Chapter 15
BERNIE
Bernie did a few restorative yoga poses in bed while enjoying the morning sun over the water.
After stretching, she relocated to an easy chair, sipped an electrolyte drink, and rifled through her recollections of the previous night.
Bernie had been enjoying her profitable little game immensely, and was looking forward to the next play.
She decided she’d send the next email the day they got home from the trip; there was no doubt in her mind that Imogen would pay a lot more money to make those images of her and Derrick go away for good.
It was times like this that Bernie was very satisfied that she’d allowed herself to be adopted into this group of friends, a happenstance occasioned by nothing more meaningful than buying the house next door to Imogen’s.
It was a good thing to be seen to have friends—very socially acceptable, very normal.
It also provided Bernie with a private pool of victims upon whom to inflict tiny (and not so tiny) torments.
As fun as it was to play with strangers (most recently, Bernie had eavesdropped on a couple in a bar, learned their names, and then approached the woman in the washroom.
“Melinda? It’s Melinda, right? Trey keeps promising me he’ll leave you for me, but I guess that’s just another one of his lies”), it was much better to have a front-row seat to the fallout.
Bernie went downstairs, where she found Celeste sitting at the kitchen island, sipping a glass of water and staring vacantly out at the lake. When Bernie appeared, Celeste physically started.
“Good morning, didn’t mean to scare you,” said Bernie. “Anyone else up?”
“You didn’t scare me,” Celeste said unconvincingly.
She looked haunted. There were dark-purple circles under her eyes and her hair was pulled back in a sloppy ponytail, which was somehow greasy and dry at the same time.
A far cry from her usual effortless elegance.
“Marta and Immy are out by the lake.” She didn’t look at Bernie as she spoke; instead, her gaze darted around the room like she was watching a fly.
“That was quite a night, huh?” Bernie grabbed an apple from the bowl on the counter and tossed it from one hand to the other. “Do you think Imogen’s telling the truth about the blackmail?”
“No. What? I mean yes. I don’t know.” Celeste sounded like she was about to cry.
Or maybe she’d already been crying. On the one hand, Bernie had no interest in being Celeste’s personal support system this morning, but on the other hand, she was curious.
Bernie leaned across the kitchen island, closer to Celeste.
The moment she did so, Celeste leapt up off her stool and went over to the fridge, where she stood with the door open, looking at the bottles of wine, fancy cheeses, and various other treats they’d brought for the weekend. Something is definitely off with her.
“You’re letting out all the cold,” said Bernie.
Celeste’s hand twitched as she closed the fridge, muttering, “Right, right.” She went to the sink to pour herself another glass of water.
“I didn’t sleep much last night. I brought Harry’s old cellphone up here with me and I was looking through his photos.
He took so many beautiful candid shots of Milly and me. ”
Ugh, this again. Bernie’s brief interest in Celeste’s emotional state dissipated instantly now that she knew it was about Harry; it seemed as if she would never stop moping about that mediocre man.
She’d held on to his old cellphone like some kind of strange security blanket, and brought it with her most places she went.
Bernie didn’t have the patience for her self-indulgent wallowing this morning, so she didn’t ask for details.
But Celeste was not to be deterred, and she started rambling on about what it’s like to be married to someone for years, but do you ever really know them, and what if they died before you could—blah, blah, blah.
Bernie tuned her out as she selected the sharpest paring knife from the cutlery drawer.
Peeling an apple in one continuous motion was one of the most satisfying things in the world.
She got to work, applying the skills that had made her the youngest chief of surgery in Sunnyvale’s history.
“. . . weren’t you?” asked Celeste. Bernie looked up and met Celeste’s eyes. The whites surrounding her ocean-coloured irises were webbed with pink and the intensity of her angry stare was jarring. Bernie realized that perhaps she should have been paying attention.
“Could you say that again?” Bernie asked, but Celeste continued glaring at her. “I’m sorry,” Bernie apologized, kicking herself for zoning out but unable to admit that she hadn’t been listening. “I want to make sure I understand exactly what you’re saying.”
“What is there to understand? You and Harry were pretty buddy-buddy, weren’t you?”
Bernie let out a pfff of air. “We were colleagues, sure. I considered him a friend.”
“Like I said, I was looking through his phone last night, going through his old pictures. I decided to scroll back through his old messages and I found a whole thread of him chatting with a contact he’d named Bern Baby Burn.” Celeste’s eyes were bugging out of her head.
“Sure. That’s probably me. You know how he liked to give everyone a silly nickname.
” Bernie herself had never gotten into the habit of saving people in her phone with cutesy descriptions or warnings; she didn’t need a record of her inner thoughts or grudges, nor would she ever want to show her hand if someone were to see her phone.
But if she were the type of person to use that stupid naming convention, she’d have Celeste saved under CELESTE—Hot Mess Express.
“I knew it. I just knew it.” Celeste sounded disgusted.
What is her problem? Bernie placed the perfectly skinned apple beside a squiggled mass of peel and fixed her gaze on Celeste’s back.
Celeste was rummaging around in the fridge again, but it was obvious to Bernie that she was only pretending to look for something.
Bernie realized she was still holding the paring knife, so she set it down deliberately beside the apple.
As a surgical resident, she’d been told that people found it unnerving to converse with her while she was holding a blade.
“Celeste? Is there something we need to talk about?”