said, smiling a little. “You were the first of us to be married. We were so envious.”
The memory of that envy, the thrill of being the first, momentarily warmed Susu’s face. “Jimmy was so handsome,” she said quietly.
Yes, he had been.
“Honey, I’m here for lunch,” bellowed a voice from downstairs. Susu’s plump face aged again. “You won’t believe who’s here, Jimmy!” she called gaily.
And down the stairs we tripped, stuck in a time warp between that picture-book wedding and the reality of two children and a house.
Jimmy Hunter quickly brought me back to the present. It had been a long time since I’d seen him close up, and he’d aged and coarsened. The basic goodwill that had always lain behind his character seemed to be gone now, replaced by something like confusion, laced with a dose of wondering resentment. How could Jimmy Hunter’s life not be idyllic? he seemed to be wondering. What could possibly be missing? I’d always thought of him as an uncomplicated jock. I saw I would have to revise this assessment of Jimmy just as I’d had to correct my reading of his wife.
“You look great, Roe,” Jimmy said heartily.
“Thanks, Jimmy. How’s the hardware business?”
“Well, it keeps us in hamburger, with steak on the weekends once in a while,” he said casually. “How’s the realty market in Lawrenceton?”
Of course everyone in town had heard by now I’d left the library, and heard and speculated about my legacy from Jane Engle.
“Kind of upset, right now.”
“You mean about Tonia Lee? That gal just didn’t know when to quit, did she?”
“Oh, Jimmy,” Susu protested.
“Now, sugar, you know as well as I do that Tonia Lee would cheat on her husband any time it came in her head to do it. She just did it once too often, with the wrong man at the wrong time.”
As right as he might be, he said this in a very unpleasant way, a way that made me want to defend Tonia Lee Greenhouse. Jimmy was the kind of man who would say a woman deserved to get raped if she wore a low-cut blouse and tight skirt.
“She was unwise,” I said levelly, “but she didn’t deserve to be murdered. No one deserves to be killed for making some mistakes.”
“You’re right,” said Jimmy, backing down instantly, though obviously not changing his opinion at all. “Well, I can see you ladies have a lot to talk about, so I’ll just take myself outside to work in the toolshed. Call me when lunch is ready, Susu.”
“Okay,” she responded warmly. When he was out the back door and down the steps, her face seemed to fold in.
“Oh, Roe, he’s always going out to that toolshed! He’s redone it as a workshop, and he spends hours out there piddling with this or that. He’s a good husband as far as providing goes, and he loves the kids, but I just don’t feel like he really lives here half the time.”
Caught unawares, I couldn’t think of what to say. I patted her shoulder awkwardly, uncomfortable as usual when touching people.
“You know what he does?” Susu asked as she rummaged in the refrigerator and emerged with some leftover dishes. “He goes and looks at houses! When we have this lovely home that I don’t want to give up, ever! He just makes these appointments and looks at houses!” She popped the dishes in the microwave and punched in a time setting. “I don’t know how he explains to the realtors that I’m never with him—I’m sure they expect his wife to come along if he’s really house-hunting. I’ve had people whose homes were for sale ask me how Jimmy liked their house, and I didn’t know anything about it!” Susu grabbed a tissue from a crochet-covered tissue box and blotted her eyes with ferocious intensity. “It’s so humiliating.”
“Oh, Susu,” I said with considerable distress, “I have no idea why Jimmy would do that.” The microwave beeped, and Susu began pulling things out and then got two plates from the cupboard.
“I’ll bet you’ve heard about it, though, haven’t you?” She could tell my answer by my face. “Everyone has. Even Bethany came home from school asking me if it was true her daddy was peculiar.”
“Maybe this house is just so much yours,” I said hesitantly. I knew it was stupid to open my mouth, but I did it anyway.
“Of course it’s mine,” Susu said grimly. “It’s been my family’s and it’s in my name and I love it and it’s going