I’m about to type back when Erin sidles up next to me.
“Work?” she asks.
Good. It doesn’t seem as though she read the text.
I chew my bottom lip, angle slightly away from her. “Yep, sorry.”
I type:
Sounds delicious! See you guys Sunday!
I flick my phone to silent and flop it over on the table in case more texts pour through.
I uncork another bottle of wine, this time a smoky merlot.
“Ryan’s driving tonight, so bottoms up!”
Erin leans against the kitchen counter and clinks her glass to mine. I drain half of it in one long gulp, and the wine washes warmth across my whole body. I think of Margot, tanned and toned in her red bikini, and the prospect of seeing her in it again, poolside, makes me shiver with excitement.
I feel like a college kid again, only wanting to talk about boys and escapades, so I blurt out, “So... Margot Banks. You told me she’s not a nice person. What did you mean?”
I want to snatch back the question as soon as it’s left my mouth, but it hangs there in the air between us.
“Why do you care?” Erin’s face is pricked with curiosity.
“I just bumped into her at yoga one day. Just curious,” I lie.
She seems to accept this at face value and swirls the wine around in her glass, a bemused smile tickling her lips. She’s sinking into gossip mode.
“Well,” she says, lowering her head to mine, “her husband Jed is a total pig. He’s always been such a prick, coming from money and all. And Margot, too. She comes from even more money.”
She slams her glass of wine, holds the empty glass out to me for a refill.
“But back to Jed, he’s super sleazy. Word is he banged half his staff. But never got caught until Margot showed up in his office one day and walked in on his secretary blowing him under the desk.”
Erin’s face blooms red as she continues. “Anyway, Margot ran the poor girl off. I mean, she wasn’t aninnocentgirl, but what Margot did, or at least what Iheardthat Margot did—and this is between us, I don’t want to be on her shit list—involved a gun and a death threat.” Erin rubs her arms vigorously as if trying to shake off a chill.
“I mean, who the hell knows if it’s true or not,” she says, suddenly backpedaling. It’s as if she is also afraid of Margot. But I can picture it, knowing what I do about Margot and guns, but, of course, I can’t say that to Erin.
“The rich bitches in this town are crazy. And I avoid them at all costs, except when Ihaveto be nice to them. There’s this one woman, Jessica Bates, for instance, who was up for a board vote, to be vice president of the planning committee for the children’s museum. And Jessica’s nice, too, and fairly normal. And she was a shoo-in. But the week before the vote,” Erin says with a flourish, swinging her wineglass in front of her, “sheslightlydisagreed with something Margot had to say. So, guess what? Not only did she lose the election but she was closed out from just about everything else.”
I suck in a slow breath, nod.
“You know, just Grade A typical rich bitch stuff,” Erin snorts. “Cut me off after this glass, please, or I’ll be fucked in the morning,” she slurs.
I’M AT THEkitchen sink, filing away the last dish from dinner into the dishwasher, when the urge to sneak into my office hits me.
Graham is in Jack’s room, tucking him in for the night, so I tiptoe down the hall and slink behind the laptop. I’ve banned myself from Facebook all week long, and I’m proud that I haven’t even had a peek, but just now, the need to see Margot overtakes me.
The first story in my feed is a post from Tina, at the casino with Bill. He’s red-faced, strongly built, with watery blue eyes, and he looks like the sort of person you’d wanna split a bottle of scotch with. Fun. Spirited. Tina has snapped a selfie of them at the bar in the casino and she looks drunk and happy.
I smile but don’t click “like.” Because of Erin, I’ve tried to be discreet on Facebook with the group.
I scroll through other posts, but nothing jumps out until I see the most recent post from Margot, which isn’t recent at all, it’s from nearly a week ago, the Sunday morning we got back from Dallas.
Margot is in front of the Mapleton Methodist Church, one of the older churches downtown, and she’s standing on the lawn underneath a bare sycamore tree with her husband, son, and daughter.
She’s wearing a pale pink Jackie O–style dress with matching jacket and her hair is perfectly sleek, face perfectly made up. She certainly doesn’t have the look of someone who just dragged in from a bar only four hours earlier. I’m impressed.
