Tim Meyer - The Switch House

Her eyes expanded. “You mean that?”

“Yes, I do.”

“What happened to ‘Red River is the only place I know’ mumbo-jumbo?”

Terry shook his head adamantly. “Don’t worry about that. I was being selfish. I want you to be happy. We can move anywhere you want. I’ll even go to Pennsylvania so we can be near your folks, if that’s what you want.”

She considered this with a smile. “Well, not too close.”

“I love you, Angela Shepard.”

“I love you, too, Terry Shepard.”

He got to his feet and kissed her on the lips, the sensual touch lasting for a long time, much longer than she expected.

They gathered on the couch with a bucket of popcorn and two glass bottles of Coca-Cola. The season premiere of Let’s Switch Houses! was a commercial or two away from starting. Barry had called them an hour earlier, asking if they were excited or nervous and how they planned to celebrate once the show had aired. He had returned to being the Barry he’d been before they had started filming, amiable and kind, not the monster he had become on set. She told him “pretty excited”, though that wasn’t the truth, or close to it. Nervous didn’t even cover it. No, Angela feared seeing herself on the small screen. No one would consider her overweight, but the old adage “the cameras add ten pounds” crept up on her like a ninja ten minutes before show time and she immediately started checking her stomach for evidence of chub rolls, the backs of her arms for hanging flab. She found none, but the old expression continued to repeat itself inside her head regardless. Not only was she scared of looking plump, but she also wondered how Barry and the post-production team would depict her. She had given them all aspects of her role as Terry’s other half—the somber wife who tried to keep her husband happy, the sad wife who held onto past mistakes, and the angry wife who sometimes took her frustrations out on her husband—they were all there, all caught on film for the world to see. It was up to the editors which one they wanted to portray, which “Angela” they thought prospective audiences would relate to best.

She suddenly had a very bad feeling about this.

“You okay?” Terry asked, shoveling a fistful of popcorn in his mouth.

“Yeah, just a little nervous.”

“We’re about to be stars.”

“That’s what I’m kinda nervous about.” She lied. She didn’t think the show would launch her into celebrity stardom like other reality television stars. She wasn’t aspiring to be a real housewife or a castaway survivor or reach The Bachelorette status. She was going to be Angela, the woman who’d taken her slice of the American Dream and ruined it with one simple mistake, one terrible moment.

They’re not going to pity you, she thought. They’re going to hate you.

She had already achieved local celebrity status because of what had happened, in fact, “the tragedy” had trended on Facebook for almost twenty-four hours when the news initially broke. So in a way, the public already knew her. About her. And, from what she’d been told, pitied her. Was rooting for her to come out of this on top. Maybe that was why Barry and the other producers had selected her. Because she needed this. She needed a victory.

No, she thought. I deserve one.

(Ma-me)

Or maybe they had chosen her because they had seen dollar signs when they closed their eyes and pictured her face. No one really knew what happened that day, no one but Angela

(Ma-me)

so maybe Barry thought having her on the show would reveal some important clue, something the police had missed, something the lead detectives had never pieced together. Maybe the whole purpose of the show was to catch her.

But there was nothing to catch. She knew that. She also knew they needed the money so they could afford to get out of this godforsaken place and never look back. The salary from the show wouldn’t provide that kind of freedom on its own but it was a good start.

“And now for our feature presentation,” said the off-screen host.

Terry nudged his wife. “Here we go, babe.” He watched the flatscreen with childlike enthusiasm, something Angela couldn’t even pretend to match.

The show opened with, “Hi, I’m Angela.”

“And I’m Terry.”

In unison: “And we live here!”

[Angela and Terry point to their house in the background]

“Oh, God,” Angela said, covering her eyes. “This is so corny.”

“Relax,” Terry told her, rubbing her knee affectionately. “You won’t enjoy it if you’re criticizing the whole time.”

“How can I not?” She almost found her smile. Almost.

[Cuts to a woman, mid-sixties. “I’m Rosalyn Jeffries and I live here.” The woman speaks with little emotion, like the words are being forcefully drawn from her by outside influences. Her accent suggests she’s European, from where we can’t quite put our finger on. She points at the house where Angela and Terry had spent the last two months, a small ranch on a block all by itself, back facing a lush Vermont forest. It’s mid-April and there are leftover patches of snow on the ground.

The scene quick-cuts to the house’s interior. We see the woman sitting on her couch. Like us, this is the first time Angela has seen her. She has short curly hair. Earrings dangle from low-hanging lobes, the jewelry reaching her shoulders. She’s wearing a black and turquoise shawl, making her appear like one of those phony palm readers offering five-dollar sessions at the local flea market. “I lost my husband six months ago, and…” she goes on and tells us how Carl was her best friend, her soulmate, and how empty life has become since his passing.]

“Hm,” Terry said. “She seems… nice.”

Angela rolled her eyes. “She looks… I dunno. Kinda crazy?”

“Is it the cape she’s wearing?”

Angela burst out laughing. “I believe it’s called a shawl.”

“Never heard of it.”

“Oh, come on.”

“Honestly.”

“You’re so stupid sometimes.”

“Yeah, but you love me.”

They embraced. At the moment, things felt good. Things felt right. For the first time in a long time, Angela believed their marriage was slowly mending, fixing itself naturally. It’s like he forgot. It’s like he doesn’t blame me anymore. Didn’t her psychiatrist predict that? She distinctly remembered Abbie explaining the grieving process in great detail and how natural it was for Terry to blame her, how his cancerous feelings would abate with time. God, she was right. She gripped her husband as if she were sliding off the edge of the world, and squeezed.

They continued watching.

[Inside the Vermont house, Angela and Terry are unpacking. The room is painted Caribbean blue. There is a dreamcatcher hanging over the bed’s bear-brown comforter. We cut to the confessional booth where Angela is telling us about the tragedy. “And then… {we do not speak his name} was gone. Just like that.” She excuses herself while her eyes begin to water and leak. We cut to Terry in the booth and he stares at us with a somber expression, his lower lip quivering. He swallows and his Adam’s apple jumps in his throat. “We don’t like to talk about it,” he tells us. “Sometimes it’s best if we think it never happened. But it’s hard.” He pauses and the instrumental music drops out. Barry says: “Do you blame your wife for what happened?” Terry hesitates, but, in the end, he shakes his head and says, “No. God, no. She would never do anything to hurt {we do not speak his name}.]