Almost.
She still didn’t buy Francine’s assertion that Cash had never hit her. Maybe he had only hit her once. Maybe he hit her all the time, but Jocelyn had no doubt that he had hit her before Sydney Adams’ death.
“Thank you for coming,” Jocelyn said.
Francine smiled warmly. “Good to see you again.”
Cash nodded at her, looking very much like a man who hadn’t shit for a month. Inez led them over to Jynx’s table where she sat with her husband, two of her cousins and Lonnie. Jocelyn watched them greet one another. Only Cash looked stiff and uncomfortable, his movements stilted and jerky, his face bloodless, lips pressed into a thin line. Even when he smiled, the corners of his mouth seemed pinched, as if smiling was a great strain on him.
Inez handed her a thick, white envelope. “Sold out,” she said.
Jocelyn took it and smiled. “Thanks. Thanks for coming.”
Inez winked and looked over at the table where the Rigos sat. She laughed. “Look at this fucking guy. He looks like he’s about to get a proctology consult—at a teaching hospital.”
“Well,” Jocelyn replied. “Let’s get this party started.”
They let the crowd eat first—salad followed by chicken cordon bleu and filet mignon with grilled mixed vegetables and roasted potatoes. The food smelled delicious and elicited a hearty growl from Jocelyn’s stomach, but she was too nervous to eat. When the wait staff began serving dessert and coffee, she went to the podium. She greeted the crowd and introduced Jynx, who spoke for about ten minutes, explaining the scholarship. Anita had prepped the woman earlier that evening. Jynx went on to talk about Sydney—telling personal stories that made the crowd laugh but brought tears to Jynx’s eyes. They streamed down her face, and she dabbed them gracefully with a folded napkin. She finished by introducing Lonnie.
Jocelyn felt her phone vibrate in her jacket pocket. She pulled it out, saw Knox’s name and hit answer. She heard rustling. “Knox,” she hissed into the phone. No answer. She heard the whir of his oxygen machine, the wheeze of his breath and the sound of liquid sloshing in a glass. “Knox,” she tried again. Nothing. She waited several seconds, but he didn’t speak into the phone. Another butt dial. She’d have to get him to sober up long enough to teach him how to use his new cell phone. She hung up, put her phone away and turned her attention back to Lonnie.
He spoke a bit longer than Jynx, with a wistfulness that only a first love could leave behind. It was while he talked that Cash stood to use the restroom. Jocelyn breathed a sigh of relief. Their plan rested on him seeing what Anita and Trent had staged in the alcove across from the restrooms. She saw Cash turn first toward the alcove where Trent was bagging glasses and labeling each bag with a guest’s name. She knew that two brown paper bags labeled Rigo, C. and Rigo, F. were right on the edge of the counter, in plain sight.
Jocelyn couldn’t see the look on his face, but she noted how slowly he moved away from the alcove and into the restroom as if he were in great pain. He emerged five minutes later, even paler than he’d been before. His brow glistened with sweat. He barely had time to sit back down before Lonnie introduced him.
The crowd clapped politely as Cash made his way to the podium. He pulled a crumpled piece of paper from his suit jacket pocket. Jocelyn noticed that his hands trembled as he smoothed it out. He looked at the crowd with a nervous smile and cleared his throat.
“I’ve, uh, been teaching history and coaching track and field at Franklin West for sixteen years. It was my first and only teaching job after college. I’ve been lucky to be able to work with some really bright and incredible young people, like Mr. Burgess, here.”
He motioned to Lonnie, who smiled what looked like a very sincere smile. Although Jocelyn knew Lonnie had great affection for his and Sydney’s old coach, surely, after what they had discussed in his office a few weeks earlier, the sight of Cash made him uncomfortable. If it did, he wasn’t showing it. She sighed. Lawyers made great liars. She liked Lonnie a whole lot more than most lawyers she knew, but it always astounded her how easily they could act one way all while feeling the exact opposite.
“And of course, Sydney Adams,” Cash went on. “When I came to Franklin West, Sydney was a junior. She’d already been running track for two years. She was strong, dedicated, a hard worker. I always tell the kids, ‘go out hard and finish harder, leave it all out on the track.’ Well, that was Syd. She left it all on the track every time. She always strove to beat her personal record. There wasn’t much I could coach her on. She was . . .” he wiped his brow.
Discreetly, from her spot near the front door, Jocelyn signaled Anita and Inez to move on with the next phase of the plan. They went back to the kitchen and emerged with the first blown up photo of Sydney—her senior picture. In it, she wore a white graduation cap and gown and held a flower in an artificial pose. Her smile was serene, the soft touch glow of the photo making her image jump from the two by three foot glossy cork foam board, as if she were a physical presence in the room. She was gorgeous. All these years later, so many people had shown up to honor her. It hurt Jocelyn’s heart a little knowing she would never light up a room again.
As Inez and Anita set it on one of the three collapsible easels they’d placed opposite the podium earlier that evening, Cash’s eyes were drawn to it. It was as though he saw an apparition. He stumbled over his words, his voice disappearing momentarily. He wiped at his brow again, tearing his gaze from the photo, focusing instead on his sweat-dampened notes.
“Sydney was every teacher’s dream student,” he went on. “Bright, inquisitive, studious.” As his litany of adjectives continued, Inez and Anita carried out the second photo. This one was a candid shot of Sydney and Dorothy. Dorothy sat at what looked like a dinner table. Sydney stood behind her, arms wrapped around her grandmother’s neck, her cheek pressed to the other woman’s face. Dorothy’s aged hands curled over Sydney’s forearm. Both women smiled brightly—their faces happy and free somehow—like they had no cares or worries. Like they had everything they needed already.
Jocelyn had a sudden, sharp pang for her own mother who had died three years earlier. The mother she and her sister had known in junior high—before their family went all to hell. She pushed those thoughts aside and looked back at Cash as Inez and Anita brought out the third and final blown-up photo, the most innocent of the three flirty photos. The one of Sydney laughing and reaching for the camera—reaching for Cash from the grave.
It had its intended effect.
Cash stopped in mid-sentence, looking stricken, like a man who’d just witnessed a heinous crime. He tried to speak again but choked on his words, lapsing into a coughing fit so bad that his wife and several others rose to assist him. He latched onto Francine’s arm, positioning her with her back to the photo as he waved the others away. He pounded on his chest to no avail. Jocelyn couldn’t hear what Francine was saying, but Cash shook his head vigorously and pulled her toward the front door, still managing to keep her back to the photographs. Francine scooped up her purse and let her husband drag her out the door, his coughing slowing considerably.
Anita moved to the podium to remind everyone about the silent auction and distract them from the awkward spectacle. Jocelyn followed the Rigos outside. They had snagged a parking spot near the entrance to PTG, one building over in front of a local dentist’s office. Cars whizzed past on Ridge Avenue. The street lights cast a golden glow over the parking lot. Across the street, smokers stood outside a local bar.