EIGHTEEN

EIGHTEEN

CAMILLE LOOKS OUT THE window of her fifth-floor apartment on 1st Street, the day after Halloween. The snow is beginning to fall, and in Hemingway Grove, it usually sticks.

"Day sixty-three," she whispers.

She checks her phone for the time. Quarter after eleven. She can just barely squeeze it in. She moves the coffee table against the couch, pushes back the love seat to give herself some room.

She starts with stretching. Lunges and leg swings, cactus and eagle arms, spinal twists and bridges.

Then she walks over to the bathroom, jumps up, and grabs the pull-up bar mounted over the bathroom door. Locks her legs at forty-five degrees and bangs out twenty-five pull-ups in rapid succession. She drops to the floor for push-ups, twenty-five of them at a gunshot pace, her nose touching the carpet each time, back straight as a ruler.

She repeats the routine, spent when she's finished. Not the longest or greatest workout, but it will have to do for now.

She checks her phone again for the time.

She showers, good and hot, letting the water scald her face. She towels off and wipes a circle on the steamy mirror to look at herself.

Staring back at her is a forty-year-old woman, physically in the best shape of her life, muscles toned and taut, only six months removed from her third triathlon. Maybe a few new lines on her face, some softening of the skin beneath the eyes, but her dark hair still isn't showing gray.

She was never much for glamour, never cared much for the opinions of others. She wants to look good for herself. Wants to feel young and vibrant, not old and creaky.

Day sixty-three.

She doesn't look any different. She doesn't feel any different. Not physically at least.

This is what you get, she thinks. This is what you get when you fall in love with a married man.

She dresses and heads to the window again. Sees his car pass on 1st Street. There is a parking lot for the building, but he won't turn in. He will park at least a block away and approach the building by an indirect route. He will be bundled up, a watch cap pulled low over his forehead, his coat collar high around his neck. He will do everything he can to avoid notice, to conceal his appearance.

Hemingway Grove is a small town, after all. It's hard to stay anonymous.

Especially if you own a popular bar and restaurant. Even more so if a video of you performing a dramatic river rescue just went viral.

Fifteen minutes later, a knock at her door. She looks through the peephole. David, though inside the apartment building now, still wears his cap and jacket, the last remnants of melting snow dripping off him.

Camille removes the chain guard and opens the door.