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Everyone else starts popping into the house then, none of them bothering to knock. I hear Stafford greet his wife with a noisy smack on the lips, as if they’ve been separated for weeks instead of a 30 minute car ride.
I turn to face the coming onslaught and spot Nora busying herself with the cheese and crackers, arranging them all just so. I watch for a second as she beautifies the tray I set out, then seamlessly moves over to my drawers and removes a pile of napkins to put out.
It’s not lost on me how well everything she’s doing so nicely complements what I’ve already done. How domestic this all is.
I don’t have time to dwell on this, though, since a second later the first wave of the group enters and my stomach twists at the sight of the unexpected addition to the group: Becca. Lucy and Emily’s old roommate.
“Look who we picked up,” Lucy chirps. “We were supposed to meet her for breakfast this morning too, and when she found out we had to cancel because Reynolds had eloped with none other than the famous and elusive Nora Evans she obviously had to tag along and meet her.”
“Yup,” Becca confirms with a huge smile Nora’s way.
Nora smiles back, unaware of the wrench in our “no one would ever go down to our laundry room” plan. Becca is a very nice person and I enjoy hanging out with her and her fiancé, Lucy’s brother Seth, but the woman is a walking stain magnet. If there’s something that she can spill on herself, she will spill it on herself.
She’s actually been in my laundry room before for this very reason.
All of us were hanging out here for a board game day, and she spilled a splash of hot chocolate on herself. In the name of being hospitable—per my mother’s legacy—I offered her the use of my Tide pen.
If she spills something on herself again today, will she expect the same level of hospitality?
Nervously I eye the packet of hot chocolate I got out for Mel. Nora crosses the room to shake Becca’s hand, and I hurry toward the little red and white packet, shoving it away in a random drawer. No hot chocolate will be offered today.
“Reynolds, my man” Stafford comments as he heads for the table and grabs himself one of the pink La Croix I set out. “You always hook me up. Mind if I have one?”
“That’s what they’re for, bro,” I say smoothly, trying to will away the nervous sheen of sweat I can feel beading along my hairline. I need to calm down. Even if Becca did go into the laundry room, is she really going to look in the bucket where Nora’s shirt is soaking? And if she did, would she really assume the red tint of the water was from blood stains?
No and no.
Although maybe I should make up some excuse and go empty it just in case. But then where will I put the shirt? What if it still has blood on it?
“Jack?” Nora steps in front of me, waving a hand in my face. “Did you hear Becca? I offered her something to drink and she asked if we have any hot chocolate. What happened to the packet you put out?”
“Packet?” I echo in a voice that’s much too high-pitched to be coming out of my body. I cough and try again. “What packet? I don’t have any hot chocolate packets. You must’ve mis-seen.” I try to communicate without words that she should let it go and jump aboard the we-don’t-have-hot-chocolate train, but she completely misses my all aboard efforts.
“No, it was right here on the counter next to my tea bag,” she says, tapping the spot where the packet I swept away once sat.
“Oh, Reynolds is just trying to save me from myself,” Becca says with a laugh. “Last time I was here I spilled hot chocolate on my shirt, but don’t worry, Reynolds, that Tide pen you lent me got the stain right out.”
“Stain? Tide pen?” Nora echoes, finally catching on. “Laundry room,” she finishes, then her eyes pop wide as she realizes she said this last bit out loud. “I mean,” she corrects, “I actually just used up Jack’s Tide pen, which he stores in the laundry room.” She nods. “Yep. Spilled some ketchup all over my shirt last night. It’s soaking in the laundry room now. Tide pen didn’t work.”
My hands squeeze into nervous balls. She needs to stop talking now. The more lies we add to our fabricated story, the more lies we have to remember.
“Oh,” Becca says, looking bemusedly between both of us. “Well okay. I’ll just have water then, please.”
Phew. I let out a shaky breath as I fill up a glass of water for her. She accepts it just as Mel, the last to arrive, walks in. Anderson, who’s been quietly watching all of these exchanges from the doorway, slides over to greet her with a kiss on the cheek.
“No hot chocolate today, babe,” he tells her.
“Oh.” Mel’s face falls ever so slightly. This group may be unpredictable when it comes to their actionable choices, but they are extremely predictable when it comes to their drinks of choice. “That’s okay,” she forces her face back into a smile. “I’ll just have water.”
Having secured drinks for everyone we all head for the living room.
I take it as a good sign that Anderson doesn’t ask everyone to leave while he talks to Nora. Hopefully that means he’s not planning on asking any hard-hitting or accusatory questions.
This may just be a formality. As established, finding a dead body on a person’s front lawn does require at least some questions be asked.
“So, Nora,” Anderson begins as he settles back in the chair across from where she and I are sitting on my loveseat, “walk me through last night.”
“Walk you through last night,” she echoes, smoothing her hands over the skirt of her dress in a way that displays her nerves. I reach over and take one of her worrying hands in mine.
