While at the spa this morning, I saw a tabloid article with the headline: What will Gwendolyn do next? I was tempted to pick it up to see if any of their guesses struck a chord. Since coming back to Riveredge, I have lived a stopgap, emergency-mode life. I haven’t given much thought to the future. There was a photo of me and Walter Owens standing in my driveway, unloading groceries from the trunk of his car. The caption was STOCKING THE LOVE NEST.
It doesn’t seem to matter whether or not something is true, but whether consumers want it. I suppose I shouldn’t really be surprised by that.
I had asked a maid I befriended at Walter’s hotel if I could hire her to pick up some groceries for me. Walter must have caught wind of it, because instead of Sally coming by with my list, Walter showed up with a trunk full of things—most of which I didn’t need or want—that he’d shopped for himself. While we unloaded his trunk, Walter asked me out yet again. Yet again I said “no thanks.” He had smiled like it was a strong maybe, but really it was another no thanks.
I wonder if Smith saw the stupid picture and believed the story; I wonder if he would care. I haven’t spoken with Smith since I agreed to do the interview. I assume he’s learned that it’s going to happen. It would be hard not to know. I don’t think he’s aware that the reason I’m doing it is to clear away the mess I made him—that’s a secret I’ve kept so he doesn’t try to talk me out of it. I have attempted to call him a few times, and he has tried me, but we haven’t connected. I guess that’s the story of our lives.
Smith’s house is on the route to my dad’s. It’s a beautiful place. With the outside lighting sort of blurred by the rain, I can imagine it as a painting. I like all the planes and cantilevers, and the enormous cedar front door, and the owner.
I can’t help wishing that I’d gone into the master bedroom with him when I toured his house. I couldn’t tell if he was flirting or teasing; it has always been too hard for me to know what Smith thinks. I wish I had just gone in and found out, or asked him how he felt, instead of trying to decipher him. If he wasn’t going to be direct, I should have been.
If I thought he was home now, I’d be tempted to pull into his driveway and knock on the enormous front door. This is the hospital fundraiser evening, though. He’s flashing his charming green eyes at a woman named Irene tonight.
I stop in the middle of the road in front of the Riveredge on Main and wait while some jaywalkers cross the wet and slushy street to Coach’s Bar. They wave from under their umbrellas when they get close to the other curb and I wave back before heading on. I see there are many lights on in Walter’s hotel, and though I cringe at the huge sign advertising the new Gwendolyn Golden Suite in all its lavender glory, I’m glad he seems to be doing brisk business. I’m not opening the door if he ever comes to my house again, though.
I pass by the hardware store and silently recite the list of things I need to get for the house: felt stickers for the bottoms of chairs, picture hangers, and a bigger doormat for the mud room.
Life has become more comfortable over the course of the week since I generated the confidence to take a utility knife to the boxes in the garage. All the things Caroline helped me order have arrived, and I managed to get most of them unpacked and set up. It’s not perfect by any stretch. I know most of the screws could be a bit tighter, and I scratched the floor moving the sofa, and dented the kitchen table when I tried to set it up on its legs. The house is slowly becoming a home, though. An imperfect one, which suits me fine.
Megan’s kids helped me with the smaller items when I babysat them Wednesday evening. Megan assured me she was only allowing me to do it because their regular sitter was sick, and Megan had cancelled a late meeting for the dinner date. She had on a soft gray wool dress and high black patent boots when she dropped the kids off. She said the house looked, “a little less hideous,” and I could have said the same for her. Kyle waited in the car then, but he came in when they picked up the kids. He carried the sleeping children out to the car, one at a time.
I sent Caroline a thank you basket of goodies for helping me buy all my stuff for the house. Armand told me where to send it from. She called and offered to come by with a paint deck to help me choose colors for the walls. I told her that I hung several canvases already, and it’s looking brighter and happier, but I’d absolutely love her advice. We set a date for next weekend, when her kids will be with her husband who just moved back to town.
I was surprised that Caroline would choose to hang out with me on her first night of freedom, but I’m looking forward to it. Armand sent me a simple pasta with dried cherries and fancy cheeses recipe to try, and told me which wine would go. I feel safe attempting to cook for Caroline. I don’t think she’ll judge me if I fail.
I guess I’m getting pretty cozy here in Riveredge. My hometown is starting to feel like home.
I didn’t have to think twice when Armand’s agent offered me representation. I have no interest whatsoever in the media any more. It’s like a pie eating contest winner being offered the chance to be a pie taster—as if she could possibly appreciate pie after making herself profoundly sick from too much of it.
I punch the code into the entry gate and drive slowly into my dad’s senior community. I pull into his driveway just behind Megan.
“You’re here, too? He’s okay, isn’t he?” I ask.
“I think so. He said he needed to talk to the two of us.” She hugs her coat tighter around her, looking as confused as I feel.
I’d ask her how it’s going at home, but I fear she’d bite my head off and say it’s not my business. My dad stares out the front door, watching us walk up.
Inside, he directs us to the dining area and points to the round wooden table that used to sit in the breakfast nook when we were children. He takes three beers out of the fridge and opens them. I almost tell him no thanks, but I don’t think he would hear me. His expression is focused on something far away. Megan and I exchange concerned glances and sit down.
My dad takes a long drink of his beer and I see that his hands are shaking. The only other time I remember his hands shaking was at my mother’s funeral. He sits down and looks at each of us for a long moment, as if gathering his will.
“I have to tell you girls something.”
He looks nervous and uncomfortable, and I want to reassure him. When I reach out to touch his hand, he wards me off.
“Come on. It can’t be that bad,” I say, but I’m nervous.
My dad takes another long drink of his beer and then sets it aside. He puts his hands together and looks down at them resting on the table.
“Your mom was a difficult woman in many ways, but I always admired her. It was hardest when she became sick. I thought she’d make it through because she was always such a fighter.”
Megan sniffs and takes a sip of her beer. She has no patience with the topic of our mother since her death. I don’t think she ever forgave her for dying unexpectedly during a surgery that everyone was sure would come out just fine. I had only been sad, but Megan had been angry.
“Only a few weeks before she died, your mom did something that she was very sorry about. I want to tell you right here and now, and I want you to remember: I helped her cover it up. So I am just as guilty as your mom was.” My dad says this defiantly, like he knows we’re going to argue.
We don’t though. We wait tensely, wondering what this is about.
“It was late, and I don’t even remember why she was out by herself. It was Poker night, and the guys were at our house. She came home white as a mummy and they all took off, making excuses left and right. Sometimes it pained me that no one seemed to like your mom. When the men had gone, she showed me her Suburban parked in the garage. It had a smashed bumper, and there was a lot of blood.”
I feel my stomach drop out, like I’m falling from a terrible height, and there’s nothing to catch me.
“She said she wasn’t sure what she’d hit. Thought it might’ve been a d
eer, they were so thick that year, and Sharon Pasternak had totaled her car hitting one just a few nights before. But I think your mom knew it was a person, somewhere deep down, because she just kept getting whiter.”
I feel Megan’s hand go over mine, but it doesn’t really register consciously. Everything has receded from my mind except my dad’s face, and his voice, and his hand shaking around his bottle of beer.
“I drove my car to town and saw the ambulance. I kept driving past. Whoever it was, they were getting help. I had your mom to worry about. I went back home to her, but I could already tell it was the beginning of the end. She sort of lost her fight all at once. I think your mom was ninety percent fight, so there wasn’t much left to her without it.”
“Did Smith know it was Mom who hit him?” Megan asks in a whisper.
I turn to look at her and I know her face mirrors mine. She looks horrified, as one can only be at a grave and undeniable truth, not an idea or a question.
My dad nods solemnly.
“And he didn’t tell anyone?” Megan asks, like she can’t quite absorb this piece of information. “Why didn’t he tell anyone?”
“I went to his hospital room when he was still in critical condition. He was a mess, but he knew why I was there before I said anything. He sent everyone else out. I told him that Emma was sorry. So sorry. He said he knew that must be true. I asked if he could see it in his heart to not press charges against her, and explained about her stomach cancer and her surgery coming up. I promised him Emma wouldn’t drive again.”
The three of us sit in silence for a while, not looking at each other.
“I sold the Suburban to an auction company in Ohio.”
I feel empty. Sad. Sick. I wish there was someone to be mad at, a clear evil person who did a horrible thing and could be punished now. A chance at justice. I feel as powerless as my dad looks as he finishes his beer with a trembling hand.
“When Emma died, Smith Walker sent flowers. He was still in the hospital.”
“He just let her get away with it?” Megan asks. She grips my hand hard and it hurts.
“I guess he didn’t see a point in ruining the rest of her life.”
“What about the rest of his life?” Megan demands.
“Dad was just trying to help his wife,” I tell my sister as I pull my hand away. I touch her shoulder softly. I don’t want her to yell anymore.
Megan looks at me like she might argue. Her expression shifts from anger to sad acceptance and she puts her head down on the table.
“Why did you tell us now, Dad?” I ask.
“I was afraid it would come out in the interview tomorrow. Before your interview here, that reporter asked questions like she knew the truth already. I’ve been trying to bring it up ever since, but I couldn’t work up the nerve.”
He looks sorrowful, like he’s afraid I’ll stop loving him right here and right now, reversing a lifetime of habit. I lean over and hug him for a long time. When I get up, I push my untouched beer in front of him.
“I’m heading out,” I tell them both, taking keys out of my pocket.
“I know Smith kept quiet for you, Gwenny. He liked you so much,” my dad says.
“He still does.” Megan lifts her head to look at me. “He loves you. Broken down, loyal Smith Walker loves you more than handsome, cheating Kyle has ever loved me.” She looks away again. “I would trade in a heartbeat.”
The sky has been overcast and gray all day, threatening rain for hours on end, then drizzling for only ten minutes or so before brooding again. I got used to sunshine in North Carolina, along with the good painting light it provided. Sometimes a sunny day would cloud up, and there would be a rain shower, sometimes an angry one, but the sun generally came back out again soon afterward. If weather were a personality, North Carolina would be generally happy but occasionally have a little tantrum from which it recovered quickly. It had cloudy stretches of course, like little bouts of the humdrums, but nothing like Michigan, which can be dreary for days and days until you forget the sun even exists. Today Michigan has pouted and sniffled, but instead of simply having a fit and getting it over with, it has been brewing.
As I pull into Smith’s driveway and shut off my car, I hear, see, and feel the sky open up. I don’t have an umbrella with me, but I get out and walk with my head down toward the front door.
I have to talk to him, to see him.
I haven’t thought this through… I don’t know what I’ll say. I want to tell him that I know what happened. That I know what a brave, chivalrous, and unselfish man he is, and has always been. Maybe I won’t say anything at all, just fall into his arms and never let go. I slide on a slushy patch of black asphalt and catch myself. The rain is freezing as it hits my face.
Almost to the door, I look into a window. I see past the foyer into the lamp lit family room. I stop, like a hungry beggar outside a house of plenty on Christmas Eve.
I see Smith sitting on the built-in sofa, close to a pretty blonde woman with a heart-shaped face. She’s laughing at something he said. They’re drinking red wine, and the flames from the fireplace make the scene glow. Though it had been heavy on my mind before going to my dad’s, I had forgotten about Smith’s date tonight. The woman, Irene, touches his hand and looks into his kind green eyes.
My feet are numb in my boots as I turn and stumble back to the car.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Armand
“How does it feel to be back in the So Perfect house?” Stuart Bolder asks with a huge smile. I saw his makeup girl penciling his dimples, and the way she worked on his black eye, I think maybe he’ll have it six months from now if it still helps his ratings. He wears way too much makeup in general. I like a man to look more like a man.
Stuart is sitting beside me on the same gorgeous, distressed leather sofa with the fabulous tufts and rolled arms where we sat together three weeks ago. It’s on a platform again, facing our dining room live audience of fifty. I have some ideas about how we can cram some more adoring fans in here and disrupt the living spaces less, but I have to recheck my measurements before I roll the plans out to Trey and Stuart like a little red carpet.
I have so many ideas! And for once, I’ll actually have the power to make them happen.
Gwendolyn is on the far side of Stuart. I wish she was sitting beside me so I could nudge her awake. She’s staring down at her hands like she didn’t hear the question, which was clearly directed to her. She’s playing hard to get, but I know we can break through that.
I clear my throat and take charge of the situation. “There’s actually no place I’d rather be. This house has always felt like home to me, from the moment I first saw her. She was looking somewhat shabby then, I admit, but she sure cleaned up nice,” I say, smiling big, but not too big. I don’t want my gums to show.
“Are you talking about this house or Gwendolyn?” Stuart leans over to her, like they’re old friends sharing a laugh. Maybe he thinks they are, in a weird way.
“You look like you’ve gotten all fixed up for tonight’s interview. I barely recognized you from the last time I saw you,” Stuart says.
She ignores him. That’s better than what I feared, which was an elbow to the chin. The tension here is so high I wish I’d had me some of the devil to calm my nerves before I sat down. I bite my lip and pick at the faded remains of turquoise paint on the sofa arm.
“Cut for a second,” Stuart tells the cameraman. He turns to Trey and throws up his hands in frustration. “Want to see if you can wake up Ms. Golden so she can join our little party here?”
The audience starts talking among themselves while Trey comes over and speaks to Gwendolyn in a low whisper. “Our agreement is that you have to participate in this interview. If you don’t hold up your end of the bargain, all bets are off.”
She glares at him. “Fine, you dickhead.”
“Oh, that’s nice. We give you a chance to come back to center stage and yo
u act like we’re villains? Don’t worry, Ms. Golden, this is the last time we’ll invite you to this house. Right, Armand?”
I shush him and shoo him away in a flurry as I kneel down by Gwendolyn’s side. I look up into her face and adjust a few strands of tamed hair, silently thanking Calista for doing in two days what should have taken as many weeks.
“What did Trey mean by that?” she asks.
“Oh, nothing,” I lie.
I wish I’d had more time with Gwendolyn before the taping began, but her plane was late, and by the time she was ready I’d had to get my mama all situated, which wasn’t easy. My mother didn’t want to sit on “no cold metal bench,” so I’d had to haul in one of the tapestry wing chairs from the library. She doesn’t exactly blend well with the forty-nine other audience members, and looking out at her gives me an image of how she’d look in her tent dress and comfy walking shoes beside me in my Speedo in the French Riviera, where she’s been hinting she’d like to go.
It ain’t ever happening, I tell myself, and wonder if it’s true because I wouldn’t have believed this would happen either. Yet somehow she’s fifteen feet away, perched high above everybody else, like an unhappy judge getting ready to lay down the law but good.
I turn to focus on Gwendolyn, and how I can save this interview. I don’t have time to explain the whole situation now. I should have explained it earlier, but she’ll know soon enough what’s going on. And I know she’ll be happy for me!
“You look gorgeous,” I say, fixing the necklace she somehow managed to put on wrong. I wipe at a smudge on one of the shoes she’s only had on her feet for twenty minutes, because I knew she’d mess up the shiny patent leather if I gave them to her any earlier. “More beautiful than ever!” I smile.
Gwendolyn doesn’t.
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