Fourteen
T
here was nothing careful about the way she looked. It was Friday night, and Iris had called Trish and asked her for a drink. Demanded was more like it. Beforehand, she’d hurried into town, hitting a few of the trendier boutiques on Railroad Street before she found what she was looking for. A black one-shouldered top, simple and sexy at once. While she was there she figured she might as well splurge on a new pair of jeans. Her old ones were baggy in the rear now, and she was finished with the drab, shapeless items she’d hurriedly packed from home, which she now referred to as her mourning clothes. Which meant, of course, that she needed a new pair of shoes— in a style decidedly unsensible. She’d found them, in a pair of strappy black sandals that made her toes throb but her calf muscles flash. And a pair of open-toed cream wedges that added at least three inches to her height. She’d charged all of it, tossing a coral scarf on the counter at the last second. Let Paul worry about the bill. When she came downstairs that night, Bill looked up from his wing chair and smiled. “Well, look at you.” Leah, who was curled up on the couch with the TV remote, narrowed her eyes suspiciously. “Where are you going?” “Down to the Dock, with Trish. Want to come?” She was determined not to argue with her sister. But Iris bit her lip the second the words came out. This was her night.