Authors: Pamela Grandstaff
“Where are these beloved family heirlooms now?”
“At the pawn shop in Pendleton.”
“Not quite so dear to you as you indicated.”
“I need the money,” she said. “I’ll send for them once I get
settled.”
“Do you know anything about a black Acura with Maryland
plates that’s been seen cruising around town?”
“That’s my driver,” Meredith said. “I’ve engaged him for the
week.”
“Did you direct him to follow Knox?”
“Just for fun,” Meredith said. “Just to mess with his head a
little bit.”
“Did you know your driver almost hit Claire Fitzpatrick
while pursuing Knox?”
“Too bad he missed.”
By the time they let Claire go, Ed had hurried back to his
office to file the story with the Pendleton paper. Another county car had arrived
to transport Meredith, and Sarah followed it in her car. True to form, she had
ignored Claire and been rude to Laurie. Minutes after she departed, however,
she texted Claire.
“Thanks,” it read. “I O U.”
Laurie walked Claire home.
“So now you have Marigold saying Knox was alive when she
left, and Meredith saying he was dead when she got there,” she said. “Whom do
you believe?”
“Both of them,” Laurie said.
“But how can they both be telling the truth?”
“Unbeknownst to you, I have actually been doing my job,” he
said. “After Marigold left, Knox called Stuart to warn him that Marigold might
be coming for him next. So we know he was alive after she left.”
“So who killed him?”
“The coroner says her preliminary examination seems to
indicate he slipped, fell backwards, hit his head on the sharp edge of the
marble landing, and died.”
“I didn’t think you could get post-mortem results back that
fast.”
“It was an unofficial communication,” he said. “Celeste, the
coroner, is an old friend.”
“Of course she is.”
“If you’re gonna get mad every time I mention an old girlfriend,
the high blood pressure’s going to give you a stroke.”
“I hate this about myself,” Claire said. “And you’re not
even my boyfriend.”
“Not even.”
“So what happened?”
“Marigold said that from her living room window she saw him
walk up to the house and go in, but when she called him, he didn’t answer. She
went across the street and rang the bell, but he didn’t answer. The door was
unlocked so she let herself in the house and yelled for him. He came down the
upper set of stairs and stood on the landing while they argued. At some point
he threw money at her so she left in a huff.
“According to Sarah, he must have been working in his study
on the second floor when she arrived; there were bills spread out on his desk, a
checkbook, a calculator, and his cell phone. After Marigold left he must have
gone back upstairs to his study to call Stuart. At 12:20 he called his brother.
At some point after that he came back down the stairs …”
“And slipped on the money he threw at Marigold, hit his head
on the edge of the marble landing, and died,” Claire said. “Meredith told me it
was money that got him in the end.”
“That’s the theory.”
“You don’t know there was a housekeeper; she could have made
that up,” Claire said. “After Meredith left Trick’s office she had plenty of
time to kill him. She could have pushed him back so he fell on the edge of the
marble landing.”
“We called the cleaning service. There was a housekeeper and
she corroborated Meredith’s story.”
“She may have killed Knox and then paid off the
housekeeper.”
“Listen, Knox didn’t make the 12:30 meeting because he
slipped and died on his way down the steps. If he hadn’t died, he would have
been at that meeting. The attorneys were going to be present to discuss the
federal case against them. Knox told Trick they would know where they stood
with Stuart by how he acted at this meeting. Either they would all three be
united in their defense, or Stuart would split off and implicate them. Knox was
dead when Meredith got there, which was after the starting time for the
meeting.”
“No, he wouldn’t have missed that meeting.”
“Here’s the thing about Meredith: she’s got little or no
conscience. She doesn’t mind telling us she broke in, stole money from a dead
man, and took things she claims were hers. She doesn’t mind because she doesn’t
see anything wrong with what she did. She can justify it all. If she had killed
him, she would say it was in self-defense. She would justify that, too, and
possibly get away with it.”
“That woman has ice water in her veins.”
“She also has a prescription for anti-psychotic meds in her
purse, if that tells you anything.”
“She took her father’s coin collection and her mother’s
silver tea service directly to the pawn shop in Pendleton.”
“Along with Knox’s Rolex watch, diamond pinky ring, and some
other valuable old jewelry, which Knox probably had in the safe.”
“You called the pawn shop.”
“I know Irv, the owner,” Laurie said. “He was a friend of my
father’s.”
“Do me a favor.”
“Anything. Everything.”
“Don’t call me unless you find a reason to get better and
then you get better.”
“Besides the thought of you, pining away for me here in
Budville.”
“Yes.”
“I’ll see what I can do,” he said.
He pulled her into a tight embrace, kissed the side of her
head, and said, quietly, “wait for me.”
“I won’t,” she said.
“But you might,” he said as he let go.
“No,” she said. “I’m not promising anything.”
“I’ll think of you,” he said, as he backed away.
He pointed up at the sky.
“Whenever I see Claire de Lune.”
Claire’s eyes filled and she couldn’t speak.
He turned and jogged away.
Claire rummaged through the cabinets in her parents’
kitchen, looking for something to eat. She wasn’t hungry. She was full of
conflicting, uncomfortable feelings and didn’t want to think about sorting them
out. Salty and sweet, that’s what she wanted. In the pantry she found a bag of
corn chips, and that reminded her of something she used to love to eat as a
child. She found a jar of applesauce in the fridge and poured the whole thing in
a bowl. Seated at the kitchen table with the bag of chips, a bowl of applesauce
to dip them in, and a host of celebrity gossip sites bookmarked on her laptop,
Claire felt her worries recede to a comfortable distance, where they hovered,
waiting for her.
An hour later, with all the chips and applesauce gone, plus
four of her father’s pudding cups and what was left of a carton of ice cream,
Claire felt the familiar pressure in her upper abdomen signaling her body’s
urge to throw up. It would be so easy, and then she wouldn’t have to absorb all
those calories she’d recently consumed.
Her stomach cramped.
Claire never weighed herself, because that woke up her
anxiety over her weight, which stressed her, which made her obsess about food,
which triggered her eating disorder. She didn’t need to weigh herself to know
where she stood; her clothes were all so tight right now that by the end of the
week she would not be able to zip up her pants, even if she jumped up and down
or stretched out flat on the bed and sucked in her stomach. She needed to undo
what she’d done, otherwise she’d have to run ten miles instead of five just to
break even.
Claire knew there was no “just this once” when it came to
binging and purging. Five years ago she had come close to doing herself
irreparable harm over her abuse of laxatives and vomiting to control her
weight. Living in California among the skeletal elite of the movie industry,
Claire had been considered fat even though her clothing size was in the single
digits. At her thinnest, she received constant praise and attention. She also
occasionally blacked out from low blood pressure and didn’t have periods, but
whatever. She enjoyed looking like the women she envied, and took vicious
pleasure in having them consider her attractive enough to be a threat.
Her heart began to beat faster and her nose began to run,
both signs that what had gone down was about to come back up. Her mouth began
to water and she broke out in a cold, clammy sweat. She jumped up and ran, and
made it to the bathroom in time.
Afterward she felt a sense of relief, and shame, and
inevitability.
The thought that repeated itself over and over in her head
was, ‘I am broken this way, and always will be.’
As she brushed her teeth she avoided looking in the mirror
above the sink. She didn’t want to see what this felt like.
A half hour later, Claire was jogging down Magnolia Avenue
when Georgia and Dottie hailed her from Dottie’s front porch. Claire staggered
up the stairs and collapsed on the top step.
“Good gracious,” Dottie said. “Let me get you some water.”
“How far have you run?” Georgia asked while Dottie went
inside.
“I have no idea,” Claire said, between gulps of air.
Her plan was to run until she felt she had punished herself
enough, and she wasn’t there, yet. There was a stitch in her side and she
pressed on it. The pad of fat covering her hip bone repulsed her. This disgust
manifested itself as a spiritual and physical pain, a wince of the soul.
“Are you okay?” Georgia asked her.
Claire waved her concern away with a flip of her hand.
“Just out of shape,” she said.
“You need to take it a little more slowly, I think,” Georgia
said. “You might hurt yourself.”
“I’m fine, really,” Claire said.
As she leaned forward to ease the cramp, the small roll of
fat between the bottom of her bra and her belly button compressed in a way she
hated. She felt repulsive.
“I need to lose a few pounds,” Claire said. “No pain no
gain.”
“You look too thin to me,” Dottie said, as she came back out
with a glass of ice water.
“Sip it, don’t gulp it,” Georgia said.
Claire obeyed.
The cold water felt wonderful. She wanted to dive in and
swim.
“Do you think I could swim in the college pool?” she asked.
“You would have to buy a pass,” Georgia said. “I’m pretty
sure they still allow townies to do that.”
“Might be easier on your joints than running,” Dottie said.
“Is this all about being thin?” Georgia asked her.
“Healthy,” Claire said. “Thin and healthy.”
“Hmmm,” Georgia said. “I wonder.”
“None of our business, really,” Dottie said to Georgia in a
warning tone.
“Hush,” Georgia said. “You know, Claire, I’ve been thinking
about our conversation at dinner the other night, and what you said about being
addicted to romance.”
“Oh, here we go,” Dottie said.
“I’m sure there are other things you could do if I’m boring
you,” Georgia said.
“I’m gonna go inside and watch ‘Love it or List it,’ ”
Dottie said. “You all holler if you need me.”
“Thank you for the water,” Claire said.
“You know,” Georgia said, as soon as Dottie left, “when you
feel attraction or affection for someone, the body releases a chemical called
oxytocin, and it’s just as addictive as any illegal drug.”
“I believe it,” Claire said. “I once paid for a good-looking,
unemployed actor to get a chin implant. That’s not the kind of thing you can
ask to have returned when you break up. And by breaking up, I mean I found him
in my boss’s bed and afterwards still thought it might somehow work out.
Imagine how humiliating it was to have a jackass like that tell me how pathetic
I was being. I mean
he
was embarrassed for
me
.”
“We all do stupid things when we’re in love,” Georgia said.
“It’s even harder, I think, when the person is attractive. We somehow expect
more from pretty people.”
“I created this fantasy, you see, based on the movies I’d
seen and the books I’d read. I was looking for someone to fill the role of the handsome
man who falls madly in love with me even though I’m clumsy but whimsically
adorable. I didn’t actually know these men I dated because they were pretending
to be rock star ninjas or deeply intellectual rebels while I was pretending to
be the perfect girlfriend: oversexed, skinny, and low, low maintenance; when actually,
I’m not any of those things. I wish I’d had half the love life I pretended to
over the years.”
“It makes me sad what sexualized marketing has done to young
women and men,” Georgia said. “I know I sound like an old grouch, but I think it
promotes the degradation of human dignity in the service of selling things.”
“Ed says we’re a society of compulsive consumers,” Claire
said. “Drowning in debt trying to live a fantasy life we feel entitled to but
can’t afford.”
“I think about poor Diedre Delvecchio, done in by her desire
to not only acquire things, but to keep all of them.”
“I’m kind of a compulsive shopper, myself,” Claire said.
“I’d be ashamed to tell you how many handbags I own, or what I paid for them.”
“I have stacks and stacks of books,” Georgia said. “Even if
I read a book a day for a year I could never read them all. I donate them to
the library after I read them, which makes Dottie happy and keeps her off my
back, but I can’t quit. I’m powerless over my desire to acquire books. I’m
obsessed with learning as much as I can, you see, and I don’t have an endless amount
of time left; maybe twenty years, if my mind stays sharp.”
“I can see where compulsive book buying can be addiction,
and that your research is another one,” Claire said. “But if an addiction is
constructive, is it still bad?”
“If it hurts you or someone you love,” Georgia said.
“How could your research do that?”
“If you devote more time to it than you do to your
friendships, or become obsessed to the point that you can’t think about
anything else.”
“Does that happen to you?”
“Dottie keeps me from going too far in that direction,”
Georgia said. “I have a bit of an obsessive compulsive problem.”