The Husband Hour Read online

Stephanie began talking about the house, how it had been her grandparents’ and they’d spent summers there growing up.

  “Before we get started, I need you to sign a release.” He sat across from her on a chair upholstered in pale linen and passed her the single sheet of paper.

  Stephanie looked at him suspiciously. “Shouldn’t I have a lawyer look at this or something?”

  “You can. But it’s very straightforward. It grants me the irrevocable right to use whatever we film in whatever way I see fit to make and market the film you’ve agreed to be interviewed for.”

  “I have no idea what you just said.” She smiled flirtatiously.

  “This is the deal: You don’t have to answer any questions you don’t want to, and you don’t have to say anything you don’t want to. But once you’ve spoken on camera, the material becomes, essentially, property of the film company.”

  She looked at him, not quite with a raised eyebrow but with an expression that was certainly in the spirit of a raised eyebrow. Then, leaning forward, she tucked a lock of hair behind her ear and signed the paper. Then she glanced up at him as if she had accepted a dare.

  “This will be fun,” she said. “I’ll get the coffee started.”

  He turned his phone off and shoved it in his pocket. Stephanie told him over her shoulder, “My sister would have a fit if she knew I was doing this.”

  Matt had already thought the same thing. It was a delicate situation. He wanted to spur Lauren into participating, not send her over the edge.

  “You said she was out of the house today.”

  “Yeah, she’s always working. Or running like a maniac.”

  “She runs a lot?”

  “Every morning at the crack of dawn. Before dawn. All the way to the casinos and back. Totally psycho.”

  Stephanie’s son walked into the room. Matt recognized him from her Facebook page. A good-looking kid. He clutched a soccer ball.

  “Ethan! I told you to stay upstairs until I got you.”

  “Can I use the computer?” He dropped the ball, dribbled it for a few steps. Matt watched him. Something about the footwork triggered the idea that this kid might make for good B-roll: innocent boy, the early love of sports.

  “Yes, yes,” Stephanie said, exasperated. “I said that you could have computer time.”

  The kid fixed his dark eyes on Matt.

  “Hello there,” Matt said.

  Ethan kicked the ball into the other room and ran after it.

  “Would you mind if I filmed him for a few minutes? Later, after we’re done?” he said.

  Stephanie visibly stiffened. “Why would you want to interview my son?”

  “No, not interview, just film him kicking the ball around. Sometimes things like a shot of scenery or a kid make good footage to juxtapose against interviews.”

  She shrugged. “I guess.”

  “Matt.” His DP peeked in. “I want to get her situated in the room to check the light.”

  “Showtime,” Matt said to Stephanie with a wink.

  They followed Derek back into the living room. Stephanie gasped.

  “Oh my God, you moved this whole room around. My mother will have a stroke.”

  “Don’t worry, we’ll put everything back the way it was.” Derek showed her a photo he’d taken of how the room had looked before they’d made it shootable.

  Placated, Stephanie followed Matt’s direction to sit on the bone-colored couch next to a wood coffee table stacked with oversize, glossy books about architecture, great American gardens, and the jewelry collection of Elizabeth Taylor. A tall silver vase had been filled with fresh lavender.

  Paul slipped the mic wire down the front of her shirt and hooked the sound pack to the back of her jeans. Matt sat directly across from her. Derek made a last-minute change to the camera, moving it a few inches just above Matt’s left shoulder.

  “You ready to get started?” Matt asked Stephanie.

  “I’m ready.”

  “Are we rolling?” he asked.

  “Rolling,” Derek said.

  “Action,” Matt said. He faced Stephanie. “I want to thank you for participating in this film. I really believe Rory’s story is worth telling. And I couldn’t do it without the help of the people who knew him best.”

  She nodded, looking nervous for the first time.

  “When I ask you a question, I need you to respond by repeating part of it. So if I say, ‘What is your name?’ you say, ‘My name is Stephanie Adelman.’ All of my questions will be edited out, so for this to make sense you need to repeat part of what I ask.”

  If he got a rambling answer, he would ask her to repeat the one sentence that was usable. Years of sitting in front of screens in editing suites had taught him which answers were usable and which were not. Too much padding or repetition, and no matter how important the idea being expressed, he had to cut it.

  He asked Stephanie for her name, and she told him about how her name was technically Stephanie Keller now, but she was getting divorced and going back to Adelman, so should she use…

  “Whatever you’re comfortable with,” Matt said.

  “My name is Stephanie Adelman.”

  “And how did you know Rory?”

  “High school,” she said.

  “Can you include my question in your answer?”

  “Oh—right. Sorry. I knew Rory from high school. We were in the same year.”

  “Do you remember when you first met?”

  “God, it was so long ago. It’s like I always knew him.”

  “Did you meet him when he started dating your sister?”

  “No! Is that what she told you? Typical. I knew Rory first. She got to Rory through me.”

  Matt refrained from reminding her that he hadn’t interviewed Lauren. “How did she get to Rory through you?”

  “Rory was in my group of friends. I mean, I don’t want to brag or whatever but he and I were juniors. We were popular. Lauren was a year younger. A nobody.” Matt glanced at the row of silver-framed photos on the fireplace mantel.

  “Is that you up there? Were you a cheerleader?”

  Stephanie smiled. “Yep. I was a cheerleader. Starting sophomore year. I was squad captain by senior year.”

  “Did the squad cheer at hockey games?”

  She shook her head. “Just football and basketball.”

  “Did you go to hockey games?”

  “Sometimes. Hockey wasn’t the big sport at LM. It was more soccer and football.”

  “So Lauren met Rory through you?”

  “She was writing some article for the stupid paper. The school paper. And she was like, Oh, I need to interview Rory. Can you give me his number? Like, she had zero interest in sports and suddenly she’s Bob Costas.”

  “How well did you know Rory prior to him dating your sister?”

  Stephanie paused. “I mean, we hung out. Went to the same parties. I went out with some of his friends.”

  “Did Rory party a lot? Drink, smoke, that sort of thing?”

  She shook her head. “Didn’t drink, didn’t get high.”

  “Can you include the question in your answer?”

  “Oh—sorry. Rory didn’t drink or do drugs. Anyone else would have been considered totally lame, but he could get away with anything. Not only did people not give him shit for not drinking, but some of his friends didn’t do drugs when he was around because they didn’t want him to think less of them.”

  Matt decided to abruptly switch direction, a tactic he used sometimes in interviews to get a more honest, spontaneous response from a subject.

  “Do you know why your sister doesn’t want to talk to me?”

  Stephanie hesitated for just a beat before saying, “It’s not personal. She doesn’t want to talk to anyone. Maybe she thinks she’s protecting his memory or something.”

  “Protecting his memory from what?”

  “I don’t know. Negative stuff.”

  “Is there something negative to say about R
ory? Because I can tell you that I’ve spent years talking to people about him, and no one has ever said anything negative.”

  A strange expression crossed her face. “I guess you’re talking to the wrong people, then.”

  “Do you have something negative to say about Rory Kincaid?”

  Stephanie lowered her gaze. He was disciplined enough not to push.

  “No,” she said finally. “But what do I know? Except that no one’s perfect, right? I mean, Lauren always worshipped him and now the whole world does.”

  “Stephanie, I want to see Rory Kincaid for who he really was. I’m just trying to tell the truth.”

  Stephanie narrowed her eyes. “I don’t know if that’s going to help you where my sister is concerned.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because not everyone wants the truth. Some people see only what they want to see.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  The sun started to set. Lauren could feel the breeze off of the ocean through the open kitchen window. Outside, her parents and sister were sitting at the table by the pool. Her mother had insisted on dinner together. Lauren agreed it was a good idea. After Ethan’s innocent but nonetheless provocative question—“Do you like my mom?”—she was determined to hit the reset button on her sisterly relationship.

  Lauren grabbed the box of leftover muffins and doughnuts from the restaurant and brought them outside to the table littered with crumpled takeout wrappers from Sack O’ Subs, her father’s and sister’s empty beer bottles, and stray kernels of corn from her mother’s tomato and corn salad.

  Her mother picked up a doughnut. “Does Nora have someone baking on the premises? These don’t seem very fresh.”

  “She gets a delivery every day,” Lauren said, slipping back into her chair. “The muffins are great. People buy them in bulk all year round.”

  Beth sniffed. She was a pastry snob. But Ethan’s eyes lit up.

  Her father stood and began clearing dishes.

  “Wait. Before you go, Dad, there’s something I wanted to mention to all of you.” She didn’t know if she should bring it up, had been debating doing so all dinner. But she couldn’t shake the feeling that the filmmaker showing up at Nora’s house hadn’t been a coincidence. And even if it had, he was getting too close for comfort. All day she had braced herself for him to appear at the restaurant. He didn’t.

  Still, not wanting a false sense of security, she texted Henny and asked if her renter had left yet. He’s here for the week, she wrote back. Why? Do you know someone else who wants the room? Give them my number.

  If Lauren wasn’t talking to him, what was he doing in town all week?

  “So, um, this annoying thing happened at work the other day and I just wanted to tell you guys so we’re all on the same page.” Her mother and sister looked at her expectantly. “It’s not that big of a deal but this guy tracked me down at work and said he’s doing a documentary. About Rory. Obviously, I told him to leave me alone, and hopefully that’s the end of that. I doubt he’d approach any of you but if he does, I just want you to be prepared.”

  Her mother looked horrified. “Oh, Lauren. How intrusive!”

  “Everyone’s out to make a buck,” said her father.

  “Prepared for what?” Stephanie said.

  Lauren looked at her. “To tell him to leave you alone—that you’re not talking to him.”

  “Why is it your business if I talk to him?”

  “Why would you want to talk to him?”

  “I just wonder why you think you get to dictate who we talk to. We knew Rory too, you know.”

  Lauren’s heart began to pound. “This has nothing to do with you, Stephanie, and you know it. So just stay out of it.”

  “If someone wants to talk to me, then clearly they think it does have to do with me. You don’t own what happened, Lauren.”

  “Fine, you knew Rory too. So you know the last thing he would want is some exploitative film about him.”

  “Girls, please,” Beth said. “This is not worth arguing over. Lauren, of course you’re right. The last thing you need is someone dredging all of that up again. Stephanie, you have to respect your sister’s wishes on this.”

  “Well, it’s too late for that,” Stephanie said, looking pleased with herself. “I already spoke to him.”

  Lauren stared at her, dumbfounded. “No, you didn’t.”

  “Yeah. I did.”

  “You better not be serious, Stephanie.”

  “Ethan, buddy, come with me to see if there’s any ice cream in the freezer,” Howard said.

  “I am serious.”

  “You’ve really crossed a line this time!” Lauren turned to her mother. “I’m sorry, but she has to go. I can’t live with her all summer.”

  She pushed herself up from her chair so hard it toppled to the ground.

  Howard made it so damn hard for her to admit when she was wrong.

  He didn’t say anything while they put away the dinner plates, but his silence spoke loud and clear to Beth. This was a big mistake.

  Fine. Maybe she was naive to think a summer under the same roof would magically make the girls best friends again. Maybe she shouldn’t have insisted Stephanie move into the Green Gable and then insist to Howard that they do the same. But the reality was that they wouldn’t have had to move at all if Howard hadn’t lost their home. She’d spent decades working beside him in that store, the last few years strategizing with him on how to keep things afloat. And yet he never thought to mention he’d taken out a second mortgage.

  That was the thanks she got for giving up her dream of having her own catering company to join him in his family business. To stand by his side like a good wife.

  “I bought tickets to Florida for next week,” he said suddenly.

  “What? Why on earth would you do that?” Beth, stacking dishes in the cabinet, stopped mid-reach. She set the plates down on the counter.

  “Bill and Lorraine invited us. They’re having a retirement party. Bill just bought a boat.” Bill and Lorraine were friends from the country club they used to belong to. Howard and Beth had dropped out of the club a few years earlier. Money had become tighter, and Beth stopped enjoying the annual cycle of social events after losing Rory. She had suddenly become high profile, exposed. It was a fraction of what her daughter experienced but enough to take away her pleasure in large gatherings. Bill and Lorraine had also left the club, trading their house in Villanova for a home on a golf course in Frenchman’s Creek, Florida.

  “Why didn’t you talk to me about it first?” There was no way she was flying off to Florida. She didn’t want to travel, and she certainly didn’t want to go put on a happy face when everything was falling apart. “This isn’t a good time. We have so much to figure out.”

  “I know. But now I’m thinking Florida might be worth looking into.”

  “Looking into? In what sense?”

  “We’d get more for our money out there. And there’s no income tax.”

  “Well, we have no income. So that’s not a huge plus.”

  “Can you try to be positive for once?”

  “Howard, no. I’m not moving to Florida.”

  “You can’t even be open to the idea? Give me one good reason why not.”

  “For one thing, I have work. The foundation—”

  “Let Lauren get more involved! She needs to get off this damn island. If you stop enabling her, maybe she will.”

  She shook her head. “You just get to make all the decisions, don’t you?”

  “Do you have a better idea?”

  “Maybe I would have if you’d leveled with me sooner! And what about Ethan?”

  “What about him?” Howard said blankly.

  “Don’t you want to spend time with your grandson?”

  “Of course I do. But Beth, you and I have to rebuild. And Stephanie’s going to have to step up. And you know what? Lauren has to get on with her life. Even if we weren’t selling the house, she should be looking fo
r an apartment. It’s outrageous to heat this place all winter for one person.”

  “You’re so hard on them,” she said, feeling heartbroken. “You’re not perfect either, you know.”

  “Never said I was. But I did say, from day one, that Lauren was too young to get serious with that boy. Didn’t I? She was so bright, had so much going for her. Now look at her.”

  “She’s going to be fine,” Beth said, a whisper.

  Howard shut the dishwasher, pressed the buttons so the room filled with the hum of the machine.

  “I’m leaving next Thursday. Flight’s at noon out of Philly,” he said, tossing the sponge behind the sink. “I hope you’ll be with me. But I’m going either way.”

  Matt didn’t feel like he had a ton of reasons to pat himself on the back lately, but getting the footage of that kid was a stroke of genius.

  He barely noticed that the room had fallen dark as the sun set, the only light coming from his screen. Again, he played the clip of Ethan kicking the soccer ball around the beach, the sun-dappled ocean behind him, seagulls fluttering nearby like birds in a goddamn Disney film. Of course, it would have been a thousand times better if he’d been able to get footage of Rory playing ball as a kid, but he’d lost that opportunity when Mrs. Kincaid died shortly after he interviewed her. She’d kept promising to send him some childhood photos and video clips, but it never happened. At least now he could use this kid as juxtaposition. It wasn’t perfect, but it was a good enough work-around.

  He jumped to footage of Rory’s high-school athletic field: General H. H. Arnold Field, named after aviation pioneer Henry Harley “Hap” Arnold, the only officer to hold a five-star rank in two different U.S. military services.

  Matt couldn’t have scripted it better.

  ENTER TO LEARN, GO FORTH TO SERVE. Matt had filmed the words carved into the entrance to Lower Merion High School the day he interviewed Rory’s coach and he’d looked at the footage again and again since then, the coach’s haunting question now his own: How many thousands upon thousands of kids have walked through the doors of this school over the years, and how many have actually taken that motto to heart?

  He switched back to the clip of Ethan. A pounding on the door startled him. He blinked in the darkness.