by Joy Fielding
“Feel,” Debbie corrected.
“What?”
“You should say ‘feel.’ The word ‘think’ can be inflammatory. That’s what Dad always says anyway.”
“Oh.” Renee heard a warning bell sound somewhere in the distance, but ignored it. “Okay, then, I feel,” she stressed, “that you resent me, the fact that I’m married to your father, and that you do everything you can during your visits to cause friction between us. Am I wrong?”
Debbie brought her lips together in a wiggly line that admitted nothing but the possibility Renee might be correct. It was the visual equivalent of “I don’t know.”
“Debbie, nothing would make me happier than for us to be friends. I’ve always wanted a daughter …”
“Why didn’t you have one?”
“I don’t know. It just didn’t work out. Your dad didn’t think the timing was right, so …”
“So you thought you’d be my mother. I already have a mother.”
“I know that. It was never my intention to try to take her place.”
“You never could. You could try as hard as you want.”
“I don’t want to take her place.” Renee threw her hands in the air. “Look, this discussion was your idea. If it’s going to create even more problems, why don’t we drop the whole thing right now before we end up saying things we’ll both be sorry for later.”
“That’s the way you deal with everything, isn’t it, Renée? If you don’t want to deal with something, you just pretend the problem doesn’t exist.”
“This is getting us nowhere.”
“Just ignore the problems and they’ll go away,” Debbie persisted. “Ignore me long enough and maybe I’ll leave. Ignore the women and maybe they’ll go away.”
Renee stood very still. “What are you talking about? What women?”
“You know what women,” Debbie said, then enunciated slowly and carefully, “Philip’s women.”
“Excuse me. I’m going to my room to lie down …”
“Alicia Henderson, for one,” Debbie taunted, following her stepmother around the living room.
“Shut up, Debbie,” Renee said, not stopping, not turning around, racing to get away from her husband’s child.
“Your sister, for another.”
Renee stopped as abruptly as if she had just run into a brick wall. She reeled with the impact, feeling her head start to spin. “What are you talking about?”
“About my father and your sister,” Debbie said simply, her voice a shrug, as Renee slowly turned around. “They’ve been sleeping together when you weren’t around. Right here, in this apartment. Oh, come on,” she continued, forcing a laugh. “Don’t look so stunned. You had to know …”
Renee saw her husband standing in the doorway to her sister’s bedroom, a towel wrapped carelessly around his hips. “What say we go out and grab an ice-cream cone?” he said. No!
“You’re lying.”
“I saw them together.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“They were in Kathryn’s room. I came home earlier than I planned one afternoon. They didn’t even hear me. They were really busy.”
“I’m getting out of here.”
“I bet they’ve been doing it at the office too. That might even be where she is now. Yeah, that’s probably where she is—on that nice comfortable couch, screwing my father!”
Renee’s hand reached out and slapped Debbie hard across the face. The girl gasped, large tears immediately springing to her eyes and falling down her cheeks. Renee felt her whole body vibrate, like a tuning fork, and then go numb.
“Can you blame him?” the girl screamed. “Look at you! I’m amazed he can even bear the sight of you. No wonder he turns to other women. No wonder he stays out late and has cozy little lunches with women like Alicia Henderson.”
Renee listened in silence, too stunned by her action to stop the angry torrent of words her hand had unleashed.
“I can understand my father,” Debbie continued, unable at this point to stop. “The person I can’t understand is you. You’re supposed to be so damn smart! How can you let my father do this to you? Don’t you have any self-respect? How can you let him have affairs with one woman after another? Don’t you know you’re the laughingstock of this whole town? The famous divorce lawyer whose own husband cheats on her left, right, and center! Why do you put up with it? What are you hanging around for? My father slept with your sister! And you’ve known about it all along, haven’t you? As much as you tried to pretend it wasn’t true. You knew!”
Renee saw her sister sitting up in bed, pulling the white sheet around her neck, hiding her nakedness, turning her face away from Renee’s concern. She saw Philip in the doorway, fresh out of the shower, nude except for a towel. “What say we go out and grab an ice-cream cone?” he asked. “Hi, Kathryn. I didn’t know you were home.” And something in the air, a slight musky odor that disappeared on command. The subtle scent of recent lovemaking she had refused to acknowledge, the smell Debbie was rubbing her face in now.
She thought she heard the sound of a door opening and closing, but it sounded so far away, and Debbie’s voice was so near and so relentless.
“How much more are you going to stand for?” Debbie was yelling as a figure emerged from the front hallway. “Why don’t you just tell him to go to hell?” She paused, sucking in a deep breath of air as the figure moved closer. “Why don’t you tell me to go to hell?”
Kathryn stepped out of the shadow.
“What’s going on?” she asked quietly.
Renee stared at her sister’s puzzled face, still praying she was wrong, knowing she wasn’t. She felt empty, eviscerated, as if someone had reached down and scooped out her insides.
“Suppose you tell me.”
“I don’t understand …” Kathryn began, then stopped.
“Neither do I,” Renee said simply, then: “Is it true?”
Kathryn said nothing, her eyes darting back and forth between her sister and Debbie, who stood transfixed, afraid to move.
“Is it true?” Renee asked again, not elaborating.
Kathryn walked past them into the living room and sank down into the white sofa, looking out at the ocean exactly as Renee had done earlier.
“Is it true?” Renee said for the third time. “Is it? Have you been sleeping with Philip?”
Kathryn looked confused and helpless, as if she had stumbled onto the scene of a murder and now found herself face to face with the killer, understanding there was no escape.
“I already know the answer,” Renee said when it became obvious that Kathryn would not, or could not, speak. “I just want to hear you say it.”
“Why?” Kathryn asked, her voice achingly low.
“Because I guess I won’t really believe it until I hear it from your mouth.”
There was an endless silence before Kathryn finally spoke.
“I didn’t mean for it to happen,” she whispered, and Renee felt her composure start to crumble. An audible cry escaped her mouth, and she grabbed her stomach as if she had been punched. Debbie backed up against the wall. Nobody seemed to breathe. “I can’t tell you why it happened,” Kathryn went on, her voice a frightened plea. “I don’t even know how it happened. I love you. You’re my sister. You’re all I’ve got. I’d never do anything to hurt you.”
“Then why did you?” The question was painful in its simplicity. Renee reached for the arm of the white chair, her body collapsing into the soft cushion. Why was she still here? Why didn’t she just leave? Isn’t that what Debbie had asked her?
“I was so unhappy, so confused,” Kathryn was saying, obviously trying to sort out the answer in her mind as she spoke. “So frightened. I felt so guilty about Arnie’s death. I didn’t know whether I wanted to live or die. I thought Philip was my friend.” She lowered her head, and when she raised it, she looked even more confused. “He’d been so kind to me. He seemed to understand what I was going through …”
“Maybe. And maybe in the beginning, he was just trying to help me. But then it changed. Or maybe it was there right from the start. I don’t know. I don’t know how he felt. I know that I felt better when he was around. He made me feel safe.”
Renee felt her sense of betrayal turning to anger, then to rage.
“And so you took advantage …?”
“No!” Kathryn’s voice was suddenly strong. “I didn’t. It wasn’t me!”
“What are you trying to tell me? That my husband seduced you? That he would be stupid and insensitive enough to make a play for my own sister?”
“I’m not saying it was all his doing.” Kathryn stumbled to her feet. “I know I could have said no. I know I could have stopped him. But I didn’t know how. I didn’t know what to do. He came home from work early one afternoon and I was there. Debbie was gone for the day. We started to talk. He started to rub my back. He said I needed to relax, that he knew how to make me feel better. I was so confused. He’d been so kind to me. He was so understanding …”
“You already said that.”
“I’m not trying to say it was all his fault. I know I’m as guilty as he is …”
“You seduced him! You saw something you wanted and you went after it. You were lonely and unhappy and probably more than a little bit jealous. And it didn’t matter who got hurt or what damage you caused, as long as it made you feel better. As long as you got what you wanted.”
“No, that’s not true. It wasn’t what I wanted.”
“How many times didn’t you want it, Kathryn? Once? Twice? Five times? Ten times? Did you know that Debbie came home one day and saw you together?”
“Oh God.” Kathryn closed her eyes, her body swaying. She looked as though she was about to faint.
“And that memorable afternoon I got the ice cream that was meant for you!”
“Oh God, oh God, I’m so sorry. Please tell me what you want me to say,” Kathryn cried, her features looking as though they might dissolve. “Tell me, please. What is it you want me to say?”
“I just want to hear the truth! I want you to admit that you deliberately seduced my husband. That you took advantage of his kindness and concern, and twisted it around …”
“No. You’re the one who’s twisting. I never wanted it to happen. I felt sick about it. Whenever he touched me, I wanted to die.”
“But you didn’t die, did you?” Renee jumped to her feet, grabbing her sister’s damaged wrists and holding them angrily up in the air. “You never do.” She flung Kathryn’s hands back to her sides. “Goddamn you,” she cried, bursting into tears. “Goddamn you.” Then, catching only a brief glimpse of Debbie’s startled face, she rushed to the apartment door and raced out into the hall. It was only when she was behind the wheel of her car, wiping at her tears with the back of her hand, that she realized she had seen Debbie smile.
TWENTY-THREE
“Where are we going?” he asked, climbing into the front seat of her car.
Lynn looked over at Marc and gave him her best Mona Lisa smile, saying nothing. She didn’t feel like talking.
“I take it everything went well this afternoon,” he continued.
“Gary signed the agreement,” Lynn told him, feeling she owed him something of an explanation. All she had said to him on the phone earlier in the evening was that she had arranged for a sitter and would pick him up in an hour.
“Speaking of signing things,” he was saying, “I relinquished my power-of-attorney over my father’s funds today.” Lynn regarded him quizzically but said nothing. “It’s his money. Why should I have any control over how he chooses to spend it? If he wants to send his nurses to Greece, that’s his business. If he wants to buy a fleet of baby-blue Lincoln convertibles, what right do I have to rain on his parade? I don’t know. It just never felt right, my taking over that way. Besides, if I’m a good boy, maybe he’ll let me borrow his car one day. What do you say? Do you want to go with me on Saturday and see if he’ll let us take it for a spin?”
Lynn said nothing, her eyes back on the road. She didn’t want to talk about his father. She didn’t want to talk about anything.
“Are you going to tell me where we’re going?” he asked after several minutes.
“I thought we’d celebrate my victory.” There was an edge to her voice she couldn’t quite disguise.
“Is something the matter?”
“Why do you ask?”
“Well, you obviously weren’t interested in hearing about my father, and you sound almost … I don’t know … angry.”
“Why would I be angry?”
“I don’t know. Are you?”
“Of course not. I got what I wanted, didn’t I?”
“I don’t know. Did you?”
“Can we just drop all this cute repartee?” Lynn asked, her voice tense. “I’m sorry. I guess I just don’t feel much like talking.”
“Are we there yet?” he asked. She knew he was hoping for a smile, so she tried to oblige, forcing the corners of her mouth into something between a grin and a grimace. Marc leaned his head back against the seat and closed his eyes.
Lynn tried to concentrate on the road ahead, her hands gripping the steering wheel tightly. Why had he said she sounded angry? What was he talking about? She didn’t sound angry at all. Why on earth would she be angry? She’d won, hadn’t she? She got to keep her children and her house. She’d used Gary’s threats and turned them against him. And hadn’t that been wonderfully satisfying? The look on his face when he learned he wasn’t the first of Suzette’s infidelities! That alone was almost enough to make up for the anguish he had put her through. Why shouldn’t she feel satisfaction at his humiliation?
She reminded herself of what Gary had put her through these last few weeks. How could he have been prepared to use their children so cruelly against her? How much anger he must have been hoarding through all those seemingly happy years of marriage that he had tried to hurt her in this way! How could he have been so spiteful? Wasn’t leaving her for another woman hurtful enough? Had it really been necessary to put her through—put both of them through—this afternoon’s ordeal? How long would it be before she could look at him with anything other than contempt? How much time would have to pass before she could greet her children’s father at the door to her house with something other than forced conviviality? And how much did her anger at Gary have to do with her rendezvous with Marc tonight? Goddamn him, she thought, looking over at Marc, wondering which man she was damning. How dare he suggest she was angry!
“We’re here,” she said, pulling her car into a narrow parking lot and coming to a sudden halt between a new sports car and an old sedan.
Marc opened his eyes and looked around. “Lynn …”
“Come on.” She was out of the car before he could say another word.
“Lynn, what are you doing?”
“This was your idea, remember?” Lynn took a deep breath and walked past him into the office of the Starlight Motel, trying to savor the look of surprise in Marc’s eyes as she requested a room and plunked forty dollars on the desk. “It may not be the same room they had,” she explained, walking briskly down the outside corridor, “but it’ll do.” She inserted the large, unwieldy key into the lock and pushed open the door.
Marc flicked on the light switch as she closed the door behind them. The lamp over each of the two double beds, as well as one perched on top of a chest of drawers, came on, illuminating a standard beige-and-brown room. A large television set sat in the far corner beside a small circular table. The dark drapes were pulled shut. “It looks like my apartment,” he said with a wry smile.
“Turn out the light,” she told him.
“Whatever the lady says.” The room went suddenly dark.
“Don’t talk.”
She was suddenly in his arms, her body pushing against his, her hands on his face, her fingers at the sides of his beard.
She pressed her lips hard on his, her tongue forcing his lips apart. Clearly, she had taken him by surprise, she thought, feeling him stumble slightly as she pulled at his jacket, pushing it off his shoulders, trapping his arms at his sides.
“Easy,” he said, trying to return her kisses, match her ardor, but unable to find her rhythm or anticipate what she wanted to do next.
“Easy’s no fun,” she said, using Renee’s words. “I don’t want to go easy.” Again she covered his lips with hers as he struggled to free his arms of his jacket. Her hands moved to the buttons of his shirt, but her fingers were too impatient and she had little success. She felt him reach down and pull his shirt free of his pants, then push her fumbling fingers aside so that he could do the job himself. That accomplished, his hands slid effortlessly around her, wrapping themselves across her back, holding her still, trying to slow her down. She pushed herself free and backed just out of his reach, not waiting for him to make the next move, pulling her blue jersey over her head, unsnapping her brassiere, and placing his hands on her bare breasts.
He needed no further encouragement. Marc picked her up and deposited her on the first of the two beds, kicking off his shoes and pulling her sandals free. Then he was on the bed beside her, his lips tenderly on hers, his hands soft and gentle as they traced the curves of her body. Lynn quickly rolled over on top of him. She didn’t want soft and gentle and slow and easy. She wanted hard and fast and over and done.
She wanted to be taken roughly, violently, with no time to think, no time to feel. Her hand moved to the buckle of his belt and she tugged at it impatiently until she felt it loosen, her fingers quickly moving to the button of his pants, pulling down on the zipper. She reached inside, her hand wrapping firmly around his penis.
“Hey, take it easy,” he said, flinching at her touch.
She ignored him, manipulating him in her hand as if she were rolling a piece of Plasticine, feeling him grow soft as her efforts increased. What was happening? She realized he was trying to push her away, to slow her down, but she would have none of it. Didn’t he realize there wasn’t time for soft caresses? That that wasn’t what she wanted? What was the matter with him? Why wasn’t he responding?