Then Marissa’s phone buzzes with an incoming call. She looks at her purse, then back at Matthew. Her face twists as she says, “I’m so sorry. Bennett is over at his friend Charlie’s house and I need to grab this. Just in case.”
She lifts the phone to her ear and listens for a few seconds as her expression morphs. A minute ago, she was gentle and vulnerable. Now, a kind of darkness has come into her eyes. Her moods seem to shift like a body of water on a windy day.
“Wait, I’m here with Matthew. Let me put you on speakerphone. Can you repeat that?”
She lays her phone on the coffee table and a deep voice begins, “We need Matthew to come to the station. We have a suspect in custody and want Matthew to try to identify him in a lineup.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
MARISSA
MARISSA PAUSES AT a stop sign, taking an extra moment to ensure the cross street is clear before she presses down on the gas pedal.
She’s so worn-out that even the extra cup of coffee she gulped this morning barely made a dent in her exhaustion, and though she’s cutting it close in getting Bennett to school on time, she is careful to drive under the speed limit. The last thing they need is another accident.
Back at home, Matthew is still asleep. True to form for her hard-charging husband, he overdid it yesterday afternoon by going to the office for a couple of hours and retrieving his car from the garage, then meeting her at Avery’s for their fifth session. Marissa had suggested postponing it, but Matthew insisted he was fine.
He might have been, but the visit to the police station, even though it was brief, seemed to put him over the edge. She couldn’t recall the last time Matthew had taken a sick day, but he was doing so today.
Matthew couldn’t identify anyone from the lineup. I never saw his face, he explained to the police detective. It appeared to be a random attack. Yet Marissa couldn’t stop thinking about how Matthew’s assailant ignored his expensive watch and wallet filled with cash and credit cards.
The attack felt personal.
“Mom?” Marissa looks in the rearview mirror and sees Bennett playing with his Rubik’s Cube, twisting around the colorful pieces of plastic. “Can we have pizza tonight?”
Bennett’s timing is exquisite; ordering out has never sounded so appealing.
“You know what? Maybe not pizza again, but we can definitely get takeout. Let’s check with Dad, too. He’s going to rest at home today.”
Bennett nods. “’Kay.”
She tries to gauge his tone, but it’s hard to decipher how he feels. Bennett knows Matthew got hurt—there was no hiding the bandage on Matthew’s forehead—but they’d simply told their eight-year-old that his father had been in a minor car accident. Revealing Matthew had been assaulted would only have worried Bennett, even though Marissa is sure he would have loved to hear about Matthew’s going to the police station and looking through the one-way mirror at suspects in a lineup.
“I’m going to be late,” Bennett frets.
“No, you won’t. We’ve got ninety seconds until the bell, and we’re just about there.” Marissa pulls into the loop that will take them to the South Entrance, where the third-graders disembark and shake the hand of the lower-school principal.
Then she sees Natalie’s familiar figure striding toward the main entrance.
“Damn it,” Marissa mutters, suddenly remembering the auction meeting she’s supposed to attend this morning right after drop-off. Luckily Bennett is too focused on his puzzle to mention the curse jar.
“Okay, sweetie. Time to get out,” she nudges. “Don’t forget your lunch box!”
“Love you.” Bennett slides out of his seat.
“Love you, too.” She feels the truth of the words down to her bones.
She drives to the visitor parking lot and finds an empty spot, then glances in the rearview mirror and swipes on some lip gloss. She looks down at her leggings and faded sweatshirt and shrugs. They’ll have to do, even though they don’t fit the unspoken uniform of Rolling Hills mothers. Wearing exercise clothes to a parent-run meeting is acceptable, as long as it’s an appropriate brand and doesn’t have mysterious stains, such as the coffee dribbles Marissa sports on her right cuff. She rolls up her sleeves to hide the dark marks and fluffs her hair, wishing she had time to put on mascara and concealer. She feels so washed-out.
She hurries past the construction site of the new STEM building, toward the lower school. Since she wasn’t planning to even enter the building this morning, she has forgotten her parent ID at home. The guard gives her a temporary pass to affix to her sweatshirt, and Marissa strides down a hallway lined with photographs of Rolling Hills students dating back to its first class in 1924, toward the library’s small conference room, where the auction committee is meeting. Just her luck—no other members are in sight.
Just before she reaches the library, her phone vibrates. She checks the screen: it’s Avery. Marissa declines the call. Through the closed conference room door, she can hear the muted sound of chattering, followed by Natalie’s throaty laugh.
Marissa’s stomach tightens as she enters and the heads of the nine other committee members swivel toward her. But instead of stepping into the room, Marissa makes a swift decision: She isn’t going to endure an hour of discussion about the incredible items the other committee members have procured for the live auction—a private tour of the Washington Monument, dinner for six at the Inn at Little Washington, a chance to feed the Amur tigers at the National Zoo—while Natalie presides over it all.
“Morning.” Marissa keeps her hand on the doorknob. “Sorry to interrupt. I just wanted to let you know I won’t be able to join you today, after all.”
Natalie rises to her feet unhurriedly, smoothing her yellow pencil skirt. She has paired it with a patterned silk blouse and alligator-print heels. Her amber-tinted sunglasses rest atop her head, pushing back her shiny dark hair. Marissa wonders if Natalie actually took the time to match the lenses with her outfit.
“Are you sure?” Natalie asks.
“You’re already here,” Dawn adds in the same judgmental tone she used during the boys’ baseball game three days ago.
Marissa forces herself to smile. “Unfortunately, there’s been a bit of an emergency, and I need to get”—at the last moment she decides to swap out the word home—“to my store.”
“Oh, can’t that eager young assistant of yours cover the shop for a bit?” Natalie pushes.
Marissa feels an intense surge of dislike. She doesn’t need to justify her decision to anyone, and she’s not even going to bother responding to Natalie’s last question.
“I’ll see you all soon!” Marissa says cheerfully, closing the door.
As she drives back home, she tries to shake off her dark mood, the result of her brief encounter with Natalie. Marissa is glad she didn’t give Natalie any indication the crisis involves Matthew being injured. Knowing Natalie, she’d probably swoop over with a hearty lasagna or casserole—one loaded with meat and cheeses and calories, the kind that most men can’t resist—then make a point of checking up on Matthew.
Marissa realizes her foot is pressing down harder on the accelerator, and she eases up. She swears she can feel her blood pressure rising. Ever since Natalie moved back to town, Marissa has tried to be a good sport. She looks the other way when Natalie places a hand on Matthew’s sleeve or leans in a bit too close to talk to him. She pretends to not notice when Natalie keeps her eyes fixed on Matthew, all but ignoring Marissa.