“So how is the new dog?” I ask.
She shrugs. “We’ll see. All I know is we got him Friday, and he’s already left about a half dozen little turdlets around the house.” She turns to me and narrows her eyes. “So what happened to you last night? I texted you and you said to meet you in the kitchen, and the next thing I see, you’re running out the door.”
It’s now or never. A line from The Friendship Crisis, on my bedside table, comes to me: Confidences are the glue that cement female friendships. I take a step off the cliff.
“A dad at the party came on to me.” I pause. Why am I sugarcoating it? Because I feel guilty for flirting. “No, more like kind of assaulted me, in the bathroom.”
“Kind of assaulted you?” Leah’s large brown eyes widen. “What does kind of mean?”
“We were in the kitchen, and then I went upstairs to the bathroom, and he followed me.”
“Into the bathroom?”
I describe the whole incident—starting with how we had been talking in the kitchen, and finishing with the purple bruise on my hip, which I show Leah.
“What a fucking bastard. Who is it? I’ll kill him.”
I swallow hard. “Well, he told me his first name was Rob.” I keep my gaze on Ava and Cole, who are hanging by their fingers from the metal spider. I wonder if I should run over and facilitate their safe landing. I resist. Mark and David, who are feet away, don’t budge. I envy them their obliviousness.
“Which Rob? Is he Asian? Rob Zse? Ever since he lost weight, he thinks he’s some kind of a Romeo.”
“No, he isn’t Asian.” Wasn’t, I almost say. I watch as Cole and Ava climb down and run, hands entwined, across the field toward Dustin and the dog. David and Mark remain chatting by the metal spider, oblivious that their charges have flown the coop.
“Let’s see, it can’t be Rob Morten. He’s gay.”
“Rob Morten’s gay?” I turn to face her. “I thought he was married.”
“Please. He’s so deep in the closet, he’s part of the drywall. What other Robs are there?” Before I can answer, her eyes widen and she puts a hand to her mouth. I widen my eyes. “Rob fucking Avery?” Leah slaps her thigh. “The guy who was just killed?”
“Shhh, keep your voice down.”
“This is so insane! Have you told anyone?”
“Besides Mark? And you? No.”
“Whoa. Are you going to call the police?”
“The police? Why would I call the police?”
Leah narrows her eyes, a wry look on her face. “Now I wasn’t a litigator, only a patent lawyer, and I think I got a C-plus in criminal law, but there’s going to be a murder investigation, Allie. Someone killed Rob Avery. And I’m pretty sure they’re going to want to talk to you. I mean, maybe he was doing drugs or something, and that’s why he acted so crazy at the party, and like his drug dealer killed him.”
I stare at Leah. “That’s a bit of a leap.”
“That was a for instance. The point is, you need to tell the police what happened,” Leah says. “Maybe he’s done this to other women, and someone got mad. Like a husband.”
An image of an angry Mark skulking through the streets of our neighborhood in the middle of the night pops into my head. I shake the thought away.
“The truth is going to come out, Allie. You might as well get ahead of it.”
But I have no desire to insert myself, or Mark, into a murder investigation. After all, Rob Avery did assault me, or try to, last night. As far-fetched as it sounds, I don’t want to risk the police thinking that I—or even worse, Mark—might be involved. I’m about to restate that I have no interest in talking to the police, and I’d appreciate her keeping this confidential, when in one swift move Leah has jumped up, passed me her coffee, and is springing across the field to a sobbing Ava. From here, I can see the little girl’s jeans are torn at the knee. Cole runs past her to me.
“Mommy, Mommy, Ava fell on the blacktop.”
Leah scoops up Ava. As she and David head off, she gives me a wave.
A queasy panic stirs in my gut, like when I’ve drunk too many espressos. Being a mom to young kids means never getting to finish your conversations, but I’m worried that I didn’t make myself clear to Leah.
I send up a little prayer to the universe: Please, Leah, keep your mouth shut.
12
After I put Cole to bed on Sunday night, I navigate over to the swampland that is Facebook to see if anyone has posted more info on Rob Avery. Despite my best efforts to keep things simple, I’ve somehow joined so many groups that I am totally overwhelmed whenever I open up the website. All this information is supposed to keep me informed of things, but the opposite seems to happen. I often feel like I’m flailing around in the dark, thanks to information overload and algorithms I don’t understand.
There’s the Eastbrook Neighborhood Association page, as well as the Eastbrook Elementary School parents’ page, not to mention Eastbrook Moments—a page just for Cole’s kindergarten class filled with news updates and field trip logistics, as well as cute photos captioned with adorable out-of-the-mouths-of-babes quotes.
My other groups include D.C. Yard Sale—a great place to find gently used LEGO; Washington D.C. Photographers—a professional networking necessity; and Bethesda Patch—the local news outlet.
I scan the Eastbrook Neighborhood Association page. It is inundated with posts about Rob Avery’s death. The buzz from the morning has increased exponentially, and all other facets of our neighborhood life—requests for used tennis racquets, recommendations for pediatric dentists—have been squeezed out to make room for rumor.
Ninety percent of
