“Why don’t you go home?” Angela said. “I can finish up here.”
I was glad to leave. I couldn’t meet her eyes, knowing she had one more day to live. Trouble was coming, and all I could do was avoid it. But I was worried about my daughter. What if Sarah was with Angela when my partner died? What if Sarah was hurt, too? Or caught up somehow in Grandma’s mysterious crime? I had to keep my daughter safe tomorrow.
When school was out, I called Sarah on her cell phone. “Hi,” she said, her voice sullen.
“Sarah, your father should be finishing his big project tomorrow. I thought we could take him out to dinner to celebrate.”
“Can’t, Mom,” she said. “I’m rehearsing for the school musical, remember?”
“Right,” I said. “I forgot.”
What musical? When did she tell me that? “You never talk about your part,” I said.
“I’m in the chorus and a crowd scene. Big whoop.”
There it was again, that surly teenage voice. I tamped down my anger. If Sarah was at school, she wouldn’t be around Angela on a dangerous day. I called my husband at work to invite him to dinner tomorrow night.
“I just hope I get everything finished, after I bragged to you about how well it was going,” he said. “I’ve hit a snag. I’ll be working late tonight and maybe tomorrow. Don’t wait for dinner, promise?”
“Sure.”
Sarah came home about six and went straight to her room without greeting me.
“Do you want dinner, honey?” I asked.
“Not hungry,” she said. The two words were dropped on me like flat stones. I spent the night brooding on the couch, aimlessly channel surfing. When would Sarah return to her cheerful self? Why was her father working late? Jack wouldn’t lie to me, would he? Not after the way he’d loved me last night. Of course, my father had lied to my mother. Easily.
Jack came home after midnight and woke me up. I’d fallen asleep on the couch. “Come on, sweetheart,” he whispered. “You’ll be more comfortable in our bed. I want to hold you.”
I followed him upstairs, trying to drown out the voices that said he was betraying me. Jack took off his tie and rumpled suit jacket. “I have a lipstick stain on my collar,” he said. “Do we have any stain remover?”
“How did you get lipstick on your collar?” I asked, trying to sound light and unconcerned.
“Sandy, the office manager, is moving to Seattle with her new husband. You remember her. The pretty one with the brown eyes and dark hair. We had a party at the office, and she gave me a good-bye kiss.”
That sounded like the kind of excuse my father used, I thought. My father the cheater.
“Just drop it in the laundry basket,” I said. “I’ll treat the stain in the morning.”
The lipstick on the collar nagged at me. I spent another restless night, then got up to kiss Jack good-bye and see my daughter off to school. She was wearing a tiny skirt and a scoop-neck top.
“Sarah, is that outfit appropriate for school?” I asked.
“Mom,” she said. “Everybody dresses like this. Anyway, I’m going to be late for the bus.”
“At least put on a jacket over it.” I handed her the cropped jacket we’d bought as part of her back-to-school wardrobe.
“Gotta run,” she said and was out the door before I could tell if she’d put it on or stuffed it in her backpack. I sighed. At least she hadn’t dropped the jacket on a chair.
I examined the lipstick stain on my husband’s shirt. The lipstick was a pale pink. Would a brunette wear that color? Didn’t Sandy wear darker colors? But Angela was wearing something similar. It must be back in style.
Angela. What if that wasn’t Sandy’s lipstick on my husband’s shirt collar? What if it was Angela’s?
“Your Jack is working late a lot lately, isn’t he?” my grandmother had asked. I’d defended him. He didn’t get in until midnight last night. He was working late tonight, too. On his project-or on Angela?
I had to know. I wasn’t going to be a fool like my mother. I drove over to Jack’s office in downtown Kirkwood. His car was parked in the company lot in his reserved space. I parked across the street and waited. At twelve fifteen, he left the building and went to Spencer’s Grill. I got out, pulled my winter hat low, and walked past the old-fashioned diner. Jack was sitting at the counter, reading a magazine and munching a grilled cheese sandwich.
I watched him walk back to his office while I stood in a store across the street. Jack had a corner office, and I could see him at his desk. The lights were on in the gray winter afternoon, and the building was too busy for a dalliance. I went home until five thirty and called him.
“Still have to work late, honey?” I asked.
“Afraid so,” he said. “I’m sorry to leave you home alone again, but you can spend the time thinking about what you can do with the extra money. Maybe we can take a February vacation to someplace warm.”
“I’d love to go to the Caribbean. What about St. Bart’s? Or St. John’s?”
“Any saint you want,” he said.
He hung up, and I started brooding again. My husband had sounded suspiciously cheery-the way my father did when he was cheating on my mother. Mom took it, year after year. Well, I wasn’t going to be Jack’s doormat. If he was cheating, I wanted to know. Then I’d get the best divorce lawyer.
I waited until seven o’clock, when I knew Jack would be getting hungry, and drove to a Maplewood brew pub, the Schlafly Bottleworks. I ordered a bison burger. I’d surprise him with his favorite sandwich if he was at the office working. If not, well, he’d get a different surprise.
I saw Jack’s light was on and his blinds were drawn. I barged right into his office.
“Surprise!” I yelled.
Jack was surprised. He was sitting at his drawing board, with paper spread everywhere.
I felt foolish, standing there with a bison burger. “I brought you a present.” I handed him the bag.
Jack’s face lit up when he unwrapped his burger. “You didn’t have to,” he said. “But you’ve saved me from eating pretzels from the snack machine.”
“That’s free-range bison,” I said. “I wonder where in the U.S. the buffalo roam.”
“Like me, not far from home,” he said, kissing me on the nose.
“Now I really do have to get back to work.”
“I have to get home,” I said. “Sarah’s rehearsing for the school musical. She should be back any moment.”
It was so cold my car didn’t warm up on the short drive home. I passed Smart Women and saw the lights were off. I hoped Angela was enjoying her last night on earth. She only had four hours left, if Grandma was right. Of course, Grandma had been wrong about my husband, Jack. Maybe she was wrong about Angela, too. Maybe she was turning as strange as her brother Oswald, who lived in the state mental institution and talked to imaginary people.
Our house was dark when I parked in front of it. I killed the lights and went in the front door. Sarah wasn’t home yet, unless she’d fallen asleep.
I heard a noise upstairs. “Hello?” I called. No answer. I armed myself with the fireplace poker. I took out my cell phone and pressed 911, but didn’t hit the call button. I slipped it in my pocket and tiptoed upstairs.
More noise, thumping and moaning. The sounds were coming from our bedroom. A burglar was hurting Sarah. I raced down the hall, flipped on the bedroom light, and saw Angela in my bed. Naked.
With my daughter.
Their clothes were scattered all over the floor.
“You slut,” I shrieked. “That’s my innocent daughter!”
I struck out with the poker and hit Angela on the head. I heard Sarah scream, “No, Mom, you don’t understand!” She tried to grab my arm, but I shook her away.
I kept hitting Angela until I realized that brilliant red was not her hair, but her blood. By then Angela was dead, and my sobbing daughter had called the police.
When my husband got home at midnight, I was being led away in handcuffs.
My daughter still won’t speak to me. Sarah told the police and the reporters that she loved Angela and they were planning to marry someplace where it was legal. Sarah said she didn’t tell me about their romance because she was afraid I’d overreact, and Angela’s murder proved she was right. I didn’t want my daughter to be known as a nerd, and she isn’t. The tabloids call her the Lesbian Lolita.