Dead to Her

by Sarah Pinborough

  “I’ll get Zelda to throw them out.” William squeezed her waist and she gave him her sweetest smile.

  “Only if that’s okay.” She leaned in, pressing her body against his. Think of the money. The big prize. The inheritance. All those voices in her head, hers only one among those of others she knew, family, friends, lover. “I know it’s hard for you.”

  William took another sip of his drink. “No more flowers unless you’ve chosen them.” He paused. “And I’ll have that portrait taken down too. You shouldn’t have to look at that every day. This is your home now.”

  “Thank you.” She kissed him again, this time on the lips. Was he having the portrait taken down for her or for him? Did he feel guilty that he’d moved on so quickly? Either way, it didn’t matter. She knew men. She’d seen enough at the club. Out of sight was out of mind. Whatever his lingering feelings were for his first wife, they’d vanish with the painting. Maybe that’s why all the photos of Lyle were hidden away too. Men weren’t very good at feeling was what she’d learned in life. It was too hard. Too real. She was the opposite. Sometimes she was sure she would be overwhelmed by real.

  “I’ll get it put in storage.” Elizabeth scribbled herself a note. “And I’ll speak to the kitchen designer about that faulty drawer. I have no idea how things are falling down the back into the space there but maybe don’t keep your glasses or passport in there anymore.”

  “Thanks.” William turned to Keisha. “Will you be okay if I go into the office for a couple of hours?” William said. “I’ve got to start your green card paperwork and there’s no point paying another lawyer to do it when I have a firm of them.”

  “Of course, I’ll be fine. Take as long as you need.”

  “I also want to get a new life insurance policy. And make some changes to my will.” His eyes shone. Today he was in a good mood, her adoring puppy, not an old dog baring its teeth. “Now, I’d better go shower and change.” Elizabeth took that as her cue to disappear and leave them alone.

  “You sure you’ll be okay?”

  Keisha smiled. “I’m a grown-up. I’ll be fine. Why don’t I meet you somewhere for lunch when you’re done?”

  “That’s a great idea.”

  “Hey, why don’t you ask Jason and Marcie to join us?” The question was light, as if a momentary afterthought. “I should get to know them better.”

  He held her tight and she didn’t flinch from the cooling sweat in the gray hairs of his barrel chest as they rubbed on her skin. Life insurance. Will. She luxuriated in those words instead, using them to build a hard shell around herself.

  “Good idea.” He kissed the top of her head. “I’ll speak to Jason and let you know where to meet us.”

  “It’s a plan. Now shower. Go!” She pushed him playfully away. It was a plan. Four months of Billy had left her aching for something else, something for her heart, and there was no crime in looking. She waited impatiently for William to dress and leave. A few hours to herself would be blissful. She’d take a Valium, keep the demons in her head quiet, play loud music, and have an hour-long bath to relax.

  First though, once he was finally gone, she found herself back in Eleanor’s room, carefully picking through the dead woman’s jewelry boxes. She wasn’t going to take anything, but she wanted to see if the pieces Billy had thus far given her—expensive as they were—were not just trinkets in comparison. How was her worth measuring up?

  “Are you looking for something, ma’am?”

  Keisha nearly dropped the string of pearls she was examining. “Jesus shit, Zelda, you made me jump!”

  “I’m sorry, ma’am. I didn’t know that Mr. Radford was happy for people to come in here yet. I must have been wrong.”

  Keisha looked at the diminutive black woman in the doorway. There had been definite disapproval in her tone. A slight distaste in her expression. Keisha’s hackles rose. There were too many people controlling her life. There always had been. She wouldn’t take it from a housekeeper. Who was she to judge?

  “Billy won’t mind,” Keisha said, breezing out of the room. “He’s—we’re—only waiting for Iris to get back from vacation, then this will all be sorted and cleared out.” She paused and looked down at the housekeeper. Why was she even explaining herself? “And anyway, it’s my house now, I can go where I want.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Zelda said.

  “I’d like some tea—English style—and bring it to my bathroom.”

  She didn’t even want any tea. But she did want to be respected. No one had respected her at home. That wasn’t going to happen here. Zelda was going to have to change her tune, or Billy would be looking for new staff.

  She ran the hot water, swallowed a Valium, and tried to shake off her irritation, even managing a thank-you when the drink arrived. Lunch, she thought, as she slid naked into the vast bath, submerging herself in the bubbles. Relax and think about lunch.

  8.

  In Southside, it always felt ten degrees hotter to Marcie and her hands were slick with sweat in her plastic gloves, but there was no way she was going to take them off. The community center that served as the Mission’s soup kitchen stank of stale summer sweat and the thick meaty stench of the paper mills, as if any breeze that passed over the city dragged it here where it could settle away from the polite squares and strollers in Forsyth Park. There were worse smells too, ones that emanated from the warm bodies, and there was no way she was going to touch any of the shuffling line of homeless degenerates lining up for stew and dumplings and a beaker of cherry Kool-Aid.

  Unlike the other volunteers, who chatted together, Marcie kept herself to herself. They were all fully paid-up Baptists and she didn’t want to get absorbed into the inner congregation by accident. Another set. Savannah was full of sets.

  Out among the tables Virginia was in her element, touching shoulders, relishing the gratitude. It was different for Virginia. She’d never been poor. For all the time she spent here, these people weren’t real. She didn’t see them as whole, good, bad, ugly, or somewhere in between. They were simply unfortunate, as if none had ever been part of his or her own downfall. Marcie didn’t like being around the homeless, but at least she didn’t diminish them.

  She glanced down the line to where an old man, Harold, was slowly moving forward. His face was a portrait of etched unpleasantness and although she never acknowledged it, she was aware that his free hand went down to the crotch of his pants whenever he looked at her, a move designed to make her feel uncomfortable, a way to take a little power back.

  She slopped the stew over the side of the bowl, spilling some on him.

  “Oops, silly me.”

  “Dumb bitch,” he muttered.

  It’s not me who’s going to die on a street corner one day, stinking of my own piss, though, is it? she wanted to hiss back. Instead, she handed him a biscuit, as they glared at each other.

  “Over here, Harold,” Virginia called. “Lawrence saved a seat for you.”

  Lawrence and Harold. The most ridiculous names for two old drunks, if those were their names at all. It’s not like anyone here checked ID’s. Crude and foul though, both of them. The worst of the clients, as Virginia insisted the tramps be called.

  Jason couldn’t understand why she always went back. Whenever she’d come home from helping she would bitch about Harold this or Lawrence that. How could she explain it to him? She wasn’t here just to cozy up to Virginia or fill a few hours with something after the embarrassing failure of her boutique; it ran deeper than that. She liked to remind herself of how life could turn on a dime. One bad deal at work, one divorce, a couple too many drinks, and then you’re sleeping in a square all day with everything you love in a brown paper bag. Life changed. And it could change fast. It never hurt to remember that.

  These raggedy shells of humanity disgusted her on a visceral level, but she needed her disgust. Jason would never understand that. Sure, he’d had problems with his father, but he’d never been poor in his bones. He’d come fr
om the right blood and the right blood rallied around and helped pick him back up when Maddox Senior had done the honorable thing in his disgrace and killed himself.

  She caught herself. That was blunt, even for her. Everything was setting her on edge. She felt claustrophobic. The plastic gloves on her hands felt too tight, suffocating her skin. The weight of this life, one she’d done so much to secure for herself, had at some point settled around her neck like a noose.

  Jason. She was embarrassed by her behavior of the day before. It wasn’t like her to either feel so weak or show weakness like that. To allow the jealous paranoias of a younger woman. She cringed when she thought about it. Maybe she’d go and surprise him. Yes, that’s what she’d do. Take him somewhere lovely for lunch, somewhere decadent and not like this. Try and get some of the good of their relationship back.

  As soon as her shift was done, she freshened up in the staff-only restrooms and then rushed out to her car, eager for this run-down part of town to evaporate behind her—out of sight, out of mind.

  He was her husband. Hers. Thoughts of this little bitch weren’t going to sour that. She’d make it right. Keisha was no one. Jason might want her physically, but no matter who she was married to, Keisha didn’t fit in and she never would. As Marcie put the car in drive, she tried to ignore the quiet voice at the back of her mind that whispered, But why would she ever want to?

  “He never goes for lunch before two.” Marcie frowned, quietly fuming. It was only one thirty and there was no sign of Jason in his office. She’d tried his mobile, but it was going straight to voice mail. So much for her big romantic gesture. Where the hell was he?

  “He was with Mr. Radford,” Sandy, the partners’ assistant, told her. “They left about thirty or forty minutes ago I guess.”

  “Did he say where they were going?”

  “No, just lunch. Did you try his cell?”

  “It’s been a bit glitchy. I can’t get through.” How stupid did Sandy think she was? Or was she enjoying seeing Marcie on the back foot? Damn you, Jason, for embarrassing me.

  “Oh, Elizabeth was here earlier!” Sandy exclaimed. “She probably made the reservation, since I didn’t. You could try her?”

  Back out in the heat, still annoyed and sweating, Marcie wondered if she should leave them to their boys’ day, but after the morning with Virginia immersed in the grime of the city, she wanted to see Jason. To settle any choppy water beneath them. To feel like she belonged again, not a cuckoo in the nest like Keisha. And what else was she supposed to do? Go home and drink wine alone? She dialed.

  “Hey, Marcie!” Elizabeth’s voice crackled, distant, as she answered. Still chirpy though. Ever chirpy, that was Elizabeth. “What can I do you for? You’ll have to talk loud, I’m in the car and this hands-free thing doesn’t work so good.”

  Typical Elizabeth. Surely she could afford something better, or get William to pay for it. She probably didn’t want to be a bother. Elizabeth survived in this luxury jungle of theirs by not being a bother. “I’m looking for Jason. Wanted to surprise him. But Sandy said he’d already gone for lunch.” Why did she feel so ridiculous asking? It’s not like she normally knew where Jason was every minute of every day. It hardly screamed problem in marriage. In fact, if she did know where he was all the time, that would be more of an issue.

  “You’re not with him?”

  “Obviously.”

  “Sorry, sorry.” The irritation in Marcie’s voice must have been clear even if the line wasn’t. “It’s just that I thought you would be. I booked the table for all four of you. The Terrace at Carmello’s. For one o’clock? They’ll still be there I imagine, if you want to go find them. The food is great but the service is slow, but William said to book somewhere nice to sit out.”

  Marcie was barely listening and muttered a thank-you before hanging up. She was supposed to be there? So why hadn’t Jason called?

  All her unease. Her gut feeling that Jason was pulling away, wanted someone who wasn’t her. She was right. There was something to it. Heat rose through her. She looked at her watch. It was nearly two. All four of you. Jason and Marcie and William and of course Keisha. Keisha, Keisha, Keisha. Sandy hadn’t mentioned her though, so maybe the men had decided to go on their own? She dithered by her car until the heat got too much.

  Perhaps she was overreacting. There was a reasonable excuse. It’s only lunch, she told herself. Stop making a deal out of it. Just go. If the men were on their own she’d be charming for one drink and then leave them to it.

  9.

  The men weren’t on their own.

  “Ah, there she is. The wife!” That blunt, strange accent.

  Marcie’s blood chilled, turning her stomach to ice water. Keisha was sitting between William on one side and Jason on the other—a very startled Jason, Marcie noticed as her face flushed pink in a surge of something she couldn’t blame on the weather. He quickly leaned back in his chair but a moment too late to hide that he’d been leaning in, hanging on every one of Keisha’s words, so much so that he hadn’t even noticed his own wife standing by the table. Splinters of her heart broke off and she wanted to stab him with them. Stab both of them.

  “I thought I’d surprise you for lunch.” She ignored Keisha and tried to smile at Jason. “Elizabeth told me where you were.”

  “I thought Marcie couldn’t make it?” William said to Jason, who hurriedly got to his feet to pull out her chair. She barely moved as he kissed her on the cheek. Contain yourself, she thought. Don’t show weakness. Not where this gloating pig-in-shit stranger in front of you can see it.

  Keisha’s brown eyes, perfectly made up of course, darted sharply between Marcie and Jason. Could she pick up on the tension between them? She looked beautiful. A low V neckline in her cream sleeveless pantsuit accentuated her bust and the red sash tied at the waist made her look slimmer than she probably was and Marcie once again felt her own beauty fade in comparison.

  “Thank you, darling.” She took her seat, as did Jason. His white shirt was open at the top button, showing a slice of his tanned, strong chest. A little but not too much. Why didn’t men fade like women? How did they get to retain some allure that wasn’t couched in ghosts of a tighter skin and past glory? How come they got to stay sexy or, in fact, for a while, get sexier? Maybe that was the root of her problem. She felt her space in the group being erased. She’d been the youngest for so long. It was what she had, that quiet envy of their friends, and now it was being stripped from her by this confident younger usurper.

  “Sorry, Marce,” he said. “I thought you were at the Mission with Virginia today.”

  “I was. But I was done so figured I’d find you for lunch. And here you are.”

  “Well, that’s great.” William signaled over a waiter who poured Marcie the dregs of a bottle of Chablis before disappearing to fetch another. They were having a good time it seemed.

  “The Mission?” Keisha said. “So you’re a missionary kind of girl?”

  So that’s who’d been drinking most of the wine. The barbed innuendo was obviously lost on William, who answered for Marcie. “It’s a food kitchen. Free lunches for the poor. Virginia organizes it with the church. You help out there quite a bit, don’t you, Marcie?”

  “Beats going to church. And probably does more good.”

  The waiter reappeared and she ordered a small chicken salad as he topped up her glass. Maybe Jason didn’t have an ulterior motive. She did usually do a later shift at the Mission than she’d done today, so it was natural for him to think she was busy. But still, every fiber in her being screamed that Jason hadn’t wanted her here.

  “Billy says everyone in this town loves God as much as they love a good time,” Keisha said.

  “I’m not from here.” Marcie was being snippy, she couldn’t help herself.

  “Bad morning?” Jason asked. She ignored him.

  “You’re one of us now, Marcie, and no fighting it,” William said. “You’re family. One of our congregation. And any
way, everyone believes in some version of God. Don’t try to tell me otherwise. Nothing wrong with a little churchgoing. It balances the soul.”

  “I guess,” she said.

  “But now that you’re here, you can help with my dilemma. Keisha’s trying to persuade me to go back to work.”

  “Bored already?” She looked her nemesis in the face for the first time and smiled. They all laughed as if she were joking. Friends together.

  “No, of course not.” A flash of dark eyes. The sting had hit home. “But you know what they say, driven men die when they retire.”

  “Thanks, honey!”

  “I’m being serious. You read about it all the time. Six weeks out of the office and then dead on the golf course. Anyway, I can’t imagine you sitting around doing nothing all day, though I’m sure we could find something to pass the time.” Keisha gave William’s hand a squeeze, but her eyes darted to Marcie’s.

  And what will you be doing all day if he goes back to work? Marcie wanted to ask but didn’t. That would put her on dangerous ground. Her one attempt at work had turned into a money pit, and Jason had snapped at her over her spending on the new house last week when the interior design quotes came in.

  “I like the idea of being a housewife,” Keisha continued. “Preparing dinner for when you get home. Sweet tea out on the porch. Dinner parties with y’all. That kind of thing.”

  “Y’all can cook?” asked Marcie, barely hiding the disbelief in her voice and mimicking Keisha’s attempts to be cute.

  “Ha! We’ll make a Southern belle of her yet, won’t we?” William said, slapping Jason on the back and ignoring Marcie’s barb. He sat up a little straighter, all testosterone now with the thought of an adoring little woman waiting at home for him, and Marcie fought the urge to laugh out loud. Oh, she was good, this gold digger. Make it all about him when it was obvious she wanted him out of her hair as much as possible.