“Natalie! Hello!” Edie called to the high school principal. They played golf together sometimes. “Belinda, did you get highlights? They’re marvelous!” She carried on, greeting people, walking straight up to the podium like she intended to add her voice to those who thought children deserved a bright future.
Linda was at the front, of course, making sure everything was proceeding as planned. The program had not yet started, and she had the misfortune to be standing on the audience side of the podium. Which meant she could not escape an advancing Edie. Her expression went from pleasant impatience to a dark frown. “Edie. I wasn’t expecting you,” she said coolly.
“Oh, honey, I don’t think anyone in town was expecting me.” Edie smiled. “I wanted to bring you some flowers from my award-winning garden for your event. You’ve seen my garden at Songbird Hill, haven’t you? Oh, that’s right. You haven’t been up to my magnificent house. But I’m sure you saw it inArchitectural Digestalong with the rest of the world, didn’t you?”
Linda visibly stiffened. “You didn’t have to bring flowers. We have more than enough, donated by Edwards Florist. They donate to all my charitable work.”
“Do you mean to say there aremoregroups that deserve bright futures? Let me guess. Dogs? Cats? Married men?”
Linda blanched. Her eyes darted past Edie, checking to see if anyone could hear them. Of course people could hear them. Everyonein the garden was stealthily shifting closer and closer, trying to hear the conversation in this unprecedented meeting between wife and mistress. And Edie was on a roll. “You look good, Linda! Ozempic? I’m glad you finally found a way to get rid of those last few belly pounds.”
Linda’s blue eyes suddenly looked like they were on fire. “Thank you. You look good, too, Edie. I’m just so sorry you couldn’t find time for that facelift after all.”
“Oh, I decided to do the vaginal rejuvenation instead. Simon loves it. You know what they say—keep it tight at night if you want to keep your man.”
“Oh my God,” Linda murmured. She swallowed hard, looking around them again, trying to catch the eye of someone to save her.
“Would you like a referral?” Edie asked sweetly. “I have a wonderful doctor.”
Linda opened her mouth like she was about to say something she would probably regret, but then clamped her mouth shut. Then opened it again. “Thanks for the flowers. I wish I could invite you to stay, but unfortunately, we have no seats left.”
“I wouldn’t dream of it,” Edie said, and thrust the arrangement at her, forcing Linda back a step. “Sounds like a big fat scam to me. Ta-ta!” She turned on her heel and sailed out the way she’d come, head high, shoulders back, calling and waving to old friends.
She would hear about it from Simon, she knew, but she didn’t care.
She got in her red Porsche and peeled out of the parking lot, headed home. Her only regret was that when she was feeling this spectacular, she needed someone to do a couple of shots with her. Unfortunately, having a philandering husband meant that half the women in town were too scared or too pissed at her. Because no matter what Simon did, Edie always managed to hang on to him. Sometimes, she could even exert a bit of influence over him.
“How do I do it? It’s a mixture of good luck and good dirt,”she imagined herself saying when she accepted her gardening award again this year. And people wouldn’t know if she was talking about flowers or the dirt she kept on Simon’s lovers.
She pulled into her circle drive in front of her house, got out of her car, and started the walk up the brick pathway to the double-door entrance of the Colonial. She paused and turned, admiring the magnificent grounds thatshehad planned andshemaintained with the help of Chuck and his landscape crew. As she stood there, admiring her handiwork, she heard what sounded like sobbing. She paused, cocking her head to one side like a dog, trying to detect where it was coming from. Her hearing wasn’t what it used to be, but she eventually began to zero in on the sound. She turned slowly, looking to the right, at the windows of her living room. One of them was open. Probably her housekeeper, Bernie, had opened it. She had an almost compulsive need to air out rooms. Was that Bernie? No, it couldn’t be—Bernie was a salty old cuss from the old country—wherever that was—and Edie had never seen her cry.
The sound made her panic a little, because if that sobbing was Bernie, something terrible had happened.
She hurried up the path and the steps to the door. Inside, she dropped her purse on the foyer console. “Hello?” she called.
The crier hiccupped. Edie walked to the door of the living area and glanced inside. Across the room, past the grand piano, and the chic seating upholstered in silk, and the giant Ming vase Simon had bought her after one of his early affairs, was a couch before the hearth. Someone was sitting with their back to Edie, their dark head bent over.
She walked forward, straining to see without going back for her progressives. Simon was right—she ought to just wear the damn things, but she was too vain.
As she drew closer, she recognized one of her granddaughters. Her favorite granddaughter, which she would never admit. “Marcy?” She was shocked to see her here.
Marcy didn’t sit up. Her dark brown hair was the color of herfather’s, Edie’s second son, Stephen. It spilled over her back and shoulder. She turned her head slightly away from Edie. “Don’t come in, Nana. I don’t want you to see me like this.”
“In distress?” Edie asked, coming closer.
“You know I’m an ugly crier!” Marcy exclaimed.
“I certainly do. But I’ve seen you ugly cry before, so it won’t be quite as much of a shock.” She walked around to the front of the couch and sat carefully next to her granddaughter. “Why are you crying?”
“You won’t understand,” Marcy moaned.
“Try me.”
Marcy lifted her head, and yikes, she was indeed a hideous crier. Her skin was splotchy and red, her nose swollen and leaking. Edie took several tissues from the box nearby and handed them to Marcy, indicating she should have a good wipe of her nose. “Did someone die?” Edie asked tentatively.
“No, but I wish I had.”
“Oh, sweetheart,” Edie said, and put her arm around her granddaughter. “Tell me what’s happened.” She was guessing a man. She would hear what he’d done, tell Marcy to take a nap, and when she got up, they’d have cocktails. That’s what she did for her many heart fractures. It worked like a charm.
