A Good Marriage(111)
“I think maybe I misunderstood when we spoke the other day,” I went on, carving her the out of a “misunderstanding.” “I didn’t realize that you ended up meeting with Teddy Buckley, the accountant for the foundation, yourself.”
“Ugh, yes, I did meet with him in the end.” She was drawing out her words like a disgusted child. “And yeah, I didn’t tell you because I was worried he might—I was sure he wouldn’t have very nice things to say about me.” The more she spoke, the drunker she sounded. “Anyway, being bankrupt only makes your client look more guilty.”
“He mentioned that you were very upset that you might lose your job if the foundation had no money.”
She took another breath. “That’s true. And if that’s all he said about me, then he’s a very nice person, because I totally lost it on him. Look, my husband was laid off recently. I was worried you’d start asking questions about why I was so upset about losing my pathetic salary. Eventually, it might have come out that my husband is unemployed. I couldn’t bear the thought. It’s absurd, I know, but that’s how ashamed I am, and I’m not even the one who lost their job. Fucking marriage.” She was whispering now, which made her seem even more wasted. “We both thought my husband would be right back to work. Or at least I did. But he hasn’t exactly been pounding the pavement.” That’s because he watches Wimbledon, I wanted to say. And eats pizza. She sighed dramatically. “So now I’m the breadwinner. Or the crumbwinner. It’s not exactly what I signed up for, if you know what I mean.”
I did know exactly what she meant.
“Did you tell Amanda?”
“Are you kidding?” she exclaimed. “I haven’t told anyone. What part of I’m-mortified-my-husband-got-laid-off didn’t you understand? I know it’s appalling that I lied to my friends. I love my friends. But sometimes it’s easier to stay married if you pretend. Willful blindness, isn’t that what you lawyers call it?”
It was easier to pretend. Sarah was right about that, too. “I didn’t mean about your husband’s job. I meant did you tell Amanda what the accountant told you, about the foundation not having any money?”
“Oh, that,” Sarah said dismissively. “I was going to tell her, but not at Maude’s party. It was a party, and I didn’t want to stress her out. Besides, Zach was there. It would have been really awkward. Maude thought I should tell Amanda anyway. But Maude wasn’t exactly thinking clearly because of everything with Sophia.”
“You told Maude about the foundation’s financial problems?”
“Of course! The second I saw her at the party. I mean, the foundation bust, and all of Zach’s millionaire bullshit a lie? It was too great. I know that’s petty, but I never claimed to be perfect,” she said, her words slurring even more. “Anyway, Maude cared more about the email investigation.”
“Email investigation?” I asked, though Sarah had mentioned it before.
“Yup. Some of the Country Day families’ computers have been hacked into.” Sarah sighed. “And all their dirty laundry is now out in the open. I told Maude it was an inside job, a parent, they think—one of the investigators slipped and told me. Maude and I spend half our time saying: ‘Don’t tell anyone I told you this, but …’ Maude did the same thing when she told me about the golf club. Right away she was like, ‘Oh, wait, don’t tell anyone about that.’”
“The golf club?” I asked, remembering how Sarah had thrown that in my face during our first conversation, proof of exactly what a monster Zach was. “I thought the police told you about that.”
“The police? Please. They pumped me for information about who was at the party, but they wouldn’t tell me shit,” Sarah said. “Maude told me about the golf club. She said they found it at the bottom of the stairs in Amanda’s house. Right next to her body. Zach might as well have signed his name to the scene of the crime.”
“When did Maude tell you about the golf club?”
“The morning after Amanda died,” she said. “The police must have told her.”
But Maude hadn’t spoken to anyone until today, when Wendy Wallace showed up at her house. Certainly she shouldn’t have known about the golf club only hours after Amanda was killed with it. It was hard to think with that whooshing sound back in my ears. I looked over at Sam, staring at me from his spot on the wall.
I gripped the phone tighter. Maude and not Sam. A flicker of hope.
Amanda
THE PARTY
A crowd of people holding large red plastic cups filled with pink punch were pressed up against each other in the entryway to Maude and Sebe’s brownstone. It reminded Amanda of the college party she’d attended at the University of Albany with a girl who’d worked one summer at the motel. It was packed and noisy like this, but everyone here looked so strangely young and so old at the same time.
Amanda had to shout “Excuse me” more than once for anyone to hear her over the blasting Nirvana. She was relieved to finally wriggle her way through the bodies and escape into the more spacious living room, filled with exquisite art and colorful keepsakes from Maude and Sebe’s extensive travels and lots and lots of family photos—more refined than Sarah’s but no less genuine. Covering a nearby table were small bags of trail mix and scavenger-hunt maps and a big pile of leis and other party favors.