I was right about one thing. The street address was unnecessary. Letty’s house glowed with candles in every window, like a New England Christmas. She’d planted an enormous memorial wreath of red carnations in the middle of her lawn, lit in the dusk by the glare of a portable spotlight, its orange cord snaking across the grass. A white ribbon with CAROLINE splashed in glitter stretched across the front of the wreath. A plastic gold cross, about twice the size of a priest’s, dangled from the top.
I twisted the doorknob, hoping to sneak in, and found myself in the entrance hall, struck dumb by a giant framed color photograph. Not of Letty’s children. Not a family portrait. A blown-up, professional head shot of Letty in better days. Misty hadn’t lied. The old Letty reminded me of a prettier, more feminine Cameron Diaz. Three candles flickered on the table underneath the portrait. The real memorial.
I followed the cacophony of voices to the back of the house, noting that Letty’s interior design didn’t match her flashy wardrobe. Tasteful but dull, and Letty was neither. She had handed someone a blank check and stayed out of the way. It felt light and airy, with creamy walls, flowered and paisley upholstery, and generic fine prints.
I stopped short at the entrance to the family room and kitchen. The atmosphere was electric, almost frenzied. The loud, dissonant sound of an orchestra warming up-only, the violins and bassoons and clarinets were forty women, shoulder to shoulder, chattering chaotically. A killer in their town.
Two sets of French doors led out to a brick patio and a pool filled with floating candles. White, rented folding chairs lined either side of the pool and the grassy area behind it. A small podium with a microphone was set up by the shallow end with a white baby grand piano beside it. The man in the tux on the piano bench appeared rented, too.
None of the guests turned her head to acknowledge me as I veered toward the kitchen. I slipped around to the mosaic-tiled kitchen island, big enough to lay a twin mattress on top and go to sleep, and grabbed a glass and one of the first bottles of wine out of a line of pewter ice buckets. I took a sip of decent pinot, stuffed a boiled shrimp in my mouth, and wondered about the inch-high plastic cups with lids lined up on the kitchen island like tiny party favors.
“Please feel free to take a sample. I’ve just started selling. The company I work for is the Mary Kay of freeze-dried fruits and vegetables. It’s the wave of the future, with terrorists and all.” The woman speaking at my elbow was slightly pudgy, about forty-five, in colorfully striped glasses and a black pantsuit.
She pried open one of the plastic containers to reveal a shriveled collection of dead things. A pea, a banana slice, a bit of carrot. I think I recognized a strawberry. And there was something brown and unrecognizable, like a tiny tick.
“They’ve got a shelf life of ten years. You soak them in water and they jump right back to life.” She picked up a nearby jar of water floating with small objects that looked like something drained out of the garbage disposal. “Would you like a taste?”
“Tammy, I think Letty said she’d give you a few minutes to make your pitch at the end of the service, right? Do you even know this woman’s name?” My rescuer, a schoolteacherish sort, placed her body between Tammy and me, like she was setting a basketball pick, and stuck out her hand. “I’m Letty’s cousin, Lee Ann Womack.”
“You always try to control everything, Lee Ann,” Tammy whined.
“I’m Emily Page, the new chief’s wife.” I thought it might ease things to finally interject. “Nice to meet you both.” This was a new thing for me, identifying myself by my husband’s career, and I had no idea why in the hell I was doing it.
Tammy nodded, irritated, and stalked off. Lee Ann guided me to the center of the family room, where I was instantly mesmerized by the giant wedding portrait of Letty and Harry over the fireplace. Squint a little, and they morphed into Cameron Diaz and Hugh Jackman.
“It’s a shock the first time you see it. You can’t believe it’s her, right? Well, it’s her. Put the bitchy personality you know with that face and body up there, draw on a cheerleader uniform, and you’ll pretty much have a picture of what I had to face every day in high school, not to mention all the torturous Easter dinners. But life’s a wicked little bastard. I got my master’s in library science from Harvard and she got Harry and an addiction to high fructose corn syrup.”
Before I could figure out my response to that, screeching feedback from the microphone outside sliced through the room like a dying cat. I plugged my right ear with a finger, because I held the wineglass in the other hand and there was no immediate place to put it down. Letty was visible through the open door to the patio, decked out in black evening pants and a black sequined top. She was teetering on seven-inch heels gallantly struggling to support her body mass. She grabbed the podium and thumped the microphone with her finger, making things worse, which seemed to be her self-assigned role in life.
“Ladies! Please be seated so we can begin.” The pianist hustled to work on the microphone, and in a few seconds worked it down to a soft, bee-like buzz.
The women streamed expectantly to the patio, a herd of clomping, designer heels. Caroline couldn’t have planned the drama better herself. Two young Mexican women at each of the double French doors handed us programs with a fifteen-year-old glamour shot of Caroline on the front along with her date of birth and death. High-gloss paper. Raised, gold type. Caroline was only fifty-two. She seemed so much older. The matriarch. The Queen.
I sat in the first open chair I came to, on the aisle on the far side of the pool, and quickly glanced inside the program. Letty had listed me as the fourth and last speaker. Emily Page, Wife of the Police Chief. I tried to tamp down my irritation. This was printed way before she ever picked up the phone to invite me.
My only consolation: The program listed Gretchen Liesel as Primary Eulogist. Maybe she’d run over her time limit. Maybe she’d inspire something in me. I had no idea what I was going to say. I didn’t recognize the names of the other two speakers. Letty planned to sing a solo to close things out. “I’ll Fly Away.” I had a feeling it would no longer be one of my favorite gospel hymns by the time the evening shut down.
“We are here to mourn our great friend Caroline Warwick.” Letty’s voice boomed across the yard. “Let us open with a moment of silence.” The crowd bowed their heads low.
“Hey, Letty,” someone called from the back. “We hear that Caroline found out you aren’t really descended from the General.”
“That is a lie,” Letty said calmly, head still bowed. “This is not an appropriate place to talk about things like how you blew my husband at my daughter’s middle-school prom.”
“Show some respect, y’all,” urged the tall woman sitting directly in front of me. “Take your bitch fight to Twitter, where it belongs.” She turned around and whispered to me, “This is why Yankees like you think Texans are lunatics.”
“I don’t think that at all,” I murmured. I just think Clairmont women are lunatics.
The crowd was babbling, moving in their chairs like restless hyenas. All those secrets, ready to explode. Caroline’s real legacy.
Gretchen hopped up out of her chair in the front row. She nudged Letty away from the microphone, quickly adjusting it, turning it down.
“Thank you, Letty.” She stared at her pointedly. Letty hesitated. Then she tottered away from the podium, back to her chair. “Everybody sit down. Shut up.”