“Blackbeard?” she said, then laughed. “No. I told him he should use a name that was uniquely him.”
I ran through all the names I remembered seeing in the various blogs and chat rooms I’d been browsing over the past weeks, trying to come up with any that made me think of Marc Longo, and drew a blank. “Like what?”
“Jonathan Goldsmith.”
I might have blinked a few times. “I’m sorry—who is Jonathan Goldsmith?”
“Marc picked it because it takes a person of a matched intellect to understand it.”
“You mean like a third grader?” I said it before I could stop myself. There was only so much swallowing my words that I could take.
She didn’t seem offended. “You and Jack just don’t understand Marc. That’s why you don’t get along. Marc just operates on a separate intellectual plane that’s hard for others to understand.”
I wondered for a moment if someone might have spiked her coffee, then settled on the explanation that love could truly be blind. “So who is Jonathan Goldsmith?”
“He’s the actor who played the Most Interesting Man in the World in those beer commercials. Remember? And that is so Marc.”
“Because he likes beer?” I ventured.
“No, Melanie, because he truly is the most interesting, fascinating man on the planet.”
Hearing Marc described that way made my stomach churn, and I was glad we were only a stone’s throw away from the restrooms. “Well,” I said, swallowing back the rising bile, “I guess that’s better than Blackbeard.” I began gathering up our trash to throw it away, making a mental note to go back through all of the blogs and chat groups to find Jonathan Goldsmith to see what he’d been posting.
I took her elbow and helped her stand, then waited as she delicately brushed crumbs from her lap. “So, what are you going to do now?”
Her chin jutted toward me. “The same thing you’re doing. I’m going to fix my marriage, which means I want the sexy-lingerie party. We can still have it in your garden and keep it on the same date. I’m sure Marc will be happy to adjust the filming schedule to accommodate us.”
I looked closely at her just to make sure she hadn’t lost her mind. Her slightly reddened eyes stared calmly back at me. “Rebecca—”
She cut me off. “As I think I’ve already mentioned, you’re really not in the position to give anyone advice on marriage, are you? You promised you’d give me a baby shower, remember?”
“Yes, but . . .” I stopped, an idea forming in my mind. “You know, you’re right,” I said instead. “I did promise. And if it’s all right with you, I’d like to get my mother and Jayne to help. They’re so much better at parties than I am. I can do all the organizing needed, but they add the glitter.”
Her eyes widened with excitement as she clapped her hands. “I love glitter! You see? I knew you’d come around to agreeing that I was right! And the more the merrier, I say. When and where should we meet to plan?”
I pulled out my multiple calendars and did a cross-check. “How about next Friday, noon, at your house? With Marc at our house all day filming, yours will be nice and quiet. I’ll double-check with Jayne and Mother, and with my dad, who will need to watch the twins, but let’s plan on it. And because I don’t want you to lift a finger, I’ll bring takeout from Rodney Scott’s BBQ and we’ll have lunch while we talk.”
Her eyes brightened. “And doughnuts?” Her eclectic taste in food combinations confirmed our blood ties.
“Of course.” Prepregnancy Rebecca had been a strictly nonprocessed, nonsugar, nonmeat person, and it was refreshing to know that she could be normal.
“Should I bring General Lee and the pups? Reunite the family for a playdate?”
She clapped again, her angst over Marc temporarily forgotten. “That would be so cute! I’ll take lots of photos for my Insta page. I’m trying to become an influencer. I’ve already got two thousand followers!”
“That’s great,” I said, having no idea what she was talking about.
I did have an Instagram account that Catherine Jimenez had said I needed and had set up for me to post houses on the market. I actually paid Nola to do all the postings with clever little blurbs and link them to the Henderson House Realty website and my phone number. It was a win-win.
We walked together toward Rebecca’s red Audi convertible, which she’d parked in the attached garage. She was headed home for a nap but would drop me off at my office on Broad Street on her way. After she’d stopped at the curb in front of Henderson House Realty, she pulled me back when I opened my door and began to exit.
Gripping the sleeve of my coat, she said, “I lied to you.”
I sat down again. “About what?”
“About not having any more dreams. I haven’t had any since I got pregnant, but I had one last dream right before I found out. It had nothing to do with all those dreams I was having at the time about Jack getting buried alive, so I sort of forgot about it.”
I took a deep breath, preparing myself. “All right. So what was it about?”
Rebecca closed her eyes. “She was on the floor in the parlor. On her back. She was in front of the tall clock, and it was like she was trying to fit beneath it. But then . . .” Her eyes shot open. “But then there was a tall shadow. A man, I think. He was pushing on the clock. And then”—she rubbed her temples—“it fell on her. It crushed her.”
I felt ice sluice through my veins. “Crushed whom, Rebecca?”
She turned to me, her eyes wide with shock. “Nola.”
* * *
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