Death in a Beach Chair

SEVENTEEN

“What do you think about that?” Kathleen asked Susan when Rose, promising to return if she remembered “anything else important,” had departed.

“She’s not the most reliable reporter, but she wants to help and she may be the type of person people talk to. I was stunned to hear that Allison was going to have a book published.”

“Do you think it will turn out to be as autobiographical as it sounds?” Kathleen asked.

Susan looked at her friend. Kathleen was staring into the large mirror hung between the two windows on the wall across from the bed, idly arranging and rearranging her hair. Her shoulders were sagging, and even from behind, she looked tired and discouraged. “You know, I can’t imagine Allison writing a book, but then I guess I really didn’t know her all that well. I thought about her as an extension of June.”

“You know what’s bothering me?” Kathleen spoke up, still facing the wall. “What’s bothering me is that you won’t talk to me about June.”

“I-”

“You never wanted to talk to me about June. No one wanted to talk to me about June. Damn it, even Jerry keeps me in the dark about her.”

Susan, realizing Kathleen’s shoulders were shaking as she began to sob, hurried over and embraced her friend. “You’re right. I didn’t realize. I’ve been stupid. Maybe we’ve all been stupid.”

With a loud sniff, Kathleen pulled herself together. “I’ve been stupid, too. I should have encouraged Jerry to talk about her before we got married, but I didn’t. To tell the truth, he talked so much about their children that I thought he was talking about her. It wasn’t until we were married and living together that I realized how little I knew about her.”

“What do you mean?”

Kathleen sat down in the rocking chair Rose had so recently vacated, bit her lips, and started to explain. “When you introduced me to Jerry he was living in that condo down by the water, remember?”

“Yes.” Susan couldn’t imagine what was coming.

“Well, he was subletting the place and it was furnished-pretty much. He’d brought his computer, stereo, and some personal things. Then we got married and both agreed that it was a good idea to buy a house. I had some savings and Jerry had the profits from the home he had sold just sitting in the bank getting almost no interest. So we found our house, bought it, and a week later a huge moving van pulled up from the company that had been storing his stuff and began to unload.”

Susan nodded. “I remember.”

“That’s right! You came over to help. I’d forgotten.”

“Probably because you were so upset.”

Kathleen laughed bitterly. “And I thought I hid it so well.”

“Nope. And I didn’t blame you. It was insensitive of Jerry-and me-not to realize what you were going through. God, Kath, I feel awful about it now and that was years ago. You may have thought you were hiding things, but when the first piece of furniture out of the van was that pencil bed-”

“Their bed,” Kathleen agreed, nodding.

“Yes. Of course. I remember the expression on your face.”

“And you offered to go furniture shopping with me. I’d forgotten.”

“Do you remember the salesman at Bloomingdale’s?”

Kathleen laughed. “I sure do. He was positive that they couldn’t deliver the bedroom furniture for at least a week.”

“And we convinced him that it could be done in twenty-four hours.”

“And it was!”

“I’d forgotten all about that.”

“And you probably never even knew that the next thing off the truck, the double dresser, was full of June’s clothing.”

“I had no idea. I thought all of that had been cleaned out.” Susan paused, walking over to the window and looking out at the beach before continuing. “I helped Jerry clean out the house before he sold it. Emptying the children’s rooms was heartbreaking. I remember emptying June’s closet. And the nightstand on her side of the bed. I guess I just missed the dresser.”

“You missed her desk, too.”

“Her desk? Oh, that’s right. The little cherry desk. It sat in the corner of their kitchen.” Susan had a flash of June sitting there, organizing a fund-raiser for the PTA, piles of paper before her. “Was it full of stuff?”

“Yes. Mostly notebooks and sheets of paper. I became obsessed with those papers. I put the desk in the guest room-that’s what it was then, now it’s Emily’s room-and went through those papers over and over. They told me a lot about her. How organized she was, how involved in the lives of her children, what a wonderful cook she must have been. There was even a box of letters that Jerry had written her before they got married.”

Susan didn’t know what to say. This didn’t sound at all like her self-confident friend. Kathleen and Jerry had always seemed so happy. Susan had no idea that Kathleen might be haunted by the memory of his first wife.

“I think my problem was that everyone loved June. I mean, I didn’t want Jerry to have been married to an awful person, but June was always talked about as being perfect. She was everything I wasn’t. She was petite and cute, she was domestic, and she had perfect children-”

“It wasn’t really like that at all,” Susan interrupted gently.

“Of course it wasn’t. No one’s perfect. I know that. Ask any cop and he’ll tell you that no one has any idea what goes on in other people’s lives. In my head, I knew June couldn’t have been perfect, but I was so overwhelmed. Living in the suburbs with a new husband, leaving behind my work in the city-was just too much.”

“I’m so sorry. I had no idea. None.”

“You might have if it had gone on for long, but after a few months, I pulled myself together. It wasn’t all that hard to do. Jerry and I were so happy. I would have been a fool to keep beating myself over the head for not being the perfect suburban housewife.”

“But, Kathleen, June wasn’t perfect.”

“Do you know that’s the first time you’ve ever said anything at all negative about her!”

“I-I don’t know what to say. She-we-we had a lot in common. Jed and Jerry were best friends in college and they always spent a lot of time together, so of course June and I did, too. We joined the Field Club the same year, had our children around the same time, and then the kids went to school together. Heavens, we were class mothers and taught Sunday school together. The truth is that we were together a whole lot. But that doesn’t mean that we were close.”

“You’re kidding.”

“No. You know how it is. How many women are you quote-unquote friends with that you wouldn’t even talk with if your kids and their activities didn’t throw you together frequently?”

“I suppose that’s true. But I’m surprised that June would fall into that group.”

“I-” A knock on the door interrupted Susan.

The door opened and a scarf-covered head peeked in. “I’m sorry. I bring towels. Bath towels,” the young black woman explained.

Susan looked around. “But the room’s already made up.”

“I work here earlier in day, but towels still in laundry.”

“Just leave them on the bed and I’ll put them away later,” Susan said.

“Yes, ma’am.”

Susan didn’t resume speaking until the door had closed behind the maid and they were alone again. “To tell you the truth, I didn’t realize this until about a year after her death. I didn’t miss June enough. Other women filled in the spaces in my life, and I began to realize that my relationship with June had been more casual than the amount of time we had spent together would lead anyone-including me, apparently-to believe.”

“So tell me about her.”

“Well, she was pretty. You’ve seen pictures, so you know that.” Susan sighed. “I don’t know. She was a good wife, a good mother, a good member of the community. But, that’s about all. She did what was expected of her and she did it well, but there was no spark, no excitement, no creativity. Do you remember when Emily was a baby and Alex got all his Magic Markers together and put all those bright-colored streaks in her hair?”

“How could I forget! I could have killed him before I realized that they weren’t permanent. And she looked so silly and happy.” Kathleen smiled at the memory.

“And you took all those photos of her and sent them to all your friends the next Halloween.”

“Yeah. Not a great lesson for Alex, but I couldn’t resist. And he did seem to understand that drawing on his sister is absolutely forbidden. At least, he never did it again.”

“June would never, ever have done anything like that. She wouldn’t have laughed about it. Babies aren’t supposed to have multicolored hair and that would be all there was to it.”

“Her kids were probably much better behaved than mine are,” Kathleen said.

“No, they weren’t. But it’s June we’re talking about. She couldn’t hold a candle to you, Kath.”

Kathleen smiled. “Okay. Enough self-indulgence. I feel better, but Jerry is still locked up. We need to help him. And it will be a lot easier for me to ask questions about Allison now that we both feel more comfortable talking about June.”

“Of course, if we could just get hold of Allison’s book, we might find out a whole lot about both of them.”

“You do think it’s about them! Were you aware of them competing with each other?”

“Not really. But it sounds like the book is written from Allison’s point of view. I do know that June found Allison’s visits to be somewhat trying. She wasn’t a relaxed hostess. She wanted everything perfect and that’s why I had them over to dinner for holiday meals. But, you know, now that I think about it, that competition thing may have been a dominant theme of their relationship. And it may have been the reason June was so nuts when Allison came to visit-she wanted everything to be perfect-so she could show it off.”

“Was Allison ever married?”

“Not when she used to visit in Hancock. She made a big deal about her exciting single lifestyle. To listen to her, life was just a series of parties, trips to exotic places, and affairs with gorgeous men-but we never met any of those men. In fact, I remember June making a rather nasty comment about that one Thanksgiving.”

“What did she say?”

“Oh, Allison was going on and on about a trip she and some man were planning to his family’s villa on Capri. It was a bit boring for everyone listening. No one at the table had been to Capri, and June was just getting over the flu and feeling rotten. Anyway, June asked why all these rich and good-looking men never came to Hancock. I don’t remember what Allison answered, but she implied that Hancock was just too, too suburban and she didn’t think her lovers would be happy there.”

“How did June react to that?”

“I remember looking over at her and realizing that she was absolutely furious. But she didn’t say anything.”

“Did you think that was odd?”

“Not really. It was Thanksgiving. All our kids were there, as well as Jed’s mother and Jerry’s parents. No one wanted a family argument erupting in the middle of the meal. It was almost as though Allison knew she could say anything she wanted to say and get away with it.”

“Did Jerry’s parents like June?” Kathleen asked, changing the subject.

“I guess so. I never thought about it… although I do remember Jed saying that there was some sort of argument or conflict or something the night before they were married. To tell you the truth, I don’t remember the details-if I knew them.”

“You were there?”

“Yes. I was a bridesmaid-hideous green polyester satin dress and a big floppy straw hat with ribbons down the back. All I needed were some sheep. I hated it. You know, I met Allison at that wedding. She was maid of honor and hated her dress as much as, if not more, than I did. The female attendants wore various shades of green. Mine was jade-ugly, but not bad. Hers was sort of dark avocado. She thought it looked like she was wearing a refrigerator-and it did, sort of.”

“Ugh.”

“Yes. Who-”

The door opened and both women turned around, expecting to see the maid again. But Jed stood there. He looked exhausted.