Half of What You Hear Page 7

  We are crowded against the bar just enough that I am able to subtly, and mostly gently, kick Cole’s ankle with the toe of my ruby-red slipper.

  He shoots a look at me, wrinkling his brow like he’s confused.

  I smile back at him. I can’t believe he’s ingratiating himself to this guy, and letting him insult me, too.

  “Hey,” Greg says to Cole. “I got a bunch of guys over in the corner talking about starting up our weekly poker thing again.” I look across the room to where a group of men—a werewolf, someone in scrubs, a referee—are huddled together and laughing loudly. “We used to play every Sunday night, but then, you know, life got in the way.” He shrugs. “We’re looking for a place to convene. Hey, maybe the inn? Would you want to join?”

  Cole looks at me and shrugs. “Yeah, maybe.”

  Greg laughs. “You gotta check with the wife first?” he says. “That’s not the Cole Warner I remember!”

  My mouth drops open, but Greg is moving on, taking a few steps and waving for Cole to follow him. “Come on, let’s go talk to them,” he says.

  Cole looks at me and shrugs. “Sorry, Greg’s always been—”

  “Go ahead.” I pat his shoulder.

  He raises his eyebrows.

  “Go,” I say. “Have fun.”

  He reaches and squeezes my hand, the straw from his costume scratching against my arm, then leans to kiss my cheek. “I’m sorry about that,” he whispers in my ear. “He can be kind of an—”

  “No worries,” I say, thinking that we’ll talk about it later, and then, as he starts to pull away, I hold his hand tighter, hooking my index finger into his. He looks back at me, grimacing in a playful way, and I laugh at myself, covering for the way I feel, my separation anxiety like a kindergartener’s on the first day of school. He stops and leans into me again. “I love you,” he says. “And everyone here will, too.”

  “Okay, go,” I say, pushing him gently. I watch him cross the room and see how his face lights up when someone in the huddle of men in the corner calls out his name.

  After I get a glass of wine from James, I spot Carol, the owner of Fine Feathers, the local women’s clothing boutique, sipping a glass of the awful-looking lime-colored punch I’d noticed in a large crystal bowl on the end of the bar. She is wearing a gold leotard, gold tights, gold elbow-length gloves, and a braided gold headband around her forehead. When she catches me looking at her, she waves and starts toward me.

  Back when Cole and I used to come here just to visit, Fine Feathers was where I went when I needed a break from my mother-in-law. I was drawn there not so much by the clothes but by Carol, who was five or six years ahead of Cole in school and was always friendly to me, happy to chitchat and greet me warmly even when it was clear I wasn’t there to buy anything. Unlike most of the other women in town, who dress in a sort of conservative-rich-bitch casual—Patagonia fleeces, jeans, diamond or pearl studs—she is like a small-town Betsey Johnson, always in some sort of leather or fur, costume jewelry piled on, bright, bright lipstick. “Like a little girl playing dress-up,” Diane has said, not in a particularly kind way.

  “Did you design this?” I ask, waving my index finger in a circle so Carol will give me a 360.

  “Guilty.” She twirls cautiously so she won’t spill her drink. “I’m a Solid Gold dancer. Are you too young to know what that is?”

  “No!” I say, laughing out loud. “Of course not. Watching that show was my favorite thing about Saturday nights when I was a kid!”

  “Me, too,” she says. “Before I discovered clothes, my life’s ambition was to be on it. My poor parents sat through so many of my dance routines in our living room. . . .”

  The mention of her parents reminds me of the horrible story Diane once told me about them: how they died unexpectedly when Carol was in her twenties, carbon-monoxide poisoning from a faulty heating system in a hotel room in Key West. “And then the thing with Carol’s husband,” Diane had said, her eyes widening at the memory of him. He’d run off with someone. “A woman he met on the internet,” Diane had whispered.

  “I love your ruby slippers,” Carol says, pointing down at my heels. “And you should do braids more often. You can pull it off.”

  I touch my fingers to one of the ribbons I’d tied to my hair. “I don’t know,” I say, just as Mindy is bouncing by with a silver tray of crab puffs. We each take one.

  “Oh, you have got to be kidding me,” Carol says suddenly through a mouthful of food.

  I freeze just as I’m about to take a bite. “What? What is it?” I say, dropping the puff back into my cocktail napkin, thinking there must be something wrong with it. But then I follow Carol’s gaze, noticing the hush that has fallen over the crowd.

  I don’t recognize the wearer, but I immediately know the inspiration for his costume. All six-foot-plus of him is squeezed into a blood-splattered, lemon-yellow knee-length dress, and a platinum-blond wig is fastened on his blocky head with an ACE bandage. Fake cuts and bruises have been drawn all over his face, and he has somehow managed to find what is clearly the showpiece of his outfit, attached to a paisley-patterned scarf around his neck: a palm-sized rhinestone pin shaped like a cricket. Susannah’s nickname, I think, remembering what she told me during our meeting.

  He’s holding the arm of a woman who is wearing a prim top with a Peter Pan collar and a long skirt. Her hair’s pulled back into a ponytail, and there are sticks and leaves poking out from the elastic. And she’s holding . . . what is it? A bottle of whiskey? It confuses me at first—is she drinking straight from the bottle? And then I realize, noticing the XXX label and the skeleton head on its front, that the bottle is just a prop, part of the costume.

  “Too soon!” somebody shouts. Laughter fills the room.

  “Terrible!” someone else yells.

  “Aw, don’t be so uptight!” the guy in drag screams back.

  Carol turns to me and shakes her head. “Silly.”

  “Who is that?” I ask.

  “Brian White,” says a voice over my shoulder. I turn. It is a petite, pale-skinned blonde, at least six months pregnant, in a black leotard and fishnet tights, bunny ears on her head. “Sadly, my first kiss.”

  “Oh God, Whitney,” Carol says, making a disgusted face.

  “I know,” she says. “I’m not sure why I just admitted that.”

  She turns to me and puts her hand out to introduce herself. “Hi, I’m Whitney Dickerson. I’ve known Cole since for-ever.” Whitney Dickerson, I remember from the quiz Cole gave me in the car, married to the one who looks like Woody Harrelson. His first name is . . . I can’t remember. “Actually . . .” She pushes her hair up off her forehead and leans into me. “See that scar on my hairline?”

  “Yeah,” I say, noticing the staple-sized mark.

  “Your husband did that.”

  “What?” I say.

  She laughs. “He threw a block at me in preschool.”

  “Oh!” I say. “You scared me.”

  “What are you dressed as?” Carol asks Whitney.

  “Pregnant Playboy Bunny,” she says, patting her belly. “It was that or Humpty Dumpty.”

  I laugh, taking to her.

  “Who’s that with Brian?” Carol asks, pointing at the woman holding his hand.

  “I have no idea,” Whitney says. “You know Brian, always hauling in some undergrad from Charlottesville when he can’t find a date for something.”

  “God, he’s tacky,” Carol says.

  “But you have to admit, the costume’s kind of funny,” Whitney says.

  Carol laughs. “Wait,” she says, watching as I take a sip of my drink. “You know whom he’s dressed as, I’m sure?”

  “Of course she does!” Whitney says. “She’s writing a story about Susannah, haven’t you heard?”

  Carol turns to me, her eyes wide. “No, I don’t know anything about that!”

  They both wait for an explanation.

  “Yes, well. I am, it’s true,” I say. “But it�
��s just a little thing, a couple of pages, mostly about how she’s moved back to her childhood home, really.”

  “Her move back?” Carol says, and I don’t know why, but I feel my stomach flip.

  “Yeah,” I say, playing it off. “Just about her return to town, and about her plans for her land.”

  “Her plans for her land,” Whitney says, lowering her voice. “And what does she have to say about that? I’d love to know.”

  “Well, we all would, wouldn’t we?” a voice beside me says.

  When I turn to look, I flinch, an involuntary ugh that I hope nobody notices. It’s Eva. My husband’s high school girlfriend.

  She is dressed like a flamingo. It takes me a moment to soak it in, the pink marabou, the tulle, the body glitter. I look up at her. She is one of the tallest women I have ever met—well over six feet, especially in the sparkly stilettos she’s wearing. She has a black beak perched on her nose and it looks ridiculous, especially with her peering down at me.

  “Cute costume,” she says, looking me over. Her eyes are big—heavy, like a camel’s—but perpetually watery. Sick eyes, I’ve thought to myself in smaller moments. I am trying to keep an open mind about her, but she doesn’t make it easy. Part of the problem is that I know she is the woman responsible for taking my husband’s virginity, which is ridiculous for me to care about—it happened, what, over twenty-five years ago?—but some primal, possessive part of my brain latches on to the fact every time I see her.

  “Thank you,” I say. “You look great.”

  Aside from the beak and the eyes, she really does. I’ve actually already seen her costume, having read her post about it on her blog, which I happened upon while googling her shortly before our move. The website mostly chronicles the items Eva buys online, how she decorates her home, and the life of what you might call her designer family, which includes Brittany, a daughter Max and Livvie’s age, and her husband, David, who has been the mayor of Greyhill for almost ten years. Eva calls her blog Belle Luxe. “Beautiful luxury.” It’s as awful as it sounds, and yet I never seem to miss a post.

  “You know, I ran into Diane the other day downtown and she told me about your story, Bess,” Eva says, a saccharine smile blooming on her face.

  Oh God, I think. What is she about to say?

  “It’s so . . . interesting. I never knew you could write.”

  “Yes,” I say, taking another sip of my drink. “It’s something I did a long time ago.”

  “Ah,” she says. “Have you spent much time with Susannah yet?”

  “I was at Esperanza just yesterday, actually. We’ve only met once. Officially.”

  “Really?” all three say at once, and then look at each other and laugh before turning back to me. It’s not clear why, but the questions keep coming before I can answer.

  “And how is she?” Whitney asks. “I know she’s been keeping a lower profile since the accident.” Her eyes narrow, waiting for my reply.

  “Oh,” I say. “Um . . .” I suddenly find myself woolly-mouthed and unable to find my words. The women step in closer, looming, licking their lips like cartoon snakes.

  “She’s well.”

  “How’d she look?” Carol asks.

  “As beautiful as ever.”

  “We should all be so lucky to look like her at her age,” Carol says.

  Whitney nods. “You can say that again.”

  “Well . . . I heard,” Eva says, lowering her voice and leaning into us, “that after the accident, she whisked herself off to California for plastic surgery.” She turns to me. “Do you know anything about that? Did she look like she’d had some work done?”

  “She had a bandage across her forehead, but plastic surgery? No, not particularly.”

  “Who said that, Eva?” Carol asks, looking at her suspiciously. “About her being in California?”

  “Don’t worry about it,” Eva says, waving her hand at her. “You wouldn’t believe all the stories we get in the mayor’s office.”

  Ugh. Eva, I’ve discovered in the handful of times I’ve run into her around town, is one of those women who talks about her husband’s job as if it’s her own.

  “What was she wearing?” Carol asks me.

  “Susannah? Hmm,” I say, thinking back. “A big red skirt, ankle length, like something you’d wear to a formal event.”

  “Lady in red,” Carol says, nodding. “I love a blonde in red.”

  “She has a helper, doesn’t she?” Whitney says. “Some sort of assistant or housekeeper? From outside of town?”

  “Yes, Cindy,” I say. “She’s a hoot.” I tip my glass to my lips, finishing the last sip of my wine.

  “And what did she say about the land?” Eva asks, crossing her arms over her chest and looking at me expectantly.

  “We haven’t really gotten into that yet.”

  “You’ll have to let me know when you do,” Eva says. “She has several acres right next to our place. It’s not for sale yet, but David and I are on pins and needles waiting to see. He’s called that agent in New York several times but can’t seem to get him on the phone, which I find suspicious.”

  “Bess, has she said anything about why she came back here in the first place?” Whitney asks.

  “No,” I say, starting to feel like I’m sitting on a witness stand.

  “But you talked about the accident, I’m sure?” Eva says. “I mean, you had to.”

  “We did, but barely,” I say, a sinking feeling starting in my chest.

  “And what did she say about how it happened?” she asks.

  “Just that she lost control of the truck,” I say.

  “Well,” Carol says. “That may be, but I’ve heard a lot of rumors at the store about why she lost control . . . that she was drinking, or on painkillers, or that the crash was caused by a stroke or an aneurysm,” she says, ticking off each scenario on her fingers. “Someone said she might even be suffering from the early stages of dementia.”

  “You don’t think that’s really true, do you?” Whitney says to the group.

  “It would explain her selling off her land.” Eva laughs. “Maybe she’s just losing her mind.”

  The other two laugh.

  “So what did you talk about, then?” Eva asks. “If you didn’t talk about the land or the accident or why she’s back here?”

  “She’s irritated to have totaled her truck,” I say, feeling suddenly protective of her. All these questions! “And that’s really the only thing she had to say about the accident. The truck was a present from Teddy. And she named it after her best friend from childhood, but I can’t remember the name . . . It was something sort of old-fashioned.”

  “Like Bess?” Eva laughs, and my cheeks redden at the slight. “Oh, I’m just kidding!”

  “Yeah, sure,” I say, narrowing my eyes just subtly enough that she’ll know I don’t appreciate the dig. How did Cole date this horrible woman? I know it was one of those typically teenage on-again, off-again relationships, and over as soon as they both went away to college (Cole to Georgetown and Eva to Sweet Briar), but still . . .

  “The name was Henrietta, of course,” Whitney says.

  “Yes!” I say, snapping my fingers. “That’s it! Henrietta! We talked about her for a bit.”

  “You went to Cricket Lane’s estate and the two of you talked about Henrietta Martin?” Carol says.

  “Yes,” I say, scanning their surprised expressions. “Is there something strange about that?”

  Eva laughs. “What do you know about Henrietta Martin, Bess?”

  “Nothing. Just that she was Susannah’s best friend when they were growing up in Greyhill.” I’m tiring of their interrogation. “Why? Is there something I should know about Henrietta Martin?”

  “Cole’s never told you about her?” Eva says.

  I shake my head.

  “Legendary story! She died tragically during her senior year at Draper,” Whitney says, putting her hand on my arm as she explains it. “Right before grad
uation!”

  “Died?” I say. “What do you mean by tragically?”

  “Oh, don’t worry, it was years ago,” Whitney says. “Back in the 1960s.”

  “That’s why that woman . . .” Carol says, craning her neck to scan the crowd. “The one with Brian, the guy dressed as Susannah.”

  “Oh,” I say, just able to make out the back of the woman’s head on the other side of the room. “The one with the sticks in her hair? And the bottle?”

  “Yes,” Eva says. “The seniors at Draper used to always throw a party up on the Cliffs the weekend before graduation. The story goes that Henrietta was drunk, wandered off, and fell from one of the lookout points up on the mountain. A hunter found her body in the valley early the next morning.”

  “How awful,” I say.

  “I guess it was,” Carol says. “Can you imagine if something like that happened now?”

  “The lawsuits,” Whitney says, rolling her eyes and shaking her head. “And the attention. My parents—Hal and Jenny Perkins, they own Perkins Variety and Hardware downtown? They always thought it was fishy.”

  “Really?” I say. “Fishy how?”

  Carol turns to me. “Do you know what the Cliffs are, Bess?”

  “Yes,” I say. “Cole took me up there once, years ago, just to see it.”

  “I bet he did,” Eva says. “He used to take me there, too.”

  My ears start to burn, but before I have a chance to say anything, Whitney chimes in: “Is there a woman in Greyhill who Cole Warner didn’t take up to the Cliffs?” She slaps her hand over her mouth. “I’m sorry, Bess! I wasn’t thinking! That was rude.”

  “No,” I say. “It’s fine.”

  Though it really isn’t, because these women are insinuating something about my husband’s past that I know nothing about. I know about Eva, of course—she was his first love, his homecoming date, his prom date. I’ve seen all the pictures. Diane dragged out the photo albums the first time he brought me to Greyhill, pointing out, in what felt like an aggressive move, what a “gem of a girl” Eva was. How tall and elegant, how feminine, “such a Greyhill girl,” she’d said, whatever that means, her finger running over a photo of Cole in a tux with a sapphire-blue cummerbund that matched Eva’s dress.