“Why don’t you eat dinner with him? I’ll see you when you get home.”
“Yeah, sure.”
I hang up. So they spoke this morning. That’s one step in the right direction. Lillian can update me on the temperature of the conversation. I try her cell again and growl in frustration when it goes to voice mail. Okay. That’s fine. A short hiccup of time. Nothing to get upset over. This is Lillian, after all. Unreliability is her norm.
A voice mail from Sam arrives, and I play it.
“It’s me. I haven’t been able to reach Lill. I spoke to her earlier today and she seemed a little ... undone. I think she’s off her meds. Let me know if you’ve talked to her, and if she’s all right.”
I tighten my grip on the steering wheel. Sam knows better than to call me about something like this. Lillian, we had agreed, would be my responsibility, though Sam never seems to stay in his lane where she is concerned.
And that’s the problem with people. They don’t stay where you put them, not unless they are dead.
I eye the dash clock and take the exit for my office. I have time to do a little bit of business before dinner.
CHAPTER 42
LILLIAN
I wake up on the cemetery bench, and it’s dark outside.Shit.How did I fall asleep out here? I was drinking the anniversary bourbon and then ... I pinch my eyes closed and try to remember anything past that point. I creak up to a sitting position and look for my purse, my anxiety spiking when I realize that it isn’t on the bench, or on the ground, or anywhere in the vicinity. Which is expected, because it’s Los Angeles, and I’m lucky I’m wearing all my clothes and still alive.
I groan at the thought of what was in my purse: the bourbon—who cares; my pills—meh, take ’em; my wallet—crap. My keys ... I brighten at the fact that Mike has my keys since he took my car today. Perfect. My cell phone is another wince-worthy loss, but my photos were backed up to the cloud, and Mike has insurance on it. We are nothing if not well insured.
I glance around, suddenly concerned that my purse thief is nearby, wanting more. There are black pockets of shadow around the trees, the gravestones casting black fingers under the moonlight; there’s a chill in the air; and—for the first time in ages—the empty graveyard creeps me out.
I stand and brush off my pants, then quickly start the walk home.
I’m passing the Martins’ two-story home when I realize that I missed the attorney’s appointment. Cursing, I check my watch, but the numbers swim in my vision. Hopefully it’s only six or seven. Mike must have gone to the attorney without me, and he’ll be pissed. I’ll get that look, the exasperated one where he doesn’t understand what’s wrong with me, then the cold shoulder where he tabulates a list of my transgressions for later analysis.
He used to not be so ... stiff. When we met, he was almost meek. The quiet nerd who was staring at me in the bookstore. He brought me flowers on our first date. Blushed after our first kiss. Carefully applied a Band-Aid with military precision when I tripped getting out of his car and skinned my knee.
The transition was steep, after graduation, and has plateaued and spiked, as major events passed by. Jacob’s birth. The purchase of this home. His promotion at work. The start of my depression. The drinking. The medications.
Maybe he had to become this way, so parental, so overbearing, just to keep us in order. There is that, about him. Despite the increasing emotional vacancy, he is a rock that our marriage—our family—leans on, one that often pins us into place when we grow shaky.
I get to the house and he’s in the office, on the phone. I wait in the doorway for him to stop talking, and when there is a pause, I speak. “I’m sorry about the attorney. I lost track of time.”
He stares through me, his jaw set, eyes flat. I hesitate. “Have you eaten?”
“Yes,” he snaps. “Of course.”
I can’t tell if he’s talking to me or to the person on the phone, and decide it doesn’t matter. I head to the kitchen but feel a wave of lightheadedness and decide to sit, for just a moment, on the floor.
When I wake up, all the lights are off and Mike is gone.
CHAPTER 43
FRENCHY
The sun rises above the horizon slowly, yawning over the black ocean, half-hidden by clouds, its rays tinting the dunes in pale peach. This stretch of sand is a hidden enclave of private homes, too far from public parking for any foot traffic, too flat a stretch of sand for waves. It’s why Frenchy chose it. She wanted to lie on a beach without a tourist trampling by, without the shouts and profanity of surfers on the wind.
Surfers are trash. Literally, trash. They drip it everywhere they go, small vials of wax, ziplock baggies, cans of energy drinks, the pull cord of a surfboard. They drag lines through the sand, and set up boom boxes and disrupt the quiet to light bonfires and smoke weed and bang their sand bunnies.
At first, Frenchy thinks the woman is one of them. Someone who partied along the shore last night, wandered too far down, and passed out in the dunes. She sees the curve of the woman on her side, her long hair sandy, her body tucked up against the seagrass.
Frenchy pauses, her tennis shoes already caked with sand, and considers waking her and asking her to leave. Surely the woman won’t argue, especially when Frenchy points out that she’s on private property. Technically, that isn’t true, but none of the stray surfers and tourists ever argue with her when she says that.
Calling the police is another option, but they often dismiss her. It is, after all, public property, and people can sleep on the beach, despite how it ruins Frenchy’s day. Sometimes she gets lucky, and an officer is sent out. There’s that one beach patrol uniform who always stares at her breasts and does anything she asks, but she hasn’t seen him in ages.