the ones standing in the corner.
"Those are great pumps."
"How about you?" I ask.
"Nope. Heels are a no-no for me. My feet are super swollen, so flip-flops is all I can manage right now.”
I ask her how she’s feeling and pretend that I can’t tell she’s exhausted.
When Dante comes out of the bathroom, he looks magnificent in his well-tailored suit, his slim-cut pants and the loose-fitting shirt that's open slightly at the top. The linen grayish color looks like a suit that you wear only in the summer at the beach, and I love the way that it brings out his eyes.
Marguerite knows about the letter, and when I put on my shoes and take one last look at myself in the mirror, she asks me about it.
"I'm not sure what to do," I say. "It came out of the blue, and I have no idea how to pursue it."
"Going to the post office should give you some answers, and maybe to the police."
"Yeah. Those are the two things that I have on my list, hopefully tomorrow."
"Tomorrow?" Dante asks.
"Yeah. I want to do this as soon as possible."
"Well, you know, the post office isn't going to be open. It's Sunday."
"Okay, Monday then. But I can't wait much longer."
She keeps asking me questions as we head downstairs and toward the car, questions that I have no way to answer. She asks me about my brother and about our relationship and what he was doing before he died.
"We were very close. We spent a lot of time together, and we were best friends. He worked in finance, a normal type of job. Hedge fund, kind of like Lincoln. Nothing about it was unusual. He put in a bunch of hours and got a good salary in return."
"You don't think that this letter has anything to do with his work?” Marguerite asks.
"I don't think so. The police said that they interviewed a few people, but he didn't have any problems at work.”
After a little while, I have to actually ask her to stop talking about him.
I'm trying to put myself in the mindset of going to this party, and I can't do that if I'm dwelling on what happened with Michael or what I should do or shouldn't do going forward.
We take two separate cars over there, and I keep kicking myself for letting things get so heated with my mom. We rarely fight.
Of course, we have disagreements, but we talk about them. But in this case, she just sort of snapped, and though I don't think I should apologize, this feeling of where we go from here and what do I do to make things right keeps weighing on me.
The road is quite busy with a lot of lights and people heading out for Saturday night.
There's a long line of cars right ahead of us, and I cringe at the fact that all of these people are going to turn into Richard's driveway, but they don't.
They keep going.
Apparently, there's a bigger party somewhere down the way.
There’re no other cars in the driveway, and we pull in and park around the fountain. Before I can even press the doorbell, Allison swings the door open and invites us inside.
She's dressed in a vintage-style cocktail dress with curls framing just the outside of her face. In an afternoon, she has somehow turned into a 1950s housewife from Leave It to Beaver, only a little bit more glamorous.
"This is nice," I say, touching the hem of her dress.
"Yes, Richard and I went shopping earlier since I didn’t have anything to wear. It’s Chanel.”
"Yeah, of course.” I nod and give her a hug.
When I introduce Allison to Marguerite, they shake hands and Allison acts perfectly fine and sweet, and then says hello to Lincoln.
"Oh, you two have met?" Marguerite asks, surprised.
I clench my jaw, thinking that a mistake has been made, but Allison just shrugs and says that Lincoln was here with me and Dante earlier this afternoon when we came looking for her.
Yes, of course, I nod to myself.
I'm not very good at this, but everyone else seems to be completely fine.
Richard is the life of the party.
He pours everyone drinks, makes cocktails, says witty things and shows us the magnificent view of the dark ocean spreading in front of his house.
Two servers with trays of hors d'oeuvres and a few more guests show up. There's another couple from the music industry who are renting what they refer to as a cottage just down the street.
Another couple