Her hand shakes as she scoops up her glass of bourbon, neat. She’s trying, without success, to loosen the choke hold on her nerves that came with seeing her police officer father. She’llhave to tell Ilena and Aubrey. Except it’s not exactly dinner party conversation. Her brain hurts. All she wants to do is have this bourbon, maybe another, and hell, one more, and flump into the couch and eat popcorn and watchTitanicto remind herself that things could always be worse—she could have woken up on theTitanic.
Ilena’s gone full-on Stepford. Among the thousand reasons this dinner party is absurd is that Ilena knows better than to include Mallory. Give her a crowd of a hundred or a sofa with her two best friends, not a table set for six or eight that always winds up with an extra chair jammed around a leg for the solo Mallory. Though at least today Jonah won’t be there trying to set her up with some colleague whose descriptions of valve replacements or cartilage scraping would put her to sleep in her lobster bisque—an Ilena specialty.
Has Ilena looked him up? The sinking feeling that she hasn’t, that the combination of the unfathomable divorce in their world and equally as incomprehensible Felix and the baby here has caused Ilena’s husband of thirteen years to vanish from her thoughts makes Mallory reach for her drink.
She sips her bourbon and fingers the fabric of a maroon sheath dress, the most subdued thing in the closet.
“I’ll make it work, I mean, obviously, I will.” As she grabs hold of the hanger, her breath catches. Behind the dress is a tan plaid Burberry coat just like the one she and Ilena purchased together. They’d traded it back and forth for years. She’s not even sure who has it now. She leans in and sniffs, but there’s no hint of perfume from either of them.
She leaves the coat in the closet and carries the dress to the bed. Harley flips himself back over, prancing beside her ankles. She’d texted Ilena back, saying that they didn’t have time for this, that they had to concentrate on figuring out next steps. And besides, she couldn’t come because of the dog.Ilena ignored the first part, and for the second, said she would invite Noreen who could watch Harley.
Well-played, Stepford.
Mallory finishes her bourbon and fruitlessly searches the underwear drawer for something other than a bralette, the source of that sag she noticed when she first woke up here. She slips into the dress, which only accentuates the droopiness. She grabs the plaid coat from the closet and sets it on the bed beside her purse.
She then opens her inbox, fighting the urge to touch the marks on her arm. Hope swells at the new email that flies in. It’s from the restaurant that catered the AIM outing. She contacted them to request a detailed inventory of every item served. She didn’t go through Noreen. The Noreen of here seems more staid than their Noreen, and Mallory wasn’t up to conjuring the perfect lie to cover why she was asking, which was to determine if Mallory had means as well as motive.
Like in their world, the food list includes allergen notations for every dish. Crackers of wheat. Crackers of cauliflower. Crackers of spinach. (Spinach?) But none made of nut.
She lets her hand knead her forearm.Christ, Mallory, what did you do?
Harley gives his pathetically endearing whine and she grabs his leash just as the intercom buzzes. In her world, someone’s always making the rounds for signatures in this neighborhood. Petitions to clean up the river, allow a marijuana festival in the park, save some dilapidated building that George Washington once masturbated inside of; even the stuff Mallory believes in means she loses twenty minutes minimum.
She hooks the leash onto the harness on Harley’s back, slides her feet into hideous orange house clogs, and heads down the stairs to the front door. She opens it, rolling her eyes that this time, whatever they want her signature to help them put up ortake down or preserve is deemed special enough to bring along a camera crew.
“Not interested.” Mallory elbows past a woman in a drapey black tunic and dark-wash jeans.
“I’m sorry,” the woman says, a hint of a New York accent assaulting the vowels. “I was looking for Mallory Latham. Maybe I buzzed the wrong unit?”
You did, lives on the tip of Mallory’s tongue, but then the dude with a scruffy beard and hair past his ears lowers the camera he’s holding. Emblazoned across his T-shirt is theShandy Shanelogo.
We wanted to confirm... availability for...
Shit.
“Georgina?” Mallory asks, grateful for her well-practiced ability to remember names.
“Ms. Latham? Is this a bad time? Earlier, I thought we confirmed—”
“It’s fine, completely fine. Remind me, and sorry, it’s been a day, this is for...”
Georgina shares a loaded look with scruffy bearded dude. “Background, B-roll, walk-and-talk, driving—”
“I don’t have a car.”
Another look.
“Just an example,” Georgina says. “There’s lots we can do. If now’s still a good time? We’re only in from the city for a couple of days. Then we go back to edit, and we’ll return with Shandy Shane the morning of the interview at AIM with you and Mr. Fields.”
“Yes, spectacular, Mr. Fields, AIM.” Mallory’s attention shifts to the rumble of a car turning down her block. She gets a glimpse of the black-and-white and the lights on top. Her unfortunate timed run-in with her father must have energized him for some more father-daughter bonding. When the policecar approaches with a woman behind the wheel, relief washes over Mallory. (Disappointment too.) “Sure, right. Now is great, this is great.”
The police car rolls to a stop right in front of her building.
“Actually.” She steadies the tremble threatening her voice. “Why don’t you head on up and get settled? Third floor, door’s unlocked.”
The door to the police car creaks open, and a woman with a swimmer’s build and dark hair in a severe bun trains her mirrored-sunglass gaze directly on Mallory.
Shit, shit, shit.
