The Guilty One (33 page)

“That I've been lying about my identity? That I used to be a pampered housewife with a stick up my butt? Not exactly,” Maris said.

“But you like him, right?”

Maris didn't want to tell Pet how close she'd come to simply running away. Not just from the possibility of being found out, either, but from the very real risk that she was starting to care about Pet and George and even Norris.

“I guess he's okay,” she said, yawning. “But you'll notice that when I needed a date to make my ex-husband sit up and take notice tomorrow night, he wasn't first on my list.”

Pet beamed. “Well then, I guess you'd better get that beauty sleep,” she said. “Let's do this right.”

AT FIVE FIFTEEN
the next evening, Maris knocked on Pet's door, wearing an outfit she had bought hours earlier at a consignment shop on Piedmont Avenue. It was a bit dramatic for both the season and the event, but Maris had loved the metallic embroidery and passementerie on the gray silk jacket, the precise tailoring of the sheath underneath. She clutched the mother-of-pearl-handled evening bag she'd bought for twenty dollars and waited.

Pet opened the door with a flourish: she'd made an effort too. She was wearing a retro patchwork moto jacket over a white men's undershirt and a pair of black leggings tucked into green suede boots.

“You look fantastic,” Maris said.

“I wasn't sure what the dress code was.”

“For stalking my ex? Hmmm, I think you've hit the nail on the head.”

In the car, sitting in traffic approaching the tunnel, Pet dug into her messenger bag and took out a square foil package. “Okay, before you say no, hear me out,” she said. “You only need a little bit of this. It's really strong.”

Maris glanced at the package, and laughed. “You're offering me a pot brownie?”

“Well, a pot cookie, anyway. But it's legal, I've got a card.”

“Pet, that's a very generous offer, and I'm touched, but I think I need to do this, um, straight.”

“Okay.” Pet tucked a piece the size of a marble into her mouth and tossed the rest back into her bag. “It's here if you change your mind.”

When they arrived at the performing arts center, Pet looked around at the landscaped parking lot, the white-shirted caterers moving among the guests gathered on the stone terrace.

“So, it looks like a nice event,” she said cautiously.

“Indeed.”

“And do we have, like, a plan or something?”

“Now that you mention it . . . not really. The thing is, I used to be on the board of this thing. I know half the people here. We get invited every year. You'd think Jeff would realize that the tasteful thing to do would be to simply send a check, but . . .”

“But you're both broke,” Pet pointed out.

“True. So maybe don't bid up anything in the silent auction, come to think of it.”

“Well, for what it's worth, I think it's brave of you. You got to get back in there, you know? Show people that you're better off without him.”

“I
am
better off without him.”

“So what are they raising money for, anyway?”

“All of this. They finished building this place in 2012, late and overbudget, and they've struggled ever since.” A problem that, come to think of it, would no longer be Maris's concern if she really did leave Linden Creek for good.

“Well . . . do you want to sit here for another hour or two talking yourself into getting out of the car, or do think we can go now?”

Maris sighed. “Look, I want you to know how glad I am that you're here. I really, really don't want to have to face him alone.”

“My pleasure,” Pet said, and Maris opened the car door.

MARIS SPOTTED JEFF
while she and Pet were at the bar getting a drink. He was in a group of people that included the woman who'd replaced Maris as chairman.

“Please, tell me that woman in the blue dress looks fat,” she said, grabbing their plastic cups of wine and ducking behind a decorative column.

“Okay, she looks . . . actually, Maris, to be honest, she looks fine. What do you have against her?”

“Well, first of all, that's my ex in the houndstooth sport coat, standing next to her.”

“Ah. He looks . . . harmless. He's actually kind of attractive, in a low-budget, hot-for-teacher porn kind of way.”

“Hmm. It's just . . . he's talking to
my
friends. I guess this is how it starts. You know, after a divorce. The scramble for the people you knew before. Everyone running for the lifeboats.”

“Were you really close to her?”

Maris wrinkled her nose. “No . . . she has this really annoying habit of looking over your shoulder to see if she can spot anyone more important than you.”

“Then what do you care?”

“I guess I don't. It's just, I don't know, I haven't been that good about staying in touch with people in the first place. And I guess . . . I don't know, I worry that they'll all end up picking him.”

“And you'll be stuck with just me and George and Norris?” Pet stuck her tongue out at Maris. “Yeah, I can see why you'd be worried.”

“That's not what I meant!” Had Maris really been thinking of leaving Oakland without even saying good-bye to Pet? Standing here in her thrift store jacket, drinking sour white wine, Maris couldn't imagine getting through this evening with anyone else.

“Hey,” Pet said, “I think he saw you. Just, you know, in case you were about to try to blend in with the potted plants or something.”

“Oh no.” Maris set her wine down on the nearest cocktail table and wiped her hands on her napkin. “I'm not ready. This was a mistake.”

“Calm down. He's bringing a friend. A wingman. He's probably just as nervous as you.”

Maris stood her ground, working a stiff smile onto her face and pretending to not notice Jeff approaching.

“Maris!”

She looked up in fake surprise. There he was, wearing that damn houndstooth jacket, the one Maris had bought him when he got his current job. She'd picked three shirts and three ties to go with it; Jeff wasn't wearing any of them. He put his hand on her arm and kissed her cheek before she could put up her hands to deflect him. She wished she could wipe away the feel of his lips on her skin, the quick glancing blow of his embrace. Instead, she just smiled harder.

“What a nice surprise. I thought you said you weren't going to be able to make it,” he said. There was something strained about his voice—too cheerful, too effusive. A distinction you'd have to know him to notice.

“Well, it turned out that the evening was free after all. Jeff, I'd like you to meet my friend Petra.”

Jeff glanced at Pet in surprise. What did he think, Maris thought indignantly, that she would come to this alone?

“Nice to meet you,” Pet said sweetly. “Maris tells me such nice things about you.”

“Really?” Jeff's chuckle was even more awkward. “That's so great. Where did you two meet?”

Pet turned to the man who'd followed Jeff and now stood in his wake uncertainly, ignoring Jeff's question. “Hi,” she said, putting out her hand, so that the man had to step forward to shake it.

“I'm Jared, nice to meet you.” He turned to Maris. When he took her hand, his skin was ice cold. “Nice to meet you, Maris.”

Oh
, thought Maris.
This is it
. The moment she'd dreaded from the moment she knew that her marriage was over. “What a pleasure.”

“Alana tells me you're house-sitting,” Jeff said after an awkward beat had passed.

“You talked to Alana?”

“She was looking for you,” he said, a little defensively. “She said you haven't been answering your texts.” If he meant it to be a barb, he hid it well.

“We have plans to meet for lunch tomorrow, actually.”

“Oh. Well. That's good.”

“It was so good to see you, but I promised Joanne I'd talk to her about the program committee,” Maris said. “Pet's interested in volunteering.”

“Oh, of course, of course. We can catch up later.”

“Sure. Sounds good.”

When they were safely out of earshot, Pet grabbed Maris's arm.

“Is there something you want to tell me?”

“What?” Maris said, as innocently as she could.

“For starters, how about the fact that your ex already has a
boyfriend
?”

Maris sighed, and downed the rest of her wine. “Pet. Is it really that obvious?”

“Well, Jeff, maybe not completely. Although I don't think it would have taken me twenty years to catch on. No offense. But Jared? Oh fucking yeah. And the way he was hovering there? Like begging for someone to notice him, but at the same time he wants to kill Jeff for ignoring him? I mean, that's total second-wife behavior. I should know, my dad's on his third.”

“
Second wife
.” Maris felt a little faint as she said the words.

“Oh shit, sorry, was that insensitive?”

“Well, maybe a—”

“Shut up, Mary, I was kidding. Seriously, how long have you known? And why didn't you tell me?”

“Not long, is the answer to your first question. I had my suspicions, but I think the first time I ever let myself know, like
really
know, was actually at Calla's funeral. There were some friends there I didn't know, and Jeff kept . . . he disappeared from the receiving line for twenty minutes to talk to them. I mean, there were, I guess you'd call them clues. Or hints. Going back to the beginning, especially if I knew then what I know now.”

“And the reason you didn't tell me . . .”

Maris looked around the room. “Do you think there's a bar with a shorter line?”

“Don't avoid the question.”

“I'm not, I just—look, Pet, I just, I didn't want to offend you.”

Pet stared at her with her eyebrow raised, amused. “Uhh . . . let me understand. You were worried that I, your apparently only lesbian friend, from what I've gathered from our conversations, would be offended to be introduced to a gay man?”

“Oh my God, no,” Maris said. “And you're not, by the way. At all. I know
plenty
of lesbians. It's just, I don't know, I mean I never
really
asked you if you're gay—”

“I am,” Pet said serenely. “If you really want to take all the mystery out of it.”

“—and I didn't want to be all like, so I have this
gay
ex, because then I thought you would think I was just pointing out the gay part because I thought
you
were gay.”

“Which I am.”

“Right, but—”

“And which, if I wasn't, but somehow you got the impression I
was
, why would I be offended?”

“Oh, I know, that's not what I meant, either, but—”

“Relax, Mary.”

Maris stopped stammering. “Um, so, thank you. Okay. You're the first person who officially knows.”

“Oh, I don't think I'm the first,” Pet said. “Others appear to have blazed the trail. Did he see men a lot while you were still married?”

“I don't think so. I mean, how would I know, right? But even though he's been a dick and even though I kind of wish he'd just die and leave me the insurance money, I have to say that I don't think he knew himself, until pretty recently.”

“I find that hard to believe.”

“Listen, Pet, back in our day we didn't pop out of the womb with our politics perfectly formed,” Maris protested. “A lot of us didn't really know what to think until your generation came along and figured it out for us.”

Pet raised an eyebrow. “Well, what do you know? You actually are capable of humor. Congratulations, Mary.”

“It's Maris, when I'm in Linden Creek. And what are you saying, I'm not funny?”

“You're plenty funny enough. And you know what? ‘Maris' doesn't even sound right out here in the suburbs.”

“How about we find that bar now?” Maris asked, secretly pleased. “This one's on me.”

“The
last
one was on you.”

“Yeah, but I invited you. Hey, how long does that cookie take to work, anyway?”

“You're still nervous?”

“Nah, I just thought it might make these people more interesting.”

“There you go again. You
slay
me. What's gotten into you, Mary?”

“I don't know . . . you know what, I shouldn't have said that. I had good friends here. Really nice people.” And they had been. They'd tried to support her, to be there for her, in all the ways they could think of.

It wasn't their fault that Maris had gotten more solace from the daughter of a junkie and a child-support dodger and a man who looked like a lumberjack and kissed like a . . . like a very, very good kisser.

“I'm sure they are.” Pet put a hand on her arm. “Seriously, Mar, if you want I'll help you make a quick getaway. But you can do this. It's . . . I mean, if you think about it, it's not all that weird.”

Maris gaped. “What about this scenario can you possibly say is not weird?”

“Well, I mean, you guys were together, you broke up, you both moved on. Same old story, tale as old as time.”

“Wait, wait, wait. I didn't move on. I didn't go anywhere. I just stayed in my house, being . . . married.
I
didn't leave.”

Pet's eyes narrowed. “How can you say that? I mean, sure, he went first, but you have to admit you had your eye on the exits. Just because you weren't admitting it to yourself—I mean, come on, the first chance you got, you went way off the grid.”

“So you're trying to say it's just as much my fault—”

“Hey.” Pet elbowed her way to the front of the bar line, and grabbed two glasses. She put one into Maris's hands. “There's no fault, okay? That's not why you're here. That's not why
I'm
here, anyway. Now look like you're having fun and smile your ass off and be charming. Okay?”