Thirty-six
“Wes, listen to this.” They were drinking iced mango juice on the front steps during their afternoon break. Nadine had found her new favorite obituary, about a mayor who hosted a party for his entire town each July called Summer Winter Holiday for people estranged from their families.
“It was a potluck, and everyone was welcome to bring their favorite food,” she finished. “One year, they ended up with all desserts. When he died, they had a final potluck for his funeral and made a cookbook to support the youth home he volunteered at.” To her utter shock, her voice hitched as she finished the sentence.
Wes looked over in concern. “Nadine?”
“It says he wanted people to know they had a community, even if they didn’t have a family. Oh my God, why am I crying?”
Wes put his arm around her and kissed her temple. “It’s okay to be emotional about the passing of a person who brought a lot of warmth to the world.”
“It’s silly.” She wiped the tears away. “I’m not sad.”
“Hey. No.” He kissed her again. “Dot said she read these because they’re life-affirming, remember?”
She scrolled through the obituary. Out of the many she’d read, this was the first one that had touched her with the simple brightness of the subject. He wanted to help people, and he did. It was a beautiful life that deserved to be shared and celebrated. Wes was right. Dot had been right. She bookmarked the page, thinking about the mayor who wanted people to feel like they belonged, if only for a day. This was a story with impact.
“Was it in the Herald ?” asked Wes.
She sniffed. “Please. All he did was bring people joy. That’s not one of the criteria for the Herald . I wish it was. Lisanne used to say—” She caught herself.
“Speaking of, have you talked to Lisanne yet?” Wes asked.
“No.” She put her phone down. “It’s whatever.”
“It’s bothering you.” He drew a star on her thigh with a cold fingertip. “If you don’t talk about it, it’ll fester.”
“Or not,” she said hopefully. “We could forget about it and move on.” Except they couldn’t do that with Nadine ignoring her texts. “Ugh. I know what I have to do.”
“Why don’t you do it now?”
Nadine pulled out her phone and then put it back in her pocket. “After I’m done with this drink.”
Wes kept sending her meaningful glances that she did her best to ignore before finally calling her out. “You’ve been sipping that juice for twenty minutes. Text her.”
“Damn it.” He was right, and she hadn’t even enjoyed the freaking juice, too much in her head about Lisanne. “Okay.”
He plucked the glass out of her hand, and she went to the music carousel room, mind half on naming the instruments—was that a piccolo?—and half on wording a reasonable text. The last message from Lisanne, a basic, hey, you there , sat unanswered, the blank space below a declaration of Nadine’s inability to be a generous human. Not even. Barely decent and too embarrassed to reply.
She sighed and began to type. Sorry! Just saw this.
Lisanne didn’t have to be the excellent journalist she was to recognize bull. Nadine deleted it, then went to strum the lute. Possibly it was a mandolin. Lisanne had done nothing wrong. She very reasonably wanted to talk about her work. She saw an opportunity to do Nadine a favor and took it, not to make Nadine feel inferior but because she was a good person. This rupture was all on Nadine.
Her phone buzzed, and she nearly dropped it onto a bongo when she saw the message from Lisanne. Open the gate, loser.
Wes came to the door as Nadine looked up from the screen.
“Lisanne is at—” he said.
“I know,” said Nadine, waving her phone.
“How does she know you’re here?” Wes followed her out. “I thought we were sticking to the original Dot Voline secrecy rules.”
“We are. I said I was working with you, but that’s it.”
“You told her about me?”
“Only for safety, and not that we were here.”
“Oh.” He looked dejected, then frowned. “It’s terrible you had to do that. Also, damn, is she good.”
Nadine didn’t answer. She went to the front door and pushed the button that would release the gate. Opening the door, she saw the blue Hyundai coming up the drive.
Lisanne pulled in and popped out of the car. “Did I pass swans in the fountain?” she asked.
“They’re fake.” How on earth had Lisanne found her?
“I figured when they didn’t move.” Lisanne surveyed Nadine before her eyes widened.
Nadine turned to see Wes behind her, waving a cheery hello.
“What the hell is going on here?” Lisanne sounded almost indignant. “You’re having a love tryst? This is your secret story? Investigating what’s in Wes’s pants?”
“It’s not a love tryst!” Nadine tried to shut the door, but Wes simply put his foot out as he watched with interest. “We are working.”
Lisanne’s face passed through several expressions—disbelief, bemusement, and perhaps some bafflement—before settling on neutral curiosity. “In a Bridle Path mansion?”
“It’s Dot Voline’s house.”
“Of course it is,” Lisanne said. “Makes total sense. Wes, we were interns at the Belleville Recorder back in the day. Lisanne Eden.”
Wes reached out his hand. “I remember. Nice to see you.”
They shook, and Nadine stared at the car. “How did you know where I was?”
Lisanne tapped her phone. “We shared locations one time and never turned it off. I’ve been checking it for the last few days when you didn’t answer my texts and realized you hadn’t left this spot.”
“Nice,” said Wes in admiration.
“It indicated you were being held hostage.”
“There are other options for staying put that don’t include kidnapping,” said Nadine.
“Maybe, but on the off chance this was more than you being an avoidant bitch, I thought I should check it out.” Lisanne looked Nadine square in the face, then glanced at Wes. “No offense.”
“Thanks,” said Nadine, oddly touched.
Lisanne looked meaningfully at the door.
“Right,” said Nadine. “Do you want to come in?” At least this semiawkward meeting was putting off the messier and more awkward conversation to come.
“Don’t mind if I do!” Lisanne walked in and stopped. “Whoa, is that a Nobel? Obviously, I’d prefer a Pulitzer but respect the flex of letting the world’s most prestigious prize hang out in the hall.” Before Nadine could answer, Lisanne turned away from Sir Latimer, her attention caught by Janice. “A cheetah? Is this place for real?”
Showing Lisanne the house and introducing the cats took a good thirty minutes. When Wes left them in the study, Nadine knew she could no longer put off the inevitable. At the same time, the forced lightness of conversation with Lisanne hit her hard. She didn’t want their friendship to be like that.
Which meant she had to woman up.
Lisanne sat in one of the green leather club chairs in front of the fireplace, an empty decanter on the oak cabinet behind her. Nadine took the other seat.
Luckily, Lisanne was as direct in her personal life as she was in her professional one. “I’m going to leave why you’re living in Dot Voline’s mansion with Wes for a slightly later but important conversation,” she said.
“Okay.” Nadine braced herself. “You’re here because of the way I’ve been acting.”
Lisanne scowled. “It’s obvious it’s something I did, and I’m pretty sure it’s about my new project, but I don’t get why you’re being like this.”
Obviously, it wasn’t on Nadine’s to-do list to admit to a friend that she felt envious and threatened. She could lie and say that wasn’t true and make up a reason, but if she did, that would be the end of her close friendship with Lisanne. The lie would cause a break that would widen over time, until they were mere acquaintances, then nothing.
“I want to be able to talk to you about my work,” continued Lisanne slowly. “I don’t want to censor myself because you might be jealous.”
Oh, she said it. Named that humiliating emotion right to Nadine’s face. Of all the things to accuse a friend of, that was one of the worst. It laid bare Nadine’s hopes and dreams and acknowledged that Lisanne had been the one to achieve them. It confirmed Nadine’s loser status.
“I am jealous,” said Nadine, giving up any pretense to the contrary. If it was this obvious, it would be more embarrassing to deny it.
“Oh my God.” Lisanne was on the edge of her chair. “Do you know how many times I had to listen to Daniel praise your work? Watch you collect another award? And you’re mad because for once, for once , I’m finally getting a chance.”
“What?” Nadine stared at her.
Lisanne threw up her hands. “Before you started, Daniel was almost wetting himself with his new star hire. I’d been there a month, and when I started, they didn’t bother to send out an email to my team. They didn’t have a laptop ready.”
“I didn’t know that.”
“Sorry,” muttered Lisanne. “I guess I’d been holding that in for a bit.” She let out a huge breath. “I don’t get it. The story has nothing to do with your beat at all.”
“It wasn’t the story,” Nadine said, looking at the decanter to avoid Lisanne’s gaze. “Things were going so well for you when they were going so badly for me. I had to quit the politics beat. I got demoted from obits , for God’s sake. Then there was you. Daniel’s new favorite and about to embark on the kind of work I wanted to do.”
“You could have been involved,” said Lisanne, her voice rising. “I tried to include you.”
“I can’t.” The words came out high and loud. “I can’t. I’ll screw it up again.”
“That’s ridiculous—”
“This is why I don’t want to tell you things,” snapped Nadine. “You don’t get it. It might be ridiculous for you, but it’s important to me, okay? It’s a problem for me. It matters to me .”
They stared at each other across the marble-topped coffee table that squatted between the two chairs. Nadine twitched. This was getting intense. She needed to move around.
“Want to go for a walk?” she asked.
“Fuck no,” said Lisanne. “I need a drink.”
They rose without speaking and went to the kitchen, a trek that took about two minutes and was conducted in silence. Nadine pulled out a bottle of wine and filled two glasses to the brim.
They went out to the garden, and Lisanne was the one to speak first. “It’s hard not to read this as you being mad that the attention is off you. It’s like you want me to be lesser so you can feel good about yourself.”
Nadine’s shoulders hiked up higher as Lisanne spoke. “That’s the most negative and selfish interpretation you could put on it.”
“Then what’s the truth?” Lisanne demanded, her voice rising.
“I’m scared, okay?” Nadine yanked on a bean plant. “I’m jealous, but not because you have a great opportunity. It’s because if I had it, I’d be scared to do it! Scared that someone is going to come after me again. Scared I’m going to blow it like I did with Dot Voline’s obit.”
By the end, her voice was ringing around the garden, and Lisanne was standing still, waist-deep in tomato plants, staring at Nadine.
“I didn’t know,” said Lisanne.
“I know, because you don’t get it.”
“I get it.” Her voice was low. “I just didn’t think it was that bad for you. I thought you needed pep talks and you’d snap out of it.”
Nadine shook her head. “That’s not how it works.”
Lisanne absently picked a few grape tomatoes. She handed one to Nadine, who took a bite. It squirted over to hit Lisanne in the arm, causing her to groan.
“Gross.” Lisanne flicked the tomato seeds off her arm with a disgusted expression, and that was enough.
It could have been the huge glass of wine she’d guzzled or the stress of this fight and her dread over having to confess that she was a terrible person, but Nadine suddenly felt too drained to keep her feelings hidden.
“I didn’t tell you because we were mostly work friends,” she said. “You know what the Herald is like.”
“You were worried I’d use it against you to get ahead.” Lisanne sounded flat.
“Not get ahead but lose respect for me at work?” Nadine shook her head. “I don’t know.”
“I get it.” Lisanne sipped her wine, looking thoughtful. “At work, you can like a person, but you’re still competing for the same resources. Jobs, assignments. Opportunities. There can be a limit to how much you can trust them.”
She understood. Nadine relaxed a bit. “Plus the question of whether you’d be friends if not for work. How many times have you left a job and the people you thought you were tight with never called again?”
“Sometimes they do though, and the friendship continues. I think ours is like this. Who else at the office is doing hostage checks on you?”
Nadine felt the tension lift. “I would do one on you too.”
“Good to hear.” Lisanne looked at her. “I’m sorry you felt this way.”
“I really do want to hear about your work, and I’m sorry for being a bad friend.”
“I’ll keep my mouth shut about your career. I promise. No nagging, no talking to Daniel about opportunities. I’ll listen.”
“I could have been more honest,” said Nadine.
“I could have been more understanding.”
They stared at their wineglasses for a second, then Lisanne said, “Are we good?”
“Yeah.”
“Want to be my official work and nonwork friend?”
“Absolutely.” Nadine held out her palm.
Lisanne slapped it. “Great, because I’ve got some gossip for you.”
Nadine laughed again, happy to have the conversation successfully concluded. “What?”
“Rumor says Olivia Majors is going to be taking over the Herald from her father.”
“Huh.” Nadine drained her glass. “Interesting. Didn’t she work in banking or something?”
“Guess she got bored.”
They went back in, swapping stories about Olivia, and refilled their glasses before moving to the front to look at the fountain. The vibe between them wasn’t perfect, but it was better. Much better.
“So,” said Lisanne, settling on the bench surrounding the fountain. “You want to tell me what the hell’s going on?”
Nadine gave her the summary, starting with her conversation with Irina and including all the Wes stuff. Even when glossing over the details of their investigation, there was a lot. Lisanne dangled her hand in the fountain, her eyebrows getting higher as Nadine went on.
When she finished and had answered Lisanne’s questions, Lisanne splashed her. “You’re with Wes then?” She laughed. “I knew it when you were getting all misty-eyed at the bar.”
“Shut up.” Nadine cleared her throat. “Tell me about your story.”
Lisanne was cautious at first, casting Nadine little glances to check her reaction, but Nadine was on her best behavior, and the shame over her outburst soon faded. This was the reason she was in journalism, and it felt a bit like coming alive again.
“Scummy,” she said after Lisanne had leaned in to share one of her latest findings.
“They are.” She shook her head. “But we’re going to make sure people know.”
Nadine toasted her. “You can do it.”
Wes came to the door. “I made a cheese platter if you want some,” he called.
The two women jumped to their feet. “I’ve got time until I sober up enough to drive,” said Lisanne. “Mind if I hang around?”
“I’d love that.”
Lisanne nudged her. “No talking about work though, okay? Wes might be your collaborator, but he’s not mine.”
“We’ll talk about hockey and fancy mustards.”
“I can barely name three teams, and I buy the bright yellow squeeze bottles. How about mycology and Mercator maps?”
“Yo-yos and sailing knots?”
They were still laughing when they descended on Wes’s cheese tray and then laughed harder when they saw he’d put elegant swirls of several mustards on the plate.
It was good to have Lisanne back.