Liv sinks against the wall. “I do not expect you to.”
Deborah heaves a dry sigh. “You know, you can be very difficult to love.” I come from behind Liv just as Deborah reaches for a bottle of pinot noir from the lattice rack above the fridge.
“Olivia!” she exclaims. “You didn’t tell me Julia was here.” She sets the wine on the counter and swoops me in her arms, her chest hot through her blouse. “I thank God every time I see you.” I feel her shove up her sleeve to check her watch behind my back.
Box of chocolates. Right after the woods, Deborah was grateful that I saved Liv. In the news footage of Mom pleading for my return, Deborah was right there, holding Mom up (though the opposite scenario was true: Deborah took Valium and could barely lift her eyelids). The news stations made a lot of the two-attractive-single-mothers angle, but the reporters cared mostly about Dr. Spunk, who managed to look elegant and calm during the worst two days of her life. Besides, Deborah had her daughter back, and Mom was still in that bad place. After I got home, the Today show asked Mom to host segments on missing children (she declined). For a while, Deborah was all about girl power and hugs. But then the frost set in. She never visited our house between the time I was released from the hospital and when we left for the Berkshires. Liv blamed it on her Valium detox, but finally she slipped that Deborah thought Mom and I liked the media attention a little too much.
“Liv probably didn’t tell you that there’s a reporter from the Shiverton Star coming over at seven thirty to interview me about being Catholic Woman of the Year, and he’ll be photographing Liv and me together. I want to make sure she looks her best, so I planned a little pampering session. You should probably be heading home…”
Liv stares past Deborah to the TV. I follow her stare, and Deborah follows mine.
A reporter with a snub nose and a pancake face rests his foot on the railroad-tie stairs that mark the main entrance to the woods. His suit jacket flaps over his crotch in an unseen breeze. Behind him, yellow caution tape flutters between two young trees. The sign says MIDDLESEX FELLS RESERVATION: GATES CLOSE AT DUSK.
“I’m at the Middlesex Fells Reservation in Shiverton, where a couple out walking their dog yesterday afternoon stumbled upon a body many believe to be eighteen-year-old Ana Alvarez, who went missing while jogging in a remote section of this enormous wooded area in August of last year.”
A thud, then glug-glug-glug. The wine bottle lies on its side, its nose pointing to a scarlet puddle. A rivulet makes its way to the middle of the island. No one moves to clean it up. The scene cuts to two women, Paula Papademetriou and a generic blonde, sitting in the WFYT studio.
“Ryan, has the body been positively identified?” Paula asks the on-scene reporter.
“That’s what police are working on right now, Paula.”
“Is this a murder investigation?” Paula asks.
“The police will not yet say. But many are wondering about the involvement of a man who attacked two high school students in the same area nearly one year ago. That man has since died in jail awaiting trial.”
“You’re referring to Donald Jessup, a man on parole at the time for earlier attacks against women in those same woods,” Paula says.
“That’s right, Paula. It sounds like the police may be explaining once again why a parolee was loose in these woods. This time, perhaps, with fatal consequences.”
Paula folds her brow and leans in to ask more questions as Deborah cuts her off with a wave of the clicker. She rushes toward Liv. “My baby!” she cries, pulling back and grabbing Liv’s jaw. “Do you know how lucky you are to be alive?”
I wrinkle my nose at the smell of damp earth and cherries and turn away, embarrassed for Liv, embarrassed for Deborah for being the only person in the world who hasn’t heard this story in the last forty-eight hours, and embarrassed for me, because hello, I’m pretty sure I was in the woods, too.
“Should we clean up the wine?” I ask.
Deborah releases Liv and flutters her hand at the TV. “But for the grace of God! The mother of that girl could have been me!”
“If we don’t have time to do my hair, it’s all right,” Liv says.
“It’s most certainly not all right! There’s no chance those reporters aren’t going to be sniffing around again now. We have to prepare, Olivia. What do you want, roots on live television?” She unravels a trail of paper towels and goes at the wine spill with a grunt. “This body in the woods is going to be a great big distraction, that’s what it’s going to be.”