The Perfect Couple(60)
KAREN
She takes an oxy, brushes her teeth, and puts on a nightgown only to take the nightgown off right before she slides into bed. The sheets are Belgian, Celeste said, seven-hundred-thread-count cotton, which is the very best. The bed is dressed in a white down comforter, an ivory cashmere blanket, these white cotton sheets with a scalloped edge, and a mountain of pillows, each as soft as a dollop of whipped cream. Karen places them all around her and sinks in. It’s like sleeping on a cloud. Will heaven be like sleeping in one of Summerland’s guest beds? She can only hope.
She drifts off, her pain at bay.
She wakes up with a start—Celeste! Celeste! She reaches an arm out to feel for Bruce but the other side of the bed is cool and empty. Karen checks the bedside clock: 11:46. Quarter to twelve and Bruce hasn’t come to bed yet? Karen feels annoyed at first, then hurt. She realizes her naked body is no longer appealing, but she had thought maybe something would happen tonight. She wants to feel close to Bruce one more time.
She struggles to catch her breath. She was having a dream, a nightmare, about Celeste. Celeste was… somewhere unfamiliar… a hotel with unnumbered floors, different levels, some of which led to dead ends; it was a confusing maze of a place. Celeste kept calling out but Karen couldn’t get to her. Celeste had something to tell her, something she needed Karen to know.
Celeste doesn’t want to marry Benji, Karen thinks. That is the stark truth.
Involuntarily, the psychic’s word comes to her: Chaos.
Part of Karen believes Celeste should go through with the wedding anyway. So she isn’t madly in love with Benji. Possibly she feels only a fraction of what Karen feels for Bruce, or possibly it’s a different emotion altogether. Karen wants to tell Celeste to make the best of her situation, a situation any other young woman would kill to find herself in. Celeste and Benji don’t have to be a perfect couple. Really, there is no such thing.
But then Karen stops herself. It is only the most selfish of women who would encourage their daughters to marry people they don’t love. What Karen must do—now, she realizes, now—is give Celeste permission to back out. There are 170 people descending on Summerland tomorrow for a wedding unlike any other; over a hundred thousand dollars has been spent on these nuptials, perhaps even twice that. But no amount of money or logistics is worth a lifetime of settling. Karen must find Celeste now.
Finding Celeste, however, suddenly seems arduous. Will a phone call suffice? Karen picks up her cell phone and dials Celeste’s number. The call goes to voice mail.
This is the universe telling Karen that a phone call will not suffice. Celeste turns her phone off when she goes to bed; she must be asleep.
Gingerly, Karen lowers her feet to the floor and stands. She finds her cane and hoists herself up. The oxy is still working; she feels strong and steady with purpose. She wraps herself in the robe and ventures out into the hallway.
If Karen’s memory serves, Benji’s room, where Celeste is staying alone tonight, is the second door on the left. The hallway has subtle lighting along the baseboard so Karen can see where to plant her cane as she pads down the hall. When she reaches the door, she taps lightly. She doesn’t want to wake the whole house up but neither does she want to interrupt anything.
There is no answer. Karen presses her ear to the door. In their house on Derhammer Street, the doors are hollow-core. Here they are true, solid wood, impossible to hear through. Karen eases the door open.
“Celeste?” she says. “Honey?”
The room is silent. Karen gropes for the switch and turns on the light. The bed is made up just as Karen’s is—comforter, cashmere blanket, a host of pillows. Celeste hasn’t gotten home yet, then. Or maybe she decided to join Merritt in the cottage so they can stay up gossiping and giggling on Celeste’s last night as a single woman. But somehow Karen doubts that. Celeste has never been a gossiper or a giggler. She never had close girlfriends growing up, which used to worry Karen, even as she loved being Celeste’s closest confidante.
Karen gazes upon the white silk column wedding dress hanging on the back of the closet door. It’s a dress from a dream, ideally suited to Celeste’s simple tastes and her classic beauty.
But… she won’t be wearing it tomorrow. Karen sighs, turns off the light, and closes the door.
As Karen heads back down the dark hallway, she feels a growing irritation. Where is everyone? Karen has been left all alone in this house. She wonders if this is what it feels like to be dead.
Stairs are tricky with a cane. Karen decides she feels strong enough to leave her cane behind. She takes the stairs slowly, gripping the rail, and thinks about the leftover lobster tails stashed in the fridge. The idea of them is enticing but she can’t make herself feel hungry. The only thing she craves right now is a meaningful conversation with her daughter, and her husband’s body next to her in their bed.
Karen hears distant voices and she smells smoke. She tiptoes along, reaching out for the wall when she needs to steady herself. She hears Bruce’s voice. When she turns the corner, she can see two figures out on a deck—not the main deck but a horseshoe-shaped deck off to the right, one Karen hasn’t noticed before. She wedges herself behind a sofa and peers behind the drapes. Bruce and Tag are sitting on the edge of this deck, smoking cigars and drinking what she thinks must be scotch. She can hear their voices but not what they’re saying.