Chapter 2
“Nice to finally meet you, Sharon. I’m Marshall,” his introduction echoes from the floor, eventually catching up with my brain.
Marshall? Correction: The man on the phone is not the dead man I thought he was, though the resemblance is uncanny.
Ivory picks up her phone and hands it back to me with a warning glare to be more careful.
The image is angled awkwardly, showing part of his face and the shoulder of his orange collared shirt.
An industrial fan spins behind him, which looks like the one in Fred’s garage.
Somehow, even half of his face makes me feel like I need a locked door between us.
“Sorry about that,” I apologize.
“Ivory warned me you were clumsy,” he says. “I’ll be sure not to give you any sharp objects.”
At this point I realize the resemblance isn’t as strong as I thought.
It’s the eyes that bother me most, the pale gray of a foggy day, eerily similar to the ones that linger on the edge of my nightmares.
But this guy has an extra chin or two, with red hair in a mess of shiny curls like he just got back from surfing or falling into a vat of oil.
He grins a little too confidently. Definitely not my type.
My ideal man is nerdy and introverted, and if he’ll dress up for a Renaissance Festival or watch Monty Python with me, even better. I had married my ideal man and he’s now dead. But this guy looks like he’d bully my ideal man.
“Ivory told me a lot about you, but she never mentioned how beautiful you are.” He’s oozing with charm. And I do mean oozing, because it feels gross coming from the mouth of a total stranger.
“Well, we all know how Ivory loves to exaggerate.” I desperately want to end this awkward video chat.
“No, I mean it. Ivory didn’t do you justice, Sharon. You are,” he pauses, “gorgeous. Spitting image of the hot chick in that Barbie movie. Do you get that a lot?”
“My name is Shari, not Sharon,” I repeat, “and I can’t say I’ve heard that comparison before.”
I’m an olive-skinned, brown-haired, thick Italian woman, the exact opposite of Margot Robbie’s fair skin, blond hair, and size zero waist. Three Margots could probably fit into one pair of my jeans.
“So…” he smiles and his unnaturally white teeth twinkle like he’s auditioning to be the charming-but-dangerous prospect on a dating show, “I know we’ve just met, but how do you feel about dinner tonight? I’ve got a place on the beach, just over the border. Sweet sunsets. Sweeter wine.”
I force a smile so hard my jaw twitches. “I can’t. I have work.”
“You call taking pictures work?” He laughs like I’ve told a joke. “I swear I’m worth it.”
“No, what I mean is,” I lower my voice and step a few paces away from Zala and Ivory and Wren, who are pretending not to listen but are absolutely eavesdropping, “I don’t really date.”
He tilts his head, amused. “Why? Afraid you’ll like me too much?”
Because my parole officer will never let me cross the state border without a ton of paperwork. And you creep me out.
“I’m not able to just drop everything and run to the beach.” At least not for this guy. But for Ivory on another girl’s trip, I’d be willing to beg my probation officer.
Something about this guy makes me fidgety, like my body can’t decide whether to run or combust. Heat crawls up my chest, then my neck, beading tiny jewels of sweat on my forehead.
My necklace feels too tight, and I tug at it, trying to loosen it to breathe.
My finger snags on the chain and I feel a pop.
“Shari, honey,” Ivory cuts in with a stage whisper, “I think you two would hit it off great. Fred knows him from work and can vouch for him being a nice guy. Plus he loves to travel!”
Ivory points to my Wall of Exile, indisputable proof of my love for sightseeing.
“I appreciate the offer,” I manage a stiff grin in a silent plea for her to stop playing matchmaker, “but I’m not looking for a relationship right now.”
“I bet I can change your mind on that.” He sounds like someone who gambles big money on golf games and says things like you should see my Lambo after two bourbons.
“I don’t think so.” I touch my neck to fiddle with my necklace, but there’s only bare skin. “Sorry to cut this short, but I’m in the middle of teaching a class and have to go. But it was nice meeting you.”
“You’re not even willing to let me buy you a drink?”
“No, I’m really not interested…” I can’t remember his name for the life of me. Was it Michael? Or was it— “Maxwell.”
“It’s Marshall,” he corrects me, then grins. A slow smirk that slips a little at the edges. “Are you sure you don’t want to give me a chance? Because if not, I can promise you that you’ll regret it.”
At first I think he’s trying to be playful, but something about the way he says it lands like a threat.
An inside joke where I don’t know the punchline, but I do know I’m the target.
No one else in the room seems to notice.
They’re all chatting again, holding their cameras, adjusting settings.
Wren is demonstrating some filter app that makes her look like an anime and calling it art.
“My loss, right?” I try to match his playfulness, but I’m not feeling it. “It was fun chatting, but I’ve got to go.”
His eyes now start to resemble an approaching storm. “You’re being rude, by the way.”
I scoff. “Rude how? Because I won’t date you?”
“Because I’m offering to buy you a drink and you’re being a bitch about it.”
“Wow, I think this conversation is over.” I’m about to hang up when his next statement stops me.
“No, I’ll say when the conversation is over. And by the way, I was lying. You’re not as hot as Margot Robbie. Be prepared for a short, lonely life with your dozen cats to keep you company. I can guarantee you’ll be sorry for this.”
There’s no playfulness in his tone this time. Was he actually threatening me?
“Then it’s a good thing I’m a dog person,” I retort to a blank screen, because the call has already ended.
I hand the phone back to Ivory. “That went well.”
“I don’t get you, Shar.” After tucking the phone in her purse, she raises an eyebrow at me. “What is your deal? He has a huge house and is single!”
“So is the Pope,” I mutter. “It doesn’t mean I want to date him.”
Ivory sighs. “Girl, you’ve got to start living again.
The past—everything you went through with your husband—shouldn’t control your future.
We’ve all done stuff we regret. Believe me, I know all about how the past can wage a war your present has to finish.
But there’s a point when you have to surrender and end it. ”
In a way, Ivory is the only person who understands me. We share a secret grief, a self-imposed blame for losing our first loves. While her husband wasn’t murdered like mine was, she, too, has navigated the treacherous waters of a broken heart, of rebuilding a life from wreckage.
Cupping my cheek, she forces me to look at her, and there’s something quiet in her demeanor, the woman who is a walking party with a never-ending arsenal of conversation. It’s not pity I find in her expression, but something else. Something haunted.
Her first and second divorce weren’t just messy, they were apocalyptic. She’s never given the specifics and I never asked, but right now I want to. But this isn’t about her, it’s about me. And she’s the type of person to remind me of that.
“I don’t think I can move on after what happened to—” I almost say my husband’s name but can’t force it out. I stare at our wedding portrait and my blood-spattered dress.
“I know, I know. Hurt doesn’t disappear. It relocates. But you need to at least try.”
I press my hand to my chest, where it always aches the worst. Where my wedding band used to rest against my collarbone on a necklace I have since replaced with the new one symbolic of hope and friendship. Except my lily necklace isn’t there.
I gasp. “Where is it?”
“Where’s what?” Wren asks, naturally gravitating toward the drama.
“My necklace. It’s gone. It looks just like Ivory’s…”
Ivory places her hand on the exact same spot at her collarbone where her twin necklace rests.
Searching the floor, I eventually find it knotted in a tiny heap from when I yanked too hard and broke the clasp during the phone call with Maxwell…
Michael… Marshall, whatever his name is.
I bend down slowly, my knees crunching, and scoop it up.
“How cute!” Wren squeals. “Are those, like, friendship necklaces? That is so retro. I used to have one with my college roommate. Well, before I slept with her fiancé.” She says it like it’s an accomplishment.
Ivory laughs too hard, the way she does when she wants to stab someone with her nail file. “Yeah, Shari and I got them as a symbol of friendship and strength. We’re committed to keeping each other strong. Right, Shar?”
I give her a nod that’s more conceding than agreeable. “Yep, girl power!”
My gaze drifts back to the wedding portrait—white dress, red blood. A flash of orange moving outside the studio window invades my peripheral. Someone is standing in my yard, mostly hidden by a tree except for a shoulder jutting out. I know that shoulder.
Marshall. It’s the same shirt he was wearing during our conversation, and now he’s outside my house watching me.
But there’s something he doesn’t know about me, so he better keep his distance.
Not everyone has a murdered husband and a prison record, but I do.
And I could easily make it happen again.