Things We Do in the Dark(67)

It’s easy, Joey thought. Makeup finished, she shimmied into her gold dress and strapped on her stilettos. She stared at herself in the full-length mirror. Ruby stared back.

I just pretend I’m my mother.





CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN


Paris doesn’t realize she’s fallen asleep on the sofa until the doorbell wakes her up. It takes her a few seconds to remind herself where she is—home? Jail? Toronto?—but then she hears the photographers shouting on the street, and remembers. Seattle. Jimmy is dead. Murder charge. No lawyer.

The doorbell rings again, followed by what sounds like a kick. Whoever it is, they’re persistent. Paris tries the smart home app on her phone again, but the door cam, along with the rest of it, is still not working. She pads over to the front door and looks through the peephole the old-fashioned way, bracing herself for a ballsy reporter or paparazzo waiting to surprise her with a camera in her face.

It’s Elsie.

She opens the door and steps aside quickly as the woman pushes her way in. Behind her, cameras flash and questions are shouted. Elsie is carrying a cardboard box, on top of which is her briefcase, on top of which is a takeout bag from Taco Time. A bottle of wine sticks out from a tote bag over her shoulder.

“Vultures,” the other woman says, shutting the door with her foot. “Lock it, quick.”

Paris locks the door, then grabs the takeout bag and briefcase before they can slide off.

Elsie sets the cardboard box down on the floor. “This was on your doorstep. Jimmy’s mail. The post office must have forwarded it here.”

Paris stares at her. “Hello to you, too.”

“Talk later, eat first.” Elsie plucks the bag of food and her briefcase from Paris’s hands and heads straight for the kitchen. “I brought wine.”

Paris looks down at the box of Jimmy’s fan mail, which seems so unremarkable sitting on the floor of the foyer. There’s no doubt in her mind that it will contain another blackmail letter from Ruby. Her mother will know by now that Jimmy is dead, which means she’ll know about the inheritance, and that her daughter has been charged with first-degree murder.

The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, does it, Mama?



* * *



She and Elsie sit in the kitchen and eat. The other woman pours herself a second glass of wine before Paris is even halfway through her first. It’s not until they finish the tacos that she notices Elsie is crying, though it’s not a full-body thunderstorm like Paris had when she first got home. Elsie’s cry is like a steady rain that will last a little while.

But grief is grief, however it’s expressed.

“Did Jimmy ever tell you about our senior prom?” Elsie’s voice is thick.

“All he said was you were boyfriend and girlfriend in high school.” Paris hands her an extra napkin. “I assumed you went to prom together.”

“Actually, we didn’t.” Elsie dabs her eyes. “The week before, we got into a huge fight and broke up. Someone told me he was seen flirting with Maggie Ryerson. She was a cheerleader, big boobs, perky, you know the type. He denied it, but I didn’t believe him. So he dumped me. I was devastated.”

Paris sits back in her chair and listens.

“There was no way I was missing my senior prom,” Elsie continues. “So I asked a boy named Fred, who I knew had a crush on me, to take me. When we get to the gymnasium, who do I see? Jimmy, with Maggie Ryerson.”

Paris shakes her head. “Well, that’s a dick move.”

“I managed to ignore him, tried to have a good time. But later, I found him skulking in the hallway. Maggie had ditched him, and he’d found her in the parking lot making out with Angelo DeLuca, a boy her parents hated. Maggie had used Jimmy as a cover so she could be with Angelo at the prom without her parents finding out. He deserved it, but I couldn’t help but feel sorry for him. We left prom together, and ended up grabbing burgers and milkshakes at Dick’s. Then we came here to Kerry Park and sat on the benches to look at the city lights.”

“What about Fred?”

“Guess that makes me a dick, too.” Elsie looks away. “Kerry Park was always our favorite place. We’d come here to talk, make plans, dream. It was chilly that night, and Jimmy put his tuxedo jacket around my shoulders. Powder blue, to match my dress, but we never got a prom photo.” She smiles, her eyes distant. “He asked if I would take him back. Of course I said yes.”

Paris feels a small stab of jealousy. Not because Elsie was Jimmy’s old girlfriend, which she already knew, but because she had something with him that Paris never did: history. She’d only known her husband for three years. Elsie had known Jimmy for five decades. They had fifty years of friendship and laughter and stories and inside jokes that only two people who’ve shared that kind of time together can have. Elsie had seen Jimmy in all his incarnations, had stood by him through all his ups and downs. Paris had been Jimmy’s wife, but Elsie may well have been his soul mate.

The loss … it must be unbearable. Paris has been so busy thinking about herself that she had never stopped to think how this must be affecting Elsie, who had loved her best friend Jimmy so much that she’d stepped up to defend his wife when she had every goddamned right to throw Paris to the wolves.

“It’s not the end of the story,” Elsie says with a sad smile. “The day after graduation, Jimmy calls, says he’s going to come by. He wanted to ‘talk.’” She crooks her fingers into air quotes. “I thought to myself, ‘This is it. He’s going to propose.’ In those days, it was pretty common to get married right after high school. So I wait for him on the porch, and I’m wearing a nice dress and my hair is curled and I’m ready. I was accepted to Brown in the fall, and I thought if we got married, Jimmy could come with me to Rhode Island, since he wasn’t planning to go to college.