Page 79 of Dear Debbie

“Sure, whatever is fine.”

I unscrew the bottle of dressing and release a few dollops of it onto the salad. They land wetly. “There is one thing about my boyfriend that isn’t entirely ideal.”

“Oh?”

I take a deep breath, watching her expression. “He’s…he’s married.”

“Oh.” She puts her hand on her chest. “Separated?”

“No, he’s still with his wife.”

“Oh!” she says again, this time with a hint of judgment in her voice. “Well, that’s not good.”

“But it’s barely a marriage.” I still have my eyes on her face, watching for signs of recognition. “They don’t even sleep together anymore. They barely talk.” Sound familiar, Debbie? “He says he would have left her years ago, but she’s, you know, emotionally fragile.”

If Debbie recognizes that I’m talking about her marriage, she doesn’t show it.

“He could be lying,” she says diplomatically.

“I don’t think he is.”

“Men lie.” She drums her fingernails on the kitchen counter. “Men do terrible things.”

There’s an ominous look in her eyes, and for a moment, I think maybe she does know. Maybe she knows everything, and maybe she’s known for a long time.

Slowly, I move the knife I was using to chop the salad out of the way. I swallow a lump in my throat and attempt to smile, but my lips feel rubbery. Maybe this whole thing was a mistake. Maybe confronting Debra Mullen with her cheating husband was not such a great idea.

But then the doorbell rings, and it’s too late to turn back.

“That must be him,” I say in what sounds like an abnormally high-pitched voice.

I push past Debbie, walking in the direction of the front door. She follows at my heels, and as my heart speeds up, all my reservations vanish. This is it. This is what I’ve been waiting for. One way or another, we are going to rip off this Band-Aid.

When I pull open the door, Cooper is standing there in the doorway. He’s wearing a dress shirt from work that day, although he has sweat dotting the collar slightly, which makes me think he came directly from the gym. But that’s okay—I love him all hot and sweaty.

“Hi, Cooper,” I say in a husky voice that makes it clear what our relationship is.

He starts to reply, but then his gaze moves past me, over my shoulder, and falls on Debbie. All the blood drains from his face, and he takes a step back.

“What are you doing here?” he gasps.

A smile touches Debbie’s lips, although she still has that dark look in her eyes that sends a chill down my spine.

“Hello, Jesse,” she says.

65

COOPER

I’ve got to find Debbie.

I have run out of ideas to find her, and I’ve been blowing up her phone with text messages and voicemails for hours now. So I’m driving to the final place I can think of to look.

Except I don’t actually know where I’m going. There was one address on the list of places Debbie had been in the last week that wasn’t familiar to me. It’s an address in Rockland. I don’t know anybody who lives in Rockland. I have no idea what this place is, but it’s the only clue I have left.

So I’m going.

The sun has dropped precipitously in the sky, and the streets are growing dark. I’m following the GPS as the roads curve and turn. And as I follow the directions from my phone, I think about what I’m going to say to Debbie if and when I find her.