Slice (5 page)

S
IX

M
onica wasn't happy about this party. Not at all.

“Hurry up, Todd,” she said, calling over her shoulder as she sat in front of her vanity, brushing mascara onto her lashes. “And don't wear shorts. Put on a pair of chinos.”

Her husband was still in the shower. “Why do I have to go at all?”

“Because she's gone ahead and invited the whole damn neighborhood. Everyone will be there. And if you're not, they'll wonder why. And Gert Gorin will start spreading stories.”

“Is that prick Bryan Pierce going to be there?” Todd called, the sound of water splashing against tiles as he moved around in the shower.

“Yes, she's invited Bryan and Heather.”

“Fuck.”

Just why Jessie had invited the guy who'd broken her heart and the former best friend who'd been the cause of it, Monica wasn't sure. Then again, her sister had gotten pretty used to dealing with exes, with Todd living down the hill from her. Monica was pleased that, so far at least, Todd and Jessie had barely spent any time together. Even the day he'd mowed her lawn, he'd barely lingered to talk. There seemed to be no interest on either part to renew even a modicum of the closeness they'd had in high school.
There's been a lot of water under that bridge
, Monica thought. Surely both of them must be glad they didn't end up together.

So far, too, there had been no real problems with Jessie living in Mom's house. She and Abby and that German nanny respected Monica's privacy. The few times they'd come down to the house, they'd called first, and then their visits were always functional and brief, usually to borrow some tools or retrieve items they'd stored in the icebox. Even the frequency with which Jessie had borrowed Monica's car in the first few days after her arrival had tapered off; two days ago, Monica had noticed her sister pull into the driveway in an old Volvo station wagon. “My own wheels!” Jessie had exclaimed, waving the keys at her. She'd bought the car over in Port Chester for two-and-a-half grand. It had some rust and the doors squeaked when they opened, but it ran, and that was all that a bohemian like Jessie cared about. Monica was relieved that she no longer had to worry about her sister borrowing her powder-blue Beemer.

Jessie had also purchased a new refrigerator. It had been delivered last Wednesday by Home Depot, hauled up the hill by two big, burly black men; Monica hadn't been surprised when she'd discerned Gert Gorin peering out her window with her binoculars, watching their every move.

She sat back and inspected her eyes. Then she puckered up and applied a light coating of pink lipstick. She heard Todd shut the water off and step out of the shower.

“Who else did Jessie invite to this thing?”

Monica sighed. “To be fair, it was Aunt Paulette's idea. She's the one who ran up and down the street with invitations.”

“So it's everybody then. The whole freaking neighborhood.”

“Yes.”

“Even—?” Todd stood behind her stark naked, the hair on his head and legs and arms still alive with static electricity after a fierce towel dry. He was pointing over his shoulder with his thumb toward the north side of the house.

“Yes,” Monica said, standing from the vanity. “Even John Manning.”

“Well, he never comes to anything.”

She shrugged. “All I know is that Aunt Paulette went over there with an invitation.”

“Christ.”

“I don't like it any more than you do.” Monica drew close to her husband, running a sharp pink fingernail down the sexy line that divided his torso, down between his pecs and his abs and coming to an end at his navel, like an exclamation point. “Believe me, I'd much prefer to spend this quiet Sunday afternoon all alone with you, just you and me, a bottle of wine and the Jacuzzi. . . .”

He made no response. He stepped over to the closet and withdrew a pair of chinos. “These okay?” he asked.

Monica gave him a small smile. “Fine.”

“Can I at least wear flip-flops?”

“Wear whatever you want.” She herself was only in her bra and panties. She took a glance at herself in the full-length mirror. She might be getting close to thirty, but Monica still looked good. Damn good. “Anything special you'd like me to wear, Todd?”

“What do I look like, a fashion coordinator?” He was pulling on a pair of underwear.

“No,” his wife said. “Not with chinos and flip-flops, you definitely don't look like a fashion coordinator.”

She slipped a yellow-and-white polka-dotted sundress over her head. From the window she could see down to the lawn that stretched between their house and Mom's—or rather, Jessie's—house. The first arrivals were making their way up the hill. Gert Gorin, of course, not wanting to miss anything, charged ahead like a soldier into battle, her husband trudging along listlessly a few feet behind her. Gert carried something in her hands; it looked like a casserole dish. Behind Arthur Gorin walked old Mr. Thayer, stiff and erect like a bishop on a chess set. Mr. Thayer had given Todd his first job on Wall Street. He was very fond of Todd and Monica, and they of him. As usual, even on a warm day like this, Mr. Thayer was dressed in a blue blazer and ascot tie.

Monica took one last glance in the mirror and headed downstairs to join her sister's housewarming party. Todd followed, the sound of his flip-flops in her ears.

S
EVEN

J
essie took a deep breath and opened the door, stepping out onto the front porch to greet her new neighbors.

Of course, they weren't really new. She'd known them since she was a little girl, when she and Monica, dressed up as princesses or Spice Girls, would ring their doorbells, trick-or-treating along the cul-de-sac of Hickory Dell at Halloween time. The Wilsons—Heather's parents—had given out the worst treats: a single bite-size Tootsie Roll wrapped in a Bible verse. The Gorins—even if Mrs. Gorin was the nosiest neighbor of all time—had given out the best: homemade red velvet cupcakes with orange buttercream frosting. The problem was, if you didn't eat the cupcakes right away, they tended to get smooshed in your trick-or-treat bag. So Jessie and Monica had usually wolfed them down and then continued on their way, frosting all over their chins and fingers.

But the world had moved on since those innocent days. Now, as the residents of Hickory Dell made their way up Jessie's lawn, they remembered not the little girl dressed as Sleeping Beauty with frosting on her face but instead the young woman on the back of a Harley, her eyes caked in black mascara and eye shadow. They remembered the suspected criminal the police had interrogated, and the searches across the Clarkson property with dogs and flashlights.

I was innocent then and I'm innocent now
, Jessie thought as she lifted her hand to wave hello to her arriving guests.

“Jessica!” Mrs. Gorin beamed a smile in her direction. “How lovely to have you back in the neighborhood! And where is that darling little girl I glimpsed from the window?”

“Hello, Mrs. Gorin,” Jessie replied, looking down at the round little woman. “Abby is out back with her nanny, firing up the grill.”

“I brought a tuna casserole,” Gert Gorin told her, handing the ceramic covered dish up to her.

Jessie accepted it and grinned. “Thank you so much. Though I must admit that I was hoping you might bring those red velvet cupcakes I remember so well.”

The older woman made a face that looked as if she'd suddenly sucked on a lemon. “I only make those at Halloween time. Can't risk making them more often. You see, Arthur is at risk for diabetes if he doesn't lose some weight.”

“I am not at risk for diabetes and I am not overweight,” Mr. Gorin said, approaching them now, a little out of breath. “Do I look overweight to you, Jessie?”

He did indeed look a little paunchy, but not any more than most men his age; Jessie estimated both Gorins to be in their mid-sixties. “I think you look just fine, but I guess it's good to have your wife watching out for you,” Jessie said diplomatically. “Please, both of you, head around back and grab a glass of punch. I'll be around momentarily.”

She noticed Gert eying the house through the front door. “Don't we get a tour of the place?”

“Oh, sure, in a bit. We've only just started the renovations. Inga is starting on the kitchen—”

“Inga?” Gert's penciled eyebrow arched up at Jessie.

“Yes. Abby's nanny. She's really become part of the family.”

“I see . . .” Gert Gorin said, insinuatingly, as she nudged her husband in the ribs with her elbow. She didn't think Jessie saw, but she did.

As the Gorins headed around to the backyard, Jessie greeted the next visitor up the hill. Oswald Thayer was probably past eighty now, though he was far better preserved than Arthur Gorin. Still slim and trim, with a full head of bright white hair carefully combed and slicked into place, Mr. Thayer wore his perennial white twill pants under a blue blazer with gold buttons, finished off with a bright red ascot tie bulging from a crisply starched, open-collared white shirt. Jessie didn't think she'd ever seen him dressed any other way, except in the wintertime, when his twill pants were gray. A broad smile of dazzlingly white dentures bloomed on his face when his blue eyes met Jessie's.

“Welcome home, my dear,” he said, extending his hand. “Your dear mother and father would be so happy to know you were back in the family homestead.”

“Hello, Mr. Thayer. Thank you so much for coming.” Jessie shook his hand warmly, balancing the casserole dish in her other hand. “And thank you for the lovely flowers. They arrived this morning. They're in the living room on the mantel.”

“I felt flowers were the better alternative, as I don't have Gertrude Gorin's culinary skills in being able to whip up a tuna casserole,” he said, dropping his gaze to the dish in Jessie's hands.

Jessie laughed. “I've never been all that good in the kitchen myself. That's why my daughter and her nanny are handling the grill this afternoon.”

Mr. Thayer had fixed her with a serious look. “I meant it when I said that your parents would be glad to see you here. You know that your father was a dear friend of mine. Rather like the son I never had.”

Jessie smiled. She had never been as close to Dad as she had been to Mom; Monica had tended to be their father's favorite. But she had still loved him, and respected him; they had just been very different sorts of people. Dad had been a banker and a broker, and a Republican; Mom had been a hippie and a poet, and a Democrat. Yet somehow they'd always made their marriage work, right up until the day Dad died, much too young, of a heart attack at age forty-four. Their long, happy, successful marriage had always inspired Jessie, but also intimidated her. She'd never been able to find the kind of relationship her parents had enjoyed.

Monica had, of course.

“I remember,” Mr. Thayer was saying, seeming to warm to his purpose for coming over here today, “something your father once said to me. Your sister was the one he understood best, because she was like him. But you . . . you were the one he most admired. Because, after all, you were just like your mother, the woman he loved.”

Jessie was touched. “Thank you for telling me that, Mr. Thayer.”

“He was a good man, your father. I tried hard to get him to run for mayor of Sayer's Brook. I had the entire Republican Town Committee ready to back him. But then, the heart attack took him from us.” A flicker of moisture appeared in the old man's bright eyes. “He would have been a good mayor.”

“Yes, he would have, indeed,” Jessie said.

Mr. Thayer squeezed her hand. “And now I will make my way around to the back and mingle with the Gorins. I am sure the conversation will be scintillating. That woman knows everything that goes on in this town.”

Jessie laughed, and smiled after him as he walked off. She could see Monica and Todd coming out of their house now, heading up the hill, and in the street it looked like Heather and Bryan and their kids were on their way. Jessie took another deep breath and scooted back inside the house to put Mrs. Gorin's casserole on the table.

For a moment, she wanted to hurry upstairs to her bedroom and lock herself in her room. Jessie looked out the window as the guests assembled in the backyard. Aunt Paulette had walked up from her cottage carrying the big bowl of salad she'd made. The Gorins were greeting Monica and Todd, and Mr. Thayer was kissing Heather on the hand, and clapping Bryan on the back. Everyone had so far been nice to her; Mr. Thayer had even gone out of his way to tell her something nice about Dad. This was going to be easy. No one was going to hold any grudges about the troubles with Emil. That was six years ago now. It was over. Jessie needed to just forget it and move on. No one was blaming her anymore.

But it wasn't so easy to move on.

At least, not from everything.

She'd grown accustomed to seeing Todd in the last week. It wasn't so hard seeing him. After all, their romance had been in high school. They'd just been kids. Sure, at the time, Jessie had been convinced Todd was her true and everlasting love—but she'd been a teenager, and most teenage girls believe their high school boyfriends are their soul mates, even if very few turn out to be so. So Jessie had been able to put some closure on Todd's long-ago rejection of her in favor of her sister. It was Bryan Pierce who still dredged up the raw feelings.

Unlike Todd, who'd become part of Jessie's family, Bryan hadn't been around in the days before Jessie left. He and Heather had been living elsewhere when Jessie had taken up with Emil, and it had only been while Jessie had been away that the happy couple—and their two adorable kids—had moved into the Wilson house on Hickory Dell. So Jessie had maybe seen them just two or three times—and then just fleeting encounters—since college and the heartache of the breakup.

And Bryan held a different place in her heart than Todd. Jessie had really, really fallen for Bryan. She had allowed herself to go so far as to imagine marrying him. She'd been twenty and twenty-one years old when they'd dated, old enough for deeper, more profound feelings than the teenage crush she'd had on Todd. So when Bryan told her he had fallen in love with Heather—the best friend in whom Jessie had confided her hopes and dreams of marriage—it had been a devastating blow. It had left Jessie shattered, and susceptible to the machinations of Emil Deetz.

She looked outside through the window once again. There was Bryan, looking a little older than she remembered him, with his red hair slightly receding at his temples, but really just as handsome as ever. He was flashing that smile of his, and his green eyes still sparkled when he did so. Heather stood by his side, not smiling much, as Bryan spoke with Mr. Thayer, and their two little kids, redheads like Bryan, clung to their father's pants.

Those could have been my kids
, Jessie thought.

But she'd her own kid, and Jessie wouldn't trade Abby for anything, for any other life. For all the pain she'd been through with Emil—and the memory of the callous way he'd slit that man's throat would never fully leave her—Jessie wouldn't change what she had been through. If she hadn't met Emil—if she hadn't slept with him—she wouldn't have Abby. And life without Abby was unimaginable.

Jessie forced such thoughts out of her head. It had been a while since she thought about the twin she'd miscarried, the little boy fetus in the pool of blood—the little boy who had haunted her dreams for so long. For the last couple of years—and especially since she'd learned Emil had been killed—Jessie had been largely free from such haunting memories. Why was she suddenly thinking about the baby she'd lost this afternoon—when she had a yard full of guests to entertain?

She knew why. Those people out in the yard represented her past. They knew Mom and Dad. They knew her secrets. They knew what she had been through. Not just with Emil either. They knew about her heartbreak with Todd and with Bryan, and they all would watch to see how Jessie reacted when she greeted them, their wives at their sides.

Jessie held her chin high and walked through the dining room toward the back door. As she did so, she passed a photograph of Mom. She'd found it yesterday, and slipped it into a frame and hung it on the wall. It was a picture that her mother had given her when she had gone off to college. Jessie had been nervous, afraid she wouldn't be able to handle the workload and the pressures of living away from home for the first time in her life. Mom had found a photo of herself from when she was Jessie's age—seventeen. In the photo, Mom was smiling wide, sporting her mid-1960s hairdo that flipped up at the ends. She wore a little black choker with a heart in the center. And she'd taken a black felt-tip marker and inscribed the photo for Jessie.

She'd signed it,
Love, Mom.

Jessie paused and looked at the photo, rereading the inscription. Then she nodded to herself and headed outside.

She walked straight into the foursome of Monica and Todd, and Heather and Bryan.

“Hello, Jessie,” Heather said.

There was a brief hug between the two women.

“Welcome home,” Bryan told her.

Jessie didn't hug him, but shook his hand.

“Thank you.” She paused. “It's good to be home.”

“You look great,” Bryan said.

His words seemed thick, and pointed, and full of meaning. In that unspoken way Aunt Paulette would have described as psychic, Jessie seemed to sense Heather's discomfort with her husband's observation.

“Jessie always looks great,” Todd reiterated, and this time Jessie felt Monica's discomfort.

“Where are your children?” Jessie asked, directing the question to Heather. She found she couldn't look at Bryan fully. “I thought I saw them a moment ago.”

It was Bryan who answered her. “They spotted the swing set,” he said.

They all looked in that direction. Bryan's two kids were scrambling onto the two swings, leaving Abby just to watch. Inga was with them, supervising it all.

“Piper and Ashton are thrilled to have someone in the neighborhood finally to play with,” Heather said.

“I hope they'll be good friends,” Jessie said.

There was a moment of awkward silence. “Good friends” was a term with some freighted history among that particular group.

“I was pleased to see how well your son and Abby played together the other day,” Jessie said at last, breaking the silence. “Why didn't your daughter come up as well?”

Bryan and Heather were looking at her blankly.

“Your son,” Jessie repeated.

“This is the first time Ashton has been here,” Heather said.

Jessie smiled. “No, actually, he came up the other day. . . . He and Abby swung on the swings for a bit, then walked down to the brook. Inga was with them.”