Chapters (38)
- one
- two
- three
- four
- five
- six
- seven
- eight
- nine
- ten
- eleven
- twelve
- thirteen
- fourteen
- fifteen
- sixteen
- seventeen
- eighteen
- nineteen
- twenty
- twenty-one
- twenty-two
- twenty-three
- twenty-four
- twenty-five
- twenty-six
- twenty-seven
- twenty-eight
- twenty-nine
- thirty
- thirty-one
- thirty-two
- thirty-three
- thirty-four
- thirty-five
- thirty-six
- thirty-seven
- epilogue
She smiled and yawned. “My brain is on Florida time and I’m exhausted. I’m going to sleep now unless you want to watch television.”
“Oh, no, I’ll go to my room and read.”
“Good night, Ronni. Everything will be fine. Fine for you and Rick and fine for you in general. Wait and see.”
“I hope so.”
I closed the bedroom door. I re-read the same six paragraphs of a stupid dystopian romance novel Kait had loaned me before I gave up on it. Then I spent two hours trying not to think, wishing Deanna wasn’t sleeping between me and the half-bottle of wine in the kitchen.
twenty-six
VIOLET
The mirror reflected a beautiful woman in a very expensive cream silk dress and pearls. Violet had never dared spend money the way she was spending it lately. It felt daring and powerful to hand Tolly’s credit card over in Rich’s and Parisian.
He was being so patient, so unbearably tolerant, it almost drove her insane. And she was pushing him, pressing on every sensitive place as hard as she could, toward...toward what? Violet needed to know if her reformed, teetotaler husband was capable of holding his fists in check.
“Dinner’s not ready. I gave Beatrice the day off. Let’s go to the club tonight.”
“Your shirt is wrinkled? I’m sorry. Why don’t you drop your shirts off at the dry cleaner’s to be pressed? Genny’s husband does.”
“I drove the Cadillac while you were golfing, and I opened the door into a wall and chipped the paint. Sorry.”
Best of all: “I have a headache, Tolly, go to sleep.” For as long as she’d been back home.
He smiled vaguely in response to her bait so often Violet was sure he was taking tranquilizers. She certainly didn’t want to be hit, but Tolly was fading into a wispy translucence; an insubstantial man with a placid facial expression she didn’t recognize.
Then she found out tranquilizers had nothing to do with it.
Violet invited Genny and three other women to join her at the club for lunch, something she’d only been allowed on the special occasions Tolly felt warranted the expense. She ordered champagne and toasted the afternoon of shopping they’d planned.
Juliet Horne, Junior League President, took a sip and told Violet, “You look more beautiful than ever. I don’t know quite what it is, but you’re lit up like a thousand dollar chandelier.” She eyed Violet carefully. “Oh my gosh, you’re not pregnant, are you?”
Genny shifted uncomfortably, aware that Violet couldn’t have children but unsure what to say.