They’re all smiling, Emily’s arm around Bea’s waist.

I let them see me noticing the picture, then look back at both Emily and Campbell. “You both must really miss her. And Blanche, too.”

Emily frowns slightly, her fingers coming up to play with the little gold-and-pearl-inlay cross around her neck, and Campbell finishes the rest of her juice.

“It’s definitely different without the two of them around,” Emily finally says, the words a little slow and halting, her frown deepening.

“Less drama, that’s for damn sure,” Campbell adds, then looks back over at me, waving a hand. “I shouldn’t have said that.”

I actually want her to say a whole lot more of that. What drama?

A little of the smugness leaks out of me, deflating me as I sit at Emily’s counter. It’s a reminder that there’s a whole world here full of undercurrents and stories and connections and voids. Just when I feel like I’ve got a handle on it, some new thing pops up, some indication that I’m a newcomer here. An outsider.

“That was actually the last time we were all together,” Emily says, walking over to the fridge. “Fourth of July. It’s so weird, but I keep thinking I’ll get a text from Blanche, or Bea will email me about the Neighborhood Beautification Committee or something.” She shakes her head. “I don’t know when I’ll get used to them not being here.”

Fuck, this is not going the way I’d hoped at all. I can practically feel myself scrambling for some ledge to hold on to, some way to turn this all around.

Unfortunately, what I latch on to is, “The Neighborhood Beautification Committee?”

Kill me now for letting those words come out of my mouth.

Emily’s eyebrows go up a little, her eyes widening. “Oh, yeah,” she says. “We haven’t had a meeting since … well, since Bea and Blanche, because it just felt too weird without them there. But with summer coming up, we should probably plan something. Don’t you think, Cam?”

Campbell nods, getting off the stool and carrying her glass to the sink. “Definitely. Those flower beds by the sign at the front of the neighborhood look like complete dog shit.”

I’d just passed those flower beds yesterday, and thought to myself that they looked lovely, all colorful and a little wild. But now I agree with Campbell, giving a way too enthusiastic, “Totally!”

There’s a beat of silence, just a little too long, and I find myself rushing into it. “I know I’m pretty new to actually living in the neighborhood, but if you need someone on that committee, I’d love to help.”

The idea of spending time talking about flowers with the women in this neighborhood makes me want to die, but if Bea did this, then I want to do it, too. Let them get used to me. To the idea that I’m not going anywhere anytime soon.

I can see that Campbell wants to object, probably on the basis of me just living with Eddie rather than being a homeowner myself or whatever, making up some rule that didn’t exist until right this second. I know her type, after all.

But Emily beams at me. “That would be so fun!”

Campbell smiles, too, but it takes longer, and when she looks at me, it feels more like she’s baring her teeth. “Super fun.”

12

MAY

I had no idea you could spend over a thousand dollars on fucking solar lamps that look like gaslights.

But here I am, loading up packages of those lights into the back of Eddie’s SUV, his credit card practically smoking in my wallet. He won’t care, I know—he told me to get “whatever it is Emily has decided she can’t live without”—but I was eating ramen and cereal for just about every meal only a few months ago, so hearing the cashier at Home Depot say, “That’ll be $1023.78,” as I checked out with nothing more than lights made my chest hurt.

My first week on the Neighborhood Beautification Committee is obviously going really well.

So far, we’ve had one meeting over at Emily’s house, and there were only five of us there—Emily, Campbell, Caroline, another woman named Anna-Grace who I’d never met, and me. Mostly everyone just drank white wine for an hour and made vague noises about what kinds of things might look good around the neighborhood, and it wasn’t until the last ten minutes or so that Emily suggested the fancy solar lights. “They’d brighten up that front flower bed so much, and if we got enough, we could even use them around the sidewalks!”

Like an idiot, I’d volunteered to go get them, somehow not grasping that that also meant paying for them and lugging them back to Thornfield Estates.

Now, as the guy in the orange apron helps me put the last bag in the car, I wish I’d waited for the weekend. This could’ve been a fun trip with Eddie, but it’s a Wednesday afternoon, so he’s at work. He’s at work a lot lately, as he’s had to manage both his contracting business and the Southern Manors office, and he sometimes doesn’t get home until late at night.

I’m surprised that I kind of miss him being around. I’d thought that having access to the house, the cars, and the money would assuage any loneliness I might feel, but the house is … big. And still full of Bea’s stuff because god knows I don’t have any stuff of my own to contribute. Maybe that will be the next project I tackle.

I press the button on the key chain to lower the tailgate of the SUV, and am just turning toward the driver’s side when I hear, “Jane.”

John is standing there in the parking lot, a plastic bag in his hand, squinting at me in the bright sunlight.

For a second, I feel like maybe I hallucinated him, because why in the fuck would John be here, but then I remember that I purposely didn’t go to the fancier hardware stores in Mountain Brook, that I drove to this Home Depot in Vestavia because I thought it might be cheaper.

Old habits, I guess.

And John’s church is in Vestavia, something I should’ve remembered, but in the weeks since I’ve moved out, it’s been so easy to forget about John altogether.

Now I ignore him, but I’m flustered, and when I press the button to unlock the car, I hit the alarm instead, the shrill beeping seeming louder than it actually is.

“Fuck,” I mutter, trying to hit whatever button will make it stop, but then as soon as I find it, John is right there, so close to me that I can smell his cheap deodorant, probably something called “Mountain Lynx,” or “Fresh Iceberg.”