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Excerpt: The Merry Widow's Diary

Chapter One

Jill Townsend spied the city limits sign then glanced at her dashboard clock. It was eleven twenty-three? Already? The last time she’d looked, it was ten o’clock. She must’ve been driving by rote since then.

Trying to be more alert, Jill sat up straighter. On this late summer evening, the community of Darien, Connecticut, slept. Lights were out, the roads almost clear of traffic. She should probably wait until morning to return the borrowed Suburban to her next-door neighbor.

By the time she came to that conclusion, however, she’d driven past her house and found herself at the entrance to Alan Haggerty’s long driveway. She eased down it, rolling to a stop in front of his garage. A light shone in his upstairs office, which probably meant he was working, not entertaining. She didn’t want to disrupt his creative flow. . . .

Which was a lie. She was stalling, plain and simple. Tonight, tomorrow morning—what did it matter? The SUV had to be returned, and she had to face reality. She would be going home to an empty house. At forty-five years of age, she was facing her first night of living alone. Who would be in a hurry to achieve that milestone?

She pushed Alan’s garage-door remote then maneuvered his big Suburban inside. She hesitated then, her fingers on the key, delaying the end of her life-changing journey. For just a little while longer she wanted to ignore the fact that her already turned-upside-down world now spun on a completely different axis.

She switched off the ignition, silencing the engine and Norah Jones’ smooth voice on the CD. Quiet. Such extraordinary quiet.

"Okay," she said aloud, gripping the steering wheel. "O-kay."

She climbed out of the car then opened the door leading into Alan’s kitchen. "Anybody home?" she called out, in case he did have company.

"In my office," he shouted. "Come on up."

Jill jingled the keys as she climbed the stairs. After Alan’s wife left him three years ago, he’d redecorated and remodeled, removing all trace of her. The more contemporary style suited him, all sleek lines and modern art, a cool look that fit his post-divorce years.

She rounded the corner into his office. "Hi," she said with ridiculous cheerfulness.

He typed for a few more seconds then looked over the top of his glasses at her. Anyone who didn’t know he was a best-selling author of horror novels would never guess by looking at him that his imagination ran down such dark and twisted paths.

Her cheeks froze as she held the stupid smile.

"Home from the wilds of Boston, I see," he said, tossing his glasses onto the desktop before drilling her with his perceptive gaze.

Don’t ask me how it went. Please don’t.

"My car still in one piece?" he asked.

The knot in her stomach eased. "Except for the bashed-in passenger door."

He leaned back.

She tossed him the keys. "All tucked away, in the same condition I got it. How’s the book coming?"

"I’m about to murder someone." He rubbed his hands together in gleeful anticipation.

"I’ll leave you to your mayhem. Thanks again for the use of the car. I would’ve never fit all Tori’s stuff into mine."

"You don’t have to go."

"Yeah," she said against the hot lump in her throat. No sympathy. Please, no sympathy. "I do."

He didn’t try to stop her. She scurried downstairs and out of the house, then cut across his yard to hers. She envied him having work to keep himself occupied. Even when he’d been devastated by his divorce, he’d had deadlines to meet, which forced him to keep going. She didn’t know what she would do now.

Why hadn’t she planned for this day? She, the world’s all-time champion planner, had not planned for this huge life change. Why not?

Oh, yeah. She’d been busy grieving.

She unlocked her back door and made her way through the dark house and up the stairs to her bedroom. Her answering machine blinked, a welcome diversion. She pushed the message button.

"Hi, Mom. Just wanted to let you know I’m thinking about you. I know this is a tough day, but you’ll be okay. Love you. I’ll call you tonight."

Sweet Shanna. Jill smiled at her older daughter’s upbeat voice. She glanced at the clock and decided it was too late to call Shanna back, then her gaze shifted to her day planner/diary lying face down on her bed, where she’d left it after writing her daily to-do list. She picked it up.

Wednesday, August 22

1. Clean out Wade’s closet and office.

2. Drive Tori to college. Try not to cry in front of her.

3. Skinny dip.

The first item had headed her list for months, transferred each day. She drew a line through the second item—mission accomplished—then tapped her pen against the third, added hastily that morning, anticipating being alone tonight.

Alone. Wade should’ve been there, helping to take their younger daughter to college, as they had with Shanna three years ago. Jill had never driven into Boston before. The trip had been doubly hard because of the pressure of driving in new territory in an unfamiliar and larger-than-she-was-accustomed-to vehicle. Wade had always done the driving out of the immediate area.

But you did it, said a proud little voice in her head. The achievement ranked high on her list of accomplishments.

She set down her pen and rubbed her face. What now? She couldn’t go to bed. She would only lie there, thinking. She needed not to think.

3. Skinny dip. Okay. There was a good reason why she’d put it on her to-do list this morning. Wade had tried to talk her into skinny dipping for years, and she’d always resisted, afraid one of the girls would catch her. He’d sworn again and again to be her lookout. Finally, last year, he’d outright dared her, and she’d promised him that when Tori left home, she would take the plunge, naked. It was supposed to mark the date when they returned to a household of two, like newlyweds.

But Wade had died almost nine months ago, on New Year’s Day, one day after their twenty-third anniversary. And today her last bird had flown the nest. With the house finally free of teenagers who never went to bed, Jill no longer had an excuse.

"And I promised you, didn’t I, babe?" she said aloud, as if Wade were watching and listening.

She stripped, leaving her clothes on the floor, something she never did, then slipped into a short, silk robe and sandals. She headed downstairs and outside, talking to Wade the whole way. "If I can drive a car bigger than a tank into Boston, I can skinny dip, right? I’m keeping my promise. Now you keep yours. Be my lookout."

She inched open the French doors leading to the backyard. The moonless sky and surrounding greenery offered her all the privacy she needed. Yet when she touched the gate latch of the fence guarding her swimming pool, she hesitated, her confidence slipping. A gust whipped around her, parting her short robe. She clutched the edges and tightened the sash.

She debated with herself, rationalizing a way out. Just because she was a compulsive list maker didn’t mean she had to follow through. After all, who would know?

"I would," she whispered into the night. "A promise is a promise." That was reason enough.

She pulled on the latch, the metallic sound seeming more like a fanfare announcing to her neighbors what she was about to do. Which was ridiculous. She was the middle-aged mother of two college coeds. Who would care? Summer would fade soon, and she wouldn’t have many more opportunities to swim before the weather turned.

Her pulse beat a quick cadence as she sat on the edge of the pool and set her feet on the first step. Cool water nipped at her toes and ankles. After scanning her surroundings she untied her robe and let it drop to the deck. Her breath caught as she slipped into the water then pushed off from the bottom step to glide underwater, not coming up for air until she was more than halfway down the pool. She finished the lap, her head up, straining to hear—

Stop. Just stop worrying. She grabbed the tile overhang and pressed her forehead to it. You’re alone and you’re safe. Wade is watching over you. He promised. . . .

Her eyes burned, but not from the chlorine. She hadn’t known how like silk the water felt against bare skin. She let her mind go deliriously blank as she propelled herself through the water, lap after lap, until she couldn’t lift her arms anymore. She rolled over and let herself drift, her hair floating around her, a reminder that she hadn’t had it cut in months. There was something satisfyingly sensual about the feel of it now, undulating in the water.

A noise intruded. She moved quickly and soundlessly to the side of the pool, pulling herself close to the edge. The gate opened and closed. In the darkness she saw a man stop next to her robe and stare at it. He bent to pick it up.

Jill groaned silently at the irony of getting caught the first time she dared to skinny dip on her own. What were the odds? "Come here often?" she asked.

"Jill?"

"No, it’s Elizabeth from next door, looking for a place to meet single guys."

"I’m sorry," Alan said. "I’ll go."

"What are you doing here?"

"You told me I could use the pool anytime."

He sounded uncomfortable, and she realized her sarcastic tone had put him off. "And I meant it, Alan. I’m just curious as to why now?"

"I was having trouble sleeping. Murder does that to me."

She laughed.

He turned toward the gate. "I’ll leave you alone."

"Nonsense." She’d swum long enough, anyway. Maybe her mind hadn’t quieted enough to sleep yet, but she could let him have the pool. "I’ll just—" She started to climb the stairs, then realized her dilemma. "I can’t get out. I’m, um, naked."

Crickets chirped in the ensuing silence.

"So, this is the place to meet hot singles," he said, his tone light and flirtatious.

Jill had never thought of him "that way." He’d become a buddy, that was all. They’d known each other for fifteen years. He’d been Wade’s best friend, and Barbara, his ex-wife, had been Jill’s until Barbara had walked away from her marriage.

Alan dove in before Jill could say anything, apparently taking her silence as an okay to join her. She’d seen him in a bathing suit plenty of times. He was shorter than Wade, but still close to six feet tall, and with a broader chest and wider shoulders and more chest hair. At forty-seven, he’d aged well. His temples were graying, but his dark hair was otherwise thick and wavy.

He flashed a grin. "You’ve got that deer-in-the-headlights stare. Don’t worry. I won’t look."

They had never teased each other sexually. Never. Friends, and only friends. She tried to smile, if for no reason than to show she wasn’t bothered by his presence.

"You don’t trust me, Jill? After all these years? Why would I ruin a good friendship?"

She wished she could come up with something witty to say, but he moved a little closer and no words found the path from her brain to her mouth.

Apparently he realized that the whole situation was making her uncomfortable, because he said, "So, you didn’t say how the drive to Boston was for you."

She didn’t really want to talk about sending her daughter on her own into the world, but she grabbed hold of the change of subject with relief. "You know what it’s like, leaving your kids at college. You’ve been through it."

"For Barb and me, it was just more freedom to argue." He flicked some water at her. "Are you sure you don’t want to get out of the pool? You look cold."

He was right, but she wasn’t about to admit it to him. "I think you’re projecting," she said.

He grinned. "Maybe I am a little cold now that I’ve stopped swimming."

"Wimp."

"You have more layers."

"What’s that supposed to mean?"

"Well, it’s a proven fact that women are able to . . . keep out the cold better than men.">She hung in a corner as he swam the length of the pool again and again, as she had done. After a while he came toward her.

"You brat!" Like she needed him to tell her that she needed to lose weight.

She lifted her arm to splash him, but he sank beneath the surface, his laughter leaving bubbles. He was teasing her, but he was also right. She’d avoided exercising to the extent that she hadn’t even put it on her to-do list, hadn’t wanted the sympathy she would encounter at the country club. Or that was her rationalization, anyway.

"I’ll head home," he said.

He climbed the stairs. Jill watched without thinking, her gaze fixed on his shoulders, then on the water dripping down his back, revealed inch by inch as he mounted each step. His swim suit clung to his wet body like a second skin, albeit one with lightning bolts printed all over it.

I need to find a guy with a butt like that. . . .

He turned around, catching her eyeing him. She sank underwater, the water cooling the heat in her face. When she came up for air, he was gone. What had he thought of her? That she was pathetic? Or weird? He’d be right. She was those things these days. And more.

She made her way into the house, took a warm shower then climbed into bed, trying to find a new focus for her thoughts. Maybe it was time to make changes in her bedroom, make it more feminine. Hers. She could have a lace dust ruffle and pillows. And a lavender-colored comforter. . . .

Which would mean painting the walls and getting new window treatments. And daintier furniture instead of the large pine pieces. No. She would stick with the country look for now.

She snagged her diary from her bedside table and opened it to the current entry. She drew a quick, satisfied line through skinny dip.

Her phone rang. She grabbed it before the second ring. Was Tori homesick already? Did she need her mother?

"Hello?"

"Hi, Mom."

Not Tori, but that was okay, too. "Shanna, hi. Sweetie, it’s one-thirty in the morning."

"I’ve been calling every so often. I was worried."

"I’m fine. Everything is fine." Well, not fine, but at some point it would be.

"I know this is a big change for you, Mom. Your first time alone."

"Really, I’m okay." And then, just to prove her words, added, "I even went skinny dipping."

"What? Mom! What if the neighbors saw you?"

The prudish shock in her daughter’s voice made Jill smile. Shanna had always been the conservative one, in that sense like her father in most ways.

"You have a reputation to protect, you know," Shanna added.

"Don’t worry. Only one neighbor dropped by," Jill said in tone that implied she was joking.

"Okay, I get it. It’s none of my business."

"I understand you don’t want my reputation tarnished, but I promise you no one can accuse me of being a merry widow."

"I know, Mom. I do know." She yawned. "Well, I’ve got to be up early for my first class tomorrow. Love you."

"I love you, too," Jill said, missing her daughter so much as she hung up. She stared out the window, not really seeing anything through the blur.

She settled into her pillows and pulled up the sheet, proud of the fact she’d survived one more day without cracking up or breaking down. One more day of grieving.

One more day of not having fun, she thought. Then she considered Shanna’s shock at Jill’s having gone skinny dipping. Had she broken a rule of mourning? It wasn’t like they taught classes on this stuff.

Maybe writing it down would clarify it in her mind. After all, it wasn’t as if she hadn’t learned enough on her own to teach a class herself. She picked up her pen.

How to Mourn 101: Learn the best way to deny, rail about, bargain over, wallow in, and finally accept the death of your husband, father of your children, gainfully employed life partner.

Who swept you off your feet at first sight, she added mentally, and who defended you to his noses-in-the-air parents, and who made love to you like there was no tomorrow.

But tomorrow had come, followed by almost nine months of yesterdays. If she didn’t turn around and look toward tomorrow again, she would fall into an even worse routine now that she was alone, without any reason to get up in the morning.

The loneliness hit her full force. She’d gone from living at home with her parents, to a college dorm, then to marriage in a linear path, never living on her own. Never wanting to.

She turned out the light, rolled onto her side and closed her eyes, but the bombardment of thoughts didn’t abate. Coloring everything was her being alone. Then she thought about Shanna, a senior at Wake Forest, who’d always been solid and stable, and who’d confided in Jill, but now kept her grief at bay rather than dealing with it. For the first time, Shanna had stayed at school during the summer break.

Then there was Tori, Daddy’s girl, emotional and dramatic, making another huge transition, this time to college.

Alan. Jill hoped she hadn’t messed things up between them by him catching her admiring his body. She would hate to have their relationship change. She needed him.

She flipped back to face the ceiling and blew out a breath. It was stupid to worry about it.

And it wasn’t like she hadn’t seen a man’s butt before. . . .

Just not for a very long time.