The Girl Who Stopped Swimming - By Joshilyn Jackson Page 0,72

him, and she wasn’t sure how dangerous he was. She hurried inside and locked the door behind her, but the house felt big and far too quiet. Her adrenaline faded, leaving her shaky and a little sick at the pit of her.

She paced the house, too nervous to be still. She was afraid Stan Webelow would show up, and under that, she was afraid that if he didn’t, she’d have to start thinking again. David and Kaitlyn Reese. Finally, she went to her workroom and spread her quilt out on the table. The bride stared up at her, a mouthless witness to whatever came next. Laurel turned herself deliberately to the task of sewing on the pinned rosebuds and lengths of scarlet ribbon. It required enough concentration to slow her racing thoughts, but she still felt herself tensing every time she heard a car come down the quiet street. She wasn’t sure whom she was more afraid of seeing—Stan Webelow or David.

Each car passed right by the house, continuing on its business without even slowing. The afternoon shadows lengthened outside as she worked, and still Thalia was not home. Laurel attached the final rosebud and stood back to look at the completed quilt. She couldn’t tell if she liked it or not. She left it out on the worktable and went back to the kitchen.

She opened a cold bottle of Chablis and poured herself a generous measure, then sat on the sofa and sipped it, too sick to be hungry. She finished the glass and poured herself another. She drank some of that, too, until she realized it was making her dizzy. She hadn’t gotten lunch. Now here it was, almost time to start dinner. She took the glass back to the kitchen and set it by the sink.

She heard another car coming and stood up straighter, her ears straining. This one slowed, pulling in to her driveway. She went into the dining room and peered out of the sheers. It was her Volvo, at long last. She hurried to the front door and undid the locks, swinging the door wide.

Thalia was coming up the walk, but she wasn’t alone. She had one long arm draped over Bunny Dufresne’s shoulder. They were tilted in, leaning on each other. A wave of spiced rum and coconut rolled onto the porch before they did, and as they got close, Laurel could see that Barb’s lipstick was askew.

“Buy a girl a drink?” said Thalia, and lurched inside, carting Bunny with her.

CHAPTER 13

Barbara Dufresne was a barb in the morning, sharp and pricking. Her husband always called her Bunny, but Laurel thought of her as Bunny only in the afternoon. By three P.M. each day, she would be blurred to fuzziness, her eyes as pink-rimmed as any rabbit’s. Bunny was crafty and she functioned, but DeLop was full to bursting with every shade of alcoholic, so Laurel had recognized her colors by the second time they met.

Since their daughters had become fused at the hip, Laurel was familiar with both of Bunny’s incarnations, but the woman Thalia was half carrying over the threshold was a stranger. Laurel had never seen Barb blatantly intoxicated. Barb and Thalia swayed past Laurel like dance partners, sweeping through the foyer and into the keeping room.

Thalia called back over her shoulder, “Barb says she’s ready for some coffee.” She slurred a merry path through all the S’s.

Laurel got her mouth to work and said, “Dear God, what have you been doing?”

Thalia paused and rotated her head as far as it would go, peering close to backward at Laurel like a sloppy-drunk owl. “Just make the coffee, Buglet.” Thalia pulled Bunny onward. Laurel followed them into the keeping room. They navigated around the coffee table and plopped onto the sofa, Thalia first and then Bunny, like an echo. “Coffee,” Thalia demanded.

Laurel stalked toward the kitchen, and Bunny blinked at her as she passed, slow, like sleepy babies blink.

“Let’s have it Irish-style,” Bunny said. “You got whiskey and Cool Whip?”

“No,” Laurel said, vehement. “I don’t have anything like that.”

Thalia swallowed a burp and said, “You make that rum cake with the nuts every Christmas. That cake is soaking in it.”

Bunny lifted one wise finger. “Palmolive,” she intoned.

Thalia said, “We can put milk and rum and sugar in.”

“Rummish coffee,” said Bunny.

Laurel glared at Thalia. This was worse than useless. It was downright awful. They needed Stan Webelow here, drunk and helpless, sprawled out on the sofa while Laurel and Thalia worked a