Pretty Girls (7 page)

“Did you want a drink?” Helen asked.

Claire’s mouth formed a reflexive no, but she said, “Yes.”

Helen pulled out the Scotch. “Ginny?”

Claire’s grandmother smiled. “No thank you, dear.”

Helen poured a generous double. Claire’s hand shook as she took the glass. She’d taken a Valium this morning, and when that hadn’t seemed to work, she’d taken some Tramadol left over from a root canal. She probably shouldn’t put alcohol on top of the pills, but Claire probably shouldn’t have done a lot of things this week.

She threw back the drink. Her mind flashed up the image of Paul throwing back his Scotch in the restaurant four nights ago. She gagged as the liquid hit her stomach and burned back up her throat.

“Goodness.” Ginny patted Claire’s back. “Are you okay, dear?”

Claire winced as she swallowed. She felt a sharp pain in her cheek. There was a small rash of scraped skin where her face had grazed the brick wall in the alley. Everyone assumed the injury had happened during the robbery, not before.

Ginny said, “When you were a little girl, I used to give you Scotch and sugar for your cough. Do you remember that?”

“Yes, I do.”

She smiled at Claire with genuine affection, which was something Claire could not quite get used to. Last year, the old woman had been diagnosed with something called pleasant dementia, which meant that she had forgotten all the perceived slights and neurotic obsessions that had made her such a nasty bitch for the first eight decades of her life. The transformation had made everyone wary. They were constantly waiting for the old Ginny to rise up phoenix-like and burn them all anew.

Helen told Claire, “That was nice that your tennis team showed up.”

“It was.” Claire had been shocked that they’d made an appearance. The last time she’d seen them, she was being shoved into the back of a police car.

“They were dressed so impeccably,” Ginny said. “You have such lovely friends.”

“Thank you,” Claire said, though she wasn’t sure whether they had attended Paul’s funeral because they were still her friends or because they couldn’t pass up a juicy social event. Their behavior at the cemetery had offered no clues as to which was the truth. They had kissed Claire’s cheek and hugged her and told her how sorry they were, and then they had all wandered off while Claire was greeting other mourners. She couldn’t hear them, but she knew what they were doing: picking apart what everyone was wearing, gossiping about who was sleeping with whom and who had found out and how much the divorce would cost.

Claire had found herself having an almost out-of-body experience where she floated like a ghost over their heads and heard them whispering, “I heard Paul was drinking. Why were they in that alley? What did they think would happen in that part of town?” Someone, invariably, would make the old joke, “What do you call a woman in a black tennis dress? A Dunwoody widow.”

Claire had been friends with these types of mean girls all of her life. She was pretty enough to be the leader, but she’d never been able to engender the type of fearless loyalty it took to marshal a pack of she-wolves. Instead, she was the quiet girl who laughed at all the jokes, straggled behind them at the mall, sat on the hump in the backseat of the car, and never, ever—ever—let them know that she was secretly fucking their boyfriends.

Ginny asked, “Which one were you charged with assaulting?”

Claire shook her head to clear it. “She wasn’t there. And it wasn’t assault, it was disorderly conduct. That’s an important legal distinction.”

Ginny smiled pleasantly. “Well, I’m sure she’ll send a card. Everyone loved Paul.”

Claire exchanged a look with her mother.

Ginny had hated Paul. And she had hated Claire with Paul even more. Ginny had been a young widow when she raised Claire’s father on a paltry income from a secretarial job. She wore her struggles like a badge of honor. Claire’s designer clothes and jewelry and the big houses and the pricey cars and the luxury vacations had come as a personal affront to a woman who had survived the Great Depression, a world war, the death of a husband, the loss of two children, and countless other hardships.

Claire could vividly recall the time she’d worn red Louboutins to visit her grandmother.

“Red shoes are for toddlers and whores,” Ginny had quipped.

Later, when Claire had told Paul about the exchange, he’d joked, “Is it creepy that I’m fine with either?”

Claire put her empty glass back in the console. She stared out the window. She felt so out of time and place that she momentarily didn’t recognize the scenery. And then she realized that they were almost home.

Home.

The word didn’t seem to fit anymore. What was home without Paul? That first night when she got in from the police station, the house seemed suddenly too big, too empty, for just one person.

Paul had wanted more. He had talked about children on their second date and third date and countless dates thereafter. He had told Claire about his parents, how wonderful they were, how he had been devastated when they’d died. Paul was sixteen when the Scotts were killed in a car accident during a freak ice storm. He was an only child. The only relative he’d had left was an uncle who passed away while Paul was in high school.

Her husband had made it clear that he wanted a big family. He wanted lots and lots of kids to inoculate himself against loss and Claire had tried and tried with him until finally she had agreed to go see a fertility expert who had informed Claire that she couldn’t have children because she had an IUD and was taking birth control pills.

Of course, Claire hadn’t shared that information with Paul. She had told her husband that the doctor had diagnosed her with something called an “inhospitable womb,” which was true because what was more inhospitable than a pipe cleaner stuck up your uterus?

“Almost there,” Helen said. She reached over and touched Claire’s knee. “We’ll get through this, sweetheart.”

Claire grabbed her mother’s hand. They both had tears in their eyes. They both looked away without acknowledging them.

“It’s good you have a grave to visit.” Ginny stared out the window with a pleasant smile on her face. There was no telling where her mind was. “When your father died, I remember standing at his grave and thinking, This is the place where I can leave my grief. It wasn’t immediate, of course, but I had somewhere to go, and every time I visited the cemetery, I felt like when I got back into my car, a tiny little bit of grief was gone.”

Helen brushed invisible lint from her skirt.

Claire tried to summon good memories of her father. She was in college when Helen called to say that he was dead. At the end of his life, her father had been a very sad, very broken man. No one had been surprised when he’d committed suicide.

Ginny asked, “What’s that missing girl’s name again?”

“Anna Kilpatrick.”

The limo slowed as it made the wide turn into the driveway. Helen shifted in her seat to look out the front window. “Is the gate supposed to be open?”

“I guess the caterers—” Claire didn’t finish the sentence. There were three police cars parked behind the caterers’ van. “Oh, God. What now?”

A policewoman motioned for the limo to park on the pad down from the main house.

Helen turned to Claire. “Have you done something?”

“What?” Claire couldn’t believe the question, but then she thought about the Valium and the Tramadol and the Scotch and her heartless parole officer who’d said Claire’s smart mouth was going to get her in trouble one day, to which Claire had told him that day had come and gone or she wouldn’t have a parole officer.

Would he really drug-test her on the day of her husband’s funeral?

“For the love of God.” Helen slid toward the door. “Claire, do something about your expression. You look guilty as hell.”

“I didn’t do anything,” Claire said, resurrecting a whiny tone she hadn’t deployed since the ninth grade.

“Let me handle this.” Helen pushed open the door. “Is there a problem, Officer?” She was using her librarian voice, low and terse and highly annoyed.

The cop held up her hand. “You need to step back, lady.”

“This is private property. I know my rights.”

“I’m sorry.” Claire edged in front of her mother. No wonder she had a problem with authority. “I’m Claire Scott. This is my house.”

“Can I see some ID?”

Helen stamped her foot. “Oh, for Godsakes. Are you really here with three police cars to arrest my daughter on the day she put her husband in the ground?” She threw a hand toward Claire. “Does she look like a criminal?”

“Mother, it’s all right.” Claire didn’t remind her that technically, she
was
a criminal. As part of her parole, the police could trespass all they wanted. She opened her purse to look for her wallet. And then she remembered that the Snake Man had taken her wallet.

Claire saw the tattoo again, the gold-plated fang. The Snake Man’s skin was white, a detail that had startled Claire when she’d relayed it to the detective at the police station. Was it racist to assume that rich white people were only robbed by black or Hispanic gang members, or had Claire listened to too much rap music in spin class? It was the same thinking that had made her conjure the image of a shiny black gun when it was actually a knife being held to Paul’s back. A knife that didn’t even look real, but had still managed to murder her husband.

The earth started to tremble. Claire felt the vibrations move up from her feet and into her legs.

“Claire?” Helen said.

They’d been in Napa a few years ago when an earthquake hit. Claire had been thrown from bed, Paul on top of her. They’d grabbed their shoes but little else as they ran past broken water pipes and shattered glass.

“Insufficient shear reinforcement mode,” Paul had said, standing in the middle of the crowded, broken street in his boxers and undershirt. “A newer building would have base isolation bearings, or a quake-resistant sill-anchoring system that could buffer the shearing effect.”

Listening to him drone on about seismic loading was the only thing that had calmed her.

“Claire?”

Claire blinked open her eyes. She looked up at her mother, wondering why their faces were so close.

“You fainted.”

“I didn’t,” Claire argued, though evidence pointed to the contrary. She was lying on her back in her own driveway. The policewoman was standing over her. Claire tried in vain to think of an insect the woman resembled, but honestly, she just looked overworked and tired.

The cop said, “Ma’am, just stay there. There’s an ambulance ten minutes out.”

Claire forced away the image of the paramedics who had rushed down the alley with their gurney in tow, the way they had spent less than a minute examining Paul before shaking their heads.

Had someone actually said, “He’s gone,” or had Claire said the words herself? Heard the words. Felt the words. Watched her husband go from being a man to being a body.

Claire asked her mother, “Can you help me up?”

“Ma’am, don’t sit up,” the cop ordered.

Helen helped her sit up. “Did you hear what the cop said?”

“You’re the one who helped me sit up.”

“Not that. Someone tried to rob the house.”

“Rob the house?” Claire repeated, because it didn’t make sense. “Why?”

“I imagine they wanted to steal things.” Helen’s tone was patient, but Claire could tell she was unsettled by the news. “The caterers walked in on the burglars.”

Burglars. The word sounded antiquated in her mother’s mouth.

Helen continued, “There was a fight. The bartender was badly hurt.”

“Tim?” she asked, because she thought knowing the details might make her understand that this had really happened.

Helen shook her head. “I don’t know his name.”

Claire looked up at the house. She was feeling disembodied again, drifting in and out of the wake of Paul’s absence.

And then she thought of the Snake Man and snapped back into the present.

Claire asked the cop, “There was more than one burglar?”

“There were three African American males, medium builds, mid-twenties. They were all wearing masks and gloves.”

Helen had never had much faith in police officers. “With that description, I’m sure you’ll find them in no time.”

“Mother,” Claire tried, because this wasn’t helping.

“They were in a silver late-model four-door.” The cop gripped the baton handle on her belt, likely because she longed to use it. “We’ve got a state-wide BOLO on the vehicle.”

“Young lady, to me a bolo is a garish string tie.” Helen was in full librarian mode again, taking out all the angst that she couldn’t direct toward Claire. “Could you trouble yourself to speak English?”

Ginny provided, “Be-on-the-look-out. Am I right?” She smiled sweetly at the cop. “I have a color television in my sitting room.”

Claire said, “I can’t sit in the driveway like this.” Helen grabbed her arm and helped her stand. What would Paul do if he were here? He would take charge. Claire couldn’t do that. She could barely keep her legs underneath her. “Did the burglars take anything?”

The cop said, “We don’t think so, ma’am, but we need you to walk through with the detectives and check.” She pointed toward a group of men standing by the mudroom door. They were all wearing
Columbo
trench coats. One of them even had a cigar clenched between his teeth. “They’ll give you a checklist to generate an inventory. You’ll need a thorough report for your insurance company.”

Claire felt so overwhelmed that she almost laughed. The woman might as well have asked her to catalog the Smithsonian. “I’ve got people coming. I need to make sure the tables are set up. The caterer—”

“Ma’am,” the cop interrupted, “we can’t let anyone into the house until the scene is cleared.”

Claire put her fist to her mouth so she wouldn’t tell the cop to stop calling her fucking “ma’am.”

“Ma’am?” the cop said.

Claire dropped her fist. There was a car stopped at the bottom of the driveway. Gray Mercedes. Headlights on. Yellow FUNERAL flag hanging out of the window. Another Mercedes slowed to a stop behind it. The funeral procession had finally caught up. What was she going to do? Falling to the ground again seemed like the simplest solution. And then what? The ambulance. The hospital. The sedatives. Eventually, she would be sent home. Eventually, she would find herself standing in this same place again with the detectives and the inventory and insurance and the bullshit. This was all Paul’s fault. He should be here. He should be taking care of all of this. That was his job.