Gwen asked, “Does anyone know if the boys were actually there?”
“From what Cooper said, Marissa was honestly scared,” said Jamie.
“You and Cooper check in with each other?” asked Vicky.
“I talk to Cooper and to Laura. Our daughters are friends,” Jamie reminded her. “I don’t know much more about what happened, though.”
“Yet,” said Jill.
“You’ll tell us if you learn anything?” Alicia sounded somewhat strained. She was addressing Jamie.
“Well, sure, but won’t it be on the news?”
“I would think so,” said Gwen, which made all three women look at her as if she’d just uttered a dire warning.
“Hopefully, your little darlings aren’t all lying to you. . . .” Jill looked down her nose at Vicky, Alicia, and Jamie in turn, but this time it seemed more like a warning.
“Let’s not talk about it anymore.” Alicia picked up her glass of wine, tasted it, made a face, set her glass back down, and asked, “Where’s Bette?”
Jamie had tasted her own wine and knew how she felt.
“Out . . . with a guy, probably,” Vicky answered. “She said she can’t stand sitting around and looking at Kearns’s dull face.”
“They’d better get divorced and fast, before they try to kill each other,” said Jill.
“Oh, it’s not that bad,” Alicia scoffed.
“Nearly,” Jill snorted.
“What do you think, Gwen?” Vicky asked curiously. “Our friend Bette’s still married, and living with her husband—Phil Kearns, from high school; maybe you remember him?—but she’s been going out like three nights a week and sometimes comes home in the wee morning hours. I’ve told her to be careful. Kearns might finally get off his ass and do something crazy. He doesn’t seem the type, but Bette’s pretty darn open about the whole thing. That seems like a bad idea, doesn’t it?”
Gwen thought for a moment. When it was clear she wasn’t getting off the spot, she said, “You never really can know what someone else is going through. Some people live out loud, like maybe your friend, Bette? I don’t know her, so I can’t say. Other people keep everything bottled up inside, which, in my experience, is far more dangerous.”
“You try to draw them out, right?” Jill asked. “In therapy?”
“Examining a problem—talking it over—is almost universally better for a person’s psyche.”
Gwen had grown more serious as the discussion went on, and a bit drawn in, Jamie felt.
“But when you touch on people’s deepest fears, you need to be careful,” Gwen added.
“Like . . . you think they’ll flip out?” asked Vicky.
Alicia saved Gwen from having to answer. “Yeah, they’ll flip out. If I do anything that makes Deon feel like I’ve dissed him somehow, he gets mean.”
“That’s not fear, that’s being an asshole,” said Vicky.
The rest of the evening, the talk centered around Tyler and Troy and Alex, Vicky, Alicia, and Bette’s senior boys. After a while, Jamie glanced at the clock and made excuses, and she and Gwen walked out together, leaving the other three women at the table.
“Sorry they grilled you,” Jamie said. “It’s kind of what they do.”
“How did you hook up with them?”
“I ran into Vicky at the school and she invited me to their wine klatch and it went on from there. I’m Emma’s sister. I think that had something to do with it.”
Gwen inclined her head in tacit agreement.
“Did you . . . you asked if the boys were there. Do you think . . . they could have something to do with it?”
“I haven’t talked to Marissa myself, so I don’t have any way of gauging what happened,” Gwen responded.
She realized her friend wasn’t about to conjecture about last night’s attack, and she didn’t want to either. But Gwen had raised the question, which had caused immediate pushback from Vicky and Alicia.
“I’m just glad Marissa’s all right,” Jamie said, and Gwen seconded that.
As they parted to head to their respective vehicles, Gwen hesitated and added soberly, “Stay safe, Jamie.”
“Thanks. You too,” Jamie said, wondering if there was more than just a well-wish in her words.
Fifteen minutes later, as Jamie opened the back door, growling and barking greeted her. She stopped short. She’d already forgotten about the new addition to the family. Duchess came racing around the corner, but from the kitchen, Emma yelled in her flat voice, “Duchess. Stop.”
The dog cocked an ear and slowed down. Upon seeing the newcomer was Jamie, she came up and sniffed her hand and seemed to relax. She then allowed Jamie to rub her head and scratch her ears before bounding back toward Emma. Jamie followed and found Emma and Harley standing side by side at the counter, putting together sandwiches from some of the deli meat Jamie had purchased at the store. Harley was quiet and Emma was looking at her, apparently trying to figure out what was wrong. Duchess wedged herself between them, her nose up as she gazed at one and then the other, as if trying to figure out which one would be most likely to give her some of the wonderful-smelling meat.
“You got a sandwich for me?” Jamie asked.
“You didn’t eat?” Emma asked her, frowning.
“I just had a glass of wine.”
“Just one?” Harley asked somewhat accusingly, looking up.
“Yes, just one.” Jamie looked at her daughter hard. “What’s that about?”
“Nothing,” she muttered, casting her eyes downward again.
Something going on there. Maybe she was taking her fear for Marissa out on her mother.
Jamie let it go for the moment. Emma was in the process of putting together a sandwich for her. She lined the bread up carefully. If she’d had a ruler, she would have placed the tops of the slices against it. She tucked the knife into ajar and worked to get just the right amount of mayonnaise on the blade.
By the time Jamie got her carefully constructed sandwich, a good five minutes had passed in what should have taken one. Theo had warned her of Emma’s need for control. “She doesn’t always become so exacting,
