Trespassing(52)

“And Nini.”

“Yes.” I smooth my daughter’s hair from her forehead and allow myself to laugh at what I’m about to agree to. “Us and Nini. Against the world.”

“Against the world,” she echoes.





Chapter 25

When we had returned to the table, Christian was gone, and the guests at the table closest to ours had been relocated.

“We sure know how to chase people away, don’t we?” I had asked Bella.

But he’d prepaid our entire tab before he took off.

Now that we’re back at the house, I wonder if I should knock on his door to thank him. It isn’t too late. But tomorrow might be better, or maybe I should wait until our paths cross again. I know what Claudette would do: she’d bring him a casserole.

And maybe that’s a good idea. He’s a single guy. He provided a dinner for us; I could reciprocate. Wouldn’t Claudette be proud?

Her missed call notification still mars my phone screen. I’m about to call her when the picture she sent revisits me . . .

Bella is asleep upstairs in the master bedroom—atop the duvet, as I haven’t had time to wash the linens.

I’ve swept shards of glass and dumped the mess into a small trash can I found beneath the kitchen sink. I washed the travertine tile against which the pictures shattered. There’s still plenty to do. I haven’t done more than peek at all the rooms in this place, let alone clean them and get to know them.

But I dial Claudette’s number.

“Where are you?” No hello.

“Key West.”

“Florida?”

“It’s a long story.”

“Well, I have only a few minutes. Brad’s got the bedside candle lit, if you know what I mean.”

“I got your text,” I say.

“Oh yes. That little hussy tried to convince me she was there to offer support, but I saw it in her eyes.”

“You spoke to her?”

“She said she’d called the house and left a message, and when you didn’t call back, she thought she’d come. But I could see. She was there to take home a piece of your husband.”

“What?”

“A memento. A shirt or . . . or who knows? The hair from his razor for all that’s holy. And her name isn’t Gabrielle. It’s Natasha.”

“Wait. You actually talked to her?”

“Briefly, and she said she’d seen the news report, and—”

“She’s my college roommate.”

“Oh.”

“Did she leave a number?”

Another stretch of silence ensues before Claudette clears her throat. “I apologize. I assumed . . . and I’m afraid I wasn’t very nice to her. But I stand behind my friends.”

“It’s okay.” For a split second, a longing for home—or maybe for the way things used to be—washes over me. Why didn’t Micah and I do couple-related things at the Shadowlands? We could’ve played golf with Claudette and Brad or at least gone to the clubhouse for lunch.

I realize, maybe for the first time, that I want that sort of life. I want to be sociable, part of a community. I want to have friends.

“I’m sorry,” Claudette says.

“Don’t be. She’s not exactly innocent, if you know what I mean.”

“Veronica? The police were here, asking all sorts of questions. Did I know about Micah’s job? Do I think you two were happy? That sort of thing, and I said . . . I told them you were blissfully happy.”

We were. But to hear Claudette say it, it feels more as if she lied for us, as if she expects gratitude for covering for me—which is precisely why I don’t thank her.

Or maybe it’s that I’m starting to see what a lie my marriage was, even if I didn’t realize it until recently.

My cheeks burn with embarrassment, as if the curtain has been pulled back on my life for the whole world to see. As if everyone knows I’m a fraud. Micah’s job was no one’s business but mine and Micah’s. If the police let on that he quit to avoid a criminal investigation, that his job at Diamond didn’t exist, that we were paying our bills—the bills we actually paid, that is—with cash from an unknown source . . .

“I . . . I’ll let you go, Claudette. Thanks for standing up for me.”

“Honey, wait. Are you all right? Do you need anything?”

I wish people would stop asking that.

“I’m here for you,” she says.

It’s an odd sensation, having someone, someone other than Micah, in my corner. My eyes tear up. “Thanks, Claudette. We’ll talk soon.”

“Call anytime.”

I dial my voice mail at the Shadowlands, but there are no messages.

And that’s strange. Surely, there’d be a call or two from creditors looking to be paid or reporters maybe. To say nothing of the absence of a message from Natasha. Why would she say she’d left one if she hadn’t? And surely, she wouldn’t trek all the way out to the ’burbs without at least trying to get me on the phone.

A thought worms its way into my head. Could someone be listening to my messages? Could someone have already checked my voice mail and deleted the message from Natasha?

I log in to Facebook and navigate to my in-box, but there’s nothing new there. The message I left for Natasha sits, not yet read. Next, I click on my wall, in case she posted something there.