office, working beside him through the night, “but he must’ve been ready for another relationship. Because he approached me, not the other way around.”
“Really? I can’t see it.” She yelps. “Oh, why can’t I just keep my trap shut? That was rude. I shouldn’t have brought up anything about them in the first place—”
“No, it’s fine.” Now’s my chance. “I know about Joanna and the way she left him.”
“He told you?”
I nod and push the empty boxes aside. “Are you and Joanna close?”
“For years, we were the best of friends,” Rachael says, rising to her feet and crossing to the wall of windows. “With our husbands working so closely, it was hard not to be drawn together. When they moved here, we were pretty much inseparable, but then I started working, and things…changed. To be perfectly honest, we suddenly had different ideas, Joanna and I, and different priorities that led to a few arguments. And then she was gone. We were never as close as I thought we were.”
She pauses, staring beyond the garden to the cypress grove across the street, and I get the feeling there’s more to the story than Rachael is letting on.
“Have you kept in touch with Joanna since she left?” There I go, pushing too far, asking one too many questions. “Never mind. Forget I asked. It’s none of my business.”
“No, it’s fine,” she says, picking at something beneath her glossy thumbnail. “I haven’t talked to her since last summer. I’m glad she dropped off the face of the earth, to be honest.” She shrugs, and then flicks whatever she found beneath her nail onto the floor. I crouch to open another box; this one’s full of dishware. Before I can decide where to unpack it, Rachael points toward the dining room. “You’ll probably want to store them in there. That’s where she used to keep her dishes.”
Biting my tongue, I excuse myself to the dining room, and open the china cabinet. Every shelf is bare. I can’t help but wonder what Joanna’s dishes looked like, and how they compared to mine.
“She had the most exquisite china set,” Rachael says over my shoulder, startling me again. Her voice seems even more insistent in here than in the living room. Must be the acoustics of the cathedral-like ceiling. “It was gorgeous. The pattern was simple and dainty, and I’m sure each dish cost a small fortune. Looks like she took everything with her. I don’t blame her though, do you? One day, we come over, Travis and I, and—poof. We didn’t even see the moving van.”
“What’s she like?” I retreat into the living room, trying to keep my voice casual. “I’ve been curious, but haven’t wanted to ask Michael.”
“Oh, Joanna is poised and graceful and unbelievably beautiful. You can’t stop staring, no matter how hard you try. Without doing it on purpose, your eyes naturally search for any kind of flaw in her, because you simply can’t believe you’re standing there, talking with someone so perfect. You look for an indention in her chin, maybe, an unseemly mole, or one ear that’s higher than the other, but there’s not one part of her that’s blemished. Everyone loves her, naturally, and because of that, some part of you hates her.” She turns toward me suddenly, setting down her espresso, a smile fixed on her face, though it doesn’t reach her eyes. “I’m glad you’re with Michael now.” And then she’s turning on her heel, heading for the door. “Thanks for the drink, Colleen. See you tomorrow.”
“Thanks for coming by,” I say, taking the mug and setting it on the coffee table. “Wait—what’s tomorrow?”
“Didn’t Michael tell you? You’ll be coming over for dinner. The guys can talk business, and we can get acquainted.”
As she waves goodbye and heads down the sidewalk toward the cypress grove, I stand at the spot in front of the windows where she stood moments before. I can’t shake the feeling that she was probing me for answers, trying to get a feel for me, to see if I was some kind of threat.