Tell Me Everything

Despite what Olive thinks, Bob and Lucy are just friends. Both William and Margaret know about and appreciate the way this friendship fulfills Bob and Lucy’s needs. Although Margaret doesn’t know Bob started smoking again during the pandemic, Lucy does. Bob’s family has been in Maine for generations, and he has inherited their Puritanical dislike of “calling attention to oneself” (25). Lucy was raised in a similar background in the Midwest, although her family’s poverty was “extreme,” and her parents were complicated and abusive.

After they leave Olive’s home, Bob and Lucy go for a walk. Lucy tells Bob that Olive was abrasive at first but knows that the woman was just frightened, as bullies usually are. She tells Bob Olive’s story, and they reflect on the four people involved.

Every time they walk together, Bob smokes a cigarette, positioning himself so that the smoke doesn’t get into his clothes. When he is finished, he always puts the butt into his pocket and thanks Lucy, to which she replies, “Of course.” Bob reflects that he used to misuse alcohol because he is “terrified,” and that is why he smokes now. Lucy says she understands.

The back roads of Maine are beautiful in November. Matt Beach lives with his mother on one of those roads. One evening, Matt went to the grocery store, and when he got home, his mother, Gloria, had disappeared.

Bob and his sister, Susan Olson, both went to the local school and remember Gloria, who the students nicknamed “Bitch Ball” from her job as a cafeteria worker. Gloria’s daughter, Diana, who was in their class, is now a guidance counselor in Connecticut, and her eldest son, Thomas, is a psychiatrist in Oregon. Susan comments that she wouldn’t be surprised or blame Matt if he’d killed his mother—she’d terrified them all as children.

At around the same time as Gloria’s disappearance, a rental car in Saco, two hours south of Crosby, was never returned. It was rented under the name of Ashley Monroe. When police checked with Ashley, she claimed that her driver’s license and credit card were stolen. Her alibi was airtight—she was in Shirley Falls, in labor with her first child at the hospital. Nobody connected the two crimes.

Susan remembers that Diana used to tell disturbing stories to other girls on the playground about men abducting women and forcing them to do things. She tells Gerry O’Hare, the former police chief of Shirley Falls, during their morning coffee, which they do two or three days each week. He mentions that when he was chief, there were rumors that Matt was a “pervert” because he painted pregnant women. Susan and Gerry went on a few dates when they were in high school, but he’d broken up with her. Now, sometimes, he feels like he wants things to go further between them but doesn’t believe it can.

Winter arrives in Maine. Olive tells Bob that she knows someone who knew the Beach family if he needs information. Bob tells her that he isn’t taking Matt Beach’s case. After they hang up, Bob calls his older brother, Jim. They agree that Matt is probably guilty. Bob reflects on Jim’s bullying—recently, Jim confessed that he caused the accident that killed their father and let Bob take the blame for years.

Bob and Jim reminisce about how mean Gloria Beach was when they were children. Jim remembers thinking that Gloria’s daughter, Diana, was sad. Jim invites Bob to New York to visit him and his wife, Helen, but a week later, he calls again and tells him not to come. When Bob asks why, Jim won’t answer.

The Christmas decorations in Crosby go up before Thanksgiving. When Bob was a kid, he confessed to his mother that Christmas makes him sad. She cried, and he still felt guilty about it. He told Margaret about it, but she didn’t understand, and he realized that people don’t have time to listen to other people’s lives.

One night, Lucy and William have a drink at Bob and Margaret’s house. As they are leaving, William says that taking care of Lucy is his job. After he says this, Bob notices tears in Lucy’s eyes, and her voice trembles when she says goodbye. Afterward, Bob tells Margaret that he thinks Lucy was upset by William’s comment. Margaret believes that it is Lucy and William’s dynamic because Lucy is an artist, which makes her “childlike.” Later that night, Margaret thinks about Lucy’s loneliness. She reflects that it is the reason Margaret feels connected to her.

Lucy meets Charlene Bibber for a walk every so often. Charlene and Lucy met while volunteering at the food pantry. Although Charlene and Lucy have different political views, they’ve been friends for over two years. Charlene tells Lucy that she spent Christmas alone—the gas was too expensive to drive to her relatives’ house. She also tells Lucy that Olive gave her Lucy’s memoir to read (Charlene cleans Olive’s apartment). That night, Charlene reads a few pages of Lucy’s memoir and then sets it down. She intends to read it but never does.

After Christmas, Lucy and Bob go for a walk. Lucy admits that she’s been depressed, especially since her daughters, Chrissy and Becka, didn’t even ask her and William for Christmas. Lucy mentions her walk with Charlene, and they worry together about the political divisiveness of the country. Lucy tells Bob a story in which Lucy’s mother told her that “life isn’t real” (56). Bob tells Lucy the story about telling his mother he doesn’t like Christmas, and while Margaret didn’t get it, Lucy does.

It is February, and the days are getting longer. Neither Bob nor Margaret knows that her job is in jeopardy. Lucy and William are traveling, and Bob is jealous. He wants to visit New York but hasn’t because Jim still hasn’t re-invited him. He also misses his first wife, Pam, who lives in New York and with whom he is still friends.

Bob doesn’t know that Pam has an alcohol use disorder. She and her husband, Ted, moved to their house in East Hampton when the pandemic started. She was lonely, and each night at 5:00 pm, Pam would drink in her walk-in closet and then have a cocktail with Ted. Even as the pandemic was waning and people were getting out again, Pam kept drinking and discovered she didn’t have one friend to tell her secret to. Her life felt empty.

One day, when Pam was in her closet drinking, she heard Ted come in. Before she could say anything, she heard another voice—her friend, Lydia Robbins. She’d listened as they had sex. She’d said nothing to Ted during their cocktail hour but stopped drinking afterward. She told Ted she was moving back to New York. He wanted to stay in the Hamptons, so Pam went alone. Then she decided to visit Bob in Maine, even though they hadn’t seen each other in two years.

When Pam sees Bob, she reflects that he “could be working at a gas station” (67), and then she realizes that she is a snob. She tells Bob about her alcohol use disorder. Bob asks about her sons, and she tells him that they both live in California. Her son, Eric, dresses in women’s clothes and doesn’t come home, because Ted is an “intolerant asshole” about it. She says that she hates her life, and Bob realizes that she wants him to tell her what to do. He tells her to find a good Alcoholics Anonymous meeting and then “think about what it is [she] want[s] to do with the rest of [her] life” (69).

Bob drives home and tells Margaret about Pam, but Margaret is preoccupied with her own life. He thinks about how he will tell Lucy, who will care, on their next walk.

The next morning, Pam visits Bob’s sister, Susan. On her way to the airport afterward, Pam calls Bob. She tells him that Jim’s wife Helen is dying. Jim told Susan, who told Pam.

During the pandemic, Bob began delivering Mrs. Hasselbeck’s groceries and has continued to do so. He waters down the bottle of gin he brings every other week. After he puts away the groceries, they chat. Mrs. Hasselbeck asks him to label her underwear so that she knows which side is the front. After he leaves, he sits in the car, overwhelmed.

The next time Lucy goes to Olive’s house, Olive tells her about Janice Tucker, who used to cut Olive’s hair. When Janice was young, she knew that her stepmother didn’t love her. Janice won a scholarship to a prestigious college and fell in love with a professor. When he broke off their affair, she flunked out of college but was ashamed to go home. She stayed in the college town, working at a bookstore, and dated a man who was later diagnosed with schizophrenia. Janice moved back home and married a man she knew in high school.

Janice liked her husband but was fairly sure he was gay. Every year, she went to Florida alone for 10 days and knew that her husband didn’t mind because he spent the time with Grunt, a young man who worked for him. When Janice’s husband died, she took Grunt in, and they lived together. After her death, Grunt inherited Janice’s house. Olive saw him recently, working at Walmart, and he was just as sweet as ever. Lucy says that Janice spent her life “eating people’s sins” (85).

Bob can’t stop thinking about how Jim didn’t tell him about Helen’s illness. He talks to Margaret about it, but she doesn’t understand his relationship with Jim.

Bob calls Lucy to go for a walk. She tells him that her houseplant, Little Annie, has sprouted. Bob tells her about Pam’s visit and Helen. She is filled with compassion when he tells her about Jim not telling him. They talk about the way Jim treats Bob, and Lucy theorizes that Jim is a bully because he has always been frightened. Bob is initially angry, but Lucy explains that because Bob loves Jim despite his lie about their father’s death, Bob makes Jim feel vulnerable. Lucy tells Bob that he is a sin-eater.

Susan is glad Pam told Bob about Helen because she is worried about Jim. That night, Jim calls Bob and tells him that he’s going to go off his antidepressants because he doesn’t want to be numb. Bob is worried by this idea. Jim tells Bob that Helen doesn’t want anyone to see her.

It is March in Crosby. Helen finally called Bob a few weeks ago. She told him she loved him and asked him to try to help Jim and their son, Larry, whose relationship is strained. Since then, Bob has been distracted. One day, he sees William at the grocery store. William asks about Helen but then changes the subject. Bob realizes that people rarely pay real attention to others. Everyone makes him feel alone except Lucy.