Chapter 8 - What Mark Found On The Dresser
I wasn't in the apartment on the Upper West Side that night, but Mark told me later exactly how it happened, and I've turned it over in my head enough times that I can see it clearly. He came home ahead of Vanessa. He told me he sat in the living room with the lights off for a while, just listening to the traffic on West End Avenue.
That was the first scene he described. He'd left the restaurant before we did. He said he didn't take his jacket off when he got home. He sat on the edge of their sofa with his hands clasped the same way he'd held them at the table, and he stared at the hallway. Vanessa's white blazer was already draped over the back of a chair when she came in. She didn't explain where she'd been after she left the dining room. She just said she needed a shower.
The second thing that happened was quiet. Mark told me he heard the water start. Their bedroom door was open a few inches. Her white structured handbag was on the dresser, right where she'd dropped it. He said he hadn't planned to touch it. He'd walked past it to hang up his coat, and the top handles had shifted and the bag had tipped. He caught it before it fell. That's when he felt how heavy it was for its size, and how the bottom didn't give the way a normal handbag should.
He said he stood there for a long minute with the shower running. He could see steam starting to fog the bathroom mirror through the crack in the door. Vanessa was humming, like nothing had happened at the restaurant. He told me his hands were sweating. He unzipped the main compartment first. Lipstick, a compact, a thin wallet. Nothing unusual. Then his fingers found the inner zip pocket along the back wall, the one that was sewn flat and hidden under the lining. He said the zipper caught for a second.
Inside that pocket was the second phone.
It was a small black phone, not an iPhone, with a plastic case. He said it was warm from being against her things all night. The screen was locked, but the notifications were turned on. He didn't need a code to see the previews. He told me he sat down on the edge of the bed to look at it, with his back to the bathroom door so he could hear if the water changed.
There were two threads at the top. The first was saved under just an initial, E. The preview said, "Are we still on for Thursday? Same hotel. Delete this." The second was saved as "J." The preview said, "She almost saw my call log. I need you to cover." Mark told me he stared at those two lines until his vision blurred. He swiped down and saw more. Short messages, times late at night. One from E that said, "Don't text my regular number again." One to E that Vanessa had sent last week, "He works late. We have time." He said he knew then it wasn't a rumor or a misunderstanding. He'd thought maybe I was some server with a grudge who had overheard something. Now he realized I had been trying to tell him exactly what his wife was hiding.
He didn't open the full conversations. He said he was afraid the phone would log that they'd been read, or that Vanessa would come out and see him holding it. The water was still running. He had maybe three minutes. He took a photo of the lock screen with his own phone, just the previews, then he put the black phone back exactly how he found it, zipper closed, handbag upright on the dresser, handles arranged the way she'd left them. He told me his heart was pounding so loud he was sure she would hear it over the shower.
The last thing he did that night was the part that finally reached me. After Vanessa came out in her robe and went to the kitchen for water, Mark went into their office and closed the door. He said he looked up the restaurant on his laptop. He called the main line. I wasn't there, but the host who answered that night remembered him from the cloche table. Mark asked for the waitress who had served them, the one with dark hair. He said he didn't want to make a complaint. He just wanted a name. The host hesitated, then said the staffing was through an agency that night. He gave Mark the agency number and a first name. Maya.
May you like
Mark wrote it down on a notepad and then tore off the sheet and folded it into his pocket. He told me he didn't confront her. He went back to the bedroom and got into bed beside Vanessa like nothing had happened. He lay awake while she fell asleep facing away from him. He said he kept the photo on his phone locked, and he didn't send it to anyone. He wanted to understand who I was before he decided what to do with what he'd seen.
He didn't know that by then Vanessa had already decided I hadn't been random at all.
