“What did she do?”
“Nothing at first,” she said, her thin eyebrows arching slightly over her brown eyes. “She just blew it off as, I don’t know, paranoia. But then she drove his car one Saturday. I don’t remember what for. She found an earring in the passenger seat that wasn’t hers.”
The stupidity of spouses who cheat never fails to amaze me. You always get caught and it always ends badly. Always.
“She called me and told me that she’d found it,” Emily said, still pulling at the napkin on the table. “I said to call him on it. It seemed pretty plain to me. I always liked Randall, but it just didn’t sit right, you know?”
I nodded and sipped at my drink, the ice dancing off the inside of the glass.
She shaded her eyes from the bright explosion of the sunset. “So she did. And the asshole admitted it. No protests, no denials, no misdirection.”
“What did Kate say?”
“She hardly said anything because he promised her it wouldn’t happen again,” she said, the bitterness spiking in her words. “He swore it was just a one-time thing. And she bought it.”
The Kate that I had known wasn’t much for second chances with people. You were either honest with her or you weren’t, and you didn’t get a do-over if you weren’t. But Randall had apparently qualified for a do-over.
“But it happened again,” I said.
Emily nodded and emptied her drink. “Yep. Different girl, same story. Every time she caught him, he’d admit to it, then promise never again, then screw someone else.”
“Why’d she stay with him?” I asked. “She knew he was messing around. That doesn’t sound like Kate.”
“It wasn’t, Noah,” she said, looking at me. “It wasn’t like her at all. But she kept saying she thought this would be the time he’d turn around. She didn’t want to get divorced.”
“Because she loved him?”
The waitress slipped another drink in front of Emily, who seamlessly grabbed it and held it to her lips, soft wrinkles forming at the corners of her eyes as she frowned. “That and she didn’t want to disappoint Mom and Dad. She enjoyed being the golden child.”
The waitress had slid another drink in front of me as well. It was clear from Emily’s tone that she viewed herself as the black sheep of the family. I had never gotten that impression when I’d been around the Criers a decade earlier, but I’d always been on the outside looking in. I wondered if she knew about Kate’s heroin use, but decided against bringing it up at that moment. She’d just buried her sister, and no matter how she viewed her status in the family, shattering Kate’s image might be too much for her to handle right now.
We watched the sun disappear completely, the ocean going from blue to black. All that was left of our view was the noise of the water kissing the base of the bluffs.
“I don’t know, Noah,” Emily said, shaking her head slowly. “I watched her get upset and angry. I became irate with her when she wouldn’t do anything about it. But I couldn’t make her leave him. There was something there and I never figured out what it was.”
“So it was always different women?” I said, focusing on my words, making sure the bourbon stayed quiet.
“Until the end, yeah,” she said, pushing her glass back and forth. “But the last few months, Kate gave me the impression that he might’ve developed a relationship with someone.”
“The impression?”
Emily wiggled her hand in the air. “She wouldn’t come out and say it directly. I think maybe it hurt too much. It was just the feeling that I had.”
“Do you think she knew who it was?”
Emily paused, staring at her glass on the table for a moment. Then she said, “Yeah, I do.”
We sat there, the breeze and fog surrounding us. I felt sorry for Kate, even though I wasn’t sure why. Maybe because I wasn’t able to help her or because it sounded like she’d gotten herself into a situation that she didn’t know how to get out of.
I had sympathy for Randall, too, but for him, I knew why. Because the next time I saw him, I was going to kick his ass.
20
Emily asked me to drive her home because the gin had worked its magic on her. The bourbon had tried to do its thing with me, but I was gallantly fighting it off.
Her town house was in Del Mar, several miles up the coast from La Jolla. We took Torrey Pines Drive north, canopied by the giant trees, past the Scripps Institute and through the UCSD campus, and then fell onto Camino Del Mar, a thin strip of the old Pacific Coast Highway that let us glide right next to the moonlit water.
“When did you buy the town house?” I asked, guiding the Jeep over State Beach.
“Two years ago,” she replied, shifting uncomfortably in the seat. “Nearly got married and then after we called it off, I dumped what little money I had into it.”
“Why didn’t the wedding happen?”
“We both chickened out two days before,” she said, smiling ruefully. “It was the right thing to do. Neither of us wanted to be married. We were going through the motions more for show, I guess. Got caught up in the whole process and then didn’t back out when we both knew we should’ve.”
I changed lanes. “Your mom pissed?”
She laughed and tucked her blond hair behind her ear. “Mom came out of the womb pissed. I have only been able to add to it.”
I remembered Kate having said something similar in high school, but I couldn’t recall her exact words. There was always conversation about how her mom was regularly angry and unsatisfied.
Emily directed me off Camino Del Mar and up Carmel Valley Road to a cluster of stark white town houses perched at the top of a small hill just north of Torrey Pines State Beach. The homes were square and angular, something you might see above the Mediterranean.
“Come in for a second,” Emily said. “There’s something I want to show you.”
I parked the car in the alley next to her garage. We took a narrow and steep set of stairs up to her door, which allowed me to notice that Emily possessed very nice legs.
I told the bourbon to shut up.
Her home was bright and modern. Blond wood served as the floor, an expensive-looking cream rug covering a portion of it in the middle of her living room. A black leather sofa rested against the one wall, affording a great view of the water to the west through floor-to-ceiling windows. A glass table centered the room, two tall bookshelves decorated with books and pictures resting on either side of the sofa.
“Another drink?” Emily asked, kicking off her shoes and heading toward the black-and-white kitchen that opened into the living room.
I knew that I shouldn’t. I already felt awkward, a result of being at Emily’s place and stealing glances at her legs.
“I think I’ve got some bourbon in here somewhere,” she said, opening a cabinet.
Dammit. “Sure. That’s fine.”
I walked to the sliding door. A small terrace extended off the windows, two chairs and a table looking lonely on it.
“This is a great place,” I said, watching the water roll under the moon.
“I bought it from a friend who moved to Boston,” Emily responded, setting two glasses on the kitchen counter and filling them with ice. “She had to get rid of it quick. Only way I could’ve afforded it.”
I walked over to look at the bookcases. Several pictures of Kate looked back at me. One was of her wedding day, Emily the maid of honor. Kate looked remarkable in a brilliant white gown with a matching smile. Randall stood next to her, tall, handsome, confident. It was the first picture of Kate that I’d seen in eleven years, and I couldn’t rid myself of this tremendous sense of loss.
“Here,” Emily said, coming up next to me and handing me a glass. She nodded at the picture. “Seems like a million years ago.”
“I’ll bet.”
“She mentioned you that day.”
I took a sip of the drink, the bourbon smoothing its way down my throat. “Her wedding day?”