Gwendy’s Final Task

Ryan had his own Black Friday activities to participate in. First up, a Chinese buffet for lunch with the guys on the bowling team, followed by a three-game, best-average-score-takes-all competition at the Rumford Rock ’N Bowl (the annual winner was awarded a two-foot-high, gold-plated trophy resembling a kicking donkey’s backside; Ryan had taken it home three years running). After bowling, they would head over to Billy Franklin’s bachelor pad where they’d feast on catered Mexican food and watch college football on the big-screen television. Ryan usually rolled home around eight or nine at night suffering from a serious case of dragon breath and immediately rushed upstairs in search of the big plastic container of Tums. He’d spend half the night moaning and groaning in the bathroom and wake up the next morning swearing that he wasn’t going back next year. They could keep their damn trophy. The two of them would have a good laugh about it over breakfast—just toast and a big glass of ice water for Ryan—knowing full well that he didn’t mean a word of it.

So, yes, she decided, she’d suck it up, buttercup, and they’d both get through their respective busy days. Then they’d come home, change into their PJs, grab a bottle of good red wine and a couple of glasses, and rendezvous in the bedroom. And after all these years, she’d tell him everything.

Only it didn’t turn out that way.

Gwendy held up her end of the deal just fine. At first, as was to be expected, she was distracted and quiet. She barely touched her omelet, home fries, and toast at breakfast. Once they got in the car, she found herself staring out the window at the passing countryside, daydreaming about the button box and Richard Farris’s pale, waxy skin. And those perfectly smooth, unlined hands of his; she couldn’t stop thinking about those. She did her best to keep up with the conversation—nodding when she sensed it was appropriate and tossing in the occasional comment or two—but Brigette wasn’t fooled. Halfway to Portland, she turned down the car radio and asked Gwendy if something was wrong. Gwendy shook her head and apologized, claiming she had a lingering headache from the previous night and hadn’t gotten much sleep (at least that much was true). She made a show of popping three Advil tablets and singing along with Barry Manilow’s “I Write the Songs” when it came on the radio—and that seemed to do the trick for Brigette.

By the time they parked the car and waded into the frenzy, Gwendy actually found herself smiling and laughing. Brigette, with that childlike enthusiasm and goofy sense of humor of hers, had a way of turning back the clock and making the rest of the world melt away. Gwendy often told her husband that spending an afternoon with Brigette Desjardin was a little like stepping into a time machine and traveling back to the late 1970s. Her simple enjoyment of life was contagious.

Both women scored major coups at the first boutique they entered—a half price carryall purse for Gwendy; a pair of knee-high leather boots for Brigette—and that set the tone for the rest of the day. They spent the next eight hours giggling and gossiping like a couple of happy teenagers.

Often—actually more often than she would have expected—Gwendy was approached by men and women who said they were going to vote for her. One of them, an older women with perfectly coifed pink hair, touched her on the elbow and whispered, “Just don’t tell my husband.”

After grabbing soup and salads for dinner at a bursting-at-the-seams Cracker Barrel just off I-95, Gwendy finally made it home at 7:45pm. She immediately shucked her clothes, leaving them in a messy pile on the bathroom floor, and slipped into a warm bubble bath. An hour later, dressed in her favorite silk pajamas Ryan had smuggled home from an assignment in Vietnam, she dozed off on the family room sofa with a true crime paperback laying open in her lap.

Some time later she was awakened by a ringing doorbell. Big dummy forgot his keys, she thought, getting up from the sofa. She glanced at the antique grandfather clock on her way to the foyer and was surprised to see that it was after midnight. Still, she wasn’t worried until she looked into the peephole and saw Norris Ridgewick standing on the porch. Norris, who once upon a time held the title of Castle County Sheriff for almost two decades, had retired a year earlier and now spent most of his days fishing at Dark Score Lake.

She yanked open the door and immediately knew from the look in her old friend’s eyes that Ryan was not coming home tonight. Or ever. Before Ridgewick could manage a single word, Gwendy let loose a sob that tore at her chest and stumbled back to the sofa with tears streaming down her cheeks.