward Alyssa’s. Or your major in college?

That was a long time ago. Alyssa risked a quick assessment. Longer ago than for you, I guess. How about—new in town? What brings you here? We can try all the classics.

I’m thirty-two. New in town, that’s an easy one. Yes. What brings me? That’s more complicated.

And then silence. The couple down the bar had ordered onion rings, and the salty, pungent fragrance wafted close to them. Black leather booths along the back wall were filling, Alyssa saw in the bar mirror. The gathering layers of conversation wove a murmuring soundtrack.

Complicated? Alyssa had only meant to share a quick drink, and leave the woman to her own life and concerns. But now it seemed only polite to chat with her. For a few minutes, at least. This woman’s hair reminded her of her high school friend Kiereen, who’d walked out of sophomore French class one day and never returned. Madame Lemaire had explained to them, in French, some story about a sudden illness. We were friends, Alyssa remembered sobbing to her mother. She didn’t tell me anything.

Friends, her mother had sneered, stabbing out the charred end of a cigarette. There are true friends, and false friends. Kiereen’s family is rich, and they are not like us. Alyssa, who’d confided in Kiereen, and trusted her, hadn’t understood that back then. Now she did. She also understood feigned sincerity, and the adjustable life span of friendship. Friendship based on expediency, necessity, opportunity. Money. The friends Bill brought to the marriage had left it along with him. Or he had taken them.

This woman’s eyes seemed unhappy, like Kiereen’s once had, and she now stared into her burgundy as if she were seeing something Alyssa couldn’t.

I didn’t mean to guilt you into talking to me. The woman’s voice held no accent, no history. When you said you were leaving, and I said it’s early—it was simply an observation. She lifted her full wineglass. I’m fine. And you’re very generous. But I’m fine.

You keep saying that, Alyssa said. "My mother used to say that. I’m fine. It meant—leave me alone."

Oh, and now I’ve offended you. The woman’s eyes welled, and she faced Alyssa full on. I didn’t mean it that way, I was just—letting you off the hook. I’m Bree.

"I’m not on the hook—Bree?"

Embry, she said. Bree. Lorrance.

Alyssa— She paused, martini glass raised, wondering if this was the opportunity to go back to her birth name. She could be Westland, starting now. It wasn’t like this encounter was going to be any longer than the length of a martini. It was after ten, pushing ten thirty, and Alyssa was eager to be done with this day. Westland. Alyssa Westland.

Nice to meet you. Bree clinked the edge of her glass, the red liquid sloshing, then finding its balance.

Three tones chimed from inside Bree’s canvas tote bag. Bree startled, flinched, and a splash of burgundy spattered the white napkin.

Oh, I am so—did any get on you? That beautiful white shirt?

Three more chimes. Bree pulled a black cell phone from her bag, peered at the screen.

No, not at all. Look. Not a drop. Alyssa waved off her concern. You need to answer that?

The woman’s face darkened. She closed her eyes a fraction of a beat, then opened them.

I should turn it off, I know that, Bree said. I just worry it’s—it doesn’t matter. But it’s never anything, it’s always— She grimaced as the phone rang again, and scratched her forehead with what was left of her fingernails. A red welt appeared above her left eye.

The phone went silent. The silence seemed louder than the rings.

Finally. Bree jammed the phone back into her bag.

The onion ring couple, arms draped across each other’s shoulders, walked behind them, laughing. Alyssa watched their progress in the mirror, saw the woman wobble in her heels, saw the man catch her, steady her, and pull her closer. Saw the woman kiss his cheek.

Why don’t you refuse the call? Alyssa asked. "When you see it’s a person you don’t want to talk to? Sorry, and I’m being pushy, but I mean, hit the button that says not now, or whatever it says?"

Because then he knows I know he’s called, Bree said. "And I’ve responded. And that means he knows I have my phone, and I’m looking at it, and he’s making me react. I refuse to engage. I refuse to—"

Looking at Bree’s face hardening, and seeing Bree’s hands curl into fists, Alyssa wondered if anyone in the world was happy. Besides Bill, of course. Any women, maybe, a better question. Which she knew was her own bitterness, not reality. Alyssa had once been happy, and needed to remember everything in life was ephemeral. Even the bad things.

Men. Alyssa offered a one-word indictment.

So true.

The bartender approached, his towel now tucked into the strings of a striped apron. Pointed to Bree, then Alyssa, inquiring.

Alyssa put her hand on top of her empty glass. Driving.

Sure, Bree said. I’ll put it on my room.

Oh, Alyssa regrouped as the bartender turned away. Edited her speculative biography of this woman. You’re staying here?

’Til the money runs out. Which might be soon. Bree puffed out a breath. Or until…

Alyssa waited. The woman was not finishing most of her sentences, as if she’d run out of steam or intent, or words of explanation.

Until? Alyssa finally prodded her, curious. She couldn’t figure this woman out, a thirtysomething from out of town. Staying in a hotel. Unhappy, it seemed, and wanting to talk but not wanting to. Alyssa’s one year at New England Law—which she’d loved until she loved Bill more—had taught her that every story had a secret, and every storyteller had a motive. Maybe this woman had left her—husband? Boyfriend? She’d seemed to agree with Alyssa’s indictment of men.

Or until what? Alyssa asked again.

Bree picked up her glass, swirled the last of the deep red wine.

Or until he finds me, she said.

THREE

Alyssa fished her house keys out of her jacket pocket as she climbed the three brick steps to her red-lacquered front door. The forsythia flanking the flagstone front walk had gone from bare branches to flowering yellow almost overnight, and blooming crocuses made a ribbon of white along each edge, some blossoming brighter in the sudden glow of the motion-activated security lighting. The front steps, cleanly swept caramel-colored brick, were as pristine as when she had left them. One forsythia flower, the one she had carefully positioned on the center of the second step, was still there, as perfectly formed as when she had placed it. No one had stepped on it.

Sometimes, when the lights came on, she imagined that Bill had actually flipped the switch, welcoming her home. She imagined his eyes lighting up, too, when he saw her. Sometimes the loving memories of Bill emerged unbidden, the good Bill, and they threatened to engulf her. She would tamp them down, stomp them, destroy them. She could not allow that. Those days were gone.

She thought about the woman in the bar. Bree. Whatever else Alyssa had to complain about, it was nothing compared to what Bree Lorrance had described. Hounding bill collectors, a harassing boss at some bank, and an abusive boyfriend who used the phone as a weapon.

Her key turned in the front door, and she clicked it open, the lights now on and the alarm clamoring. She tapped in the code. She’d changed it, in case Bill tried to sneak in. It had been his idea, the separation, so now he had to live with it.

He’d signed a legal agreement promising he’d only come to the house if he called in advance. Promises. As if Bill knew the meaning of that word. As if he cared about a piece of paper. As if he cared about an alarm. And in reality, it was still, technically, his house.

She felt the silence surround her. Sixty-five hundred square feet, Bill had proudly told her. And anyone else who would listen. Which was everyone, of course, he was Bill Macallen. They even laughed when he said size matters, as if that stupid joke was funny to anyone but a fourteen-year-old.

Those little things, things she had forgiven him when they were happy, seemed teeth-grittingly annoying now, pompous and even embarrassing. She’d never corrected him, though. She’d seen what happened when someone crossed her husband, a thing that once impressed her and now repulsed her. That was power. Only impressive when it was on your side.

Sixty-five hundred square feet. The living room, the movie room, the extra party room, and what Bill called the reception room, where long tables covered in white damask often served as bars or dinner buffets or arrays of fountains gushing dark chocolate with chefs creating dessert crêpes to order, stuffed with fresh raspberry or lemon curd or brandied peaches.

Bill’s office-study, all muted rainbows of immaculately shelved books, with mahogany-paneled walls and elaborate furniture. Bill thought it showed strength. Alyssa thought it showed arrogance. Her glorious kitchen, restaurant-worthy and shiny with stainless steel, then the screened-in porch and redwood deck and, upstairs, an array of bedrooms and bathrooms. The pool in the back, shaped like a shimmering turquoise island. Gardens, a changing cabana, and then the guest house. All that, and now it was just her, alone, in this expanse of terrifying excess.

She set her bag on the slim hall table, an act of defiance. Bill never liked her to put it there. Said it ruined the ambience of the entryway.

It was always Bill’s house, though he told her he’d bought it for her. For them. But, she thought now, more accurately, it was for Bill and his possessions. As it had turned out, she was one of those possessions.

The ambience of the entryway. Bill words. So many things in the house were described by Bill words, including herself. She’d been Alice until the night they’d met—but he’d whispered she was more like an Alyssa, and persisted, even teasingly, intimately, introducing her as Alyssa, and soon she’d felt like Alyssa, too; glamorous, beloved, to the manner born Alyssa. And eventually she’d embraced her Bill words: her names, first and last. No longer Alice Westland. But Bill’s possession, Alyssa Macallen.

She’d loved it, once, as she’d loved him. Until the division. Or again more accurately, the subtraction. Her mother had warned her, back in the days before she died. They’d been leaving her mother’s sad little real estate office, where Alyssa had secretaried until she escaped to law school. Be careful, Mama had said as she’d clutched her daughter’s arm. Alyssa could hear it now, an evil queen’s menacing admonition. If he leaves you, you’ll be back to having nothing.

Now, the crystal chandelier glittered twinkles of light across the pale yellow walls, deckling the curved cut-glass vase of white tulips, the jewel tones of the patterned fringed rug on the black-and-white tiled floor. Alyssa remembered the first time she’d seen this place, when Bill brought her here. Eight years, three months, and twenty-seven days ago. Twenty-eight now.

The 1894 Victorian had been spotless. Empty. Do what you want, Lissie, he had told her. Sky’s the limit.

But then he’d told her what he wanted, and she’d done that. Antique rugs, elaborate bookshelves, heirloom mirror over the Florentine side table. She’d loved it because Bill loved it. And now she was here. Alone. And love had nothing to do with it anymore.

She felt as if there were a line being drawn through everything in the house. Half a chandelier, half a leather couch, half a Travertine marble fireplace. She imagined the lawyers going into the wine cellar, dividing the reds, and then opening the wine fridge, dividing the whites. She felt herself being cut in half, too, into before and after. She’d gotten used to the ease of this life, the access and the privilege. A month ago, the day he’d walked out, she’d decided to embrace it for as long as she had it, then make do. The way she always had.

The entryway alarm pad, hidden by the vase of tulips, now glowed green, signaling all was safe. But there was never a moment when Alyssa believed it. Nothing was safe. Nothing was safe from Bill.

She counted the flowers. Still twelve. She squinted at the marble table, flecked with gold and black and brown. Two of the flecks were dots of black eyebrow pencil she had carefully placed to mark the position of the vase. If someone deactivated the alarm, and was not careful, they would move the vase.

Tonight, the vase had been moved. No question. The curved right edge of the crystal now covered one dot, and that was not how she had left it. Had she moved it herself, forgetting, when she silenced the alarm?

Possibly. Possibly. Maybe she’d been distracted, thinking about that woman in the bar. And spaced on—had she?—the second thing she always checked when she came home. First, the flower on the steps. Then the vase. Then the third thing.

It was silly marking the vase, she knew it, but two weeks ago, when she came home from shopping—one of the few activities she could do alone without anyone noticing, or remarking on her situation—she knew someone had been sitting in Bill’s chair in his office.

She’d stared at the worn leather cushions, certain that the impressions in the seat had not been there when she left. And there were smudges, two of them, on the glass protecting the wooden desktop. As if someone had put their hands on it.

It wasn’t Thursday, so Tammy would not have been there cleaning. No one should have been there.

She’d put a hand on the seat back, wondering if it was warm. But felt only the smoothness of the leather. Only Bill would have sat here. She opened the top desk drawer, remembering Bill had left it unlocked after he cleaned it out. Now there were two black pencils and a twisted metal paper clip. Had he left them? At the time, she’d been crying too hard to notice. She closed the drawer, and it was so quiet she could hear the pencils roll to the back. Had Bill been here?

Would that be a bad thing? She’d tapped her fingers against her lips, staring at the leather chair. Almost envisioning him in it, hair mussed, shirtsleeves rolled up, that elaborate watch on his tanned arm. Owning it.

That’s when she’d set up her secret Bill-alarm system. To test him. To see if he’d broken their legal agreement.

The third test was the secret compartment.

About a week after they’d moved in, on her birthday, they’d still been organizing the house, arranging Bill’s collection of first editions—his precious books, which he would not let anyone else touch—and hanging paintings, with Bill directing the museum-trained installer. After the man packed up his collection of special hammers and measuring tapes and driven down the driveway, Bill had said he had a surprise for her. Back when surprises were good things.

She remembered her heart had fluttered at his touch.

He’d held one of her hands, pressed his other against the small of her back, and guided her up the staircase. Their photos hadn’t been arranged on the walls yet, so the deep cranberry high-gloss stairway paint was pristine, untouched, so shiny it almost reflected their movements, a couple illuminated by their own electricity.

He’d opened the door to the bedroom, the door creasing a half-moon in the thick pile of the new-smelling dove-gray carpeting, and she’d pulled back, teasing. That kind of surprise? She fluttered her lashes at him. At least let me take a shower after all that heavy lifting.

You only lifted your iced tea, he’d teased back.

She pouted, then flirted again; her heart had been so full then, so buoyant. What if you come into the shower with me? Will that make it all better?

I’ll show you what will make it better, he’d said. Come with me.

"Bill!" She’d pretend-protested.

But instead of the bed, he’d led her to the closet. He’d pulled open one white louvered door, and pushed aside some zippered black canvas clothing bags they had not yet opened.

In the closet? she asked. There had been stranger places, she remembered. A private room in the Boston Public Library during the Literary Lights gala, in the ladies’ room of the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, and once in the back of a black catering truck parked outside the governor’s house in Swampscott. Her hair had smelled like soy sauce afterward. The salty brown fragrance and the taut possibility of discovery had been washed away by a late-night swim in their own backyard pool, naked in the