Well . . . maybe not sales calls.
“You have to be honest with him, Lill. This is a big deal.”
No, Sam was wrong about that. Mike hadn’t been honest with me for months, maybe a year. He’d always wanted separate finances, so we had them. He’d wanted separate lives, so we lived them. I had enough in my savings account to cover my half of the bills for a year, which was plenty of time for me to find another job. So why did Mike need to know what had happened? “Sam, I swear on my child’s life, if you tell him, I will strangle you with that stupid necklace you’re wearing.” I glared at him.
He laughed. “It’s a bolo tie.”
“It’s ugly.”
He ignored the insult. “Mike’s not stupid. And look, I hate to say it, but we’ve got to leave if I’m going to make my appointment.”
Right. Because he had a job. Still had a job. Unlike me, who should have spent the day writing the Clark and Dentlinson obituaries, which were due by two. Who would write them? Janice? Screw her. I let out a sob and Sam’s shoulders sank.
“Come on, Lillian. You have to pull yourself together.”
“I’m fine,” I protested hotly, even as my voice cracked and broke on the words. “Just give me my purse and we’ll go.”
He rose. “I’m sorry. I would cancel my meeting, but it’s with the pier project.”
The pier project? A good friend would have some idea of what he was talking about, but I was blank. I worked one foot, then the other, into my pants.
Okay, I could do this. I just needed to get to my car and get to Fran and find out what was going on.
That brilliant plan stalled out in less than fifteen minutes, in the parking lot of Perch. I sat in the passenger seat of Sam’s car and went through my purse contents for a second time. Shit. My keys—a giant round ring packed with tools and mementos—weren’t there.
“This is crazy,” I mumbled, my anxiety rising. “My keys are missing.”
Sam looked toward the bar, which was closed until dinner. “Think you left them in there last night?”
“I doubt it.” I groaned. While Mike always considered me to be absentminded, the truth was, I was fanatical about my keys and my purse and had never lost either. “Do you have time to take me home? I have a spare set there, and I can get a taxi to take me back here.”
“Sure, it’s on the way.” He shifted into drive and waited for me to fasten my seat belt. “By the way, I told Mike you were staying at my place. Last night, I mean. I called him after I picked you up.”
Ah. The mystery of why Mike hadn’t reached out to me was solved. I should have known that Sam had reported in—he and Mike were bosom buddies when it came to taking care of me. “You should have just taken me home.”
He chuckled and pulled forward. “Yeah, you were not down with that idea, and you know I always follow drunk Lillian’s instructions.”
“Drunk Lillian has not made an appearance in quite some time,” I defended myself. When I did used to get drunk—and there had been a period, a few years ago, when I had gone through a bit of a phase—my personality had certainly harshened under the influence of alcohol. I didn’t believe it until Jacob filmed me, sputtering and bossy in the kitchen one night, insisting that brownies must—from that point on—be made with miniature M&M’S, an opinion I was pushing as if it would change the course of our lives. I’m serious! I kept saying. Stop agreeing with me as if you aren’t taking this seriously! Someone needs to write this down! The video was mortifying. I’d watched thirty seconds of it and then retreated to my room, where I decided to never come out, and to stop drinking.
My self-imposed isolation had lasted for a few hours at best—and within a couple of weeks, I resumed my regular schedule of wine and cocktails. But I’d avoided getting too drunk. At least, until last night. And blacking out—well. That was a first for me.
As Sam’s SUV hummed down the road, I refreshed my email, hoping to see a “haha, I’m just kidding” email from Fran. Instead, I got an error message, stating that my email login credentials were wrong.
Already, I was out in the cold.
Sam pulled into our front drive and parked in front of the Tudor-style garage doors. He handed me his copy of our house key, and I let myself in, then ran the spare back to him. Jacob was at school, so I stripped in the laundry room, then jogged up the carpeted stairs and straight into our master bathroom. Using extra apple-scented shampoo, I washed my hair, conditioned, and rinsed well, squeezing out the excess water before I wrapped myself in a fluffy yellow towel and stepped out.
As I dried off, I reassessed and solidified my decision to keep my job loss from Mike. I worked from home already, so he wouldn’t miss me heading into an office, and I could fill the time normally spent in interviews and obituary creation in other ways—like figuring out what to do with the rest of my life.
Thumbing through the hangers, I pulled out a lilac pantsuit normally reserved for weddings and the occasional church event. This seemed like a worthy occasion to dress up for; I just wished I knew if there was something I was going to be apologizing for.
I put on a pair of pearl earrings and pulled my wet hair into a low bun. Maybe I should write a novel. Something about a scorned wife who hunted down her husband’s mistress. Research would be required, of course. I grinned in the mirror, then watched my smile crumble as a wave of emotion hit me. God, what was I going to do for work? Newspapers and magazines were laying off writers right and left as internet blogs took over, subscribers opting to read their news for free and online. Paper newspapers were, as one millennial had told me (while sipping from a paper cup), like . . . the most wasteful thing ever. She predicted they would be outlawed within five years, and I wasn’t entirely sure she was wrong.
I considered heels but didn’t want to tower over Fran, who could be a little sensitive about her height. Pulling on a pair of gold-and-tan flats, I headed downstairs. The spare key to my Fiat was in the kitchen drawer, next to ones for Mike’s and Jacob’s cars. I pocketed it and flipped through the rest of the drawer, seeing what other replacements I could pilfer. There wasn’t anything else of use, so I shut the drawer and then scheduled a ride pickup. Four minutes away.
Going out front, I brushed the dust off one of the rocking chairs on our shallow front porch. Pulling it to a spot in the sun, I opened my Twitter account and stared at the @themysteryofdeath account.
There was a riddle still outstanding. A mother, her son, and her husband were all at home on a quiet night, and one of them had died. In last night’s eventful evening, I had neglected to leave a clue, and the thread had exploded with theories and opinions. I should give them something, some subtle hint that the mother is the one who dies, but it seemed too fitting, with my termination email fresh in mind, to give the hint I had originally planned, which was that the wife had recently been fired.
Still, my creative energy was too low for deviation, so I typed out the clue, then posted it.
Maybe it was time for @themysteryofdeath to die. I couldn’t see continuing it, without my job, which sparked the ideas and gave me access to the Times database of obituaries and news. And after all, keeping it up would be like clinging to my old career in that way, which was a little pathetic, right?