Even though I can’t hear myself, I catch a little girl’s horrified whisper to her mother: “Mommy, why is that woman killing Kitty?”
The mother covers the child’s eyes as if they’ve stumbled into a strip joint. I’m not naked, but suddenly I feel that way.
The anger ebbs. I move to step away from the pile of crumpled boxes, but my heel slips, either on the waxed floor or the spilled frosting, and I go down.
The small crowd at the end of the aisle murmurs “Ahh!” I try to scramble up, but go down again to their “Ohhs.”
Frosting coats my fingers, and I glance down at the smart little suit I wore to the closing. Brown frosting clings to the black-and-white-houndstooth print like mud kicked up from the tires of a stuck truck.
I’m sure there’s some in my hair, too, since locks of it are sticking to my face. I push it back, forgetting my hands are coated, and leave more frosting across my cheek.
Even though the crowd is quiet, I can hear laughter. Maybe it’s coming from above; Rob would love this. Or maybe it’s bubbling up inside me. Either way, it feels good and I start smiling, probably looking like even more of a lunatic to the spectators gathered like gawkers at a traffic accident.
Someone gets brave enough to approach me, and extend a hand to help me up. I reach for it with my sticky fingers and glance up with an apologetic grimace.
A face similar to mine stares down at me, blue eyes as wide and horrified as those of the little girl who watched me kill Kitty. Emma’s fair skin tinted with the red blush of embarrassment, not for herself.
Before she can do more than get me to my feet, Smiley rushes up, rubber-soled shoes squeaking against the vinyl tiles. White brows lift high above his sharp eyes as he takes in the cupcake massacre. He asks the question burning in my sister’s blue eyes. “What the hell happened here?”
Emma’s faster on her feet than I am at the moment. Must be from dealing with all the teenagers she has, her own and step. “Smiley, don’t worry. I’ll take care of it.” She’s already drawing her wallet from her purse.
As Claire has done to me so many times, I tug on Emma’s sleeve, and point to the alcohol wall. “Get a bottle of Lambrusco, too. I couldn’t reach it.”
Then I walk away, head high, frosting-covered heels slipping. The shocked crowd parts as I near the end of the party aisle and walk out of Smiley’s.
STAGE 2
As I shut off the water and step from the shower, I hear voices through the door. “I don’t understand what happened. She’s been doing great.”
This is Pam, completely puzzled by the fact that I might miss my husband. She’s actually having a party over leaving hers. I wince at my cattiness. I’m not being fair. She’s been there for me, offering her love and support in myriad ways. And her opinion.
Pam has an opinion about everything. If I had let her win the suit argument, Rob would be haunting me more than he already does. I can still see her mouth screwed up tightly with disapproval over my choice of Hawaiian shirt and Bermuda shorts for Rob’s funeral garb. I truly believe I saw him smirking at her from the casket, glib with victory in yet another one of their disagreements.
With a steady hand, I wipe the fog from the bathroom mirror and inspect my reflection. My hair is plastered to my head. Wet, it’s dark brown; dry, it’s golden. I push it behind my ears, checking for frosting back there. The ends drip water onto my shoulders and the towel I’ve wrapped around myself.
My suit lies in a corner of the tiny room, balled up in disgrace. I, curiously enough, feel none.
Knuckles brush softly against the other side of the door, its white paint peeling due to moisture in the unvented room.
“Are you okay?” Emma asks, her voice low with concern. The knob turns, and she opens the door, unwilling to wait for or untrusting of my response.
“I’m fine,” I assure her.
She studies my face with much more scrutiny than I’d given it in the now refogged mirror. Then she hands me one of Pam’s velour track suits. We’re at her new place, the cramped apartment above The Tearoom, the shop my mother owns less than a block from Smiley’s, in the heart of our small town.
Emma and I have houses on what’s left of our dad’s old dairy farm a few miles outside of town. Mom sold off most of the property after he died, dividing among the three of us what land was left and some of the money she made. The rest she used to buy this building and a condo. Pam has a house with Keith near mine and Emma’s. It’s a gorgeous modern contemporary with granite and slate and smooth white walls. Nothing like this place, with its exposed brick and dark wood.
I wonder again how she’ll be happy here without Keith. She says she’s leaving him because she was never happy with him. This is another rare thing Rob would have agreed with her on; he used to say Pam didn’t know how to be happy.
But she does know how to shop. My fingers sink into the velour as I take the pale yellow suit from Emma. “Thanks. I’ll get dressed and be right out.”
She looks at me as if she wants to stay, maybe help me dress as though I’m a small, clumsy child. But she’s raised three of her own and two of somebody else’s; she knows when to help and when to step back and let someone go. Although she’ll stop them from making dangerous decisions, she always says that kids have to make their own mistakes to grow. She leaves and shuts the door for me.
Yellow isn’t a color I usually wear, but at the moment I can’t be picky. Outside the bathroom, my sisters have lowered their voices to whispers. I can’t hear their words, only their hushed murmuring. It takes me back to when we were younger, Emma and Pam sharing all their scandalous secrets and leaving me out.
At thirty-eight, I’m six years younger than Emma, nine younger than Pam. Back then those years had made a difference, had made me the baby, but age hasn’t mattered for a long time. With Rob gone, I’m not anyone’s baby anymore.
In case there are other guests, I raid Pam’s medicine cabinet for powder and mascara so I look passably decent. Then I rescue my underwear from the frosted suit, hurrying to dress. I fling open the door, cutting my sisters off midwhisper as they hunch over the tiny table in Pam’s kitchen. It’s only the two of them, no one else.
“I hope you haven’t canceled the party,” I say to Pam, bracing myself to face her. I expect that same tight expression of disapproval she wore over Rob’s funeral attire. Instead she’s wide-eyed with concern, the way Emma looked in Smiley’s when she helped me up.
I don’t like that any more than the pitying glances I get from people since Rob died. “The poor widow.” If they only knew how many zeroes Keith had to work with.
Pam shakes her head, then runs her fingers through her new short bob. “No. This is it. Just us.”
No other friends? But then the three of us are so close, we are as much or more friends than sisters.
I smile at her, hoping to reassure her. Then I gesture toward the stained butcher-block counter where the Lambrusco sits. “Nobody’s opened the wine?”
Three short strides bring me to the counter, where, grateful for screw caps, I open the bottle. Pam’s wineglasses are on the counter, too, a bright red bow atop them; obviously they are Emma’s gift to her. I don’t worry about washing them before I pour burgundy liquid into three. I reach over, setting a glass in front of each of my sisters on the small, cottage-blue table. Wine sloshes close to each rim as the table teeters.
Pam looks from me to the glass clutched in my hand and back, her blue eyes full of questions. Unlike Emma, who exercises tact she’s had to learn when dealing with exes, hers and his, Pam asks, “What? Looking to drown your sorrows?”
“Hell