Second Love

by Gould, Judith

  'Mother,' he added sardonically, 'is a firm believer in remaining on speaking terms with everyone—friend and foe. That way she can keep an eye on her enemies.'

  'Such as . . . your wife?' Dorothy-Anne guessed waspishly.

  'Especially my wife. Believe it or not, they lunch together regularly— not that Gloria likes it.'

  'Then why doesn't she just say no?'

  'To Mother?' He laughed. 'Even Gloria wouldn't dare! Fact is, no one would.'

  'She sounds like quite a lady.'

  'A regular field marshal, you mean.'

  A shadow that Dorothy-Anne would have identified as encumbrance in anyone else crossed his face for a moment, then was replaced by a look of admiration, the accordance of respect. Althea had obviously earned his, and Dorothy-Anne surmised he didn't grant it lightly.

  'So what about her?' Dorothy-Anne asked quietly, steering the conversation back on track. 'Your mother certainly doesn't strike me as the type who would spend Christmas alone.'

  'Althea? Alone? God forbid!'

  His laughter was both mockingly chiding and infinitely forgiving.

  'She's in Barbados. She has friends she stays with every Christmas through New Year's. It's become a tradition of sorts.'

  'And you weren't invited?' Dorothy-Anne couldn't imagine such a thing.

  'Oh, I was,' Hunt pulled a face. 'Always am, in fact. And, as always, I politely RSVP'd, regretfully citing prior, unspecified commitments.'

  She tilted her head. 'But not because of your mother, I take it.'

  'No.' He shook his head. 'Nor because of the hosts, either. It's the Others who scare me off.'

  'The Others?' Dorothy-Anne repeated blankly. 'What Others?'

  The way he'd said it conjured up images of low-budget 1950s sci-fi movies, of flying saucers invading planet Earth and decanting dome- headed aliens who brainwashed the inhabitants and turned them into zombies known as the Others.

  He said, 'Well, start by imagining a house party of eight 'ultra- amusing' couples. A tart-tongued fashion designer, for instance. And a television talk show hostess. A senator . . . that recording tycoon with his decorator wife . . . the usual assortment of bony socialites with their fat husbands . . . ' He shuddered theatrically. 'Thanks, but no thanks. Barbados isn't big enough to contain that many puffed-up egos.'

  Dorothy-Anne wasn't quite sure how to respond.

  'Ergo,' he pronounced, looking appealingly forlorn, 'one little Winslow found himself home all alone. With nowhere to go. And only this'— he gestured at himself—'to wear.'

  'Oh, Hunt.' Dorothy-Anne's voice was husky with feeling. 'I am sorry.'

  'Don't be.' He flashed her a lopsided grin. 'Right now, I can honestly say there isn't another place I'd rather be.'

  The air fairly hummed with silent vibrations. Again, she was overly conscious of his luminous eyes reaching deep inside her, as if he could see into her very soul.

  She sighed inwardly. I don't need this complication, she told herself. I just want to be left alone.

  No. That wasn't entirely true.

  I prefer company. I want him to stay!

  Jesus, Mary, and Joseph! She was so turned around she didn't know what she wanted anymore!

  'I realize there's nothing as rude as gate crashers,' he said softy, 'so whether or not you chase me away is up to you. Either way, there won't be any hard feelings on my part.'

  'Please stay!' Zack chimed up.

  Dorothy-Anne gave a start as her youngest dashed forward, threw himself at Hunt, and yanked desperately on his sleeves.

  'Don't go!' Zack implored, looking up at Hunt with huge beseeching eyes. Then, twisting his head around, his gaze shifted desperately to his mother. 'Mommy! Make Santa stay! Mommy, please!'

  Dorothy-Anne was at an utter loss. Damn and blast it! Now she couldn't very well not extend Hunt an invitation! She turned to Liz and Fred, her eyes appealing for their help.

  Typically, they both pretended bored indifference: Fred projecting listless tedium; Liz adopting the jaded, incurious attitude of the tolerantly superior.

  Great. Now what? I'm damned if I do and damned if I don't.

  Sensing Dorothy-Anne's quandary, Venetia unerringly came to the rescue. Prepared to shoulder all blame, she squatted down in front of Zack.

  'Of course Santa can stay, honey,' she said throatily, holding his apprehensive gaze. 'It's Christmas. And we can't very well chase Santa away, now, can we?'

  He shook his little head solemnly.

  Smiling, she affectionately tousled his thick auburn bangs.

  'Especially,' she added, with a conspiratorial wink, 'not before we see what he's brought you!'

  Zack's delicately lashed, big blue eyes lit up, then dimmed a hair as he looked searchingly over at his mother.

  'Mommy, can he stay?'

  Dorothy-Anne sighed, then smiled at Zack. 'Of course Santa is welcome to stay, sweetie,' she said hoarsely. 'That goes without saying. We'll get the best guest room ready for him.'

  The radiance on Zack's face could have lit up an entire city—reward enough for any mother's aching heart, whatever the cost.

  Venetia gave Zack a hug and grinned. 'You see? Child, what did I tell you? Huh?'

  And rising to her full height, Venetia hooked her arm through Hunt's. Behaving as though the two of them were buddies who went way back and Dorothy-Anne was the bit player in their little drama.

  'Come on, Santa,' she said, a hint of laughter in her voice. 'Let's go see about that drink . . . and then I'll get someone to look after your .. . er . . . reindeer, are they?'

  'There's no need,' Hunt replied blithely. 'One of the elves is taking them back to the stables as we speak.'

  What!

  Dorothy-Anne stared at him through slitted eyes.

  Why, the louse! Of all the low-down rotten tricks! So he had been counting on staying, the dirty devil!

  She didn't know whether to feel angry or pleased. Perhaps equal measures of both.

  It was later.

  The fire was burning low. Torn shreds of festive wrapping paper were strewn here, there, everywhere.

  Zack, fighting sleep and wearing Hunt's Santa cap, which kept sliding down over his face, was blearily happy.

  So were they all.

  For the past few hours, reality had been suspended, the all-too-recent tragedies held at bay. They'd sung carols, drunk eggnog (in the adults' case, spiked with booze), and the children had attacked their presents.

  Fred couldn't decide which he liked better—the vintage electric guitar, the new portable CD player, the piratical pair of gold earrings, or the yet-to-be-released Hootie and the Blowfish and Pearl Jam CDs. 'Coo-ool. But how'd you get these recordings?' he asked Hunt in astonishment. 'They're not due out for another three, four months yet!'

  'Oh, never underestimate Santa,' was the vague reply.

  Zack hit the jackpot with tons of video games, hip-hop clothes only a mother could hate, a mountain bike, vintage baseball cards, and the gift he prized most of all—two autographed baseballs, one signed by Joe DiMaggio and the other by Ted Williams.

  Liz was deluged with clothes from Ralph Lauren, a virtual reality system, a pair of Rollerblades, an antique sterling vanity set, and, from Venetia, the latest state-of-the-art color scanner.

  'You haven't been spending any time at your computers,' Venetia told her. 'Hopefully the scanner will get you back on track.'

  Dorothy-Anne couldn't believe it. All things considered, it was turning out to be a memorable Christmas.

  When Venetia's cellular phone chirruped, Dorothy-Anne said, 'Oh, just let it ring. Why spoil a wonderful evening?'

  Venetia went to answer it all the same.

  'It's got to be important,' she said. 'Very few people have this number.'

  She picked up the phone and activated it.

  'Hello? Oh, Derek. Merry ..Then she listened. 'What! Oh, shit!'

  She glanced across the room to where Dorothy-Anne, recognizing the shock in her voice, stood
rigidly behind a chair, her hands digging into its upholstered back.

  'No, we aren't wired for cable!' Venetia snapped into the phone. 'Wait. There's a satellite dish. CNN? Okay. Call you right back.'

  She quickly pressed the End button.

  'What is it?' Dorothy-Anne felt a terrible sense of foreboding.

  'Trouble,' Venetia said succinctly.

  Phone in hand, she lost no time striding rapidly across the room, out through the center hall, and into the study beyond. She grabbed the remote off the coffee table, aimed it at the big-screen TV, and clicked it on. By the time Dorothy-Anne, and then Hunt and the children hurried in, Venetia already had the channel set to CNN.

  The picture on the Trinitron fluttered on, and the female anchor was saying, 'This story just breaking. In Singapore, health authorities have confirmed an outbreak of Legionnaires' disease at the luxurious Hale Dynasty Hotel . . . .'

  'No!' Dorothy-Anne heard herself gasp. 'No, no, no, no, no!'

  She snatched the remote out of Venetia's hand and squeezed the volume button until the anchor's voice reverberated with distortion.

  ' . . . more from our Singapore correspondent, May Lee Chen.'

  The picture switched to a pretty Asian woman in her twenties, fine black hair ruffled by a sunny breeze, microphone in hand, waiting intently for her cue. From the staggeringly lush tropical plantings behind her rose the opulent marble and glass high-rise with its distinctive, pagoda-roofed top—a silhouette as unmistakable as the former AT&T Building in New York, the Transamerica Pyramid in San Francisco, or the Sydney Opera House in Australia.

  'Less than a year after its opening,' the reporter said earnestly into her microphone, 'medical disaster has struck one of the Pacific Rim's newest and most luxurious hotels. In what is Singapore's first known outbreak of Legionnaires' disease, local health authorities have announced the deaths of two guests, one of them an American, and the hospitalization of twenty-two confirmed, and at least sixty-eight suspected cases . . . '

  Dorothy-Anne was too shocked to speak. Slowly, as though physically injured, she lowered herself carefully into an armchair and stared numbly at the screen, listening in mounting horror as the news was trumpeted via satellite to every corner of the globe:

  The sick guests, among six hundred staying at the hotel, were not the only casualties. Several of the two hundred employees have also reported symptoms.'

  'Good God!' Dorothy-Anne whispered. 'Those are our guests and employees she's talking about! How on earth—?'

  She glanced searchingly at Venetia, but her friend's attention was riveted to the screen, her face expressionless except for the intelligent dark eyes, which betrayed a calculating glint: the cool professional already weighing the best possible options for minimizing what was surely any public relations expert's worst nightmare.

  The excoriating report continued, the camera panning to the hotel entrance, where medics were carrying the ill on stretchers while the healthy, loaded down with luggage, milled around the waiting buses and taxis.

  'The hotel is being evacuated as health workers are trying to trace the source of the Legionella bacteria. Meanwhile, this once-proud building'—the screen showed a distant shot—'one of the world's most distinguished architectural landmarks, has become a symbol of just another of the twentieth century's perplexing medical mysteries. Reporting from Singapore, this is May Lee Chen.'

  'Damn, damn, damn!' Dorothy-Anne said explosively. She hit the Off button, then slumped back in the chair and brooded. In the sudden silence, the television emitted a faint ticking, like that of a warm car engine.

  Or a bomb about to detonate.

  Memory's vulture beat its mocking wings.

  Nothing generic.

  How well—how too damn well!—Dorothy-Anne remembered her brief to the architects.

  I want this building to announce itself—to declare itself! I want it so identifiable that the instant people see a picture of it in Cairo or Rio, they'll think, That's the Hale Hotel in Singapore!

  And now that brief had returned to haunt her.

  The visual impact of her architectural showstopper with its pagoda like top, the symbol of Hale Hotels' presence in the Pacific Rim, had instead become a symbol of—she shut her eyes—disease, suffering, and death.

  'God . . . ' she breathed slowly. 'Oh, God . . . '

  'Honey,' Venetia said softly. 'I'm sorry. Looks like I'm off to Singapore. Damage control time.'

  Dorothy-Anne nodded. She looked small, vulnerable, defeated. As though the chair was growing, and she, like Alice, was shrinking.

  Wearily, she wiped at her face. 'I just don't get it!' she said intensely. 'How did this happen? How could it?'

  Venetia sighed. 'Honey, that's what the health authorities are trying to determine.'

  'No.' Dorothy-Anne shook her head adamantly. 'They're barking up the wrong tree.'

  'But honey, their findings—'

  Dorothy-Anne looked up sharply. 'I don't give a damn about their findings!' she said fiercely. 'Venetia! Don't you see? This can't all be coincidence! My medical problems, yes. But Freddie's crash? And this outbreak on top of it? I'm telling you, it's too much!'

  'And it is,' Venetia soothed. 'But you know the adage. Sometimes it's true that trouble comes in threes.'

  But Dorothy-Anne wasn't buying it.

  Venetia's wrong, she thought. Freddie's plane crash, my miscarriage, and the cervical cancer made three. The hysterectomy made four. And now this makes five.

  Trouble didn't come in fives.

  And something else about it—she couldn't quite put her finger on what, exactly . . . the timing, perhaps?—didn't sit right.

  Didn't feel right.

  Venetia perched herself on the arm of Dorothy-Anne's chair. 'Listen, honey,' she said softly. 'I realize what a blow this must be. Especially considering everything else you've—'

  'That's just it! There are too many tragedies piling up! Since when does lightning strike the same spot so often?'

  From experience, Venetia had learned to trust in Dorothy-Anne's intuitions, no matter how bizarre or far-fetched they might at first appear.

  'And if you're right?' she asked softly. 'If this wasn't an accident and really was intentional? Why would anyone—?'

  'Why?'

  Dorothy-Anne held up her hands.

  'Who knows why? For the same reason someone would set off poison gas canisters in the Tokyo subways. Or plant bombs on the streets of Paris. Or engage in drive-by shootings in California. Or set homeless people on fire in New York City.'

  'To strike terror,' Venetia whispered. 'To cause confusion and fear.'

  'That's right.'

  Venetia rubbed the bridge of her nose, as if to clear her sinuses.

  'So what do we do?'

  'The only thing we can,' Dorothy-Anne replied. 'We try to get to the bottom of this . . . and hope we can do it in time. Before more lives are lost. Before . . . ' Her voice trailed off.

  'Before what?'

  Dorothy-Anne did not mince words. 'Before we're ruined,' she said grimly.

  24

  The husband is dead,' announced Honorable Horse. He looked around the table. The others were sitting quietly, sipping their tea.

  'A tragedy,' murmured Honorable Ox, a veil dropping across his small dark eyes. He put down his delicate cup. 'Buddha has not watched over him, but one man's tragedy is many another man's blessing.'

  The six elders were inside the central room of a derelict mansion on what, forty years earlier, had been one of French Indochina's proudest plantations near Hanoi. Outside, their armed, shirtsleeved guards patrolled the two-tiered veranda that completely encircled the crumbling, once elegant house.

  It was midafternoon, and the tropical heat was oppressive. But that wasn't what kept the guards on the shady veranda. What did was the unchecked progress of nature.

  The surrounding garden of palms, frangipani, flame trees, and hibiscus had long since been reclaimed by the jungle, and was virtually
impassable. Monstrous undergrowth had shot fifty feet high, and parasitic vines had strangled the once famous cultivated grounds, encroaching on the ruined outbuildings and creating a nearly impenetrable wall of rain forest.

  Upon arrival, it had been all their vehicles could do to negotiate the green tunnel that had once been the drive, and then only because it was paved with stone, an obscene reminder of embarrassing colonial riches.

  The old lung tao from Hong Kong was saying, 'Now that the gods have seen fit to take the husband, the woman is in mourning. She is vulnerable. The time has come for us to strike.'

  'Praise all gods great and small!' exclaimed Honorable Dragon. 'We have waited long enough!'

  'And have much product to move,' murmured the Laotian general. 'The crops in our highlands have enjoyed a most auspicious year. Never before have the pods of the poppy yielded such abundance.'

  'My lands have also been thus blessed,' added Honorable Horse. 'This is by far the most fortuitous harvest since the Year of the Hare.'

  'Yes, and it is all our refineries can do to process so much product,' sighed Honorable Rooster. 'Our workers toil in shifts from sunrise to sunrise.'

  The old lung tao stroked his wispy beard. 'Indeed, the gods of fortune have been most beneficent . . . despite the pressure exerted on our governments by the pallid pink toads.'

  'Only because our own fat authorities have pockets without bottoms and hands covered with fragrant grease!' grumbled Honorable Dragon. 'Ayeeyah, the greed of those thieves! Each year they multiply like mice and extort more and more of the squeeze.'

  'A small enough price to pay,' said the old lung tao calmly, with a casual gesture. 'The less product that is confiscated or destroyed, the more bountiful are our profits.'

  'Perhaps,' sniffed the ever worried Honorable Rooster. 'However, so abundant a crop demands most careful distribution. An oversupply can easily bring down the price, devour our profits, and erode our power as surely as the sea reclaims the land.'

  The old lung tao sipped his tea fastidiously. 'A thousand pardons,' he said politely, 'but I must disagree.'