Commuters Read Online Free Page B

in the Waugatuck hallway, little by little Rachel became aware of a sound—not the music and voices at the reception upstairs, but from behind her. Behind the wall, inside the ladies’ room. A high-pitched wail that came and went. Gasps, then a pause. Without thinking, she went to the door and pulled it open.
    Annette, slumped on a low overstuffed stool in front of the dressing table mirror, raised her head. Another woman stood nearby, hovering anxiously. She shot a distressed look at Rachel.
    “Oh, perfect,” Annette said loudly, waving an arm. Her makeup was smeared and her eyes raw. “Un-fucking-believable.”
    “Excuse me,” Rachel said, taken aback by the slap of anger. She turned to leave.
    “Don’t you run away now! You came to find me, well—here I am. You want to drag me back upstairs to that whole—Can you believe this?” Annette turned to her friend, a shorter woman in a gray silk suit, who was trying to hush her.
    The friend nodded to Rachel, as if they shared an understanding, and then toward the door. “She’s just a little upset,” she said. “Probably it would be better if—”
    “What is it with you people? Don’t you have a single ounce of dignity? Do you really think I’m going to let my father get suckered into losing everything at the end of his life? He’s worked damnhard for what he’s made, and if you think I’m going to just stand around while you and your mother take what you—”
    “Annette,” the friend groaned. “Don’t.”
    “—please…Do you know what my lawyer says? You have no idea what you’ve gotten yourself into.”
    “Well, I’m sorry you feel this way,” Rachel said. “And to tell you the truth—”
    She stopped, confused. Though she’d only spoken with Annette briefly, once or twice before, Rachel could tell that Jerry’s daughter was none too pleased about this marriage. But she’d had no idea that Annette was this furious. And all along, Rachel had somehow assumed that Annette’s objections to the marriage were her own—that everything about this gaudy spectacle, this wedding, was unseemly and unnecessary, a bit tacky and more than a little embarrassing. But now, underneath Annette’s wine-soaked vehemence, Rachel heard something else: fear. The kind of sharp, blinding fear that springs from loss.
    “It must be hard,” she said. “With his moving here. But I think—”
    “This all makes me sick,” Annette moaned, and she really did look ill—white in the corners of her mouth, and trembling. “Sitting up there, smiling while you all wink at each other and count your lucky stars that my father has decided to act like a fool. Like an idiot . I won’t let you do this to him. His reputation—what this would have done to my mother—” She choked on a sob.
    “Annette,” Rachel began. She might have taken a step closer.
    “Don’t touch me!” Annette shrieked. “I’m sorry—I’m sorry,” she said to the friend, suddenly conciliatory. “I’ll get it together in a minute. I just won’t be pitied . Not by her.”
    Rachel went quickly past them into the next room. As she expected, there was a stack of small plastic cups on a shelf above the sinks. She filled one, hands shaking.
    Back in the dressing room, Rachel set the water down in front of Annette and pulled up a stool, close enough to see the dots of mascara beaded along the other woman’s lower eyelashes.
    “Now you listen to me. That is my mother up there, and it’s her wedding day, and I won’t have you making a drunken scene to ruin even one minute of it for her. Do you hear me?” Despite the heat of the moment, Rachel recognized her own tone immediately: it was the one she used when one of the girls had really crossed the line.
    “For the record—not that it matters—I had no idea Jerry had bought a house. That house.” Annette started to interrupt, but Rachel barreled ahead. The friend was observing this with a small, impressed smile. “Do I think it’s insane,