“Okay?” She didn’t bother to hide her surprise.
“Yes. As long as it’s anonymous.” I held up my hand, anticipating her objection. “I’ll let you use my name eventually—but right now I need your help in eradicating an infestation of unwanted pests currently invading my house. And having a little fun tormenting a particular director.”
Suzy smiled and I remembered that she had reason to intensely dislike Marc, too. But then her lips pursed. “As appealing as that sounds, I don’t really think that I can print just anything—”
“But you already have. Let’s see. . . .” I closed my eyes, then quoted verbatim from the article she’d printed in the Post and Courier that I’d read so many times I’d memorized it. “?‘. . . the cistern excavation at the former Vanderhorst residence on Tradd Street is still in progress, but an unnamed source has told me that there are more secrets hidden there, and there are bets going on in certain parts of our society on whether the owners of the house will be residing together in the house by the time the last treasure is revealed.’?”
I smiled. “And anybody who reads your column knows that you’re not averse to using anonymous sources—as long as it sells papers.”
Suzy reached into her purse and pulled out her phone. “I’m free on Monday morning. Shall I meet you at your office?”
“No. How about Washington Square? I really don’t want my husband or anyone else seeing us together. The park is usually deserted at eight o’clock.” I pulled out my phone from my tiny purse and frowned. “Actually, I also need my desk calendar. Could you please e-mail and text the details to me? And call the receptionist at my office, Jolly, too, just in case. That’s the best way.”
Suzy tapped the information into her phone. “All righty, then. I’ll look forward to it. I hope I’m not being premature when I say it’s about time.”
We said our good-byes, and she left the bathroom looking very pleased with herself.
“What was that about?” Jayne asked.
I put my hand on the door handle and pulled it open. “Come on—we need to get back before the men think we’ve fallen in.”
Jayne followed me out into the restaurant. “Melanie.” Her voice held a warning note. “Are you sure you know what you’re doing?”
“Don’t I always?”
“Do you really want me to answer that?”
I sailed past the other tables toward ours, pretending I hadn’t heard her. The men stood as we approached and we left the restaurant as a group. When Thomas suggested he drop Jayne off at her house to save us a trip, I immediately said it was a great idea and shut down all of Jayne’s arguments.
Yet even as Jack drove us home, I imagined I could feel my sister’s gaze boring into the back of my head. Or maybe that was the old and new versions of Melanie playing tug-of-war with my conscience.
CHAPTER 15
The following Monday, I sat cross-legged on the floor of my closet, the blue light of my laptop screen illuminating the hems of the dresses hanging above it. It was nearly four o’clock in the morning, and I’d been awake for almost two hours. Naturally, that meant I should reorganize my shoes and redo the inventory worksheet by season. I also had a couple of new additions that I’d found still in their Shoes on King shopping bag that I had hidden from Jack, forgetting that he hadn’t been in our closet since he’d packed up his clothes in December.
I stretched my hands over my head, my joints snapping and crackling like a bowl of Rice Krispies, and recalled which thoughts had been keeping me awake. Most of them had been centered around my upcoming chat with Suzy and how I wasn’t planning on telling Jack about it. Regardless of what Jayne thought, I did know what I was doing. I was solving a problem to benefit our family by doing what I knew how to do best without distracting Jack from doing what he did best. I accepted that he wouldn’t like it. I’d simply realized that I had no other options.
My wee hours’ woolgathering had also lingered on the absence of Jack’s wedding ring. I’d considered that what I was attempting to do was a way to get back at him, to show him that I, too, could be independent, able to use my own resources. A lingering thought reminded me that that might have been the root of the problems we were experiencing now, but I brushed that aside to look at later. Because no matter how I tried to examine the situation, I saw the answer to all of our problems as putting Jack’s career back on track. Discrediting Marc Longo was simply a bonus. Whether we worked together or separately, we would pursue the same goal as a team.
Still wide-awake, I flipped over to my Melanie Improvement spreadsheet, startled to realize I hadn’t added anything since Be Nice to Rebecca (Plan Baby Shower). I’d forgotten all about the baby shower, and Rebecca hadn’t called me, so my hope was she’d realized that with the filming I already had too much going on. I almost laughed out loud.
I closed out the worksheet, prepared to close the lid of my computer and try to sleep. I paused with my hand on the lid. The beautiful faces of my children and Jack stared out at me from the computer’s desktop wallpaper, a reminder of everything we had lost. Or maybe we had just misplaced it. Everyone wore mismatched outfits, and the dogs were naked despite all of my efforts to coordinate our Christmas card photo, but everyone looked so happy. Tears stung the backs of my eyes as I remembered that day and wished I could go back. Not, I realized with surprise, to do things differently. I simply wished we could all be happy and together again.