A Scandal at Eastwick

by L. C. Warman

  “You could talk to him,” Katie suggested. “Get him to realize that Lia has nothing to do with this.”

  “Why would I do that?”

  “We have to do something. Their family—”

  Bella sighed, a long-suffering sound. “Katie,” she said. “Look. I know you feel guilty—though why, I have absolutely no idea. We don’t have to help anyone. Lia can handle herself, really. And Paulette—Paulette is Paulette. She’ll let it roll off her back, like everything else, once she calms down. Though I really wouldn’t mind figuring out what secret she’s so worried about keeping,” Bella added maliciously. Katie frowned.

  “Bella—”

  “No. Seriously, topic over.”

  Katie watched Bella closely as her friend rose, dusting off her pants. She wondered, not for the first time, whether the secrets between them would ever end.

  Chapter 24

  Alyssa wrenched her hand away from the manicurist, chastising her about her aggressive cuticle-snipping. “I told you, light,” Alyssa said again, and the woman leveled her with a dead gaze before taking Alyssa’s hand back and continuing.

  “You okay?” Clarissa asked, distracted. But that was all Clarissa had been these past few days. Figured. Soon Clarissa’s vacation in St. Clair, courtesy of Alyssa, would be over, and her friend would pack up and move out again, leaving Alyssa to deal with all the mess, alone.

  “I’m not, actually,” Alyssa snapped. She took a deep breath, struggling to make her voice normal. Not here, she told herself. You won’t freak out here. “Guess who Harry is seeing tonight.”

  Clarissa turned her gaze on Alyssa, and it was all Alyssa could do not to roll her eyes. It was obvious that Clarissa’s eyes were glazed, that her thoughts were a million miles away. “Who?” she repeated dumbly.

  “Never mind.”

  Clarissa blinked and shook her head. The movement shook her extended fingers, and Clarissa’s manicurist clucked and repositioned her hand. Alyssa thought the shade of eggshell blue that her friend had chosen was typical Clarissa: trendy and tasteless. But she had bigger problems now.

  “Tell me,” Clarissa said. “Who is he seeing? Lia?”

  It hurt that she had guessed it on the first try. “Yes,” Alyssa said with a huff. “Lia. She said she had something important to tell him.”

  “As in, she’s blackmailing his mom?”

  This got a short, appreciative laugh from Alyssa. “Anyway,” Alyssa said. “He texted to tell me. I told him he shouldn’t even waste his time, but, well, Harry was always soft.” Sensitive. She had meant to say sensitive.

  “I’m sure it’s nothing,” Clarissa said. “She’s probably just worried. About what his mom was saying.”

  “Whose side are you on?”

  Clarissa glanced sideways at her. “Yours, of course. But she’s his ex, right? And she has to be able to talk to him about important things, sometimes. Exes sometimes do.”

  “I really don’t think so. I think once you’re an ex, there’s no reason to talk to anyone ever again.”

  Clarissa’s mouth tightened at this. Alyssa’s blood boiled. Was Clarissa thinking of herself again, of her own little relationships and past woes, or was she focusing on the issue at hand? Typical, thought Alyssa.

  “Hold still,” the manicurist said, and Alyssa realized her hands had been shaking with rage.

  “I’m sure it’s fine,” Clarissa said. “I’m sure she just wants to talk.”

  “I don’t think so,” Alyssa said. “I’m pretty sure every time a girl wants to talk to her ex, she’s looking for a lot more than just talk.”

  Clarissa blushed. “You know,” she said. “You’ve been pretty awful to me since I came here. And I’ve taken it, because you were my host. But I’m getting a little sick of it.”

  Alyssa snorted. “Fed up with what? Being put up in a nice place? Having all your meals and spa treatments paid for? I’m so sorry that it’s so difficult being my friend.”

  “That’s not what I mean.”

  “Right. Because you didn’t come here to spend time with me, did you? You made that clear enough the first night.”

  “I only told you because—”

  “Because what? You wanted me to help you? Fat chance. I told you, stay in your own lane, and don’t ruin anything for me.” And then Alyssa took a deep breath again, reminding herself, even as Clarissa’s lower lip trembled, that Clarissa could ruin things for her. “Look, Clarissa, I’m sorry. I’m stressed out. I—this whole blackmail thing, it’s taking a toll on Harry. And you know when he’s stressed out, I—it’s no excuse. I’m sorry.”

  Clarissa didn’t answer. Alyssa felt a stab of panic.

  “Really,” she continued, “I didn’t mean it, okay? I’m happy you’re here. You’re my best friend.”

  Clarissa glanced at her quickly, then. Alyssa didn’t want to see it, didn’t want to think it, but she seemed to read the emotion plainly in Clarissa’s eyes.

  Pity.

  Chapter 25

  At first, Lia staunchly refused to meet Harry at his childhood home. It didn’t matter that he promised his mother would be out that afternoon, or that the place was actually easier for her to get to than driving all the way into town to Harry’s condo. She felt it would be tempting the fates, somehow, to arrive at the home of the woman who hated her above all other people in the world.

  But Harry had the advantage, for it was Lia who wanted to talk to him. She agreed, after extracting from him yet a third promise that his mother would not be back until at least six o’clock.

  When she arrived, she had a strange sense of déjà vu—of being seventeen, and winding up the long circular driveway, wheels spinning over white gravel, nervously checking her makeup in the rearview mirror and hoping desperately to be liked, to be accepted. If only she could have told her teenage self that such decisions were not based on any of her actions—perhaps that would have relaxed her, or at least resigned her to the inevitable.

  “Alyssa’s not thrilled about this,” Harry said, when he answered the door. “She’s been threatening to come over the whole afternoon.”

  “I promise to not make any moves,” Lia said, but the joke fell flat as she entered the two-storied atrium. Lia had been so impressed with it when she first saw it years ago, but she had seen many mansions since then, and she found now that they all had the same stuffiness and form to them: the sweeping staircases, the catwalks, the high ceilings, all designed to give the same boring sense of importance to piles of brick and stone and wood.

  Harry brought her to the dining room, where he sat down at the head of the table and indicated a high-backed chair on his right. He hadn’t set out any food; Lia was strangely relieved by this. She didn’t need Harry to be cordial to her, not now.

  “First, I hope it’s obvious that I didn’t blackmail your mother,” Lia started. She had a hard time making eye contact with him; she hated how she felt, the way she sensed that the power had shifted between them. In high school, Harry had pursued her. Now, this Harry, adult Harry, might have viewed adult Lia as frivolous and disposable if he had met her at a bar, yet another half-pretty girl who was using the excuse of “following her dreams” to live out an eternal youth in a big city. It wouldn’t be the first time Lia had heard it.

  Harry didn’t say anything.

  “Well, I didn’t,” Lia said, a little testily. “I think if I was going to do something that stupid, I’d have at least gone about it with a little more cleverness.”

  “You don’t have to convince me, Lia.”

  “Right, well. I know something else—something about your family that might explain what’s going on.”

  “My family,” Harry said, voice flat, face impassive.

  “Yes. Your father left his job at the private equity firm a few years back—”

  “That was a long time ago.”

  “Yes, but—”

  “And my father is dead.”

  Lia looked at him, exasperated. “Yes, and I’m
sorry about that, Harry, but I have to ask.”

  “I don’t think you do.”

  “Did he have a falling out with the other partners? About their company?”

  Harry’s face was tense. Lia could tell he was calculating how much she knew, how much he could keep close to the vest. “That’s not anything secret,” he said finally, stiffly. “My father left to start his own firm after an argument with Rob Kowalski. Lucas’s uncle, so you can stop pretending that anyone else told you. It happens, in these types of companies, sometimes.”

  “Is that what your mom is being blackmailed about?”

  She didn’t realize that she had been so ardently hoping for a response in the affirmative until she had stated the question. She looked hungrily at Harry, waiting. Please, she thought. Let it be something like this. Something entirely different than what Paulette had first imagined. Let it be something that won’t involve me at all.

  “I have no idea,” Harry said, blushing.

  Lia waited, not sure what to say next. Pressing more about the finances, and his father’s potential wrongdoings, would surely get her nowhere. What she had wanted out of this meeting, more than information, more than confirmation, was just for Harry to look at her and say, yes, you’re not the same, we’re not the same, but I know you would never do this horrible thing.

  “Why?” Harry said. “Did you—did you know about it, back in high school? Is that why my mom thought of you?”

  “No, of course not.”

  “Then what? What else…is there something else that you know about my mom?”

  His face wrinkled as he spoke the words—it was obvious that he wished for no answer to the question, even though he braced himself to face it.

  “No,” Lia said quickly, thinking of the closet again, of the clandestine afternoon, of her fumbling hands over thick fabric. “No, nothing.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “Positive.”

  Harry shook his head and buried his face in his hands. Lia watched him, grateful for the break from his penetrating gaze. He had changed too, she thought, but in a thousand ways that she still didn’t know. He felt so distant from her, as if she were meeting him in another world entirely.

  “Who would do this?” he asked. “It’s not like anyone at that party needs money desperately. I mean, besides you.”

  “I’m not that desperate,” Lia said, blushing.

  “Yes, sorry. That’s not what I meant. It’s just—” He sighed. “Have you talked to Katie? Atul? Bella and Julia? What do they think?”

  Lia shrugged, too embarrassed to admit that they hadn’t spoken since that night, that their fractured friendships really were too broken to try to repair.

  “Julia would never,” Harry said to himself. “Atul, no. Not Katie. Bella, perhaps…but why? Why would any of them?”

  “It could have been a prank,” Lia offered again, weakly.

  “I have to call Julia,” Harry said, still in that faraway voice. “She’ll tell me if she knows anything.”

  This hurt a little; Julia had been the one Lia had been closest to in high school. Now Julia was Harry’s confidant, when he needed one? Shouldn’t she have taken Lia’s side after the high school breakup and vowed never to speak to Harry again? That was petty, of course, but perhaps Julia could have at least deleted Harry’s number.

  “Are you two close now?” Lia asked, figuring she would stall for a moment until she brought up the second topic she meant to discuss with Harry.

  “Julia and me? I guess you could say that. We’ve helped each other out ever since—well. I’m guessing you know.”

  “Know what?”

  Harry gave her one of the looks that he had in high school: incredulous, surprised, and slightly annoyed, reserved for moments when Lia didn’t know some basic fact that he had long ago learned.

  “You never heard?” Harry said. “I mean, I thought it was weird you didn’t come to visit, but I figured…it’s not really my place to tell you, then.”

  “I did hear,” Lia said. “I’m just surprised she told you about it.”

  Harry colored and fell right into the trap. “Well, I ran into them. And offered to help out, if I could. I guess they told you later, after.”

  Lia made a noncommittal noise.

  “Julia’s really cool,” Harry said. “She didn’t deserve to have that happen. Nobody does, I guess. But she got through it. She was only in the hospital, what, five days? Atul would remember.”

  Again Lia made a noncommittal noise, though this one came out more like a squeak. Hospital? Julia?

  “And she’s better now. Happy, for the most part.”

  “She was in the hospital for depression?” Lia burst.

  Harry looked stricken. “I thought you knew!”

  “Oh, well…yes, I did. I just,” Lia said, shrugging. “Forgot for a moment, I guess.”

  “Typical,” Harry said, his expression murderous. “Just typical.”

  “What’s typical?”

  “That you just abandoned all of your responsibility towards your friends and I had to pick up the pieces. You know I visited her every day when she got out? Every day for a month.”

  “Do you want a sticker?” Lia said it deadpan, eyes flat and unmoving, but inside her stomach wrenched. Why hadn’t she been there for Julia? Why had it been Harry, and not Lia, showing up every day on her doorstep to check on her? Because, she told herself, she had been too busy playing aspiring-actress-one-call-away-from-a-big-break. She had probably received Julia’s calls, and Atul’s. She had probably figured it was some birthday or something they wished to celebrate and feared their inevitable questions about “how things were going” and her inevitable lies of “absolutely fantastic, thanks!” Coward, coward, coward!

  “Real mature,” Harry said back. “I can see why they gave up on calling you.”

  Lia rose, eyes flashing, but just then the front door smashed open. Lia heard voices in the atrium and froze, mouth hanging open. Harry looked like a deer caught in headlights.

  Paulette.

  Chapter 26

  “I know she made you do it, I just know it!” Paulette cried, clutching one of James’s sleeves. “Oh, James, darling, how could you listen to her? How could you flush all of it down the drain?”

  James wrenched his wrist away from his mother and turned away, busying himself with removing his loafers. His loafers! Paulette’s eyes darted towards them. James wouldn’t be able to afford the Italian brand anymore, not now. He’d have to shop at one of those ugly bargain basement sites, where everything was made in China, or go to a secondhand store nearby. Imagine, buying your shoes secondhand!

  “Mariel didn’t make me do anything,” James said finally, when he straightened. “If anything, she was telling me that it wasn’t a good idea, that we ought to have waited until we had a little more in savings.”

  “The whole thing, James? You’re sure the whole thing is gone? Perhaps you forgot about some somewhere.”

  “It’s all gone, Mom. You and Dad only set up one trust for me.”

  And that should have been enough! Paulette wanted to cry. Oh, how she wanted to cry, to cry and scream and shake her fists at her son for his foolishness. She knew she should never have let him marry that scheming woman.

  Paulette was about to erupt into a fit of tears, which would at least be some sort of punishment for James when she heard the scrape of chairs in the other room and froze. “Harry!” Paulette cried. “Harry, is that you? Do come out!”

  Silence for a few moments. Paulette’s stomach flipped, and James looked up nervously. Intruders? But that was ridiculous; the alarm code had been off, and hadn’t she seen two cars in the drive, one Harry’s? The other, presumably, was some cleaning woman’s, or other contractor Paulette was always having out.

  “Hey,” Harry said, emerging from the dining room. “Mom! Good to have you back. James, how goes it?”

  “He’s broke!” Paulette cried. “Lost all of his money trying to ope
n an art store! Didn’t I teach you boys that the arts are just a colossal waste of time?”

  “Ah,” Harry said, glancing towards James. James looked away. “Well, ah, I’m sure it’s not that bad.”

  “NOT THAT BAD!” cried Paulette. “Harry—James is—POOR!”

  A shudder went through her as she spoke the words, and Paulette thought for one horrible moment that she was going to be sick. Harry and James just exchanged another look.

  “Mom’s gotten another blackmail note,” James blurted.

  It was, indeed, the only thing that could tear Paulette’s attention away from the desperation of her first son’s situation. She pulled the note out of her pocket with a flourish, a handwritten thing in loose, scrawled letters, demanding an exorbitant sum by tomorrow lest her secret be revealed.

  “Tomorrow,” Paulette said, fanning herself with the blackmail note as Harry reached for it. “Tomorrow, Harry!”

  “Well, it’s all nonsense, isn’t it?” he said. “There aren’t any secrets.”

  She could see the sly look of hope that he gave her as he asked, waiting for confirmation. What could she say? You foolish child, everyone over the age of thirty has secrets. Most of them couldn’t ruin her life—but this one—oh, this one!

  In the other room, a chair squeaked across the floor. Paulette and James jumped, while Harry looked sheepish. “Why don’t we go into the kitchen?” he suggested.

  “Who is here?” Paulette said sharply. “Harry? Is it Alyssa? She shouldn’t be listening at doors, you know. Alyssa! Come out here!”

  “Mom, it’s not—”

  But Paulette was already marching over to the dining room, grateful for some distraction from Harry’s unnerving question. But when she threw open the door to the dining room, she froze.

  “Harry!” Her son ran up to her as Paulette’s gaze remained transfixed on the girl in front of her. That sly snake, that calculating little vixen, that base parasite.

  “I asked Lia to come over,” Harry said quickly.

  “You!” James said, and Lia glanced over at him, her guilt plain on her face.