Page 12 of Our Little Secret
“Yeah, it was all over school.”
“Does anyone know what happened?”
“No. She just didn’t show up. I mean, I don’t know. That’s just what I heard.”
“Was she with anyone? Did anyone see her leave?”
“I said I don’t know, okay?” When she saw more questions in her mother’s eyes, Marilee added, “I don’t hang out with her. We’re not really friends anymore. All I know is that yesterday my phone blew up about it.”
“Do you have any idea what happened to her?”
“Geez, Mom, I already said, I don’t know! No one does.” And with that she was out of the car, opening the back door, and grabbing her bag before heading through the garage and up the stairs, past the laundry room to the main floor.
Disturbed, Brooke decided to let the subject drop. For now. Carrying the dry cleaning and her near-empty cup of the melted iced coffee, she followed.
She expected to be greeted by the scents of roasting chicken or the tang of spaghetti sauce because it was Neal’s night to cook, but she was disappointed to find him staring at his laptop on the kitchen table, reading glasses on the end of his nose. A half-drunk glass of white wine sat nearby.
As she walked into the room, he nonchalantly closed the computer.
As if she wouldn’t notice.
Shep, their mutt, who appeared to have some golden retriever mixed with a bit of German shepherd in him, had padded after Marilee into the hallway to the staircase but now came flying into the kitchen, toenails clicking wildly on the hardwood. The dog greeted Brooke as if he hadn’t seen her in years. She leaned forward and scratched his ears as he wiggled at her feet. “No dinner?” she asked Neal, hearing Marilee’s footsteps squeaking on the stairs to the upper floor.
“I thought we’d order pizza.”
She hung the dry cleaning on a door hook near the stairs. “We had pizza on Saturday.”
“But we discussed this,” he said. “This morning.”
Vaguely, she remembered him saying something about Alphonso’s as she’d stepped out of the shower. But she’d been distracted, thinking of a call from Gideon late last night suggesting they meet. At the time she hadn’t cared.
From the upper floor, Marilee called down, “I like pizza.”
Neal glanced toward the hallway where the stairs curved upward. “Funny what she can hear and what she can’t.”
“I heard that!” their daughter called back.
“See?” he said to his wife, then, more loudly, “Pizza it is!” Neal smiled, one side of his mouth lifting in his beard-shadowed jaw. Pushing forty, he was still handsome, with the same jet-black hair and blue eyes he’d passed on to his daughter. His features were bolder than Marilee’s, of course. Their daughter had inherited Brooke’s oval face and slim nose. “You have a problem with that?” His eyebrows arched in question.
“Nope. But get a half-and-half, okay? Not all meat lover’s. Add veggies to one side.”
“She won’t eat ’em.”
“I know, but . . . try. And you’re on for ordering and picking up.”
“Or delivery. From Alphonso’s? Let’s see,” he said and pulled his cell from the pocket of his jeans. “I’ll get a salad too.” He looked up at her before he punched in the preset number. For a second she remembered him as he was sixteen years earlier, handsome in a rugged sort of way, his jawline more defined, his physique slimmer, but the sparkle in his eyes just as mischievous. One side of his mouth tended to lift in a smile that was nearly conspiring, the are-you-thinking-what-I’m-thinking look she’d found so endearing.
“Or delivery,” she agreed.
As Neal made the call, she walked to the refrigerator, found a half-drunk bottle of Chardonnay and retrieved it. Pouring herself a glass, she heard Neal call out, “Anchovies?”
“Fine,” she said, loud enough for him to hear, then recorked the bottle.
“Ugh! No!” Marilee called from somewhere upstairs. “Yuck!”
Brooke stepped onto the back deck and drank a long swallow. She thought about sneaking a cigarette from her secret, only-for-the-worst-catastrophes pack hidden in the fake birdhouse on the rail, but decided against it even though today certainly qualified as a disaster. Still, it had been a few months since she’d lit up, and she winced when she thought of that moment.
The morning after her first tryst with Gideon, when she’d crossed the line from faithful wife to adulterer. At that thought she almost caved and scrabbled in the dusty birdhouse for her lighter and a Marlboro Light. She should never have given in to him; she’d been a fool. Yes, she and Neal had talked of divorce, and he’d moved out for a few weeks, but still . . . Marilee.
