Reputation(30)
But then Greg pulled back. “Wait. Wait.” His gaze slid sideways. A shadow loomed against the wall. We waited, but no one appeared. I stared at Greg hungrily. The inch of space between us felt like too much. Greg panted, waiting. After it was over, I wished I could go back to that anticipatory moment of Before, the heady tension of it, when it was just intoxicating possibility. When I hadn’t chosen yet. When I was still pure.
There’s a crash downstairs, and the baby laughs. I stare at my pale face in the mirror. My eyes have purple circles beneath them. The corners of my lips pull down. I look like a ghoul. I pull the dress over my head, slip on some heels, and fluff my hair. My phone sits facedown on the bureau, and I regard it suspiciously. Has it moved to the left since I set it there last? Has Ollie looked at it?
Fingers shaking, I unlock the screen. Something has occurred to me. Phones can track one’s movements, recording the various locations where the phone has traveled. I need to make sure that hasn’t happened. I need to erase all traces of where I’ve been and what I’ve done.
I’m able to find the location services in the settings. Common locations, reads the banner at the top. I see my home address, and then the hospital. But underneath, there are a few locations that stand out. If someone thought to look, they might grow suspicious. Nausea coils in my gut. I tap on two addresses in particular, horrified at their date stamps: Wednesday, April 26. The night of the benefit. The night of Greg’s death.
A button in the upper corner reads Clear History. I press it, holding my breath. After a moment, all of the locations logged in my device are gone. I blink at the blissfully empty screen, praying this isn’t a mirage. But they don’t return.
The ringing in my ears begins to recede. I’d never, ever admit that I’m glad Greg is dead, but if I’m honest, it’s a great weight off my chest. Without him, my life can continue as planned. Without him, I have a chance at happiness . . . even if I’m not sure it’s happiness I deserve.
12
KIT
SATURDAY, APRIL 29, 2017
My second husband’s funeral falls on the day when the weather finally breaks for the first time. People don shorts to jog down Blue Hill’s main drag. They troll plant nurseries and sit outside for brunch. It’s a day to have a picnic, not to wear an itchy black dress and drive to a dark, stuffy church to stare at an empty casket that’s supposed to symbolize a death vessel for my dead husband. We can’t put his real body in there yet because the coroner hasn’t finished his autopsy investigation.
“Are we ready?” Willa asks us as we pull into the parking lot of the church.
In the back seat, my daughters grumble. Neither has spoken since we got in the car. Are they on something? Did Raina sneak them pills? Maybe I shouldn’t have let Raina see Sienna that morning Willa arrived. I still don’t understand why Raina lied to me about being with Sienna when I broke the news about Greg.
I open the door and step out. As I swing my legs toward the pavement, I realize I’ve got a black stiletto on one foot and a brown one on the other. Willa seems to notice at the same time, and she quickly whips off her shoes and hands them to me. “Here. Take mine. We’re the same size.”
I shake my head. “Stop. It doesn’t matter.”
“I could give a shit about whether my shoes match. Honestly.”
I flinch, taking the statement way too personally—like Willa doesn’t give a shit if her shoes match because she doesn’t give a shit about Greg. I could tell Greg found her toughness off-putting, and Willa thought he cared too much about what people thought. When I first introduced Greg to Willa, on a warm day when we’d visited her in California, Willa challenged Greg to a race on the beach, and he declined.
“Come on,” Willa chided him. “Are you afraid I’m going to beat you?” She was just playing, but Greg gave her kind of a sharp look, and the mood just . . . deflated. Conversely, there was a moment at our rehearsal dinner when Willa rolled her eyes when Greg name-dropped that he was buddies with one of the wealthiest CEOs in Pittsburgh . . . and Greg noticed the eye roll, and things got tense pretty fast. It was obvious they only stomached one another out of their affection for me.
I stuff my feet into her shoes. It seems so bizarre, the need for me to look good going to a funeral. But people are going to be watching me. They’re going to see how I behave. They’re going to watch for a breakdown. More than a few people think I am Greg’s murderer. It’s easy to read between the lines on Facebook. A few times, I’ve wanted to comment on the posts, sometimes saying things like It wasn’t me, I swear! Or maybe Yes, it WAS me—you bitches figured it out!
The feelings that have come over me in the past few days are surprising. I’m not sure who I am anymore. All I want to do is throw a big middle finger in everyone’s faces.
The church lawn is eerily quiet; we’ve gotten here a little late. Behind us, another car rumbles up. I turn, thinking it’s our father—he said he’d meet us in the parking lot—but a young couple climbs out of a white Subaru SUV instead. The woman wears a slightly too-long black dress and clunky heels and holds a baby with bright blue eyes that inexplicably strike a chord deep inside me. Her husband, a huge, shaved-headed dead ringer for Dwayne Johnson, takes her arm. As the woman raises her head and meets my gaze, I feel a ripple of memory, recalling the last time I saw Laura Apatrea: at the benefit, when she’d spilled my drink.