something of a celebrity at Westerly. Her husband was a lawyer, which was typical to a Westerly dad, but he was also a state senator who had recently announced he was going to make a run for the US House of Representatives. Of all the fathers at the school, Branch Ward was probably the most handsome, but that was largely because he was under sixty and still had a clear view of his feet.
Penelope was the perfect politician’s wife. In all of her husband’s promos, she could be seen looking up at Branch with the googly-eyed devotion of a border collie. She was attractive, but not distracting. She was thin but not anorexic. She’d given up a partnership at a top law firm to pop out five fine, Aryan-looking children. She was president of Westerly’s PTO, which was a pretentious and unnecessary way of saying PTA. She ran the organization with an iron fist. All of her memos were bullet-pointed to perfection, so concise and focused that even the lower Mothers had no trouble following. She tended to speak in bullet points, too. “Okay, ladies,” she would say, clapping together her hands—the Mothers were big clappers—“refreshments! Party favors! Balloons! Table dressings! Cutlery!”
“Lydia, there you are,” Penelope called, her knees and elbows pistoning as she jogged up the bleachers and plopped down beside Lydia. “Yum!” She pointed to the empty bag of chips. “I wish I could eat those!”
“I bet I could make you!”
“Oh, Lydia, I adore your dry sense of humor.” Penelope pivoted her body toward Lydia, establishing eye contact like a tense Persian cat. “I don’t know how you do it. You run your own business. You take care of your home. You’ve raised a fantastic daughter.” She put her hand to her chest. “You’re my hero.”
Lydia felt her teeth start to gnash.
“And Dee’s such an accomplished young lady.” Penelope’s voice dropped an octave. “She went to middle school with that missing girl, didn’t she?”
“I don’t know,” Lydia lied. Anna Kilpatrick had been one year behind Dee. They’d been in the same PE class, though their social circles never overlapped.
“Such a tragedy,” Penelope said.
“They’ll find her. It’s only been a week.”
“But what can happen in a week?” Penelope forced a shudder. “It doesn’t bear thinking about.”
“So don’t think about it.”
“That is such fantastic advice,” she said, sounding both relieved and patronizing. “Say, where’s Rick? We need Rick here. He’s our little shot of testosterone.”
“He’s in the parking lot.” Lydia had no idea where Rick was. They’d had a hideous fight this morning. She was pretty sure he never wanted to see her again.
No, that was wrong. Rick would show up for Dee, but he would probably sit on the other side of the gym because of Lydia.
“Rebound! Rebound!” Penelope screamed, though the girls were still warming up. “Gosh, I’ve never noticed before, but Dee looks just like you.”
Lydia felt a tight smile on her face. This wasn’t the first time someone had pointed out the resemblance. Dee had Lydia’s pale skin and violet-blue eyes. Their faces were shaped the same. Their mouths smiled in the same way. They were both natural blondes, something they had over every other blonde in the gym. Dee’s hourglass figure only hinted at what could happen later in life if she sat around in sweatpants inhaling potato chips. At that age, Lydia, too, had been just as beautiful and just as thin. Unfortunately, it had taken a hell of a lot of cocaine to keep her that way.
“So.” Penelope slapped her hands on her thighs as she turned back to Lydia. “I was wondering if you could help me out.”
“Oka-a-ay.” Lydia drew out the word to convey her great trepidation. This was how Penelope sucked you in. She didn’t tell you to do things; she told you that she needed your help.
“It’s about the International Festival next month.”
“International Festival?” Lydia echoed, as if she had never heard of the week-long fundraiser where the whitest men and women in North Atlanta sat around in Dolce & Gabbana sampling perogies and Swedish meatballs made by their children’s nannies.
“I’ll resend you all the emails,” Penelope offered. “Anyway, I was wondering if you could bring some Spanish dishes. Arros negre. Tortilla de patates. Cuchifritos.” She pronounced each word with a confident Spanish accent, probably picked up from her pool boy. “My husband and I had escalivada while we were in Catalonia last year. Ah-mazing.”
Lydia had been waiting four years to say, “I’m not Spanish.”