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Flicking the shower on, Eliza climbed under the stream of hot, hot water. She scrubbed and scrubbed, her fingernails raking angry paths down her arms. She washed herself until her skin was red and raw and she was cleansed of the lies. Then she climbed out of the shower and studied her bedraggled, bare face in the mirror.
Sick with the weight of secrets, Eliza plodded barefoot and naked into her walk-in closet. She selected the fluffiest robe in her collection and wrapped it around her body. Then she knelt and very carefully pulled out a box.
She fingered her grandmother’s fine china. One of the teacups was broken, chipped. She’d dropped it in her haste to hide the collection from Roman just before she’d fired Andrea.
Eliza ran a hand over the sharp edge, let it prick at her skin. And she wondered with a heavy heart when the rest of her life would shatter into pieces and the lies behind the curtain would pour forth into the world.
TRANSCRIPT
Prosecution: Ms. Sands, when did Eliza Tate discover that you were having an affair with her husband?
Penny Sands: I’m not sure. You’ll have to ask her.
Prosecution: What if you had to guess?
Penny Sands: I suppose she probably knew the night I met her at the Pelican Hotel.
Prosecution: Did you and Eliza become friends at any point over the past year?
Penny Sands: I thought so.
Prosecution: And you didn’t think that was odd? That Mrs. Tate would befriend her husband’s mistress?
Penny Sands: Maybe a little. I just assumed she didn’t know about me and Roman.
Prosecution: But you just stated for the court that you suspected Eliza Tate knew about you and Roman at the Pelican Hotel.
Penny Sands: I said I didn’t know for certain, but you made me guess. In retrospect, I think Eliza knew a lot more than she let on. Eliza always knows more than she lets on.
Prosecution: What makes you say that?
Penny Sands: When Eliza Tate invited me into her home, I suspect she knew exactly what she was doing.
Prosecution: Why did you go?
Penny Sands: Because I was curious. Curiosity killed the cat, I guess.
Prosecution: Interesting choice of words, Ms. Sands. On February 13, whose idea was it to discuss murder at book club?
FOUR
Eight Months Before
June 2018
Penny hunched forward in her seat, scribbling notes in cramped handwriting to preserve the pages of the notebook her mother had sent to celebrate her twenty-seventh birthday. As an actress, a creator, a writer, an artist, there was nothing Penny loved more than the sight of a fresh notebook or the accompanying gleam of ink when pen touched virgin paper. The options were endless in that split second before ideas were ruined by reality.
The gift was more cherished by Penny than ever because she no longer had the luxury of purchasing a new notebook every time the whim struck. She couldn’t run to the local art store and browse the rainbow selection of pens. She couldn’t choose several at random and add them to her credit card tab, knowing it would be paid off at the end of the month by a steady salary.
Over the past month, Penny’s credit card had become a revolving door, never quite in the black, her bank account never quite plump enough to provide any sort of cushion. Everything Penny made, she scrimped and saved and spent on her education. Writing courses— everything from stand-up comedy to TV pilots to a Second City sketch class—acting workshops, directing classes, any and all free seminars she could find.
Meanwhile, her cupboard was thinly stocked with a bag of dry white rice. She’d learned the hard way that it took ages and ages to boil the cheap bag of red kidney beans from the store. She’d also learned that beans gave her awful heartburn, a symptom she’d grown intimate with because Tums were alarmingly expensive and didn’t fit into her new budget.
“Stop.” A hand reached down, fingertips coming to rest on her notebook.
Penny vaguely became aware that the voice washed over her from above. The voice of her favorite instructor. He spoke with a staccato, slightly accented tone that lilted with passion and had become comfortingly familiar over the past six weeks.
When Penny had found this class amid a sea of others, she’d glommed on to it, immediately knowing that this time, it was different. He was different. She was different because of him. She couldn’t hand over her credit card fast enough to pay for more sessions from the marvelous Roman Tate.
