Page 31 of The Writer

“Thank you.” She nods toward her bowl. “And thank you for the soup. You must have a sixth sense or something. I’ve been too down to cook a meal, and here you come with exactly what I need.”

“I was just trying to be nice.”

A pang of guilt jars my insides. I wasn’t trying to be nice at all. I was merely investigating, suspicious of April’s involvement. It never occurred to me she was dealing with something so upsetting.

“While you’re here,” she says, standing and walking over to the fridge, “want to share a bottle of wine?”

“Sure.”

For the next hour, we sit at the breakfast bar sipping Sauvignon Blanc. We don’t talk about divorce or kids or writing. It’s all mindless stuff. What television shows we’re watching and new movies we want to see. It seems like a nice way to ease the tension, and by the time I’m ready to leave, I’m confident April is in a much better mood than when I arrived.

“We should do this again,” she says as I’m putting on my coat. “Outside of the Mystery Maidens. When we’re together, all we talk about is writing. It would be nice to get to know the other parts of each other’s lives, too.”

“I agree,” I say, realizing her sentiment echoes the one Danielle made earlier tonight. Maybe I’m at the point in my life where I should finally start letting people in, but then I think of the black hearts, I remember what I came here to find out, and the thought flies away.

“About Chase,” she says, hesitantly. “Don’t mention it to the others.”

“I promise I won’t.”

“I’ll tell them, eventually. Right now, it just feels so embarrassing. Did I tell you he cheated on me with a girl I knew from college?”

“You’re kidding,” I say, shaking my head. “One of your friends?”

“In all fairness, we’re not friends now. We used to party together, ages ago. Still, who would have thought the girl I downed tequila shots with would break up my family?”

April tries to sound funny, like the situation is ironic, but I sense the hurt behind her words. My own stomach turns just imagining. “People change, that’s for sure. Never know what to expect.”

“Tell me about it.” She pours the last of the wine into her glass and leans back. “The worst part of it is I have to see her face every time I go on the highway.”

“What?”

“You know that realtor sign on I-40? That’s the girl.” She drinks half the glass in one gulp. “The biggest slut at WU turned Whitaker’s celebrity realtor.”

I turn quickly so April can’t see the reaction on my face. The realtor on that billboard is Crystal, my roommate. She’s the woman who broke up April’s marriage? A wave of dizziness puts me off balance as I realize more areas of my life are intersecting.

“That is awful,” I say, voice shaking. “How did you find out it was her?”

“Let’s just say I found messages between them,” she says. “Worse than the smut I read in my spare time.”

I smile weakly before returning to my car, my head swimming with new information. Crystal and April are connected through Chase, and both have ties to me. Worse than that, they’ve known each other since college. I knew April had attended WU, but I’ve never put together she was there at thesame time as me. If she was acquaintances with Crystal, she would know about what happened ten years ago.

The idea that April has a connection to me I didn’t know about is unsettling. Could she have been watching me this entire time? In April’s quest to learn more about her husband’s mistress, could she have uncovered something about my past? I try to recall our interactions over the past year, but the mystery only becomes more tangled in my mind.

I crank the ignition, ready to head home. Yet, as I drive in the direction of downtown, I can’t help wondering about how easy it was for April to hide her ordeal from the rest of the group. If you were to ask any of the other members, they’d assume she is happily married, the calm and collected Supermom of your Instagram feed’s dreams, just like I did.

She’s been struggling for months but was able to hide it.

How easy would it be for her to hide something else?

SEVENTEEN

I hurry home, hoping for a chance to confront Crystal before she goes out for the night. To my surprise, she’s waiting on me in the kitchen when I arrive.

“Get dressed,” she says, tossing something at me as soon as I walk in the door. “We’re going out.”

The mesh fabric is soft and luxurious against my hands. It’s obviously a dress from her closet—nothing I own is that delicate or stylish. I look at her, confused. “Why?”

“There’s something I want to talk to you about,” she says, her skin glowing. “And I think it’s best to talk about business in the right location.” She looks around the room, disappointed. “New surroundings.”

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