Dearly Beloved

by Wendy Corsi Staub

  No, Pop is crazy about Cheryl. But that doesn’t mean he doesn’t think Danny should have stuck with his own kind and married Donna.

  After all, both Tony Junior and Frankie managed to find Italian wives. You wouldn’t find a happier family man than Tony Junior, as Pop points out every chance he gets. Maryanne is pregnant again—with their fourth child; they’re trying for a son—Tony the third, of course—to add to their brood of daughters, all of them under seven.

  Meanwhile, Frankie and Sue have been separated more than a year now, but Pop refuses to acknowledge that one of his sons might end up divorced—or that it might be Frankie’s fault. Everyone in Greenbury knows about Frankie and Char, the new beautician down at Hair and Now. Of course, no one in the Cavelli family ever brings it up. No one ever asks Frankie about Sue, either.

  Danny clears his throat. “You know, Pop, a lot of women travel on their own these days. It’s not like when you were young. It doesn’t mean Sandy’s a . . . well, you know.”

  A putana is what his father had called her. Italian for whore. Well, Pop hadn’t exactly said his sister is one, just that when single girls go away alone, people talk. People, according to Tony Cavelli, would say that Sandy is out looking for men.

  And even though Danny suspects people would be right, he isn’t about to tell his father that. What his sister does is her own business. Still, these days, you can’t be too careful.

  “I know it’s not like when I was young,” Tony says, wiping an orange smear of sauce from his mustache before spearing another gnocchi on his fork. “You don’t have to tell me. I just expect my daughter, my own flesh and blood, to behave like a young lady. Not like a—”

  “Frankie, what’s the matter with you?” Angie interrupts, jabbing her middle son in the arm. “Don’t tell me that’s all you’re gonna eat.”

  “Ma, I had a huge plateful.” Frankie pushes back his chair and stifles a burp.

  “Where are you going?” Tony Junior asks, resting an elbow on the back of Maryanne’s empty chair. She’s in the kitchen, making sure the kids are eating.

  “What do you mean where am I going? It’s Saturday night. Bowling, where else?”

  “Well, before you go, you have to come over and help me move that dresser out of the baby’s room. You said you would.”

  “Oh, geez, I forgot. Come on, Tony, I’m late already,” Frankie says, checking his watch. “I’ll help you do it tomorrow.”

  “Can’t. We have Maryanne’s mother’s birthday party right after church.”

  “Danny will help you,” Angie says, looking at him. “Right?”

  This time, Danny sighs out loud. “I’ll help you,” he tells his oldest brother. “But we have to make it fast. Cheryl and I are going to the movies at eight-thirty.”

  Maryanne, just coming back into the dining room, says, “The movies! God, Tony, remember when we used to go to the movies on Saturday nights?”

  “We still go to the movies sometimes.”

  “Yeah, Disney matinees.” Maryanne looks at Cheryl. “Enjoy it while you can. As soon as you have kids, you two will never get away by yourselves again.”

  Cheryl catches Danny’s eye.

  He knows what she’s thinking. If only we had kids. They’ve been trying since their wedding night, with no luck. For a while, Cheryl had been pestering him to let her see a specialist, a doctor who’s had a pretty good success rate with patients who have difficulty conceiving. Danny has resisted, not wanting to get into that.

  A friend of his at work has been through the whole gamut. Tests. Fertility drugs. In vitro fertilization. He and his wife drained their bank accounts, took out a second mortgage on their house, endured years of stress and prayers, and nothing worked. Now they’re trying borrow money to adopt.

  Danny supposes that as a last resort, he and Cheryl can go that route, but he can’t help wanting to hold out longer, to see what happens. And Cheryl seems to have started to see things his way lately. At least, she hasn’t pestered him about that doctor for the last month or so.

  There’s a sudden sound of breaking glass in the kitchen, followed instantly by the sound of one of Danny’s little nieces wailing and another one saying, “I told you not to touch that.”

  “Ashley? What happened?” Maryanne is in there like a shot.

  Angie jumps up and follows her, saying, “Eye-yi-yi, I hope that wasn’t my new water pitcher.”

  A moment later, the crying has escalated, and Danny’s oldest niece, Caitlin, appears in the doorway, her dark eyes solemn. “Daddy? Ashley cut herself on some glass and she’s bleeding.”

  Tony Junior gets up. “Where?”

  “Over by the stove.”

  “No, I mean, where on her body? Never mind I’ll come.” He, too, disappears into the kitchen.

  Frankie pulls on his leather jacket, says a quick “later,” and heads out the side door.

  “Crazy,” Tony Cavelli says, throwing his hands up in the air, then picking up his fork again.

  “What’s crazy, Pop?”

  “This family, what else?” He shovels some gnocchi into his mouth, then says around it, “Three girls. Your brother better hope this new baby isn’t another one. He has his hands full already. Raising a daughter isn’t easy.”

  “Oh, come on, Pop, Sandy never gave you any trouble growing up.”

  “Then, no. Now . . .” He shakes his head.

  “What’s she done now?”

  “She won’t lose weight. She won’t get married. She’s off alone on some crazy island. . . .”

  “What island?” Cheryl asks brightly.

  “That’s the worst part. Tide Island. I took you kids there when you were little, remember?” Tony asks Danny, who nods. “Crazy place. All kinds of hippies there. Not the kind of place where a young lady should go alone.”

  Danny pushes his chair back abruptly. “Come on, Cheryl. Let’s go make sure Ashley’s okay.”

  As they head into the kitchen, leaving his father alone at the table, Danny wonders if the day is ever going to come when he can stop coming to Sandy’s rescue.

  Sandy’s heart has been pounding for the last half hour or so as the time for her big date drew near.

  Now, when she peeks through the glass in the front door of the inn and sees the shiny black sedan outside, her heart starts pumping so violently that it almost hurts.

  Relax, she tells herself as she reaches for the knob. Act as though you’ve seen it all before . . . done it all before . . .

  “Ah, Sandy, your date must be here.”

  She jumps and turns to see Jasper Hammel behind her. “I guess that’s him.”

  “May I help you with your coat?”

  “Oh . . .” She has it slung over her arm.

  She’d pictured Ethan Thoreau coming up to the door to greet her, had imagined how his hands would brush against the bare skin at her neck as he gallantly helped her into her coat.

  Now, it’s Jasper Hammel who takes it from her and holds it open so she can slip her arms into the sleeves. Disappointed, she glances out the window again with a frown.

  “Um, are you sure that’s Ethan?” she asks Jasper.

  “Ethan? Oh, no, that’s not Mr. Thoreau. It’s his driver, of course.”

  “Of course.” Though startled, Sandy can’t help but feel relieved. Her mother had taught her, back when she was in high school, that if a date didn’t come up to the door, she shouldn’t go out with him again.

  But chauffeurs don’t count, Sandy thinks gleefully now as Jasper holds the door open for her and she walks out into the rainy night.

  The driver’s side door opens and a tall, dark figure puts up an umbrella in one quick movement. He comes to the bottom of the steps and tips his hat at Sandy. “Good evening, Miss Cavelli.”

  “Good evening,” she says coolly, practicing for later. She wants Ethan Thoreau to think that she’s sophisticated.

  Like Liza.

  An image of the woman flits into Sandy’s brain, and she frowns. She
has nothing in common with Liza Danning. But it probably wouldn’t hurt to imitate her haughty attitude, under the circumstances.

  The chauffeur holds the umbrella over her head as they walk back to the car. He opens the door and helps her into the back seat, grasping her arm firmly with a black leather glove. He’s wearing tinted aviator-framed glasses and a long, dark wool overcoat.

  As they pull away from the Bramble Rose, Sandy settles back against the leather upholstery and takes a deep breath, then exhales slowly.

  This is it, she thinks. I’m off to meet the man of my dreams.

  Then she feels a sudden prickle of panic.

  What is it? What’s wrong with you?

  She knits her brows, confused.

  There’s something. . . .

  Something triggered a completely negative sensation inside her just now. She has no idea what it was, but it was there, as real as anything she’s ever felt in her life.

  In the dark back seat of the car, she starts to chew her lower lip, then stops when she realizes that she’ll ruin her lipstick, which she applied so carefully for Ethan’s benefit.

  What’s bothering her? She stares vacantly at the back of the chauffeur’s head, trying to put her finger on whatever it was that made her uneasy.

  Was, because she no longer feels an acute sense of something unpleasant. Still, though the anxiety is fading, she can’t shake it entirely.

  In the depths of her consciousness, something has stirred.

  Something disturbing.

  She blinks and looks over the front seat, through the rain-splattered windshield. The road ahead, the one she walked along earlier this afternoon, is rain-slicked and deserted. The headlights cast a murky glow in the rain. Outside, the steadily howling wind mingles with the rhythmic crashing of the ocean and the squeaking of the windshield wipers.

  “Is the house far from here?” Sandy’s voice is strained even to her own ears.

  “No,” the chauffeur says simply, not turning his head.

  She looks at his black-gloved hands, notes the way they clench the steering wheel. His posture is stiff and he focuses intently on the road.

  He must be nervous about driving in such nasty weather, Sandy tells herself. It certainly is getting worse. The rain is streaming over the windshield despite the furiously moving wipers, and she can feel the car being buffeted by the gale.

  Is that why I’m so edgy? she asks herself. It must be the storm.

  That makes sense. After all, who would want to be out in weather like this, in a strange, out-of-the-way place? Anyone might feel a little nervous about it. Anyone might confuse that feeling for something else.

  Déjà vu.

  That’s what Sandy thought she was feeling a moment ago. It was as though she’d done this before, somehow. But . . .

  A romantic weekend on a beautiful island, a chauffeur, a date with a wealthy, gorgeous man . . .

  Nope, you’ve never done anything like this before, she tells herself wryly. But if you’re lucky, maybe this is only the beginning. . . .

  Liza lies on her bed, trying to read the manuscript she’d started this afternoon. Normally, her experienced editor’s eye can whiz through three-hundred-and-fifty pages in a matter of hours. But it’s taken her ten minutes to read two paragraphs, and she finally shoves the white pages aside again in frustration.

  D.M. Yates still hasn’t called back again, and Liza is more and more certain that she’s been had.

  The only thing that’s keeping her from being entirely sure is Jasper Hammel.

  If he’d merely spoken to Yates on the telephone, it would be one thing. Someone could have called the inn pretending to be the reclusive writer.

  But Jasper said Yates was actually here, in the inn, looking for her.

  Would Albie—or whoever is behind this scam—actually come all the way out to this island and pose as Yates? Or, even more farfetched, would he go to the trouble of hiring an impostor?

  Somehow, Liza can’t picture it. After all, Albie—he’s the only one she really suspects—is an incredibly busy man. If she’s not mistaken, he’s in Washington until the end of the month anyway.

  So what’s going on here, then?

  If it’s not a wild-goose chase, there’s only one other solution. D.M. Yates actually did summon Liza to this island, and he really did come looking for her.

  And if that’s the case, then sooner or later, he’s going to show up again.

  When—if—he does, Liza plans to be ready for him.

  The way she was ready for Albie, and all the others before him.

  Men.

  If there’s one thing Liza knows how to handle, it’s a man.

  She learned young. As a teenager, she realized she could wrap her father around her little finger. All she had to do was make him feel special. The disgusting, slobbering drunk actually believed her when she told him she loved him, that she thought he was the best daddy in the world.

  She wonders what he thinks now. . . .

  Now that she hasn’t seen him in over ten years.

  She walked out of that Brooklyn apartment on the morning after her high school graduation, and she never looked back. Never made an effort to contact him, to let him know where she was or why she had left. Never bothered to find out, in all these years, whether he was dead or alive.

  She doesn’t care.

  At least, that’s what she tells herself.

  Leaving wasn’t something she’d planned to do. Not until she’d marched into the auditorium in her cap and gown and looked toward the spot where her father should have been sitting. It was empty.

  And he’d promised. He’d promised he’d be there for her, that afterward, he’d take her to White Castle and let her have as many greasy little hamburgers as she could eat.

  She had known where he was instead that day, where he always was when she needed him. At the run-down bar a few blocks from their building.

  How many times had Liza, as a child, gone in there looking for him?

  How many times had she found him, with bloodshot eyes and reeking of liquor, slumped on a stool in the corner of the bar? How many times had he already been passed out when she arrived so that the bartender would have to round up two volunteers to carry him home as little Liza led the way through the seedy neighborhood to their dilapidated building?

  Well, she was through. She wasn’t going to show up at the bar in her cap and gown, demanding to know why he hadn’t shown up to watch her receive her diploma, why he’d allowed her to be the only person in her class who had no one in the audience. Who had no one, period.

  Even now, ten years later, Liza feels tears welling up at the memory of that horrible day.

  But the next day—the day she left—well, that was the best day of her life. Because that was the first time she’d realized she didn’t need that lousy excuse for a father.

  That was the day she’d marched into realtor George Vlapos’s office clutching the classified section of the Times in one hand and her imitation Chanel purse in the other. Inside the purse was the several hundred dollars she’d just received from a pawnbroker. She’d sold him her mother’s wedding and engagement rings.

  She’d always known where her father kept them—in the small wooden box on his dresser, along with a lock of his own dead mother’s hair and a faded photo of his former wife holding newborn Liza.

  Through all the bad times, all the times when there was no food on the table and no heat in the tiny apartment, all the times when her father was desperate for a drink but couldn’t even afford cheap wine, those rings had been in that wooden box. Liza had often wondered why he didn’t just take them out and sell them.

  Deep down, though, she really knew why.

  Maybe she felt the same—that as long as the rings were there, a part of her mother remained. A part of the family they had once been.

  The pawnbroker was a shifty-eyed slob who had terrible b.o. and leered at Liza over the counter of his shop. He’d snatched the ring
s in his grubby hand and held them up to the light, then offered a fraction of what Liza knew they were worth. But she didn’t care. She needed money, and she needed it fast. Money, and an apartment.

  But George Vlapos didn’t want to let her rent one of his apartments without references and a security deposit of a month’s rent. Unless . . .

  Unless what? eighteen-year-old Liza had asked eagerly, sensing a loophole.

  There was a loophole, all right. All she had to do was go out to dinner with the swarthy, leering realtor. And, over dinner, she understood the rest of it.

  All she had to do was sleep with George Vlapos, and she’d have her apartment.

  It was surprisingly easy.

  She hadn’t let herself think of it as losing her virginity. She hadn’t let herself think about it at all, once it was over. Once she had her own apartment—a shabby studio in Hell’s Kitchen, but it was hers—she hadn’t ever looked back.

  And she hadn’t dealt with George Vlapos again . . . at least, not until he tried to raise the rent. When he did, she slept with him again, and her rent remained the same.

  Men, Liza thinks now, stretching and getting off the bed. They’re all the same. And I know exactly how to handle them.

  D.M. Yates will be no different.

  If D.M. Yates is really the one who had summoned her here.

  And if not . . .

  If Albie, or one of the others, thinks he can get back at her this way . . .

  Well, Liza will show him that he can’t get the best of her.

  Just as she had shown her father.

  The shiny black sedan pulls to a stop in front of the last house on the seaside road—a massive Victorian that sits at the tip of the rocky ledge that juts into the ocean.

  Sandy stares up at it through the rain-spattered window as the driver turns off the engine and gets out. The house has a classic scallop-shingled mansard roof crowned by an iron-railed widow’s walk. Its shuttered double windows are tall and narrow with curved tops. The lamplit ones on the third floor are dormered and the shades are partly lowered, giving the eerie appearance, Sandy thinks, of lidded eyes glowing from beneath a dark hood.

  There’s a somber air about the place, and Sandy shudders inwardly as she stares up at its silhouette against the stormy night sky.