Dead to Her(26)

“Don’t be so sure.” Keisha winked at her as she opened the front door. “I can drink like a sailor.”

The morals of one too, Marcie thought, following her inside and ignoring her own dubious past.





17.

Within half an hour they were out by the pool, a jug of margaritas on the table between them alongside a family-size bag of chips and a sack of doughnuts. Marcie had drunk her first cocktail fast, Dutch courage against her unsettled mood, and although their loungers were in the shade of a vast umbrella, as she sipped her second, the liquor was going straight to her head in the heat. Keisha had made it strong.

She looked down at the modest blue two-piece she was wearing. It was the best of a bad bunch of guest swimwear—no doubt picked out by Eleanor years ago—but couldn’t compare with Keisha’s red swimsuit, which plunged in a deep V down to her belly. A scrap of thread linked it to the super-high-cut legs and thong by a gold hoop that somehow held the whole thing together, and every piece of skin on show was firm and taut.

“I had a tennis lesson at the club yesterday,” Keisha said, stretched out, luxuriating in the heat. “I hate tennis. I only went because Billy had already booked it and I didn’t really have any choice. Those people at Billy’s club are never going to like me. I’ll never fit in there.”

It was a surprisingly open admission. Keisha clearly hadn’t learned yet that no one in this town, certainly not at this social level, ever showed weakness. It was a shark pool, and the women were the worst. Bored and half-drunk most of the time. What else was there to do but bitch, judge, and gossip about one another between charity events?

“You get used to it.” Had she herself ever gotten used to it? Really? “Underneath all that money some of them are nice. But it’s like school, you know? Different groups. Everyone worried about what people are saying about them and who they have to stay friends with for their husband’s promotions or to get invited to the right parties. It’s harder for you. Eleanor was born and bred local royalty. She and William and Iris and Noah. Blue bloods. But people forget fast. This will be the new normal in a couple of months.”

Keisha sat up and refilled their glasses, waving away Marcie’s slight protest. “Must have been hard for you as well. Given the circumstances,” she said. “Was Jacquie popular?”

The circumstances. So, Keisha knew they’d had an affair. Marcie’s skin prickled. And she knew Jason’s first wife’s name. She’d been a busy little bee. Who had she been talking to? Just William? Or the women at the club too? They’d love to spill some dirt on Marcie Maddox she was sure. She took another long swallow of margarita.

“She was popular, yes. But the difference between her and Eleanor is that Jacquie didn’t die. She very quickly remarried—a retired orthopedic surgeon who died just before Eleanor as it happens—and moved to Atlanta.” She paused. “Which may be worse now I think about it.”

Keisha burst into a throaty laugh. “So”—she grabbed a handful of chips—“what’s your story? You’re the only other person I’ve met who doesn’t come from Georgia.”

“No story to tell, really.”

“Everyone has a story. Where are you from?”

What was it with this woman and questions? In Marcie’s experience most people just wanted to talk about themselves and she liked it that way. “Boise, Idaho,” she said, in a bored drawl, hoping to cut the conversation short. “And if you’d ever lived there, you’d know why I left.” That wasn’t even a lie. No doubt she would know. Word choices could make the truth malleable and it was always better to stick close to the truth. “I figured if I didn’t get out when I was young, I never would.”

“Have you got any family?”

“None that I want to stay in touch with. We were never close. My dad died. My mom remarried. Had a new family. I was surplus to requirements.” It sounded so much more sanitary than it was. An old and ordinary tale of young girl grows up and leaves town. The rest of it belonged to her alone, packaged up in the box in the ceiling. “You?” she asked.

“My mum was . . . well, not very stable, I guess. She died a long time ago. After we came to London from Nigeria. I was raised by my aunt and uncle. A long and boring story. They stay in touch but I’m not planning on inviting them over for holidays. I’m kind of hoping they’ll just fade away, you know?”

She did know. Maybe she and Keisha were quite similar. Maybe that’s what Jason liked. Keisha was how Marcie used to be, even though he was the one who’d changed her. The same way that William was no doubt trying to change Keisha now, squeezing everything they’d liked in the first place into a whole new shape.

“But how did you end up here?” Keisha continued. She was like a dog chewing over a bone for the soft marrow inside. “In Savannah?”

The sun was bright overhead and Marcie stared at it before smiling, privately amused, as she looked over. “I liked the name.”

“And then you met Jason, it was love at first sight, and you lived happily ever after.”

Jason again.

“Well,” Marcie said, “it wasn’t quite that straightforward, but yes.”

“How did you meet? Billy’s never really told me I don’t think. Just that you worked locally.”