News crews from all three of the D.C. affiliates are setting up their cameras to the right of the stage along with the cable channels. I watch as the cameramen joke with a couple of the photographers, who are easy to pinpoint in their jeans and wrinkled button-downs. I think of Dad, my favorite photographer, who wore the same uniform. He was the only father in the neighborhood who didn’t go to work in a tie and who carried a bag bigger than any of the moms did because he lugged his equipment everywhere. A lifelong political junkie, he loved covering Washington, and his job at UPI meant that his photos were regularly published in many of the major newspapers and newsweeklies. He should be here right now. He would’ve gotten such a kick out of photographing Kate in this environment. I check my watch. Where is Amy?
It still isn’t entirely clear why Kate has asked us to come. The Virginia Medical Society is responsible for putting this thing together, according to the invitation, and most of the attendees are members who’ve donated to the campaign. I wonder why Kate didn’t invite Mike along with Amy; as a doctor, he must certainly be a member of the state medical society. Now that she’s not here, I’m wondering whether the slight pissed her off. In any case, it’s Brendan’s first major event in Maple Hill, and I’m actually excited about getting to finally see him in action.
Three paunchy, middle-aged men in nearly identical gray suits appear across the table from me and pull out their chairs, followed shortly thereafter by a woman who immediately reminds me of the piano teacher I had growing up because she’s wearing those glasses that look like they’re fitted with magnifying lenses. As they sit, they introduce themselves as members of the local Rotary club. “Have you seen him speak before?” the woman asks, her eyes dancing like she’s a thirteen-year-old talking about Justin Bieber.
“Um, no. Well, not officially,” I say, recalling all the times that Brendan has stepped up on his proverbial soapbox in my kitchen after a few bourbons. Those nights usually end with Kate dragging him out of the house by his ear. “I’m a friend of the Berkshires’,” I say to the woman and reach for the goblet of ice water above my place setting. “Kate and I grew up together.”
As if on cue, one of the men elbows the guy next to him. He leans toward me, cupping his hand to his mouth like a bad comedian, and says in a stage whisper, “I was just saying to these two that Berkshire has had my vote since he announced his candidacy—the real reason that I wrote a check to be here was to get a good look at the wife!”
The three burst into jolly laughter and the woman shrugs, a resigned “boys will be boys” grin on her face.
I muster a polite nod and check my watch again. Five past twelve. Brendan is running late. Kate had warned me that I’d better settle in if he got up to the podium and said that he hadn’t prepared any remarks and was going to talk “off the cuff.” “It may as well be code for ‘longwinded jerk-off about how fucking fantastic I am,’” she’d said on the phone the night before. I pull my seat out and half stand to get a better look at the entrance. Amy is never, ever late for anything. Something is definitely up.
Suddenly, the lights dim and a very tall, lanky woman approaches the podium, asking everyone to please take their seats. She has a draggy voice, the kind that sounds perpetually congested. It must be Stephanie, Brendan’s assistant, whom Kate is always bitching about.
My phone buzzes and I jump for it. But when I pull my phone out of my pocket and look at the caller ID, I’m dismayed to see that it’s not Amy, but a restricted number, which I know means only one thing: It’s my bank. I consider whether to answer, the phone buzzing in my hand like an insect, my thumb poised over the buttons. The adult thing to do would be to answer the call—own up and deal with it. I send it straight to voicemail.
The sound system clicks on and the room fills with microphone feedback, making the crowd groan. Then, after a beat, Brendan’s campaign theme song starts—Sting’s “Brand New Day.” I remember Kate complaining about it back when his team chose it. I’d agreed with her then that they couldn’t have picked a whiter song.
A spotlight appears on a set of double doors to the left of the stage and Brendan strolls out, dapper in one of his custom-made suits. Were it not for the campaign paraphernalia, anyone passing by the ballroom could have easily mistaken his entrance for some local department store fashion show, or one of those cheesy win-a-bachelor charity auctions. And now we have the modern-day WASP, I imagine the emcee would say. He’s got it all—an Ivy League diploma, a family line stretching all the way back to Jamestown, and a worldview that can’t see beyond the borders of his mirror!
The crowd jumps to their feet. As they applaud wildly, Brendan waves with both hands above his head, a wide, almost cartoonish, smile on his face. I stand and clap along while I take in the pandemonium around me. Brendan is taking his time, shaking the hands of the well-wishers at the front tables. He really was born for this, I think, watching the ease with which he works the crowd, speaking a sentence or two to each person he passes and laughing heartily at whatever comes out of their mouths.
Once he reaches the podium, he lets the cheers ride out for several more seconds. Then he raises his palms to quiet the applause, shaking his head with a sheepish, “aw, shucks, you’re too kind” smirk on his face. Everyone obediently takes their seats. I check my watch again and turn to the door. If she isn’t here by now, Amy definitely isn’t showing up. Maybe Emma’s sick? I glance toward the corner of the room where Brendan’s staff is gathered. Kate stands next to the woman who is presumably Stephanie with her arms crossed high on her chest. She has a placid grin on her face. I recognize it as her “I know you’re watching me but I’m pretending not to notice” look.
Brendan starts to speak. He is typically more cocky than confident, even a little standoffish, but here he looks as comfortable as a concert pianist at a baby grand. His eyes glint against the flash of the cameras, an expression that he perfected over the past six months, I know, because Kate told me that his staffers had gently approached him about the “issue” (not “problem”) and “handled” (not “fixed”) it with training sessions and a highly paid specialist. As he speaks, I watch his hands: He points into the crowd (“You have the power to change Virginia!”), he raises his palms toward the sky (“Together, we will lift up the commonwealth!”), and he clenches his fists (“I believe in the people of Virginia!”). After twenty minutes—just enough time for a plate of chicken breast and boiled vegetables—he winds down, thanking the crowd for their support. Then he points to the end of the room where Kate is standing: “And to my wonderful, loving, and supportive wife, Kate,” he says. I hear a few awwws from the women in the audience. “Thank you for taking this journey with me.” Kate presses her hands together in a prayer at her chest and finally smiles, tilting her head coquettishly. I have to bite my lip to keep from laughing out loud. It must’ve been something to be in the meeting with the staffer who told her that that was the choreography she’d need to perfect.
After Brendan leaves the podium, the crowd starts to disperse, many of them clutching the “Berkshire for Governor” bumper stickers that were piled next to the bread basket in the center of each table. I make my way to the back of the room, hoping to check in with Kate and say hello to Brendan before I leave, but the news crews have already cornered them.
Once outside, I check my phone. No call from Amy. I dial her cell and it goes straight to voicemail. “Hey! This is Amy!” the recording chirps. “Leave a message and have a great day!”
“Hi, it’s Waverly,” I say after the beep. “I just left the luncheon. Did you forget? Hope everything’s okay over there. Call me.”
I dial the home phone. Voicemail again.
“Amy, it’s Waverly. Just wondering where you were today. Hope Emma didn’t get sick or something. Anyway, call me.”
I punch the presets on the car stereo as I drive back to work—some earnest poet on NPR talking about his muse, Fugazi on the college station, Jim Croce singing “Operator” on the soft-rock station t
hat I listen to more often that I will ever admit, always sucked in by an old Hall & Oates or Lionel Richie song.
I can’t distract myself. Amy is nothing if not a well-mannered southerner. Her signature joke that she used to always tell at happy hours was “Why don’t southern girls have orgies? Too many thank-you notes.”
I brake at a red light and glance at the car in the turn lane next to me. The woman behind the wheel yawns wide and rubs her eyes. Dry cleaning hangs in her backseat. She mutters something as she looks at herself in her rearview mirror.
An unnecessarily rowdy car-dealership commercial comes on the radio and I finally just punch it off. I scratch at the spongy tube of the steering wheel with my fingernails. Before I can talk myself out of it, I turn on my right blinker and wave to the driver next to me, pointing to ask if I can sneak into her lane. When the light changes, I merge and mouth “thank you,” then turn onto the street that will take me to Amy’s house.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
The drive takes me past a blurred series of manicured shrubs and brick fences flanking the entrances of big-builder subdivisions. I recite the name of each development as I pass—Trotter’s Ridge, Woodward Stables—and remember what the land looked like back when this part of town was actually a bunch of horse farms. Oak Hill, Amy’s neighborhood, is a cookie-cutter subdivision, with houses squeezed close together and, despite its name, hardly a hill or tree to speak of. Her house on Green Leaf Court is identical to two of the homes across the street, though hers is painted a sunny yellow, with purple and pink pansies lining the front walk. I ring the doorbell, remembering the Valentine’s Day–themed wreath on the door from the year before. I used to think that Amy’s penchant for holiday wreaths was ridiculous—the word Kate once used was geriatric—but ever since I became a bakery owner and found that I could bump up sales by getting creative with green food coloring around St. Patrick’s Day, or by sticking tiny American flags in everything that comes out of the oven during the week leading up to the Fourth of July, I’ve come to appreciate it. I shuffle on the concrete stoop and then peer into one of the long windows that frame the door, cupping my hands around my eyes to get a better look inside.
Amy finally appears around the corner, dressed in yoga pants and a UNC sweatshirt. Her hair is piled sloppily on top of her head with a giant clip. Is she limping? She waves and smiles weakly as she reaches to unlock the door. “Hey.” She runs a hand across her forehead, smoothing her hair back. She looks like she’s just woken up from a nap. I can hear the squeaky sounds of Emma’s cartoons on the television in the background.
“Hey, did I wake you? I’m sorry for just popping by. Are you…sick or something?”
“No, no, it’s fine,” she says, opening the door wider. She smiles again, but it’s the kind of mandatory smile that you give to your coworkers on a Monday morning. I instantly regret showing up unannounced. Amy scratches at the back of her head. “Come in, come in.” She waves with her hand. “Sorry, the house is a mess.”
“Are you sure?” I say. “You look a little…”
“I know, I look like crap. I’ll explain everything. Come on, come in,” she insists. “I left Emma in the kitchen and I have a pot boiling on the stove.”
I step inside. “It smells good in here. What are you cooking? Marinara?”
“Prego,” Amy says. She laughs—a forced laugh that ends as quickly as it began. “Will you forgive me? And give me your marinara recipe for next time? I’m making baked ziti for dinner.” She leads me into the living room and I notice, walking behind her, that she is stepping as tentatively as if on hot asphalt. The house is a wreck, with Candy Land pieces, Legos, and crayons strewn across the living room floor. A pile of laundry is half-folded on the couch. This is bizarre. Amy’s house is normally spotless, even too clean in that scent-of-Windex-in-the-air kind of way.
“Ame, what happened?” I say, scrutinizing her walk. “Are you limping?”
“Ugh, I’m such a klutz.” Amy laughs again, not looking back as she walks ahead into the kitchen. “You won’t believe it. I was carrying a load of laundry downstairs this morning and I tripped. I fell halfway down the stairs and landed on my hip.”
“Oh my God. Are you okay?”
“Yeah, yeah, I’m fine,” she says, walking to the stove. “I’ll probably have a big ugly bruise, but no biggie.”
“Is that why you didn’t come to the luncheon?” I look around the kitchen. Shit’s everywhere.
“The luncheon!” Amy smacks her forehead with her hand. “Oh my goodness, I totally forgot!” She shakes her head. “I’ve been such an airhead lately. I can’t believe I did that.”
I study her face. She keeps talking.
“I’ve just been so caught up with everything around here, and then after I fell this morning…Shoot, I’ll have to call Kate.”
Emma appears from around the corner, carrying an armful of wooden puzzle pieces.
“Emma, say hello to Aunt Waverly.”
“Hiiii, Emma,” I tease.
She curls her little fingers into a bashful, tiny wave and then runs into the living room, giggling.
“Sit down. Do you want something to drink?” Amy says, gesturing toward the kitchen table. “Or something to eat? Did you have anything at the luncheon?”
“No, I’m fine. I ate.”
“What did they have? Was it good?”
“Nothing special. Chicken.”
“How about a soda at least? Or some water? I even have seltzer—would that be better?”
She’s babbling. More than normal.
“Okay, I’ll have a glass of water,” I say, pulling out one of the stools beside the kitchen counter. I wipe away a few crumbs before sitting down—that morning’s toast, or maybe Emma’s lunchtime PB and J. “Amy, why don’t you sit with me? That limp looks bad.”
“I’m fine, Waverly, really.” She shakes her head, filling a glass of water from the spigot on the outside of the refrigerator and then handing it to me.
She walks to the stove and dips a fork into the pot of pasta, fishing out a piece of ziti and blowing on it before she takes a bite to see if it’s done. “I just can’t believe that I forgot the luncheon.”
“Yeah, it’s not like you,” I say, trying to get a reaction.
“So how was Brendan’s speech?” she says, apparently deciding to ignore me. “Did Kate talk, too?”
I recount the major details—how Brendan looked onstage, the crowds of people and the news crews, Kate’s gesture of wifely support at the end—but I want to be talking about her and Mike, and it’s nagging at me like a ringing in my ears. It is disconcerting to see Amy so disheveled at two o’clock in the afternoon, and her limp looks bad, way worse than she is making it out to be. She shuffles around the kitchen with her hand on her hip, and I can tell by the way that her shoulders rise and fall that she’s stopping to take deep breaths whenever she turns away from me.
“I’m sorry I missed it,” she says. “Was Kate upset? I hope she’s not mad.” She goes to lift the pot of pasta off of the stove, winces, and then sets it back down.
I jump up from my stool. “Ame, let me get that for you.”
“Waverly, no, it’s fine,” she says, lifting it again.
I put my hands over Amy’s. “Come on, put it down, I’ll get it.”
“I’m fine!” Amy snaps.
I let go and step back. Amy laughs, trying to cover for herself.
“I’m fine, really.” Her voice softens. “You’re worse than my mother would be. Now, go sit down.”
I take another step back, watching as Amy lifts the pot and dumps the ziti into a colander in the sink. What the hell is going on? “Did you tell Mike that you fell?”
Amy makes a face, her mouth an awkward squiggle. “No, should I have?” she says. “Waverly, why are you so worried about this? I’m not that badly hurt. You’re acting weird.” She turns back toward the stove.
I’m the one acting strange?
All of a sudden, there
’s a crash in the living room. “Mommy!” Emma yells, her voice warbling.
“I’m coming,” Amy says, dropping her dish towel and shuffling as fast as she can past me into the living room. I follow.
“What is it, honey?” Amy kneels down to where Emma’s standing in the center of the room, bawling. Legos and blocks are strewn around her.
“I was making a castle and the whole thing fell down!” she wails.
“Oh, honey, it’s okay,” Amy says. “You can make another one.”
She reaches to put her arms around Emma to console her, and that’s when I see it: On Amy’s lower back, between the waistband of her pants and where her sweatshirt has inched up, is a long purplish black mark crossing over the bumps of her spine. It looks like a stain on her skin, like grape juice through newsprint. Dried blood is crusted along one edge.
“My God, Amy, what is that?” I say.
“What?” Amy says, whipping around.
“On your back!” I step toward her and reach to pull up her sweatshirt.
She stands before I can and straightens her top.
“It’s just from where I fell,” she says brusquely. “I know it looks awful. I couldn’t believe it when I saw it this morning.” She turns back toward Emma. “Honey, are you okay?”
“Amy, are you okay?” I reach out and put my hand on her shoulder. “You really did that just carrying laundry down the stairs?”
“Yeah, I know! It looks bad, doesn’t it?” she says. She begins picking up toys and piling them into a red plastic bin. Why is she acting like this? Avoiding me in her own home?
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