LITMIR.BIZ

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but to possibly provide a little relief for Janis, who was now tugging full throttle at the leash I’d snapped on her.

      I opened the drawer, pulled at least three bags from the box I found (I wasn’t taking any chances with a dog this size) and headed out the door.

      Once I got to the top of the wooden walkway that led to the beach and saw the ocean rolling toward me in crashing white waves, I remembered the other reason Sage had managed to prod me into taking this share. I loved the beach. Had spent half my childhood on it, mostly with Sage and sometimes Nick, when Nick realized being the only guy among girls might be an asset. And later, with Myles, who grew up two towns away from me on Long Island, though we hadn’t ever met until we both lived in New York City. That was another thing that had drawn me to Myles: He understood the angst of growing up in the shadow of Manhattan. The hollowness of claiming native New Yorker status when you knew no two islands could be more different than Long Island and the island of Manhattan. Myles had strolled along this very beach with me once.…

      Now, as I stepped on the sand, felt the breeze in my face, all I could remember was that walk along the beach with Myles. I even started to relish the memory a bit, and I might have enjoyed it even more if Janis didn’t seem hell-bent on taking us straight into the tide.

      “Whoa!” I yelled, tugging back on the leash. Whoa? That was a horse command. Despite all my recent experience with the dogs of the Washington Square Park dog run, I couldn’t think of the command for stop. So I went for the obvious. “Stop!”

      Surprisingly, Janis did stop. Though I wasn’t sure it was my plea that did it as I watched her raise her face into the wind, then drop her nose to the sand, sniffing furiously for a moment. And just when I thought she was going to give me a reason to whip out those bags I’d stuffed in the pocket of my jeans, she took off at a dead run.

      “Janis!” I yelled, pulling hard against the leash. Then I remembered the appropriate command. “Heel! Heel, Janis, heel!”

      Not that it did me any good. Janis would not be heeled. So I started to run right along with her. I really didn’t have a choice. Besides, the last thing I needed right now was to lose Maggie’s beloved dog. Especially after the coriander fiasco.

      Just as I was starting to get comfortable with the idea of a late-night jog—I did, after all, like to run, though usually in sweats and not jeans—I realized we were almost to Saltaire, the next town over. I didn’t know how much stamina this dog had, but I wasn’t going any farther than Kismet, I thought, as I eyed the lonely tuffs of dune grass we passed.

      Spooky.

      I kept my gaze on the beach in front of me and then was sorry for it when I caught sight of pale white skin in the tide. I quickly looked away, embarrassed. Oh, God, some happy couple was doing a little romantic From Here to Eternity roll in the tide. And if I didn’t get Janis to heel, I was soon going to be right on top of them.

      “Janis, heel!” I said. But Janis only ran faster, and just when I feared I was about to become an unwanted third to the twosome in the tide, I realized it wasn’t a twosome. Just one person. A woman. And judging by the way her skin glowed pale against the darkness, she was naked.

      What the hell…?

      Suddenly the leash flew out of my grip, and I watched in horror as Janis became smaller and smaller, practically disappearing against the darkness. Shit! I started to run faster, though I wasn’t sure I wanted to know what was happening in the tide.

      I finally caught up, but only because Janis had come to a dead stop, letting out a howl that sent a shiver through me as I looked down on those sightless eyes, wide and blue, staring up at me.

      Maggie.

      Naked. Her hair matted with seaweed.

      And, from the look of things…

      Dead.

      5

      Maggie

       It’s all over but the shouting.

      My funeral depressed me. Not because I was the main event, but precisely because I wasn’t there. Not really. First there was the priest, who kept calling me Margaret. I guess that’s what it said on my birth certificate, though no one has ever called me that except my mother, and I hadn’t seen her for years. It was nice of her to come, though the way she stood huddled in the corner with two of my brothers, sobbing like an idiot, embarrassed me. But at least someone was crying. Outside of Zoe, which was pretty weird, since the girl barely even knew me. The other surprise was Sage, who I discovered was behind the big wreath of lilies by the coffin. Probably out of guilt.

      Tom, of course, was the perfect host, though I hadn’t seen him shed a tear yet. But that was Tom. Onward and upward. Life goes on, etc., etc. I know I made some mistakes in my life. Some pretty damn big ones, too. But watching Tom greet people, dry-eyed, accommodating, I wondered if perhaps the biggest mistake of them all had been marrying him.

      He didn’t even remember to put a rock ballad in the funeral program. I always loved a good rock ballad. Funerals are such dull affairs. I thought a little Queen might liven things up. Or even something more rousing, like Rod Stewart’s “Maggie May.” Tom played that one for me on our third date. He’d taken me back to his place, and after he’d cued up the track, he gave me that look guys always get when they’re in the early throes of courtship—hungry, a bit gooey-eyed—and asked me if I was going to break his heart like Maggie May. Of course I fell for that type of doomed romantic talk—especially when it was set to music.

      I should have realized then it would be Tom who’d break my heart first.

      I guess after everything that happened between us, I shouldn’t have expected my husband to remember my funeral request. After all, it had been ten years since I’d made it. We’d just been married and, filled with the kind of paralyzing fear that the great big bubble I’d stepped into when I’d entered Tom’s world would burst, I had given him my last request. “You’re crazy to even think that,” he’d said, kissing my head, much like a father would a child. “You’re only twenty-nine.”

      Well, now I’ve just barely cracked forty and I’m about to be buried. Who’s the crazy one now?

      I wasn’t surprised when the police ruled my drowning accidental. What else was the medical examiner going to find beyond a woman who had had a little too much to drink and was skinny-dipping on a balmy June night? I knew I shouldn’t have taken the Valium. Now they’re blaming the whole thing on me.

      I suppose I couldn’t really complain about the funeral. If there was one thing I could always count on Tom for, it was to throw a good party. In fact, it was one of the things in our marriage we did best together. We put on a good show. Though I was a little surprised when he chose oak for my coffin. Oak? Have I ever liked oak? Ten years and two houses of furniture later, you’d think he’d know I was a solid mahogany girl. But it just goes to show you how many years you can live with a person and not pay attention. It bothered me though. If nothing else, I’m all about the details.

      It wasn’t that Tom and I didn’t have a good marriage. In fact, some would call it fairy-tale. I know my friend Amanda did, but then I had gotten the fairy tale that she was hoping for. Others, mostly Tom’s family and even some of the more snide in his circle, saw it as a classic case of Midlife Crisis Meets Gold Digger. Mostly because I was a decade younger than Tom. Those people really annoyed me. Gold Digger. I hadn’t even been interested in marriage when I met Tom. I had just started working for WQXY radio. It was my first job in my field of choice, though I had studied communications in college with some vague idea of doing something a bit more glorious than working for the accounts payable department, I had discovered I was good at what I did. I had a good head for numbers and had one of those filing systems so organized some might attribute it to mental illness. I was happy enough though. I was young and, mostly due to Amanda, who was in PR, I got to go to my pick of parties. I could give a shit about all those things that seemed to fuel Amanda—like marrying well and before thirty. Thirty seemed like light years away and marriage like one of those things you did when you started

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