“Emily, I’m a senior vice president, for Christ’s sake. The bank expects me to move in wider circles.”
“And you need a paddock so you can walk in wider circles,” she had taunted.
But her indifference to the trappings of success didn’t mean she wouldn’t clean out his accounts. Emily was a fighter, and once he put her in an adversary position, she would fight to win. She’d take his BMW 740 for the simple pleasure of parking it at a shopping center where supermarket carts could ding its doors. She’d fight for the house so that she could fill in the swimming pool and knock down the white paddock fences. Probably she wouldn’t be angry with Angela. Emily would expect ambitious young women to have a run at their powerful superiors. But she would expect him to be true to his marriage and sensitive to the obvious ploys of children who pretended to find him attractive. In court, she could make his affair look tawdry and ridiculous. In the boardroom, that would very likely make him an unacceptable heir to the presidential office. Jack Hollcroft would never allow a hint of infidelity into his bank. Banks were built on faith!
No, there would be no facing the truth. The truth was overrated. He needed a plan. He had to find a way to move Emily out of his life without encouraging her to battle. He had to find a way to move here out quietly. Better still, a way that would reflect to his credit. There had to be something that he could offer.
The limousine turned off the highway and quickly lost itself in the winding roads that linked the secluded country estates with civilization. Ironic, Walter had often thought that the greater one’s success with modern economic realities, the greater the need to imitate the lifestyle of the agricultural barons. His business associates—all men of great accomplishment—housed themselves in the manors of the eighteenth-century landed gentry and relaxed aboard sailing ketches rigged for a seventeenth-century crossing. Tycoons who had mastered the electronic global markets felt the need to prove their skills as vintners, buying into wineries that would never yield a good bottle. Software geniuses, who had raised intangible property to incredible values, somehow felt the need to lapse back into animal husbandry. They not only bred their own horses but even hammered their own horseshoes.
They turned through the gates that announced his driveway and popped over the Belgian blocks that paved the road to his door. Omar lowered the headlights so as not to disturb the sleeping residents and then waited discreetly to make sure Walter had no difficulty fitting his key into the lock.
He went immediately to the alarm panel that was hidden behind a tapestry and pounded the wall when he found that Emily hadn’t even turned it on. He had spent ten thousand dollars for a sophisticated system that detected not only forced entry but any sort of movement in any of the rooms. “It’s a damn nuisance,” Emily had told him, explaining that the system was constantly summoning the police. “I’m the only one it ever detects.” So instead of trying to remember to turn it off, she had apparently decided never to turn it on.
Walter stepped into the kitchen, spent a few seconds shuffling through the day’s mail, and then walked to the wet bar for a nightcap. He was pouring the scotch over the ice cubes when he heard her behind him. He turned and found her wearing an oversize T-shirt as a nightgown. There was a Grateful Dead tour promotion printed across her chest.
“Want one?”
“No thanks,” she answered. “I took a sleeping pill.”
“Doesn’t seem to have worked,” he allowed. He gestured a toast and then sipped at the scotch.
“I guess I don’t like to be alone.”
He shook his head at the irony. “That’s why I put in the alarm, so you’d feel secure when I’m away. You really ought to turn the damn thing on.”
“Sure. And then when I get up during the night, I get to make coffee for the cops who are suddenly shining their flashlights through the window. One of them even had his gun drawn. They’re more dangerous than a burglar would be. Besides, I don’t need security. I need someone to talk with.”
Walter sagged into a soft, family-room chair. “We’ll talk when I get upstairs. I just need a few minutes to unwind.”
She leaned over and kissed his forehead. “A tough day?” she asked.
“A real ballbuster,” he sighed.
Emily turned up the gracious staircase that wound up the wall of their circular foyer. Walter downed the rest of the drink and went back to the bar for a refill. The Grateful Dead, he thought. She’ll never catch up.
“I’ll bet it was a ballbuster,” Emily whispered to herself as soon as she was out of his sight. “Why the hell can’t men smell the perfume of the women they’re sleeping with.”
Monday
EMILY RIPPED A FOREHAND crosscourt, aiming for the corner.
“Out!” Mary Anders yelled, pointing at the ball mark she pretended to see just beyond the base line. “We’re at deuce.”
Emily nodded and took her stance to receive the serve. She waited back for her opponent’s looping, topspin serve to bounce up high. Then she pounced on it, drilling a rifle shot that cleared the net by half an inch, bit into the sideline, and ricocheted past Mary.
“Nice shot,” her opponent said, trying to sound casual. She was glad the shot had been away from her where she didn’t have to try for it. If she had reached it, it would have taken the racket right out of her hand. She set up in the add court, tossed the ball, and hit another spinner at Emily’s backhand. Emily slashed at it and sent a whistling return into the alley just outside the singles line. “Out,” Mary yelled and walked back to the deuce court.
Again, she spun her serve to Emily’s backhand. This time Emily blocked a return to center court. They rallied back and forth with easy top spins until Emily decided to put her away, first with a slashing backhand into the right corner that Mary Anders just managed to return, and then with a forehand to the vacated left corner. But her forehand was too strong, whistling past the base line. “Out,” Mary announced. “My advantage.”
Mary switched her serve to Emily’s forehand and Emily tore into it, hitting a rocket that aimed right back down Mary’s throat. For an instant, Mary Anders hesitated like a deer caught in the headlights. But at the last instant she leaped aside, letting the return whiz past her, a foot out of bounds.
“Out!” she screamed triumphantly, raising her racket to the ladies applauding in the gallery. She rushed toward the net with a gushing display of sportsmanship. Emily congratulated her sincerely, smiled at the applause that was her consolation prize, and collapsed onto the bench. She toweled her hands and face and then gulped down her jug of water.
“You threw that one away.”
She looked up at Bill Leary, the club pro, who tossed her a fresh towel.
“She played well,” Emily breathed.
“She played you for an idiot,” Leary said. “All she did was feed the ball back to you and let you kill yourself trying to hit winners. Jesus, she even kept complimenting you just so you’d keep trying to hit the lines.”
“I hit some lines,” Emily said, zipping the cover over her racket.
Leary shook his head. “How many times have I told you? Just keep it in play and let your opponent try for the winners. In the Monday Morning League, no one is good enough to hit the lines consistently.”
“No one ever will be if all we do is keep tapping them back.”
“Yeah, well, that’s why you lost.”
She handed the towel back to him and picked up her sweatjacket. “I’d rather lose trying. It’s better than standing around waiting for someone else to make a play.”
He held her jacket while she backed her arms into the sleeves. His hands lingered on her shoulders an instant longer than necessary. “Well, if you’re going for winners, you’ve got to work harder on your setup,” he told her. “Maybe we ought to pencil in some lessons. I could come up to your place so we can get in some real work.”
She smiled knowingly. “I’m free right now.”
He nodded. “Okay. Give me a minute to fresh
en up and get my racquet.”
Emily broke out of his embrace. “Forget the racquet.” She walked across the court, throwing a withering glance back over her shoulder. But he didn’t wither. He winked.
Bill Leary had made a quick appearance on the pro tour right after he left college. In two seasons, he had earned $4,500 in prize money and hadn’t been offered a single endorsement, even by local car dealers. He was bright enough to get the message that while he could be a consistent winner in the country club set, he would be a consistent joke on tour. He joined the clubs.
For the past ten years he had worked his way up the country club ladder, advancing from equipment manager at a tennis center to assistant professional at a decent club, and now to professional at a very prestigious club. He had enough photos of himself on the same court with John McEnroe and Mats Willander to satisfy the men and the athletic good looks that appealed to the women. He was ten years younger than most of the ladies in the Monday League, which was the right age gap for stirring memories that their successful husbands had no time to rekindle. With a few flattering words about a woman’s tennis form, a flash of his outdoor smile, and an accidental erogenous touch as he positioned a student’s hip for a better backhand, Bill Leary could pretty much name his game.
Emily had been an obvious target. She was a serious player who welcomed the advice and help of a professional. She had a long, sinewy, athletic body that, if too broad for a runway model, was attractively curved and moved sensually. Her mouth, while severe under stress, looked delicious whenever it spread into her spontaneous smile. Her shoulder-length dark hair seemed never to have been under a dryer, but fell naturally into place. She neither looked nor acted her age. It was a combination that Leary found irresistible and in her dark eyes he saw signals that she was probably available.
They were angry eyes. Clear, narrowed, precisely focused on a point of reality rather than open to vaporous dreams. In his years as a club professional he had seen them often, usually on women who had been given everything they wanted and then at middle age realized they had wanted the wrong things. There was no defeat in them, as in the eyes of a downtrodden house drudge. These were women of accomplishment. No sadness, as in the eyes that had suffered a great loss. The country club ladies were all winners. Just anger. The anger of pride that has been wounded and which is determined to get even.
Leary could see it in Emily’s eyes. She was a woman who had been given a room full of toys to keep her happy by a husband who found his own happiness elsewhere. In his career. With another woman. She knew she was being treated shabbily and was determined to have satisfaction. A tennis pro wasn’t an original way to get even, but Leary had long appreciated that his services could be soothing.
At first, Emily showed no interest, pretending to be unaware of his advances even though she was hurting from displacement and neglect. She didn’t like the big estate with the paddock. She particularly didn’t like being left alone in it under the watchful eye of a security system. She wanted to hurt Walter for tearing her away from her friends just to satisfy his ego. But her need for revenge wasn’t developed enough to stomach the thought of a stud like Billy Leary pulling down her panties.
Then she had found out that Walter was sleeping with one of the bank’s rising starlets. It wasn’t his first infidelity. She had known of a brief fling he had enjoyed with an aspiring model and a liaison in a posh hotel with a lovely representative of a California bank. She had been hurt but not wounded, disappointed but not completely disillusioned. The current affair, however, had been going on for quite some time. More significant, Walter wasn’t rushing home to dote on her, make amends, and purge his conscience. He was staying away and leaving her behind. Her pain turned into anger and the anger roared into rage. If she had grown indifferent to Walter, she now felt active hatred. The next time Billy had raised the subject of private lessons, she had signed up for his first available opening.
He had arrived at her tennis court in the early afternoon, dressed in fresh whites with a bucket full of tennis balls. They had volleyed until the balls were scattered, Emily all the while worrying about what was going to come next rather than concentrating on his stream of helpful suggestions. Then he had detected the fatal flaw in her swing that required him to stand close behind her, his arms around her to help her grasp her racquet properly. He had then led her through a series of maneuvers, turning from forehand to backhand, that could have passed for kinky sex, or at least a new Latin American dance step. His arms were caressing her breasts first from the left and then from the right and all the while his groin was grinding against her rump.
This was the point that separated the serious students from the serious lovers. Women who were worried about their tennis games ordered him back to the other side of the net. Women who were worried about their love lives collapsed panting into his arms. Emily had done neither. Instead, she had started to laugh. A smirk, then a giggle, and then gut-wrenching laughter that caused her to drop the racquet, double over, and stagger away from a bewildered Billy. When she had turned back, there were tears in her eyes.
“Is that your idea of foreplay?” Emily had howled.
Then Billy had started to laugh. “Hey, sometimes it works. It’s hard to be subtle on a tennis court.”
“Well, it’s not working now. I don’t feel hot. I feel ridiculous.” Her words had broken as she choked back laughter.
“How do you think I feel,” Billy had answered. He began picking up the scattered tennis balls. “I’m the one making a complete asshole out of myself just to get things moving. If one of us doesn’t do something, we could be out on this damn tennis court all day.”
Emily had helped him deposit the balls back into the basket and then handed him the leather covers that he zipped over his racquets. “You look like you need a shower,” she had said. “I’ll scrub your back.”
Emily had stopped him when he tried to drag her into her bed. They were both naked and dripping wet and she wanted to pull back the bedspread. Then she had delayed him again while she went to her desk and returned with Walter’s picture. “You don’t mind if I put it here on the night table, do you? I think I’ll get more into it if I know he’s watching.”
It was an hour later when Billy managed to pull out from under her. Involuntarily, his hand went to his heart to keep it from exploding through his chest. He had looked up at Walter’s picture. “You give him that kind of a good night kiss every night?”
“He doesn’t always come home nights. He has pressing business in the city.”
Billy had struggled for breath. “He’s crazy. Poor bastard doesn’t know what he’s missing.”
“No, but he seems to like what he’s getting.”
He had looked at her with a touch of genuine caring. “Hey, I’m sorry. You’re a nice lady and you don’t deserve that kind of treatment.”
Somehow, she had known that this was a departure from his usual line. “No, dammit, I don’t. So maybe you can explain why an otherwise considerate human being abandons a loving wife and chases after a younger woman.”
Billy had stumbled out of bed and headed toward his crumpled tennis outfit that was piled on the bathroom floor. “I guess it’s a guy thing … like getting a new car. The old one is running fine, but all of a sudden you can’t live without the latest model.”
“An old car,” Emily had snapped indignantly.
“Well, there are old cars and then there are classic cars. Like you. They just don’t build them like you anymore.”
Emily stood for a moment in the tennis club parking lot, trying to remember where she had left the car. Then she pressed the button on her keys and a Lexus in the next row barked and blinked like a happy puppy dog. She threw her racquets in the backseat, climbed in, made all the adjustments, and finally fixed her seat belt. She didn’t realize she had already started the engine until she turned the key again and heard the starter grinding. “Idiot,” she chided herself. It was typical of the mistakes she h
ad been making lately. Stupid little oversights and absences that she attributed to the pressure she was under. Well, the pressure was going to get worse, and in the days ahead, little mistakes could be more than embarrassing. They could be dangerous. She had to get hold of herself.
Emily drove the car directly into the garage, parking it between Walter’s BMW and his Italian motorcycle. She used the side door into the kitchen, walking past another deactivated alarm panel. At the bar, she poured herself a glass of wine after glancing at her watch to make sure that it was past noon. If I start drinking in the morning, she had promised herself, it will make more sense to simply cut Walter’s throat. She reasoned she would rather live in a jail than disappear into an alcoholic fog.
She carried the wine up the stairs, unbuttoning the warm-up jacket on the way, set the glass on her vanity, and threw the jacket across her bed. She kicked off her tennis shoes, balanced like a stork as she pulled off the sweat socks, and left her tennis skirt in an abstract shape on the floor. She tossed the socks and her sweat-soaked blouse at her laundry hamper as she walked into her bathroom, scoring a near miss. She pulled the athletic bra over her head and dropped it outside the shower tub along with her panties.
In her more reasonable moments, Emily could understand what had happened to her marriage. She and Walter had married young, fresh out of college, filled with romantic notions of family bliss. She had held down a job that kept the refrigerator stocked while Walter had gone through business school and joined InterBank. His starting salary had been more than enough for her to leave her job so they could start a family.
Walter became a captive of the bank, bringing home larger and larger monthly checks with each passing year. Emily didn’t care much about the house, so she avoided much of the normal domestic involvement. But she did care about their son and daughter, so she joined Cub Scouts and Clover Buds, church groups and PTAs, and dozens of other organizations that existed to benefit her children. As they got older, she worked in Safe Rides, MADD, Sex Education, and the Alliance for a Drug Free Society, all in an effort to keep Amanda and Alex sober, straight, and free from venereal disease. When they finished high school they weren’t particularly interesting people, but at least neither had a prison record. And with Walter’s ability to pay full tuition, they were both recruited by prestigious Eastern colleges.
The Trophy Wife Page 2