At least her mother hadn’t noticed the banged-up car, which Izzy had taken to backing tight up to the garage. If her mother had caught sight of even one small scrape, she’d have come to the door “all fretted up,” as her father liked to say. She was the type who was so good at fussing over things that she almost seemed to enjoy it—and thus didn’t bother to adjust her intensity for big problems or minuscule ones, or for those within her control or well outside it.
“Well, it’s always been pretty. And so have you. I keep telling people what a waste it is that you’re on the radio. You should be on television.”
“Mom. I’m not even on the radio! Just behind the scenes.”
“Every time I hear the smart parts, I know it was you.” Pride was radiating from her mother, as usual, and Izzy had to laugh. There were exactly zero “smart parts” on Freshly Squeezed, which she knew for a fact her mother did not listen to. Much as she loved to boast to her friends about Izzy’s role, Izzy knew she found Sonny and Day just as grating as Izzy did. Her mother might dote on her two daughters unconditionally, but outside of her relationship with her children she lacked neither judgment nor good taste.
As her mother patted her arm and stepped through the open door, Izzy turned her attention to her father. While she’d been dodging everyone else’s calls, she’d been fighting the urge to dial him directly and demand the details of this so-called health scare. A part of her was waiting to see if they were really going to not tell her, while another part insisted that if he was fine, as Penny had assured her, then there was nothing to tell. “I’ve missed you, Dad.” She breathed him in as his hug wrapped her in warmth. He was just as she’d left him in Springfield: solid, quiet, reassuring, and dressed for a hike.
“Come see the garden,” Izzy said, leading the way. Her parents shuffled along behind her, and she tried not to think about how old they were getting. They qualified for senior discounts now. “Josh and Penny drove separately, then?” She purposely said his name first, as if to prove to herself that she could.
She heard her mother tsk behind her. “Oh, they’re not coming, dear. Penny has been having some difficulty in the mornings, you know. They send their love.”
Izzy had the back door open now and turned to squint at her mother. “Not coming?”
From the counter, the perfectly wrapped slippers she’d meant as a peace offering mocked her, and she recognized herself as a hypocrite even as she said the words. Of course Penny wasn’t coming. And certainly not Josh. Nothing was ever that easy. Why had she deluded herself into believing otherwise?
“She could have given me a heads-up,” she said, sounding more curt than she’d intended, trying to maintain her balance. Even as she recognized that she was choking down the bitter taste of her own medicine, it still seemed a valid point. At least Izzy had had the decency to text Penny when she’d bailed out of her get-together rather than sending a message through a third party.
A third party.
Had Josh told Penny he’d come here? She’d assumed not—assumed he wouldn’t want to implicate himself in that humiliation any more than her—but if she was wrong and he had … If he and Penny truly had no secrets between them … What might he have said, exactly? Could things be even worse than she’d feared?
“Well, I don’t think she was expecting not to feel well, dear. You know how these things can come on with pregnancy.” Her mother clasped her hands and looked past her at the spread in the garden. “But this is so lovely! We’ll enjoy it enough for everyone, just the three of us.”
Izzy swallowed hard against the betrayal. The useless effort of obsessing over how she’d smooth it all over, how she’d act, what she’d say, the foolishness of having put so much stock, so much hope of redemption, into a single event that could be blown off as easily as she’d skipped her sister’s own celebration last week. She had convinced herself she couldn’t face them that day because of a dream, of all things. When would she learn to stop giving so much credit to her subconscious?
Her dad wandered over to the table, hands in his pockets. Why had she gone and set all the places in advance? It looked like she’d been expecting a miniature banquet.
“Camilla, you should tell Penelope to call next time. Look at all this trouble she’s gone to.” The use of Penny’s full name was a telltale parental sign of displeasure. Izzy might have enjoyed it if not for the fact that he’d surely feel differently if he knew the whole truth. “I didn’t know this was a fancy brunch, Iz.” He looked down at his outfit apologetically.
Izzy set about gathering up the extra place settings as quickly as she could. “It’s not fancy. It was no trouble putting it out, and it’s no trouble to put it away.” She tried to balance the two spare yogurt parfaits in the crook of her arm while she restacked the plates, but one of them tumbled loose, showering her sleeve with yogurt and the pavers with a crash of broken crystal.
“Oh, what a gooey mess,” her mother said. “Let me get it. Just show me to your paper towels and a broom. Do you need help in the kitchen too? This’ll take but a second.”
Izzy turned her back so they couldn’t see the tears welling in her eyes. “I don’t need help,” she said, as much to herself as to them, but she didn’t argue when her mother showed herself to the pantry and headed outside armed with cleanup supplies.
She served up mimosas and coffee, pulling herself together in time to get the quiche out of the oven and set the singers and standards channel to stream through the wireless speakers she’d set outside. By the time they were settled at the table, all her preparation had lent itself seamlessly to this smaller-scale, lower-pressure Plan B. Her parents were happy, anyway, and seemed not to think anything at all about Penny and Josh’s absence.
“Their loss!” was her father’s only remark, as he went for his second bite of the quiche. “This is delicious, Iz.”
“It’s no wonder having your own house has turned you into such a cook. Space to come into your own. That’s what I tell my old-fashioned friends when they ask about it, anyway.”
“It’s the ingredients,” Izzy said, seizing the opportunity to steer the conversation off unsteady ground. “So much here is locally sourced. You pay for it, but it’s worth it.”
“Are you listening, Todd?” Her mother glowed with triumph. “That’s exactly what I keep telling you about our grocery bills.” She turned back to Izzy. “Tell us everything. Are you making friends?”
Izzy nodded. “I really like the neighbor across the street, Clara. And also these women who own a boutique—I bought Penny a gift there, actually, to celebrate her news. You can take it to her.”
“Oh, how nice. And what about that woman who’s disappeared?” Her face turned serious. “You don’t hear much on the news in Springfield anymore.”
Izzy tried to maintain a neutral front. “I don’t think there’s anything new to say. Though I’ve stopped following it myself. It makes me feel … I don’t know, nosy or something.” She thought of the detective’s brief appearance at the bonfire. Was he still trailing Kristin? Had he been doing it even then? Were there any new theories? Everyone knew that the more time ticked by, the less likely they were to be found. She’d been trying to demonstrate a certain respect by letting the questions go, by not prying, but now she felt willfully uninvolved, as if her parents might reasonably expect her to know more.
“I could understand that. Especially if you’ve met her husband. Or ex-husband, was it? Either way.”
Or when I had a moment where I thought he might have been about to kiss me.
“Have you?” she asked. Izzy stared at her blankly. “Met her husband, that is.”
She nodded. “He moved back into the house when they left.”
“Well. That raises the issue of boundaries, doesn’t it? I remember when—”