I tugged a sweater over my head and went down the hall without pants, going toward the back of the house until I reached Denise’s room, where I ducked under a thatch of black tape. I hoped they were there, what I was looking for, but if not, I knew where to buy them.
“This is a multivitamin Denise used to take,” I said to Tina when I came back into the room. “To help her hair and nails grow. She really needed it after her last breakup with Roger. She got so thin. Thinner than she got on any of the crazy diets she was always trying—not that she needed them, but she weighed herself multiple times a day and would panic if she gained as much as an ounce. It stressed her out so much, her hair started to fall out. She found this woman here, some sort of holistic person, who gave her this. I don’t know how it works, but it does. Denise had the best hair in the whole sorority.” I tossed the bottle underhand to Tina, who caught it in the cradle of her arms.
“Have you ever heard of anorexia?” Tina asked, examining the label on the bottle.
“The thing where women starve themselves?” I said in a dubious voice, shimmying a pair of jeans up my legs. “That wasn’t Denise,” I said naively. “She was just really careful about what she ate.”
Tina pressed her lips together, saying no more. Many years and Lifetime movies about the subject later, when eating disorders were so ubiquitous that my own daughter briefly battled one, I’d realize Tina had stopped herself from explaining to me that Denise was suffering from one too. That she’d spared me from thinking about Denise in any more pain than she’d already been in at the end of her life. Tina twisted the top off the bottle and spilled some of the thick white tablets into her palm, examining them more closely. “Thank you,” she said. “I’ll definitely give these a try.”
“No,” I insisted. “Thank you. I never would have gotten all of this done on my own.” I reached for a hairbrush on the vanity near where Tina sat, and we made eye contact in the mirror. “And I want to say I’m sorry, Tina. For the things I said at the hotel. What I implied about your character. You’ve got it in spades.”
Tina smiled at me in the mirror. “I’ll have you know this is a very satisfying moment for me. I live to prove people wrong.”
I raised my eyebrows agreeably. “I know exactly what you mean.” We shared a laugh. I started for the door as I dragged my brush through my wet hair. “I don’t want to keep you any longer.”
“You’re sure?”
“The girls are supposed to arrive around five. I’ll survive the next fifteen minutes on my own.”
Tina nodded. All right then. I walked her down the stairs and to the front door.
“Call me if you need anything,” Tina said.
“I’ll let you know when I hear from Carl,” I told her.
Tina and I nodded at each other in this professional way that didn’t suit the new bounds of our relationship. Which was what, exactly? Not friendship. What we had was sturdier than that, able to sustain a sort of acrimony that friendship could not.
It was more like sisterhood, I realized, than anything I’d experienced under this roof. Because I hadn’t chosen Tina, hadn’t vetted her like I had members of this chapter, and yet we were fated to go through life together connected by spilled blood. I stepped forward and hugged her. Tina’s hands dangled lifelessly at her sides at first. Later she would tell me she often left places in a rush, trying to spare other women that awkward beat when they wondered if they could hug her without the gesture being misinterpreted. Eventually, I felt her arms hook around me, loosely, as though giving me the option to break free at any time.
* * *
After Tina left, I went into the kitchen to cut the cake and go through the mail. I didn’t even want to think about how many thank-you cards I had to write to all the people who had reached out and offered their thoughts and prayers.
There was a kind note from an alumna in Adrian, Michigan, who told me about the successful pecan sale she had hosted, netting several thousand dollars that she’d donated to her local battered women’s shelter under our chapter’s name. There was a letter from a man in New Hampshire who had read about what happened to us and, citing a statistical increase in violent crimes against women, suggested we speak to our local precinct about hosting a handgun training session for women. If they didn’t have the manpower, he was happy to provide his services. He had an army friend in Pensacola he’d been meaning to visit. Even to that derangement I would eventually reply, thanking him for the generous offer.