“Tell me you’ll never leave me,” Cole whispered the words against her neck as he kissed the skin there.

“Never?” Her eyes opened wide in mock indecision. “Never is a very long time, Mr. Masten.”

“Tell me you’ll always be honest with me. Tell me you won’t ever leave without letting me fix whatever issue first.” He lifted off her neck and hovered over her face.

She pushed against him with a laugh. “Silly man, we won’t ever have issues. I am an issue-less woman.”

“Every couple has issues, Nadia.”

“Not us,” she whispered, her legs parting beneath him, her smooth legs wrapping around his waist and pulling him tighter.

“Never?”

“Never.”

He didn’t know how the elephant got in his hand, its ceramic body heavy as it looked up at him with a peaceful expression. It was a Buddhist piece, something Nadia brought back from India, their decorator finding ‘the perfect display post’ for it, one that sat to the right of the bathroom entrance. But he recognized, when he closed his hands around it, the fury that pushed hard through his veins. Fury he hadn’t felt in a long time. Not since he was a teenager with out-of-control hormones. Now, as a grown man, Cole stepped from the dim room into the lit bathroom with the elephant in hand, both hands, because for a peaceful animal the thing was heavy. Not too heavy to distract him from the words of the man, a disgusting proclamation of emotion. Not too heavy to drown out the response of his wife, saying the three words that were to be sacred only to them, forever and ever. He felt the thin string of control break as he swung the elephant hard, from left to right, hitting the shoulder…

“Tell me you won’t ever leave.”

and then colliding with the head…

“Never.”

of the stranger fucking his wife.

The man crumpled to Cole’s marble floor, and Nadia’s scream was so loud it hurt.

CHAPTER 11

I was in church when the news hit. My toes were pushing against the tight fit of my heels, my eyes on the back of Mrs. Coulston’s head. She had a mole on the back of her neck. A light brown mole. It was horrifically ugly, yet I couldn’t take my eyes away. Couldn’t concentrate on the sermon, which was probably for the best since this was the time of year that it was all about tithing and financial duties to the church. This time of year always made my skin crawl, my opinion of Pastor Dinkon drop, my goodwill to the church faltering in one half-guilty, half-irritated step. I understood that money was needed, to pay the utility bill, to resurface our church’s parking lot. But my money wasn’t needed. Not when Bill Francis had donated five million to this little church just three years ago. Not when we were constantly having bake sales and pancake breakfasts and a hundred other things. Fifty dollars out of my monthly five hundred was a drop in the ocean of the church’s coffers.

Beside me, in my new Nine West purse—a Fortune Bottle splurge—my hand groped, moving past tissues and pens before I finally found my goal: a peppermint. My fingers closed on the plastic-wrapped mint. I had to unzip it further to slide my hand out and Mama stiffened, turning and shooting me a look of disapproval. I withdrew the mint from the red leather and carefully pulled on its plastic twisted end. The process sounded loud, and I held my breath as I eased the candy out, Pastor Dinkon’s guiltfest sermon continuing, uninterrupted. We were about twenty minutes in, which was about halfway, and I popped it in my mouth, returning my eyes to the mole. She really shouldn’t wear an updo. Then again, I tried to remember the last time I saw Mrs. Coulston with her hair down and came up blank. I guess, at her age, women didn’t really wear their hair down, some unspoken rule—the same rule that made most women her age go short. I was glad she hadn’t hacked it all off and gone the updo route instead; her hair really did look beautiful—dark black and silver strands twisting perfectly up and pinned. The mole was really the only problem. Surely she could get it removed. Frozen off or something. The thought suddenly struck me that she might not even know it was there. It was on the back of her neck. I had the sudden, horrible desire to touch her shoulder. Gently, just a nudge. Nudge at her and point. Bring her Sunday morning attention to it.

A horrible idea. I sat on my hands just to make sure it didn’t happen.

There was a commotion three rows up. A shifting, leaning, shuffling. Mayor Frazier was trying to get out of his row. In the middle of the sermon. I watched with fascination as he dipped and weaved, his mouth making regretful motions, his face tight. I elbowed Mama, but she was already watching. Everyone was, a general shift of disapproval at the distraction. Typical Quincy. I knew I wasn’t the only one bored; I knew the disapproving hums were actually happy for some action, something to poke their minds before they headed in the direction of a nap.

When Mayor Frazier’s shoes finally hit the middle aisle’s floor, their black shiny selves moved. Quick, important steps, his hand wrapped tight around his cell phone, and I suddenly realized that this was about more than just an urgent need to urinate. This was something else, something that made his eyes light up, his cell phone at the ready, his feet all but jogging to the exit. When he passed our row, his eyes darted to me, and there was a moment of connection, a moment where I realized that this was about The Movie.

Something had happened. And suddenly, my interest in Mrs. Coulston’s mole and notifying her of its existence was gone. In that moment, with twenty minutes left in the sermon and a sea of bodies on either side of me, I wanted only one thing: to hop over the aisle and follow him.