by Warren Adler
"Can't you just please leave it alone for now? Can't I have some privacy about this? Believe me, Jackie, if anything happens ... you'll be the first to know. And you don't have to be so crude about it."
"Crude? This guy must be veddy fancy. Well, thank you very much. Just wonderful. You want me to tell you everything, but you won't tell me anything. That's fair, isn't it? Shit!"
Jackie stormed out of the room. Grace wished she could confide in her daughter and hated the idea that she couldn't really trust her. She wished that Sam hadn't called; but then, how could she have forewarned him? It was a dilemma that she knew she would have to confront sooner or later. She hoped it was later, much later. One probing conversation between Sam and Jackie would be enough to topple all the dominoes.
Jackie was gone when Grace got out of bed. Her job with McDonald's started at seven in the morning. Grace hadn't slept much. Her mind churned with ideas, mostly dire imaginings. It seemed an overwhelming irony that the only person who could advise her on how to proceed was Sam himself, wise, practical, thoughtful Sam.
By then, she realized, she had dug herself a hole so deep there was no possible way to extricate herself without harm. Worse, she had no illusions about her own emotional involvement with Sam, although she refused to characterize it.
At this point, what she feared most was that she would succumb to an arrangement that would derive more from the heart than the head.
Yes, she missed him when she was away from him. Yes, she longed for him in both physical and psychic ways. Yes, she could think of no more wonderful way to spend her days than with him. Millicent Farmer would ridicule her for being such a weak ninny. She remembered her words: "This has nothing to do with feelings. This is business."
Yet so far nothing had happened on this business side. He had not brought up the matter of the future, their future. Nor did she have any idea whether he was mulling the idea, considering a future with her.
She had deliberately not broached the subject, fearful that he would reject the basic premise of her involvement. Marriage. Ring around the finger. It was a mantra endlessly churning in her mind. The reality, of course, was that the matter could not be postponed for long. Her unemployment check wasn't enough. She was behind in everything, her rent, her car payments, the utility bills, everything. And there was Jackie.
Yet, despite Jackie's reaction to this call, Grace could not deny the pleasure of his declaration. It confirmed what she wanted to believe, that she had made a profound impact on his life, although she dared not give it the name it demanded, fearing that it would describe his impact on her as well.
Any acknowledgment of her own feelings for him would be contrary to Millicent Farmer's caveat not to get emotionally involved. Emotion compromised judgment. Unfortunately, it was a lesson better understood in a vacuum. She had violated the caveat. The alarm bells were deafening.
Just as she stepped out of the shower the phone rang. She rushed to answer it, feeling certain that it was Sam.
"Is this Mrs. G. Sorentino?"
It was a woman's voice, vaguely familiar.
"Yes."
"I'm sorry to call so early, but I wanted to be sure to catch you before you start your day. My name is Margaret Carlson from the Salvation Army."
Grace groped for some shred of memory.
"You dropped off some wonderful clothing for the needy about a month or so ago. I was the person you dealt with. Do you remember?"
"Oh, yes," Grace replied. "I do remember."
"One of the recipients of our program came by yesterday with some material that was found in one of the pockets of the jeans. Believe it or not, we keep excellent records of our gifts. And our recipients are very grateful."
"What sort of material?"
"Letters. Personal letters. I thought you might want them back."
"Really," Grace began, "it's all right. Just throw them away."
"I thought perhaps they might have sentimental value."
"It's all right..." Grace began, but the woman persisted.
"I ... I ... well, I must confess, I started to read them ... I don't usually do such things, but you understand I had to identify..." Obviously embarrassed, the woman cleared her throat. "I just thought you might want them as a keepsake. I thought they might have sentimental value."
"Whom are they addressed to?" Grace asked, her curiosity aroused.
"A box number in Palm Beach. No name."
"And the salutation?"
"Really, Mrs. Sorentino, this is none of my business. I just thought I'd call as a courtesy..." Grace caught a trace of indignation. "...but if there's no interest..."
"No," Grace said quickly, oddly intrigued, invoking the idea of destiny again. "I'll pick them up."
"You know where we are ... where you dropped the clothes off. We're open until seven."
Grace looked at her watch. There was more than enough time to pick them up and be at Sam's on schedule.
"I'll be there shortly ... Mrs.... was it Carlton?"
"Carlson," the woman said. There was a moment of hesitation.
"And Mrs. Sorentino..."
"Yes?"
"Darling. The salutation was just that ... darling."
"Darling?"
"Oh, I didn't read beyond that. None of my business. But when someone writes darling ... kinda personal like that ... you know how it is."
"Certainly ... yes ... very kind of you. I'll be there."
Grace puzzled over the call and especially her decision to pick up the letters. Darling! She didn't know what to make of it, except perhaps that they were letters to Anne from Sam. Then why would she want to see them? On the other hand why was her curiosity so compelling?
But then, everything to do with Anne's clothing had been compelling. They were the axis on which everything between Grace and Sam had revolved. Anne's clothes were the catalyst for the introduction, the heart of the ploy, the central erotic prop of the seduction, the fuel for their sexual conflagration. It was eerie, as if the dead wife, Anne the frigid, was ordering these events from her icy headquarters beyond the grave.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
When she got to the Salvation Army drop-off center in West Palm Beach, the woman handed her a small packet of letters.
"I knew you'd want this," she said with a knowing nod.
"Thank you."
"And I'm so happy that you're feeling better."
"What?"
"I think you look just great."
Puzzled by the woman's statement, Grace went outside and got in her car. She sat for a long time contemplating the envelopes, all neatly slit open, obviously by letter opener. There were three of them, all addressed to a Palm Beach post office box, as the woman had stated. There was no return address on the envelopes, which were all written on blue stationery and addressed in a hand that seemed, even to her unpracticed eye, to be masculine.
She noted the place and date on the postmarks. Miami. Last year. Each posted in a one-month time frame. She arranged them by chronology, the earliest first.
Before opening the first envelope, Grace speculated that these might be letters from Sam and that reading them would be tantamount to an unwarranted and immoral intrusion. Besides, she didn't want to suffer the irritation of reading Sam's sweet words of love to his late wife. But even then, before reading the letters, she noted that the handwriting on the envelope just didn't seem like Sam's.
But then, she reasoned with a detective's zeal, why the post office box, unless it was meant to be a little game between them? Sam, after all, did have an imaginative streak and was capable of inventing games. And if not Sam, who? And why the salutation darling? She wondered if her curiosity was turning salacious. Destiny again, she told herself, imagining that fate was throwing luminescent dust in her face, lighting the way to some crucial discovery.
With shaking fingers, she drew out the first letter and began to read, her heart pounding with trepidation at what was clearly an unhealthy violation of Anne's pr
ivacy. It wasn't a long letter, a mere note covering only one side of the page. But as she read, she became more and more perplexed and eager to know more.
"Darling,"the letter began. It was, as the woman had said, the only salutation.
After all these years, Anne, my dearest love, how can you just remove me from your life? I thought our love was too strong, too consuming, too everlasting. I wish I could find the words to express it. The fire of your passion and its memory even now has sustained me all these years. Our intimate time together is the only thing that makes my life palatable. How can I survive without you? Please, Anne, my darling, my all, reconsider.
Love everlasting
The letter was signed with the "happy face" graphic, but the smile was turned down.
Admittedly, she was stunned but did not let herself jump to any firm or rash conclusions. Just follow the silver dust, she commanded herself. The devil is in the details.
Despite her shaking fingers, she carefully refolded the letter and, blowing the envelope to widen its opening, she slipped it neatly back in place. Handling it carefully, perhaps as evidence for some future revelation, she set it aside and opened the next one.
Before reading it, she contemplated the words of the first letter she had read. "The fire of your passion." Frigid, was she? Really! Don't jump to conclusions, she warned herself. So far this was merely circumstantial, a transient idea remembered from an occasional foray into Court TV. Things are never as they appear.
With fastidious care, she removed the second letter, which covered the full four pages of the stationery. An errant thought crossed her mind and made her giggle. This was a miniseries.
Darling,
My mind can barely accept this. Terminal. You wrote terminal. I'm stunned. Have you considered all the alternatives? I suppose I should feel flattered that you wanted to stop seeing me, not because you no longer loved me but because you thought I might be turned off by your declining health. Never. Ever. I told you. I will love you forever and ever and ever. Do you realize, Anne, that it has been more than twenty-five years? A quarter of a century. It was wrong, Anne, wrong to deprive us of each other, wrong to steal only moments, instead of being with each other always. For what? Life with our spouses was never "real life." Never a passionate life, body and soul. Who have we hurt? No one but ourselves. I can't stand the idea of it, the stupidity of it, the waste of it. Anne, please, let's acknowledge it publicly before we part forever. We owe that to ourselves.
Love everlasting
That, too, was signed with a happy face, the smile turned downward.
Still reserving your judgment? Grace asked herself smugly. The letter writer was, obviously, Anne's longtime secret lover. So this is where she spent all her passion. Anne, you cagey bitch, she thought, you weren't frigid at all. You were just being faithful to your lover. How noble! How romantic! How could you be so two-faced?
The knowledge brought an odd sense of elation. The icon was off its pedestal. In a flash her elation turned to anger. At first toward Sam. You blind, deluded dupe, she railed at him silently, banished from his wife's embrace, sentenced to a lifetime of guilt by a faithless woman. Worse, his not knowing, not having a clue, worshipping at the shrine of her memory. Where was your vaunted insight, Sam?
Then, suddenly, her anger found it's real mark: Anne! Anne the virgin queen, Anne sitting on the golden throne of memory. What was she, after all? A liar, a cheat, a whoring cunt, forcing Sam to find sexual solace with prostitutes and inducing a monumental guilt trip on a lovely, wonderful, devoted, blameless man. "Ball-busting bitch," she hissed aloud. It was all Anne's ruthless ploy to maintain her status while she fucked her brains out with a secret stud. Sam was the cuckold, the injured party. She felt his humiliation, his forced entry into a secret world of lies and dissimulation that, she was certain, were foreign to his nature.
Surely Anne had known that he was finding gratification elsewhere. It hadn't fazed her. She was getting her fill. Dear, sweet, phony, coldhearted Anne. It was hateful of her. Poor, dear, trusting Sam, an innocent victim of this unfaithful woman, this fraud.
Venting her anger for a few moments more, Grace finally calmed somewhat and opened the last letter.
As always it began with "Darling."
Your last word, your farewell. How can I endure such a thought? I could have visited you at the hospital or now, at home. You could have given me at least that farewell in person, a parting embrace. I couldn't care less what Sam might think. What would it matter now? Nevertheless, my love, I will defer to your wishes. Farewell, my dear, sweet darling, my true love, my life. Farewell, my princess. I will terminate the PO box. Life will never be the same without you. Never! Never! There will never be another woman in my embrace. Never! In a real sense, my life, too, is over. Good-bye, my dearest love.
Inexplicably the letter was not signed. It was, of course, both heartfelt and pathetic, but Grace's anger and disgust strongly repressed any sympathy for the writer or Anne.
She sat in the car for a long time, mulling over this strange surfeit of unwanted information. She was convinced that Sam had no knowledge of her perfidy. She had gotten away with it for a quarter of a century.
She put the letters in her purse, started the car and headed toward the bridge. In her possession she had the hard evidence of Anne's unfaithfulness. The woman had deliberately maintained her pose of frigidity, had deprived Sam of his rights as a husband, had forced him into a life of infidelity, exposed him to danger, goaded him into secrecy and guilt, stunted their marriage. It was infuriating.
Her anger simmered at white heat. At that moment she felt no elation in the discovery, no sense of vindication, no joy in it, only despair. Her heart went out to Sam.
Worse, Anne had apparently saved the letters deliberately, as if it was necessary for her to preserve the evidence of her unfaithfulness, perhaps hoping that one day they would be found, as they were. It couldn't have been an oversight. No way. Perhaps there were other letters as well. Why, then, would she have set up a clandestine PO box? She would have to search through the clothes to be sure.
In her meanness, Grace speculated, Anne, Anne the wonderful, had reached beyond the grave to hurt her husband. Imagine! Twenty-five years of faithlessness. It was, she supposed, something of a record. She had taken her pleasure elsewhere. She had been faithful to her lover only, while depriving her husband of her wifely favors, forcing him to consort with strangers. Grace turned it over and over in her mind, like a perpetual drumbeat. How could she have been so callous and unfeeling toward Sam?
Whatever Anne's rationalization for her action, Grace continued to be furious over her subterfuge. How clever she had been to keep the secret! Think of the creativity required, while, all the time, enjoying the largesse of her husband's millions.
Then it occurred to her that perhaps Sam had known all along, had made his peace, had taken refuge in denial, had, as any good businessman might have done, considered the bottom line. Anne, after all, represented his entrance into the heady world of upper class social acceptance, where money could grease the skids and antecedents might be, however reluctantly, overlooked. No, she decided finally, Sam had simply been gullible. Her own relationship with him was proof positive.
She crossed the Royal Palm Bridge and rode north on Ocean Drive toward Sam's house. As her anger dissipated, she discovered that the evidence of Anne's infidelity had provided her with an extraordinary weapon. It had the power to destroy the myth of Anne's perfection and to expose her as a fraud.
Her satisfaction over such an idea was short-lived. How would Sam react to such a revelation? Would the destruction of Anne's image further her own cause? Or would it hurt? Grace, too, was culpable. She, too, had lied, dissimulated, falsified. Would her exposure of Anne's guilt make Sam resentful of Grace? Often, the bearer of bad news became associated with the news itself. Sam was deeply involved with the worship of his wife. His mind might not accept the truth of it, making Grace the villain. It was a dilemma.<
br />
She acknowledged that the temptation to expose Anne was tantalizing. She had it in her power to place doubt in Sam's mind and possibly destroy his image of dear old Anne, classy Anne, perfect Anne. Unfortunately, she also risked being caught in the crossfire.
She parked the car and saw Sam's smiling face in the open door, ready to receive her into his arms. Marilyn, bonded with her now, came out to greet her. No, she decided. This was not the time to reveal Anne's secret. Nothing must disturb the calibration of their current mood. Perhaps someday. But definitely not now.
She fell into his arms and folded herself into his embrace.
"I need you," he said.
"No less than I need you," she assured him.
They did not take their morning walk. Instead, arms around each other's waists, they walked up to the bedroom and made love. It was a mutual initiation, spontaneous, frenzied and immediate, the culmination coming swiftly, in tandem, as if they had been deprived for years.
"After I called I spent a night of agony," he said when they had cooled and lay comfortably in each other's embrace.
"Why?"
"Don't laugh, but I was jealous. I fantasized that you didn't want to talk because there was a man in your bed."
"Are you serious?" she asked, unable to suppress a giggle.
"I was at the time."
"There is room in my bed, Sam, but only room in my life for one man."
"You were abrupt. It made me insecure."
She decided on the absolute truth, wondering if it was possible to find her way back to square one, original truth.
"My daughter had picked up the phone. I haven't told her about you, Sam. Not yet."
"I guess I blew it, then," he sighed.
"You certainly piqued her curiosity."
"And did you tell her?"
"I sort of danced around it."
"How so?"
At that point she knew that absolute truth was impossible.
"I told her I had a very close friend."
"That's all?"
"What would you want me to tell her, Sam?"
It was, she knew, an opening to a discussion of their future. She waited with trepidation for his response.