Pretty Guilty Women

by Gina LaManna

  “No, I know about the wedding, but…” Kate felt flustered, a totally foreign feeling. “Aren’t you staying over tonight?”

  “I don’t think that’s a good idea. I’ll meet you at the airport.”

  “Max!” Kate’s voice felt scratchy, her heart thumping with what could only be described as panic. “Can we at least talk?”

  “No, I don’t think so,” he said quietly.

  Then he turned, his feet carrying the rest of his impeccably clad body down the hallway. He punched the elevator button and, without looking back, stepped through the doors and disappeared.

  Kate closed the door and leaned against it, struggling to breathe. After a moment, a burst of rage at Max’s words coursed through her, and without thinking, she spun to kick the door childishly with her gorgeous cream slippers and tried to ignore the prickling in her eyes.

  She shook, her fingers running through a three-hundred-dollar blowout she’d gotten yesterday after work that had been for one purpose only: to seduce her boyfriend of over two years. She unceremoniously pushed her dark hair back from her face, impatiently fighting the full-body trembles that rocked her shoulders as she slumped against the door. She played back every one of her interactions with Max, trying to determine where things had gone wrong.

  Of course everything would come crashing down the day before their trip. Whitney’s stupid wedding was at some posh resort in California, and Kate vaguely remembered asking her assistant to book her and Max tickets a few months back. Kate had attended college with Whitney, roomed with her at the University of Minnesota, where they’d both completed their undergrad degrees.

  Bossy, organized Kate and painfully shy, waifish Whitney had been the perfect match in some bizarre universe. While Kate lived to argue, Whitney avoided confrontation at all costs, and the two had managed to create an odd sort of friendship through bookish nights and boozy weekends.

  Kate had always suspected, even now, that on some level their friendship had only worked because Whitney had wanted to be Kate, and Kate had liked the attention. An only child born to two wealthy lawyers, Kate’s family had money in excess while Whitney—the youngest of four kids raised by a single mother—had never had enough to go around. Whitney had always been a bit in awe of her friend, and Kate had appreciated the admiration.

  Ironically, Kate’s first thought when she’d received the beautifully embossed invitation to Whitney’s wedding was that Whitney had met her goals. She was marrying rich and could now afford the wedding of Kate’s dreams. And it was clear Whitney wasn’t hesitating to show off her newfound social status.

  Still, Kate had to wonder—what about the wedding of Whitney’s dreams? A rich, posh wedding would fit the style of Kate and Max. It was who they were. For Whitney, Kate had always pictured a more intimate family gathering, complete with a slew of close friends, loud music, and a dance party that carried on into the wee morning hours.

  Strangely enough, it had been at one of the drunken college parties Kate and Whitney had attended together where Kate first met Max when he was in town visiting his cousin Arthur Banks—a study buddy of Whitney’s. Although Kate and Max hadn’t reconnected until years later in New York, Whitney had received credit for the initial introduction. It wasn’t lost on Kate that while Whitney and Arthur had recently reconnected and found blissful love, Kate and Max were struggling to get through the lunch hour without a nasty argument.

  Now, Kate was due to face Whitney in a reunion…with nothing aside from a career to show for her fifteen years of post-college life. The only ring on her finger was the two-carat diamond she’d bought herself for her last promotion. She had no children. She couldn’t even get Max to officially move in with her. There was no life to speak of outside of her glaringly successful career.

  Kate heaved herself to her feet, idly wondering what Whitney’s reaction would be when they saw each other in person. They kept in touch in vague, distant ways, but they hadn’t met face-to-face for nearly five years. Living on opposite coasts, aging out of weekend girls’ trips, and demanding careers had a deteriorating effect on friendships. Would Whitney gloat? Kate didn’t think so. Whitney wasn’t the type to gloat.

  She would be polite and demure, offering quiet sympathies like the time in college when Kate had scored lower than Whitney on an exam. It’d been only once—a stupid history test, no less—and Whitney had pulled out an A while Kate had been enraged to find an angry red B+ scrawled on her paper. Kate hated turning in work that was anything less than perfect—she always had, and she always would.

  Whitney had peeked over, and despite her mumbled apologies and her declarations that their teacher was absolutely nuts for the deplorable comments he’d left on Kate’s page, Kate had seen the gleam in her friend’s eye. The hint of pride, the sweet joy of victory. No matter how Kate sliced it, her relationship with Whitney had always had an element of competition to it. And in the world of weddings, Whitney had won.

  Kate let the sensation of emptiness wash over her. It wasn’t the wedding that upset her. Kate was under no illusion that she was anything less than fabulous without a rock on her finger put there by a man. It was the utter sense of hopelessness that had begun simmering in her gut lately, the feeling that she was on the cusp of losing everything. The man she’d been meant to grow old with. The children she’d dreamed of having. The warmth that came with a full house instead of an empty, expensive cage.

  Easing her way back into the kitchen, she wondered when Max had begun to look at her with disgust in his eyes. They’d been trying for over a year and a half to bring a child into this world together. Unfortunately, there was simply nothing happening in Kate’s uterus.

  They’d been to doctors, specialists—the best money could buy—and none of the expensive professionals had any sort of diagnosis for her. They claimed both Kate and Max were completely healthy. Sure, Kate was creeping toward forty, but that didn’t explain the last year and a half. She’d had her blood drawn, swallowed pills, peed on more sticks than she could count, and gone through the rigorous IVF process not once but on five different occasions, and still, nothing had worked.

  Kate was barely clinging to the last dredges of hope. Max had already given up, if this afternoon’s display of frustration was anything to go by. Then again, he had been the one encouraging them to listen to the doctor’s advice and take a break while Kate had wanted to do anything but. She’d been dying to dive into the sixth round of IVF, but Max had claimed he needed time to heal, or to recover, or some other bullshit that Kate knew wasn’t true.

  Max took pride in never displaying emotion, aside from the occasional burst of anger. He hadn’t needed to heal. Max wasn’t tired and worn from the physical, mental, or emotional process of it all—he was sick of Kate. Kate was broken, and Max didn’t like to play with broken dolls.

  So, for the past several months, instead of trying for the baby she so desperately desired, Kate had been forced to watch precious eggs cycle through her body. She never cried when it happened, but the crushing sense of emptiness was worse, if anything. Lately, her periods had been so light from the stress and anxiety of not trying that she feared it would be more impossible than ever to conceive naturally. The very hope that had been sustaining Kate was gradually fading away into oblivion.

  Kate felt a bit wobbly and leaned against the kitchen table, a whiff of wasabi and soy sauce making her stomach roil. She found a sushi platter from her favorite restaurant sitting on the spotless counter, the plastic lid already wrestled off and placed neatly next to the sashimi. Kate felt like puking at the sight of it. The spicy wasabi, the tangy ginger, the crunch of sesame seeds.

  She tipped it into the trash. If she were pregnant, she wouldn’t be able to eat it anyway. Storming to the bedroom, she shed her outer layer and slipped into a fine skirt and jacket combination fit for the office. She added pearl earrings, a matching necklace, and a bracelet that Max had given he
r for Christmas last year. Maybe after work, she’d stop at Max’s place and apologize.

  Kate clipped her hair into a neat bun, loose enough to give her face the feminine curves people admired, severe enough to give off the impression she meant business in the workplace. As she grabbed a handbag that matched perfectly, she fingered the dress sitting out on the hanger that Max had demanded she wear to Whitney’s wedding.

  He’d picked it out, ordered it straight from a French designer’s website, and had given it to her as a gift for Valentine’s Day. The gown was a floor-length stunner, made from a silky red material meant to skim Kate’s trim hips. It had been tastefully decorated with a delicate lace pattern across the chest and two exquisitely thin straps that would hang sweetly from Kate’s shoulders. The slightest of trains would swish behind her as she walked, ensuring that all eyes would be on her—or rather, on Max and his date.

  The whole thing was excessive and over the top for some stupid wedding, but Max didn’t seem to care. Kate sometimes had the feeling he saw her like a Christmas ornament—a beautiful piece of art to display when convenient, and then tuck away in precious papers when she was no longer needed.

  As Kate held the dress in front of her body, examined her lithe figure in the mirror, and pictured her hair and makeup tucked in just so, she smiled. Max needed the night to cool down. Tomorrow, they’d be on the plane together to a lush spa, and there was a chance she’d still be fertile. Between her agreement with Max to stop charting her temperatures and her irregular periods, she couldn’t be sure of her exact ovulation date. A week spent away together, under the influence of a romantic wedding and candlelit dinners and relaxing massages, was just the ticket.

  Kate would come back pregnant from that damn spa if it killed her.

  Five

  Detective Ramone: Thank you for joining me here today, Ms. Anderson. Please state your name and occupation for the record.

  Cindy Anderson: I’m Cindy Anderson, and I’m one of the bartenders at the lobby bar.

  Detective Ramone: Ms. Anderson, what was your first impression of Lulu Franc?

  Cindy Anderson: She is… It’s hard to describe. She’s the sort of woman everyone wants to be when they get older.

  Detective Ramone: What does that mean? Please include specifics.

  Cindy Anderson: Well, she’s quite glamorous. She showed up in this big fur coat. I mean, the woman must be pushing seventy, but she carries herself in a certain way that’s quite intimidating. She doesn’t seem old, though, if that makes sense. There’s this classiness to her that I really love. Then again, I suppose you’re not asking about looks. Are you wanting to know if I think she could have killed someone?

  Detective Ramone: Do you have any reason to believe Lulu Franc was involved in a man’s death this evening?

  Cindy Anderson: Well, she was pissed that first day she arrived at the resort. She was convinced her husband was seeing another woman. I remember the conversation well because I was staring at that fur coat of hers and listening very intently. For a minute, I wanted to be like Lulu, but of course, I work eighteen-hour days to keep my six-month-old in diapers, and that’s not very glamorous, is it?

  Detective Ramone: Lulu’s husband, Mr. Pierce Banks, was seeing another woman? Are you certain that’s what you heard?

  Cindy Anderson: I don’t know for sure if he was or wasn’t. Neither did Lulu, for that matter. Nothing was confirmed as far as I know. But do I think Lulu is capable of murder? Absolutely.

  Detective Ramone: What makes you say that? It’s a bold statement, Ms. Anderson, and not one I take lightly.

  Cindy Anderson: Of course not. But she really loved her husband, you know? It was easy to see. Clear as day. And yet, there was this other side to her that was…I don’t know, cold? Calculating? Her eyes were very intelligent. The thing is, I don’t think she knew how to handle rejection. Love drives people to do strange things.

  Detective Ramone: Remind me how you know Lulu Franc, please.

  Cindy Anderson: Oh, well, I don’t, really. But being a bartender means I double as a therapist. You wouldn’t believe the things people tell me, especially during weddings. Weddings seem to bring out the worst in people—or at least, that’s the side of them I see.

  Detective Ramone: So you don’t actually know Lulu?

  Cindy Anderson: No, but I’ve been bartending for ten years—I know a thing or two. By the way, have they released the victim’s name yet? I heard his head got so smashed up that his face was completely destroyed.

  Detective Ramone: Thank you for your time, Ms. Anderson. That’ll be all.

  * * *

  “I’ll take a mimosa,” Lulu said to the startlingly young bartender. She thought the woman looked barely old enough to drink alcohol herself. “Light on the orange juice.”

  “A mimosa?” Pierce asked. “For a nightcap?”

  “I told Mavis and Edna I’d have a drink for them,” Lulu explained, resting a hand on her husband’s as she thought fondly of her closest friends back in South Carolina. The two sisters were both unmarried old women who lived together and rarely left the comfort of their front porch, choosing instead to get their fill of adventure through Lulu’s stories. “I might as well get it out of the way early on. Mavis will be calling me any minute, wondering what we’ve been up to so far—the woman is a gossip.”

  Pierce nodded along with his wife, looking supremely distant, as he had all evening. The pair had landed in California a few hours back, and after a quick nap, a shower, and refreshments, Lulu had convinced her husband to meander down to the bar for a drink before bed.

  “It’s good people watching,” she’d said while she toweled her hair after her shower. “All the wedding guests will be arriving. Aren’t you curious to see who was invited?”

  “Not really.” He had shrugged and looked longingly at the bed. “It’s family. How interesting can it be? I’d rather stay here and watch a movie.”

  Pierce Banks was used to doing what Lulu wanted. He adored her, or at least he had when they’d first gotten married. These days, however, she caught him staring into space more than usual. Distant, uninterested.

  It seemed the harder she fought to sustain their (previously vigorous) sex life, the less interested he was in maintaining it with her. Lulu had heard this happened with older adults, only she’d never considered herself one of them. Then again, she was barely on the right side of seventy—could she blame her husband for losing interest when there were women half Lulu’s age who’d give their right foot to be with him?

  They watched a lot more movies these days, and Pierce always drifted off during the most climactic scenes. He was seventy-four (a handsome seventy-four), so Lulu tried to forgive him for an early bedtime, but that didn’t help her anxiety over the feeling that her husband was gradually floating away. Like a beach ball when, after a bit too much fun in the sand, it landed in the water and lazily bobbed out to sea—lost forever.

  Honestly, it’d been like pulling teeth to get Pierce out of the room. He’d claimed to be exhausted from travel, not in the mood for an in-room massage or a bubble bath drawn by one of the innumerable resort staff specifically tasked to keep the guests pleased. Well, Lulu wasn’t pleased.

  She sighed. It would have pleased Lulu to see more of the man she had married instead of his distant shell. She wanted the eye-twinkling laughter, his soft kisses and silly jokes. But she hadn’t seen much of the man she’d fallen in love with over the last few months. And while she hated to admit it, Lulu recognized the signs of a deteriorating relationship.

  Unfortunately, those niggling signs were hardly subtle any longer, and it was only Lulu’s desperate desire to remain married to her husband that kept her firmly in a state of denial. She’d noticed the little white lies that didn’t quite make sense. She just didn’t want to believe them.

  So Lulu ignored Pierce’s references to late-night
meetings when he claimed to be at the office and wasn’t. (Lulu was an excellent gossip, and she’d made great friends with Pierce’s receptionist.) She deliberately looked past the appointments he would schedule that couldn’t be moved for any reason, but whose purposes remained a mystery to Lulu. And above all, she pretended not to notice the tiny black S notation in his planner that appeared two or three times a month with no location attached, no time specified, and no further explanation as to what—or rather, who—this S character could be.

  Lulu was staring down the deadline of her five-year anniversary with Pierce, which would make for a record. Out of her five marriages, she’d never had one last longer than five years (although her two unions with Anderson had collectively totaled seven years), and she was determined to make it to the mark this time around.

  She had sincerely hoped this weeklong getaway at a renowned resort on the coast of California would rekindle their romance. But the truth—the sort of truth Lulu only admitted to herself while tears ran down her cheeks in the privacy of her own shower—was that she suspected her husband was getting ready to leave her. And that was impossible.

  Men didn’t leave Lulu Franc; she left them.

  Lulu squeezed her husband’s hand tighter, then released it when he didn’t reciprocate. Pierce didn’t seem inclined to speak, so Lulu took her time soaking in the relaxation bubbling around them. The entire venue had been set up to ease away stress, to enhance romance, to promote wellness.

  Cucumber and watermelon ice water sat in elegant pitchers on every spare surface, flanked by silver coffee and tea warmers with dainty little teacups. The spa and minibars, of course, stocked only low-calorie, plant-based sweeteners and raw, natural sugars, and none of the cheap yellow packets of Splenda found in every other resort.

  Lulu’s keen gaze caught sight of a woman dressed in an all-pink pantsuit as she ushered in an ice sculpture the shape of a dove. Leaning toward Pierce, Lulu gently patted his hand and pointed out the Miranda Rosales.