Chapter 1 #2
“We do miss her terribly,” Meredith says with a sigh, gazing up at the painting.
“She was a wonderful person. Wasn’t she, Roy?
So charming and warm, just delightful company.
She brought sunshine with her wherever she went.
” She turns to me and tilts her head. “I hope that’s all right to say, Jodie. ”
“Of course it is.”
No one says anything for a moment. Then Eileen leans toward me and whispers slurrily, her head tilted toward the painting, “You don’t mind?”
I gaze up at Deborah in full-size splendor. I hate it, I want to say. And it’s not just the portrait; it’s the photographs scattered around the house: images of the two of them gazing into each other’s eyes, running on the beach, laughing into each other’s perfectly windswept hair, getting married…
“If I die,” I said to Roy once, “and you marry again, will you keep photos of me in every room in the house?”
He smiled at me the way he does, a gentle tugging at the side of his mouth, and cupped my cheek. “Maybe not in every room.”
“So would you shove me in a cardboard box and store me in the basement?”
“We don’t have a basement. But I would keep lots of photographs of you,” he said. “I promise.”
“Well, I’d hate being Mrs. Davies the Third then, surrounded by all those ghosts of past wives.” I shuddered.
He frowned at me. “Does it bother you that I keep photos of Deborah?”
I pretended to think about it for a moment. “No,” I lied. “After all, if you loved Deborah as much as you say you did, I can see why you’d want the world to know about it.”
He looked at me like I’d just kicked a puppy. “If?”
“No, I don’t mind,” I tell Eileen now. “I’m used to it. The way I look at it, we’re just one big, happy family.”
Eileen gives me a lukewarm smile and a squeeze of the hand. She turns to Roy.
“Speaking of which, are you still in touch with her family, Roy?”
“Deborah wasn’t particularly close to her parents,” Roy says into his drink.
“I only met them twice. At our wedding, and later…” He pushes his fingers through his hair.
“At Deborah’s funeral.” He shakes his head.
“Lovely people. Salt of the earth. I wrote to them to let them know I was getting married again; I thought it was the right thing to do…” He gives me a sad smile. “But I never heard back from them.”
That would be because I threw the letter in the trash, I don’t say.
“I even considered inviting them to the wedding, but Jodie would have none of it.”
“It’s not that I’m jealous,” I say, and they all nod gravely into their drinks as if to say, No, of course not. Never crossed our minds.
Except for Roy who says, “Well. You are, I mean…and it’s understandable, up to a point, but let’s call a spade a spade, sweetheart.”
I’ve never understood why some people insist on calling a spade a spade when they’ve never held one in their lives and wouldn’t know the difference between a spade, a shovel, and a pitchfork without reading the labels at Home Depot.
I pick crumbs off my lap and drop them into my palm. “I just think sometimes a clean break is best for everyone.”
Eileen brings her face close to mine. I can smell the tang of champagne on her breath. “I don’t think you got one.” She pulls away and looks at the painting again. “You know, you look a little like her.”
I give a half shrug. “I guess my husband has a type.”
“Was she very depressed?” Eileen asks Roy softly.
Roy scrunches up his face. “It came over her very suddenly, but then she was gripped by it, like a nightmare she couldn’t wake from. She shut herself in. And then…” He cracks a sob. “It was over.”
I glance at the others. Meredith is shaking her head. “You two were so in love and so very happy,” she says, eyebrows knotted together. “You did everything you could.”
Roy nods gravely. “Thank you, Mer. That means a lot.”
“We know you did, Roy. We know,” Barb says.
Roy turns to Eileen. “I wanted her to see a professional, a psychiatrist…but she wouldn’t. And it all happened so fast.” He looks up at the ceiling. “I wish I’d done more,” he says. “You’d think someone in my position…”
“We never saw her, in the end, did we?” Barb says to Meredith. Meredith shakes her head sadly. She turns to Roy. “You mustn’t blame yourself. You loved her so very much. And she loved you, too. So very much.”
I force myself to breathe slowly. It’s a trick my sister taught me to calm me down when I got agitated. Breathe through your nose, Jo. Nice and slow.
But it doesn’t work. There’s a throbbing bubbling up inside my chest, like a boxer warming up with quick, short punches.
Meredith gives me an odd look, and I wonder if I’m breathing too loudly.
“You don’t mind that we talk about Deborah like that, do you, Jodie?” she asks sweetly, even though she just asked me five minutes ago.
“Not at all,” I lie.
“Because Roy and Deborah, you know… I’m sorry. I don’t want to go on and on about it, I really don’t, but they were the golden couple. Weren’t they, Barb?”
Barb nods sadly.
“And it hasn’t been very long, so…we’re still getting used to it. And still mourning her. Aren’t we, Roy.”
Roy makes a kind of strangled sound. “Yes.”
No one says anything. And I’m thinking, here I was, putting together the perfect birthday party for Roy, complete with satin garlands strung with black-and-white photos of the two of us, sweet romantic shots interspersed with pink crystal pendants, only for the whole thing to turn into some kind of Homage to Deborah Spectacular.
I put my hands on my knees. “Shall I get the body now? I mean, the cake?”
I meant to lighten the mood, but I’ve never been good with jokes, and this one lands as you’d expect: with a thud. Meredith gasps, Barb slaps her hand over her mouth, and a dark shadow passes over Roy’s face.
I smile, showing teeth, to show it was a joke.
“Something you wanted to say, Jodie?” Meredith asks, head tilted, eyebrows knotted again.
I rearrange the napkins on the tray even though they’re perfectly fanned out already. I’m trying really hard, I really am, but I’ve got that thing again, that crawling, heated, vibrating thing bubbling up my chest.
“Actually, there is something I’ve been wondering about,” I say.
“What’s that?” Roy asks.
“If she was so beautiful and talented and the life of the party and she had this amazing life and a million adoring friends and you two were so in love, why did she shoot herself in the face?”