The Neighbor's Secret(24)

“Is it me or is everyone a little intense tonight?” Annie asked Deb Gallegos under her breath.

“Maybe it’s the absinthe.”

“I thought absinthe was illegal?”

“Not the domestic stuff. You can order it online.”

“It just didn’t seem real to me.”

“The absinthe?”

“No. The marriage. I don’t know any couple that adoring,” Annie said.

“Really? Not Mike?” Deb said hopefully. “He seems like he’d be so attentive in bed. He’s not afraid to emote. And those biceps. He could probably support you in any—”

“Ugh. Deb.”

Deb winked exaggeratedly and fanned her hand in front of her face.

The way the women drooled over Mike was objectifying and inappropriate and felt disrespectful to Annie. She’d complained about it to him, pointed out that they certainly didn’t talk that way about any of the older husbands.

Mike had seemed confident that it had less to do with age or profession than his undeniable sex appeal. He was probably right, even if sex was way down on Annie’s list these days, usually after grocery shopping.

It was that way for everyone, she suspected. It had to be: Deb Gallegos’s whole act about how the kids were always walking in on her and Salvador was a pile of baloney. Or at least an exaggeration.

“Where do they think they’re going?” Annie pointed out the front window at Sierra and Laurel, who were supposed to be studying together in Sierra’s room, but were instead, for some reason, walking down the driveway to the street, purses slung over their shoulders.

Deb and Annie exchanged a bemused look.

Deb knocked twice on the window, and with a crook of her index finger, beckoned them inside.

“Can we go to the mall?” Sierra said, once the girls were back in the entryway. Laurel could barely make eye contact with Annie.

“Nice of you to ask now,” Deb said with a snort, “after you’ve left.”

“I sent you a text,” Sierra said. “We just didn’t want to bother you.”

“You can’t just skip off shopping,” Annie said, incredulous. “Without permission.”

Laurel shifted her weight from one foot to the other, chewed a cuticle, obviously chagrined.

“Aren’t you supposed to be doing that project on, um—?” Annie looked at Deb.

“Mesopotamian trade,” Deb said.

“We finished,” Laurel said. “Haley’s mom can pick us up at the Cottonwood sign in fifteen minutes, and drive us home.”

“It’s a school night, though,” Annie said.

“We really need a break,” Laurel said. Her voice squeaked as she said it and Sierra nodded wide-eyed.

“We really, really do.”

Annie and Deb locked eyes for a silent conversation.

“Home by eight thirty,” Annie said.

The girls nodded and opened the door, darted out before minds were changed.

“Wait,” Annie shouted after them, “don’t you need money?”

They skipped down the hill, heads together, giggling.

What was that quote about a little rebellion being a good thing? Maybe Annie should be happy.

“Is school more intense this year?” she asked Deb.

Last week, Beth the librarian had stopped by Annie’s small office, a comically high stack of science textbooks in her arms. “Laurel’s interlibrary loans came in,” she said. At home, Laurel had accepted the books with a terse nod.

“Seems the same as always,” Deb said. “But if Laurel thinks it’s too intense it probably is.”

“You know the part,” Janine’s slurred voice broke through from the other side of the room, “the part, where they’re tangled in the sheets and the way he touched her, the way he touched her.”

Drawn back into her living room, Deb sighed again. “The lovemaking was beautiful.”

Annie could feel the sick swirling in the back of her throat.

“I have an announcement.” She rapped her fist on the doorframe until everyone turned around. “Lena Meeker is coming to book club next month.”

There was a shocked silence, followed by hushed murmurs between the women.

“I’ve seen her car,” Janine was saying. “But I’ve never actually met her.”

“That’s a lovely gesture.” Harriet Nessel nodded her approval in Annie’s direction. “Inviting Lena.”

“I’m so glad she didn’t come tonight,” Priya said. “Can you imagine if she had to read this month’s book? An ode to a beloved dead partner?”

Harriet Nessel shifted on the sofa. Next to her, Priya pounced.

“What’s that face, Harriet?”

“I didn’t make a face.”

“You did. You guys saw it, right?”

Harriet pursed her lips, which emphasized the vertical lines under her nose. “It’s not really my place.”

“Spill the tea.”

Harriet’s palms skimmed over her legal pad.

“I have no idea what she thinks of him now,” she said finally, “but even before Tim killed that young man, I’m not so sure it was paradise at the Meekers’ house.”