“Me and Ellen knew Lo better than anyone in this world,” Edie continues. Somewhere inside the inn, I hear a door open and shut. Out on the beach, Cap is once again casting his fishing line.
But I’m focused on Edie and only Edie as she says, “And that’s why we both knew she was lying back in eighty-four. That’s why we knew she killed that man.”
At my trial, the prosecution went on and on andonabout all the stuff Landon had bought me. Clothes, jewels, a cute little Miata that I crashed a month or so after he died…That’swhat I stood to lose when Landon dumped me, the prosecution insisted. My mama was a poor widow, and I’d just barely gotten a high school diploma by the skin of my teeth. What future did I have, what luxuries could I look forward to, if Landon was through with me? He was my only ticket out of town, the only chance I had of escaping a life of service jobs and barely making ends meet.
I wanted to tell them that I wasn’t with Landon for that shit, nice as it was, nor was I with him for his money, which I had no access to anyway. But okay, even if Iwas, it wasn’t like pretty girls have ever had a hard time finding rich men to give them presents in exchange for sex. Comeon, now. (My lawyer ’bout had a heart attack when I suggested saying that on the stand, but it was the truth, and isn’t that what you’re supposed to tell when you’re up there in that little box? I guess I wouldn’t know, because in the end, they didn’t let me testify.)
Anyway, the prosecution literally put up alistof everything Landon ever bought me, but let me tell you, the biggest bee in their damn bonnets was that little beach house.
Yes, yes: the infamous “hidden love nest” that was really just a two-bedroom bungalow built sometime in the ’40s. The front door sagged, and the water from the sink always tasted a little salty, and somehow no matter how well you rinsed your feet before coming inside, there was always sand in the sheets, but we loved it there. Sure, we had a lot of sex in that house, but it was more than that. Landon would fish right off the beach, and I’d attempt to cook even though just about the only thing I knew how to make was spaghetti, but whatever Imade he devoured, declaring it was the best thing he’d ever eaten.
Looking back now, I think he loved that place because it let him pretend he was normal, just some Alabama beach bum instead of the governor’s son.
Maybe that’s who he really wanted to be, but of course, Beau Fitzroy wasn’t about to have that. Not for his only son, the blessed Golden Boy born after four useless daughters.
After that little scene on board theMiss Alison, Landon’s daddy had been even more on his son’s ass to get serious about his political future. Landon never wanted to talk about it, but later I learned there had been a real push for him to run for mayor of Mobile in ’86. Good ol’ Beau had his eye on the presidential election in ’88, and if he wanted to bring Landon along for the ride in some way—a cushy cabinet post, something like that—then Landon needed to have at least a little bit of “civic service experience.”
Landon and I never talked about any of this shit, probably because the whole point of being with me was to forget all of that, to shake himself free of the weight of family legacy and responsibilities, but of course it was brought up at the trial. A couple of years later, I was living in Myrtle Beach, and while flipping throughSouthern Livingat the salon, who do I see but Alison Carleton-Fitzroy herself, looking very beautiful and classy on the grounds of her fancy-ass house in Birmingham. They didn’t mention Landon much in the interview, but at one point, she said something like, “Landon always said he’d be a senator by the time he was forty, and I truly believe he would’ve accomplished that dream. He was so driven to serve.”
It made me wonder if she was just saying that because it was the Family Line, or if Landon was someone else entirely when he was with her. Were there different versions of Landon Fitzroy that he slipped into, depending on who he was with?
I can say only that the man I knew was mostly interested in boats, good food, loud music, and very pretty women.
But there was one time, there at the beach house, when family came up. Not his family, but ours. Or ourpotentialone, anyway.
We were lying in bed, the windows open, the sound of the surf better than any damn sound machine. It was May, but the summer hadn’t fully arrived to kick us all in the teeth yet. The nights were still cool, and I was almost asleep when Landon curled his body around my back, his hand resting on my stomach.
“We would have the prettiest babies,” he murmured, his voice dreamy. I’d almost been asleep, but hoo boy, didthosewords wake me the fuck up.
“Pretty bastards,” I said, covering his hand with mine and moving it to my hip. “No, thank you.”
He raised himself up on one elbow. “You wouldn’t want to have my baby?”
I rolled onto my back to look up at him, laughing in disbelief. “For one, I’m nineteen. For another…”
His left hand was still lying on top of my hip, and I lifted it, shaking it slightly. In the dim glow of my night-light, his wedding band winked.
“Well, what if those things were different?” he said. “What if it was a few years down the line, andyouwere the one who had put a ring on my finger? What then?”
He’d never mentioned it before, the idea of leaving Alison. I’d wanted him to, of course, had caught myself fantasizing about it, but…
God, this sounds so silly. The truth is, I never forced the conversation. And it’s because I was trying so hard to be sophisticated, you know? A grown-up who was worldly and way too cool to care about some stuffy institution like marriage. A sexy, independent woman who had no problem being a man’smistress because wasn’t that way more fun and glamorous than being a wife?
So I pushed any neediness—and certainly any shame—down as deep as I could and told myself that part of why he loved me wasbecauseI was so accepting, so free. Because I didn’t give him a hard time about what he should or shouldn’t do.
It never once occurred to me that part of why he loved me was because I was sonaïve.
Still, I was being honest when I told him, “I don’t know. I never really thought about being a mom, I guess. Beth-Anne always says that I was the only little girl she knew who cried because shegota baby doll for her birthday.”
(That’s true. I’d wanted a Malibu Barbie.)
“I always wanted to be a dad,” Landon said, his voice growing a bit wistful. “A good one, obviously. Nothing like mine.”
He lay back down, one hand behind his head, his eyes fixed on the small water stain on the ceiling, and I rolled onto my side to face him.
“Why don’t you and… why don’t you two have kids?”
I almost whispered the words, I remember that. It felt dangerous, bringing Alison’s specter into our space like this, but there was real longing in his eyes, and I was curious.
