The Wife Upstairs(59)
The Country Club of Birmingham is a beautiful, tasteful Tudor-style building set far back on a wide green lawn and surrounded by old-growth trees. As we walk up the drive, I take in the stone and wooden timbers, the lights spilling out from the windows, and move closer to Eddie. We’ve done fancy restaurants and the church function, but this feels like some new test, one I’m not sure I’ve studied enough for.
Even in the evening, the summer air is so hot and heavy it feels like trying to breathe directly over a humidifier, but the flowers in the heavy planters just outside the front door are bright pink, and everything feels so vital, so alive.
Everything except for the people currently filing into the room.
They’re all clones of the people I’ve seen in the village, or at the Methodist church’s silent auction: slightly florid men in suits, excellently dressed women in bright colors with hair that isn’t just blond or brown, but a thousand different shades of both, created by an expensive hairdresser.
The cost of the jewelry in this one room is probably the GNP of some small countries. Maybe even some not-so-small ones.
There are tables along the back wall loaded down with food, and waiters are circulating with trays of canapés, but no one seems to be eating.
Drinking, though? That, they’re doing plenty of.
It doesn’t surprise me that the bar is set up in the middle of the room, creating a hub for guests to mill around. And when I get close, I can see that there’s nothing but top-shelf stuff on offer.
Eddie’s hand is a warm weight on my lower back, reminding me that I belong there, and I smile up at him.
Yet it’s situations like these—seeing him here amongst these other men, the husbands of the women I’ve been studying so intently for the last few months—that remind me how much he stands out. How different he seems.
“Drink?” he asks me, and I nod.
“White wine, please.”
He makes his way through the crowd around the bar, leaving me to stand there awkwardly, my hands clasped in front of me.
“Jane!”
I see Emily smiling at me, gesturing with one elegant hand.
She places one skinny tanned arm around my shoulders and pulls me into the group standing there in their cocktail dresses, and I wait for the surge of triumph to come, the smugness that I’ve transformed myself from dog-walker to one of them in just a handful of months.
But I don’t feel anything like that. Mostly, I just want to go home.
“Jaaane,” Emily drawls tipsily, “you know everyone now, don’t you?”
“Hi, girls,” I say brightly, and they all smile in return.
I’m one of them now.
“Girl, that dress is so good,” Landry says. She’s wearing something similar, so maybe it’s not so much a compliment to me as to herself.
She’s also wearing a great bracelet, a slender gold bangle with a little charm dangling from it, and I am already wondering if there’s any way to slip it from her wrist without her noticing.
Fuck, no, I remind myself. You don’t have to do that shit anymore, and if you did, it would basically be suicide, just ask her where she got it and go buy one just like it.
But that idea doesn’t hold nearly as much appeal, so instead I wave her compliment off. “Oh, thank you. I couldn’t decide what to wear, just decided to go simple.”
“Is Eddie here?” Emily asks, and I nod again, gesturing behind me.
“I left him in pursuit of Woodford Reserve,” I say, and all five women give those weird fake laughs like I’ve said something funny.
Actually, Eddie has been drinking more lately, the recycling full of empty bottles. I resolved to keep a closer eye on him tonight, especially since he’s driving.
Of course, I don’t mention any of this to the girls.
But Caroline seems to pick up on something in my tone, because she says, rather pointedly, “I still just can’t believe Tripp Ingraham could have killed his wife and her best friend.”
Over her shoulder, I see a man dressed far more casually than anyone else here, camera lifted as he points and shoots. Where do photos like these even end up? Who wants to look at a bunch of housewives gossiping?
“I mean, he’s still saying he had nothing to do with…” Caroline’s voice drops to a whisper. “The murders. And there’s definitely going to be a trial…” She pauses, then stares directly at me. “Well, the whole thing must be such a nightmare for the both of you.”
It feels so infuriating and yet so … fucking apt that Tripp Ingraham might be the one to ruin this whole thing for me. It’s what the Tripps of the world do, after all. Fuck shit up for people like me.
“We’re praying over it,” I finally say, and lo and behold, that shuts them right up. The women all nod firmly, Anna-Grace even murmuring, “Amen.”
* * *
The party is still going full-swing when Eddie and I decide to leave around ten or so. People are getting drunker, the music is getting louder, and I’m tired of smiling for photos.
“Did you have a nice time?” Eddie asks, and I’m tired enough to tell the truth.
“Not really.”
That makes him laugh as he loosens his tie. “I hear you. Those people are … something else.”
We make our way to our car, feet crunching on the gravel.