though the wedding hadn’t been held in the Cove, she’d been ambivalent about coming back, not yet far enough from the past to return to it.
“I remember. You didn’t see Jemima Baker at Josie’s wedding?”
Of course he’d assume she’d have returned for her best friend’s wedding. “No, my wedding bad luck continued with Josie. I had an accident, ended up on bed rest for a while.” The lie was so easy to tell now. At first, Anahera hadn’t been able to bear talking about how she’d bled out her dreams on the unforgiving cold of an Italian marble floor, then later, she hadn’t been able to bear the pity. So she’d just kept on with the lie and Edward had never disputed her choice.
He’d just gone and gotten what he wanted from another woman.
Four years.
That’s what the wailing woman had said.
She and Edward had been together for four years.
“So if you’d never met Jemima, why did you have that impression of her?” Will prompted again. “Think carefully.”
Frowning, Anahera tried to track back through the years. “Before today, the only things I knew about Jemima came from others.”
“Josie?”
“She said once that Jemima didn’t seem interested in attending town events. Nothing malicious, just a passing observation during a phone call.” Anahera had used to curl up in a window seat during Josie’s calls, her view of the street below, but her heart in a misty, green land far from London.
Josie’s voice had been a song of home. And a memory of pain.
“She and Tom had just bought their own place and the renovations pretty much consumed her life—we’d talk about paint, about wallpaper, about rugs, even about the best tapware for the kitchen.” Anahera’s lips curved. “A family of her own and Tom, that’s all Josie’s ever wanted.”
“Is that what shaped your perception of Jemima?”
“No. Like I said, Josie was cheerfully obsessed with Tom and their new home—they’d only been married a couple of months then.” Less than a year later, Josie’s obsession had switched to her first pregnancy.
It had been raining the day she woke Anahera up with the news, her joy incandescent. Anahera had been alone, Edward on one of his business trips—even with all his success as a playwright, he’d continued to put in time at the family firm. The devoted son. Upright and steadfast. That day, Anahera had lain in her bed watching the rain create trails down the windows, and she’d listened to her friend bubble on about the new life growing in her womb.
Afterward, she’d gone to the bathroom and thrown up until her throat was raw.
“Josie and Tom got married less than a year after Vincent and Jemima.” One a large society wedding, the other a cozy local affair, yet Vincent and Josie had shared many guests. Josie had been ecstatic when Vincent chartered a plane to fly his Golden Cove friends up to Auckland for his fancy do.
“I think if Josie hadn’t been so involved in planning her own wedding when Jemima first came to Golden Cove, she’d probably have made an effort to draw her out, take the initiative in starting a friendship.” That was how Anahera and Josie had first become friends. Josie had literally run over to Anahera while Anahera was in the supermarket with her mother, and taken her hand.
They’d been three years old at the time.
“When Josie mentioned Jemima being standoffish,” Anahera continued, “I figured maybe Jemima didn’t feel comfortable coming into town because everyone was friends with Vincent and they all knew one another. I felt that way in London for a while.”
Marrying Edward had meant integrating into a tight-knit public-school community. Most had been nice people—though their definition of comfort was Anahera’s definition of total luxury—but she’d never forgotten they were Edward’s friends first, hers a distant second.
Will continued to watch her. “When did that sympathy change? When did you start to think of her as a, what, ‘lady of the manor’ type?”
Taking another sip of her coffee, Anahera let the deep, rich flavor seep into her tongue as she wound back time. “I think,” she said slowly, “it was the pictures Vincent posted. There never seemed to be any… normal ones. You know, just hanging out in jeans and tees, throwing a ball around with the kids, or having a sunburned nose at the beach. I’ve only ever seen photos of her in formal gowns or evening dresses.”
“Always?” Will pushed. “Not even in hiking gear? She’s a keen tramper.”