Page 74 of The Last Housewife

“What?” My voice was soft. I was remembering, with a sudden pang, how Jamie used to look at me growing up, with such singularity of focus. This look was an echo of that.

His voice was low. “Why not walk away, Shay? Why are you so hell-bent on chasing danger? What am I missing?”

I placed the hairbrush on the counter, holding his eyes. “Let me tell you a story.”

Chapter Twenty-Four

TransgressionsEpisode 705, interview transcript: Shay Deroy, Sept. 17, 2022 (unabridged)

SHAY DEROY:After my dad left, my mom became obsessed with getting married. There was nothing she wanted more.

JAMIE KNIGHT:I remember. Nina was always with one guy or another.

(Laughter.)

I think I heard my mom call her a man-eater once.

SHAY:It was the opposite. She was desperate for one of them to stick, but they always left.

JAMIE:Sorry. Probably shouldn’t repeat gossip.

SHAY:It’s okay. Plenty of people talked. My pageant coach sure did. She told me to take care I didn’t end up like my mom.

JAMIE:As if being an unmarried woman is the world’s greatest tragedy.

SHAY:It was to her. She did everything—dieted, joined the gym, spent money we didn’t have on clothes and makeup, at-home facials. She’d spend hours holed up in her bathroom wearing these mint-green masks, poring over her face in the mirror, tracing her crow’s-feet. A poor woman’s Miss Havisham, I used to think, wrapped in a Walmart robe.

When I was younger and craved being near her, I would go in and lie at her feet, watching her watch herself. But then she started turning her eyes on me, wanting to talk aboutmyskin, and weight, and face. So I stopped going.

Most of the men she dated were deadbeats, and I hated when she brought them home. Maybe I resented her dating because it felt like on some level, she was saying I wasn’t enough.

JAMIE:Is that still how you feel?

SHAY(clearing throat):No. Now I know she was just trying to prove to herself she was worth loving. I find that sad, both of us obsessed with the same thing, neither of us able to talk about it. Sometimes I wish I could tell her that.

JAMIE:Why can’t you? I never understood the falling-out.

SHAY:Do you remember Mr. Trevors?

JAMIE:Our high school English teacher?

SHAY:Yes.

JAMIE:Of course. He was the worst. What about him?

SHAY:If you’re worried about libel, you’ll want to edit this part later.

JAMIE:Okay…

SHAY:Freshman year, my mom started dating him.

JAMIE:You’re kidding.

SHAY:She met him at orientation. She’d just started her job on the front desk at the women’s shelter, which meant she finally had a nine-to-five and could go to school events. Figures—the one time she actually participates, she leaves with a date.

JAMIE:Why didn’t you tell me? Now I have to go back and reexamine all my memories.

SHAY:My mom was excited because he was different from the men she usually dated. He had a decent job, he was clean-cut, everyone in Heller knew him. From the beginning, she was dreaming about getting married and living in one of those ranch houses, like your family.