Perfect Little Ladies

by Abby Drake

  “You won’t be at the club tonight?” Poppy asked. “The club” meant the yacht club, where the elite of Mount Kasteel dressed up and gathered on Saturday nights in the summer if they weren’t in Newport or the Hamptons.

  “I don’t think it’s wise for me to be seen in public.”

  No one argued with that.

  “In fact, it’s also not wise for us to meet here. Let’s say the cottage. Tomorrow morning, CJ?” Elinor still treated the cottage as if it belonged to the family, though CJ had bought it from their father’s estate a dozen years earlier and had been paying the mortgage since then.

  Still, CJ nodded. What else could she do?

  Elinor stood up. “Eight o’clock. My guests are staying over, so eight will give me time to be back here for brunch. Between now and then each of you can ponder what we might do. By the way, I’m trusting all of you with my life. This is the most important confidence you’ll ever be asked to keep.”

  Three women and a hairstylist asked to keep a confidence.

  That time it was CJ who closed her eyes.

  Three

  Alice Sussman Bartlett was the only child of an esteemed Austrian baker and his Viennese-waltz-obsessed wife. Blonde, cobalt-eyed Alice had spent her early years in a cloud of flour and powdered wigs. It wasn’t until she’d attended the renowned McCready School for Girls that she’d begun to see clearly, begun to learn that what mattered in life was neither hard work nor dancing but having a man who liked both. She would have preferred that Neal hadn’t also been enamored by art deco abstracts that now lined the walls of their Federal-period, split-staircase, Mount Kasteel home, but what the heck, when he was around he was still decent in bed—apparently unlike Malcolm, who had hurled poor Elinor into the arms of a lover.

  A lover.

  Elinor.

  !

  Alice dropped onto the sofa in her living room and wondered why she felt so aghast. It wasn’t as if she hadn’t dallied outside the marital bounds. But that had been years ago, and with an old boyfriend, and she’d been slightly drunk, so it hadn’t really counted. Leonard had been in town for his uncle’s funeral, and Alice went out of respect. Well, okay, so she went because Neal was away on business and she was curious and so what?

  Leonard had looked delicious, even in mourning. Standing by the sprays of lilies and gladiolas, he looked like the boy who’d stood nervously in the living room the night of the prom, who’d pinned a corsage of white gardenias too close to her young but full bosom, who’d later taught her the fine art of a blow job because Elinor once said a lady shouldn’t go all the way. (Elinor had, even back then, been Alice’s unwitting idol. How could she not have been? Elinor was so perfect!)

  After Alice and Leonard bid the flowers and the folding chairs and his uncle adieu, they bought two bottles of wine, then went to the gymnasium parking lot at the McCready School, where they finally had a good fuck in the back of Alice’s minivan between her daughters’ softball gear and cheerleading pom-poms.

  Leonard e-mailed her three times after that but had not threatened blackmail. They agreed it had simply been something they’d meant to do in the late seventies but had not had the courage. And that was the end of that.

  The shrill ring of a phone shook Alice from her nostalgia. She waited for Neal to get it, then remembered he’d stayed in Manhattan that weekend to work on a big presentation. He did that often—he was an advertising executive, after all, a veteran workaholic who sprang an erection whenever his BlackBerry buzzed.

  Which was, of course, why Alice had been spending so much time lately schlepping her granddaughter around the country to auditions for USA Sings. Kiley Kate, at nine, had her great-grandmother’s dancing talent—not for waltzes but for hip-hop. The traveling got Alice out of the house, out of Mount Kasteel, out where she could safely assuage the boredom that being Neal’s wife sometimes wrought.

  She had not, of course, admitted that to anyone, certainly not to Elinor, who had no tolerance for people who didn’t play by the rules.

  Or so Alice once thought.

  She tried to wave off the surge of a hot flash as the telephone rang again.

  “I’ve decided it can’t possibly be true,” Poppy blurted before Alice hardly had a chance at “Hello.” “If she’s been having an affair, wouldn’t we have known?”

  When they’d left Elinor’s house, they’d walked to their vehicles, silence dragging behind them like an over-the-top bridal train. Apparently Poppy was ready to talk. “We know now,” Alice said.

  “Because she’s being…oh! I can’t even say it!” Her words were a rush of hyperventilation.

  “No, and we shouldn’t say it over the phone. Caution is called for.” The hot flash abated; Alice returned to her senses. With Poppy, showing sense was essential.

  “Oh, but who can it be? And why won’t she tell us?”

  “He must be a scoundrel. She must be embarrassed.”

  “But the engagement party is next Saturday. If this isn’t over…well, good Lord, Alice, whatever will happen?”

  The party was to be held at the Fairmont, an intimate, Washington-only affair. Alice and Poppy were dying to go, but the only outsider invited was CJ, and only because she was Jonas’s aunt.

  “We’ll know more tomorrow. Will you be all right until then?” Poppy tended toward the delicate when it came to the traumas of life. It was why they turned a blind eye to her small indiscretions, like the way she helped herself to things that weren’t hers. Compacts, silverware, nothing big, really. She was a good sort, with a childlike spirit, which was no doubt beneficial in enduring marriage to her husband, the parasite, Duane, who was there for her trust fund and, geez, talk about a philanderer. He’d once cornered Alice at a charity function and managed to brush his huge penis against her hip bone.

  Yikes.

  It had been awful and awesome at the same time, and she’d somehow been able to slip away without indicating she’d felt the big thing. The big, hard thing, the thought of which brought on its own kind of hot flash and still made her gasp when she let it.

  But this wasn’t about Poppy or Poppy’s naughty husband; it was about Elinor, because while it was true that each of them had their own issues to deal with, blackmail was an unforeseen irony, like the way there was no logic to the fact that though Alice’s estrogen was rapidly depleting, she thought about sex now more than ever. She especially thought about it when she was out of town, where men were so available and she was anonymous, and no one, not even Elinor, would know if Alice wasn’t a lady and went all the way.

  Not that she did.

  Not that she would.

  “Will you pick me up so I won’t have to drive?” Poppy was asking when Alice came to.

  “Of course.”

  “Do you remember the way to the cottage?”

  Alice sighed. “We’ll find it. Elinor says CJ has transformed the old place.”

  Which wasn’t the worst news in the world. The last time they’d been there, after all, the gardener had been found in a bed of impatiens with pruning shears sticking out of his back.

  She wondered if Poppy had ever regained her memory of that day, or if, as with much of her life, she’d found denial a more comfortable place.

  Poppy hung up the phone and climbed the wide staircase to the master bedroom. She unzipped the long zipper of her white halter sundress, slipped it off, and stood naked. She would have looked into the full-length mirror if she’d thought she would have seen anything different. But Poppy was Poppy, still lean and little, still sporting high breasts and green eyes and a surprising, round little ass that Duane once had heralded as “The Best in the West.” Duane was from Reno, where those words meant something. In New York they were tasteless, sort of like Duane, who now lay asleep, sprawled on their bed in the middle of the day, possibly drunk, or spent, or bored stiff.

  Stiff? Ha ha, Poppy thought, that would be an understatement.

  They’d been married seven years; he was her third husband�
�or was he the fourth? No, he was only the third. She kept forgetting that she hadn’t married Roger. She’d meant to, but Momma had coerced her into going to Monte Carlo, and that’s when Poppy met Duane, who was there for the gambling.

  He was handsome and charming, more charming than Roger, and they’d fallen in love, and so there you had it.

  Within weeks they were married in front of the long reflecting pool at the majestic pink and white Rothschild villa on Saint Jean Cap Ferrat.

  Whirlwind, Momma had called it and not added her blessing.

  Poppy supposed that if she’d been smart, she’d have waited until they’d returned to the States to tie the knot. Maybe then she would have learned that though Duane indeed came from a silver mining family as he claimed, his older brother had bankrupted the mines. Duane had been on the Riviera trying to win back his fortune, but he’d won Poppy and her trust fund instead, and he’d never gone back to Reno or his destitute brother.

  Momma had said there wasn’t much worse than old money now gone.

  Still, it was too bad he couldn’t have at least kept a bit of the silver. Momma thought trinkets were so very pretty.

  Poppy went to her closet and slipped into a long satin robe. Once, she might have slid between the sheets where Duane lay, might have let him cuddle up to her round little ass.

  But unlike Elinor, apparently, Poppy had grown weary of sex. Duane didn’t work, and he didn’t play golf: he claimed that “nature photography” was his passion, but Poppy knew it really was sex. Day, night, morning, afternoon. For pity’s sake, she got tired. A few years ago, she’d faked female problems. She’d suggested that he call a “service” she’d said that she’d understand.

  They’d never discussed it again. Their lovemaking became thankfully sparse, and Duane often came home well after dark, long after the sun set on any pictures he might snap.

  Moving into her bathroom, Poppy sat on the plush white stool at her vanity. She looked into the mirror at her pasty complexion that had grown even pastier since Elinor’s announcement.

  Blackmail wasn’t a new concept to Poppy. Duane, after all, had been sort of blackmailing her all this time, had the ring on his finger and the funnel to her trust fund because of what he knew, or hinted that he knew. But Poppy wasn’t stupid. Let others think she had a silly, blind eye. If all it took was a few thousand dollars to Duane every month, a few moments here and there of acting as if she didn’t care how he spent his time, protecting her secret was worth it.

  It was the least she could do for Momma after all she’d been through.

  Poor Momma!

  Well, Poppy wouldn’t think about her right now.

  She’d focus on the pleasantries of life and how at least Duane was still not bad to look at. There could be worse men to escort her to places like the yacht club, where they were going tonight, worse men to have in her wallet.

  Men, she thought. They could be such a bother.

  But as she pulled back her red hair and looked into the mirror, a sickening thought washed over Poppy:

  What if Duane had grown tired of her and the pittance of his allowance?

  What if he’d learned about Elinor’s lover; what if Duane was the blackmailer?

  Poppy stared at her reflection, blinked quickly three times, and decided she’d better not think about that right now, either.

  Four

  “Mother” Jonas said, “you remember the congressman?”

  “Of course, darling, don’t be a goose.” Elinor held out her hand to the Honorable Congressman William Perry (R-Ill.) (or Indiana, one of those oceanless states).

  “Delighted to see you again, Mrs. Young,” the congressman said. He had big hands, a big head full of big, white hair, and a deep, resonant voice. He looked rather uncomfortable in khakis and a polo shirt, as if he should have included a tie.

  Still, he was perfectly civilized, and Elinor was determined to make this a nice evening, determined not to let anyone notice her occasional glance toward the phone, or otherwise reveal her fear that the instructions to follow would follow that evening in the presence of guests, these guests, of all people. The congress man and his wife, after all, were far-right right-wingers, who would not be enamored to know that their daughter’s future mother-in-law had dropped her lavender lace panties in Midtown Manhattan, where they didn’t belong.

  Elinor attempted a relaxed, confident smile. “Please,” she said, “call me Elinor.”

  The congressman grinned a polite grin. “Elinor,” he said. “Your husband is showing Lucinda and my wife the topiaries. That’s quite a garden you have.”

  “Thank you, we enjoy it.”

  “Your husband designed it?”

  “Yes, with our daughter, Janice.” Already her jaw was beginning to ache from her form-fitting smile.

  The Honorable Congressman Perry turned to Jonas. “Betts and I haven’t met Janice, have we?” Betts was the wife presently in the topiaries. She’d been one of Elinor’s buttoned-up mentors when they’d first moved to Washington, one of the wives who’d invited Elinor to tea. She’d probably never even owned lavender panties, let alone had an affair.

  “Janice is in Baltimore,” Jonas said. “Johns Hopkins. She’s a medical researcher.”

  “A medicine man, like her father, then.” He made a slight noise that could have been a guffaw.

  “Martini?” Elinor asked. The congressman nodded, and they wandered toward the living room, because that’s where Elinor had set up the bar. He examined the Frederic Remington over the mantel and the Winslow Homer by the French doors, and he chatted with Jonas while she poured the drinks from the crystal pitcher that had been a gift from Joseph “Remy” Remillard back when he’d been a senator and Malcolm had overseen the care of his elderly father, who’d been diagnosed with Lou Gehrig’s disease. Malcolm was always doing things like that—helping others not because he was a lobbyist but because he was just a good guy. If he crisscrossed any political boundaries or breached any conflicts of interest, no one seemed to notice or care.

  Still, she poured from the pitcher, always with the hope someone would ask where it had come from because it was so lovely, and she could say, “Oh, just a small gift from Remy,” Remy, of course, who was now the vice president of these United States.

  To date, no one had asked.

  She set the triangular glasses atop a small tray and walked them over to the congressman and Jonas. Jonas was taller than his future father-in-law and much better looking, with a bright smile of youth, his mother’s gray eyes, and thick ebony hair, which, though Elinor insisted he keep it trimmed short, really looked more attractive when it was a bit long.

  The men snatched their drinks and Elinor snatched hers. She’d be smarter to have wine, but tonight she needed something stronger, something to prevent her from running, screaming, from the perfectly civilized room. Something to keep her face locked in its smile while she prayed that the phone didn’t ring.

  CJ fixed a salad for dinner and thought about Elinor and Malcolm, who were probably sipping Domaines Ott and nibbling bruschetta with the Perrys and Jonas. Elinor would be wearing a Vera Wang summer shift; CJ had changed into Crocs and her favorite, paint-splattered shirt. After dinner she’d go out to her studio and work on new fabric designs. It would be more pleasant than wondering how Elinor had ended up in this situation and how on earth it could be resolved. It would be more productive than thinking about Malcolm.

  “Malcolm has been disinterested in me for a number of years,” Elinor had said.

  The very thought made CJ grow weak. She shook her head, then carried her salad to the small, round oak table that had “come with” the cottage, one of many things that had once furnished the lives of her parents and now furnished hers. Not much had ever originally “belonged” to CJ, except her ex-husband, and she’d tossed him like the salad before her.

  She stabbed a grape tomato and three leaves of romaine. She wondered if having a lover had compromised Elinor’s sanity. It had been
a while since CJ had had a serious relationship, but she remembered too clearly how it could mess with your mind.

  Still, Elinor had a history of emerging a winner.

  Of the twins, Elinor had, after all, wound up with the husband, the family, the stable, full life filled with good works and wide interests and bright, eclectic people. She had money and connections and social power; she had houses and things that were hers.

  Why had she needed a lover?

  “Malcolm has been disinterested in me…”

  CJ chewed the tomato, wishing she didn’t feel just a teensy bit gratified that Elinor’s home life was not as the world had been led to presume.

  Smugness was a sin, she supposed, but what the hell. For years, CJ had wondered why Elinor had ended up with it all, when CJ had been the one who’d sacrificed everything, who’d had her art and her work but that really had been all.

  The worst part was, it was her own fault.

  It had started nearly three decades ago. CJ was in Paris, studying at the Sorbonne. While she was away, Elinor married Malcolm, a research scientist fresh out of medical school. Within months, Elinor gave birth to a baby girl, Janice. Hours later, however, she developed a fast infection and was rushed into surgery. A hush-hush hysterectomy followed. Then deep depression.

  “She needs your help,” their father had said when he summoned CJ.

  CJ went home without question. They might be different, but they were sisters.

  So CJ had helped out with the baby, and with Elinor, who grieved for the other children she’d never have. She showed little interest in Janice, claiming it was too difficult to love an only child. Elinor was a twin, after all. As far as she knew, love came in twos. She told CJ and Malcolm that if only she could have one more baby, everything would be all right.

  She was diagnosed with postpartum depression, though back then the condition was pretty much a mystery and there weren’t many drugs that helped.

  Then Elinor announced that she had a plan.