by Gina LaManna
Ignoring the shuffling sounds of curious onlookers, Ginger slid out of her chair and tapped Frank discreetly on the shoulder. She marched determinedly toward the back of the airplane, and her husband, good man that he was, heaved himself out of his seat. He gave Tom a fond little ruffle of the hair before following his wife down the aisle.
Good old, fun-loving Frank, Ginger thought, annoyed that even the sweet things her husband did were turning bitter in her mind. Frank loved her. He loved his kids. He wasn’t the problem.
“What is it?” he asked when he reached her side, using a purposefully soft voice, as if Ginger needed to be handled with kid gloves. “Is this about the, er… Well, you saw…”
“Condoms, Frank,” Ginger said firmly. “A whole strip of them. Half the plane is probably ready to proposition our daughter. She’s fifteen.”
“Er, right. I’ll, ah, have a chat with her at the resort? Unless you want to do it? Girl talk and all that.”
“She hasn’t spoken two words to me lately, unless you count Mo-om as two words. The way she drags it out, those can’t be called syllables anymore. I’d love to talk to her, but apparently, she thinks she can’t confide in me. Where did I go wrong?”
“Honey, I think you’re overreacting.”
“She can’t drive. She can’t vote. She’s not eighteen,” Ginger said. “She’s not legally an adult. She can’t make decisions like that.”
“You’re forgetting about us,” Frank said, leaning closer. His hand came to rest on her hip as he lowered his voice in a nostalgic sort of way. “We started fooling around at that age.”
“Yes, but we loved each other. My mom knew your mom. Our friends were friends,” Ginger said, her hands coming to rest on her husband’s waist in a surprisingly intimate gesture in an otherwise tense moment. “We were officially together. I don’t have the first clue who Elsie might be sleeping with! Oh, God, I can’t even say it. I have cotton mouth. Frank, I need a glass of water. I can’t breathe.”
“Ginger Adler,” Frank said in the calm, firmly patient voice he adopted whenever Ginger began to lose her mind. “I love you. You love me. We have three beautiful children. Elsie is a teenager, and she’s going through some things—it’s normal. Maybe this is a good thing. We have a week together; maybe we can get her to open up while we’re relaxing.”
“Fine,” Ginger said. “But if I find anyone on that trip laying a finger on Elsie, I’ll kill them, Frank. I’m not kidding.”
* * *
Detective Ramone: Please state your name for the record.
Frank Adler: Frank Jonathan Adler.
Detective Ramone: Tell me a bit about your wife, Mr. Adler.
Frank Adler: Ginger? Well, you already talked to her. Frankly, she’s a saint. She holds our house together. We have three kids, and Elsie is a real handful at the moment. Teenagers. Do you have kids, Detective?
Detective Ramone: No, sir.
Frank Adler: Oh, you wait, pal. Teenage girls—every event is the apocalypse. We were having a life-altering discussion in the car on the way to the airport about bangs. Bangs! Frankly, I didn’t even notice Elsie got her hair cut.
Detective Ramone: Mr. Adler—
Frank Adler: Sorry, I’m getting distracted. What do you want to know about Ginger? She’s beautiful, she’s smart, and she’s the hardest worker I know. She picked up a ton of extra shifts at the hotel over the last few months because my work hasn’t been paying all that well lately. She should be managing that place by now, but she took time off when we had the children, and so she’s stuck behind the reception desk. The woman is a godsend. Honestly, I’m not sure why she stays with me. She’s not my better half, she’s my better 90 percent. If I didn’t have her in my life, I’d…well, I’d probably die. I’d starve or something.
Detective Ramone: Frank, I need you to be honest with me: Has your wife ever threatened you?
Frank Adler: Well, she was about ready to kill me when I made us late for our flight, but that was my own fault. Hold on—are you serious? Of course not. Ginger wouldn’t hurt a fly. What are you getting at, Detective?
Detective Ramone: Mr. Adler, your wife has confessed to killing a man tonight.
Frank Adler: That’s impossible.
Detective Ramone: What makes you say that? Can you give her an alibi for this evening?
Frank Adler: It doesn’t matter—my wife is squeamish at the sight of blood! She’s gotten a little better, what with the kids banging their knees or elbows every other day, but…you can’t be serious, Detective.
Detective Ramone: Were you with your wife during the rehearsal dinner tonight?
Frank Adler: No.
Eight
She knows.
Emily stared after Lulu until the elevator doors cinched shut to carry the peculiar woman upstairs. Emily saw the look in her eye, the sharp turn of Lulu’s head when Emily ordered another drink. The older woman had seen right through her; she’d figured Emily out. Lulu had peeked into the dark spiral that one drink, two drinks, three drinks quickly became. The thirst that didn’t quit.
Lulu had been too polite to stare and, instead, had averted her eyes to avoid looking at Emily with the same biting, familiar disappointment she’d seen in her family and friends over the years. A disappointment that had prompted Emily to excel at holding herself at exactly the right level of happily buzzing when around others. It was a place where, in public, nobody suspected a thing because Emily always appeared to be in control. Control, control, control.
Emily could stop drinking when she wanted to, and that was why she wasn’t an alcoholic. In fact, she’d turned down a drink! Alcoholics didn’t do any such thing. They couldn’t. (Never mind the fact that Emily had ordered another right after—she’d chosen to do that. It had been a coherent, logical choice, not a compulsion.) She just hadn’t wanted Lulu to pay for it.
Even now, Emily wasn’t drunk. Sure, she’d felt the spirals of fuzziness tugging at the edges of her consciousness on the plane after a few glasses of champagne, and that was probably why she’d been inclined to climb Henry like a tree in the airplane bathroom. The alternative reasons weren’t appealing.
Then again, it wasn’t as if Emily had a great track record with men even when sober. It had been nearly a decade since she’d been involved with a man in any serious sort of way, and she intended to keep things that way. It was much easier.
A decade was also the exact same length of time Emily had been in mourning. Granted, she’d told her therapist she’d really been mourning for three years because the other seven were blurred out and fuzzy. (Emily’s therapist didn’t think she was very funny.)
Get back out there, Sharleen had said.
Then had come the tried and true: It’s not your fault. There’s nothing you could have done. Sharleen had a knack for the cliché.
Bullshit, Emily thought, glancing around the bar, looking for Lulu. She was nowhere in sight, and neither was her husband. So Emily pulled out her phone and dialed Sharleen. Emily wasn’t sure if she wanted to shock her therapist or genuinely hear her advice. Maybe a bit of both.
“Hello?” the therapist answered, sounding surprised to be receiving a call on her work cell well after polite calling hours. “Emily, are you okay?”
“Dr. Sharleen, I wanted to give you an update,” she said. “I met a man.”
“Are you drinking, Emily?”
“A little, but I’m not drunk, I promise you. A few celebratory glasses of champagne.”
“Emily, where are you? I’m concerned,” Sharleen said. “You didn’t drive anywhere, did you?”
“No, I’m fine, really. I’m at a hotel—excuse me, resort—for a friend’s wedding,” Emily said. “I met a very nice man on the airplane, and we sort of had a date. He’s very handsome.”
“That’s…wonderful,” Sharleen said carefully. “And you liked him? He tr
eated you nicely?”
“In a manner of speaking,” Emily said, adding an extra, sly giggle. “I thought you might be proud.”
“Of course, but, Emily, I would really encourage you to hold off on the alcohol. We’ve discussed this before, and I thought we were making progress—”
“Sharleen, you said it yourself. You can’t help me until I’m ready to help myself.”
“Yes, but I care about you, and I care about your well-being. You’ve been doing so wonderfully. But one step backward doesn’t have to ruin all the forward momentum we have going for us. Why don’t you have a glass of water and head up to your room? This will blow over in the morning, and we’ll start again. Remember, wine won’t make your problems disappear.”
“What about champagne?”
“Emily.”
“Look, Sharleen,” Emily snapped. “You don’t know what it’s like. I’m here alone. I’m facing my ex-best friend who hates me. And there’s a baby that won’t fucking stop screaming!”
“Oh, honey.” Dr. Sharleen let her professionalism slip as emotion eased into her voice. “But you have tools to deal with this. Remember, it’s been over ten years.”
The slight judgment that’d followed Emily’s outburst diminished into pity. Or sympathy. Emily could never tell which. “And time is supposed to make everything go away?” Emily said harshly. “I’m sorry I called you. Sorry I disrupted your night, Sharleen.”
“Emily.”
“I have to go,” Emily said. “I can’t handle that crying anymore.”
After Emily hung up on her therapist, she ordered a water from the bartender, who looked relieved. It was hard to tell whether it was something Sharleen had said or whether it was the screaming baby that had flipped a switch in Emily’s brain, but something had changed. A sort of curiosity that’d crept into her veins, poisoned her blood, sucked her toward the unhappy infant.
Before she could stand, however, Lulu’s order of chili cheese fries arrived at the same time as a lost-looking older gentleman. Pierce, she thought, knowing with certainty it was him when he looked quizzically at the seat Lulu had recently abandoned.
Emily gave a jerky little wave toward him. “Are you looking for your wife?”
“Lulu,” he said carefully, easing toward Emily. “Have you seen her?”
Pierce Banks had a head full of thick hair, meticulously styled in a perfect part and combed to either side, while a few tufts poked out in a lovably charming, disheveled way. He was dressed in a fine suit, looking quite adorable with a pair of suspenders added underneath, caught between the distinguished-older-gentleman and lovely-grandfather-type phases of life. He was quite handsome for his age, and Emily was willing to bet he’d been a knockout in his prime.
“Yes, we were chatting a bit,” Emily said, gesturing to Lulu’s abandoned seat. “She asked me to wait here for you so I could let you know she’d be right back. She had to run off somewhere for a second, and she was worried you’d think she’d forgotten about you.”
Pierce gave a laugh that brightened his features, and Emily was surprised to feel a surge of fierce hope for the couple. The hope that they’d last forever because, despite Lulu’s flippant dismissals of her past marriages, it was clear as day to Emily that the woman had found true love in Pierce and would be devastated if he left.
“Where exactly did you say my wife went looking for me?” Pierce asked abruptly, and Emily flinched, as if Pierce had wandered into her mind and knew she’d been told more than she was letting on. “I think I should go find her.”
“No, that’s exactly what she didn’t want,” Emily said quickly. She wasn’t sure what her new friend had planned, but Emily sensed Lulu wanted to be left alone. “Stay put. She’ll be back in a jiffy. Have a fry. They’re Lulu’s. I’m going to go see if that woman there needs help.”
Emily pushed the fries toward Pierce and tottered in the direction of the baby, pleased to find she was more sober than she thought. Control. Her wobbling was kept to a minimum, and when she glanced in her compact, her eyes were clear.
It also helped that Emily looked the part of a rich social drinker. She wore her most expensive jeans and heels, topped with a slim black blouse rimmed with lace. She’d added a few of her favorite accessories—a slim wristwatch she’d had for ages, a pair of small diamond studs in her ears, and an inexpensive but sentimental silver necklace she’d received as a gift from Whitney during college. It wasn’t a luxurious outfit by any stretch of the imagination, but she’d made an effort to look put together. It was all part of the charade.
As Emily moved closer to the crying baby, her almost ethereal vision of a blissful mother with her child faded before her eyes. Stress crinkled on the young woman’s forehead, and dark bruises lived under her eyes, detailing a chronic lack of sleep. The woman appeared barely old enough to have a child of her own, looking more like she should be hoofing it across campus with a backpack strapped to her shoulders than attending a baby at her breast.
The young woman’s hair had been pulled back into a messy bun, and Emily could see it’d once been long and beautiful but was now strapped helplessly on top of her head. She wore faded jeans and an unbuttoned flannel shirt with the sleeves rolled to her elbows. Underneath, a tiny black crop top peeked through, exposing a brush of pale skin at her waist.
Emily stood there for a long moment, transfixed by the little child more so than the curious young mother. Emily couldn’t seem to make herself speak. She hadn’t been this close to one in so long, not since…
“Can I help you?” the woman asked. “Oh, I’m so sorry. I must be bothering you. I know I probably shouldn’t be sitting here in the lobby with a crying baby, but I had to get out of my room.” She shuddered. “It felt like the walls were closing in on me, and it was so dark, and Lydia wouldn’t stop crying, and…”
“She doesn’t bother me,” Emily lied. “I’m Emily.”
“Hi, Emily. I’m Sydney,” the mother said, and she went stiff as if she’d said the wrong thing. Her face quickly recovered, the shadow passing as she shifted, attempting to hold out her hand.
Emily waved her off. “You’ve got your arms full.”
“Sorry,” Sydney apologized, biting down on a lip rimmed in what looked like cherry lip gloss. “I should be a pro at this by now—she’s four months old already—but it doesn’t always come naturally to me.”
Emily found herself sinking into a chair next to the woman, the fluffy, fake sort of armchair that resort lobbies use to say: Sit here, relax, rich one; we’ll take care of you. As Emily sat, she noted the seat felt like cardboard.
“I’m sure that’s natural,” Emily said, feeling a swirl of emotion as she shifted on the hard chair, in the lobby filled with all the obvious (and very expensive) signs of love and commitment, watching the baby fuss against her mother’s chest. A baby, the ultimate sign of love. Or is it?
A howl of anger worked its way through Emily. Instead of trying to fight it, she let the feeling envelope her, let pricks of black and red and stars burst behind her eyes as she studied the baby, drawn to it with the same sort of interest as a moth to an open flame.
“Do you have kids?” Sydney asked, and it was as if a knife had gone straight into Emily’s gut, scooped her out, and then left her to bleed.
Emily shook her head, her eyes fixed on the baby. “No, I don’t have any children.”
“You’re probably thinking you’re lucky,” Sydney said with a wry smile. Then, she must have caught a look of something on Emily’s face, because she automatically retracted her sentiment with a guilty flick of her eyes toward Lydia. “I didn’t mean that. I’d never trade Lydia for the world, it’s just…I’m so exhausted. So tired. All the time.”
“I can’t imagine.”
“My husband—er, well, I suppose he’s not my husband anymore,” Sydney said, her eyes downcast. “We’re separating, so I�
�m doing this on my own. I know plenty of single moms who do it, but frankly, I can’t figure out how.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.”
“You’re probably thinking what a horrible mother I am for not making my marriage work when we have a little girl together,” Sydney said as if she thought the very same thing herself. “I really think it’s for the best, though. It has to be this way.”
Emily didn’t know what to say, so she merely inclined her head to show she was listening. Emily knew about toxic men. One might say she was the queen of them: falling for them, stealing them, marrying them.
“And here I am babbling to you, a stranger, when you probably came over here to ask me to take the baby from the bar.” Sydney’s eyes landed on Emily’s with a neediness that tore Emily’s soul into ribbons. “I’m sorry. I’ll take her away.”
“No, please—” Emily reached a hand out in reflex and rested it on Sydney’s wrist. “Don’t go.”
Sydney’s crystalline blue eyes looked a bit grayed by her exhaustion, but that didn’t hide her beauty. Pre-exhaustion, Sydney must have been a head-turning stunner with her Shirley Temple innocence and wide, trusting smile. Except now, those huge, curious eyes were filling with tears.
“Really?” she asked. “That’s—that’s so nice of you. I’ve been getting dirty looks all evening. I walked Lydia around the pool, I put her in the car seat in the bedroom, and I even… Oh God. You’re going to think I’m horrible. I went to the laundry room and put her carrier on top of the dryer, because that lulls her to sleep at home. Nothing worked. I…I can’t be alone right now, and sitting here around all these glamorous people having a good time helps me feel less alone.”
“Believe me,” Emily said. “I understand. Loneliness is a—”
“Sydney!” A voice interrupted Emily at an ironically fitting moment, turning Emily into an unwanted third party as the newcomer stalled in front of Sydney. “That baby can’t be yours. I thought I just sent you a high school graduation card. I hadn’t heard you’d gotten married?”
