Only Ever You (10 page)

“I’m a photographer.”

“How interesting!” He smiled. “I’m sure that’s fun.”

“It can be.” She took another sip of wine. She’d discovered long ago that her work was unclassifiable for the people in David’s world, a fantasy job, something they assumed could be done with little to no effort or training.

“I’ve always wanted to take up photography,” Mr. Silver Hair said as if on cue. “Maybe when I retire.”

She smiled. “What a coincidence—I’m thinking of taking up law when
I
retire.”

The man blinked, smile faltering. He reached for his own glass of wine and took a big swallow.

“This is nice, isn’t it?” Paige Graham, Andrew’s wife, said from her end of the table, winking at Jill as she deftly turned the conversation. “It’s so refreshing to get an evening out with the grown-ups.”

Mr. Silver Hair smiled again, visibly relaxing. This was familiar territory. “How are the children?”

“Oh, they’re just fine. Growing like weeds—James is going to be taller than me soon, isn’t that hard to believe?”

Paige was a petite woman, fragile looking next to Andrew, who was as tall as she was short, but her stature and bone structure were deceiving. She could eat more than her husband and sickeningly never put on a pound, but she was always so friendly and bubbly that Jill couldn’t help liking her.

“How old is he now?” Jill asked to keep the conversation going.

“Seven. He’s in second grade this year. It just goes by so fast.”

Andrew turned toward his wife. “What goes by so fast? Dinner?”

“No, silly.” She smacked his arm playfully. “Childhood.” She and Andrew laughed together.

In every way they were a golden couple, the sort of people who inspired Ralph Lauren commercials. You couldn’t live in Pittsburgh and not know about the Graham family. The name was associated with so many buildings and philanthropies; there was even a museum in New York named after them. Children were taught about Thomas Graham, Andrew’s industrialist great-great-grandfather who’d made a fortune in steel and whose son and grandson had managed the company after him. Andrew’s father, the senator, split his time between Washington and a fifteen-acre guarded enclave in Fox Chapel. Andrew had gone to Princeton, like his father and grandfather before him, and then on to Duke for law school, where he’d met Paige, a Southern magnolia from a Georgia family with ties almost as prestigious as his own. Their wedding had been featured in
Vanity Fair
and
Town & Country
.

Jill had been nervous when she first met Andrew, self-conscious and despising herself for being so. She’d never been a fangirl, never pined after celebrities or waited overnight to get tickets for her favorite band. Yet there she was hanging around the offspring of a famous family, stuttering and blushing and have trouble looking him in the eye. It had taken months before she’d felt even semirelaxed.

Mr. Silver Hair looked at Jill. “Do have children, too, Mrs. Lassiter?”

“A daughter. She’s three.”

“Such a sweet age,” Paige said with a sigh. Jill thought of Sophia’s tantrum that evening over staying home with Nana instead of coming with them. “Hmm,” she said. She tried to catch David’s eye to share the private joke, but he was absorbed in another conversation.

“Children are a blessing,” the older man intoned, taking another big swig of red wine. Broken capillaries laced his nose. Just how much had he had to drink?

“How many do you have?” Jill asked, less out of interest than to be polite.

“Two. The heir and the spare.” He guffawed.

“Are they lawyers as well?”

“No, no, they didn’t want to follow in my footsteps. Shoes too big to fill, I suppose.” He chuckled again, took another large sip. “Our daughter’s a medical examiner outside of Chicago. She’s couldn’t escape the law altogether—she gets called to testify in criminal cases.”

“Oooh, that must be an interesting job,” Paige said. “Can you share any stories?”

“She had a tough case recently.” He lowered his voice. “A young man found dead—”

David suddenly stood up from the table, and when Jill looked over at him he pointed at his phone, mouthing, “be right back.” She smiled and turned her attention back to the conversation, where Mr. Silver Hair was still holding forth. “—all evidence of foul play. They claimed to know nothing about it, but of course they were the first suspects.”

“Of course,” Paige said. “The parents are always who you suspect when a child dies.”

Jill flinched, shifting in her seat to try to hide it. Andrew noticed. She saw him touch his wife’s hand, saw the look that passed between them. Paige spoke fast, stumbling to explain, “Oh, I didn’t mean, that isn’t who—not you, Jill. I didn’t mean you.”

Jill had to force a smile. “Sure, I know.”

“Of course you’re right.” Mr. Silver Hair looked from Paige to Jill and back, trying to hold on to the conversation. “They
do
always suspect the parents.”

“Excuse me.” Jill pushed back from the table, looking away from the distressed expression on Paige’s face, weaving through the crowded restaurant to the restrooms where she had to take a second to scrutinize the icons on the doors—hen or rooster—before pushing through the correct one and locking herself in a stall. She stood there trembling, waiting for the rush of emotions to pass.

It was silly to be this upset. Just a stupid comment. The conversation had nothing to do with her, nothing to do with what happened. “What people say has no power over me,” she mumbled, trying to channel something a therapist had once told her. She squeezed her eyes shut, trying not to cry. It didn’t help. She was back in the nightmare, walking down a hallway, sunlight falling across the carpet, dust motes hanging in the air. A faint scent of woodsmoke from a neighbor’s fireplace. The distant sound of a crow cawing. The soft footfalls of her feet in carpet. Closer. Closer.

Jill forced her eyes open, pressing her hands so hard against the stall door that the tips of her fingers turned white. She didn’t want to relive this. She wouldn’t. She had barely talked about that day with Paige; she’d hardly talked about it at all, even with her closest friends, but somehow they knew. Everyone knew what had happened to the Lassiters. A cautionary tale, a hushed “there but for the grace of God” story. Was God really so stingy with grace?

Tears spilled over and Jill swiped at them, blinking hard. She’d never been one to cry in public. A stoic child in response to her mother’s histrionics. She listened to make sure the restroom was empty before opening the stall door. A teen girl came in while Jill stood at the sink. Jill kept her head down, washing her hands while the girl primped, adjusting her push-up bra, and applying a fresh layer of sticky lip gloss. Had Jill ever been that happy and carefree? Once the girl had gone, she wet a paper towel and pressed it against the back of her neck for a moment, practicing the girl’s relaxed smile in the mirror. It looked fake.

She lingered in the alcove outside the restrooms, in no hurry to get back to the table. If she called to check on Sophia then she’d have to talk to Elaine, and she had to summon the stamina for that. The cell connection in the restaurant was spotty. She ducked into the lobby area, trying to get a dial tone.

Through the front glass she could see a woman talking to someone on the sidewalk with her arms waving, obviously agitated. The long hair, blonde and shiny under the restaurant lights, was what caught Jill’s eye. She dialed her home number, listening while it rang and rang while her hand strayed to her own hair. The woman wore a long fur coat—could that possibly be real? Jill watched as the woman took a step forward on impossibly high heels.

“Hello?” Her mother-in-law finally picked up the phone.

“Hi, Elaine, I’m just calling to check on Sophia.”

“Who is this?” Elaine sounded crabby, and Jill felt her own temper rise.

“It’s Jill.” She raised her voice to be heard. Who else would it be? The man taking reservations raised an eyebrow. Jill turned her back on him. “How’s Sophia? Is she asleep yet?”

“She’s fine,” Elaine said. “We’re watching
Snow White
together.”

Jill glanced at her watch. “Her bedtime’s eight o’clock—it’s almost nine.”

“I know, Jill, I can tell time, you know.”

The woman outside raised her hand as if to slap someone, and a man’s hand shot out and grabbed her wrist. He stepped into view and Jill, shocked, let her phone drop to her side. It was David.

“Hello? Jill? Are you still there? Hello?” Elaine’s bleating came from far away. Jill raised the phone back to her ear. “Sorry, I’ve got to go.” She hung up on Elaine’s complaint. David and the woman exchanged a few more words and then he turned and sprinted back into the restaurant. Without knowing why she did it, Jill ducked back into the alcove so he wouldn’t see her. She waited until he’d passed, face set in a grimace, before hurrying out to the front entrance, hoping to see the woman. The street was empty in either direction; she’d disappeared.

“There you are,” Andrew announced in his typical life-of-the-party fashion when she got back to their table several minutes later. “David was about ready to send out the cavalry.”

Paige laughed, but it was a little nervous and Jill could tell that she’d been the subject of the conversation in her absence. David smiled as if nothing was the matter, pulling back her chair, searching her eyes as he murmured, “Everything okay?”

“Yes. You?”

“Yes, of course.” He smiled, squeezed her hand. Who was that woman? And what had she and David been arguing about? Jill couldn’t ask him now; it would have to wait. She tried to put it out of her mind, but she kept seeing the woman’s hand raised to slap him.

The conversation had moved off the subject of children and back into the safer territory of law. “Of course, this was the real purpose of tonight’s dinner,” Paige said with a sigh. “Andrew wants to discuss the caseload with David. If it wasn’t for these events, I swear I’d never see him.”

“Hey, I always show up for a free meal,” Andrew said and he and David both laughed. Jill smiled weakly. She listened as Andrew, David, and Mr. Silver Hair talked for a while about their case, a lawsuit against one of the largest construction companies in Pennsylvania, getting into such a detailed discussion of the particulars of building contracts that Jill found her attention wandering.

“Drew says David’s on the fast track to partner,” Paige said in a conspiratorial whisper, leaning closer, blonde bob swinging over high cheekbones. She smiled knowingly. “And he’s not the only partner who feels that way.”

“That’s great.” Jill tried to share her enthusiasm, but all she could think of were the longer and longer hours that David had been working in pursuit of making partner. He was tired all the time, the shadows under his eyes becoming permanent, frown lines more prominent. His shoulders were often stooped from hours spent writing or poring over case law. They had little time to socialize, and what time they did have always seemed to be eaten up by work-related events.

As if she could read her thoughts, Paige suddenly said, “Are you coming to the Halloween party next week?”

“Um, maybe, that is, we’re going to try.” Put on the spot, Jill couldn’t think of a creative out fast enough. She’d delayed RSVPing to the invitation for the party hoping that some excuse would present itself. Every other person Jill knew relied on e-vites or just posted an invitation on Facebook. Not Paige. Her invitations were old-fashioned and sent by regular mail, always sent early and always preceded by personal pressure so she could lock every holiday down. “You’ve got to come, we’ve got so many surprises planned for this year. It’s going to be so much fun!” Paige clapped, catching Andrew’s attention. He leaned over, wrapping an arm around her.

“What has Jill got to do, darling?”

“Come to our Halloween party.”

“Of course she’s coming, you all are, aren’t you?” Andrew smiled at Jill, then David, clearly expecting him to agree.

“Of course,” David said. Andrew’s smile broadened. Jill kicked her husband under the table, and he shot her a look that said clearly,
What did you expect me to say?

The ride home was quiet, tension-filled. Jill stared out the window and watched the still, dark water far below her as they drove over the Fortieth Street Bridge, leaving the lights of the city behind. She felt restless, hungry for something more, though she’d had enough food and a little too much wine. Why couldn’t he just socialize with them alone? She always came away feeling annoyed as well as inadequate.

“Sorry about tonight,” David said. For a moment she thought she must have spoken out loud, but then he added, “The food was okay, but that place is so pretentious, don’t you think?”

“Yeah.” She kept her head toward the window, looking out at the night sky.

“Larry thinks it’s great, but I bet he’s the only one.” He laughed, downshifting to turn off the highway.

“Why did you say yes to the Halloween party?” She turned to look at him.

David turned his attention from the road to her for a second, obviously caught off guard. “Don’t you want to go?”

“I wanted time to consider it. I don’t think you need to jump every time Andrew asks.”

His face tightened. “I don’t.”

“You do. If he asks, you always say yes.”

“Christ, Jill, not this again.” David sighed.

“Not what again? What’s that supposed to mean?”

“This is my
job
. I
have
to socialize with them. Why is that so hard for you to understand?”

“You
want
to socialize with Andrew. There is nothing in the job description that says you
have
to spend that much time with him.”

They were at a red light. David turned to her, jaw tight. “First of all, Andrew is my friend—our friend. And yes, I want to hang out with him. Why wouldn’t I? He’s a well-respected lawyer—”

“From a rich and famous family.”

“That has nothing to do with it.”

Jill just laughed. “Oh, c’mon, you’re saying you don’t think it’s cool that he’s a Graham?”

The light turned green. David floored the accelerator, tires screeching as he made a left turn. “Look, don’t go to the Halloween party. No one is forcing you.”