Page 3 of The Wives of Murder Club
“Yeah, I guess.” Marta looked down at her blazing shacket like it was the first time she’d noticed it. She wished she’d worn something less look-at-me, and decided she was definitely going to return it. “Almost that time of year, pumpkin spice everything. But I, um, wow, I didn’t realize you were already here . . . I thought I was the early bird. Did I get the time wrong?” She made an effort to smile at Celeste.
“No, no, babe, you’re right on time,” said Imogen. “Quite early, actually!”
Marta followed Celeste and Imogen to the living room, where she clocked the half-drunk glasses of wine on the coffee table. Her face felt hot.
“I brought Milly over so that she and Ari could walk to their sleepover at Raquel’s together.” Celeste draped herself over Marta’s favourite armchair—the squashy beige one with the matching footstool. “Immy and I got alittlehead start on the booze.” Celeste winked at Imogen, then raised her wineglass to Marta. “Let’s get you some PG so you can catch up!”
Marta wanted to stab Celeste in the cheek with a cheese knife, but instead she nodded and gratefully accepted a generous pour of Pinot Grigio from Imogen. Sometimes, hearing about her friends’ children grated against her heart. She and Derrick had tried for babies, but it had just never happened. Supposedly they were still trying, but you have to have sex to try, so it would seem they weren’t trying very hard. Marta settled into the rocking chair and sipped her wine, resenting the fact that she was automatically excluded from the mom hangs.
As much as Marta enjoyed the book club soirees (that was putting it mildly; getting together with the Murder Mamas was the highlight of her social life every month), she wished it could just be her and Imogen tonight. Celeste and Bernie were great, of course, but they were newer friends, and they were Imogen’s friends first. And, if she was being honest with herself, Marta wasn’t ever sure where she stood with either of them.
Bernie arrived fashionably late, sweeping into the living room looking like she was on her way to a gallery opening, or at least wearing what Marta imagined one would wear to a gallery opening. After Bernie had a drink in hand, Imogenting-ting-ting-ed a manicured nail against the bowl of her wineglass to call their meeting to order. The host always picked the book—Imogen’s selection this month was a gripping account of the search for the serial killer who had stalked California in the ’70s and ’80s—and was nominally responsible for leading the discussion. While Marta always prepared a long list of thoughtful questions when it was her turn to host, Imogen’s approach was much more laissez-faire. Tonight, she opened the discussion with, “So, did we like this one or what?”
Marta had read the book twice and normally would have had a lot to say, but she was too scattered to present a coherent thought. She tried to make a point about the importance of devoting resources to unsolved murders, but lost steam after stammering on the double hardc’s incold case. Celeste ended up monopolizing the discussion and Marta settled for “um-hmming” her reductive points. Making matters worse, Marta’s seasonal eczema was acting up and the itch on her right shin was driving her out of her mind.
“Oh, before I forget!” Bernie exclaimed. “Sorry to interrupt you, Cee, but the Airbnb booking for Villa Pines is finally confirmed!” She held her hands together in mock penitence. “Please, everyone, forgive me, because I went a little over budget. The place looks amazing—it’s super spacious and has totally gorgeous views. I swear to you, no one will regret it.” Bernie whipped out her phone to show them photographs of the secluded island property on Massassauga Lake. Imogen clapped her hands with a “Well done, Bernie!” while Celeste squealed over the panoramic sunset images.
Briefly, Marta’s heart felt lighter. Although the cost of the cottage was far higher than she’d anticipated, she didn’t even think of voicing an objection. She’d figure out a way to make it work—there was no way she was going to miss the second annual book club retreat. Last year, they’d spent three glorious days in the sunshine at a cottage on Lake Muskoka. It was the best weekend in Marta’s recent memory. This year, they’d agreed on a long weekend at the tail end of September. Marta imagined it would be all blue skies, colourful trees, and drunken bonding over too much Prosecco. She’d already been looking forward to it for months, and now more than ever, she desperately needed to get away.
When there was a brief lull in the conversation, Marta drew a deep breath and, emboldened by the Pinot Grigio she’d been sipping, decided this was her moment. “Sorry, I’m so distracted tonight. It’s . . . I usually don’t like to talk about personal stuff, but things aren’t good at home right now. Derrick and I . . . um, he didn’t come home last night. Sometimes he just gets a bit wild, goes out with his old frat buddies, crashes on a couch in someone’s apartment. It’s normal, right? He lets his phone die, comes home later the next day, and apologizes for worrying me.” She looked around for understanding—some indication that maybe one of their husbands or ex-husbands had ever acted like this—but the other women were looking at her with varying degrees of pity or dismay. “Um, so maybe it’s not normal. But for us . . . like, there was this one time when he was in Vegas for a bachelor party and he didn’t catch his flight home with the rest of his friends . . . and this other time when he went on a bit of a bender after his beer-league hockey team won a big tournament, and . . . yeah.” Marta felt a fresh stab of anger as she recounted the ways Derrick had taken their relationship for granted. “Anyways, I’m just worried because I haven’t heard from him all day.” She dropped her gaze to her lap and started shredding her cocktail napkin as her vision blurred with tears.
Imogen did her best to soothe Marta, patting her on the back and saying all the right things, but Marta felt like her heart wasn’t in it. And—am I crazy?—she was pretty sure that Celeste and Bernie had exchanged a lookbefore they started lying to her that she hadnothing at allto be worried about. She wished she’d just called Imogen instead of embarrassing herself in front of her whole book club, wished she had the kind of friends who would make her feel better about herself instead of worse.Why did I think this was going to be any different?
The rest of the evening whizzed by in a boozy blur. Marta would have liked to stay behind with Imogen and talk some more, just the two of them, but stupid Celeste couldn’t take a hint and go home. After saying good night, Marta almost returned to knock on Imogen’s door—she even executed a one-eighty pivot on the sidewalk—but she stopped herself at the last moment, swayed on the spot, then turned around again.You have to stop being so needy, she instructed herself. Plus, after a few drinks, she didn’t entirely trust herself to keep a secret. And there were some things that she could never tell anyone, not even Imogen.
3
BERNIE
There was something about the domesticity of the book club ritual that made Bernie want to down three shots of tequila and scream into the night. She should still be living in New York and hopping in a cab to attend an underground vodka-and-caviar party, not walking to her next-door neighbour’s house for platters of microwaved puff pastries and prepackaged cheese. She resented her ex-husband, Steven, for many things, but their move out of New York was top of the list. It was meant to be temporary—two years at the outside so he could take a Visiting Scholar position. But then the affair (hers), the divorce (also instigated by her), the swarm of lawyers, and suddenly she was stuck because the court wouldn’t let her move the twins out of the province.
Bernie sometimes fantasized about leaving it all behind—her ex-husband, their children, this rinky-dink, wannabe version of New York City that was too polite and cold and boring for her taste—and returning to the States to live the life she was meant to live: unencumbered, fast, and free. But leaving now would mean losing her family court case with Steven, and she could not stand the idea of losing to that man. She could not stand the idea of losing to anyone, period. Plus, she was perfectly positioned to get a major promotion, and if she played the game right, in a few years, she’d be on her way to bigger and better things.
As much as Bernie wanted to bail on the Murder Mamas, there was never a question of not going. Celeste would be there, after all, and it was more important than ever that she be in her good books. Bernie knew in her bones that the medical director position should be hers—she was the best surgeon at the top cardiac centre in the country—but everything always came down to politics. So socializing with a Sunnyvale board member was a highly pragmatic decision.
Bernie slid into a pair of wide-leg trousers, selected a cropped sweater that exposed a sliver of toned abs, and completed the outfit with a pair of mules. Just because it was a neighbourhood hang was no reason to descend to basic bitch-ness; you’d find Bernie dead before you’d find her in leggings and an oversized plaid. In her opinion, most of the other women in her neighbourhood had completely given up on developing their personal style, it was all so blandly cookie-cutter. In the fall it was Blundstones paired with the aforementioned lumberjack apparel, and in the summer it was Birks paired with jeans and a white T. Bernie’s kick-boxing studio put up a sign during the winter warning everyone to check that they were leaving with their own pair of Uggs. She missed the high-fashion weirdness of New York, the unpredictable characters she encountered on the streets, and the way her energy spiked when she merged with the flow of fellow fast-walkers coursing through the city’s concrete veins.
In her current subdued environment, Bernie had been forced to resort to new ways to get her heart rate up. Before she left the house, she popped into her ensuite, took the stopper out of a small apothecary jar, and sprinkled a line on the silver tray where her perfumes sat in a decorative array. One long sniff and she was ready to go.Book club was way more enjoyable when she was secretly high . . . and that wasn’t even the biggest secret she was sitting on tonight. As the chemical rush hit and her nose began to tingle, Bernie grinned at herself in the mirror. She’d make sure she had herself a good night.
Bernie let herself into Imogen’s house using the door code that she’d been given so she could water the plants while Imogen’s family was out of town. Not that she’d ever done any actual watering—but she did love a good snoop. Earlier that summer, when Imogen and Mark went to Greece, Bernie enjoyed a couple of weeks of exploring their most personal spaces. She learned that Mark had a Viagra prescription and that Imogen kept a purple vibrator in her messy bedside table. To Bernie, this unfettered access to Imogen’s home was an unexpected gift. It had been ages since she’d broken into a house—a favourite, but wildly reckless, pastime in her younger years—and it wasn’t something she could risk now, not with the life she’d built for herself, not with the control she’d developed over her most self-destructive tendencies. But that didn’t mean she didn’t miss it. Poking around in Imogen’s lingerie drawer or Mark’s poorly hidden porn collection scratched that very particular itch.
As she entered the living room, the other women pelted Bernie with a flurry of high-pitched greetings that hurt her ears. She herself had cultivated a smooth alto and simply did not understand why other women insisted on squealing. Bernie did not consider herself a girls’ girl, nor did she see this as a bad thing, not even in the wake of the Year of the Barbie Movie. It wasn’t that she was against women, it was that she wasn’t particularlyforanyone other than herself. The female residents who thought she might be willing to be their mentor so they couldsolidaritytheir way through the male-dominated field of cardiac surgery were invariably surprised and disappointed when they realized she was not going to be their rah-rah cheerleader. Why would she be? Just as much as the male residents, often more, they were her competition. If anything, she thought that made her more of a feminist.
The vibrant orange of Marta’s shacket was the first thing that caught Bernie’s eye, as it clashed against the neutral palette of Imogen’s interior design. The colour certainly wasn’t doing her blue-white skin any favours either; it was giving raw chicken breast doused in Buffalo hot sauce. Bernie assumed that Marta must have bought the offending piece under pressure from Imogen, who was crazy about labels and thought she knew more about clothes than she really did. Imogen had been favouring Versace and Gucci lately—loud items that screamed EXPENSIVE but utterly failed to flatter. Tonight was no exception. Ruffles dangled uselessly from the wrists of Imogen’s blouse before pulling themselves into formation and marching up her front, threatening to strangle her.
“Great top, Imm,” said Bernie, as she got herself settled with a glass of Perrier, waving off the proffered bottles of alcohol that Imogen had arranged in an ice bucket. She didn’t plan on drinking with the other women tonight, and with the coke zinging through her system (and a little extra in her purse, in case she felt like a mini bump in the washroom) she didn’t need anything else to get her through a couple of hours of forced pleasantries. Also, although the wine labels on display were appealing, she was convinced that Imogen reused nice bottles by filling them with boxed wine. Last time Imogen hosted book club, Bernie had sipped a Sancerre at home as she got ready, then accepted a glass of what appeared to be the same at Imogen’s. The contrast had been striking.
After Imogen called their meeting to order, Celeste kicked off the discussion. “I think it’s interesting that while thepolicewere supposedly investigating these crimes, it was one of their own who was running around raping and murdering people. Like,come on.”
Bernie hadn’t finished the book (she almost never did, most books couldn’t hold her attention), but she had skimmed the ending and read a couple of reviews. She was pretty sure that Celeste was parroting one of the articles she’d seen online.
“You know he was fired, though, right?” asked goody-two-shoes-always-finished-the-book Marta.
“Um,yeah, but you know what I mean.” Celeste looked over at Imogen to back her up, but Imogen appeared to be distracted, staring at the heavily laden charcuterie board. “Anyways, it was a very tough case to cover, but in my opinion the author did a masterful job.”
“That’sexactlythe word for her, Cee,” said Bernie. “You’re so incisive. I always look forward to hearing your take.” Over the course of the evening, Bernie made a point of complimenting Celeste’s opinions on the book (borrowed at best, mildly victim-blamey at worst), her outfit (uninspired), and her hair (okay, this one was legit—Celeste did have great hair) in hopes of banking extra goodwill before the Sunnyvale board meeting next month. She was willing to do almost anything to lock in Celeste’s vote, but goddamn, the kiss-assery was exhausting.
Beyond the opportunity to cozy up to Celeste, Bernie ended up being very glad she’d decided to come to book club. She was fascinated to hear Marta describe how Derrick behaved in their marriage (Bernie would have divorced him even faster than she’d divorced her ex, not that Steven ever would have dared pull that kind of shit with her), and the evening was much more interesting than she’d anticipated. When Bernie gauged that she’d stayed long enough and could leave without being rude, she picked up her purse and was about to make her departure when Celeste sighed and said, “I so rarely drink red wine these days. Harry used to buy it for us all the time before he . . . Well, I forgot how much I enjoy it.”
