Sharp Objects(28)

“Jackie!” said a blonde, aiming bright saucer eyes at her.

“’Course before Adora took it over, we all slept over at Joya’s house with our dirty little brains. Same house, different crazy lady running it,” she said to me, fingering the flesh behind her ears. Stitches from that facelift?

“You never knew your grandma Joya, did you, Camille?” purred Annabelle.

“Woo! She was a piece of work, sweetie,” said Jackie. “Scary, scary woman.”

“How so?” I asked. I’d never heard such detail about my grandmother. Adora allowed that she was strict, but said little else.

“Oh, Jackie’s exaggerating,” Annabelle said. “No one likes their mother when they’re in high school. And Joya was dead pretty soon after. They never really had time to establish an adult relationship.”

For a second I had a pitiful dash of hope, that this was why my mother and I were so distant: She had no practice. The idea was dead before Annabelle finished refilling my glass.

“Right, Annabelle,” Jackie said. “I’m sure if Joya were alive today, they’d have a grand old time. At least Joya would. She’d just love to tear at Camille. Remember those long, long nails of hers? Never painted them. I always thought that was weird.”

“Change of subject,” Annabelle smiled, each word like the tinkle of a silver dinner bell.

“I think Camille’s job must be so fascinating,” said one of the blondes dutifully.

“Especially this one,” said another.

“Yeah Camille, tell us who did it,” blurted Jackie. She smiled leeringly again and clicked her round brown eyes open and shut. She reminded me of a ventriloquist dummy come alive. With hard skin and broken capillaries.

I had a few calls to make, but decided this could be better. A quartet of drunk, bored, and bitchy housewives who knew all the gossip of Wind Gap? I could write it off as a business lunch.

“Actually I’d be interested to know what you all think.” A sentence they couldn’t hear very often.

Jackie dipped her bread into a side dish of ranch dressing, then dripped it down her front. “Well you all know what I think. Ann’s daddy, Bob Nash. He’s a pervert. He always stares at my chest when I see him at the store.”

“What chest there is,” said Annabelle, and nudged me jokingly.

“I’m serious, it’s out of line. I’ve been meaning to tell Steven about it.”

“I’ve got yummy news,” said the fourth blonde. Dana or Diana? I forgot it as soon as Annabelle introduced us.

“Oh, DeeAnna always has good scoop, Camille,” Annabelle said, squeezing my arm. DeeAnna paused for effect, licked her teeth, poured herself another glass of wine, and peeked over it at us.

“John Keene has moved out of his parents’ house,” she announced.

“What?” said a blonde.

“You are joooking,” said another.

“My word,” gushed a third.

“And…” said DeeAnna triumphantly, smiling like a game-show hostess about to bestow a prize. “Into Julie Wheeler’s home. The carriage house out back.”

“That is too good,” said Melissa or Melinda.

“Oh, you know they’re doing it now,” laughed Annabelle. “No way Meredith can keep her Little Miss Perfect thing going. See, Camille,” she turned to me, “John Keene is Natalie’s big brother, and when that family moved here, the whole town went loony for him. I mean, he’s gorgeous. He. Is. Gorgeous. Julie Wheeler, she’s a friend of your momma’s and ours. Didn’t have babies till she was, like, thirty, and when she did, she became just insufferable. One of those people whose kids can do no wrong. So when Meredith—her daughter—snagged John, oh my God. We thought we’d never hear the end of it. Meredith, this A-student little virgin girl gets the Big Man on Campus. But no way a boy like that, his age, goes with a girl who isn’t putting out. Just doesn’t work that way. And now, it’s so convenient for them. We should get Polaroids and stick them under Julie’s windshield wipers.”

“Well, you know how she’s playing it,” Jackie interrupted. “It’s going to be all about how good they are to take John in and give him a little breathing room while he mourns.”

“Why is he moving out, though?” asked Melissa/Melinda, who I was starting to think was the voice of reason. “I mean, shouldn’t he be with his folks at a time like this? Why would he need breathing room?”

“Because he’s the killer,” DeeAnna blurted, and the table began laughing.

“Oh, that would be so delicious if Meredith Wheeler were giving it to some serial killer,” Jackie said. Suddenly the table stopped laughing. Annabelle emitted a sneezy hiccup and looked at her watch. Jackie rested her chin on her hand, breathed out hard enough to bluster the bread crumbs on her plate.

“I can’t believe this is really happening,” said DeeAnna, looking down at her nails. “In our town, where we grew up. Those little girls. It makes me feel sick to my stomach. Just sick.”

“I’m so glad my girls are grown up,” Annabelle said. “I just don’t think I’d be able to take it. Poor Adora must be worried sick about Amma.”

I nabbed a piece of bread in the birdy, girlish way of my hostesses, and steered the conversation away from Adora. “Do people really think John Keene could have had anything to do with it? Or is that just mean gossip?” I could feel myself spitting out the last part. I’d forgotten how unlivable women like these could make Wind Gap for people they didn’t like. “I ask only because a group of girls, probably junior-high-schoolers, said the same thing to me yesterday.” I thought it best not to mention Amma was one of them.