by Abby Drake
Oh! Poppy thought. Oh!
But when they reached Momma’s bedroom, they found Lucky parked on the settee outside the door. His head drooped as he dozed; his shirt was fully buttoned and his pants, fully zipped.
Twenty-two
The next morning, Poppy called Alice and asked if she’d please pick her up at Momma’s and please not ask why she was wearing the same clothes she’d had on last night.
So Alice did and she didn’t.
“Neal commented on the dress when I left,” Alice said after Poppy was settled inside the Esplanade. “He asked since when had I taken to wearing polyester. I asked since when had he earned the right to question my fashion sense, Mr. White Shirt with Pinstripes.” She’d hoped a little light humor might help erase the maudlin look on Poppy’s face. It did not. She turned the AC vent toward her. “Good Lord, I was right. Polyester is hot.”
Poppy didn’t reply.
Alice drove down the driveway, past the chauffeur, who was washing the Lincoln stretch limo as if Poppy’s mother had somewhere important to go.
“It’s Duane,” Poppy said suddenly, because she’d never been good at keeping secrets.
“I wasn’t going to ask.”
“The visitor last night was a woman.”
“Who?”
“I have no idea. I didn’t go in.”
Alice steered the car along the shady country road toward the highway that led to the city. She wondered if their friends were as bothered by Poppy as she had become, or if it was another menopausal annoyance, like the occasional black hairs that sprung from nowhere in particular and instantly took root on her chin. “If you didn’t go in, how do you know it was a woman? Did you peek in the windows of your own house?”
If Poppy was offended, she didn’t show it. “I just know, Alice. Whether or not he’s been sleeping with Elinor, Duane has been cheating on me for years. Do you think I am stupid?”
The question, of course, was an interesting one. Alice might have played along if it hadn’t been for the fact that Poppy had crossed the boundary of their unspoken rule: she’d said something really bad about her husband, something not playful or malingering, like the fact he wore pinstripes. She’d said something really, really bad by acknowledging that marriage was not immune to unpleasantness even when housed in over-privileged rooms. CJ was the only one of them who remained unaffected. Then again, CJ never discussed her ex-husband, who had seemed like a pretty nice guy on the surface.
As did Neal, the bore.
And Malcolm, the disinterested.
Duane? Well, he’d never seemed what Alice could call nice. And now, good Lord, Poppy was considering his potential for perpetual adultery on top of the blackmail.
Alice could not disagree, which was such a pity when one considered that sweet stiffness to Duane’s penis.
“Well?” Poppy asked. “Do you? Do you think I’m stupid?”
Alice fanned herself again and readjusted herself on the leather, wishing the tingles would abate. “Of course you’re not stupid. Do you think Duane’s…visitor…has something to do with Elinor’s blackmail?” She glanced over at Poppy, whose eyes seemed rimmed with the same color red as her hair, as if she’d been crying all night.
“Idon’tknowIdon’tknowIdon’tknow.” Poppy spewed out her thoughts as if they’d been one word, not three. Or nine.
Without looking either way, Alice pulled onto the shoulder and made a U-turn.
“What are you doing?” Poppy asked.
“We’re going to Elinor’s. We’re going to ask if she thinks Duane is blackmailing her. I’m tired of pussyfooting around.” She wasn’t even sure if that’s what they’d been doing, but she liked the way that it sounded.
Elinor loved her daughter. She’d often been pleased that Janice took after her, that she was self-sufficient and did not need a mother hovering about the way Elinor’s mother had, the way her father had. The way everyone had, with silent expectations for the older twin, the less appealing one.
Like Elinor, Janice was clever, if not as attractive as Jonas. At twenty-eight, she hadn’t yet found a man, perhaps because Malcolm hadn’t corralled one, the way Father had corralled Malcolm for Elinor. Janice did have a career, which was off to a resounding start. Once in a while, however, she was prone to emotion-packed flare-ups that usually began with a surprise visit, like now, when she suddenly appeared in Elinor’s bedroom, of all places, as Elinor was tossing a few things into her Chanel lambskin tote.
“Mother?”
“Janice?”
“What are you doing?”
“Shouldn’t I ask you the same?”
“Why are you packing?”
“Why aren’t you working?”
“I asked you first.”
Good Lord. Elinor felt as if she was ten again, playing a game with CJ.
She sighed. “I’m packing for Washington. Your brother’s engagement party is this weekend, in case you’ve forgotten.”
“Of course I haven’t forgotten. I’m staying at the Fairmont. Are you and Daddy?”
“I don’t know yet. We might be at the town house.” If circumstances were different, Elinor would have liked to stay at the hotel in the thick of the engagement party action, surrounded by any out-of-towners that might have been invited, pretending to play hostess, making everything look good. Now, she would prefer to hibernate if she could.
“Well, I don’t intend to miss out on their scones in the morning,” Janice continued. “I hear they’re the best.”
Janice resembled Malcolm, except she’d been cheated out of the dimples. Her hair was the same tawny color as his, though it was thick and unkempt, and would do a Rastafarian proud. Her eyes were the same shade of blue as Mac’s, her cheek bones the same—high, well-defined. But Janice’s jawline was set firmer than Malcolm’s, more like her mother’s, a cast of concrete that rarely relaxed into a genuine smile. Unlike her mother, Janice was awkward at small talk. Thankfully, she was smart and driven to research, and did not need to embrace the world’s people.
Elinor sighed. “Janice, why are you here?”
“They think I’ve altered my results.” She tried knifing a hand through her massive locks.
Elinor, of course, had no time for this. “Who thinks you altered what results?”
“My supervisor. She thinks I altered the results of my research.”
“Did you?”
“Did I? Did I?”
“Now, Janice, you know I don’t understand your work. Where is your father?”
“I thought he was here.”
“He was here for the weekend with the congressman and Betts. He’s gone back to work. Did you look at the town house?”
“I told you. I thought he was here.” She stood in the doorway, hands in the pockets of her khakis. As Janice had never taken great pains with her hair, her wardrobe was equally mismatched to her genetics: DNA, mitochondria, whatever.
“What are you wearing to the party?” Elinor asked, because talking about style was easier for her than talking about Janice’s job. She closed the tote with nonchalance, hoping Janice hadn’t noticed that Elinor had packed a lightweight gauze sundress that was hardly Washington-wear.
“I might get fired.”
“Before the party?” Well, of course, that was the wrong thing to say, which was no doubt why Janice spun on her Birkenstocks and stomped away.
Elinor’s shoulders went rigid. She checked her watch. She needed to leave for the airport in twenty minutes. And where was CJ? She’d promised to be there by the time Elinor left. And now, what about Janice? Would she believe their lie about Elinor’s seamstress and CJ’s decorators?
And what if the blackmailer showed up right now?
The doorbell rang. It was loud. Insistent.
It must be CJ.
Unless…
Unless…
Elinor’s mouth went dry. Her blood pressure skyrocketed, her chest compressed. She stood, perfectly coiffed, perfectly groomed, like th
e topiaries in Malcolm’s garden. And, just like the trees, she was welded to the ground, unable to move, unable to speak.
Would a blackmailer ring the doorbell? Wouldn’t he act with more theatrics, like breaking in through the French doors?
The bell rang again. Elinor felt frozen in an Alfred Hitchcock moment.
Then, the murmur of voices.
Male?
Female?
Friend?
Foe?
Was it Alfred himself, reincarnated?
“Mottthhher,” Janice bellowed up from downstairs, her syllables protracted with sarcasm. “You have company.”
Elinor could run. She could flee down the back stairs and out to the garden. She could run through the woods and call CJ on her cell and order her to pick her up at the far end of the lake. They had explored every winding pathway of the land when they’d been kids. They’d even carved a few of their own. Surely Elinor wouldn’t get lost.
That’s what she would do. She’d run.
Any minute now.
As soon as she could get her feet or her legs or some part of her to move.
Then she remembered that her cell phone was in her purse on the breakfront in the dining room.
She clutched the Chanel as if it were a life preserver and she was going under. Then a voice called to her from the doorway.
“Elinor? Are you all right?”
It was Alice. And Poppy. What on earth did Alice have on?
The women stepped into the room. Elinor closed her eyes. “Janice said . . I thought…”
Alice sighed. “Janice is gone. Did you two have a fight?”
Elinor let go of the Chanel and sank onto the bed. “We always fight. She wants me to be just like her father.”
Alice and Poppy nodded as if they understood, which Poppy really couldn’t, but Alice probably did because she had two children, too: one nearly normal, the other, regrettably odd.
“But tell me some good news.” Elinor’s gaze fell on Alice. “Like that isn’t polyester you’re wearing.”
“Elinor,” Poppy stepped in and said, quite breathlessly, “do you think my Duane is your blackmailer?”
Elinor’s head started to hurt, the shards of a migraine poking at her eyes. “Duane? Your husband? Why? I barely know the man.” This wasn’t the time or the place to reveal to Poppy that Duane had once . . Oh, never mind, Elinor thought. That had been meaningless, and blackmail was not. “As much as I’d love to stay and chat,” Elinor continued, forcing herself to stand up again and push through her pain, “I have a plane to catch.”
“I’ll drive you to the airport,” Alice said. “We can talk on the way.”
Elinor had planned to drive herself to JFK, but this was a better idea. If Janice still lingered on the premises, she’d think that Alice and Poppy were taking her to the club for Bloody Marys, or to a hair appointment, perhaps, at Yolanda’s.
Besides, it was so hard to drive when one had a migraine and the sun was so fucking bright.
Twenty-three
Kevin was late getting to CJ’s. She wondered if Ray had forgotten to pass the message on to his son, but she hadn’t wanted to call the house. She hadn’t yet decided what to do or not do about Ray; she hadn’t yet decided why she was so bothered when all she had wanted was casual sex.
Finally the boy limped into the yard, pushing his bike. He had two bloody shins, and his bike had a flat tire.
“I hit a rut,” he told CJ.
She spent the next twenty minutes picking gravel from his knees, cleaning his wounds, and bandaging them, while Luna watched with great interest.
Finally, CJ was done. As she sped toward Elinor’s, her sister called.
“Where are you?”
“Sorry. Minor emergency. I’m on my way now.”
“Well, hurry. I’m en route to the airport, thanks to Alice and Poppy. Be careful when you get to the house. Janice might be around.”
CJ didn’t have a chance to ask why.
“Pick me up Friday at four o’clock, okay? JFK?”
CJ said yes because she never said no. Damn fool that she was.
Once at the house, CJ parked in the garage and closed the door. No sense announcing to the blackmailer that someone was home if, as Elinor feared, he decided to show up.
Speaking of visitors, there was no sign of her niece.
CJ walked around back and let herself in with the key Elinor kept under the downspout by the kitchen window. It always amused CJ that Elinor had copied that childhood tradition, as if her palatial abode was no different from the small, headmaster’s Tudor on the grounds of McCready’s or the cottage at Lake Kasteel.
She carried her bag through the back hall, past the felt-landscaped billiard room, the softly buttered morning room, the stainless-steeled kitchen.
All was as it should be: elegant, sparkling, perfect. There were no people, of course. The day staff only appeared Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturday mornings. After all, it wasn’t as if the family was there every day.
CJ trundled up the backstairs in search of a guest room. She’d brought a mystery she’d been meaning to read, along with a biography of a Supreme Court justice for balance. As long as she was going to be sequestered, she might as well relax and enjoy it. If there was something CJ was used to, it was being alone.
In the end, she’d chucked the sexy attire and packed nondescript cotton capris, knit camisoles, and a couple of big shirts. She’d thrown in a fleece nightshirt and fuzzy socks. It sometimes was freezing in Elinor’s house, as if they had first dibs on the air-conditioning in Westchester County.
At the top of the stairs she set down her bag and examined her choices: to the right was a large room in taupe tones. A thick down comforter frosted the sprawling, king-size bed; a sitting area featured a posh, silk-covered chaise; a rich walnut writing desk sat in an alcove.
“Too big,” CJ said as if she were Goldilocks who’d gone for a walk in the forest.
To the left was a smaller room done in pale greens. The bed was only a queen size, and in place of the chaise were a single wing chair and a footstool. There was no desk.
“Too small,” she said with a smile.
She ambled down the hall past the room Janice used. It was loaded with books but no personal items: She hardly was there anymore.
At Jonas’s room, CJ paused in the doorway. His presence was everywhere. From the poster-sized photograph of Times Square at night, to the caricatures of theater stars that had been signed and framed as if this were Sardi’s; from the orange life vest that he’d stashed in the corner, to the shelf with small trophies won in the lake fishing derbies, to the navy bedspread that was slightly askew, the room was her son’s. She’d been there on more than one occasion, usually when they’d come up from Washington for his birthday, when he’d tugged her upstairs to see his new train, to play with his new Super Nintendo, to hear his new sound system, to try his new laptop.
CJ blinked. She realized she’d been standing in the doorway too long. Too long for memories that were best kept under wraps.
She turned from Jonas’s room and continued down the hall toward the master suite, wondering when she’d become such a masochist.
The bedroom was still white, as she remembered.
Inside the room, her footsteps whispered on the thick carpet. Long white drapes were gently pleated across the wide windows. The huge bed, adorned with plump bundles of pillows, faced the tall, white marble fireplace.
CJ moved through the room and peeked into the bath, the steam room, and the Jacuzzi. With a small sigh, she turned toward the sitting room. That’s when she noticed that something had changed.
The sitting room had been off to the left in the bedroom. It was a shady nook, the coziest spot in the grandiose house.
But where an archway had been, now there was a door. A closed door.
CJ tiptoed toward it, as if she was being watched. Perhaps Elinor had transformed the space into a closet or a storage room.
Wi
th a slow turn of the brass handle, CJ quietly pushed the door open.
It was not a closet. It was not a storage room. It was another bedroom with another door that led back into the hall. The décor was different—not pouffy but plain, with a simple twin bed and a deep leather chair, an overfilled bookcase and a small window garden that held green shoots being rooted in the morning sun.
It was Malcolm’s room. The separate bedroom Jonas had told CJ about.
She sat on the bed, then slowly reclined. She turned her face into the pillow and imagined she picked up his scent: musky, woodsy, Malcolm.
Then she rolled over, stared up at the ceiling, and felt the tears slide from her eyes.
Yes, she thought, this bed felt just right. In another time, in another life, all of this would have been hers. The house. The husband. The boy.
Twenty-four
For the third day in a row, they were in the city. Alice had no idea if this was a smart thing to do, but she’d grown to enjoy the rush of adventure, the thrill of stepping out of her life into the unexpected.
Besides, today would be foreplay for Bud in Orlando and the real excitement to come.
With a tiny smile, she let the heat fill her body without waving it off.
Of course, they hadn’t told Elinor about Manny’s warning. She’d seemed annoyed enough by the concept that Poppy’s Duane really might be behind this. When Poppy had pressed her again when they’d been curbside at Kennedy, the last thing Elinor said was, “No offense, Poppy, but blackmail is very complex. I don’t think your husband is smart enough.”
Hopefully, her words also negated Poppy’s notion that Duane had been Elinor’s lover.
Two blocks south of the Lord Winslow now, Alice pulled over. “Okay,” she said to Poppy, “I’ll get out here. Take over the wheel and drive around until you see me again.” She opened her door and looked out for traffic. But before Alice got out, Poppy said, “No.”