Last Scene Alive

The next day I'd woken up sorry, but not because I hadn't solved Barrett's financial problems. I'd been sorry because Martin had loved Barrett, and would have wanted me to send the money—no matter what it said about Barrett that he'd even asked me for it. So without calling or writing a note to enclose, I'd FedExed Barrett a check— my own money—for what he'd needed.

I'd never heard a word from him after that, until this moment. I'd sent him his share of Martin's estate when it had all been settled. I had not deducted what I'd already given him. That would have been businesslike, but he would have taken it as petty. I just didn't want to struggle with Barrett any more.

So here we were, not talking about the incident that lay between us, as big and smelly as a dead fish.

I cleared my throat and asked after his mother and aunt. Cindy's florist shop was doing well, Barrett said. In fact, Cindy and her partner were expanding the shop to include gifts and home-decorating items. "They took out a loan," Barrett made a point of telling me, I guess so I'd realize he couldn't have turned to his mother for money. "She and De

"I'm glad for them," I said, not caring one little bit.

"Aunt Barby has been keeping Regina's baby for a week or two, while Regina and her husband are on vacation in New York."

While I was indifferent about Cindy, I actively disliked Martin's sister Barby and her daughter Regina, who was on her second marriage. I was confident that Regina would someday be on her fourth. Probably she would have had a few more babies along the way.

"Why didn't you and Dad have any children?" Barrett asked me. The question came from out of the blue and lodged in my heart.

"I can't have children," I said. "We talked about it a little, before we found out that I had some fertility problems. I sure wanted a baby, and sometimes he did too. But he was a little wary of starting a new family at his age." I saw Martin, so clearly, leaning over Regina's baby when I'd placed him beside Martin on our bed. Tears trickled down my cheeks. I lowered my face and wiped it with a napkin. "Can I get you some more coffee?" I asked politely.

"No, thank you. I need to be getting back." Barrett and I both stood up. He scrabbled through his pockets for the car keys, and looked uncertain, not a normal Barrett state of mind.

He looked as though he were going to make some kind of pronouncement, but in the end, all he said was, "Thanks for the coffee." It wasn't until I watched his car turn onto the county road that I realized he'd never told me why he was in Lawrenceton.

It didn't take long for the other shoe to drop. While I was upstairs covering up the circles under my eyes and brushing my hair, it suddenly occurred to me that Barrett was in town because he had a part in the movie. I couldn't imagine why I hadn't made the co

I collapsed ungracefully on the delicate peach-colored chair in the corner of the bedroom and further considered this likelihood. Barrett was an up-and-coming actor, whose longest ru

I wondered what role Barrett would have. I wondered, for the first time, what the script was like; how close the movie would come to the reality.

I wished I hadn't hung up on Robin Crusoe.

Moved by an impulse I didn't even want to analyze, I decided to go shopping that morning. My friend Amina Day's mother owned a women's clothing store called Great Day. If I bought anything in Lawrenceton, rather than going to my favorite store in Atlanta, I bought it at Great Day. To my pleasure, Mrs. Day had a younger partner now, and the selection had really improved as a result.

I had a closet full of good clothes already, but I needed something new, some voice deep within me advised. My coloring—brown hair, brown eyes, fair complexion—was pretty neutral, so my color field was wide open. As Barrett had noticed, I'd lost weight I'd never regained when Martin died, so my involuntarily smaller size was another excuse for shopping.

As I got out of my car at the strip mall that housed Great Day, a cluster of people emerged from the Crafts Consortium next door. Homemade quilts, candles, and all kinds of "country" stuff formed the bulk of the store's goods, and crowds were not something I'd ever seen there. The center of the group seemed to be a short, thin, very young woman with artistically disheveled blond hair who was wearing the highest heels I'd ever seen on a woman who wasn't standing on a street corner. And these high heels were worn with jeans, the tightest jeans I'd ever seen. No, wait; Nadine Gortner had worn some just as tight to one of the Pan-Am Agra picnics, and her zipper had popped.

As if the heels and jeans weren't enough to mark her out, this woman had lips outlined in the darkest possible shade of red while the lipstick she'd filled in with was a creamy pink. She looked like a bee had been at her.

The people accompanying this creature were not as eye-popping, which was a relief. An older, grizzled man who might be from almost anywhere was carrying a bag (which I had to believe belonged to The Creature). A slightly less ornate woman in a modified version of The Creature's outfit was scrabbling in her outsize purse with fingernails like a Chinese emperor's. She pulled out some car keys, and immediately reached out to steady her flamboyant friend, who had stumbled on the irregular surface of the parking lot. No wonder, in those heels.

After absorbing this trio in a comprehensive glance, I passed them with my eyes straight forward. That was why I noticed Miss Joe Nell standing in the glass door of Great Day making an elaborate face at me, jabbing her finger vehemently in the direction of the little group. It was hard to keep a steady course forward, since Amina's mom was doing her best to get me to stop, turn, and stare.

"That was them!" she said excitedly, as soon as I came through the door. Miss Joe Nell and her partner, Mignon Derby, were flushed and practically panting.

"Them?" I said, trying not to sound as irritated as I felt.

"The movie people!" Without ever thinking that I might not be delighted to have come in close proximity with some "movie people," the two women began speaking all at once. Miss Joe Nell and Mignon (who, at twenty-eight, had the kind of skin most women only dream of) were extremely revved up about the trio's just-concluded visit to Great Day, where the Starlet Lite (as opposed to the spike-heeled Full Starlet) had bought a white linen shell.

"I don't know what Celia Shaw bought at Crafts Consortium," Mignon babbled. "I'm go

So that had been Robin's girlfriend, at least according to the magazine article. I was almost proud for despising her before I had known. Then I was angry with myself for my lack of charity. This was not my day to be pleased with the way I conducted my life.

I am not exactly poker-faced, so Miss Joe Nell was picking up on my lack of enthusiasm.

"Well, that was fun, but we know who's going to be around when the movie people are gone," she said, smiling. "What can I show you today, Roe?"

Since I didn't know what I wanted, I felt even grumpier. I was rapidly getting to be the town killjoy. At that moment, I was sure I was the only person in Sparling County who wished everyone associated with the movie project would fall into a big hole.