Sherri tried to make up for this deficit. She smiled her extra-wide, welcoming smile. She tried to let them know that she got it. She understood what it was like to take on a disguise.
The phone rang. She jumped. Alexa! Then she chided herself. Of course it wouldn’t be Alexa. Alexa didn’t even have this number; she had Sherri’s cell phone number.
“Thank you for calling Derma-You!” she said in her friendliest, most accepting voice. “How can I help you look your best?”
After work two of the girls asked Sherri if she wanted to go for a drink with them. Sherri texted Alexa to see if she minded staying later; she didn’t. The women were younger than Sherri; she was flattered to be asked. She would go and have a friendly drink. She would be a person without history.
They went to a giant, anonymous, air-condition-blasted Mexican restaurant around the corner from the office, where they sat at a tall round bar table and ordered three margaritas and a bowl of chips. One of the women was married without kids—this was Clara—and one was married with a three-year-old boy. This was Sandy. As they waited for their drinks to arrive, Sandy complained about her mother, who called her four times a dayand said nothing. Sandy ended each of her sentences on an upswing. “She just keeps calling?” she said. “And I’m like, Mom, nothing’s changed since lunchtime?”
“That’s better than my mother,” said Clara. “She’s dating a man ten years younger than she is and she keeps texting me photos of her outfits to see if they’re ‘on fleek.’ I keep telling her nobody says ‘on fleek’ for real, but she’s not getting it.” They all had a good laugh about that, and the waitress delivered their drinks.
Clara and Sandy turned to Sherri expectantly and said, “What about your mother?”
“My mother died when I was seventeen,” said Sherri.
“I’m sorry!” the women said in unison. A pall fell across the table, and Sherri reproached herself for bringing the festive mood down.
“Don’t be,” said Sherri. “It was a long time ago.” She almost said, “It had no bearing on the rest of my life,” but of course it had all the bearing on the rest of her life, because when she met Bobby she was so fragile and motherless that she succumbed fairly readily to his charms. She took a giant swig of her margarita to show that it was all right.
“Oh, you know what?” said Sandy. “I’m taking this mindfulness class? And this one thing they suggested? Writing the story of your life in fairy tale form!”
“Why would you want to do that?” asked Clara. She dipped a chip in the salsa.
“Apparently it results in big waves of self-acceptance washing over you?” said Sandy. “I haven’t tried it yet. Mine’s due next class?”
“I think it sounds like a lot of fun,” said Sherri. “I might give it a try myself.”
She could see Sandy and Clara looking at her sympathetically,as though they all knew that Sherri’s fairy tale would be pathetically boring but were too polite to say so.
Once upon a time,thought Sherri. There was a woman who lived in a house with a pool and had a maid who came three times a week and a husband named Bobby and a kitchen straight out of a magazine. And then one day, this woman learned something terrible.
It was always a dog walker, wasn’t it?
Madison Miller’s body had been buried in a semideserted stretch of woods one town over from where she went missing. Heavy rains had recently hit the area, washing away some of the soil. The dog happened to be a hound; the owner happened to let him off the leash at just the right place. Right place, right time, you could say.
Now her picture was in the paper again. Now there were more articles. No known motive, said the articles. Authorities were seeking information. Madison Miller had died from asphyxiation. There were marks around her neck that suggested a thin piece of wire.
Sherri left the paper open to the article. When Bobby came down for breakfast she said, “Look at this. They found that girl.”
“What girl?” Bobby asked. If he had anything to give away, he didn’t give it to her.
“The one who’s been missing. Remember?” She held the paper in front of him. “The one who was all over the news a couple of weeks ago. Madison Miller.”
“Poor kid,” he said. He met her eyes directly.
“What do you think happened?” Sherri asked. She felt like she was poking a bear but she couldn’t help herself.
He was fresh out of the shower; he smelled like aftershave andshampoo. He whistled when he opened the refrigerator. Hewhistled. “Must have been in the wrong place at the wrong time,” he said. “Terrible.” He shook his head and sounded regretful, like a teacher delivering a disappointing grade to a student.
Sherri remembered those words from the night she’d stood outside the office with the cheese tray, and she knew that the thing she’d feared was true. Her own husband, the man she’d slept with and vacationed alongside and cooked eggs for so many mornings—the man she’d made a child with—could say words that were so nonchalant, so unconcerned, while Madison Miller lay in a coffin.
Bobby kissed Sherri on the mouth, hard, and for the first time his lips felt like icicles. Then he picked up his car keys and left.
The next day there was an obituary. Sherri read it through six times. Madison Miller was a member of the National Honor Society and the Environmental Sustainability Club. She was a straight-A student; she wanted to be a doctor. She had three brothers, and a dog she loved, a King Charles cavalier spaniel named Betty. In lieu of flowers mourners were asked to give in Madison’s honor to the Make-A-Wish foundation, Madison’s favorite charity.
Sherri went to the bathroom and threw up her breakfast. Then she anonymously donated five thousand dollars to the Make-A-Wish foundation in Madison’s name. She dared Bobby to notice.
He didn’t.
