“You knew something was going to happen,” he’d said.
“Yes,” she told him, never taking her eyes off her husband’s face. “And it made no fucking difference.” It was one of the few times that she’d ever said the word fuck.
“It will make a difference someday,” he told her. He wasn’t repelled by her grief or intimidated by her rage. “God doesn’t give gifts like yours for no reason.”
For a few years following the funeral, they’d stayed in touch. Then one day an email went unanswered, and the next was never sent. As fond as she was of Franklin, his voice always reminded her of the worst day of her life. But now, standing on the side of the road with a dead girl’s body fifty feet away, she no longer felt the urge to flee.
“Nessa, what more can you tell me?” Franklin pressed her.
She turned her eyes away from him and watched as a photographer and a forensics technician were swallowed up by the scrubland along Danskammer Beach. “I’m still not sure what I know.” It wasn’t a lie, she tried to tell herself, but it certainly wasn’t the truth.
By the time the three women were free to go, the sun was well on its journey toward the ocean on the opposite side of the continent. They’d spent almost an entire day at the beach. Back in the car, the three of them were lost in their thoughts—or so Nessa assumed. Then, just as the car’s wheels rolled over the town line, Harriett broke the silence.
“That man Franklin wants to sleep with you, Nessa,” she said.
“Excuse me?” Nessa couldn’t believe what she’d heard. “I thought you were contemplating the meaning of life back there, and instead you’re thinking about sex? Have you forgotten where we spent the afternoon?”
“It’s perfectly normal to think of life in the presence of death,” Harriett replied. “I don’t know if you were paying attention, but your friend’s not bad-looking.”
“If you say so,” Nessa replied. “I hadn’t thought much about it.” Not really. Not until that very moment.
“You should have sex with him,” Harriett encouraged her. “You may find the experience much more pleasurable now than when you were younger. There’s certainly a lot less to worry about. I try to have sex whenever possible.”
Jo, who’d felt hopelessly shell-shocked by the morning’s discovery, burst out laughing in the passenger seat.
“What?” Nessa nearly swerved off the road. “Harriett, I’m married!”
Jo’s laughter trailed off, and a pall fell over the car. Whether Nessa could see him or not, it was clear that Jonathan’s ghost never stopped haunting her. Suddenly, they could all feel his presence. He was there with them now.
“Do you think having sex with a living man will make you love your dead husband any less?” Harriett wasn’t afraid to tackle the subject head-on.
“No,” Nessa pouted. “It just wouldn’t be right.”
“Why not?” Harriett probed. “Sex is natural. It’s a bodily function.”
“I’m too old for that bodily function,” Nessa said.
“Oh really?” Harriett snickered like a dirty-minded schoolgirl. “Who told you that?”
“No one had to tell me.” Nessa was getting annoyed. “Some things you just know.”
“You know because that’s what women our age have been trained to think,” Harriett said.
“What the hell are you talking about?” Nessa demanded. “No one’s been training me.”
“Then you’ll do whatever you want,” Harriett said. “And you won’t give a shit what anyone says.”
“Damn straight I won’t,” Nessa told her.
“You’ll have sex with Franklin Rees if you feel like it,” Harriett said.
“Hell yes I will!” Nessa told her.
“Good,” Harriett said with a lighthearted shrug. “’Cause that’s all I’m asking.”
“Good,” Nessa repeated, suddenly aware of the one-eighty the conversation had taken. “Can we talk about something else now? Like blowfly larvae or serial killers?”
The Purification of Harriett Osborne
The office of the ad agency where Harriett had worked featured a central staircase that connected the company’s three floors. It was a gorgeous staircase, designed by a brand-name architect, with clear glass steps that made it look as if one were climbing through air. Though it was far less convenient, women in the office often opted to take the elevator instead. The staircase, which had been featured in countless design magazines, was also known for its spectacular up-the-skirt views. This, it was explained to Harriett when she first pointed it out, was a feature, not a flaw.
She happened to be wearing a skirt the day she returned from vacation. She hadn’t mentioned where she was going, but everyone in the office assumed she’d traveled somewhere exotic. That’s what rich women did when their marriages ended. They set off on spirit quests or death-defying adventures. They climbed Mount Everest. They ate, prayed, and loved. Now Harriett had returned, with the lean limbs and bronzed skin of an Aegean goddess. The huntress stalking a stag, perhaps, or an enchantress surrounded by swine. No one would have guessed that Harriett had acquired the tan while walking naked among the plants in her own backyard.
The skirt was a failed attempt to get back in the swing of things. She hadn’t worn clothes in two weeks, and she hadn’t missed them at all. That morning, she’d stood in her massive walk-in closet, looking around at all her beautiful things. Once Harriett had thought of them as her prizes. Win a new account, get a YSL Le Smoking. Convince a creative team to accept her ideas as theirs, collect a bracelet from Hermès. Shake a handsy client without pissing anyone off, take home a badass Rag & Bone leather jacket. Now she realized none of her belongings spoke to her any longer. She wasn’t sure if they ever really had. The skirt she chose to wear was vintage Tom Ford–era Gucci. For the life of her, she couldn’t recall why she’d bought it.