Killer Coin

by Elka Ray

  “Who’s he?” she asks me.

  “The husband of one of my clients.”

  Jean-Luc wipes his fingers on his dark green apron before taking the photo. “Hmmm, I’m not sure.”

  “He was with a woman,” I prompt.

  “Ahhh. Ah!” He nods, his ghost-mustache twitching. “Yeah, I remember him.” He frowns. “Lousy tipper.”

  “And the woman?”

  “Older,” he says. “Like fifty-something? Attractive. Blonde.” His narrow forehead crinkles in concentration. “I recognized her from somewhere.”

  I nod, hopefully. “You knew her?”

  “No, I didn’t know her,” he says. “But she looked familiar. Like maybe from TV? An actress or a newsreader?” He peers toward the door, which has opened to emit a couple walking arm-in-arm. The smiling hostess leads them to a low-lit table near the back. “Or a politician? She looked,” he shrugs. “Important. Now, excuse me.” He nods toward his new table and hands me back Dennis’s photo.

  Quinn pinches it out of my fingers and squints at it. “Why’re you asking about him? No wait, let me guess.” She shakes her head. “He’s cheating on his wife. Right? And you’re trying to find the other woman.”

  I spread my own napkin across my lap and try to decide how much to tell Quinn. While I shouldn’t divulge details of my cases, she’s known me for so long she always knows what’s up anyway. Given how preoccupied she’s seemed of late, her nosiness is a relief. This is the Quinn I know and love: always chock full of questions and opinions.

  “Maybe,” I say.

  She rolls her eyes. “All your clients are getting divorced,” she says. “It’s always the same old story. People cheating and lying to each other. Fighting. I don’t know how you handle it. It’s depressing.” She reaches for the bread basket and frowns, finding it empty. “Maybe that’s why you’re still single.”

  Seeing my face, she looks contrite. “Sorry. I didn’t mean that.” She sighs, her pretty face crumpling. “Oh god, Toby. I really am sorry. There’s nothing wrong with being single. I mean, maybe it’s for the best. Lots of people are happy being single. Happier. The statistics back that up . . .” She stops talking and rubs her eyes. “I’ll shut up now. I’m just so tired and . . .” She hangs her head. “Snappy.”

  “It’s okay,” I say. I lay a hand on her arm. Quinn’s always been there for me: when I was a scrawny kid, growing up without a dad and getting bullied for being small and Asian. And as an adult, the stresses of law school and the bar exam, career troughs and triumphs, dud romances, my mom’s breast cancer . . .

  While I lurched from drama to drama, her life seemed charmed: the child of happily married and successful parents, blessed with the lithe blonde beauty of Venus rising from the sea, her single-minded determination to be a marine biologist, and her love-at-first-bear-hug romance with her big cop husband, Bruce, who could not be prouder of her.

  She’s never, ever faltered. Until now. It breaks my heart to see her so vulnerable, especially now she’s got everything she ever wanted. A secure tenure-track position at the university. A devoted husband. A perfect baby girl. I squeeze her hand. Why this sudden praise for the joys of singlehood? “Are you okay, Quinn?” Is she struggling with her marriage?

  “I . . .” She swallows hard. “Yeah, I think so. I’m just exhausted.” Her chin quivers. “This is harder than I thought it’d be. I’m not sure if Abby’s happy. If she’s comfortable. She cries and I just want to scream. I get so . . .” She hangs her head, voice low with guilt. “I get angry. I miss going to work. I resent Bruce because his life hasn’t really changed. He’s still working. His body isn’t a stretched-out mess.” She swipes at the tears on her cheeks. “I mean, how awful is that? Our baby is barely two months old and I . . . I resent her. I don’t even deserve to be her mother.”

  “Of course you do,” I say. “It’s normal to miss work. To be tired and scared and frustrated. And you’re right. Bruce’s life hasn’t changed as much as yours. That’s not fair, but right now, that’s how it is. Things will get better. You’re a great mom, Quinn. Abby’s so lucky.”

  Blinking back tears, my friend smiles. “Thanks, Tob.” She squares her shoulders. “Sorry to be so silly.”

  “You’re not silly,” I say. “All of this is true. Everyone knows the first few months are brutal.”

  She nods. “I just thought I’d sail through it. I mean, how hard can it be? Women have been having babies forever, right? They used to have dozens of them. Like they gave birth in the morning and hoed the fields after lunch.”

  I snort. “You ever hoed a field?”

  This warrants a tight laugh. “No, but I have spent weeks diving with Greenland sharks in dark, freezing water. I have a PhD. That takes stamina!” She rubs her eyes, which are full of tears. “I thought I’d be good at this.”

  “You are good at this,” I say. “Have you talked to your mother?”

  Quinn’s mom, Jackie, is one of my favorite people. Elegant, gracious, and utterly sensible, Jackie is a successful criminal lawyer and the main reason I studied law. If Jackie knew Quinn was struggling, I’m sure she’d find some way to help.

  Quinn takes a deep breath. “My mom means well,” she says. “But her efforts to help just stress me out. She makes everything sound so simple, which makes me feel like a failure. She was in law school when she had me and still graduated at the top of her class. I’m home all day and look at me—a total basket case.”

  “You are not,” I say. “But that could be the problem. Maybe you need to get out more. You should call me.” I give her a lopsided grin. “I can babysit anytime you want. Then you and Bruce can get out together, have some fun.”

  Quinn blinks. “Thank you.”

  “She’s my goddaughter, Quinn. I want to get to know her.”

  “I know,” says Quinn. “Okay, I’ll ask you to babysit sometimes.” From the way her eyes slide back to her silent phone, I suspect she doesn’t really mean it.

  Looking at her anxious frown, I wonder if Quinn needs to see a doctor. Is she clinically depressed? How do I ask? I think back to the months before Abby’s birth, Quinn so full of sparkle and excitement. Compared to that, she’s a shadow of herself, a nervous wreck. If having a kid has done this to Quinn, imagine what it’d do to me. I’m already a hopeless worrywart, my mind perpetually palm-smacking my forehead. Maybe I’m better off staying single and childless. What if I pass this anxiety to the next generation?

  Since I can’t think of a good way to broach it, I just blurt it out. “Quinn, d’you think you might have postpartum depression?”

  She blinks. Her big blue eyes fill with fresh tears. “Oh my god,” she whispers. “Do I really look that bad?”

  “No, of course not,” I say, scared I’ve made her feel even worse. “I’m just worried, that’s all. I mean, I know you. I’ve known you forever. And you just seem . . .” I bite my lip. “Sad,” I say.

  She nods. “I know,” she says. Her voice sounds raw. “And I should be so happy, right?”

  I hold my breath. Isn’t that what I was thinking, earlier tonight? She has it all. She should be ecstatic. But is that true? Her hormones are bound to be a hot mess. She’s getting next to no sleep. She’s stuck at home, day after day, with a small creature who’s insatiable and ungrateful. All babies do is take. They never say thanks. And all the while, Quinn’s big, beautiful brain is spinning its wheels while she repeats the most mundane, crappy tasks.

  The more I think about it, the worse it sounds. Why do people have children?

  “I don’t know. I think you’re handling it way better than I would,” I say. “I can’t even keep my goldfish going. Remember when we were kids and I got given that hamster?”

  This elicits a crack of laughter. “You meant well,” says Quinn. “Building it that fancy house with all those toilet-roll tunnels.”

  “Too bad it chewed its way out and escaped,” I say. “And lived in the vents for years, waging a campaign of guerrilla warfare
.”

  “I remember when it chewed through your dad’s cellphone cable.” Her eyes crease with mirth. “Back when cellphones were total bricks. And crazy expensive.”

  I nod, recalling my dad’s ire. “Maybe that was why he left,” I say. I mean it as a joke, but it falls flat. What kind of person abandons their only child, there one day, then vanished? Or was my dad going through something like Quinn, crushed beneath some pressure he couldn’t express? Surely not. My mom took care of all the grunt work.

  I can feel Quinn eyeing me thoughtfully beneath her too-long fringe. At least now, twenty years on, I can make lame jokes about my dad’s departure without feeling like the San Andreas fault is running straight through my heart, ready to crack at any moment.

  Quinn shakes her head, serious again. “You’re not your dad,” she says. “You’ll be a great mother.” She fiddles with her spoon, looking wistful. “You might even love it. Some women are thrilled to stay home with a new baby. They feel . . . fulfilled.”

  I shake my head. “I’m pretty sure I’m not one of them.”

  A tight smile. “Me neither.” She drops her head, like she’s admitted something shameful. “That feels so ungrateful,” she whispers. “So disloyal to Abby.”

  I roll my eyes. “It does not!” I say. “It sounds honest. Geez, Quinn, give yourself a break. It’s not like you want to trade Abby in or hop on the next one-way flight out. You just want some of your old life back. Some time to yourself again.”

  My friend smiles. A real, Quinn smile, the kind that, just for a second, lights up the room. She sits up straighter. “I do,” she says. Her next words are more hesitant. “I was thinking of going back to work in a month or two, just part time . . .”

  “Brilliant,” I say. “You’d be setting a great example for Abby.”

  Again, that flash of a smile. Her shoulders, which have been up by her ears all night, relax a little. “I . . .” Whatever she was going to say next is interrupted by the arrival of our starters.

  Plate after plate. Everything looks and smells delicious.

  “Bon appétit,” I tell Quinn but she’s already chewing.

  “Thank god,” she says, around a mouthful of French onion soup. “I am famished.”

  My mussels in white wine sauce are so tasty I’m tempted to pick up the bowl and slurp. If I were home alone, I’d do it.

  The food seems to perk Quinn up. Maybe she was feeling extra low on account of being hungry. Or maybe our conversation helped. This thought and the wine warm my belly.

  While Quinn eats her second starter, I look around the room. The restaurant is filling up, almost every table now occupied by couples on dates: men self-consciously pulling out chairs for women in little black dresses, who pick at their food like Jane Austen characters. Strained smiles. Stilted laughter. Peppered between the nervous newbies are couples with obvious chemistry. Forkfuls passed back and forth. Heads bent close. Legs entwined under tables. Lustful glances over tenderly held wine glasses.

  Looking at these romantic couples, it’s hard not to feel a little envious. I want to come back here, with Josh and Colin. God, I’m greedy. Surely, deep down I must know who’s better for me, or—better than that—right for me. Or is it neither?

  As the evening progresses, I have to keep biting my tongue. Quinn can’t stop checking her phone, like she’s scared it’s stopped working. While Abby Rose isn’t physically present, she may as well be. Quinn’s obsessed. I can’t distract her for more than two minutes straight. She keeps yawning too. I know she’s exhausted but it’s hard not to take it personally, like I’ve become stupefyingly boring. Should I admit defeat and call it a night? My energy is also flagging.

  “Some more wine?” I ask. Quinn looks up from her phone. Seeing my disapproving frown, she stashes it under her napkin. I know she’s both relieved and disappointed that Bruce hasn’t called. She’d expected a slew of desperate calls: Abby won’t stop crying. She won’t eat. She misses you too much. In fact, the baby and Bruce are fine. Quinn’s the only one suffering.

  “I shouldn’t,” says Quinn. She looks torn. “I already had half a glass.”

  “So pump and dump,” I say. In the past two months I’ve learned things I couldn’t have imagined. If Quinn doesn’t breastfeed regularly her breasts turn into hot, hard lumps—like giant, burning ten-day-old buns stuck to her chest. Even now, there’s a breast pump stashed in her bulging purse. Oh, the glamor.

  I tilt the carafe enticingly.

  “Maybe a tiny bit more,” she concedes.

  Moments later, she’s checking her phone again.

  I’m about to signal the waiter for a second carafe when I see a plump balding man emerge from a swinging door at the back. He starts talking to the skinny waiter. Clad in a white jacket, the pudgy man is obviously the chef. His hands wave as he talks. The waiter bobs his head.

  When the chef turns, I feel a jolt of recognition. It’s Daphne Dane’s French son-in-law, Gerard. He said he was a chef. Is he the owner of L’Escargot D’Or?

  “Excuse me,” I say to Quinn, whose head is bent over her phone, like it’s a baby monitor and she just might hear her daughter shrieking for her mommy. She doesn’t notice my departure.

  Weaving between well-dressed couples on their best behavior, I feel like the only single person in the room. Or the universe, even. A little astronaut floating free, past planets of paired-up couples. I could be lonely, or lucky—bound for unforeseen adventures. Or maybe both, after talking to Quinn. A little lonely and lucky.

  I’m about halfway across the room when Gerard turns and bustles off around a corner. Getting closer, I see it’s a hallway that leads to the restrooms. Gerard is now standing at the far end, beneath a framed copy of “Kiss by the Hotel de Ville.” He’s talking to a skinny man with mussed blond hair sticking out from a green beanie. Beneath faded Thai fishermen’s pants, this man’s legs are twig-thin and the color of raw french fries.

  Gerard looks cross, his cheeks puffing with displeasure. “What is so urgent?” he says. “It is the dinner service. I am busy.”

  When the blond guy answers, I step behind a potted plant. I know that voice—a low rasp. It’s Daphne’s son, Lukas.

  “I need a favor,” says Lukas. “Just a little loan. Until Mom gets back. I have to fix my VW van . . .”

  Gerard sighs. “Again? You think I am what, made of money? I have bills!” He throws up his small, stubby hands. “The rent for this place, you would not believe it. And electricity. Plus all the staff.” He shakes his large head dolefully. His jowls sway. “And Christmas is coming. Your sister, she is not one to economize . . .” He fingers the collar of his white jacket and looks sad but self-righteous. “Non. I’m very sorry Lukas but it is simply impossible.” This last word is pronounced the French way—im-poss-ee-bluh.

  “Aw c’mon, Gerard,” says Lukas. He scratches under his ratty beanie. “It’s only for a few days. As soon as Mom’s back I can—”

  Gerard’s small eyes narrow. “You need to stop relying on your mother,” he says. “She is fed up.” He puffs out his chest to deliver this lecture. “She told Isobel that you treat her like an ATM. It is time you live on your own. Get a job. You must learn to stand on your own two feet.”

  Lukas’s head rears back. “That’s rich!” he says, “coming from Izzie. Who lent you guys the money to start this place, huh? What I borrow is peanuts! A few bucks here and there, just enough to tide me over, until my next exhibition . . .” His voice is an aggrieved whine. “She’s given you guys so much, and you can’t even lend me a couple hundred! I don’t even have money to eat, Gerard . . .” His voice wobbles. “I’m gonna to have to ask Izzie.”

  Gerard’s cheeks rise to new heights. He releases an exaggerated sigh. “Alors, fine, fine,” he says. “Do not trouble your sister. She has enough to worry about with your mother.” He takes a deep breath and smoothes down his white jacket. “I’ll get some cash from the till.” Gerard wags a finger. “Two hundred.”

  �
��Two?” says Lukas. “Aw c’mon, man . . .”

  Gerard’s floppy cheeks tighten.

  Lukas must see his brother-in-law’s face, because he backs down. “Fine, fine,” he says, quickly. “Two hundred is great. You’re the best, man.” He rubs his hands. “You got any leftovers around here? Like, you know, some of that good bread? The stuff with the herbs and nuts?”

  Gerard’s next sigh is even louder. “I will get you some bread,” he says stiffly.

  Lukas nods. “Thanks, thanks. I owe you, man. Say, maybe I could paint something for this place to pay you back? Some original art instead of all these lame prints.” He squints at the closest frame. “Something bright and modern.”

  Gerard gives a tiny shudder. “Ah, merci but no need. The prints fit the theme. You know, Paris . . .” His voice lifts with nostalgia.

  Lukas shrugs a skinny shoulder. “Sure. Whatever. Suit yourself, man.” He claps Gerard’s back. “Don’t worry. I’ll pay you back. The minute Mom gets home.” He pauses. “Any idea where she went?” he asks Gerard.

  Gerard’s frown deepens. “No,” he says. “And Isobel is terribly worried. “Those police, they are useless. They fail to understand she could be in trouble, being off with that . . .” His round nose scrunches as if from an unpleasant smell. “That charlatan.”

  “Charles-what?” says Lukas. His already thin voice stretches further. “I thought his name was Stephen!”

  Gerard looks confused, then shrugs. “Yes, Stephen. I forgot, you haven’t met him.” He rings his hands. “He is a charmer. A smooth-talker. Your maman is vulnerable to a man like that. He says all the right things . . . Why, just three nights back, at her house for dinner . . .” His jowls shake ominously. “Your sister fears they’ve eloped,” he says, glumly.

  Lukas snorts out a laugh. “Oh c’mon. Mom’s not an idiot. She’s only known him for what, a few weeks?” He smirks. “Iz thinks she’ll marry him?” He tugs off his beanie.

  Gerard throws up his hands. “Ah mais l’amour! It can turn us all into fools. Isobel fears he’s a con artist. You weren’t there to see them, behaving like teenagers . . .” His mouth forms a moue of distaste before his prominent eyes widen, like something’s just occurred to him. “The Sooke cabin,” he says. “Perhaps they went there. Someone should check it.”