the doorbell. It was a moment before Mrs. Coleman, a woman somewhere in her late sixties with a broad face to match her thick body, answered with a kitchen towel in her hands. She smiled at Patty as she opened the door and when she did, Patty could smell the scent of something sweet behind her.
“Perfect timing,” she said, stepping aside. “I just made sugar cookies for the grandchildren. Come in and have one. You can be the lab rat.” She looked behind her. “Is Cheryl not around?”
Patty moved inside and stood in the foyer. “Actually, she isn’t, which is why I’m here, Mrs. Coleman. I was hoping you had seen her. Or possibly heard her come home last night? Or move around upstairs this morning?”
“I haven’t, dear, but maybe Mr. Coleman heard her, in spite of his presumed hearing problems. He’s the light sleeper, not me. I read my little romance novels and they leave me exhausted. And trembling. All that activity knocks me out. At this point, I can handle one shade of gray. Forty-nine more would kill me.” She turned and called over her shoulder. “James,” she said. “Patty’s here. She’s wondering if either of us have seen or heard Cheryl since last night. Have you?”
“Have I what?”
Mrs. Coleman turned to Patty with an irritated look on her face. “The man claims he can’t hear a thing. I’m not sure whether I believe him, because he has selective hearing. If I ask him to take out the trash, guess who’s doing it an hour later? If I tell him it’s time to eat and it smells good, guess who’s seated at the dinner table? And he wonders why I consume those novels of mine. Why I rip through them. Oh, look who’s here now.”
She looked up at her husband, who came from somewhere in the back of the house and now stood tall behind her, his silver hair neatly clipped, his eyes almost unnaturally blue. “I mentioned that you have bad hearing and suddenly you can hear. I wonder how much of your hearing loss is true.”
He looked at Patty and shook his head. “Don’t ever get married,” he said.
“Someday, I’d like to.”
“Save yourself.”
“Yes,” Mrs. Coleman said, “save yourself. Run if anyone comes. You’ll never regret it. If you want children, you can always adopt, which isn’t a bad option at all. You can have the pick of the litter.”
Patty flushed.
“What’s the matter, Patty?” James Coleman said. “When we put on a show like that, you’re usually up for it. What’s the problem?”
“I can’t find Cheryl,” she said. “I was wondering if you or Mrs. Coleman heard her come home last night, or maybe heard her this morning. Mrs. Coleman said she hasn’t heard or seen her. Have you?”
He shook his head. “I haven’t. She’s not answering her phone or her door, I take it?”
“She isn’t.”
“I heard her leave last night,” he said. “Was that your car that pulled up? I didn’t see it, but I heard a car. Sounded like yours.”
She nodded. “That was me.”
“If you don’t mind my asking, where did you go?”
“It was my birthday. We went down to The Grind to dance. It was a girls night out. Some fun since I was turning thirty.” She realized she sounded defensive about going to a club, as if it was wrong for someone her age to go do a dance club. She wondered if she’d ever shake the damage of what her ex-boyfriend had done to her.
“Well, happy birthday,” James Coleman said.
“Thank you.”
“Did you leave together?”
She shook her head, and when she did, her stomach sank. A few more questions and she’d be on the cusp of telling him that she left Cheryl behind and taken off with a man she didn’t know. She felt overwhelmed at that moment, not because she had disappointed herself, which she had, but because she was about to disappoint them, which was more upsetting to her because they were among the few who believed in her. Worse, because she had gone off with a man, she wondered how that would affect her relationship with them now. She knew what would happen. She knew the connections they’d make. They’d wonder if all those rumors about her were true. It was only human. Whatever they thought of her now, their minds would turn to all that town gossip and question whether they really knew her at all.
And what if they believe the rumors are true? You did go off with