Page 13 of Saltwater Secrets
Gina poured them two glasses of what looked like very expensive whiskey. “What should we cheer to?” Gina asked. “To your summer in the city? To your breakup? To you dating people who actually matter in the future of your life?”
Aria had very briefly mentioned her breakup but hadn’t gone into detail about how messed up she was. For all Gina knew, Aria had had a passing fling with someone.
Aria tried out the truth, for a second, just to see how Gina would handle it. “We lived together. Me and Thaddeus. We broke up at our house, like the one we shared for a long time.” So many memories in that house! Aria had let herself believe they’d stay there so much longer.
Gina didn’t flinch. Maybe working in the field she worked in meant faking your emotions, regardless of what you felt on the inside. It wasn’t a life Aria had any interest in.
“Did you think you were going to marry him?” Gina asked. Aria couldn’t tell if she was serious.
Aria said, “Yeah, I did.” It was the truth.
Gina threw her head back and laughed again. “Well,” she said with an ironic shrug, “if there’s anything else we can learn from Philip Wagner, it’s not to trust the sanctity of marriage, huh?” She raised her glass. “Maybe that’s what I’ll cheers to! To never trusting anyone.”
Aria furrowed her brow with alarm. The night had gone off the rails. But before she could make an excuse and get Gina out of there, before she could find a way to the bed that awaited her upstairs, a bed she’d put fresh sheets on earlier this afternoon, her cell phone rang.
It was her mother.
“Honey, are you sitting down?” her mother rasped, fear laced through her voice. “I have something to tell you. It’s serious.”
Aria’s heart pounded. She wasn’t sure how much more anxiety she could take.
Chapter Seven
It should have been a typical day. In fact, it had all the makings of one. Hilary had woken up, said goodbye to her daughter before her big departure (a departure Hilary was already starting to regret agreeing to, although it wasn’t up to her to agree to anything in her twenty-three-year-old daughter’s life and she knew that), gone to Pilates, and then showered and driven immediately to Dorothy Wagner’s to get started on the next stage of her home’s big design. When Hilary had arrived, Dorothy was in brilliant spirits, wearing bright red lipstick and gossiping lightly to Hilary about things both current and past. More than that, she had all kinds of opinions on Hilary’s ideas for the parlor, kitchen, and exterior veranda. Most of them were good opinions, joyous ones. “It’s like you peered into my mind and saw exactly what I wanted!” Dorothy cried.
Hilary worked dutifully, pausing only briefly for a salad lunch she’d packed from home and to call both Marc over in San Francisco and Aria, who’d reached Greenwich Village safely. Aria only said, “This place needs a lot of work.”
After she’d described more of what the brownstone was like, Hilary had laughed and said, “It sounds like it’s a museum.” She wouldn’t let Dorothy hear her say that, though.
At around five thirty, Dorothy went upstairs to take a brief nap before dinner. She’d insisted that Hilary stay later than normal, saying that Hilary had an empty nest this week anyway. Hilary had the sense that Dorothy was terribly pleased to have her around, as though Dorothy imagined she was a daughter of hers or a niece.
It struck Hilary as odd that she couldn’t remember if Dorothy Wagner had children of her own. Hilary couldn’t recall her mother talking about them. She couldn’t remember any of them in any of the photographs she’d spotted hanging in the house.
At seven, the typical time Dorothy descended the staircase to meet Hilary for dinner, Hilary washed her hands and put away her work things and sat in the parlor. Because Dorothy had told her to make herself comfortable, when the clock hit five minutes after seven, she poured herself a drink and went out on the patio attached to the parlor to watch the sunlight play across the cap of the waves. She itched to call Aria again, just to hear her voice and be reassured that everything was going all right. Aria had mentioned she might reach out to a friend from college tonight, someone she knew in the city. Hilary prayed she would. She didn’t like the idea of Aria being alone in the Big Apple like that.
By seven thirty, Dorothy still hadn’t made an appearance. Although this wasn’t like her, Hilary assumed she’d slept a little bit later than usual. Slightly jittery and wondering if she should just go home and make popcorn and watch a film, Hilary finished her drink and went inside, hoping to find one of Dorothy’s maids. When she couldn’t, she went upstairs herself, calling Dorothy’s name.
“Dorothy? Are you feeling all right?” Her voice echoed down the hall.
It was only when she reached Dorothy’s bedroom door that she had a horrible thought. What if Dorothy were no longer alive? Hilary tried to brush off the idea and tell herself thatDorothy was just in the bathroom or changing her clothes. But when she knocked on Dorothy’s bedroom door several times, it struck her that this was not normal. Fear shot through her.
What if something terrible had happened?
Hilary was not exactly squeamish. She knew that life was a complicated thing, and bodies were temporary vessels that inhabited the soul. But she also had grown really fond of Dorothy over the past week or so. The thought of opening the door to find Dorothy dead suddenly terrified her. Tears spiked her eyes.
Hilary hurried back downstairs and out into the driveway, searching for the valet who’d taken her car. She found him soon after, watering a stretch of lush lawn, his hands on his hips and his chin tilted toward the sky. He looked so pleasant that Hilary almost didn’t want to interrupt him.
“You have to come inside,” she said, her words fumbling too quickly so that he didn’t understand her. “Please,” she begged, repeating herself. Finally, he got the hint and followed her inside, up the stairs, and all the way to the bedroom door, which remained closed.
What they found behind it was exactly what Hilary had feared.
Dorothy Wagner had died in her sleep. She was peaceful, as though she’d just drifted off, her eyes closed and her lips parted slightly. Hilary’s chest heaved, but she made no sound. The valet driver knew immediately as well and backed out of the room, closing the door behind him. He said, “I don’t know what we’re supposed to do?”
Hilary imagined watching the scene from above. She wondered if Dorothy Wagner herself could see them, wondered if how frightened and nervous they were made her laugh.Life isn’t so serious, she imagined Dorothy whispering down at them.Why do the living have to make it all so complicated?
“I’ll take care of it,” Hilary told the valet driver slash gardener, touching his shoulder.
He looked relieved and more like a teenage boy than an adult.
