I decide to go grocery shopping while it’s still light out, and spend close to an hour and a half at the Mount Shady A&P, walking up and down the aisles, loading up my cart with cleaning supplies and garbage bags, paper towels I find on sale, a stack of frozen meals, a loaf of bread. I listen to the soft rock music playing over the speaker system, singing along with that song about those stupid sailors who won’t marry poor Brandy because they love the ocean more—as if a barmaid and a body of water were mutually exclusive. I’m not sure that I’ve ever found an activity so soothing for its familiarity, the bright lights and normalcy of this place, the lack of strange people staring or stalking. I’d like to stay in the grocery store forever.
The checkout line is pretty long, and it isn’t until I get outside and the voicemail tone dings on my cell phone that I remember that our local A&P, for some strange reason, is a dead zone. I check my voicemail—just one call from Luke, telling me that he and Nora can’t wait to come visit me in two days, something I seem to have forgotten about. “We have so many things to tell you,” he says on the message, and I think, That’s interesting, because I have so many things not to tell you. Will my life be back to normal by the time Luke and Nora get here? Or will I still be waiting for Wendy to call? I never activated voicemail on the burner, but I do check the texts—nothing from Wendy since the two ampersands this afternoon. It’s five p.m. and the sky’s a darkening lavender—the last gasp of sunset, twilight starting to bloom.
I wonder if Wendy plans on speaking to her sister-in-law tonight, or if she’s saving it for tomorrow. To tell the truth, I’m kind of hoping for the latter. As selfish as it sounds, I could really use one boring night.
THE SKY DARKENS quickly—a matter of minutes, it seems, and twilight has already slipped into night. I’m nearly done unloading my cart when I hear my name called out, and as soon as I look up, Glynne Barrett is slamming her trunk shut and heading toward me, a colorful scarf tied around her hair, a red wool cape flaring all around her. I can’t think of anything more on-brand for Glynne Barrett than wearing a cape to shop for groceries. “Camille!” She smiles. “I was just talking about you.”
“You were?”
“Yes, with Xenia Hedges,” she says. I suppose it’s also on-brand for her to call her ex-wife by her first and last name. “She’s thrilled with your designs, really.”
I smile back at her. “I’m glad,” I say. “I like Xenia. Thank you for recommending me.” Then I wait.
“I also wanted to tell you, Camille . . .”
Here we go . . .
“I’m sure you’ve heard the news.”
“About Harris Blanchard.”
“Yes.” She puts a purple leather-gloved hand on my shoulder. “You must feel vindicated.”
“I haven’t been paying that much attention to the news, Glynne.” I take a step back. Her hand falls away. “And I’ve never had any need to feel vindicated. I’ve always known what he was and that’s enough.” It’s a lie. But it still feels good to watch her face flush as I say it.
“I’m so sorry about the way I was after the Brayburn Club. It’s obvious you were in great pain, and I was . . . Well, insensitive is probably too kind a word.”
“That’s okay,” I tell her, and it isn’t a lie this time. So much has happened in these past few weeks, what happened at the Brayburn Club feels like decades ago, when I was a different person, when I had never killed anyone intentionally and I truly was in great pain every day of my life. How things have changed since then, and for better or worse, I have the collective to thank. “Really.”
As I load my last bag into my trunk, I spot a car two spaces away, its dome light on, someone behind the wheel. The dome light switches off, then on, then off again, and I hear another car pulling away behind me. I whirl around as a small black car—is it a Prius?—screeches out of the parking lot, and when I turn my attention back to the dome light car, its headlights switch on.