Afterlife - Douglas Clegg [21]
“Oh yeah, that was great,” he laughed. “We show up on the wrong night, miss the night we were supposed to go, and then Alicia manages to flirt with one of the ushers.”
“And gets us the best seats in the house. Sneaking into a theater was never so fun. God. We used to have such adventures. Some of which are not befitting a properly married suburban wife.”
“I know. I’ll be able to blackmail you in a few years.” As he said this, she could practically hear his good-natured grin on the phone.
“We were such good friends, Joe.”
“Hey. I’ll hear none of that. We still are,” he said. “You don’t sound so good. What’s up?”
Should I tell him? No. If I tell him, it’ll lead to a long sad story and I’ll cry and he’ll cry and he’ll insist on coming down here to comfort me and I’d have to look at him and feel as if my life were nothing but sorrow.
“Just a bad day,” she said. “And I’ve got to get back to the kids.”
“Well, don’t be a stranger. Rick mentioned you the other day. He said he thought he heard your name somewhere. Couldn’t remember where.”
“It’s always nice to be remembered. I miss you, Joe.”
“Ditto, Jules.”
After a bit more of the “let’s get togethers” and “be sure and call back soons,” she closed the phone, reopened it and was about to call her sister. Two skinny girls of eighteen or nineteen, dressed as if they were Fifth Avenue fashion models, walked in Prada and Gucci along the cracked sidewalk in front of her. “And so I was like, he’s gay you idiot, run for the hills,” one girl said to the other as they loped along, uncertain in the stiletto heels.
Julie glanced at the cell phone, and then set it down on the step. She opened her handbag, dug down to her wallet, opening it up and digging through a few torn small pieces of paper.
When she found the sliver of paper she had been looking for, she stared at the phone number for a few minutes as if an entire world were within it.
Whomever her husband had been seeing, this was her.
This mysterious woman in the city who had some hold on Hut. She looked at it. Looked at the scrawl of it. Not Hut’s handwriting. Did you have a lover, Hut? A woman whom you met in the city? The one who kept you there some nights, not sleeping on the Aerobed or the cots at the clinic—someone whom you burned to see when Matt or Livy or I got to be too much for you?
She wanted to call the number.
Instead, she called up her sister, to come get her, to take her home.
3
Mel had other ideas. “You need a meal in you, and the kids’ll be fine with Laura. She said they could spend the night if need be.”
They drove to Benny’s Burritos, and Mel got them a table at a corner window so they could have a little privacy. Mel ordered a chicken burrito that they’d split, and a margarita for Julie. “A little tequila never hurt anybody.”
“Except a drunk. You shop for anything?” Mel squinted her eyes, slightly, as she watched her.
“You really want to know?”
“Sure.”
“I got a Pilates workout tape. I wanted some nice
towels, but none of them seemed right. Some scented candles. They smell like blueberries. Oh, and I got you a gift. Just a little one. A bathrobe.”
“Thank you,” Julie said, managing a grin. She felt cold inside.
“Well, it’s just a terry bathrobe. Don’t thank me too much. I just don’t want to see you wandering the house in your underwear ever again.”
When the chips and salsa came, Mel pushed them toward Julie. “Start eating. I don’t think you’ve had more than toast in two days.”
Julie hesitated, then decided that appetite or no, she needed something. “It’s good.”
“It’s always good here,” Mel said. “So, why’d you keep me waiting?”
“I needed a hike.”
Mel grinned. “Good. First sign of life from you.”
“I’m running on fumes right now,” Julie said. “I am so angry. Pissed off. At the fucking cops.”
“You never swear,” Mel said. “You kiss with that mouth?”
“I’m sorry. They’re incompetent. I didn’t want him moved from Rellingford anyway. Why can’t they just do their dirty work at the Rellingford Morgue? And that stupid sheriff out there, just…signing off on this…not even asking…”
“Can you just