Chapter 17: The Coat

Diane's garden room had glass walls, a harpist and fifty women in good linen.

They were the women of the Lake Forest Garden Guild, and every one of them had been at her table at some Christmas.

Diane poured from a silver pot at the head of the room, and she saw the four of us in the doorway.

The cup stopped halfway to the saucer.

"Mallory," she said. "How brave."

Mallory walked in first.

She wasn't wearing the camel coat.

She had on her mother's pale blue cardigan, with the sleeves pushed up, and she carried the coat over her arm.

Mrs. Pendergast came next, holding a cookie tin against her chest.

I came last, with Willem one step behind me, and he stopped at the back wall beside the potted lemon tree and folded his arms.

He stood broad and solid against the wall.

Edgar stood near the harp with a glass in his hand.

He lifted it to me, and smiled.

"Everyone, please," Diane said. "We have guests who've had a difficult week. Sit, Mallory, and have some tea."

"No, thank you," said Mallory.

The harpist stopped playing.

Mallory crossed the room and walked up to the little table in the middle, three feet from Edgar.

She laid her coat over the back of a chair, slowly, and smoothed it flat.

For ten years I had never seen her stand that close to him without it.

Edgar took a half step toward her and put out a hand, as if to touch her arm.

She didn't move away.

"Don't," she said.

His hand dropped.

"My name is Mallory Pendergast," she said to the women. "Most of you know me as the girl who brings a new boyfriend to the Koehler parties."

A few of them nodded politely.

"There was never a boyfriend. They were a wall."

Nobody breathed.

"For ten years Edgar Koehler has asked me to be his Friday. I have it on tape, and I'll play you only one clip."