V Is for Vengeance

to appear. In reality, Channing had postponed his return to L.A. until Tuesday morning, which nearly drove her insane. She’d managed to get in a quick call to Dante’s private line, where she left a message indicating she couldn’t see him that day. Monday went on forever, so dull and flat she wondered how she’d endured before Dante came along. Tuesday morning, she and Channing ate breakfast together, their conversation pleasant and inconsequential. The entire time she thought about Dante. It was almost as though he were sitting at the table with them, and she wondered if Thelma was present as well. She pondered the complexities of the human heart, cunning, opaque, unknowable, and impervious to judgment. What one did in the world at large might be condemned, but thoughts and feelings and daydreams were protected by the simple expedient of silence. How easy it was to deceive Channing, whose inner state was as unavailable to her as hers was to him. How many times had they sat at this same table, conducting the ordinary business of life? Courtesy served as an artful disguise that veiled the more profound dialogue of fantasy and desire. Toast, coffee, talk of her appointment in Santa Monica later in the day. She told Channing she’d set up a meeting with her broker to review her portfolio. He urged her to stop by the office and she demurred, citing a round of errands. The exchange was perfunctory. She’d never understood Channing so well or liked him so little, but at least her infidelity had evened the score. Maybe one day she’d tell him. She hadn’t decided yet. She walked with him to the door and they kissed briefly. She took care to give no indication of her impatience to have him gone or the giddiness she felt at what was to come. The minute he was out of the house, she put on her sweats and walking shoes and drove to the house on Paloma Lane.
    She left her car in the motor court at the beach house and tramped through the soft sand to the hard pack. She did her four miles on the beach, timing herself since she had no way to measure distances. Beach access was blocked in places, which forced her into detours that took her up a set of steep wooden stairs built into the hillside and through two gated communities otherwise closed to the public. She emerged on the two-lane road that passed in front of the Edgewater Hotel, pausing to allow two cars to pass. The first turned into the driveway leading to the hotel entrance. The second came to a stop. She heard a horn toot and looked over as the driver rolled down her window.
    “I thought I recognized you,” the woman said, with what passed for gaiety. “What are you doing in this neck of the woods?”
    Imelda Malcolm lived two doors away from the Vogelsangs’ Montebello house. She was in her early sixties and bird thin, with sparse hair dyed a tawny shade. She pushed her sunglasses up on her head and her washed-out gray eyes were sharp. Imelda walked the neighborhood streets, and Nora had learned to avoid the woman by varying her time and route so their paths wouldn’t cross. Imelda was a vicious gossip, unapologetic about her rumormongering. Nora had joined her a few times just after they moved to town and noted that even in the open air, Imelda’s comments were made under her breath, as though the intimacies she passed along weren’t meant to be overheard. It gave Nora the uncomfortable sense that she was supporting Imelda’s malevolence.
    “I like the occasional change of scene,” Nora said. “How about you?”
    Imelda made a face. “I told Polly I’d sport her to a facial. You know Rex filed for Chapter 13 or maybe it was Chapter 7, I forget which. Talk about a low blow.”
    “I heard. That’s too bad.”
    “Horrible,” Imelda said. “Polly says she can’t bear to walk into the club, and not just because they’re so far in arrears. I’m sure Mitchell will find a way to let them know they’re not welcome anymore, though he has too much class to make a scene. She says the women aren’t actually cutting her, but the pity is more than she can stand. Have you seen her lately?”
    “Not since New Year’s.”
    “Oh, my god. She looks awful . Don’t tell anyone I said so, but I promise you she’s aged fifteen years. And she didn’t look that good to begin with, if you’ll pardon the observation.”
    “I’m sure they’ll weather the storm,” Nora said. She glanced at her watch and Imelda picked up on the hint.
    “I won’t keep