by Joy Fielding
“Are you all right?" David asked, suddenly realizing how uncomfortable his wife must be.
"Just very hot," she answered, trying not to think about it.
His voice was soft, apologetic. "I'm sorry I was such an ass about insisting on the black dress and the makeup. I don't know why I was like that, I'm sorry."
"It's okay." She touched his hand, feeling a trickle of perspiration trace a line across her recently applied blush-on.
"You were very sweet about it. I really appreciate the fact that you didn't make an issue of it. I was in no mood for common sense." Jill smiled, trying to concentrate on his words and not the heat, feeling increasingly faint. Just let me get through this and back into an air-conditioned car, she prayed silently, remembering there was still the long drive out to the cemetery. "The makeup suits you though," he said. "You should wear it more often."
It was meant as a compliment, Jill knew, so she said nothing. She'd wash her face as soon as she got home.
The minister took his place behind the podium and began the service. Jill listened as he described the man she had grown so fond of, feeling his loss more acutely now as she was forced to recall details of his life. Poor Beth, Jill thought, brushing aside a tear and straining forward in her seat to try to spot Beth in one of the front rows.
The sight of Nicole Clark just two rows ahead of them caught Jill completely by surprise. For some unaccountable reason, she hadn't expected to see her there, although everyone else from Weatherby, Ross was in attendance, and obviously, where else would the dear thing be? Nicole sat perfectly still, her hair pulled back into a neat French braid, no noticeable perspiration anywhere that Jill could see. She wore a simple black cotton sleeveless dress with just the right amount of white trimming, making it appropriate for all occasions. Naturally, Jill thought, her eyes moving down the rows of mourners, she would have just the right dress to wear. My God, there's Elaine, she gasped inwardly.
"What's the matter?" David asked, concerned. She shook her head and shrugged her shoulders. "Relax, honey. We'll be out of here soon," he said, patting her hand.
She smiled, her eyes riveted on her husband's ex-wife. Of course, she should have expected that Elaine would be here. She had known the Weatherby’s a long time. It was only right that she show her respect by coming. Jill took a long moment to assess Elaine.
Her features were soft and attractive, not as perfect as Nicole's, not as irregular as her own. She was almost exactly the picture of what one imagines a lawyer would marry just out of college, the childhood sweetheart who grew up without managing to grow in the same direction as her husband, who spent her hours preoccupied with bringing up her children and managing her house, forgetting—or ignoring the fact—that the work world was filling up with lots of bright and interesting ladies. Strangely enough, Jill noted, her eyes instantly taking in the remainder of the room, Elaine was also in black. In fact, they seemed to be the only three women in the entire room in the designated color of bereavement. All the other women—she still hadn't been able to spot Beth—had shunned the darker shades in favor of cooler summer prints. It seemed almost a deliberate display, the black setting them apart from the others, creating a separate entity—David Plumley and his women. It was like John Derek, she thought, conjuring up the magazine picture of the handsome former actor surrounded by his ex-wives, Ursula Andress and Linda Evans, and his current wife. Bo, all smiling, all wearing identical Tshirts, all happy to have had the privilege. My God, get me out of here, she whispered to herself, looking into her lap. Perhaps they should form a receiving line—past, present—future?
Her eyes shot to David's.
"What's the matter?" he asked again, becoming alarmed.
"Are you going to be sick?" Instinctively, he edged as far as he could away from her. It wasn't very far. The knees beside him held firm.
"It's a thought," she said. "I know, take deep breaths," she continued for him. Following her own instructions, she looked between her knees, concentrating all her energy on the floor, and then returned her attention to the eulogy being delivered. She felt the tears well up inside her and was astonished when instead of crying, she felt the urge to laugh tickling its way up her throat.
The sound escaped her mouth before she could stop it and throw her hand on top of it. How could she do it? How could she laugh out loud at the funeral of her husband's mentor and dear friend? She couldn't stop, almost choking on the effort, doubling her body over to try and suffocate the blasphemous sounds. The tears filled her eyes and she felt David's protective arm around her. "It's all right, sweetheart," he said, soothingly, drawing her up under his arm. He thinks I'm crying, she realized, the knowledge of which was enough to bring on a fresh onslaught of giggles and cause her to bury her face deep against his chest. Around her she heard quiet expressions of sympathy and understanding. They all think I'm crying, she told herself, and for the remainder of the service she kept her head burrowed deep against David's jacket and laughed so hard that she was crying.
Jill stood waiting by the front door of the church while David went around the back to the parking lot to get the car. All around her, members of the Hare Krishna were busy chanting and dancing, shaking their tambourines against the dead air. Jill took in a deep breath of oxygen, hoping it would make her feel less faint, but there was no relief. She looked to the street, eager for the sight of the brown Mercedes. She would turn the cold air on full blast. She leaned her body against the side of the building and closed her eyes. I am walking barefoot on Antarctica, she repeated over and over, inadvertently establishing a silent rhythm with the other chanters.
"I have a bone to pick with you," the voice said from somewhere beside her. Jill opened her eyes and turned in its direction. Elaine stood, cool and controlled, before her. "My God, are you all right? You look like you're going to be sick!"
'Thank you," Jill said. She couldn't think of anything else to say.
"Do you want to sit down?" Elaine asked, indicating the stone steps. "I think we could probably make room between all these Harry and Harriet Krishnas."
Jill shook her head. "I'm just very hot."
Elaine looked Jill over from head to toe. "Well, no wonder, for God's sake. Look what you're wearing! Whatever possessed you to wear a wool turtleneck in the middle of the summer?!"
"It's September."
"It's almost a hundred degrees."
"It's black," Jill told her. Was this the bone Elaine had to pick?
"So what?" Elaine asked.
"Our husband insisted," Jill deadpanned.
Elaine's face broke into a wide grin which made her look years younger and much softer. "You're not supposed to be funny and make me smile," Elaine said, surprising both of them. Was this the woman David had described as humorless and unsympathetic? The whiny and shrill voice on the telephone she had come to despise?
Jill thought back to their first direct confrontation four years earlier. Courtroom C, on the second floor. Plumley versus Plumley. Divorce granted to Elaine Plumley on the grounds of adultery. The other woman: Jill Listerwoll. I know how trite this sounds, she had said to Elaine when they inadvertently came face to face in the hallway, but I really never meant to hurt you. Elaine had been unimpressed, her back rigid. It does sound trite, she had said in reply. And then she had said something else, words Jill had forced into the back of her memory until they had tried unsuccessfully to emerge at David's birthday party, which seemed now so very long ago. If he treated me the way he treats you, she had said, and treated you the way he treats me, this would be a completely different story.
Jill stared wide-eyed at the first Mrs. David Plumley. Perhaps they weren't so different after all. "You said you had a bone to pick with me?" she asked, throwing off the disconcerting thought.
Elaine regarded Jill with a blank expression as if Jill had spoken to her in a foreign language. Then the memory of why she had initially approached her ex-husband's present wife returned and lit up her eyes. "Yes," she said forc
efully, her voice gaining strength and purpose with each new word, "I do. How dare you tell my daughter that I'm dating a crook!"
Jill looked helplessly around her. She couldn't believe this was happening. Where was David? Why was he taking so long with the car?
"I'm sorry," she said finally, returning her gaze to Elaine. "It kind of popped out before I could stop it."
"He's in fruit," Elaine said.
"I'm sure he is."
"You must have the wrong Ron Santini."
"I'm sure I do."
"He's in fruit," Elaine repeated, then paused. "Even if he were a crook, it would be no business of yours."
"That's true. Like I said, it just kind of popped out. I don't think Laurie believed me, anyway."
"Oh, those kids believe everything you tell them! It's always “Jill said this' and 'Jill said that.' It's enough to make you sick."
"I didn't think they ever listened to me," Jill said, genuinely surprised, ignoring Elaine's editorial comment.
"Oh, they listen, all right, “She paused again. "For the record, even though it is none of your business, Ron Santini is a very nice man, and since I don't propose to ever marry again, I really don't give a damn what he does for a living."
Jill felt the blanket of heat returning to cover her body. "Are you so bitter," she asked, feeling very weary, "that you'll deny yourself happiness just so that David has to keep on paying you monthly support?"
"Ninety thousand dollars a year buys a lot of happiness," Elaine answered. "And yes, I guess I am that bitter. Besides, you're a married woman now! Would you really do it again?" She stopped to let the question take root. "Not me," she answered. "Once was enough, thank you." She looked across the street at her car. "I was lucky—I found a spot right on the street. Well, I'm going to go home and lie in the sun— I guess you heard I had a pool put in."
"I heard."
"I'd invite you over but well, that might seem a little tacky."
"I'd rather go to the cemetery, thank you."
"And, of course, you always get what you want."
"Of course."
Each woman smiled pleasantly at the other, and Jill watched Elaine walk down the church steps and onto the street. A few days ago she would have wished for a car to come barreling down the street and knock the dear lady right out of her two-hundred-dollar shoes. But now, strangely enough, she found she had a grudging respect for Elaine. In a perverse sort of way, she had actually enjoyed their verbal fencing. The woman had more spunk than she'd previously imagined, and she made more sense than Jill had ever thought she would.
The heat must be getting to me, she thought, watching Elaine open her car door and get inside. She's getting a little hippy, Jill thought with no small degree of satisfaction. She leaned back against the church.
"Mrs. Plumley?"
Jill looked over at the young, pale figure who stood before her.
"I'm Lisa Weatherby, Beth's daughter."
Jill straightened up to shake the girl's hand. "I'm so sorry," she began. "If there's anything I can do—I've called several times—"
The girl looked toward her brothers. One had his arm draped protectively around her; the other was busy chanting with his friends. Harry and Harriet Krishnas, Elaine had called them, Jill suddenly recalled, only vaguely having heard Elaine when she had said it before. That was pretty funny. She looked to the street. Elaine's car was gone.
"There is something you can do," Lisa Weatherby said. Jill looked back at Lisa.
"Yes?"
"Maybe you could come up to the house one day this week and see my mother. She wasn't well enough to come today, and I know she'd like to see you. We'd hoped that by making sure she got enough rest and not letting anyone bother her she'd be all right, that the shock would start wearing off and she'd be able to tell what happened that night, but it doesn't seem to be working. She's still not talking to anyone, and—well, you seem to be her only friend."
"What?"
"We'd better go, Lisa," her older brother urged. "The limousine's waiting."
"Will you come?" Lisa asked again.
"Of course," Jill answered. How could she have been Beth Weatherby's only friend? The woman knew everyone; everybody liked her. What was going on? She leaned back against the church edifice. Oh, for a little ice and snow.
"Excuse me, Jill?"
What was it about the front of the building? Every time she leaned against it, someone approached her. For the third time, she straightened up and turned toward the voice, knowing before she looked who was speaking, remembering that the first time the girl had excused herself, she had called her Mrs. Plumley.
"Don't tell me," Jill said before the younger woman had a chance to speak. "Your name is Nicole Clark and you're going to marry my husband."
The girl lowered her head. "I guess I deserved that."
"You're the one who said it."
Nicole Clark nodded. "One of the stupider things I've said."
"I'd have to agree."
"I did apologize," she whispered.
"You have an interesting way of saying you're sorry," Jill told her. She felt fresh streams of perspiration running across her face. "Look, I think we've milked this little subject for all it's worth, don't you?"
"I explained to David how it all happened," Nicole continued.
"Nothing's happened," Jill reminded her.
Nicole ignored the well-timed interruption. "I told him how sorry I was that I'd upset you—"
"You do have a way with words," Jill said, feeling her smile stick against her cheeks, held there by the humidity. "But I really think that David has more pressing concerns at the moment than—"
"He's been so wonderful throughout all this," Nicole said, cutting Jill off. "He's really been the one holding the firm together, making sure we don't all crumble and fall apart. Al meant so much to all of us."
"I'm sure he did," Jill acknowledged, wondering suddenly when it was that Nicole had found the time in the midst of all the chaos to explain herself to David, and when her husband had found the time to listen.
"I was trying to get some work done the other day and suddenly I just dissolved into a flood of tears. There were clients around and everything. I was very embarrassed. I could just hear everyone whispering behind my back about how women don't have the emotional makeup to be successful lawyers. All that rot. But suddenly, there was David, and he ushered me out of there and took me downstairs for something to eat, and we talked about it. He really understood how I felt about Al. He felt the same way. It was the first time Td ever really seen David open up that way. As a man, not a lawyer.”
Jill's voice fairly seethed with fury, each word dripping venom. "How considerate of Al, then, to have passed away so that you might have that opportunity," she said, and waited.
Nicole stared at Jill in obvious shock. Elaine would have had a smart answer, Jill thought, thinking simultaneously of her husband and Nicole Clark out for their cozily revealing lunch. So, the little pilgrim was making progress, she realized with a combination of bitterness and dismay.
The car honking from across the street diverted her attention, and she turned her head around just in time to allow the few tears that had formed in her eyes to fall and mingle with the lines of perspiration which were already streaking her face. In one deft gesture, she wiped her face clear of heat and emotion and turned back to Nicole.
"Excuse me,'' Jill said, steering away from her young challenger, and heading toward the steps. Please don't let me fall, she whispered silently as she descended them carefully, aware of the girl's eyes on her back, burning a hole into the black wool of her dress. So, her dear husband had taken the sweet little thing to lunch and opened himself up "as a man" to boot. She felt anger and indignation rising inside her. He makes me wear a black wool dress in the middle of a heat wave and he takes her out to lunch.
Her mind recalled Elaine's past admonition, rearranging it slightly to suit Nicole: If he treated her the way he treats me, she
repeated wordlessly, and treated me the way he treats her, this would be a completely different story. Jill walked quickly toward her husband's brown Mercedes and angrily opened the door. Then, taking a last look at Nicole Clark, she got inside.
Chapter 15
"I don't believe this is happening."
"Relax, Jill."
"How am I supposed to relax? I am slowly melting away before your very eyes."
"It should only be a few more minutes."
"You said that ten minutes ago."
"The poor kid's working as fast as he can. He looks terrified."
"So would you if your client was a corpse!"
"Jill, please—"
"If you tell me to relax one more time, I'm going to scream."
"All right. Fine. Don't relax."
"Couldn't we at least turn on the air-conditioner?"
"Sure, if you want to overheat the car. Then we'd really be stuck."
"I just don't believe this is happening."
Jill looked out the window at the other cars lining the side of U.S. Highway 41. Then she looked over at the service station, where a quivering young mechanic was gamely trying to replace the fan belt that had broken on the hearse.
"I didn't think hearses had fan belts," Jill muttered to no one in particular. "If Al Weatherby is anywhere watching this, he must be shaking his head and saying, “What a fucking mess!”
“Jill, please, you're not making things any better."
“And if you say that again, I'm going to get out and walk."
"Then by all means," he said, reaching across her and opening the door, "get out and walk."
They sat in angry silence for several minutes. Oh, great, Jill thought. We must be playing this scene just the way Nicole Clark wrote it. She reached over and shut the door.
"I don't like ultimatums," he said, not looking at her.
"I know," she said, remembering.
It was late. The room was in darkness. Neither one of them had bothered to turn on a light. Underneath them, on the floor below, Jill knew Mrs. Everly and her monstrous dog were fast asleep. She wished she were in bed, too. Asleep. Alone. She didn't want to say what she knew he didn't want to hear.