The Club

by Jane Heller

  “Maybe not, but I still think I should get going.”

  Tom shrugged, started the engine, and drove us back to Stop ’n’ Shop.

  When we pulled up next to my BMW, he told me he would run a check on Brendan, to see if The Oaks’s chef had ever been in trouble with the law.

  “While I’m doing that, you check out Duncan Tewksbury,” he instructed me.

  “Duncan? You really think Duncan could have killed his brother’s granddaughter?” I asked.

  “Why not? You said he resented her, that she had shown him up in front of his friends at The Oaks.”

  “And he was at the July Fourth party,” I added, “and had access to the golf pro’s office.”

  “Right. So while I’m checking on Brendan, you check on his pal Duncan.”

  I opened the car door and stepped out.

  “Thanks for…listening,” I said into the open window.

  “You’re welcome,” said Tom. “Take care, okay?”

  “You too.”

  “And don’t forget. If you need anything or want to talk some more, I’m only a beeper away.”

  “I won’t forget,” I said and got into my car.

  Chapter Twelve

  “Kimberley,” I said when I walked in the door. “What a surprise.”

  I tried to conceal my disappointment that Hunt had neglected to tell me he was bringing his daughter home with him, but I doubt I was successful.

  It was so typical of him lately. In the old days he would have checked with me, asked me if it was all right to have Kimberley spend a few days with us. But then Hunt rarely communicated with me about anything anymore, I thought sadly. It was as if I had no say, no importance, no leverage in the household, now that I no longer had a job or a paycheck.

  I shook my head as I watched Hunt and Kimberley huddle together on the floor of the library. It appeared that they were engaged in a rousing game of Monopoly. I couldn’t remember ever feeling so left out, and I fought the urge to beep Tom and beg him to come and rescue me.

  “Jude,” said Hunt as he shook the dice. “Where’ve you been?”

  “Stop ’n’ Shop,” I said.

  “Stop ’n’ Shop?” said Kimberley without looking up. “Did you buy me some pretzels? The kind that come in little sticks?”

  Give me. Buy me. Do for me. Was that what stepmothering was about? What ever happened to: Hi, nice to see you. Or: Would you like to join us in a game of Monopoly?

  “No, I didn’t buy pretzels,” I said, trying to control my anger. “I had no idea you’d be here when I got home.”

  “My fault, Pumpkin,” Hunt said to his daughter. “I forgot to tell Judy you were coming. I’ll buy you the pretzels on our way to the club in the morning.”

  “You’re taking Kimberley to the club?” I said to Hunt. He and I had talked about spending some time alone together over the weekend. Apparently, he had forgotten.

  “Yup,” he said. “I thought it was time she learned how to swing a golf club. We’re going to hit the driving range first thing in the morning and see if she’s got the right stuff.”

  “Isn’t she a little young for golf?” I said.

  “I’m ten,” Kimberley said. “That means I’m a teenager.”

  “Right,” I said. “Well, I’d like to go over to the club tomorrow morning too. How about we all drive over together?”

  “Fine with me,” said Hunt, as he moved his piece around the board. A few minutes passed as he and Kimberley made their real estate deals. I could have been a piece of furniture for all they cared.

  “Call me when you’re ready for dinner,” I said as I started to leave the room. “I’ll come down and rustle us up something to eat.”

  “Not necessary,” Hunt said as he glanced at me then returned his gaze to the game. God forbid he should break his concentration. “Kimberley and I had a bite before we left the city.”

  I stared at the two of them, my eyes burning with anger and resentment. It hadn’t even occurred to them to include me in their plans.

  “Is something wrong?” Hunt asked me.

  “Yes,” I said, “and it has been for a very long time.”

  As I stormed out of the room, I heard Kimberley tell her father to go directly to jail without passing Go. If she hadn’t been around, I would have told him where else he could go.

  The next morning, Hunt tapped on the bathroom door as I was brushing my teeth.

  “Jude? Can I come in?” he said.

  “What is it?”

  He opened the door and stepped inside, then whispered, “Kimberley woke up on the wrong side of the bed this morning.”

  “How can you tell?”

  “Jude, please. She’s upset because she left her makeup in the city.”

  “Her makeup? The girl’s ten years old.”

  “I know, but her mother lets her wear lipstick now and then.”

  “Yeah, well, her stepmother doesn’t. Kimberley is way too young to wear lipstick.”

  “I agree with you, but she says she wants to wear it to the club.”

  “Hunt,” I said as patiently as possible. “Repeat after me: ‘I’m Kimberley’s father and I’m allowed to say no to her.’ Can you do that?”

  He sighed. “You’re right. I’ve got to be stricter with her. It’s just that I don’t see her very often, and I don’t want to ruin her visits by playing the heavy.”

  “You’d rather I played the heavy?”

  “Of course not.”

  “Okay, then you’d rather ruin Kimberley’s life?”

  “What do you mean by that remark?”

  “I mean that if you keep wimping out every time you should be disciplining her, she’s going to grow up to be one of those people who shoots at strangers from roofs of tall buildings. What’s more, she’s going to have a pretty low opinion of men.”

  “The way you have of me?”

  I turned away from him. I wanted to scream, Yes! Exactly the way I have of you, because you’ve changed from the man I adore to the man I abhor! I especially wanted to scream it after I realized that it rhymed.

  “Look, Jude, I don’t want to fight,” he said, reaching out to touch my shoulder and then thinking better of it. “If you don’t want to lend Kimberley your lipstick, that’s up to you. I’ll see you downstairs.”

  He walked out of the bathroom and left me staring at my reflection. Was I a wicked stepmother? I asked myself. Was I a nagging, shrewish wife? Was I the bitch Hunt and Kimberley made me feel I was? I couldn’t tell anymore. I really couldn’t tell.

  During the ride over to the club, Kimberley kept asking me if she could borrow my lipstick and I kept saying no. She had an amazing capacity for getting on a person’s nerves, honest to God.

  When we arrived at The Oaks, she and Hunt headed in the direction of the driving range, while I went straight to the pool. We agreed that they would join me there when they’d finished their father-daughter golf lesson.

  There were plenty of empty chairs around the pool, as it was still well before the noontime rush, so I had my pick—and I picked one right next to Delia Tewksbury. She was sitting under an umbrella, reading a novel by Belva Plain. She wore a black, two-piece bathing suit, the bottom half of which had a little pleated skirt. I guessed it was at least thirty years old.

  “Hello, Mrs. Tewksbury,” I said. “Mind if I join you?”

  She put her book down and stared at me as if she’d never seen me before. We went through this every time, so I introduced myself once again.

  “Oh, yes, Judith,” she said. “Lovely to see you, dear.”

  “Thank you,” I said. “You know, Mrs. Tewksbury, I don’t believe I’ve had the chance to personally express my sympathies over the loss of your grand-niece Claire. Please accept my condolences.”

  “That’s very thoughtful of you,” she said. “My husband and I are so lucky to have the support of our fellow club members.”

  “Yes, that must be very comforting, especially since the police don’t
seem to know who was responsible for your loss.” I paused, not knowing how much Delia Tewksbury knew about her husband’s run-ins with Claire. She seemed so out of touch. “Does Mr. Tewksbury have any idea who the murderer might be?”

  “He thinks it was some outsider.” She sighed. “As do I. We’ve never taken security measures at The Oaks, not in all the years the club has been in existence. But I suppose it’s time to follow the lead of the Jewish clubs and barricade ourselves in. Some of their clubs actually have gatehouses with twenty-four-hour guards.” She sighed again. “Perhaps if we’d adopted similar security measures at The Oaks, Claire would still be with us.” Delia’s eyes welled up and she dabbed at them with a lacy handkerchief she pulled from her purse.

  “I didn’t mean to upset you,” I said.

  “No, no,” she said. “It’s all right. It’s just that Claire was like a daughter to us.”

  “Really? I thought she and your husband didn’t get along all that well.”

  “Oh, nonsense,” she scoffed. “That was country club business, nothing more. We adored Claire, especially since we had no children of our own. I’m barren, you know.”

  “No, I didn’t know.” And furthermore, I didn’t want to. I’d always assumed one’s barrenness was something one kept to oneself.

  “Ah yes,” she said, and sighed yet again. “The sadness still overwhelms me. When a woman is unable to bear a child, she dies little deaths every day of her life.”

  “My, that is sad.” Well, what else was I supposed to say? “What about Mr. Tewksbury? Did he want children as badly as you did?”

  Delia Tewksbury’s eyes misted again and her lower lip quivered. “No,” she said firmly. “No, he didn’t.”

  She began to cry—big, noisy tears. Clearly, she was an emotional wreck. The handful of people around the pool turned to see what was going on, and what was going on was that I, Ms. Police Informant, had just made the wife of the Chairman of the Board of Governors cry.

  “Please, Mrs. Tewksbury,” I said, patting her arm. “I didn’t mean to cause you any undue pain.” The woman was in her seventies, for God’s sake. Wasn’t it a little late to be weeping over her barrenness?

  I offered to get her a glass of water and went into the terrace dining room to fetch it. When I returned, she was gone—Belva Plain novel and all.

  I drank the water myself and sunbathed until Hunt and Kimberley showed up an hour later. By that time, the pool was crowded—so crowded that Kimberley and I had to share a chair.

  “How was the golf lesson?” I asked.

  “Kimberley shows real promise,” said Hunt. “She has a natural swing.”

  “That’s great,” I said. “Kimberley, did you enjoy your lesson?”

  “Yeah,” she said. “But I would have enjoyed it a lot more if I’d been allowed to borrow your lipstick.”

  I shook my head. The kid never stopped.

  “I’m boiling. Who wants to go in the water?” I asked.

  “I think I’ll wait awhile,” said Hunt.

  “Me too,” said Kimberley.

  “Then I guess I’m on my own,” I said. “The chair’s all yours, Kim.”

  I got up, walked toward the shallow end of the pool, and submerged myself (up to my neck) in the cool, blue water. Then I did a few laps of the dog paddle, my one and only stroke. I was paddling toward Hunt and Kimberley, hoping one of them would remember I was alive and wave to me, when I saw Kimberley pick up my purse, unzip the top, and reach inside.

  The little shit! She was going for my lipstick, even though I’d told her sixteen times she couldn’t borrow it! And what was Hunt doing? He was taking a nap!

  Aw, what the hell, I thought. Let her wear the damn lipstick. Why spoil a perfectly delicious swim by rushing out of the pool to scold her?

  I watched as Kimberley fished around in my purse for my makeup kit…as she pulled the black case out and examined it…as she held it up to her ear and shook it. Shook it? What on earth was she doing?

  I swam a little closer. She seemed to be holding the black case and peering at it as if it were a—

  “Hey!” I yelled when it dawned on me that she had my beeper, not my makeup case, in her hot little hands. “Leave that alone!”

  God, if Hunt found out I was snitching for the police—snitching on his buddies at The Oaks—he’d be so furious he’d…I didn’t know what he’d do.

  I dog-paddled fast and furiously to the edge of the pool, leapt out, and hurried over to my chair.

  “Give me that, huh, Kim?” I said breathlessly.

  “You’re dripping all over me,” said Kimberley, who clutched the beeper to her chest when I made a move to grab it from her.

  “Give me that,” I said again, holding out my hand. “Now.”

  Kimberley shook her head. Somehow, she knew she had me. She’d been waiting seven years to make me squirm, and her wish was finally coming true.

  “Kimberley, I’m asking you nicely,” I tried again. “Please give me the beeper.”

  She refused, so I attempted to wrestle it out of her grip.

  “Dad! Judy’s hurting me,” she squealed. Apparently, I had pinched her arm during our little tug-of-war.

  Hunt roused himself from his nap. “What’s going on here?” he asked.

  “Nothing,” I said. “Go back to sleep.”

  “She won’t let me see this thing,” Kimberley whined.

  “What thing?” said Hunt.

  “It’s just a little gizmo that Arlene gave me,” I said as I continued to try to wrest the beeper out of Kimberley’s small but very strong hands. “Everyone in publishing’s got a beeper now. It’s the latest craze.”

  “But you’re not in publishing anymore,” Hunt couldn’t resist reminding me.

  “I know, but Arlene didn’t want me to feel left out,” I said.

  “That was nice of her. Let me take a look at it,” said Hunt, who managed to pry Kimberley’s fingers off the beeper.

  Okay, I said to myself as I tried to stay calm. At least Hunt’s got it now. There shouldn’t be any problem getting him to give it to me.

  “It’s a little thing, isn’t it?” said Hunt as he rested it in the palm of his hand. “Really compact. And look at this window. Is this where the message comes in, Jude?”

  “Yes,” I said. “Now, why don’t I put it back in my purse, so it doesn’t get wet or broken?”

  “Good idea,” Hunt said.

  He was about to hand the beeper over to me. No muss. No fuss. No begging. No pleading. But then, in the millisecond before he was about to hand the beeper over to me, it beeped. Well, actually it vibrated.

  “Whoa, I’m getting a message and a massage,” Hunt quipped, laughing as the beeper sent tiny vibrations into his palm.

  “Perfect timing,” I giggled, trying desperately to appear lighthearted and casual. “Now why don’t you give me the beeper so I can put it away?”

  “Aw, come on, Jude,” said Hunt. “I want to see the kind of girl-talk you and Arlene send along the phone waves.”

  You know the rest. It was ugly. First, I couldn’t get Hunt to hand over the beeper. Second, Tom chose that particular moment to send me a suggestive message. (He asked me to meet him at the make-out spot by the river—the same make-out spot he’d taken me to the day before. He said he wanted to discuss Brendan. He also mentioned something about my having great legs.) Third, I had no explanation for any of it—not the beeper, not the message, nothing. At least none that Hunt would buy. Oh, I tried to fast-talk my way out of the situation. I told Hunt that Tom was one of Arlene’s new boyfriends, someone she’d met at work. I said, “Oh, that Tom. He was probably sitting in Arlene’s office, reading from one of her romance novels when he decided it would be fun to beep me.”

  “Bullshit,” Hunt said as several sunbathers looked on. “Who is this guy, really?”

  “I told you,” I said. “He’s Arlene’s new boyfriend.”

  “What was that business about meeting you by the river, where
he’d taken you yesterday?” Hunt said angrily.

  “Who knows?” I shrugged. “As I said, he was probably reading a passage from one of Arlene’s bodice-rippers.”

  “There’s one way to find out,” said Hunt, getting up from his chair. “I’ll just go inside and call the number Tom left.”

  “But wait! You have no right,” I cried. We were creating quite a scene around the pool.

  “I have every right,” Hunt snapped. “You’re my wife and you just got beeped by a strange man.”

  I had never figured Hunt for the jealous type. Of course, I’d never given him any reason to be jealous. I’d never flirted with other men in front of his nose, or dressed suggestively, or flaunted my curvaceous and, I suppose, fetching figure. No, I’d always been Little Miss Faithful, saving all my loving for my husband—the very same husband who was suddenly displaying a keener interest in me than he had in months.

  He stalked off, taking his suspicions and my beeper with him. I was left with a curiously speechless Kimberley.

  “You okay?” I asked her as I pulled a towel around me and sat down in Hunt’s chair. It occurred to me that Kimberley had never seen her father and me fight. Any harsh words between us were always spoken behind our bedroom door.

  She looked up at me. “You and Dad aren’t getting a divorce, are you?” she said.

  “Why? Because of a silly little misunderstanding?” I said.

  “No, because it’s been weird between you for a while.”

  So Kimberley hadn’t bought our act.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “Your father and I have been under a lot of stress lately, what with my losing my job and not being able to find another one.”

  That seemed to satisfy Kimberley for the moment. We sat together in silence. Then she suddenly began to cry.

  “What is it, hon?” I asked, drawing my chair closer to hers.

  “Nothing,” she said, tears running down her freckled cheeks.

  “Kim?”

  “I don’t want to talk about it.”

  “But you’re upset.”

  “I said I don’t want to talk about it, Judy. Please leave me alone.”

  I lay back in my chair and waited for Hunt to return. I didn’t know what else to do. In just under an hour, I had made two people cry—first Delia, now Kimberley. Not a good sign.