Once Upon a Lie (26 page)

“Listen, if I tell you something, can you keep a secret?”

If you only knew, Maeve thought.

“I did something bad.” She crossed her arms and lowered her head to avoid Maeve’s gaze. “Don’t look at me like that.”

Maeve poured Jo an extra-large helping of wine and placed it in front of her. “Here. Liquid courage.”

Jo raised her head and took a large swig, emptying her wineglass by half. She cocked an ear, listening for the girls, presumably, but Maeve assured her that they were in their rooms and would stay there until the dinner bell rang. “I went to Eric’s last night and did something bad.”

Maeve drew her mouth down in a grimace that was almost painful to execute. “Jo…”

“I didn’t tell you this because you’ve been going through so much, but do you know that he had the nerve to call me and tell me that a check for me had been delivered to the house?” She finished the wine and held out her glass. “It was from my mother. No matter how many times I give her the address at the cottage, she sends all my mail to the house. He wouldn’t bring it to me at the store.”

Maeve leaned back against the counter, the only sound coming from her side of the kitchen the chicken cutlets frying in the pan.

“So I went last night. He didn’t answer the door, so I let myself in with my key. I was just going to go in and grab it, but I couldn’t help myself. I went inside, and he and that…”

“‘That slut’?”

“Right. He and that slut were in the hot tub. You know, the one that I spent my grandmother’s inheritance on so that he could soak his aching back?”

Another one with an aching back. Maeve wondered if he knew what lumbago meant and how two Advil could solve the problem.

Jo looked straight at Maeve. “I’m not proud of the next part.”

Maeve turned her back and flipped the cutlets, figuring that without eye contact, Jo would let her know what had transpired.

“I went into the house. When I got into the kitchen, I took one last look at what Grandma Sylvia’s ten grand to me had bought. That’s when I noticed that they were naked.”

Maeve turned back around and poured another healthy serving of wine into Jo’s glass. If all else failed, she’d drive Jo home and let her pick up her car in the morning.

“I locked all of the doors and left.”

“Meaning?” Maeve asked.

“That they were locked outside without clothes,” Jo said a tad triumphantly. She let a smile form on her lips. “I’m really hoping that makes it into the blotter next week.”

The sound that came out of Maeve was the first real laugh she had uttered in months. Once she started, she couldn’t stop, the laughing eventually allowing the tears that she had been holding back to burst forth in a moist torrent. The sound was so loud, so uncharacteristically boisterous, that it brought the girls from their rooms, the sounds of their feet stampeding down the stairs indicating to Maeve that she needed to get herself together. She wiped her eyes on the dish towel, trying to turn the sobs back into guffaws and doing a passable job. The girls seemed none the wiser.

Rebecca looked particularly offended that her mother was laughing; something about her mother engaging in frivolity made her uncomfortable. Maeve chalked it up to teenage hormones. Rebecca poured herself a glass of milk, leaving it to her sister to ask what was going on.

Jo laughed it off. “You know your mother. One bad pie crust story after another. I don’t know why you two don’t find her as funny as I do.” She held her glass out for more wine.

Maeve wasn’t sure if getting Jo drunk was a good idea or not, but she finished off the bottle that had been opened and pulled another one down from the wine rack on top of the refrigerator. Heather, inexplicably, had begun setting the table. Ever since the party incident and her subsequent grounding, she had been on her best behavior, something Maeve suspected had to do with the tearful phone calls that Maeve had overheard between her and the boy she was dating, the one Maeve was going to kill—no joke—if there was any hint of sexual activity that went on beyond petting. Heather wanted out of her room and into his arms, and since she had served almost her entire sentence and had not had an infraction during that time, Maeve had no choice but to let her out.

Maeve put a platter of chicken, a bowl of pasta, and another one of salad on the table and everyone dug in. As she expected, the girls ate their food at warp speed, loaded their plates in the dishwasher, and asked to be excused. Jo was on her third helping of food when Maeve cleared her throat, preparing to start the conversation about Doug.

“What?” Jo said, lifting the salad tongs out of the bowl with a giant helping of salad dangling forth. “Too much?”

“No,” Maeve said. “Eat as much as you want.” She shifted in her chair. “How’s Doug?”

Jo was in the midst of shoving a forkful of pasta into her mouth when she stopped. “You know what? He’s great.” She put the pasta in her mouth and chewed loudly. “Better than great. I don’t know, it’s like we reached some kind of new level in our relationship and I can see things really going somewhere.”

“Did you tell him what you did to Eric?” Maeve asked.

“God, no,” Jo said. “He’s really straitlaced and wouldn’t find that funny. It’s like he’s the good manners police or something.”

Maeve hoped that her flinch hadn’t registered with Jo. He was some kind of police, but it didn’t have anything to do with good manners.

“And he says he wants to get to know you better,” Jo said. “You gotta love a guy who wants to get to know your best friend better, right?” She put her fork down and grew serious. “I think he’s a good guy, Maeve. Not like Eric. He seems to want to make me happy, and I wasn’t entirely sure that I would ever find someone who would feel that way about me.”

Maeve hoped her smile looked more sincere than it was. She rubbed her back against the chair in the hope that she could wipe away the sweat rolling down her spine. “And he’s an accountant?” she asked.

“You know he is,” Jo said, her eyes narrowing. “What gives? You’ve got a weird look on your face.” The weird look didn’t stop her from spearing more chicken onto her fork and helping herself to more pasta, but she looked at Maeve after she had filled her plate again. “You still think he’s a good guy for me, right?”

“Do you feel like you know him?”

Jo thought about this as she ate. “I think so.” Finally, she pushed her plate away and touched her stomach. “I think that’s enough.”

Maeve picked up her plate and put it by the dishwasher. “You sure?”

“I’m sure,” she said, standing up and stretching.

Maeve scraped the leftovers on Jo’s plate into the garbage and, without turning around, whispered her confession into the trash can. “He’s a cop.”

Jo was in midstretch. “What?”

Maeve turned around and put the plate on the counter. “He’s a cop. Doug.”

Jo let her hands fall to her sides. “I thought you just said, ‘He’s a cop.’ Tell me you didn’t just say, ‘He’s a cop.’”

Maeve tried to make a joke, but it came off poorly. “You might want to get rid of the pot.”

Jo wasn’t amused.

Maeve leaned back against the counter and didn’t say another word, watching the realization of what she had said dawn on Jo’s face. Surprise went to disbelief and culminated in anger. “I’m sorry,” Maeve said finally. It was all that she had.

“You’re sorry?” Jo asked. “Does this have something to do with your goddamned cousin and his freaking murder? Is that what this is about?” She sat heavily in the chair. “Because that would explain why he keeps asking me about you and Jack and your relationship and just how crazy Jack is and how you keep it all together. And where you go most nights.” She looked at Maeve, her eyes shiny with tears. “That would explain all of that.” She stood, unsteady on her feet. “Is that it?”

Maeve leaned back against the counter and looked at a spot above Jo’s head. “Probably.”

“Does he even like pot roast?” she asked.

It was all Maeve could do not to laugh, but she realized that Jo wasn’t kidding. “I think he does.”

Jo looked down at the table. “Does he love me?” she asked. When Maeve didn’t answer, she looked up, her voice coming out shrill and hurt. “Does he love me?”

“I couldn’t possibly know,” Maeve said.

“So what do I tell him when he inevitably asks me if I think Jack killed Sean?” she asked. She choked back a sob. “Because that’s what this is all about. It’s never been about me.” She sank back into her chair. “It never is.”

“I’m sorry,” was all Maeve could think to say.

Jo took a napkin out of the ceramic holder on the table; Rebecca had made it in the third grade, and it had somehow survived intact over hundreds of family dinners. Now, because it was dangerously close to the edge of the table, Jo’s forceful extraction of the napkin sent it crashing to the floor. She wiped her eyes and blew her nose, ignoring the shattered pottery beneath her feet. “God, I hate you so much right now,” she said.

“I had no idea, Jo. Not a clue,” Maeve protested, but it was too late. Jo needed someone to blame, and she was “it.”

“So what do I tell him?” Jo asked again.

“Do you think my father is capable of murder?” Maeve asked.

“I don’t know what your father is capable of. Sometimes he’s fine. Other times he’s not.” Her glare was harsh and unforgiving. “I wonder if your father even has dementia or if this is just some ruse—”

“So you do,” Maeve said quietly, stopping Jo’s rant. “You do think that he is capable of murder.”

Jo stood. She didn’t answer, opting instead to head toward the front door, brushing past Maeve in the narrow kitchen. When Maeve offered to drive her home, she held up a hand. “No. Thanks. I’ll walk.”

“It’s two miles, Jo,” Maeve said, looking out the kitchen window. “And it’s dark now.” She heard the screen door slam and Jo’s footsteps as she made time on the porch stairs. By the time Maeve got to the front door, she was gone, no sign of her on the street.

CHAPTER 36

Maeve woke up the next morning with a headache, her pajama pants riding down over her backside, the waistline finally having given way sometime during the night. She pulled at a loose thread and the stitching at the top of the pants unraveled.

Unravel, she thought. That’s a good word. That describes exactly what is going on in my life, she thought as she rolled over and looked at the clock. Five fifteen. She was late.

The girls were old enough to get themselves off to school and actually preferred that she not be there to harass them before they left. She was cutting it close, though, getting into the bathroom just ten minutes ahead of when Rebecca would expect it to be hers for a half hour or so. So she took the quickest shower she could, jumped into a pair of jeans and a T-shirt, and headed to work, hoping she could get a few things in the oven before she opened officially at six.

Jo was due in at ten, and Maeve wondered what it would be like once she arrived, if she came in at all. Maeve had tossed and turned all night, thinking about how hurt Jo must have felt upon learning the news of Doug’s real occupation; but she still felt she had done the right thing. Jo needed to know, and hopefully, she would come to that conclusion on her own, without prompting or pleading from Maeve.

Maeve went to the store feeling lower and more dejected than she had felt in a long time. The feeling that things truly were unraveling even overrode any elation she felt when she listened to a voice mail message telling her that the wholesaler wanted a weekly delivery of twenty cases of cookies and ten of brownies. It was news that normally would have made a dance of joy the correct response; instead, she burst into tears, the emotional weight of the past weeks, coupled with the feelings she normally carried, pushing her to the breaking point. She couldn’t remember the last time she had cried, and the never-ending store of tears that poured forth did not ebb. She rested her head on the counter while her body shook and let it out, thinking that when it was over, she would close off again, not wanting to feel like this ever again.

She hastily threw together some muffin batter—banana nut—and put a batch in the oven. Behind her, the screen door to the kitchen slammed and she pulled herself together, ready to face her best friend, someone she hoped would remember all of the years that they had loved each other, supported each other, and been there for each other when no one else had. She wiped her eyes on her apron and turned around to find Cal standing there, absent the baby who usually hung on his front. Of course it was Cal, she thought; it was too early for Jo. And if there was one person she didn’t want to see her in her current state, it was him, but there you had it. Never around when you needed him and always there when you didn’t.

“You okay?” he asked, his look a combination of concern and fear.

“I’m fine,” she said. “The wholesaler called. They want a huge weekly standing order.” She smiled. “I’ve made it, Cal. Almost,” she added, not wanting to jinx it. She told him the specifics of the order and how much she would profit every month from the consistent income. She didn’t tell him that she was stressed out just thinking about what filling this order would entail and how she would have to hire new people, something she was loath to do. She liked that it was just her and Jo, even though some days the schedule and the execution of orders was crushing. Having other people around would upset the order of their little operation and bring her the responsibility of dealing with actual employees.

He gave her a quick, awkward hug, still not sure what the dissolution of their marriage meant in terms of physical contact. “That’s fantastic news.”

She looked at the clock that hung over the sink and then back at him. “What are you doing here? It’s just after six.”

“We’re out of coffee.” He stood there expectantly, waiting for her to serve him, she guessed.

“It’s not ready yet,” she said. Getting up late had put her behind schedule, and she hoped her tardiness wouldn’t make the morning more stressful than it promised to be after her conflict with Jo. “If you wait ten minutes, it will be ready.” An image of Gabriela in some kind of peignoir-type getup flashed through her mind. She was probably reading
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while the baby screamed with a soggy diaper as Cal ran off to get coffee.