Ana
I look around the room. Sun streams in and everyone is talking at once, plates full, laughter filling a space that has been
too quiet for too long. Even Vera looks relaxed and happy, as if she put down a terrible burden she’s been carrying. Coraline
and Grant sit to her right, Brad to her left. And once upon a time I would feel jealous that they get the most of her, but
today I just smile.
Iggy is cozy beside Brock, Noah on her lap. Brock feeds Noah soft food with a blue spoon, his face alight with love. Noah
and I lock eyes and he coos, spitting his peas. He’s all mischief, that one. We’re going to get along fine. Iggy has bought
Lisander’s bookstore Make Magic, and her online business is also thriving. I’m happy for her. Truly.
Love is not small. It’s not limited. I think I always believed that it was, that there wasn’t enough for me, that what little
I had would always be taken away. It’s something we talk about in family therapy.
Across the table, Timothy watches me. After the way we met, and the nature of our early days, I didn’t exactly expect him
to be sitting at the table, eating brunch with our family and friends. But here he is. His smile is slight, those eyes still
wolfish. My heart does a little rhumba.
Payton arrives with Victor, beaming. Vera gets up to greet her and accepts Payton’s signature bottle of Veuve. I did tell Payton that I slept with her ex—as part of my new program of honesty, thanks to the family shrink—and she was pissed
at me for a while. Actually, she slut shamed me—which, okay. But now she’s over it. And she and Victor are very clearly in
love, a power couple, svelte and well-dressed, glowing. I am forgiven. Mostly. Let’s see if I get an invitation to the wedding.
Esme and Claudia look a little less happy, still working through issues, tentative and overly polite with each other. And
Esme’s in therapy, too, working on what she admits is a really deep-seated mistrust and hatred for men. She comes by it honestly,
her past one of pain and trauma—like so many of us. Paul and the things he did were a trigger for her and forced her to confront
a secret pain she’d been carrying. I believe in them—Claudia and Esme.
There’s real love there. And I have come to believe, in spite of everything, that this above all things is the ultimate cure
for all that ails us.
Last week we all attended the gala where Esme won Businessperson of the Year. An honor she richly deserved.
“Just a word,” says Tim, lifting a glass. “Thank you for sharing your family and this meal with me. And thank you, Vera and
Brad, for the generous donation to the youth center. The endowment from your company means that we’ll be able to keep the
doors open for years to come. I can’t tell you how many kids will be helped by this.”
“We’re happy to do it,” says Brad, always magnanimous. “We suffered some bad press this year, lost some clients, but ultimately
the Little Valley Police investigation came out in our favor and we’re on solid ground. The least we can do is support the
community.”
More cheers and big smiles all around.
Everyone tucks into their food; conversation, laughter, the clinking of silverware on plates rise up, the music of harmony and togetherness. The sharing of a meal with family and friends, one of life’s great gifts.
“So, Detective.”
Brad is buff and pretty beside my sister. As ever, they make a striking pair, her cool features, auburn hair, his sandy boyishness,
wide smile. He drapes an arm around Vera, and together they’re a kind of stylish yin and yang. She always seems softer when
she’s with him. I didn’t understand their relationship at first. He seemed like a boy that needed a spanking. But I see it
now for what it is. A partnership. They run a successful business, a home, are raising a family. There’s love there, too.
But it’s foundational, not running the show. Which, honestly, I think is what Vera wants. Not passion. Stability.
“How’s the Paul Hayes case coming?”
Tim shakes his head, offers a frown. “The leads have all gone cold. Unless we get a break or someone comes forward with new
evidence, I’m not sure we’re going to solve this one.”
“I feel like that Amanda Alessi knows more than she’s saying,” says Claudia, leaning into Esme, who looks down at her plate.
“Her alibi is rock solid,” says Timothy, with a shrug. “She says she had a bit of a nervous breakdown. She had a lot of pressure
at work, was drinking way too much. She broke up with Paul, then checked herself in to Sheltering Oaks, the rehab facility
up by The Hollows. Claimed she needed some time to get herself together. She was in rehab when Paul was murdered.”
“Without telling her family or her friends?” says Claudia skeptically.
Tim shrugs. “It’s not a crime to run away from your life for a while. If Hayes hadn’t turned up dead, maybe it wouldn’t have
been such a big deal that she was missing for a couple of days. It was his murder that made her disappearance news.”
“But what about the social media posts?” presses Claudia.
This case is still the talk of the town. Everyone is a detective these days. Too many true crime podcasts.
“Someone with access to both accounts posted those images,” Timothy goes on easily. “The photo was just stock, found on any
number of sites. But we don’t know who did it.”
It was Jessie, of course, with her technical knowledge. Also Jessie: the jogger at the scene where Paul’s body was found.
She knew she shouldn’t go, but she couldn’t help herself. It was also Jessie at Amanda’s house when Timothy came to search;
she was checking for any evidence they might have missed, wound up having to escape through the basement window. Messy. But
of course, they’re amateurs.
“I still think it was Regina Hayes,” I say. “Follow the money, right? She finally got her payout, I hear. Didn’t have to split
her inheritance with her brother. She and her beefy boyfriend just left for Positano.”
The table goes a little quiet. I eat a bit of quiche.
“I heard Harley Granger is doing a Stranger than Fiction podcast about it,” says Dahlia. Grant is looking at her like she gets up and puts the stars in the sky at night. “That he’s
planning to come to Little Valley to investigate.”
“Let’s see how that works out for him,” says Coraline.
And I’m struck by how much she looks like Vera, how cool she is under pressure. She’s the best of both of us in so many ways—my
edge, my daring, Vera’s discipline and control.
Ethan chuckles. “Yeah, good luck with that.”
Coraline nudges him with her shoulder. Autumn smiles at them.
The kids. They’re all growing up. Coraline will study botany at Sacred Heart College in the fall, Vera finally ceding to her wishes.
Autumn will be valedictorian after her competitor was caught cheating, and she’s been accepted at Brown.
Ethan didn’t get in to NYU and is taking a gap year, will work at his father’s garage until he decides what he wants from life.
I wonder if he’s done this to be close to Coraline, but Vera told me not to pry. Imagine that.
“Not every crime gets solved,” says Vera, her tone final. She and Coraline exchange a look. “Sometimes justice is served.
More often, it’s not. In any case, brunch is served. Bon appétit.”
Later while the kids are laughing at something Brad said, I push my chair back, get up to leave the table. I feel Vera’s eyes
as I leave the room.
I walk down the hallway, the voices fading behind me. I wait. A few moments later Timothy follows, his big strides carrying
him quickly toward me as I jog ahead.
He comes up quickly behind me and presses me into the powder room behind the kitchen, shuts and locks the door.
He offers me the devilish smile I’ve come to love.
Yes. There, I’ve said it. Love.
Love, not pain. Love, not violence. He is a man who made me a promise and kept it. One who excites me but doesn’t hurt me.
He is a man I trust.
“We shouldn’t,” I protest weakly, not meaning it at all as I wrap my arms around his neck, and he lifts me against the sink.
Though of course, we still love our forbidden, tawdry romps in inappropriate places, can’t keep our hands off each other,
have this tendency to sneak off and behave badly.
After all, I can’t change completely. Nor do I want to.
I’m on the straight and narrow, adulting on the regular.
But there’s still a part of me that will always be the bad girl.
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