Page 21 of The Thinnest Air

“But you’ll still be working together every day,” I say. “How is that giving each other space?”

“We’ll be in different stores.”

“You weren’t today,” I say, tracing the rim of my teacup and watching her squirm. She’s trying to act like she was on board with this whole breakup thing, but I know her better than that. This was all Harris’s idea. She’s just going along with it because she thinks it’ll bring him back to her in the end.

That’s the curse of us Ambrose women. We’re powerless when it comes to our men. I’m just lucky I found a good one. The wrong one could easily be my undoing.

I asked Greer once, “Why Harris?” I wanted to know what she saw in him, why she was willing to place her entire love life on pause in hopes that he’d eventually come around. She was quiet at first, contemplating her response. And then she told me he was her first love. And no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t unlove him. It was only ever going to be him for her.

Then she changed the subject.

Typical.

“You’re right, Mer. Wewerein the same store today,” she says. “It’s end of month, and I was running numbers. My office is there.”

“Your office is a computer you carry with you everywhere you go,” I say.

“Are we ready to order?” Our server interrupts our conversation with impeccable timing, tossing water on the flames that were starting to shoot a little too high for a midmorning brunch.

Greer orders the eggs Benedict.

I order the French toast.

We talk about the weather.

CHAPTER 10

GREER

Day Three

When I return, Meredith’s driveway is crowded with vehicles. I’ve been gone all afternoon, knocking on doors and visiting local businesses my sister frequented. So far everyone says the same thing.

“She seemed happy, always smiling.”

“She had the perfect marriage.”

“There were no red flags.”

Or the unexpectedly common,“I never really knew her. Sorry.”

It truly is as though she disappeared into thin air.

I pass through the kitchen and stop when I see a camera crew gathered around the table eating submarine sandwiches and little yellow bags of potato chips. Voices trail from the study down the hall, one of them all too familiar.

“Andrew?” I call.

No answer.

Heading to the study, I stop in the doorway when I see my mother sitting in a makeup chair. Her hair is bleached blonde, just like the photo Meredith sent me, and pressed into beach waves, her skin an unrecognizable shade of bronzed orange. From the looks of it, she’s settling into life with her SoCal boyfriend just fine.

“Can you contour this?” She points to her neckline. “And can you fix my eyebrows a little? Make the arch stronger? I just know they’re going to disappear under those bright lights. They’re so blonde.”

Leave it to Brenda Ambrose to be more concerned with her eyebrows than her missing daughter.

A producer with a clipboard and headset takes a seat on Andrew’s desk, going over a few things with my mother.

“What’s this about?” I make my presence known, eliciting a startled jerk from my mother.