Margot Hunt - Best Friends Forever

“I don’t spend $200 on lunch,” I retorted.

“No, but $30 a couple times a week adds up.”

“So it’s okay for you to burn through money on your tennis hobby, but I’m not allowed to have a social life?” I hated how thin and brittle I sounded. But I resented more that we couldn’t have the simplest conversation about our finances without it turning into a fight.

“I didn’t say that. Jesus, why do you have to be such a...” Todd struggled to find the proper word to describe just how awful a person I was.

“Bitch?”

“I did not say that,” Todd said, pointing at me. “I would never call you that.”

Bridget appeared at the door to the office, looking anxious. She was wearing ladybug-print pajamas, and her hair was tousled. She was clutching Leo, her well-loved plush lion, to her chest.

“Are you fighting?” she asked in a small voice.

“No, we’re just talking,” I said at the same time Todd was saying, “No, honey, everything’s fine.”

“You were shouting,” Bridget said. “It woke me up.”

“We weren’t shouting. We were just talking a little...loudly,” Todd said.

Bridget’s lower lip trembled. “It scared me.”

“We’ll keep our voices down,” I said, hoping the smile I gave her looked more genuine than it felt.

“Come on, Monkey, I’ll tuck you in,” Todd said, holding out his hand.

“Good night, sweetheart,” I called after them.

Todd didn’t return to the office to continue our fight after getting Bridget settled. I found him in the kitchen, a beer in his hand while he flipped through the mail on the kitchen counter. I rubbed a tired hand across my face and decided to leave the argument about the Visa bill for another day.

“Don’t forget Kat invited us over for dinner tomorrow night,” I reminded him.

“Oh, right. To celebrate your book,” Todd said. His face relaxed. “That’s some good news, for a change.”

I had gotten the word a few days earlier. My book of logic puzzles would be published by a small university press. The advance I was getting was nominal—certainly not enough to make much of a dent in our current financial woes—but it was still an exciting development. Even this small success—or at least, small compared to the publishing I’d hoped to accomplish in the course of my academic career—made me feel a little more like the Alice I’d been before Meghan’s death.

“So I’m finally going to meet the mysterious Kat,” Todd said. He lifted his bottle of beer in a mock toast, then brought it to his lips.

“She’s hardly mysterious,” I said, annoyed by his flippant tone.

“She is to me,” Todd said. “What’s her husband like? What’s his name?”

“Howard, and I’m not sure. I’ve never met him.”

“But you don’t like him?”

“Why would you think that? I just said I’ve never met him.”

“Yes, but right after you said it, you did that thing you do when you disapprove of something or someone. You twist your lips up.”

“I don’t do that.” As I said it, I could feel my lips starting to twist. What a horrible habit to have developed.

“Yes, you do. You do it all the time,” Todd said. “You did it a few minutes ago when you were asking about the charge on the credit card.”

I hated the idea of having a tell and decided that I would not allow my lips to twist ever again.

But Todd was right. I wasn’t at all sure I was going to like Howard. Whenever Kat talked about her husband, which wasn’t very often, she hadn’t exactly extolled the positives. Howard was selfish, she’d told me, and people often found him abrasive.

“I finally get to meet the mysterious Kat and her apparently unlikable husband. That should make for an interesting night,” Todd mused. He took another long draw from his beer.

I used to find my husband’s insouciance charming. I wondered when that had stopped.

7

Three Years Earlier

I knew by then that Kat and Howard were very wealthy. Kat drove a sporty new Porsche convertible with creamy leather seats. Her clothes were all impeccably cut and clearly not purchased at The Gap, where most of my wardrobe came from. The bag she carried was probably worth more than my car. And she had already disclosed that her house wasn’t in the town of Jupiter, where I lived, but on the far tonier, far more expensive Jupiter Island.

But Kat was my friend. My very good friend, the person I was starting to confide in even more than my husband. When I received the email from the publisher to tell me that they wanted to publish my book, I had called Kat before Todd. Although, to be fair, she’d been far more excited for me than my husband had been. The difference in our respective net worths shouldn’t have mattered. It didn’t matter. All it meant was that Kat was quicker to pick up the lunch check and more likely to splurge on a nice bottle of wine for us to share.

But then I saw where she lived, and I realized just how different our lives really were.

Todd pulled our Volvo wagon into the crushed-stone driveway, the tires crunching on the gray gravel. We got out of the car and stared up at the building in front of us. The house, which would more accurately be called a mansion, was certainly impressive. It was white stone and built in a U shape around a neatly manicured front courtyard featuring elaborate topiaries. It had casement-style tile windows and a red Spanish tile roof. A detached garage, which looked more like a stable and was large enough to store five cars, was set off to the right of the driveway.

“Holy cow,” Todd said, staring up at the house.

“Is that your professional assessment of the architecture?” I teased.

“I think the whole point of that house is for people to look at it and say ‘Holy cow.’ It isn’t exactly subtle. I wonder who designed it.”

“You don’t know whose work it is?” Todd had an encyclopedic knowledge of the architects behind much of the real estate throughout South Florida.

“No, but it’s a fantastic example of the Spanish Colonial Revival style,” Todd said. “It’s really very nicely done. Look at the detailing around the windows.”

We walked up to the front door, an enormous wood-and-glass affair surrounded by a decorative casing nearly two stories tall. I rang the bell and realized suddenly that I was nervous. Why? I wondered. Was it about meeting Howard? Or were my nerves jangling because I wasn’t sure Kat and Todd would like one another? But then I heard footsteps echoing against a hard floor and the front door opened.

Howard Grant wasn’t at all what I had pictured. For some reason, I had envisioned Kat’s husband as a tall, fair man with broad shoulders and a cleft chin. I had no idea where I’d gotten this mental picture, since as far as I could remember, Kat had never described her husband to me.

The real Howard was of average height and very slim. He had thick dark hair speckled with gray, an aquiline nose and deep-set brown eyes. He wore a black T-shirt and slim-fitting dark blue jeans with soft, expensive-looking brown loafers. When he smiled at us, the expression didn’t reach his eyes.

“Howard Grant,” he said, holding out his hand to Todd.

“It’s nice to meet you. I’m Todd Campbell.”

Howard looked at me but did not offer his hand.

“I’m Alice,” I said. “Kat’s friend.”

“Right. The author.” Howard spoke the word ironically, as though I didn’t quite qualify to be called one. I had been predisposed not to like Howard, and so far, he wasn’t doing anything to change my mind. But before I could respond, he had turned. Walking away, he called back over one shoulder, “Come on in and let me know what you like to drink.”

Todd and I exchanged a look. Todd mouthed, What the fuck? which made me laugh and feel a surge of affection for my husband. We did not always have an easy marriage, it was true, but these moments of connection were our saving grace.