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THREE YEARS BEFORE

Opal

Back then, her name wasn’t Opal. It was Pearl, and she was the CEO and founder of Weight but whatever it was, after a few glasses of champagne, Pearl stopped waiting for the other shoe to drop and enjoyed the day. She’d never had a nicer Christmas.

“Cora, I’ll admit it,” Zander said, leaning back in his chair after the meal, “I wasn’t sure about you at first, but you’re sound. If you wore something other than overalls, you’d even be pretty.”

“He’s being an ass,” Pearl said. “Don’t pay attention to him.”

“It’s true,” said Zander. “I am an ass and you should not pay attention to me. But seriously, you have a knockout smile and a gorgeous face. All you’d have to do is knock off the carbs, lose a few pounds, and buy a pair of jeans.”

Pearl shot him a look. Zander winked at Cora, and Cora laughed. “Stop winding up your wife.”

“It’s too easy,” said Zander.

Best not to disturb the peace. She got up to open another bottle and by the time she poured it into their glasses, Zander and Cora were discussing Barnsley’s chances in the FA Cup.

They all drank too much that night and Cora stayed in the spare bedroom. Pearl woke the next morning with a hangover and indigestion, but she had to admit it: everything had turned out better than she’d hoped. Maybe Zander was mellowing out. Maybe they’d been going through a bad patch, and they had turned the corner. Since the miscarriage, he’d been more careful with her, gentler.

This could be a new beginning.

Zander was still sleeping. She showered and brought a mug of coffee and a glass of water to the spare room. When she knocked Cora didn’t answer, so she quietly opened the door, intending to put the drinks on the bedside table so she’d find them when she woke up.

Cora was lying fully dressed on top of the covers on the bed. Both her hands were clasped to her throat. Her eyes were open, her mouth was agape, and her skin was blue.

Pearl dropped the coffee and the water. “Zander!” she yelled and jumped onto the bed and started doing CPR.

She was doing frantic compressions when Zander appeared in the doorway, disheveled and alarmed. “What the fuck! What’s wrong with her?”

“She’s not breathing. Call an ambulance.”

Zander came up to the bed. “What happened?”

“Fucked if I know, call an ambulance now!” Pearl blew into Cora’s mouth, resumed compressions. Nothing was happening. Cora’s lips were cold.

“Did she have a heart attack? Young girl like that?”

“Call 911!”

“I think she’s dead, Pearl.”

“No. No, she’s not.”

Pearl kept working. Zander peered down at Cora.

“We can’t call an ambulance,” he said. “It’s too late. And also, what does it look like, finding a dead girl in our flat?”

“I don’t care what it looks like ,” said Pearl, but she stopped the compressions because Zander was right about that part. It was too late. Cora had been dead for hours, while they’d been fast asleep in the room next door. “Did you hear anything? Did she call for help?”

Zander shook his head. “Looks like an overdose. Did you hire a junkie?”

“She is not a junkie.” Numb, breathing hard, Pearl got off the bed and for the first time, she saw the bottle of SeeMe on the nightstand, next to a half-drunk glass of water. She snatched it up. “Where did she get this?”

“I gave her some. She wanted to try.”

“You gave her SeeMe?”

“Yeah, she said she wanted to lose a bit of weight. She asked for it.”

“She is fucking allergic to corn, Zander!”

Her shout echoed in the silence. The two of them stared at each other.

“We have to get rid of her,” said Zander, at last.

“What?”

“She took SeeMe and died. We can’t have that.”

“No. No, we call an ambulance.” Pearl started for the door to find her phone.

“No,” said Zander, and he came right up to Pearl, and he grabbed her chin and made her look into his face. “You listen. This was an accident. But we cannot have any deaths connected to us and to Weight&See. You know why.”

“No,” she said.

But he was stronger than her.