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She’s not the problem.
Did the “problem” have something to do with the reason he was late?
An image inserted itself into her head. Ed, with his pants down, pumping into an unknown girl on his desk. Why did she have to think of that now? She pressed her fingers to her forehead and squeezed her eyes shut to block it out.
She was wondering about the etiquette of cutting a birthday cake when the birthday boy wasn’t present, when the doorbell rang again.
All the guests had arrived, so it had to be Ed.
Weak with relief, she tugged open the door and saw two police officers standing there.
Now what?
There had been a spate of car vandalism in the street, and the Wright family, who lived four doors down, had been burgled the summer before, but generally this was a quiet, safe area of London loved by residents and tourists alike. She’d certainly never had anyone in uniform standing on her doorstep. “Mrs. Hudson?”
“Yes.” Lauren smiled her best hostess smile. “How can I help?”
The younger of the two officers looked sick, as if he was suddenly wishing he’d picked any job except this one, and she knew then that this wasn’t about a neighborhood crime.
Her legs turned to liquid. “What has happened?”
The older policewoman took charge, her eyes kind. “Do you have somewhere quiet we can talk?”
Quiet? Lauren gave a hysterical laugh. “I have thirty guests in the house, all celebrating my husband’s birthday, so no, not really. I’m waiting for him to come home.”
One look at their faces told her everything she needed to know.
Ed wouldn’t be coming home tonight, or any other night. He wasn’t going to eat his cake, nor toast his birthday with champagne.
Ed wasn’t late.
He was gone.
Jenna
Envy: the desire to have for oneself something possessed by another.
ON HER QUEST to make a romantic dinner, Jenna stopped at the store on her way home and bought food. While she was there, she paused by the magazines and glanced at the covers.
“How to Get a Bikini Body.”
“Beat Those Cravings.”
Judging from the covers, she wasn’t the only one with a problem.
She glanced over her shoulder to check no one was looking and dropped two magazines into her basket.
“Jenna? Jenna! I thought it was you.”
Jenna turned the magazines over. “Hi, Sylvia.”
She’d been at school with Sylvia, but their lives had diverged. Jenna had gone off to college and Sylvia had stayed on island and proceeded to pop out children as if she was on a personal mission to increase the number of year-rounders. Personally Jenna was relieved when the summer people left. The roads were clearer, the beaches were empty and you didn’t have to stand in line for ages at the bakery.
She put field greens, tomatoes and bell peppers into her basket. “How are the children?” Why had she asked that question? The Dentons had six kids. She could potentially be here for hours.
She only half listened as Sylvia talked about the stress of ferrying the children to and from piano lessons, swimming lessons, art class and football.
I’d like that type of stress, Jenna thought.
Sylvia was still talking. “And poor Kaley was in hospital with her asthma again. Your mom was so kind. Visited every day. She’s great with the kids. And she loves babies. Isn’t it about time you and Greg started a family?” The way Sylvia said it suggested that producing babies was something Jenna might have forgotten to do in the day-to-day pressure of living their lives.
Jenna fingered an overripe tomato, wondering whether the pleasure of pulping it against Sylvia’s perfect white shirt would outweigh the inevitable fallout.
Probably not.
She dropped the tomato into her basket and made a vague comment about being busy.
“I must get home.” She grabbed a bottle of wine. She probably shouldn’t be drinking, but she wasn’t pregnant, so why not? Greg wanted her to relax, didn’t he? She’d rather drink wine than go to yoga, and after her earlier encounter with her mother she needed it.
“My Alice loves those stories you read to them, Adventures with My Sister. Could you tell me the author? Is it a series? I’m going to buy those books for her birthday. Her favorite is the story about them freeing the lobsters.”
“They’re not published,” Jenna said. “I make them up. I used to tell stories to my niece when she was little and somehow I carried on doing it with my class.”
“No way! Really? Well you should be writing books, not teaching. Where do you get all those wonderful ideas? You must have quite the imagination.”
“Thank you.”
That and a colorful childhood to draw on for inspiration.
“If you wrote those stories down, the whole class would buy them, that’s for sure.”
Write the stories down.
Why hadn’t she ever thought of that?
Author: a person who composes a book, article or other written work.
“By the way—” Sylvia’s tone was casual “—I was driving through Edgartown half an hour ago and I happened to see a pickup truck parked outside your mother’s house. Guess who was driving it? Scott Rhodes.” She lowered her voice, as if the mere mention of that name might be enough to get her arrested. “He looked as bad and dangerous as ever. I swear the man never smiles. What is his problem? I didn’t know he knew your mom.”
She hadn’t known that either. Thoughts of a new life as an author flew from her head.
What was he doing calling on her mother? And if Sylvia had seen him half an hour ago then that meant Jenna must have missed him by minutes.
Scott Rhodes?
She remembered the summer she’d first seen him. He’d been stripped to the waist and across the powerful bulk of his shoulders she’d seen the unmistakable mark of a tattoo. That tattoo had fascinated her. Her mother wouldn’t even allow her to have her ears pierced.
Scott didn’t seem to care what other people thought and that, to Jenna, had been the coolest thing of all.
