his final breath.
2
People expect so much from the individuals they bear a fondness for. That’s why I focus my energy into being as disagreeable as possible.
—C’est La Mort
“Thank you so much for coming.” Melanie gestured for me to sit on her tan leather couch as she settled herself into an overstuffed armchair.
I sat down and stared blankly at the wall behind her. It had been three days since I called Melanie to tell her that she was a widow, and this was the first time since that awful event that I had seen her. I took three Advil before driving from San Francisco to her Walnut Creek home and now, forty-five minutes later, I still had a headache.
“Can I get you anything?” Melanie asked. “Johnny, Fitzgerald’s personal assistant, brought me a lovely fruit basket the other day. I could cut up a few pieces and some cheese if you’re hungry. Or how about a cup of tea?”
I shook my head mutely. Migraines and food didn’t mix.
There were a few moments of silence. Melanie squeezed her knees causing her linen pants to take on the quality of wrinkled paper. “I don’t really know what to say.”
“Maybe there’s nothing to say.”
Melanie winced. “You think less of me now.”
“That’s what you’re worried about?” I asked, surprise overwhelming my discomfort. “What I think of you? How can that possibly matter at this point?”
“Your opinion has always mattered to me, Sophie. You were a very special student…my favorite, really.” A sad smile played on her lips. “I am so proud of all of your accomplishments. I understand that C’est La Mort hit the NewYork Times bestseller list in its first week! I like to think I played a small part….”
“Melanie, your husband’s dead. Your fanatically conservative, crazy, good-hearted and loyal husband is being embalmed right now.”
“I know.” Her voice was so soft I could barely hear her, and her rapid blinking seemed to imply that she was holding back tears, but her grief didn’t do a lot to alleviate my indignation.
“I’ve spent the last few nights awake berating myself for agreeing to entrap him. I can’t believe he spent the last minutes of his life with me and all I did was lie to him.”
“You always told me you were a good liar,” she tried to joke.
“I’m a great liar! And I enjoy it, but now all of a sudden lying seems ugly and…wrong! I spent all of three hours with your husband, and I know damn well that this was not a man who would have ever compromised his beliefs by cheating on you. What I don’t understand is how could you even suspect him of something like that?”
Melanie ran her hand over the loose skin that draped from her neck. “I did know him, but something had changed. Eugene didn’t like secrets. He always said that a husband and wife should tell each other everything.
“Let me give you an example,” Melanie said, apparently noting my incredulity. “Last year Eugene was trying to organize a boycott against The Da Vinci Code in keeping with the request of the Vatican. But I really wanted to see what all the fuss was about so I went ahead and bought the book, and once I started reading it I couldn’t put it down! I was just finishing up the last chapter when Eugene walked in on me. It was awful. At first I thought it was because he thought that reading it against the Vatican’s advice was a sin and that was clearly a problem for him, but what hurt him the most was knowing that I had tried to hide it from him. He saw that as a betrayal.”
“Not telling him that you were reading a book that everyone and their brother had already read was a betrayal?”
“I know it sounds extreme, but that’s just the way Eugene was.” I could have been mistaken, but I thought I heard a note of respect in her voice. “Lately I could tell that something was bothering him and yet he wouldn’t talk about it. It was so unlike him, and even though I couldn’t imagine him cheating on me I didn’t know what else it could be. We all make mistakes, and I thought that maybe he wasn’t as immune to temptation as I thought he was. I wouldn’t have left him, Sophie, I just wanted to know what I was dealing with. But now…now, he’s gone….”
Fresh tears trickled down the pale skin of her cheeks and I felt the unwelcome pang of guilt. I shifted in my seat, unsure if I should offer an apology, condolences or just get up and leave.
Melanie was right. I did think less of her. The dynamics of our relationship had changed so much over the past twelve years. She had started as my writing professor and then quickly become my mentor. When my father died I completely fell apart and Melanie had helped me pull myself together. After I graduated from University of San Francisco we had stayed in contact, meeting for coffee every few months. During our visits I began to see Melanie for who she really was: an intelligent, kind and altruistic woman with a lot of insecurities. Eventually she took a teaching position at Saint Mary’s College in Moraga and our visits became semiannual occurrences. That was my fault. It just seemed like every time she suggested we get together I had something else I had to do. When she got married to Eugene and moved to Walnut Creek our visits became even less frequent, although she never forgot my birthday or failed to congratulate me when one of my books hit the stands. I often thought of her but rarely picked up the phone to tell her so. I assumed that she was happily occupied with pursuits that didn’t involve me; perhaps mentoring another young writer. But looking at her now it was hard to admire her. For once it felt like I was the stronger one, the one with the most common sense, which was really scary since common sense isn’t always my strong suit.
“I didn’t want him to die, Sophie.”
I took a deep breath and forced myself to reassess the situation. Who the hell was I to give her grief? She didn’t give me a hard time when I told her I was getting a divorce after only two years of marriage, nor did she take issue with the content of the novels I wrote even though I knew they flew in the face of many of her religious beliefs. I leaned forward so I could take her hand. “Of course you didn’t want that, Melanie. I know that.”
“It never occurred to me that we would end this way.”
“It was just one of those awful random twists of fate,” I said. “He was in the wrong place at the wrong time. No one could have foreseen this.”
“Yes, a random drive-by shooting.” Melanie said the words slowly, as if trying to convince herself of them. “Or at least that’s what the Antioch police are saying.”
I pulled back in surprise. “You think they’re wrong?”
“They don’t know everything.”
“What else is there?”
“It’s just a feeling I have.” Melanie tucked a gray-streaked lock behind her ear. “As I said, Eugene was keeping something from me and he was so agitated and distant during the past few weeks. Definitely not himself.”
“Okay, but to assume that his recent attitude change had something to do with his death?”
“Thing is, he wasn’t just upset, he was nervous. All of a sudden he started looking over his shoulder when we’d be out in public. He’d double-, then triple-check the locks. For a while I thought that maybe he’d had an extramarital affair with a stalker, like Michael Douglas in that awful movie with the rabbit. In retrospect I feel terrible for thinking that, but still, something was wrong and I’m afraid that maybe, just maybe, that something got to him….” Her voice faded away once more.
“Melanie, you need to talk to the police about this.”
“I can’t! What if he was involved in something he shouldn’t have been? Reputation was everything to Eugene. If I did something to besmirch his name now, his memory would be tarnished—I just couldn’t!”
But testing him to see if he’d make a drunken pass at a woman half his age