The Housewife(81)

That was a year ago.

Me, I’ve started my own catering business. Jo & Do’s Petits Fours. The Do is for Dolores, with whom I have become friends. Even saying it brings me a flush of pleasure. Dolores and I are friends. I have a friend, and her name is Dolores, and she makes the best cupcakes.

If only my sister were here to see it.

Dolores didn’t want a partnership, she just wanted to be an employee, but like I said to her, “Life’s too short for that, Dolores. You’ve been an employee your whole life. You’re a great cook, and so am I, so we’re equal. And that’s all there is to it. ”

And here we are! We rent a store in downtown LA where we make and sell cakes and sandwiches and macarons, and crèmes caramel and chocolate chip cookies. And of course, rosewater, pistachio, and white chocolate cupcakes, our bestseller.

And then, on the side, we cater for functions like weddings and birthdays. We are enormously popular. Our current waiting list for catering is two and a half months.

Dolores is so different now. For one thing, she’s gained weight, so she looks like a normal human being. She looks happy and bouncy, and she is as funny as she was that very first time we cooked together, so that if you walked into our kitchen, you’d hear us cackle ourselves to the point where I’d be crying, catching my breath. And I never cry. I never laughed either, until now. I never knew how to tell a joke, let alone recognize one, until now. And all I think is, if only Debs were here too.

Mikey attends an excellent school, and he loves it. He doesn’t let the fact that he can’t hear stop him. That boy can do anything. Mikey and I have never spoken of what happened in court that day. Why bother? It’s in the past, and Roy is in jail forever, as it should be.





I bought a little house in West Adams and decorated it just the way I like it. The wallpaper has little garlands of roses running through it, and the drapes are light pink with butterflies. The towels in the linen cupboard are all exactly the same size and soft like clouds. And in the bathroom, by the vanity, is a little gold and white ceramic dish in the shape of a shell, with tiny starfish-shaped soaps that exude fig and grapefruit and peppermint scents.

I am taking out a custard cake with blueberries that I’d made for Mikey. He’ll be here later to do his homework while Dolores is at her dance class, and this cake is one of his favorites.

I am setting the cake down on the rack when my doorbell rings. I go to open the door, wiping my hands down my apron.

“You’re early,” I sign, but it’s not Mikey. It’s Detective Bates.

“Detective!” I say, genuinely pleased to see him. “Come in! Come in. It’s so nice to see you!”

The last time I saw Detective Bates was on the last day of Roy’s trial. He took me to a sports bar for a kind of celebratory drink. I’d never been to a sports bar, and I was impressed by the enormous TVs. I resolved to go to sports bars more often.

“I just wanted to tell you how proud your sister would be,” he’d said into his beer that day. I felt a strange sting up my nose.

“You really think so?” I said softly.

“I’m sure of it.”

I clinked my white wine with his glass, and then we talked of other things. He only had another year or so before retirement, and he didn’t know what he was going to do with himself.

We shook hands outside the bar under a thin, barely-there rain, and then he put his hand on my shoulder. “Have a good life, Jodie. You deserve it.”

For a moment, in the sharp light of the bar frontage, I told myself that Detective Bates was my real dad, and the other one had been a pretender, and I was going to reconnect with my real dad, and I would tell him how shit my life had been without him, and he would say, “We can’t change the past, Jodie, but we can make sure the future is good.”

Anyway, I never saw him after that until now.

“To what do I owe the pleasure?” I ask, indicating an armchair.

“I…” He runs his fingers through his thinning hair. Then I notice the plain brown envelope under his arm.

“Please sit down, Detective, you’re making me nervous!” I’d meant to make a joke, now that I’ve become so much better at it, but he doesn’t laugh so I don’t know if I’ve missed the mark, as usual.

He sits on the edge of the chair.

“I made some custard cake, with blueberries. Would you like some?”

“No, thank you. This won’t take too long.”

I perch myself on the edge of the chair opposite, my hands on my knees.

He takes a heavy breath. “I’m retiring. It’s my last day next Friday.”

“Congratulations,” I say.

“I was cleaning up some files, you know, tying loose ends, leaving a clean slate for my successor.”

“Okay…” The back of my neck prickles.

He looks at me right in the eye. “The man who died the night you and your boyfriend, Beau, were driving back from the party… You knew him. You’d met him before the accident.”

I freeze for a split second, then I laugh, throwing my head back. “Of course I didn’t know him! Why would you say that?”

“There was a police report, long before your car hit him.”

“What police report? ”

“There was a complaint filed by your sister.”