“You’re right. It’s probably just routine.” But it doesn’t make me feel any better. It makes me feel like a noose is tightening around my throat.
Tuesday at work is uneventful. I take advantage of downtime at lunch to finish the last chapters of Disheveled for book club. After dinner, I leave Mark to give Cole his bath and head across the street.
At Leah’s, Dustin answers the door when I knock, clutching his quivering chihuahua.
“Hi, Dustin,” I say. “Is this your new pup?”
He tilts his long head, his eyes almost hidden by a swoop of thick, black hair. “Wozniak.” Wozniak shivers at the sound of his name, his eyes bugging in different directions.
“Interesting name.”
“Steve Wozniak cofounded Apple in 1976,” Dustin says, nuzzling his nose in his dog’s tiny back. “He created the first programmable universal remote, so yeah, we have him to thank for that.”
“Cool. I did not know that.” Dustin proceeds with a micro-lecture on the birth of personal computing, while I take in Leah’s foyer. Her house is a center-hall colonial, an exact replica of our own, built by the same developer during the World War II boom that turned Washington from a sleepy town into a city. But whereas our house has maintained what I like to consider its shabby-chic charm, Leah’s has been blinged out.
“Is that Allie? C’mon in!” Someone yells from the living room, interrupting Dustin mid-monologue.
“Guess I should go in.” I hold up the book.
I enter Leah’s living room, shelter-magazine ready with buttery yellow walls, white sofas, and gleaming mahogany end tables. Symmetry reigns here, and I am askew, especially tonight, after the visit from the police.
Daisy embraces me in a warm hug.
“Everybody read the book?” I ask.
Daisy rolls her eyes. “Couldn’t get past chapter 1, but don’t tell anyone. I had a situation with Gabriella this week. Her mom found some prescription pills in her backpack and automatically assumed they were mine. She showed up guns blazing.”
“Oh no!” Heather shakes her head in disbelief. She’s wearing a Marine Corps Marathon T-shirt over running tights, but not a hair is out of place on her blond bob, the default hairdo of the neighborhood.
“And then I told Trip, which I was apparently not supposed to do, and he confronted Gabriella, and I became the bad guy.” She winced. “Forget this book, I should write a book about stepparenting a teen. I’d call it This Wasn’t My First Choice, Either.” She lets out a shrill laugh. “Kidding, of course. I love Gabriella to bits.”
Daisy turns her attention to me. “Now, Allie.” She puts both her hands on my shoulders and squeezes. “The question is, how are you holding up, sweetie?”
In an instant, I am sure Leah told her about Rob Avery and what happened in the bathroom. Fury rises in me. “Where’s Leah?”
“She’s in the kitchen.”
I leave the room and find Leah buzzing around the kitchen in yoga pants and a cropped sweatshirt that most teenagers wouldn’t dare wear.
“Allie, honey! How are you holding up?” She hugs me. “I’ve been thinking about you all day. I called a friend of mine from law school who’s a public defender. Want to know what she said?”
“Not really. You told Daisy, didn’t you?”
Unfazed, Leah points at a bottle of white wine on the counter. “Can you open that for me?”
I grab the bottle and unscrew the cap.
“Leah, did you tell Daisy?”
Leah stops what she’s doing. “I had to. Please don’t hate me! She came in here saying that someone had told her that you had been making out with Rob Avery the night he was killed, and I said, no way, no how.” Leah opens a can of smoked almonds and pours them into a bowl. “That is not what happened.”
“She said I was making out?” I am trying to picture what Daisy could have seen that night.
“Well, maybe not those exact words. She said she heard someone else say that.”
“Who?”
“I don’t know.” Leah stops her busywork and stands with her hands on her hips. “That’s not the point. The point is, I said that son of a bitch forced himself on you.” She hands me the bowl of almonds. “That’s all. Nothing else. I didn’t tell her about him calling you a cock tease or the whole Tinder thing, don’t worry.” She tilts her head to one side. “Do you hate me?”
“No, I don’t hate you.” But I can barely contain my composure. “I just don’t like the whole neighborhood talking about this.”
“I know, I get it. But trust me, it’s better if they know the truth, right? I mean, with the investigation, it’s all going to come out. I used to work in PR.”
I frown. “I thought you used to be a lawyer.”
She waves away the question. “That was before. It’s better to get ahead of things.” She picks up the tray with the glasses. “Grab the wine, will you?”
I follow Leah into the living room like an automaton. Daisy’s sitting on one of two white damask sofas that flank a roaring fire. The rest of the group—Heather, Janelle, and Pam—is seated and chatting about rumors that the school art teacher is leaving.
Leah hands me a wineglass—really a bowl on a stem—with Why limit happy to an hour? etched on the side. I take a deep sip, then another.
Leah clears her throat and claps her hands together three times like a kindergarten teacher. “Okay, people, this is a book club. So stop chatting”—she pauses for dramatic effect—“and start drinking.”
Everyone laughs. I watch Leah as she passes the wine around. Heather catches my eye and offers a bittersweet smile. I don’t know if she is being her usual simpering self or if she knows, too.
Something about the conversation in the kitchen is bugging me. Something Leah
