A Family Affair

by Fern Michaels

  When it became obvious that Simone wasn’t going to say anything, Jeff said, “Nice to see you, too.” Then he stomped his way through the house and up to the master bedroom and shower.

  Under the steaming spray, Jeff soaped up not once, not twice, but three times, until the water started to run cold. He hopped out, toweled off, shaved, and dressed in warm clothing. Then he closed and locked the bedroom door. He rummaged everywhere until he found his wife’s jewelry box. He closed his eyes as he tried to picture the various items he’d purchased for her since their marriage and the months before, when he was wooing her. Some of it was in the safe, and he was the only one who had the combination. In the safe was twenty thousand dollars in cash for emergencies. Well, this was an emergency of the first order. He debated about taking it out and securing it somewhere else in the house until he remembered Ben Solomon’s words about vicious women. Better to leave it where it was for the moment. He stuffed the jewelry from the box into the corduroy cargo pants that had six different pockets. She’d have to wrestle him for the jewelry, and he doubted that would happen, because she might break a nail in the process.

  In the kitchen, he looked inside the refrigerator. A package of cheese slices, two oranges, and a pint of skim milk. The cabinet overhead was just as bare, but he did find a can of organic tomato soup and some oyster crackers. At least he wouldn’t starve. The next day, however, was another story.

  He risked a glance at his wife, who was pretending to read the writing on the cornflakes box. She looked up. “What’s going on, Jeff? I think I have a right to know. Your daughter has been calling and texting every few minutes. You need to get in touch with her.”

  Jeff removed the soup from the stove and poured it into a bowl. He added crackers, salt, and pepper, and sat down to eat. “I don’t know what to tell you other than someone stole my identity and wiped me out. All I have is the money in my pocket. Text Missy and tell her she has to sell the Porsche to pay her tuition. The car is paid for, so she should get a good price for it. She’s a selfish little shit, so let’s see if she does it or not.”

  “You made her that way, Jeff. She was a sweet kid when she came to us. You gave her the moon and the stars. You talked bad about her mother. You reap what you sow,” Simone said softly. “I don’t think this is as simple as someone stealing your identity. I know this because I’ve spoken to Ashley, Krystal, and Gabriella, and they said the same thing is happening to them. That leads us all to believe that four of you at International Alliance Capital have done something wrong or illegal, and this is a payback of some sort. We aren’t stupid, Jeff. Tell me what’s going on before I lose what little respect I still have for you.”

  Jeff turned around and reached inside the kitchen drawer for a pack of cigarettes. He fired one up, blew a perfect smoke ring, and said, “The long version is we’re broke. The short version is we’re broke.” He pawed through the mail on the counter until he saw the letter from the bar association. He closed his eyes and sighed, but he didn’t open it. Why bother? He knew what it said.

  “Are they going to turn off the utilities?”

  Jeff shrugged. “Do we have any firewood?”

  “I have no idea. If we do, it is probably covered up by the snow. Have you looked outside? They’re saying there’s going to be a blizzard by morning.”

  “Then if I were you, I’d get cracking and go dig some out, unless you want to freeze to death. They might not turn off the utilities for a few days, but the power is sure to go out. If you recall, the generator fritzed out last year, and I never got it fixed.”

  Simone started to sputter. “Well, what are we going to do, Jeff? How are we going to live? Our credit cards aren’t valid, and our checks are no good. We have no cash. Are they going to take our cars?”

  “I don’t know. I have never been in a situation like this one before. As to the cars, yeah, they’ll probably take them sometime this coming week. I guess this is where you’ll get to use all those muscles from the stationary bike you ride for hours, but this time you’ll be pedaling your ass off on a real bike. That’s assuming we even have a bike.”

  Simone burst into tears, her mascara running down her cheeks. Jeff got up and left the kitchen to go to his office. He needed to call his partners and come up with a plan.

  But even he knew that there was no plan in the universe that could help him out of the mess he was in, but he at least had to try.

  Plan B.

  Plan B had to be Emma, to have her get in touch with Trish to call off the dogs of poverty.

  Ha!

  Chapter 21

  THE FORMER EMMA HOLIDAY DAVIS, ONCE AGAIN JUST PLAIN Emma Holiday, sampled the stew she was cooking on the stove. Always, from the time when she and Trish were little girls, stew with dumplings, along with a freshly baked apple pie, had been for snowy days. She’d even carried the tradition into her married life. She’d made the pie earlier, with fresh apples, lots of cinnamon, butter, raisins, and nuts.

  Satisfied that the stew was bubbling along nicely, Emma walked over to the kitchen door to look out at the falling snow. Memories going back to childhood and following through to this very moment attacked her. She wished Trish were there. She wished that more than anything. She hadn’t heard a word from her sister since she’d returned to Dubai other than a brief text saying she had arrived safe and sound.

  The snowflakes, which had started out earlier as big, flat ones, were already minuscule pinpricks of frozen ice. No longer really snowflakes at all, but sleet, to be more precise. She turned away from the window to look at the stove. What was she going to do with that huge pot of stew? In the blink of an eye, she had her cell phone in her hand. She called the girls one by one and invited them to dinner. “Put on your snow boots and trudge on over here so we can admire each other while we stuff ourselves.”

  They all agreed immediately. She was, of course, referring to the morning they’d spent at the Red Door, getting “the works.” They all had newly styled hairdos; they had all been made up, given manicures, pedicures, and massages. She had loved the facial and had actually fallen asleep while the cosmetician worked on her. She couldn’t remember when she’d felt as good as she did at that moment. Years and years ago, maybe, when she had been in the middle of her career as a model. In other words, a lifetime ago.

  A new outfit hadn’t hurt her ego, either. She knew that she looked just as good as she felt; the girls had said the same thing. That night they would drink a thank-you toast to Trish. Thank God she’d had the good sense to pick up several really good bottles of wine when she’d done her grocery shopping.

  Emma walked into the family room and turned on the stereo. She adjusted the surround sound and listened for a moment. Soft, soothing, mellow sound wafted throughout the house. Perfect. Absolutely perfect.

  Emma turned on the outside lights so the girls would be able to make it across the yards in the swirling, darkened night. Maybe they’d have a sleepover if they overindulged in the wine. She looked around at the house that was now hers. It was so big. So beautiful. So hers. So lonely. It wasn’t that she minded living alone; she really didn’t. She had learned over the past few years to enjoy her own company. But there were times, like the present, when she felt the need to have friends around her. Perhaps need was the wrong word. The word share came to mind. That was it. She wanted to share her good fortune, her good feelings, with the friends who had seen her through her dark days, the same friends who understood what she was going through, because they had been and were going through the same thing. Her support group through thick and thin, through the good and the bad, through the dark into the light. And she, along with the others, owed their present improved circumstances to her baby sister.

  Emma was back in the kitchen, wondering where she should serve her first dinner in her new home. In the formal dining room, with her good china as a way of celebration, or in the kitchen, with her brand-new colorful Fiesta dinnerware? She’d always been a kitchen kind of person, and the kitc
hen in this McMansion was the stuff of which dreams were made.

  Not only did she have a fireplace in the kitchen, but she also had a one-of-a-kind back staircase. The builder had created a rustic kitchen with brick and slate, strong beams overhead that were perfect for hanging green plants, and a breakfast nook that was ideal for sitting with morning coffee and the Daily Princetonian. No reading the newspapers online for her. She liked holding the paper and getting newsprint on her hands. She felt the same way about reading books. She wanted to hold the book, smell the scent of the paper. Maybe she was a Neanderthal, as her daughter called her. She didn’t care. She was what she was, and if Melissa did not like it, that was just too bad.

  When the doorbell rang, she ran to answer it. The girls trooped in, took off their outer gear, and pulled off their snow boots. Each of them was carrying her high heels.

  “A party is a party!” Clare said happily. “And guess what else. Right before you called me, Emma, guess who called me. C’mon, c’mon, girls, guess! Okay, okay, I’ll tell you. Ethan Wylie, that’s who. He asked me to dinner this Saturday, and I said yes. He knows about . . . you know,” Clare said, touching her chest.

  The women gushed and laughed and hugged Clare. They all liked Ethan Wylie, who was a widower and a deacon at the church they all attended.

  “Well, that will be two toasts to make this evening. So, do we dine in my new dining room, or do we chow down in my new kitchen, ladies?”

  “Wherever the wine is, my friend,” Robin said as she beelined for the kitchen.

  “The kitchen! Do you have a fire going?” Alice asked.

  “As a matter of fact, I do have a fire going. It is downright toasty in the kitchen, and yes, that’s where the wine is. So let’s have at it, ladies. May I say one more time how beautiful you all look. That makeover at the Red Door was just what we all needed. We do look fashionable, if I say so myself.”

  “I think I must have spent an hour looking at myself in the mirror when I got home. After I made a fire, that is. I guess that we really let ourselves go,” Clare said.

  Emma whirled around. Her tone was fierce when she said, “Don’t you dare say that ever again, Clare. We did not let ourselves go. Our ex-husbands, may they rot in hell forever, pushed us into situations where we had no choices. We no longer had any money for fancy this and fancy that. What little money we had went toward survival. We were always clean and neat. So what if we weren’t fashionable? So what?”

  “Whoa there, Emma. I just chose the wrong words. That was exactly what I meant,” Clare said gently.

  Emma calmed down immediately, assuming the role of camp counselor. “Someone set the table. Someone open the wine. Someone put some more logs on the fire, and I’ll put the bread in the oven and spend the rest of my time watching all of you, but first I am going to turn on the floodlights outside so we can watch the snow and sleet come down while we eat. I love watching it snow. Makes everything look so clean and so perfect, like God’s doing it just for me, if you know what I mean. I cooked, so you guys clean. Deal!”

  “You bet,” the other three girls agreed cheerfully.

  They laughed, they ate, and they finished off the first bottle of wine. Dinner was wonderful, they told Emma.

  It had already been decided that they would indeed have a good old-fashioned sleepover, so they didn’t have to walk home in the snow. The girls were trying to decide if they should eat the pie immediately or wait till later when Emma’s cell phone rang.

  They looked at one another, surprise—no, shock—written all over their faces. No one ever called them in the evening. Ever. Besides, they were all there, sitting at the table.

  “Answer the damn phone already!” Alice prodded.

  Emma reached over to the counter, looked at the caller ID, and gasped. “It’s my ex!”

  Clare said, “Don’t answer it!”

  Robin said, “Answer it!”

  Alice, her eyes wide, shrugged.

  Emma answered the phone. “This is Emma Holiday,” Emma said briskly.

  The voice on the other end said, “Don’t you mean Emma Davis?”

  “Not on your life, buster. I took back my maiden name. Yours was nothing but a reminder of how bad tainted meat smelled. What do you want, Jeff? You must want something. Otherwise, you wouldn’t be calling me. A pint of my blood, some more skin, my soul? Get to the point right now, or I’m hanging up. And if I do and you call back, I’ll have you slapped with an order of protection before you can say ‘sheik of Araby.’ ” Emma looked around the table at her friends, who were grinning from ear to ear.

  Emma heard her husband suck in his breath. “I need to talk to you, Emma. I can be there in thirty minutes.”

  “And I would agree to talk to you . . . why? Have you looked outside? We’re having a storm. There must be five inches on the ground already.”

  “I have four-wheel drive. This is . . . urgent, Emma. I really need to talk to you. Missy told me you moved, so it might take me only twenty minutes.”

  “Oh, I bet it is urgent. For you. Certainly not for me. I don’t much care if you want to talk to me or not. I have some free time next week. Call me then.”

  “Emma, for Christ’s sake, listen to me. Don’t hang up. I hate sounding melodramatic, but this is life or death.”

  Emma laughed then, a bone-chillingly evil sound that made the girls rear backward in their chairs. “I hope it’s your life or your death we are talking about. Tell me on the phone. I really do not want to see you. Your very presence offends me. My God! Are you crying, Jeff?” Emma’s clenched fist shot high in the air. The girls grinned.

  “No, I’m not crying, for God’s sake. I’m catching a damn cold. I just got home a few hours ago and went from hundred-degree weather to subfreezing temperatures. Please, Emma. I’ll be there in twenty minutes. I have the address.” The phone went silent.

  Emma looked down at the phone in her hand. “He’s coming here. He said he’ll be here in twenty minutes, and it’s life and death. His, I assume. Wonder what else Trish did,” she said, bursting into laughter. “Okay, girls, let’s get this cleaned up. Then you all hide out in the laundry room so you can hear everything.”

  The women hustled and bustled, then ran to the foyer to grab their outerwear and snow boots. Emma wiped up the floor with one of her new towels, then threw it in the washer. She craned her neck to look out the side window. The girls’ tracks had already filled in.

  “Ooh, I dreamed about a day like this,” Emma said as she swooped around the kitchen like a happy bat looking for a place to roost.

  “Ya know, there are four of us. We could wrestle him to the floor, strip him naked, and toss him out in the snow,” Robin said, glee ringing in her voice. “Maybe then it would really become a matter of life and death.”

  “We should tape the conversation,” Alice said. “I can do that on this super-duper phone I bought yesterday. I say we do it so later on he can’t say he didn’t say whatever he’s going to say.” The girls high-fived one another.

  “And here we thought this was just going to be another dinner and sleepover. Entertainment such as this is what women like us live for. Just make sure you scorch his balls,” Alice said.

  “Don’t you worry, honey. I’ve got five years coming to me, plus your guys’ five years to get off my chest. I like that part about wrestling him to the floor, stripping him naked, and throwing him out in the snow.”

  Emma whirled around to check the kitchen. Satisfied, she looked at the girls and burst out laughing. “He was crying. Trust me on that one. A cold, my ass. This is how we have to look at it, girls. The mountain has come to Mohammed. I may be the first, but I can guarantee you will all be getting calls from your exes sooner rather than later.”

  Their eyes on the kitchen clock, the girls uncorked the second bottle of wine. Alice poured generously.

  Robin held her glass aloft. “To some serious ass kicking this evening!”

  “Hear! Hear!” the girls hooted, Emma’s voic
e the loudest.

  “He’s late!” Alice said, pointing to the kitchen clock. “If we’re lucky, he ran off the road and is in a ditch somewhere.”

  Ever practical, Emma said, “There are, unfortunately, no ditches between where he lives and here. Oh, I forgot to call the guardhouse to put his name on the list of people to allow through.”

  Within seconds, that small feat was accomplished. Fifteen minutes later, the front doorbell rang. As one, the girls jumped, then immediately headed for the laundry room.

  “Baby, this is your shining moment,” Robin said. “Make the most of it. We’re just a few feet away if you run into trouble.”

  Emma grinned, her eyes sparkling with what was to come as she hugged her friends. She smoothed down her cashmere sweater, which showed off her slim, toned body, and took her own sweet time walking to the front door. Opening it as if expecting to see an encyclopedia salesman on the other side, she saw her ex-husband huddled in a sheepskin jacket, a wool cap with earflaps covering his head.

  “Take off your boots. Leave them there by the door.”

  There were no hellos, no “How are you doing?” and no comments along the lines of, “It’s been forever since we’ve seen one another.” Just, “Take off your boots,” followed by Jeff’s comment that something smelled good.

  “That’s right. You always made stew and an apple pie when it snowed.”

  “I’m surprised you would remember something so . . . trivial,” Emma said, leading the way to her beautiful lived-in kitchen. Lived in only a few days, but it looked, nonetheless, like she’d been there forever. It practically screamed, “Emma Holiday lives here now.” Emma motioned for Jeff to take the chair closest to the laundry-room door. It was good that his back was to it, so the girls could crack the door if necessary.