Her stomach cramped.
Claire never weighed herself, because that woke up her anxiety over her weight, which stressed her, which made her obsess about food, which triggered her eating disorder. She didn’t need to weigh herself to know where she stood; her clothes were all so tight right now that by the end of the week she would not be able to zip up her pants, even if she jumped up and down or stretched out flat on the bed and sucked in her stomach. She needed to undo what she’d done, otherwise she’d have to run ten miles instead of five just to break even.
Claire knew there was no “just this once” when it came to binging and purging. Five years ago she had come close to doing herself irreparable harm over her abuse of laxatives and vomiting to control her weight. Living in California among the skeletal elite of the movie industry, Claire had been considered fat even though her clothing size was in the single digits. At her thinnest, she received constant praise and attention. She also occasionally blacked out from low blood pressure and didn’t have periods, but whatever. She enjoyed looking like the women she envied, and took vicious pleasure in having them consider her attractive enough to be a threat.
Her heart began to beat faster and her nose began to run, both signs that what had gone down was about to come back up. Her mouth began to water and she broke out in a cold, clammy sweat. She jumped up and ran, and made it to the bathroom in time.
Afterward she felt a sense of relief, and shame, and inevitability.
The thought that repeated itself over and over in her head was, ‘I am broken this way, and always will be.’
As she brushed her teeth she avoided looking in the mirror above the sink. She didn’t want to see what this felt like.
A half hour later, Claire was jogging down Magnolia Avenue when Georgia and Dottie hailed her from Dottie’s front porch. Claire staggered up the stairs and collapsed on the top step.
“Good gracious,” Dottie said. “Let me get you some water.”
“How far have you run?” Georgia asked while Dottie went inside.
“I have no idea,” Claire said, between gulps of air.
Her plan was to run until she felt she had punished herself enough, and she wasn’t there, yet. There was a stitch in her side and she pressed on it. The pad of fat covering her hip bone repulsed her. This disgust manifested itself as a spiritual and physical pain, a wince of the soul.
“Are you okay?” Georgia asked her.
Claire waved her concern away with a flip of her hand.
“Just out of shape,” she said.
“You need to take it a little more slowly, I think,” Georgia said. “You might hurt yourself.”
“I’m fine, really,” Claire said.
As she leaned forward to ease the cramp, the small roll of fat between the bottom of her bra and her belly button compressed in a way she hated. She felt repulsive.
“I need to lose a few pounds,” Claire said. “No pain no gain.”
“You look too thin to me,” Dottie said, as she came back out with a glass of ice water.
“Sip it, don’t gulp it,” Georgia said.
Claire obeyed.
The cold water felt wonderful. She wanted to dive in and swim.
“Do you think I could swim in the college pool?” she asked.
“You would have to buy a pass,” Georgia said. “I’m pretty sure they still allow townies to do that.”
“Might be easier on your joints than running,” Dottie said.
“Is this all about being thin?” Georgia asked her.
“Healthy,” Claire said. “Thin and healthy.”
“Hmmm,” Georgia said. “I wonder.”
“None of our business, really,” Dottie said to Georgia in a warning tone.
“Hush,” Georgia said. “You know, Claire, I’ve been thinking about our conversation at dinner the other night, and what you said about being addicted to romance.”
“Oh, here we go,” Dottie said.
“I’m sure there are other things you could do if I’m boring you,” Georgia said.
“I’m gonna go inside and watch ‘Love it or List it,’ ” Dottie said. “You all holler if you need me.”
“Thank you for the water,” Claire said.
“You know,” Georgia said, as soon as Dottie left, “when you feel attraction or affection for someone, the body releases a chemical called oxytocin, and it’s just as addictive as any illegal drug.”
“I believe it,” Claire said. “I once paid for a good-looking, unemployed actor to get a chin implant. That’s not the kind of thing you can ask to have returned when you break up. And by breaking up, I mean I found him in my boss’s bed and afterwards still thought it might somehow work out. Imagine how humiliating it was to have a jackass like that tell me how pathetic I was being. I mean he was embarrassed for me.”
“We all do stupid things when we’re in love,” Georgia said. “It’s even harder, I think, when the person is attractive. We somehow expect more from pretty people.”
“I created this fantasy, you see, based on the movies I’d seen and the books I’d read. I was looking for someone to fill the role of the handsome man who falls madly in love with me even though I’m clumsy but whimsically adorable. I didn’t actually know these men I dated because they were pretending to be rock star ninjas or deeply intellectual rebels while I was pretending to be the perfect girlfriend: oversexed, skinny, and low, low maintenance; when actually, I’m not any of those things. I wish I’d had half the love life I pretended to over the years.”
“It makes me sad what sexualized marketing has done to young women and men,” Georgia said. “I know I sound like an old grouch, but I think it promotes the degradation of human dignity in the service of selling things.”
“Ed says we’re a society of compulsive consumers,” Claire said. “Drowning in debt trying to live a fantasy life we feel entitled to but can’t afford.”
“I think about poor Diedre Delvecchio, done in by her desire to not only acquire things, but to keep all of them.”
“I’m kind of a compulsive shopper, myself,” Claire said. “I’d be ashamed to tell you how many handbags I own, or what I paid for them.”
“I have stacks and stacks of books,” Georgia said. “Even if I read a book a day for a year I could never read them all. I donate them to the library after I read them, which makes Dottie happy and keeps her off my back, but I can’t quit. I’m powerless over my desire to acquire books. I’m obsessed with learning as much as I can, you see, and I don’t have an endless amount of time left; maybe twenty years, if my mind stays sharp.”
“I can see where compulsive book buying can be addiction, and that your research is another one,” Claire said. “But if an addiction is constructive, is it still bad?”
“If it hurts you or someone you love,” Georgia said.
“How could your research do that?”
“If you devote more time to it than you do to your friendships, or become obsessed to the point that you can’t think about anything else.”
“Does that happen to you?”
“Dottie keeps me from going too far in that direction,” Georgia said. “I have a bit of an obsessive compulsive problem.”
“Can I confide something in you?”
“Certainly,” Georgia said. “From my ears to the vault.”
“I’m kind of, sort of involved with someone who’s an alcoholic,” Claire said. “He says he has it under control but he doesn’t. There’s a chance he may go to rehab and get sober, but then I wonder if he can even stay sober after that. I’m ashamed of myself for not believing in him, and for not being more patient while he figures things out, but I’m also afraid of what might happen to me if I get more deeply involved.”
“Do his issues trigger your own issues?”
“I never thought about it that way, but yes, probably.”
“So, basically, he’s asking you to sacrifice yourself on the altar of his addiction.”
“That sounds
kind of dramatic,” Claire said, “and not like scientific research.”
“Dottie says I have the brain of a scientist but the soul of a poet,” Georgia said. “One thing I’ve learned, and not just from books, mind you, but from painful personal experience, is that deeply addicted people are supremely selfish. They feel profoundly sorry for themselves, and when drowning, will always pull you under if you let them.”
“I expected you to suggest a support group like Alanon, or something,” Claire said.
“My best advice to you, my dear girl, is that you wish him good luck and walk away.”
“That seems harsh.”
“You’re getting off on hits of oxytocin every time you’re around this man,” Georgia said. “When you look at the situation from that viewpoint, does it change the way you think about the relationship?”
“So Laurie’s like heroin and Ed’s like a nice, healthy fruit smoothie,” Claire said. “It does put things in perspective.”
“We can get addicted to romantic feelings, to passion and sexual attraction just as easily as we do to drugs and alcohol,” Georgia said. “After a while, a healthy relationship doesn’t offer those high highs and low lows. There’s an element of danger, of the unknown, in a new relationship that doesn’t exist in a secure, reliable partnership. A person who’s addicted to those feelings might create high drama, or even stray, in order to feel that roller coaster of emotion again.”
“That explains so much,” Claire said. “I just have to quit feeding my drama addiction so I can have a healthy relationship with someone steady and good.”
“I wish it were that easy,” Georgie said. “I have come to believe that an addictive personality requires constant vigilance and some sort of support system when, as Aretha Franklin put it best, ‘will power is weak and temptation strong.’ ”
“Some kind of a Drama Queens Anonymous,” Claire said.
“You call me whenever you’re feeling weak, and I’ll be your sponsor,” Georgia said.
“I can’t quite picture you as a recovering drama queen,” Claire said. “You seem like the most sensible and sane person I know.”
“I just hide it better,” Georgia said, and winked.
“I may just be overdramatizing the whole thing,” Claire said. “I’m not actually in a relationship with him.”
“You may not be drowning yet,” Georgia said. “But you’re in the water.”
It was hard to sleep with a big, snoring man taking up three fourths of her double-size bed, so Kay spent a wakeful night over-thinking everything. By 4:00 a.m. she had worn herself out worrying about the possible repercussions of their impulsive sleepover, and how it might impact both her personal life and her mayoral run.
At 5:00 a.m. Kay eased her way out of bed and went to the bathroom to take a shower. A tangle of her and Sonny’s clothing was there on the floor, along with two damp towels. She smiled as she picked up the mess and sorted out the clothes. After her shower, she decided it would be better to launder his clothes so he wouldn’t leave looking like a wrinkly damp mess. She started a load of laundry and then went out on the front porch to have a cup of tea.
Sonny’s truck was parked right outside, leaving no doubt where he’d passed the night and with whom. There would probably be a swarm of early morning walkers just happening to pass by, as many times as it took, until they could witness Sonny leaving her house. The drawbacks of small-town life included this proprietary nosiness and the subsequent exaggerated gossip that would follow. Kay cared very much what her neighbors thought, and dreaded what was to come.
It was still dark, but the birds in the trees were already singing. Kay pulled her robe closer around her, drew her feet up onto the glider seat, and sipped her tea. It was so odd to think a man was inside, asleep in her bed. Shug had stayed the night a few times, but he preferred his king-sized bed in his king-sized house, where his housekeeper took care of everything and Kay wasn’t allowed to lift so much as a finger. If Kay tried to put a king-size bed in her bedroom, it would be wall-to-wall bed in there.
Kay was tired and sleepy, but her heart fluttered inside with what felt like happy anticipation. Sonny was in love with her, had said so, and he wasn’t the type to use those words lightly. She wasn’t worried he would wake up and change his mind, or that he would suddenly decide to give his ex-wife another chance. No, Sonny was exactly what he portrayed himself to be: a good man, a loyal man, a man of his word. Kay realized that what she felt was settled, in the best, most contented way possible.
‘So this is what’s next,’ she thought.
It was a pleasant thought.
By the time Sonny got up, his clothes were pressed and Kay was making his breakfast. He embraced her from behind as she tended to a pan of eggs on the stove. Kay laughed at the sight of him wearing her pink chenille robe.
“Woman, you are the best thing that’s happened to me in a long time,” he said.
“You’re absolutely right,” Kay said. “Now, sit down and eat.”
When Kay got to work, word had already spread, and she endured many too-wide and too-knowing smiles. She did her best to act normally, but her face felt warm and she knew it was pink with embarrassment. Lucille came out of her office as soon as she heard Kay arrive. She poured a mug of coffee, picked up a muffin off the cart in the hallway, and then took a seat in the chair across from Kay’s desk.
“Inquiring minds want to know,” Lucille said.
“I haven’t the slightest idea to what you are referring,” Kay said.
“C’mon,” Lucille said. “I tell you all my adventures.”
“What have you heard?” Kay asked.
“Sonny Delvecchio’s truck was parked outside of your house all night, and Doc’s wife saw Sonny leave there to go to work at 7:00 a.m.”
“All true,” Kay said. “Can we get back to work now?”
Town council member Alva Johnston appeared in the doorway and knocked on the door frame.
“Did you see the paper?” she asked, and waved a copy of the Pendleton paper at them.
She handed it to Kay, whose heart skipped a beat as she read the headline of the article in question, which was written by Ed Harrison.
“Death of local businessman reveals hidden graft,” it read.
“That woman from the FBI has already been to see me,” Lucille said. “I told them it was Stuart who signed the checks, and Stuart who told me to code them as consulting fees.”
“I gave them a copy of the minutes from the meeting where he stated the contingency fund was being used for consulting fees,” Alva said. “There were ten witnesses to that big fat lie.”
“What I want to know is why Stuart was contributing to that account,” Lucille said. “Was Knox blackmailing him or something?”
“We may never know,” was all Kay said.
“Well,” Alva said, “if he thought Knox was going to be the next U.S. Senator he probably wanted to be on his good side, and nothing was nearer and dearer to Knox Rodefeffer’s tiny little heart than cold hard cash.”
The article outlined the diversion of city funds into a bank account in Pittsburgh, and revealed that Knox Rodefeffer’s name was on the same account. Kay skimmed the rest of the paragraph, looking for Marigold’s name, but her name was not mentioned and the actual intended use of the money was not revealed. Although Kay hadn’t told anyone what Marigold had shared with her, it was only a matter of time before it was all known, at the very least because Ed was good at his job and so very thorough.
The article further reported, “Attorneys for former mayor Stuart Machalvie, implicated in the alleged misappropriation of city funds, said that he was innocent of any wrongdoing and would respond to the allegations at the appropriate time to the appropriate authorities.”
“I heard Knox slipped on a hundred dollar bill, hit his head, and died,” Alva said. “How’s that for an appropriate ending?”
“God rest his soul, I know,” Lucille said, “but that man was as mean as a sna
ke-bit bear and he deserved what he got.”
“He would have spent the rest of his life in the pokey for murdering his Aunt Mamie,” Alva said. “I say he took the easy way out.”
“We don’t know that’s true about Mamie,” Kay said. “We need to be careful not to jump to conclusions.”
The FBI agent known as Terese knocked on the door frame and all three women were startled.
“Could I speak with you?” she asked Kay.
“Of course,” Kay said.
“Just leaving,” Lucille said.
“Me, too,” Alva said.
Kay took a deep breath, and steeled herself for the interview. Terese always made it seem casual and friendly, but Kay knew better.
The interview went pretty much as she thought it would. Terese knew about the bank account, probably from statements found in Knox’s office after his death. When specifically asked, Kay told her all she knew about Stuart’s use of the contingency fund. Kay knew that, with those statements as evidence, there would be no doubt about Marigold’s involvement.
“When did you find out about this account?” Terese asked her.
“A few days before the town council asked Stuart to resign,” Kay said, “Lucille and I were discussing the contingency fund, because I wanted to pay a sub police chief out of it, and we were speculating about the consultant Stuart was paying so much money. The checks were made out to ‘The Mark Nost Group’ but we couldn’t find any information about Mr. Nost or his consultancy business on the Internet.
“Later that day, while Stuart was in a closed door meeting with the town council, I went to his office, found his briefcase open on the desk, and went through it. I found the folder for the bank account. I examined the statements and saw that the dates and amounts of the deposits matched those of the contingency fund checks. I saw the names of the account owners, and the copies of the checks Marigold had written to herself. Then the name made sense: ‘Mar’ is for Marigold, ‘kno’ is for Knox, and ‘st’ is for Stuart. I made copies of everything and returned the originals to his briefcase.”
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