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“You and I both know how little that particular designation meant.”
Tammy had been a graduate student at New Essex in the art department when she’d first met Alex. She still made ceramics, at least Thom was pretty sure she did, but she’d gotten her real estate license two years earlier and had quickly become her agency’s top seller. She was rail-thin with dark, straight hair and looked more like an artist than a typical real estate broker, but she was gregarious and well liked. No one really understood why she’d married Alex.
“I didn’t think you’d be here alone,” Thom said, after accepting a cup of coffee, even though he’d rather have had another beer.
“My sister is on her way from Albany. But basically, I keep shooing people away. Janet came by with a casserole. I made a joke that it was the same temperature as my husband. Still warm.”
“God, what did she say?”
“She was confused, and said something like she suspected Alex was probably cold since he’d drowned in cold water.”
“Dear lord.”
“Dear lord is right. I sent her packing. And the police have been here, of course. I thought they’d take me to see the body, but instead they drove me over to the station and showed me a photograph of Alex’s face on the slab. It was him, all right. That’s when I started crying. It’s just so strange to think I’ll never hear his voice again. That’s what I kept thinking about. Then they took me back here and asked me where I was at six this morning.”
“Seriously?”
“Yeah, of course they did. I’d already told them that Alex was living above the garage, that we weren’t exactly husband and wife anymore.”
“So where were you at six this morning?”
“Asleep, of course. Alone in bed.”
“Right.”
“Where wereyouat six this morning?” Tammy said, her lips curling into a strange smile, as though she were trying to indicate she was making a joke.
“Not swimming with your husband. Home in bed with Wendy. Do you think there was something suspicious about his death?”
“I asked them, the police, and all they could say was that they were just following protocol. I believed them. He really shouldn’t have been swimming alone at his age. Still, I’m surprised he drowned. I think it’s much more likely that he had some kind of stroke while he was swimming.”
“They’ll perform an autopsy?”
“Are you asking?”
“I guess.”
“I’m assuming they will. I’d like to know, even though it makes no difference. Gone is gone, right?”
“Yes,” Thom said. “Gone is gone.”
They sat quietly together for a moment, then Tammy said, “Wendy know you were planning to come over here?”
“I’ll tell her, I guess. No harm in coming to see how you’re doing. I was over at the university earlier, had a drink with Marcia Lever.”
“Where’d you have a drink? At the Hare?”
“Yes. And we even toasted him.”
“God,” Tammy said, and looked as though she was going to cry again.
Thom stood and went to her, and they hugged tightly in the kitchen, her body feeling impossibly thin in his arms, her hair smelling of coconut shampoo.
“You’re not hitting on the grieving widow, are you?” she said as they separated.
Jokes flitted through Thom’s head but he said, “No, I’m not hitting on my friend.”
She smiled at him, tears now spilling from both eyes. Thom and Tammy had actually slept together once, five years earlier, two years after she’d married Alex. They’d run into each other one weekday afternoon at the YMCA, then Tammy had invited Thom back to her house for coffee. It was January, dark and unmercifully cold. Wendy was at work. Alex was away at some literary conference in Portugal. They’d skipped the coffee and gone straight to a guest room with drafty windows and a creaky bed. And there they’d had their one and only sexual encounter, ten minutes of ineptness that felt, to Thom, at least, like they were each dancing to a very different tune. Afterward, Thom had felt a wave of desolation pass through him and it was all he could do to not get up and flee from the room.