Chapter 16

Tara

 

 

“I’m not a golf ball!” Ginger screamed, falling back on her rear just as I realized it wasn’t a psycho-killer leering through my basement window.

My gaze passed from the golf club in my hand to Ginger, who was now spread-eagle on my lawn, revealing her granny panties in all their floral glory. A giggle bubbled up from my chest, turning into hysterical laughter as Ginger joined in on the other side of the windowpane now spiderwebbed with cracks from my maniacal golf stroke. I keeled over clenching my abdomen as the laughter splintered my sadness, and my anxiety melted away.

After I caught a breath and Ginger righted herself to a sitting position, I yelled through the glass, “Are you trying to give me a heart attack?”

She waved me to come outside, shutting her eyes as she rested her hand on her heaving chest.

Forgetting about the noise in the basement, I returned Chris’s golf club to the garage and walked with Ginger to her house, giggling as we relived the hilarious-in-hindsight incident. Settled into her living room, we drank oolong tea and ate generic chocolate chip cookies, pretending like my husband wasn’t in jail and her son hadn’t been murdered. We made superficial chitchat about everything that didn’t matter and avoided the things that did matter. If only for one conversation, we both needed to forget.

I lifted a cookie and smirked. “Chips-A-Happy brand?”

“It’s not like it’s stopping you from eating them!”

Raising a child as a single mom had taught Ginger how to stretch a dollar. Even now she still bought generic everything, and I still mercilessly teased her about it.

I watched Ginger nibble on a cookie, noting the tremble of her hands. This wasn’t the same woman from a couple days ago. Her collarbone jutted out where there used to be soft tissue. Bony knobs replaced her fleshy knuckles. Thin skin draped over sharp cheekbones, forming pleated wrinkles down her neck. Her chaotic print skirt hung loosely on hips where it had before fit snugly, the kaleidoscope of pink, teal, and orange a stark contrast to her dull complexion. She tried to hide it beneath her usual age-inappropriate ruby red lipstick and a flash of sapphire eyeshadow, but beneath the cheerful makeup she was dying inside. It was as if Ginger had been whittled down to a ghost of herself.

The green of her eyes shimmered like tiny pools of rippling water. There was so much pain there, and I didn’t know how to help pull her through it when I felt it so deeply myself.

“You know, I was thinking about you the other night.”

“Oh?” Ginger lifted an eyebrow playfully. “I had no idea you felt that way about me.”

“What can I say? ‘When you realize you want to spend the rest of your life with somebody, you want the rest of your life to start as soon as possible.’” I waited to see if Ginger would play along.

She did. “Did you really think you could stump me with When Harry Met Sally? I still remember seeing that in the theatre. So why were you thinking about me…in the middle of the night?”

I grinned. “It’s silly, really. Just something I’ve wondered over the years. Your clothes. I never understood why you kept all your old clothes and still wear them.”

She thought for a moment. “I was raised in extreme poverty, so I had always learned how to stretch a dollar. ‘Waste nothing,’ my parents always said. But when I met Rick, he loved spoiling me, so he bought me all the latest fashion. That was the 1980s for ya’—all about the clothes, the big hair, the vanity. Unfortunately real life as a parent and provider couldn’t compete with the high life, so Rick left. But I kept the clothes. And the good memories that came with them. My body hasn’t changed much since my thirties, and wearing them takes me back to those fun days.”

“I bet you were so happy when the eighties made a comeback,” I joked.

“I don’t remember them ever leaving,” she said with a wink.

“And you don’t get self-conscious wearing such…youthful stuff? Nora would disown me if I did that.”

“Age is nothing but a number. As Harrison Ford said in Raiders of the Lost Ark, ‘It’s not the years, honey. It’s the mileage.’ And I got a lot of mileage to go.”

We giggled until a lull in the conversation hung between us, and I knew we were both thinking about the same thing. That night. The image of Benson’s body, the memory’s edges sharp in my brain, when all I wanted was for it to be swallowed up in a void. I didn’t want to sift through the visuals anymore; I just wanted darkness to eat that night whole.

“Do you think Chris…” Ginger broke the silence, then paused.

I could have finished her sentence for her in a myriad of ways: Do you think Chris…finally talked to the cops? Will ever tell me the truth about what happened? Killed Benson? But she didn’t say any of those things. She just sat, silent and tense.

As she set her nibbled-on cookie down, I could see in the set of her jaw that she was overthinking how to word whatever was on her mind.

“Ging, what about Chris?” I prodded.

“This isn’t easy to ask.”

“You know you can ask me anything.”

“I know, but I’m worried you’re going to get defensive.”

Of course I would if she kept beating around the bush. “Just say it already. I promise not to get defensive.”

She took a breath, then continued. “Do you think Chris would talk to the cops about me? Tell them private stuff that I shared with him in confidence?”

That was an odd question. “What kind of stuff?”

“Personal stuff.”

“If you told me what it was, I might be able to help.” I felt like she was hiding something from me, something important, and it was putting me on edge.

“This is why I didn’t want to bring it up. I don’t want to get into the details, Tara, but I just want to know if Chris is the type of person to…betray a friend.”

Betray a friend? It seemed like if anyone was betraying a friend it was Ginger betraying me. I couldn’t understand why she was being so secretive. It felt disloyal that she would share things with my husband that she didn’t tell me, her best friend.

“No, I don’t think he would share something private. Even with the cops.” Quite the contrary, he wasn’t saying anything to help himself get out of jail. “Why are you worried about this?”

Ginger stared at her pleated skirt, its vibrant geometric pattern a throwback to eighties attention-grabbing style. Even amid a murder investigation she still looked as outlandishly charming as always, while I sat here still in my pajamas.

“The police seem to think I might be behind Benny’s death, and they knew about some things that happened between me and Benny…things I only shared with Chris.”

I wasn’t usually one to indulge in juicy gossip, but I really wanted to know what kind of things Ginger was referring to. Especially if those things could free Chris. But clearly Ginger planned to stay as tight-lipped as a scandal-ridden politician.

“Chris wouldn’t throw you under the bus, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

“They knew an awful lot, Tara.”

“They’re cops. Digging up dirt is what they do. I’m sure right now everyone’s a suspect. And you’re not the one sitting in a jail cell. Chris is…because of the knife you told me to take from a crime scene.” The words came out more scathing than I had intended, tinged with a venom I hadn’t realized was in me. But I was angry at her. She might as well have framed me for the murder when she handed me that knife.

“Are you blaming me for that?”

“Well, if the shoe fits, Ginger. You are the one who put it in my hands!” I was practically screaming now. “If I hadn’t taken that knife, it wouldn’t have been sitting in my kitchen, and my husband would be home instead of in jail!”

“I told you to hide it!” she yelled over me, shaking her head. “Why didn’t you listen to me?”

We were in a full-fledged argument now, the shouting match growing more intense with the volley of accusations.

“I literally had no time before the cops showed up asking questions and poking around the house!”

“Well, there’s nothing we can do about it now. Besides, they’re treating me like a suspect too, so maybe they don’t have anything on anyone.”

“Except for the murder weapon they found—In. My. House!” I reminded her.

Ginger’s gaze skipped around me, then settled back on her lap. I could tell she felt bad about it. Friends who’d known each other as long as we had recognized all types of nonverbal clues. Not that her useless guilt could fix the damage she had caused.

“You know I’m sorry about all of this, right?” she pleaded.

I glanced out the window, unable to acknowledge her apology. “All I want is a win. But there’s no guarantee in life that Chris will get one. And right now, I blame you for that. I’m trying to forgive you. I really am. But I’m just not there yet.”

“What about my win? You’ve been winning your whole life, Tara, but all I do is lose. My husband left me. I’ve lost two children. I have no one, Tara. I’m all alone in this world, a world I don’t even want to be in anymore.”

The last word dropped, replaced by weeping. Ginger shrugged into herself, tears dripping off her chin. With a maternal longing, I got up and rushed to her, wrapping my arms around her shuddering shoulders. There it was, as clear as the blue sky beyond Ginger’s window, the cruelty I had inflicted on my closest friend by refusing her the one thing she needed: me.

“Oh, Ging, I’m just angry. You know you’ll always have me.”

“Will I? Because you blame me for Chris being in jail, and I don’t know how to fix everything. I can’t even fix my own damn life.”

“Nothing is so bad that we can’t get through it together.”

“I wish that were true. But if I told you everything…” The sentence dissolved into tears, until she sucked in a shaky breath and sniffled. “You don’t understand. You’ll never understand.” She shook her head against my shoulder.

“Then tell me, talk to me. That’s what I’m here for.”

She lifted her face, her watery eyes meeting mine. “After Rick left me, I built a hard shell around my heart. It felt like the only way to protect myself from getting hurt again. Then I met your family and felt like I could live freely, happily, and break that shell. Finally I had friends, felt like I had a real family again.” She sniffled and pulled a Kleenex out from the sleeve of her blouse, blowing her nose in it.

Crumbling the used tissue in her hand, she continued, “But now…knowing I might lose you too…”

She slid out of my arms, stepping to the window to toss the tissue into a wicker wastebasket. “Benson wasn’t just a person I birthed once upon a time. You probably understand this, how children encompass this vast hope that gives purpose to the past, and joy to the present, and expectation to the future. That’s what children are to us—a trinity of hope. And now I have none.”

Her hurt hurt me. Deeply.

“You know that Nora loves you like a grandmother, don’t you?”

She turned back toward me. “Really?”

“Yes, really. You’re family to us, Ging. You’ll always be family.”

She smiled, just a grin at first, then it widened as another tear trickled down her cheek. “That means a lot to me.”

“You mean a lot to us.”

Ginger wiped her eyes dry with the cuff of her shiny color-block sleeve and fanned her face. “Look at me, a hot mess! How about more tea?”

I picked up my teacup and lifted it in affirmation. “You can never get a cup of tea large enough or a book long enough to suit me,” I said.

“C.S. Lewis?” Ginger guessed.

“How did you know?” I confirmed with feigned resentment.

Our game usually only involved random movie quotes, but once in a while I would throw in one of Ginger’s personal favorites—a tea quote.

Ginger raised an index finger and replied, “Love and scandal are the best sweeteners of tea.” She grinned, waiting for me to guess.

“Henry Fielding,” I answered matter-of-factly. Her mouth dropped open in shock, until I pointed to her curio cabinet. Inside it was a tiny plaque citing the quote, propped up beside an antique tea set.

“You’re very good, you.” She winked, then headed to the kitchen.

“Robert De Niro from Analyze This,” I called after her.

I followed behind her to the kitchen to help, but she waved me back to the living room.

“You relax. It’ll take a few minutes to brew, so sit tight while I make some cucumber sandwiches to go with it. I have a couple big ones in my garden I need to pick. I’ll be outside if you need me.”

While the kitchen’s screen door swung shut behind her, I couldn’t help but sense an unspoken threat to our friendship. Secrets deeply buried. There were lies between the lines, and as much as I loved Ginger, I was finding trust harder to rely on. What wasn’t she telling me? And why couldn’t she tell me whatever it was?

There had always been a past to Ginger that she never fully revealed. I had bits and pieces, but they didn’t all quite fit together, much like Ginger’s mismatched patterns in the garish outfits she wore every day. The first time I had commented on her wardrobe, Ginger only shrugged, and cracked me up with a line borrowed from Dolly Parton: “I look just like the girls next door…if you happen to live next door to an amusement park.”

I first noticed the holes in her history when she bought 7 Deadnettle Drive and seemed too eager to become a fixture of the neighborhood. Within a couple weeks she had shared that her son had died in a drowning incident. Within a couple months she had confessed that her husband had abandoned her. Within a year I knew about the loss of her beach house due to unpaid property taxes, followed by her slide into homelessness during that very difficult transition.

She showed me some dark, painful experiences over the years. But I sensed that she had only scratched the surface. I saw it in the way she quickly moved past the conversations. And in the avoidance of details. It had only been a suspicion that there was more to Ginger than met the eye, but now I was certain of it.

I headed to the curio cabinet where her floral tea set glistened behind immaculately clean glass. The bottom of the massive piece of furniture had two doors that enclosed a large storage space, one of which was slightly ajar. I pushed on the door to close it, but something blocked it open. I knelt down, pulling the door open to see what was in the way. A box was tucked inside with the word EVIDENCE stamped across the cardboard. It looked awfully official.

Had the police given this to her? And why hadn’t she shown this to me, considering my husband was in jail?

Checking the window that looked out over her garden, I watched Ginger wrestle a cucumber from its stem. I only had a few minutes, but I needed to know what was inside this box. I lugged it out onto the carpeted floor—it was heavier than I had anticipated—and lifted the flaps open, peeking inside. It was packed full of papers. Lifting out the paper on top, I gasped as I skimmed the typed text. A terrifying thought flittered through my mind as I wondered if this was why Benson was murdered…and Ginger was the one who’d killed him.