Unmissing(30)

But I do need a coat.

While I’d prefer not to look like the Michelin Man, beggars can’t be choosers and all that jazz.

We find an extrasmall in “snowcap white.” The last one on the rack in my size. I drape it over my arm and give it a squeeze because I can’t resist. The tag on the sleeve reads $349. With the shoes and the perfume, we’re already well over six hundred bucks, and she’s started eyeing the sweater section.

“Tops? How are you doing on sweaters? Do you need blouses? Anything like that?” Merritt asks next, making her way to a new section.

“You really don’t have to do this.” I follow.

She offers a polite smile, obligatory almost. And her focus is soft—until it settles on the dangling J on my zipper. She couldn’t hide the undercurrent of revulsion if she tried.

I’m sure I look ridiculous in my velour getup, like I just stepped out of a September 2006 issue of Us Weekly. But I’ve got no one to impress, and I don’t want to offend Delphine by replacing her dead daughter’s clothes with fancy new threads. At least not all at once. It should be a gradual process, much like mourning and moving on. Little by little. One step at a time.

“I think we’re good for today, don’t you?” I make one final visual sweep of the chic boutique surroundings, knowing full well I don’t belong here.

She scans the store one more time as well, lingering on the jeans section before she sighs.

“Yeah. You’re right,” she says, hand gliding across her smooth bump. “We can always come back another time. Are you hungry? I’m famished.”

My body learned long ago how to shut off those hunger signals. It’s like a broken stoplight constantly flashing red. I’m rarely hungry. Most foods irritate my stomach anyway, and more often than not, I forget to eat until I’m hit with a screaming headache.

“Yeah. Starving,” I say because I’m not about to walk off with this massive haul and turn down her invitation. There may be a multitude of questionable things in my DNA, but rudeness isn’t one of them. “What’s good around here?”

We carry our items to the register, laying everything across the glass counter.

“We own a deli just a few doors down,” she says. “Monday’s clam chowder day, and believe me when I say we have the best clam chowder on the entire Oregon coast.”

I lift my brows and pretend to be blown away by that fact.

I’ve never had clam chowder in my life.

“All right. Sold. Let’s do it,” I say.

We finish the transaction with the swipe of her black credit card and carry our bags to the deli on the corner.

“Mrs. Coletto,” a red-haired teenager says in greeting. Despite it being nearly noon, the place is dead. Just a man in a gray suit finishing lunch in the back. Other than that, it’s just the two of us. “How’s the boss man? Haven’t seen him in a while.”

“Busy as ever.” She offers him a breathy smile, then points to the menu and leans closer to me. “The soups are there, on that first panel. Highly recommend the chowder, though. In the second column are the salads. Then there are wraps. They can make anything you want, and it’s all amazing. Can’t go wrong with any of it.”

Overwhelmed by choices, I find myself momentarily distracted by the crystal chandeliers hanging above the register. The crisp white walls, outfitted in vintage photography art in mismatched frames, also seem like an unneeded touch. This is, after all, a glorified sub shop, is it not?

We order our meals, grab our numbers (gold leafed, I might add), and find a table in the back corner, sidling up in chairs fit for a French bistro.

“Thank you so much for lunch,” I say. “And for . . . everything. I have to admit, when you said you wanted to get together, this wasn’t what I was expecting.”

She rests a casual elbow on the table, head tilted as she examines me, wide smile covering her pretty face. “I just want to do what I can to make this an easy transition . . . for everyone.”

Is that all she’s trying to do? Or is she afraid I’ve come back to steal my husband out from under her? It’s hard to tell. I’m still trying to figure this one out. Sometimes I look at her and see this vapid, flittering, insecure housewife, and other times I swear I catch a deepness in her cool crystalline eyes, something hidden inside an unreadable expression or two.

“So how did you meet Luca?” she asks when our drinks arrive. She glides a paper straw into her sparkling ice water and slides the glass closer.

“We worked together at a little diner,” I say. “Back in Greenbrook, Washington.”

“Ah, that’s right. He told me that once. I remember now.” She titters, her frost-white teeth contrasting against her glossy pink-nude lips. I don’t believe for one second this woman hasn’t googled me or asked her husband all the right questions. She’d have to be certifiable not to be curious about her predecessor, especially given the circumstances.

“What about you?” I flip it around.

“We met shortly after I moved out west. I’m actually from Maryland.” She sits straighter, proper almost. Well-bred good girl mode. “My parents lived there all their lives. They had me . . . then nine years later they had my sister. It was an interesting upbringing, I guess you could say. Adair and I each attended boarding school from second grade on. We came home for summers and holidays. Our family wasn’t what you’d call close. Not by any stretch of the imagination. Sometimes I wonder if I’m overcompensating with Luca and Elsie . . .”