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Elise changed into one of Wayne’s old t-shirts, drew back the comforter and top sheet (a top sheet! In a bachelor’s house! Was that even possible?) and then slipped herself beneath the comforter. The pillow was much more comfortable than the one back at Willow Grove. Now, probably, it was a crispy mess.
What a day.
Elise closed her eyes and immediately fell into a slumber, thank goodness. When she awoke the next morning, it was seven-fifteen, and Wayne had already headed off for the morning. The bathroom was foggy and muggy from Wayne’s shower. He’d folded up a towel, left it on the toilet, and again, Elise marveled at the thickness of the towel, how fuzzy it was. When she finished scrubbing herself clean, she wrapped herself up in it and made a pot of coffee.
What if I was Wayne’s wife?
What if I awoke and sat on the back porch and watched the horses and listened to the birds and sipped my coffee?
What if I read and wrote and explored the island and kissed Wayne every morning and evening?
What if I was allowed the kind of love I never had with Sean?
They were foolish thoughts.
Elise didn’t belong there.
Like her mother had said, they were California girls, through-and-through.
Still, the thought was nice.
Elise had to put on that green dress again. She made a mental note to go shopping that day (maybe not at Tracey’s boutique?), as much of what she’d brought with her was now burned. This was a pretty funny sensation. As she stepped out of Wayne’s house, she tried to visualize some of the items that had once belonged to her, that was now burnt to a crisp.
She could hardly picture any of it.
It was funny.
Materialism. Fashion. She always would have said it mattered to her. And itdid,really. She loved the way of wearing a new dress or styling her hair differently, or even putting on makeup in the morning made herfeelso much better. It was like putting icing on the cake.
But in actuality, none of it mattered.
When she reached the police station, she received a text from Penny.
PENNY: Hey, Mom! Just checking in. I can make it down to LA again this next week. When were you flying back from Michigan again?
The text felt like it arrived from another world entirely. As Elise struggled with how to write back, Officer Cutler burst out of the station, spilling a bit of his coffee across his uniform.
“Shoot,” he muttered, trying to scrape it off with the side of his hand. “I always do that.”
Elise shoved her phone back into her purse and said, “Me too. Bad habit. All my dresses back in LA have coffee stains on them.”
“It feels like the kind of thing those inventors should have figured out by now,” he said.
“Agreed,” Elise said.
They studied one another for a moment. Elise’s smile waned.
“Oh! You’ve come because of the fire,” Officer Cutler said. “I’m sorry. It was so dark out there last night. Didn’t recognize you at first. Come on in.”
Elise sat in Officer Cutler’s office while he poured her a cup of coffee. On his desk were a number of photos of his children, his wife: some onboard a sailboat, others around a campfire. It was a funny thing when men of his station had daughters and only daughters, like God himself had decided,I’ll give you the most masculine job on the planet—but I’ll force you into tenderness with three darling girls.
“Those are my daughters,” Officer Cutler interjected, as though he could read her mind. “The other night, I was up to my ears in glitter. We were trying to make a new dress for a Barbie. You can imagine, that isn’t exactly my expertise...”
Elise laughed. “Children always get you into the weirdest stuff. I have twins. They’re older now—twenty-one—but I still remember the old days. Trying to learn how to play soccer with my son...”
“I would do anything to play a little bit of soccer,” Officer Cutler said. “But I’ve been given Barbies, and I have to be grateful.”
Officer Cutler lifted a folder from the side of the desk, opened it, and studied what seemed to be a report.
