“Ben is not people!” Mom says, picking up her earlier complaint. “He broadcasted that interview to millions.”
“I think it’s thousands of people,” I say. “Let’s not pump up Ben’s ego any more.”
“Can you be serious for a minute, Lucy? Your grandmother could get sued.”
“For what? Saying Matt’s an asshole? He is. You can’t sue people for telling the truth.” I don’t actually think that’s true, but it sounds good.
“She implied that he killed Savvy. He can sue for that.” Mom starts fussing with the napkin holder in the middle of the table, lining up all the purple napkins so they’re perfectly straight.
“No, he can’t.” Grandma waves her hand dismissively. “I didn’t accuse him of anything. I just told everyone about the horrible things he said. If he didn’t want them out there, he shouldn’t have said them.”
“Men say shit,” Mom says, and I reel back in surprise at the curse. We’re a bad influence on her. “They talk and talk and sometimes it’s horrible, but that’s the way they are. It doesn’t mean anything.”
“Of course it means something,” Grandma says. “They wouldn’t say it if it didn’t mean something. And I’m tired of this whole town acting like the sun shines out of Matt’s ass. I knew they would all get on that podcast and say how wonderful he was, and that’s exactly what happened. Someone needed to tell the truth.”
“The truth doesn’t matter,” Savvy whispers in my ear.
“I suspect Lucy will also tell the truth about him when she does her interview.” Grandma looks at me expectantly. No, not expectantly. It’s a challenge.
“I will,” I lie. “For sure.”
Grandma smiles like this lie satisfies her.
“I think you should be … selective in your truth,” Mom says slowly.
My eyebrows shoot up. “Seriously? After all these years of you hounding me to tell the truth about what happened that night and now—”
“I didn’t hound you. And of course you should be up front about everything with Savvy. I’m just saying, this podcast has gotten a little off track and, frankly, sex obsessed.”
“Sex obsessed!” Grandma cackles.
“Did we need to know about Lucy’s affair? Or Matt’s? Or mine? Why is he constantly talking about it?” Mom sniffs.
“You’re right, he should have mentioned all of Don’s affairs if he was going to bring up yours,” Grandma says.
“That is the exact opposite of my point, Mother. Lucy, please do not mention your father’s constant rotation of girlfriends.”
“Oh my god.” I lean my head back with a moan. “I’m having high school flashbacks.”
Grandma pats my hand again.
“You really care if I bring up Dad’s affairs?” I ask Mom, even though I never had any intention of doing that.
“It’s irrelevant.”
I cross my arms over my chest as she determinedly avoids my gaze. She doesn’t want me to talk about Dad’s affairs, and she doesn’t want Grandma to talk about Matt being an asshole. Mom is, as always, dedicated to protecting the men in her life above all else. I’m not sure she even realizes she’s doing it. It’s a habit at this point.
“Speaking of the truth,” I begin, unable to resist making Mom even more uncomfortable. Both Grandma and Mom freeze, like I’m about to reveal something important. “Can we talk about Colin Dunn for a minute?”
Mom lets out a long-suffering sigh and plucks a napkin with a small dog-ear from the stack. “Don’t change the subject.”
“Oh yes, let’s change the subject,” Grandma says, brushing powdered sugar off her shirt.
“I’m not talking about Colin,” Mom says, and then pauses. “Because there’s nothing to say.”
“At least tell me how that happened,” I press. “Ben said it was an ongoing affair.”
“I don’t know why Ben thinks he knows my business.”
“Is he right, though?” Grandma has a shit-eating grin on her face.
Mom takes a donut hole and breaks it apart. She puts a tiny bite on her tongue, and then drops the rest of it on the napkin. “No. It was just that night.”
“That’s too bad,” Grandma says wistfully. “He’s very cute, for a twentysomething.” Mom rolls her eyes, but the edges of her lips twitch.
“Was the wedding the first time?” I ask.
“Yes.” The lines between her eyebrows appear again when she looks at me. “He said that he and Savvy saw other people.”
“They did.”
“Then why are you looking at me like that?”
“I’m not looking at you! This is just my normal face!”
She frowns and breaks off another tiny piece of the donut. “It was years ago, and it was once, and—”
“Was it good?” Grandma interrupts.
“Mother.”
“What? Young men were not great at sex when I was—”
“Please don’t finish that sentence,” Mom says, face scrunched up like she’s in pain.
“I’m just saying. Some things get better with age.”
I snort-laugh. Mom crosses her arms over her chest and shakes her head.
I lean closer to Grandma. “Savvy had no complaints,” I whisper.
She cackles. Mom’s cheeks turn pink as she shoves the rest of the donut in her mouth.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
LUCY
I sit in bed that afternoon, laptop propped up in my lap, and text Ben to ask when we’re doing our next interview. The big one. The one where I’m supposed to tell all about Matt.
I still need to decide what “all” will be.
I’m not actually interested in sharing my sob story with the podcast universe. I was never all that interested in telling anyone except Savvy.
She understood that. She didn’t take my hand and gently suggest we march down to the police station. She didn’t ask, “Why don’t you just leave?”
She said, “That’s usually when men kill the woman. When they try to leave.”
And I said, “I actually don’t think Matt would do that.”
“Is that really a risk you want to take?” she’d asked.
No. It wasn’t.
And she knew. Right away, she knew that I didn’t want to just leave.
I wanted fucking revenge.
“Let’s Thelma and Louise this shit,” she’d said, and I’d laughed.
I can’t very well tell my abused-wife sob story to everyone when I once laughed about killing my husband. That’s not cool.
My laptop dings with a message from Ben.
Want to grab a drink tonight?
And do the interview?
No. Interview tomorrow, maybe?
I sigh and start to type, Can we just get this over with already? I quickly delete it. That’s not something an innocent person would say.
Downstairs, I hear Mom laugh loudly, as if she’s inside my head.
Ben saves me from having to type anything at all. Meet me in an hour at Bluebonnet Tavern?
I can feel that this is a bad idea by the way I glance over at my closet to see which dress I should wear. I’m relieved that I have an hour, so I have time to do my hair and put on makeup. There’s danger here, and I should say no. No, Ben, I’ll see you for the interview. Text me then. That’s what I should send.
Sure, see you in an hour, is what I actually send.
* * *
I’m at Bluebonnet an hour later. I chose the purple dress, which I rationalized by telling myself that he’d already seen me in it. I’d been wearing it the day we met, at the diner. It’s cotton, casual. Not a date dress. It’s a “too fucking hot for pants” dress.
Bluebonnet is big and bright, the large windows at the front letting in plenty of the early evening sunlight. The floors and walls are wood, the latter covered in Texas decor so we won’t forget which state we’re in. There’s a Texas flag, a Don’t Mess with Texas sign, and a bulletin board advertising various Hill Country wine tours. A bright Real Ale sign flickers as I walk by it.
Ben is already sitting at the bar, wearing a blue button-up shirt with sleeves pushed to his elbows. It’s a date shirt, I note. One that’s too warm for this weather. I try not to read too much into it.
He smiles when he spots me. I slide onto the stool next to him.
“Hey. Thanks for coming.”
I glance at his drink, which is pink. “Is that a cosmo?”
“Why do you say it like that? Cosmos are delicious. And they’re the happy hour special.”
“I didn’t say it like anything.”