That girl. Of course Liz remembered her. But she wasn’t in JJ’s class. She was in Nora’s. Liz didn’t bother to correct her.
“Well, she passed away last week,” Macy whispered reverently, and she started to cross herself before she remembered that she hadn’t gone to Mass since she was twelve. They were Reformed now.
Liz wanted to say, “So what?” They hadn’t been friends with Lorelei Barnes, close or distant. Liz wasn’t sure that she had ever uttered ten words to the woman in all the years that the girls were classmates. Maybe a cursory greeting at a school event, but she couldn’t conjure the memory. Instead of rebuffing her friend, Liz reined in her rebellious decorum and played along. “I’m sorry to hear that.”
“Did you know she was rich?”
That gave Liz pause. The Lorelei she remembered farmed and worked the night shift at the Summer Prairie Brewery bottling small-batch artisan beers that Jack Sr. had once loved. He was particularly fond of their winter ale, a dark, thick concoction that the label assured Liz contained notes of toffee and chocolate. She had never tasted it. And neither, apparently, had Lorelei, for the woman had been as slim and lithe as a willow switch. Long auburn hair, troubled brown eyes. Liz had found her unsettlingly striking.
“Don’t spread rumors,” Liz said, slowing just a bit because Macy was starting to wheeze. “That poor woman went through enough.”
It was true. Lorelei was a single mom living in one of the shabbier farmhouses several miles out of town. A diagnosis of ALS a few years ago had landed her in the nursing home. She wasn’t even fifty. Such a tragedy, made even more wrenching because she didn’t have family nearby. Or at all? No one really knew her situation. Of course, there was that girl, who wasn’t actually Lorelei’s daughter but her niece. And it was anyone’s guess where she ended up.
“It’s not a rumor.” Macy shook her head and a dark curl stuck to the thin film of sweat at her temple. “Kent went for a run with her lawyer last night. She inherited farmland when her father passed several years ago—a hundred acres in all. It’s not much, but it’s valued at over a million.”
“A million,” Liz mused, and wasn’t aware that she had said the words out loud until Macy laughed.
“It’s nothing, I know. But still. Who knew? She didn’t live like she had money in the bank.”
Of course, it wasn’t exactly in the bank, was it? And really, nothing? Liz swallowed hard. There was a time when she would have considered a million not nothing but a modest nest egg. That was before Jack Sr. passed and Liz got her first good, hard look at their finances. Her husband had made more than one terrible investment. Thankfully, they owned their home outright and Jack had put a chunk of money in a 401(k), but Liz would have seriously struggled without the rental properties. And those she would soon have to start selling. Discreetly, of course. Her bank account was nobody’s business.
Liz felt a familiar twinge of bitterness at the reminder that her financial situation was nothing more than a pretty illusion. Her friends still thought that the almost-new Cadillac in the garage (she had sold Jack’s) and the sprawling house in the swankiest neighborhood in Key Lake were indicators of Jack Sr.’s robust career in real estate that would ensure a comfortable retirement. Macy and Kent were already snowbirds, flying south for the winter to Arizona or Florida, wherever struck their fancy that particular year. Beverly and Peter preferred European vacations. So far, Liz had been able to decline their invitations by citing a desire to stay close to family. She wasn’t sure how long they’d believe it.
Macy kept the one-sided conversation going, supplying Liz with all the tales that were fit to repeat and a couple that were not, until the lakeside bike trail merged with the quaint Main Street sidewalk of Key Lake proper.
“Sandpoint?” Macy asked, already slipping her credit card from the little clip on her cell phone.
“Not today.” Liz smiled as she breezed past. “I promised Quinn I’d stop by this morning.”
“Oh?”
And because Macy was standing on the sidewalk looking perplexed and rosy cheeked, Liz hurried back and gave her a hug and a breezy kiss. They were friends after all, best friends, and for all her blustery ways Macy was loyal and eager and funny. A winning combination.
“I’m sorry I haven’t been myself this morning,” Liz said. “A bit of indigestion, I’m afraid.”
Macy perked right up. “I’ve been taking probiotics! I can’t tell you how much they’ve helped . . .”
But Liz was already walking away, arms swinging purposefully. “Tell me about it tomorrow!” she called over her shoulder.
Liz had most definitely not promised Quinn she’d stop by, and she doubted that her younger daughter would be happy to see her. Quinn had been a degree short of hostile since the day she and Walker pulled up a couple months ago in that ghastly purple import. Hadn’t Jack and Liz taught their children never to buy foreign? Her mind slid to thoughts of other things foreign and Liz had to hold herself in check. Walker had been born in the United States, she reminded herself, though he certainly didn’t look the part. But Liz was no racist—she just didn’t think that Walker Cruz (with his long mop of black, curly hair and unnaturally smooth skin) was right for her baby girl.
Their marriage papers were legitimate, though, signed by a justice of the peace in La Mirada, where Quinn was studying secondary education at Biola. Liz had seen them. And to think, Jack had only agreed to let her go to California because she was attending a conservative Christian college, and how much trouble could she get into there? More than enough, it seemed. Did the Reformed church offer annulments? And if so, was there a statute of limitations? Like, say, after three years of marriage? Liz made a mental note to check.