Here She Lies

things were hard enough between us, so I kept it to myself.”
    He was right; I didn’t believe him. “If you make that kind of accusation, Bobby, you better be able to back it up. Because it is way way way out of line. You’re talking about Julie, my twin sister—”
    “I realize that, Annie. She’s like a part of you.”
    “No. She is part of me. We are one person. What you’re saying cannot possibly be true.”
    He tried to take my hand, but I pulled it away. No. Our voices had risen again and now everyone in the cafe seemed to be watching us, but I didn’t care and evidently neither did Bobby. His tone was firm as he persisted in trying to convince me of something I found unbelievable.
    “It was last Thanksgiving,” he said. “When you were pregnant. She wasn’t subtle about it.”
    “I don’t believe you.”
    “It’s true.”
    “I hate you.”
    “It’s still true. Think about it, Annie.”
    But thinking was impossible. I was engulfed by blustery hot feeling that told me Julie would never seduce my husband and that if she had (which she wouldn’t!) I would have known about it. Somehow I would have sensed it.
    “It’s a lie,” I said.
    “I think she sent the e-mails. I’ve thought so allalong. I mean, she’s seen me in a bathing suit; she knows what I look like enough to fake these descriptions.”
    “Then why didn’t you say something to me?”
    “For this very reason. Because of this — your reaction. I was afraid of exactly what’s happening right now. I mean, my God, if I criticize her hairstyle you take it personally.”
    Even as he spoke, even as I hated him for what he was saying, I knew he was right about the predictability of my reactions when it came to Julie. Bobby had never been allowed to critique so much as a hair on her head; I had made that perfectly clear from the beginning.
    “And when you confronted her over the weekend?” I could see them sitting together beneath the weeping willow, the look on his face caught by my camera: vexation. “She denied it, didn’t she?”
    “Of course she did,” he said.
    “Then why did you bother asking her?”
    “I don’t know. I guess I was hoping she’d admit it and tell you and we could put an end to all of this. I wanted you to come home with me.”
    “So you thought if Julie came to me and said, ‘Oh, don’t worry. I sent those e-mails,’ I would have just said, ‘Oh, okay, that solves that,’ and then I would have just packed in all my plans and gone back to Lexington? You actually thought it would be that simple?”
    He didn’t answer.
    “And you honestly think Julie made all those charges to our accounts and took out all those new credit cards and bought a car on our dime? You reallybelieve that? Julie, who earns more money in one year than either of us will ever see in a lifetime?”
    “Yes,” he said.
    “Well, I don’t believe it.”
    “But it could be true.”
    “Then prove it.”
    “We’ll have your earrings appraised and then—”
    “No way, Bobby!”
    “What could you lose by getting them appraised? It’s cold, hard information.”
    “Cold and hard. That’s right.” I stood up. “I’m going to get my stuff and I’m heading back to Great Barrington.”
    “Annie, you have a bond that says you can’t leave the state.”
    “Well, I am leaving the state. I’m going back to see my daughter.”
    I grabbed my purse and stalked out of the cafe with all those introverted eyes watching me. Well, now they really had something to write about! Outside, I hailed a cab and told the driver to take me to Fifty-sixth Street. All the way back to the studio, I fumed. What had I been thinking? How had I imagined it would be so simple for me and Bobby to get back together? And why would I want to? The suggestion that Julie could have had anything to do with the nightmare that had swallowed me today — had been swallowing me, it turned out, for two months — was outrageous, insulting, ludicrous, unbelievable, so off the wall that I didn’t think I could ever talk to Bobby again. I stormed around the studio, packing, then went downstairs to walk the two blocks to the garage where I had stowedJulie’s car ( an Audi, I wanted to tell Bobby, that she bought with her own money ).
    It was dark out and chilly. The city was eerily quiet at almost five in the morning. My heart raced when a taxi revved around the corner. I felt safer when I passed an all-night deli in which the counterman was deep in