Page 8 of Little Deaths

“More wine, Donni?” asked Opal.

“Um, sure. Maybe just a little.”

“Where’s Liz?” Irene asked, apparently determined to be a complete bitch.

“She couldn’t make it tonight unfortunately.”

The other women either looked at or made a point of deliberately not looking at Donni. There was an awkward silence in which Donni seemed to feel the slosh of the wine hitting her gut.I shouldn’t have come, she thought.

“Well, I liked the book,” Poppy Olsson said. “It felt very summery. Girlfriends, white wine, and steamy sex. I felt like I was reading Jackie Collins.”

“Except Jackie Collins didn’t write about grooming underage boys.” Irene tossed her head and took a sip of tea. “ButI hear some women like them young.”

Donni stiffened.What the fuck is that supposed to mean?

“Wasn’t this your pick, Irene?” Poppy said.

“Yes—but only because I thought it was in Reese Witherspoon’s book club. I was thinking of the wrong one.”

“Excuse me.” Donni set down her wineglass on a beaded coaster. “I have to use the restroom.”

“Down the hall and to the left,” Opal called out.

In the hallway, Donni leaned back against a bare patch of wall, feeling both tipsier, and angrier, than she’d thought. She liked the way the cool, bumpy plaster felt against her exposed back, after being in such suffocating proximity with the other three women in that stuffy, heated room.

Irene and Poppy continued to argue about the book in the living room, until Irene abruptly dropped the subject and said, “Opal, why did you inviteher?”

“Oh my gosh, Iknow,” Poppy said. “Poor Liz. She’s been blowing up my phone.”

“She RSVP’d to the Meetup group,” Opal said defensively. “I could hardly tell her not to come, her husband just dying at all. She’d probably complain to all twelve thousand of her followers on social media. And then where would I be?”

“I say good riddance,” Irene said. “And I’m sure Liz would, too.”

“Poor Michael,” Poppy said sadly. “PoorLiz.”

“Poor Liz,” Opal agreed and Donni heard the clink of glasses in what sounded like a toast. “Cheer up, ladies. Maybe she’ll sell the house after the funeral.”

“God, I forgot about the funeral,” said Irene. “Are you going?”

“Of course I’m going,” Opal said. “And please—keep your voice down, Irene, for God’s sake! She’s in the bathroom, not on Mars.”

Donni, not wanting to hear any more, slinked into the bathroom. After locking the door behind her, she dampened a wad of tissues and blotted her forehead and under her arms. The low-cut black blouse with its bell sleeves looked trashy now, not trendy, and the velvet choker seemed to highlight how utterly dulled her complexion was.

She had a pounding headache, too. Probably that cheap wine—or stress. Or both. Marco had died yesterday and here she was at book club, pretending like nothing had happened. Donni used the toilet and flushed, rinsing her hands with the foully sweet coconut-scented soap before deliberately wiping them on one of the decorative towels.

She still hadn’t cried over her husband. She kept wondering when—or if—the tears would come. Where grief should have been was only a churning nausea that made her imagine a school of roving sharks gnawing at the insides of her stomach.

Donni wondered if she was a bad person for not crying. What if she couldn’t cry at the funeral? They’d think she was a monster. And she was. They didn’t even fucking know.

I wish I could just cancel it all, she thought desperately, flinging the door open.It’s not like anyone even wants to go.

And then she skidded to a halt, barely. Someone was waiting for her.

Donni stepped aside instinctively, hoping that whatever awful things she was feeling right now weren’t showing on her face, but then the person dogged her footsteps and she looked up, lips pulling back into an involuntary grimace when she realized that the someone was Christophe Walters.

“Excuse me,” she said. Pointedly.

“Hi, Donni. One of the ladies sent me to look for you. My mother wanted to make sure you didn’t fall in.” He laughed at his stupid joke.

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