When I used to walk dogs in the neighborhood, I sometimes thought about where people like Campbell, Emily, and Caroline went during the day, when they pulled out of Thornfield Estates in their oversized SUVs.
Not far, apparently. Today, we’re at Roasted, for a meeting of the Neighborhood Beautification Committee. Campbell and Emily are both wearing athleisure, but I’ve dressed a little nicer, pairing a gray pencil skirt with a pink blouse and matching heels. I’m still not quite as tan or as glossy of hair as they both are, but I can see myself reflected in Emily’s giant sunglasses, and I know I look a lot more like both of them than I did just a few months ago.
Making a mental note to ask Emily where she gets her hair done, I reach down into my bag—another new purchase, this massive leather purse that could probably hold Adele—and pull out the binder I’ve carefully labeled TENBC in a pretty, swirly font.
“Look at yooooouuuuu,” Emily says, reaching out to playfully shove at my arm. “So organized!”
I smile, not mentioning that I was up until 1 A.M. working on this and that it took a stupid amount of concealer to cover the circles under my eyes.
Or that while I sat on the floor of the living room, cutting pictures out of magazines and sliding them into the binder’s plastic folders, I’d heard those thumps from upstairs again, the weird sounds Eddie had said not to worry about.
Just a couple, and faint enough that I hadn’t jumped or shrieked this time, but I’d still made a mental note to call an exterminator.
Now, though, I’m all smiles as I lay the binder out on the table, my ring flashing in the sunlight.
Campbell leans forward to look more closely at the ring, just like I’d hoped she would.
“When’s the wedding?” she asks, and Emily perks up a little, too.
Gossip as currency, yet again.
I look down at the binder, flipping through its pages. “Honestly, we’re not sure. It was going to be fairly soon—something small, you know? Casual, at home…”
“I’m sure all of this with Tripp has made planning a wedding hard,” Emily says, sympathetic, and I look up.
“We’re mostly trying not to think about it,” I say, which is true.
Both women hum in agreement, and then Campbell sighs, turning my binder to face her. She flips through the pictures, but I can tell she’s not really looking at them.
“I found a couple of ideas from Southern Living,” I say. “For the flower beds in the front of the neighborhood? On that fourth page—”
“Did you know the police found out Tripp was at the lake?”
Emily says it in almost a whisper, and I jerk my head up, surprised. That’s new.
But I’m not as shocked as Campbell, apparently. She sits up so abruptly that she kicks the table, rattling the wrought iron.
“Are you fucking kidding me?” Campbell whips off her sunglasses, her blue eyes wide. “He was down there? Seriously?”
Emily nods, and I slide my binder back across the table to me. “That’s what the police said. I think someone saw him? Or there are receipts? Like, the actual kind, not the Kardashian kind.”
I laugh a little at that—who knew Emily had jokes?—but Campbell is still looking at both of us, her sunglasses dangling from her fingers.
“So … he really did it. He killed them.”
“Of course, he did,” I say, more sharply than I mean to, and they both turn to look at me.
Fuck.
Clearing my throat, I flip through the binder some more. “I just mean … the police are doing their jobs. They wouldn’t have charged him if they weren’t confident he did it.”
Emily nods, but Campbell still looks unsure, chewing her lower lip, her leg jiggling. “It’s just so weird,” she says. “Tripp could be an asshole when he drank, don’t get me wrong, but he wasn’t … violent. And he loved Blanche.”
I’d thought so, too, but now, I wonder if him falling to pieces after she died, him wandering the house and drinking all day wasn’t grief, but guilt.
And Emily pipes up, “They were having some issues though, Cam. You know that.”
They both glance at me, quickly, then at each other, and I know what this is about.
“Tripp told me,” I tell them, “that there were rumors about Eddie and Blanche.”
Another shared glance, and I think they might try to bullshit me, but then Emily shrugs and says, “I mean. They were spending a lot of time together. And Bea was never around.”
“Never,” Campbell says, shaking her head. “That company was her whole life. Especially in those last few months. We barely ever saw her.”
“That’s true,” Emily adds. “When we first moved into the neighborhood, Bea definitely spent more time with us.” She smiles, tapping my binder. “She did stuff like this. But last spring, she was missing meetings, passing on parties…”
“But do you think…” I let the question dangle, and I see them look at each other again.
“No,” Emily finally says. “But Bea and Blanche were kind of weird right before all of it happened.”
Campbell sucks in a breath, sitting back in her chair, her gaze again darting to Emily.
“What?” Emily asks her, sipping her coffee. “It’s true, and they’re both dead. It’s not like it can hurt anyone now to acknowledge it. Besides,” she adds, waving a hand, rings throwing off showers of sparks, “it wasn’t anything juicy. I think it had to do with Bea’s mom or something. Back before Eddie was even in the picture.”
I can see where that kind of gossip isn’t interesting to them, but damn, do I wish I knew more about it. Hearing that Bea and Blanche had some kind of tension isn’t new—Tripp had said the same thing—but why, exactly? I know there is something in that friendship that I am missing, and I can’t shake the thought that figuring it out is key to understanding Eddie. I try another angle. “Did Bea have a temper?”
Both women laugh, shaking their heads as Campbell takes the lid off her coffee to drain the cup.
“Oh my god, no,” Emily says. “She was sweet as pie. Tough, sure, ambitious and all that. But a real doll. I never saw her get mad at anybody. Not even when that catering company she hired completely screwed up her and Eddie’s anniversary party. It was supposed to be Hawaiian luau-themed, but they brought, I don’t remember, what was it, Cam?”
“Finger food,” she replies. “Like it was a tea party. Little cucumber sandwiches, petit fours, that kind of thing. Bea just laughed it off. Eddie was the one who—”
She stops abruptly, glancing at me, then shrugs it off. “Anyway, no, Bea never even got mildly irritated as far as I could tell.”
Silence descends, hanging awkwardly between us for a moment before Emily asks brightly, “So, are we all going to the country club tomorrow night?”
Oh, right. Another fundraiser, another thing stuck on my fridge because I’m one of these women now, the kind who goes to fundraisers at country clubs.
I smile at them.
“Wouldn’t miss it.”
As we stand up to leave, Campbell’s eyes slide down my body. “Wow,” she says. “You look … great, Jane. Really.”
“Doesn’t she?” Emily says, giving me another pat on the arm. “I think she might wear pencil skirts even better than Bea, and that was, like, her entire thing.”
She’s still smiling, but something about the comment bugs me. I hadn’t consciously been emulating Bea, but I see now how I must look like I put on a Bea costume for this meeting. Me and my pencil skirt and binder, like some kind of pale imitation.
The ghost of Bea.
The thought unsettles me all the way home, and when I come in, I look at myself in the hall mirror.
My hair brushes my shoulders in the same long bob Bea wore. The earrings I’m wearing remind me of ones I’ve seen in pictures of her.
I’m even wearing the same shade of red lipstick.
Turning away, I pick up my purse, taking the binder back out.
She did stuff like this.
Do I want to be the new Bea to these people? Or do I want them to accept me as Jane?
I don’t know anymore.
My phone buzzes, and I sigh, reaching into my bag to fish it out.
It’s a text from John.
Hey, friendo, it starts, and fuck me, I hate him so much.
Little short on cash this week. Another $500 should cover it. You can mail it again. Cash. Xo
My fingers hover over the keys.
I could tell him to fuck off.
I could text Eddie.
And then I reach into my purse and pull out the folded sheet of paper, the one Eddie gave me with the Phoenix number scrawled across it.
Or I could find out who’s looking for me. What they actually want. What they know.
And finally put this all to rest, so that I can move on with my life.
Fingers trembling, I start to dial.