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Setting the card aside, I quickly sort through the rest of the mail. There are a dozen more cards from her, which must be why her name stuck in my mind. They’re all unopened, and the postmarks tell me they were all sent after the first. I open them in order. The next card has a picture of a stork carrying a baby.
Josh, congratulations on your new baby! I just read the article in WHAT’S UP and you make a beautiful family. Please remember that your happiness will be short-lived because of your wife. Send a response so that I know you are getting my letters!!!!!!
The cards continue in this vein, getting more and more desperate. The final one, with a cheerful Santa on the front even though it was postmarked just three weeks ago, in April, reads:
You have broken my heart just like the others. I am cursed. God has cursed me. Everyone I love is marked for death. If I was braver I would kill myself and end this life of misery, but I’m just a tired old woman everyone hates. I pray your guardian angel protects you but I already know you’ll die like the others. I can only hope your baby survives.
Her words send goose bumps all over my body. The first letter was somewhat relatable, but in this final letter, every word tastes like poison seeping from a poisoned mind.
Maybe she did kill Josh. I already know you’ll die, she wrote. Well, she would know that, if she was going to murder him. And what the fuck does she mean about Annaleigh surviving? Does she consider me a threat to my own child? Or is she the threat? Why not try to hurt me again? Why would she hurt Josh? It doesn’t make sense.
I rise from the detritus of the mail and type her address into my phone. If Deborah is somehow an active threat to my daughter, there’s no question; I have to confront her.
The app shows a little blue line between my house and hers, at 442 E Deerhead Trail, Tenderloin, Indiana. After all this, I can be there in under fifteen minutes.
I’m not sure what I’m going to say to this woman, but I’m under no illusions I’ll be safe confronting my attacker and Josh’s possible killer.
I’m going to need a weapon.
THEN
“What’s this?” says Josh, but he’s only pretending not to know what the gigantic envelope with the key attached is all about.
He pulls out the card and reads, “‘Dear Josh and Julia, we hope you’re enjoying your stay in beautiful Jamaica! Should you choose to forgo your individual rooms, you may use this key to stay together in the SkyBeach Resort Fantasy Suite as a couple.’” He lays the letter on the table between us. “What do you think, Julia? Do you...want to?”
We flew in yesterday, and we’ve just had the best day together, starting with a surfing lesson on the crystalline beaches of Jamaica. Now we’re enjoying our last bites of dinner by the water, steps away from the SkyBeach Resort, a boutique hotel with waterside cabins.
We knew this was coming, this offer to spend tonight together off camera, but I pretend to hesitate, because I don’t want to seem overeager, to Josh or to future viewers.
“I mean...you know there’s nothing I’d love more than time alone with you,” I say. “Just to get to know each other better.”
“No expectations. We don’t have to be physical.”
“Of course not!” I say, even though that’s all I can think about. “We can just talk.”
After dessert, we keep it light as we walk toward the resort with our arms around each other, but the whole time, heat plays over my body like an electric storm, anticipating all the places Josh’s hands will finally be able to touch. Within my new paradigm of reality and choice, the phrase make love feels particularly lovely. The act of creating a feeling. The tangible act of making the intangible. The power of yes to Camila’s power of no. Launch Day Julia only had feelings to orient her, poor thing. Today Julia? She’s making her own reality.
The “cabin” we’ve been assigned is more like a mini palace. The sliding doors to the ocean-facing terrace are open, the white curtains billowing in the breeze. The lighting is low, and candles flicker on the coffee table. We explore the place hand in hand, cameras still following. I gush at everything—the beautiful view of the ocean, the huge bathroom, the soaker tub, which has been prefilled with steaming water and strewn with rose petals. Even more rose petals lie scattered across the California king–size bed.
Josh pops champagne and we toast to the night ahead. Then I set my glass on the nightstand and fling myself backward on the bed. Josh follows, crashing hard on the mattress so that I bounce up a little, laughing. His hand finds mine. Then, playfully, I prop myself up, face the cameras, and say, “Shoo!”
“Could you do one more toast, from the bed?” says the producer.
We retrieve our champagne and, reclined on our sides, face each other. Josh looks at me with intensity.
“To us, and to our night together.”
“To us,” I echo. We clink and drink. And, like a miracle, the cameras leave. Josh closes and locks the front door. I follow him, arms wrapped around my middle.
Suddenly the billowing curtains seem less romantic and more ominous, like presences intruding on us. Like anyone could be watching from behind them.
“Can we close those?” I say.
Josh obliges. The wind stills. The curtains fall limp. I can hear my own heart beating in the fresh silence, and for a second I taste fear, which surprises me.
“Hey,” says Josh, approaching me slowly as he undoes the top button of his shirt. “Is something wrong?”
No matter how far I was just telling myself I’ve come, all the old fears flood me. The fear that I don’t really know Josh. That without the rules of the game, this will all fall apart.
