Still Life: A Novel - Hardcover

1

Less than an hour before the car slammed into her at a speed of almost fifty miles an hour, throwing her ten feet into the air, breaking nearly every bone in her body and cracking her head against the hard concrete, Casey Marshall was sitting in the elegant, narrow dining room of Southwark, one of South Philadelphia's more popular white-tablecloth restaurants, finishing lunch with her two closest friends and stealing glances at the beautiful, secluded courtyard behind their heads. She was wondering how long the unnaturally warm March weather was going to last, whether she'd have time to go for a run before her next appointment, and whether she should tell Janine the truth about what she really thought of her latest haircut. She'd already lied and said she liked it. Casey smiled at the thought of an early spring and allowed her gaze to drift over her right shoulder, past the luminous still-life painting of a bouquet of enormous pink peonies by Tony Scherman, and toward the magnificent mahogany bar that was the centerpiece of the restaurant's front room.

"You hate it, don't you?" she heard Janine say.

"The painting?" Casey asked, although she doubted Janine had even noticed it. Janine regularly boasted she was oblivious to her surroundings. Having said that, she always seemed to select only the finest, most expensive places for them to have lunch. "I think it's fabulous."

"My hair. You think it's awful."

"I don't think it's awful."

"You think it's too severe."

Casey looked directly into Janine's intense blue eyes, several shades darker than her own. "A little, yes," she agreed, thinking that the sharp, geometric angles of the blunt cut that hugged Janine's long, thin face put too much emphasis on the already exaggerated point of her chin, especially when combined with the almost blue-black tint of her hair.

"I was just so tired of the same old thing all the time," Janine explained, looking to their mutual friend, Gail, for confirmation.

Gail, sitting beside Janine and across from Casey at the small, square table, nodded obligingly. "A change is as good as a rest," she said half a beat behind Janine, so their sentences overlapped, like a song being sung in rounds.

"I mean, we're not in college anymore," Janine continued. "We're over thirty. It's important to keep current...."

"Always good to keep current," Gail echoed.

"It was just time to do away with the Alice in Wonderland hairdo." Janine's eyes settled pointedly on the naturally blond hair that fell softly across Casey's shoulders.

"I liked your hair long," Casey demurred.

"So did I," Gail agreed, tucking a few frizzy brown curls behind her right ear. Gail never had a problem with her hair. It always looked as if she'd just stepped on an electrical current. "Although I like it this way, too," she added.

"Yeah, well, it was time to move on. That's what you always say, isn't it?" The question was accompanied by such a sweet smile that it was difficult to know whether or not to take offense. What wasn't difficult for Casey to figure out was that they were no longer talking about hair.

"Time for more coffee," Gail announced, signaling the waiter.

Casey decided to ignore the deeper implications of Janine's remark. What was the point in reopening old wounds? Instead, she offered up her gold-rimmed white china cup to the handsome, dark-haired waiter, watching as the hot brown liquid cascaded artfully from the spout of the silver coffeepot. While Casey knew Janine had never quite gotten over Casey's decision to leave the legal placement service they'd cofounded fresh out of college to start her own business in the totally unrelated field of interior design, she'd talked herself into believing that after almost a year, Janine had at least made peace with it. What complicated things was the fact that Casey's new business had taken off running, while Janine's had ground to a halt. And who wouldn't resent that? "It's amazing how everything you touch turns to gold," Janine regularly observed, always with the dazzling smile that accompanied the vaguely unpleasant undertone in her voice, making Casey question the validity of her instincts. It's probably just my guilty conscience, Casey thought now, not sure what she should feel guilty for.

She took a long sip of her black coffee, feeling it burn the back of her throat. She and Janine had been friends since their sophomore year at Brown. Janine had just made the switch from prelaw to honors English; Casey was double-majoring in English and psychology. Despite the obvious differences in their personalities -- Casey generally the softer, more flexible of the two, Janine the more brittle and outgoing; Casey the more conciliatory, Janine the more confrontational -- they'd clicked immediately. Perhaps it was a case of opposites attracting, of one woman sensing something in the other that was lacking in herself. Casey had never tried too hard to analyze the forces that had brought them together, or why their friendship had endured a decade past graduation, despite the myriad changes those ten years had brought, changes that included the dissolution of their business partnership and Casey's recent marriage to a man Janine described -- complete with dazzling smile -- as "fucking perfect, of course." Casey chose to be grateful instead.

Just as she was grateful for her other close friend, Gail, a young woman much less complicated than either Casey or Janine in virtually every respect. Casey had known Gail since grade school, and although more than twenty years had passed, Gail was essentially the same guileless, open-faced girl she'd always been. With Gail, what you saw was what you got. And what you got was a thirty-two-year-old woman who, despite much hardship, still ended almost every sentence with a giggle, like a shy teenage girl, eager to be liked. Sometimes she even giggled in the middle of a sentence, or even while she was speaking, a habit that was as disconcerting as it was endearing. Casey considered it the auditory equivalent of a puppy offering up its stomach to be stroked.

Unlike Janine, there were no pretenses where Gail was concerned, no hidden agendas, no particularly deep thoughts. She generally waited until she knew how you felt about something before offering up an opinion of her own. Occasionally Janine grumbled about Gail's naïveté and "unrelenting optimism," but even she'd been forced to agree that Gail was such a pleasant person, it made you feel good just to be around her. And Casey admired the skill involved in being able to listen to both sides of an argument and make each party believe you were on her side. It was probably what made her such a good saleswoman.

"Everything okay?" Casey asked, turning her attention back to Janine and praying for a simple yes in response.

"Everything's fine. Why?"

"I don't know. You just seem a little...I don't know."

"Of course you do. You know everything."

"You see -- that's exactly what I mean."

"What do you mean?"

"What do you mean?"

"Am I missing something here?" Gail asked, large brown eyes darting nervously between the two women.

"Are you angry at me?" Casey asked Janine directly.

"Why would I be angry at you?"

"I don't know."

"I honestly don't know what you're talking about." Janine touched the gold locket at her throat and adjusted the collar of her crisp white Valentino blouse. Casey knew it was Valentino because she'd seen it on a recent cover of Vogue. She also knew that Janine couldn't afford to pay almost two thousand dollars for a blouse, but then, Janine had been dressing beyond her means for as long as Casey could remember. "It's very important to wear nice clothes," Janine had said when Casey questioned one of her more exorbitant purchases. Followed by: "I may not have been born with a silver spoon in my mouth, but I know the importance of dressing well."

"Okay," Casey said now, picking up the silver spoon next to her coffee cup and turning it over in her hand before letting it drop. "That's good."

"So maybe I am a little irritated," Janine conceded with a shake of her newly geometrically cut hair. Several straight black strands caught the side of her generous mouth, and she impatiently brushed them aside. "Not at you," she added quickly.

"What's the problem?" Casey pressed the instant-replay button in her mind, quickly reviewing the last sixty minutes. The women had enjoyed their various salads and glasses of white wine; they'd gossiped and caught up on everything that had happened in the two weeks since their last meeting. Everything had seemed fine. Unless Janine was still obsessing about her hair....

"It's just that little twerp, Richard Mooney -- you remember him?" Janine asked Casey.

"The guy we set up at Haskins, Farber?"

"The one and only. Jerk finishes in the bottom third of his graduating class," she explained to Gail. "Has zero social skills. Can't get a job to save his life. Nobody, but nobody wants to hire him. He comes to us. I tell Casey he's a loser, we shouldn't take him on, but she feels sorry for him, says we should give him a shot. Sure. Why not? She's leaving soon anyway, as it turns out."

"Whoa," Casey exclaimed, raising her palms in protest.

Janine dismissed Casey's objection with a megawatt smile and a wave of her long, French-manicured fingernails. "I'm just teasing you. Besides, we did take him on, and a few months later you were gone. Isn't that true?"

"Well, yes, but..."

"So that's all I'm saying."

Casey was having a hard time figuring out exactly what Janine was saying. She would have made a great lawyer, Casey was thinking, wondering why they were talking about Richard Mooney at all.

"So back to Richard Mooney," Janine said, as if Casey had voiced her confusion out loud. She returned her attention to Gail. "Sure enough, we were actually able to do something for that little twerp. Turned out one of the partners at Haskins had a soft spot for Casey. She batted her eyelashes at him a few extra times and he agreed to give Mooney a try."

"That was hardly the reason," Casey interjected.

"Any...