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1
GHOST
Through the wall of bedroom windows, Quinn looked down on the polished sports cars, oversized SUVs, and black sedans that, once again, lined the circular pea stone drive. Just like after Harris’s funeral thirteen months ago, wisps of cigarette smoke from the waiting chauffeurs wafted up and in through the screen. Beyond the narrow private road at the end of the drive, dunes held fast to their beach grasses, cleaved by the rickety boardwalk that led to the sea. Twilight infused the peach and lavender sky with a streak of red where it met the Atlantic.
She should join the guests downstairs, at least for a while, although all she wanted was for this evening to be over. But she had consented a few weeks ago, and she did not want to disappoint Leigh.
The disaster now occupying the main floor of her home had all been her agent’s idea. Leigh, who had become a close friend in the fifteen years she represented Quinn, originally proposed some kind of “life celebration.”
No way.
In a few months, or years, perhaps, but not now. Instead, she agreed to a small, informal get-together for wine and cheese. “All you’ll have to do is put on something that’s not those yoga pants and come downstairs,” Leigh had said.
How that translated to a catered, strolling affair for forty and a jazz ensemble, Quinn was not sure. One thing was clear: Leigh was on a mission to drag her out of the deep, tarry funk of grief that mired her and, among so many other things, kept her from finishing her next book.
She descended the back stairs to the kitchen, nodding at the caterers arranging tapas on rustic olive wood trays. If she emerged from the kitchen rather than from the direction of the winding main stairway, the guests would assume she had been among them the whole time.
Before leaving the kitchen, she took a small plate from the stack on the counter and put two crackers on it. Then she picked up a bottle of Chardonnay—better, Merlot—and poured a glass. With her hands full, with red wine no less, no one would try to hug her. She had grown weary of so many awkward attempts at comfort and affection.
As she headed from the safety of the kitchen to the living room, trying to keep her gaze downcast, a waving hand shot up from a circle of guests. There was no mistaking that wide band of bangles on the wrist.Leigh.
Although Quinn couldn’t hear the bracelets’ jangle over the Coltrane or the din of conversation, she moved toward it.
“Quinn, you remember . . .” Leigh reintroduced her to their more distant circle of acquaintances. She imagined Leigh rounding them up, calling in favors for this pointless show of support, although all she wanted was to be left alone.Yes, yes, of course I remember. Nods and forced smiles.How nice of you to come.
One by one they moved closer to embrace her—loosely; the wine glass worked like a charm—and pat-pat her back.
It had become familiar, this widow Morse code.Poor thing. Now, time for you to move on. Pat.Because we don’t know what to say to you and it’s getting uncomfortable. Pat.
Women always gave two pats.There, there. Like she was an inconsolable child. Some men would add a third—pat-pat, pat. Two shorts and a long—if you ever get lonely—that would linger awkwardly until she pulled away.
The last person Leigh turned to, the man who had been hanging back coolly, respectfully, Quinn already knew. Jonathan Jaines, Explore Network’sSpice of Lifefoodie travel show host.
The director of the screen adaptation of Quinn’s last novel had brought him in to consult when they shot the movie three years ago. Tonight, bleeding dye from the cocktail napkin around his sweating beer bottle left the swirl of his thumb blue, as if he’d been fingerprinted.
On the inside of his wrist, she spied a simple tattoo:Dare. Four spare characters in handwritten lettering, no decoration, like he had jotted a quick reminder: Pick up milk, eggs, bread.
He didn’t have it when they worked together, she was sure. It was an intense couple of weeks; she would have noticed.
She wondered, what was it he wanted to do—the man traveled the world; he seemed to have a great life—and what was holding him back?
Without a word or a step toward her, he smiled, the skin at the corners of his warm brown eyes wrinkling—eyes that held empathy, not pity. After more than a year, she could discern the two.
His hair had grayed at the temples. His teeth were still bleached for TV and, up close, slightly, boyishly, crooked.
The others around the room noticed her, and they came toward her in the same slow-motion haze she could not shake these last months. As if her body were present but her mind observed from a distance, like she was listening to some audiobook, volume low, one earbud dangling rather than in her ear.
It wouldn’t matter if an earthquake rumbled right beneath her feet—it would probably feel like it was unfolding a million miles away.
And now the guests, their voices distant, asked her questions that were impossible to answer:How are you?What have you been up to?How’s the writing?
Writing. If one day she remembered how to laugh again, she would laugh at this. As if she had written a single sentence since that afternoon.
Already she needed to get away. “Excuse me,” she said to the group but looked at him, the understanding face in the crowd, the one that didn’t feel so far away.
She turned and hurried back to the kitchen, playing a proper hostess rushing to fetch something for a waiting guest. This way, no one would waylay her with more impossible questions.
The door swung closed behind her and she slowed, nodded at the catering staff again, and climbed the back stairs.
