"Okay, I'll be right there!" she yells at someone off screen. "I'm sorry, we're having a little bit of a get-together and I'm making more of my famous margaritas."
"You don't have a famous margarita."
"I've been going through a lot of changes here," she says, "you'd be surprised at what kind of things you pick up when you don't have a full-time job working twelve hour days filling up your time."
I nod. I like the way that Allison can change topics of conversation so effortlessly. She knows all about how Dante and I broke up, and how much I have cried for Dante, and how hard I tried to make things right.
“Even taking this job in Seattle was an effort to try to prove my loyalty to him,” I say. “And now I come to find out that he knew my brother all along?!”
My mind goes into a tailspin.
"Tell me about the dental records," Allison presses.
I tell her everything I know.
“So, it was just a fluke that they requested the second set and discovered that they weren't a match?"
I nod.
"Do you think this was fraud?" she asks, throwing in the ice and then raising her finger up in the air so that I stay quiet while she blends. The sound fills my car and, out of the corner of my eye, I see a Starbucks. The awning is pristine and so is its parking lot.
It calls to me. I'm not usually a big fan of sugary, caffeinated drinks, but I need a pick-me-up. I need something to make me feel just a little bit better even if it's pharmaceutical in nature.
Is caffeine a pharmaceutical? I guess, it's mind altering, so that will have to be it.
"If the medical examiner hadn't reached out and tried to find additional dental records, and just hadn't had a hunch about this whole thing, and hadn't taken the extra moment to figure it out, none of this would have worked out. None of this would have been discovered," I say, choosing my words carefully as I walk into the coffee shop. "I just can't believe that I could have gone my whole time, thinking that his body was in that car."
"Okay, slow down, slow down," Allison says when I start to mumble and stumble over my words.
I take a few deep breaths and she tells me to hold on while she delivers the margaritas to the company they're hosting in the living room. I ask her if she needs to go, but she insists that she doesn’t. Then it's my turn to make her wait. I order a strawberry Frappuccino with extra whipped cream. I need something decadent and over the top to make myself feel just a smidge better.
When Allison and I come together again, she sits down in a large swinging chair at one far side of the multiple sitting rooms that are away from their guests. It's made out of wicker and it's as comfortable as it is beautiful.
Swinging and smiling with the freckles all over the bridge of her nose, she looks like she’s in an advertisement for Tommy Bahama, living the vacation lifestyle of never having a job and not having a single worry in the world.
I want to ask her more about her life, but mine has been so much of a train wreck that I just can't.
“So, what's going to happen now?" Allison asks after a long pause.
"I have no idea. Mallory told me not to reach out to Dante again and definitely to not leave him any messages. I had to tell him that we broke up and he's not taking my calls anyway and he's going to decide what would be the best way to contact him and to call him on this lie."
"Do you have the photo?"
"Yeah, he sent it to me.” I nod. "Hold on. Let me text it."
I send her the saved screenshot.
I see a pause button show up as she clicks over to look at it and then a gasp.
"Oh my God."
"What?" I ask.
"Lincoln."
I shake my head no.
"Look closer," she says, flipping back. "He's the guy on the side, his head is a little bit turned. He's wearing the hat over his eyes, you know? And he has the ..."
I lean in. He has a drink very close to his mouth and that's why I initially didn't recognize him. His hair is completely different with frosted tips. But it is Dante’s brother.
"That's Lincoln.” I gasp, and she nods. I tap my finger on my Frappuccino and suck in a big gulp.
"What does this mean?" Allison asks.
I swallow hard. "I have no idea," and the truth is that I don't.
"You have to tell Mallory," Allison says after a long pause.
She takes a generous gulp of her margarita and my mouth practically waters for it. I haven't tried her signature cocktail yet, but my drink is way too sweet and it's already making me feel more jittery rather than relaxed.
The silence between us is deafening. Somewhere in the distance I hear her friends laughing and I tell her that she should go.
"No, I want to talk to you. Tell me more," she says.
I shrug. "If you want to talk to me, then you have to tell me about what's going on in the Hamptons and what the hell you're doing with your life, because I'm all out of stories over here."
I keep staring at the picture of Lincoln and Dante and Michael and I feel nothing but foolish and like an idiot.
The two of them have known him all along and haven’t said a thing. Why?
Allison tilts her head and smiles at the corner of her lips. After many weeks spent in the sun, her skin has turned a warm golden brown hue that’s at least three shades darker than it was in the spring.
"How do you like the Hamptons?" I ask.
“Love it. Richard's friends are all amazing and talented and just so fun. And I just feel so relaxed. I didn't realize how tense I was at my job."
"Yeah, jobs tend to have that effect," I joke.
"What about Seattle?"
I shake my head. "I don't want to talk about that anymore," I add.
She doesn't ask me why. She knows I was only there for Dante and now everything is up in the air. It's like the rug has been pulled from under me and I'm moving in slow motion, unable to stop, but not falling quite yet. I'm hanging in limbo.
"Richard asked me to marry him," Allison says, raising one eyebrow and pulling her knees up to her chin.
She's dressed in nothing but a little sundress even though the weather is turning a little cold.
It feels like she's living in a dream world, inaccessible to anyone else.
"He asked you to marry him?" I half whisper.
"Yeah, last night. He just got down on his knee in the middle of the night, after, well, you know."
"Just like that?" I ask. "Did anything prompt it?"
"He said that he didn't have anything planned. He said that he just saw me and I looked beautiful and he loves our life together and he wants me to marry him."
4
Jacqueline
I bring the phone closer to my face and I stare at my friend as if she has lost her mind.
"What did you say? I mean, he just asked you to marry him?" I gasp.
She nods and smiles, and then slowly brings up her hand and flashes a big diamond ring in my face.
It takes a moment for the camera to focus since the blinging is so bright. "Oh ... my ... God," I say, pausing in between each word. "Are you serious?"