“Work,” Leo said as he began to wheel himself toward the deck’s ramp. “Highly overrated!”
Libby followed him up to the deck, carrying her chair, which she set next to the others. There were still a few minutes before the game. The other guests had brought the chairs to the deck and then left them spread haphazardly about. Libby took it upon herself to organize them so Patti wouldn’t have to.
But as she neared the back of the deck with the last few chairs, a conversation from the lawn caught her attention. Someone—Sherry, she thought—mentioned Gwen.
“Gwen will be a great chair,” she said.
“But I don’t think she knows about Gwen.”
That sounded like Michelle. Who was she? And Gwen would be the chair of what? Libby glanced around to the lawn. The women’s backs were to her.
“What do you think she’ll do when she finds out? You don’t think she’d go off and, you know . . . do something?”
They were talking about her. Libby started toward them, but a hand to her arm stopped her. It was Sam. He took a firm hold of Libby’s elbow and wheeled her about. “That was good brisket, wasn’t it?” he said as he started to move her along.
“Hey! I was going to talk to Sherry and Michelle.”
“Now is not a good time,” Sam said.
“But they said—”
“I heard them.”
“Wait,” Libby said, and put her hand on his arm. “Sam, wait.”
He paused and looked down at her, his eyes swimming with . . . with what— What was that, pity? Did he pity her? Libby’s heart lurched painfully. That was the last thing she wanted, the very last thing. She jerked her elbow from his grasp. “Please don’t look at me like you think I’m going to lose it. Just tell me, is Gwen heading up Leo’s committee?”
“So I hear,” Sam said tightly.
“From who?”
He hesitated. “Leo.”
A barrage of emotions began to cascade through Libby. She’d known Leo since they were children. He was like family; his brother was marrying her sister. Gwen would head his committee? Gwen Spangler, the cheater, the home wrecker? “That’s great,” she said, trying to be nonchalant in spite of the swell of anger she felt in her, the nebulous, indefinable rage at everything and everyone. “So I guess everyone thinks if I join the committee, I’ll come in with golf clubs blazing, huh?”
Sam glanced to where everyone was making their way onto the deck to find their seats for the game. “I don’t know what they think.”
He said it so gently that Libby blanched. “Like hell you don’t.”
His gaze roamed over her face, as if he were debating what he would say. “I think it’s fair to say that people are a little apprehensive around you.”
Libby knew people whispered behind her back, that her breakdown had been the talk of the town. But what had happened had been directed at Ryan—it had never occurred to her that other people would be afraid of her. She suddenly whirled around and walked away from him and into the house.
Patti and Marisol were in the kitchen, tidying things up. “Game’s starting!” Patti said cheerfully.
“Yep. I just need to, ah . . .” To hit something. A brick wall, a face, a truck. She gestured down the hall.
“Bathroom on the right,” Marisol said, absently gesturing in that direction.
Yes, a bathroom, with lots of tile to kick for someone who was about to unravel. Libby walked down the narrow hallway to the bathroom, seething. She had lived in this town most of her life, had been a part of it, making herself join activities just so that she could be part of it. She had always been optimistic and hopeful, ready to start again, to help again. What everyone had known of her was overshadowed by the events of this awful summer and a brief stay at Mountain View. It wasn’t fair. She could not be the only person in Pine River to have lost her composure.
“Libby, for heaven’s sake. Couldn’t you have just called him a few names and been done with it? People don’t forget things like this,” her mother had said on the drive up to Mountain View. “I don’t know what’s come over you. You’ve always been so easy to get along with, but now, all of a sudden, you act like everything is about you, a personal affront to you.”
Libby hadn’t been capable of a protracted discussion with her mom at that moment, but she recalled marveling at how her mother could possibly think that Ryan’s cheating on her could be anything but a personal affront to her.
And once again, her mother had been right—people did not forget golf-club incidents.
Libby walked inside the bathroom, shut the door behind her and locked it, and turned around, barely registering the towels hanging neatly on the towel bar, the toothbrush holder, the two razors on the sink, or the fact that someone had put out some pretty little soaps, as if that would mask the fact that this was a bathroom men shared.