The post-funeral luncheon was served at Alio’s because the house Vincent had bought for Yolanda hadn’t been decorated yet. They had, after all, been married only five or six months.
Dana would have bet that most of those in attendance would have preferred to go home. But Yolanda had somehow composed herself and Kitty was nowhere in sight, and apparently the mourners had decided to continue this charade to the end.
At Yolanda’s direction, Premiere Parties had arranged an eight-course degustation of Vincent’s favorite dishes: antipasti, osso buco, pasta vongole, and other items Dana did not recognize and would not eat, certainly not at noon and definitely not while surrounded by the sickish scent of lilies that Yolanda insisted be hauled from the grave and distributed around the banquet room.
As soon as Dana had seen Kitty’s compelling display of sorrow at Vincent’s casket, she knew she must talk to Lauren. It was too hard to believe that Kitty had pulled the trigger.
Between the fourth and fifth courses, Dana leaned across Steven and caught Lauren’s eye and asked if she needed to use the ladies’ room.
The men half stood as the women got up because they knew their wives peed with each other. They’d long ago given up stupid jokes about that.
Not surprisingly, the ladies’ room was decorated in black, red, and gold. Dana knew Kitty would have been horrified, that she would have held the event at a place with a less boisterous color palette.
Then she remembered that Yolanda was not Kitty and this wasn’t a party.
“Well, this has been positively awful,” Lauren said once they were inside. “Who ever expected Kitty would show up?” She seemed more demure than usual.
“Vincent was her husband almost thirty years,” Dana said. “He was Marvin and Elise’s father.”
Lauren offered no response.
Dana went to the vanity and set down her purse. She straightened her hair, which had been confined under her small hat. She adjusted the collar of her deep pewter weskit. It was easier to straighten and adjust, after all, than to address what needed addressing.
“Lauren,” she said, eyes transfixed by the mirror. “I need to know about you and Vincent.”
Lauren took a step back the way everyone had at the grave when they thought Kitty would shoot them all, too. Dana thought if she were closer she might see Lauren grow pale; she might witness the pinkness drain from Lauren’s forehead the way the blood in an IV bottle empties during a transfusion.
She’s going to deny it, Dana surmised.
But Lauren regained her footing and tightened the ribbon that held back her hair. “Oh, Dana,” she said with a bewildered smile. “His dick was the size of an Italian flagpole.”