“Nah, Hollywood makes sense when you look like Brad Pitt. Trust me, Nora, I’m not flirting with your man,” Jules adds. “Just stating the obvious.”
“And feeding his ego. Thanks a lot.” Nora forces a laugh.
Trust me, Nora . . .
Jules had said she’d moved to Seattle before the murders and occasionally returned to visit her parents. Had she specifically mentioned whether she was there, on Glover Street, on that January night?
“So have we seen you in the movies, Keith?” Heather asks, and he laughs.
“Nope. I moved to Hollywood, and became the world’s worst waiter for about a month. One of the regular customers offered me an entry-level corporate job, probably to keep me away from the restaurant. Best move I ever made. I’ve been in marketing ever since, and that’s where I met my soul mate.”
“You were in marketing, too, Nora?” Heather asks.
“No, the landscaping company where I worked was doing a job at the office park where Keith worked.”
“Yeah, I was sitting outside eating my lunch one day, and I saw this amazing woman in a hard hat and work boots. It was pretty much love at first sight.” He smiles at Nora, as if there hasn’t been tension between them all day.
Or for months, since Mexico, and Teddy.
Fernando removes the salad plates and refills their glasses from a second bottle of wine. The conversation flows on as if they’re all old friends.
But they’re not. These people are strangers.
Careful, Nora. Careful who you trust . . .
The crooner playlist plays on and Perry Como’s “Catch a Falling Star” transports Nora back to last Sunday night, to the conversation with Jules about her past, and about the murders.
She’d said no one had known the Toska family, that they’d kept to themselves, that the mother was an invalid, the daughter a gawky weirdo.
She says a lot of things.
But don’t count on me for details . . .
My brain is a sieve . . .
Jules, with her head injury and checkered past.
“Anyway, when I met Heather at that gallery opening,” she’s saying now, “I was back in New York and fresh out of rehab, and she was living with someone. So it was vague interest at first sight, but kind of . . . messy.”
“Yeah, like politics and wars and hostage negotiations are ‘messy.’” Heather lifts her glass. “But, hey, we made it. Here’s to happily ever after—for us, and for you guys, too, Keith and Nora.”
They all clink and Nora takes a fortifying sip of wine as Heather asks about their wedding.
Keith says, “We eloped to Vegas, and Nora was the world’s most stunning bride.”
“Hey, so did we! Well, not Vegas, Vermont,” Jules amends. “And I was the world’s most enormous bride—eight months pregnant with Lennon. My father had just died, I’d moved my mother into an assisted living condo, and we’d just bought the house. It was kind of a disaster because the plumbing in the upstairs bathroom was—”
A cell phone buzzes loudly.
“Sorry.” Keith pulls his from his pocket. “Uh-oh. I need to take this.”
“One of the girls?” Nora asks, but he’s already heading for the door.
Jules looks at her own phone. “Nothing from our two.”
Heather does the same. “Nope. And they’re together, right? Piper’s at our house with Courtney, and Lennon’s at yours with Stacey?”
“I’m not sure,” Nora admits.
Stacey hadn’t mentioned it, but they’d spoken only briefly and it had been with her daughter’s closed bedroom door between them. When Nora knocked and told her they were leaving for the restaurant, Stacey said to have a good time and that she was studying.
“If your kids are anything like ours, they only call when they need money to order food,” Jules says. “Or they can’t find something.”
Heather nods. “Usually because it’s exactly where it belongs, and that’s the last place they’d ever put it, or look for it. One time . . .”
She launches into another anecdote.
Nora watches the window. Out on the street, Keith is having what appears to be an agitated exchange with whoever’s on the phone.
She sees him disconnect that call and place another one that evidently goes unanswered. He hangs up, sends a text, and strides back into the restaurant.
“It was Stacey. She thinks we have a Peeping Tom.”
Nora’s stomach turns over.
“It’s probably Elvira Hernandez across the street,” Heather says. “She’s super nosy.”
“No, it was a man. She said a vagrant was bothering her on the street today, and now she thinks he’s watching her from the backyard.”
No. Oh, no. The room seems to be closing in, and it’s all Nora can do not to flee. She opens her mouth, trying to form a question, but Heather beats her to it.
“Is she sure about that? I mean, how can someone be in the yard? Isn’t it completely closed in?”
“Yes, but she said he was on a roof out back with binoculars.”
Nora thinks of Jacob, in the neighborhood, yesterday afternoon, and she tries to dismiss a possibility so preposterous and paranoid that she simply cannot let her mind go there.
“Oh, some of the new apartment buildings on the block behind us have roof terraces,” Jules says. “The neighbors are always hanging out overhead. No more nude sunbathing for me, unfortunately.”
“Except for that one time . . .” Heather grins.
“Right. And that didn’t end well. Anyway, it’s just city life, you guys. There are people everywhere.”
Everywhere. Jules—she seems to be everywhere. Heather, too. Too close, too familiar, too quickly.
“Yeah, it’s hard to get used to at first,” Heather says. “I used to freak out over every little thing when I first moved here from LA. Just tell Stacey it was probably someone hanging out on his rooftop looking at the sky. There are a million stars tonight. I bet he’s just—”
“Then wouldn’t he have a telescope?” Nora cuts in. “Not binoculars. He had binoculars.”
“I think she said binoculars, but . . .” Keith shrugs and picks up his wineglass. “She was talking really fast.”
“I’m sure it’s fine,” Heather says with the maddening conviction of one who has no clue about the nuances of a situation. “Anyway, isn’t Lennon with her?”
“She said no, she’s home alone.”
“Where’s Lennon?” Jules pulls out her phone again and starts typing.
“Tell her to pull down the shades and ignore the guy, even if he is a Peeping Tom,” Heather advises.
Nora wants to tell the two of them to shut up. Just shut up, so she can think.
Jules’s phone whooshes with a sent text. “Okay, I just told Lennon what’s going on.”
Nora thinks of her daughter’s tearstained face this afternoon. No. They shouldn’t be telling him anything. They shouldn’t be— “Look, here comes our entrée!” Spotting Fernando approaching with a large tray, Heather moves the flickering candle and salt and pepper shakers to make room on the table. “You two are going to die when you taste this!”
“Here we are . . . tagliatelle con calamari e vongole.” He sets a fragrant platter in the center of the table, and plates all around. “I’ll be right back with fresh pepper. You want a little grated Parmesan, too? More wine?”
“All of the above,” Heather says with a laugh and drains her glass.