Don't You Forget About Me: Pam of Babylon Book #2

by Suzanne Jenkins

  Marie found herself wondering if her sister was a virgin when she met Jack. Was he her first, too? She would ask her another time, when they weren’t expecting guests. When it was her turn, Marie remembered out loud how she and Jack raced each other on the beach in the evening. They would start at the walkway and run to the lifeguard chair. If there was a full moon, they would run back to the house. But on other times, when the night was dark, they would strip and swim nude, often copulating in the salt water. This she didn’t share with Pam. Marie remembered the sting of the water in her vagina. Or they would climb up into the guard chair, and she would fellate him right there. The first time she did it to him she spit his semen onto the sand and then rinsed her mouth with the seawater.

  Jack tried to force her to swallow it, hating her to hold it in her mouth until he was finished. “Don’t spit!” he would command, holding his hand over her mouth. “Swallow!”

  But she tried, and it made her gorge rise. They had a horrible fight about it. The next time, he tried to make her feel guilty.

  “If you loved me, you would swallow it while I’m coming. Can’t you do that for me?” He’d have this awful, fake, pious look on his face, Marie feeling his insincerity. He tried holding her head down over him, forcing her to swallow it and choking her in the process. When he let go of her head, she came up sputtering and coughing.

  In a rare moment of anger, Marie yelled at him, jumping down from the guard chair, threatening him with exposure if he ever did that to her again. “I’ll report you, you bastard!” she yelled, crying. She ran from him back to the house, but he caught her in time, dragging her to a shadowy cove to kiss her and calm her down before she went inside the house, with Pam probably waiting with questions and suspicion.

  “Does Pam swallow it?” Marie had asked him afterward, challenging him.

  He became furious with her, pushing her away from him. “My wife doesn’t do it, period! What the hell do you think she is?”

  Marie was completely confused after that conversation. As a teen spying on them having sex, she had seen him go down on Pam with her own eyes. It isn’t reciprocal? He’s lying. But she let it go. Now, all of these years later, Marie was dying to ask her sister if she’d performed oral sex on her husband. How would that start out the weekend? She made the decision to save it for another time.

  “What do you think he expected of you, not to get your feet sandy?” Marie asked. “Do you think he had you up on a pedestal?” Maybe she could get the answers she sought another, indirect way.

  Pam was thoughtful, looking out to the sea while they walked. “I am not sure what his problem was. There were things that were said and done, or not done, that have me question a lot of what I had believed our relationship to be.” Pam had tried to forget something that had occurred when they hadn’t been married very long, but it popped into her mind as she walked with her sister.

  One night, Jack seemed to forget who she was when they were making love. He went wild, banging into her and screaming with no words, tears running down his face. When he finally came, he fell on top of her and immediately went right to sleep. The next morning, when he woke up, he didn’t mention it or seem to remember it at all. There were other things about their sex life that may have been abnormal, but at the time, she was so inexperienced that she had nothing to compare it to. How would she know?

  There was so much that was good about it that she finally decided that what had happened between Marie and Sandra and whomever else he was sleeping with didn’t really impact her at all. She would accept it at face value. All of the betrayal was hearsay. She had never caught him with another woman or in a lie. There was no concrete evidence until she got the diagnosis of AIDS, and he could have acquired it before they were even married. He had said he loved her, and he showed her by giving her a life to be envied, and by making love to her. At the end of his life, he didn’t initiate it, but he never turned her down. The only thing she had left of Jack was their private time together, and she wasn’t sharing that with Marie.

  Chapter 40

  It is expected that Saturday morning traffic to Long Island on one of the last days of the summer will be horrendous. Smart Manhattanites avoid it; those with a house to go to brave it. Tom Adams seemed to have developed advanced road rage since their last trip to Babylon. In spite of being a police officer, or maybe because of it, Sandra thought. It had given her some insight into his personality. She was immediately sorry she wasn’t in the backseat. She spent most of the ride staring out of the left corner of her eyes to be prepared in case he did anything really stupid. Would she be able to protect the baby if a quick exodus was necessary? With her arms wrapped around her belly, she could jump from the car to save herself. Silly, she thought, you’re being silly. But her hand was on the door handle, just to be sure. When they finally pulled in front of Pam’s house three hours later, Sandra couldn’t get out of the car fast enough.

  “Hey, wait for me!” Tom yelled with a laugh. His behavior of a driver possessed seemed long forgotten. Perhaps he isn’t aware of the way he acted. She’d make excuses for him as long as she had to. Waiting by the door for him, she reached out for his hand. When Pam opened the door, it would be to these two attractive young people.

  “Hello!” Pam said with a big smile. She reached out for Sandra and embraced her. “I am so glad to see you. Thank you both for rescuing me the other day. Tom, I have to apologize to you for being dragged into my drama!”

  He shook his head. “It was no problem at all! I was happy to do it.” They walked into the entrance with the veranda ahead and the ocean beyond. “Oh boy, what a view.” Tom went right out the back door, leaving Sandra and Pam alone.

  “He knows about the HIV and is fine with it,” she said. “I’m not so sure I even know what’s happening. It’s all coming at me so quickly.”

  “You didn’t tell him about me?” Pam asked, concern written all over her face.

  “No.” Sandra said, but thought, He’ll figure it out because he knows we were both sleeping with Jack.

  “Let’s go walk out to the water,” Tom suggested.

  “We just came in from a walk. Go ahead,” Pam replied. “We’ll fix lunch.” Marie walked out of her bedroom just as the happy couple left for the water’s edge. Pam thought, What a happy group, considering the news we have just all gotten. How fake can you get?

  “I didn’t know he was coming,” Marie said, a frown on her face. “The last thing I want right now is a strange cop knowing all my business.” She thought, Sandra gets the hunky cop, while I get the aging homosexual. “Maybe if I keep this damn smile on my face long enough, it will become real.”

  “My thoughts exactly,” Pam said. “Hopefully, his presence will keep things light. I mean, Jeff is coming, too. How much of your business do you want him to know?” Pam asked, standing at the counter tossing a salad.

  “Only the facts. He doesn’t need to know much. I told him what he needs to have an honest friendship with me and nothing more. My fear is that someone will connect the dots. Why did she have to bring him?” Marie whined. “We should be alone today, not entertaining a room full of strangers.”

  Pam could see that Marie’s craziness was beginning to escalate, and to diffuse it, she went to her and put her arms around her sister as she used to when they were kids. “You’ll be fine. Just relax, okay? We don’t want to start anything today.” Pam patted her back and could hear Marie’s breathing slow down. “There you go.”

  Sandra chose that second to walk in. She had a smirk on her face and tried to make eye contact with Pam, but Pam diverted her eyes. She was not ganging up on her sister today to bond with anyone, let alone Sandra. Marie saw Sandra standing there alone. Tom must have stayed on the beach.

  “Group hug!” Marie commanded.

  Sandra laughed and walked over to join them.

  “We will have fun today. I am going to make it an act of my will. Fun!” Marie said. They moved apart, laughing.

  “So w
hat’s on the agenda?” Sandra asked.

  Marie wanted to say, Nothing, now that lover boy is here, but kept her mouth shut. They looked to Pam.

  “Simply relaxation. We can’t talk about anything deep because of Tom and Jeff. I definitely don’t want neighbors trying to put the puzzle together. It’s just too lurid.” Pam thought, This is my house, my life. Those two can do whatever they want in the city. But Babylon is my jurisdiction.

  “So what’s going on with Andy?” Sandra asked. “He seems like such a nice guy. He was very concerned when you were in the hospital.” Pam remembered her anger when she woke up with him standing over her sickbed. “I sort of hoped he would be here tonight.”

  “I had to ask him to give me some space. I want to grieve my husband’s death in peace,” Pam said, with the thought in mind, That’s right, ladies, he was my husband.

  “You deserve to be happy, Pam. He seemed like such a nice, considerate guy,” Marie said. “I hope you’ll be able to let him in someday.”

  “Well, if it’s meant to be, he’ll be around when I’m ready. But for now, I have too much to process, and I don’t want my thinking to be cluttered up with worrying about another human being. I still have my kids to think of. Try to remember that if you think I’m being dramatic.” Assertiveness was not new to Pam, but doing so at the expense of someone else’s happiness was not easy for her. She was fighting guilt and trying to explain her reasoning for ditching Andy Andrews at the same time.

  “I don’t think you’re being dramatic at all,” Marie said. “You probably know what’s best for yourself. Hey, did I tell you about my new stalker at work?” They got their drinks and went out to the veranda as Marie told them about Steve Marks. Tom was back and listening.

  “He sounds like a troublemaker. If you have any issues with him again, call me.” Tom pulled out a business card. Marie thanked him and said she would definitely take him up on it.

  “I always said everyone needs a dentist, a lawyer, and a cop in the family, and now we do!” Pam said.

  They sat down, all facing toward the water. It was a great beach day, prime spaces occupied by chairs and towels, the whistle of the lifeguard warning bathers not to go too far out clearly heard over the call of the seagulls. The surf was wild, crashing waves on the shore, an indication of a storm out to sea. The sun was bright, but it was slightly cooler than usual because of the wind. Pam shivered, and seeing it, Marie got up to go to Jack’s office to get a shawl for her. Once again, Pam was reminded of the approaching fall and her thoughts about moving to the city.

  “So may I tell you about my plan?” Pam asked Sandra.

  Marie came in and put the shawl around her sister’s shoulders.

  “Okay,” Sandra said. “Go ahead.”

  “I’m thinking about moving into the mansion for the winter. Bernice is defaulting on the loan, so I can let her stay there to live while I pay the taxes and the upkeep and call it a loss, or move in there myself.”

  Sandra didn’t say anything. Pam in the city? What’s bringing this on?

  “Would you be able to leave this house?” Marie asked. “You love it so much. I don’t remember you liking the mansion, either.” She took a big drink of her wine, noticing Sandra glaring at her. She willed her to say something about AIDS and drinking, but Sandra was wisely keeping her mouth shut.

  “I think I might like being in the city when the bad weather comes. I can always come back here anytime. It would just be for the winter. Somehow I have to decide what to do about that house. Mother would probably love it, too.” Pam didn’t think her mother would handle an oceanfront winter. “I can’t see my mother liking the nor’easters we get.”

  “Mother. I keep forgetting about her,” Marie said.

  Sandra thought about Jack’s apartment but decided not to bring it up. And then, surprisingly, because it was so unlike her to bring up personal stuff in front of a stranger, Pam asked Sandra about the business.

  “I thought I would have gotten the quarterly statement by now.” She looked directly at Sandra. “With the expenses now for all of these Manhattan properties, I would like to make sure Peter isn’t driving the business into the ground.” She made light of it, her pleasant laugh making everyone smile, but Sandra knew that she was serious.

  “I’ll look into it on Monday. To tell you the truth, I don’t think I saw one, either. Peter Romney has never said a word to me until yesterday, when I told him he was being a dick,” Sandra confessed. Everyone started laughing, although only Pam knew how true the name fit Peter.

  “How appalling! I was giving him the file you so graciously brought downtown for me. Thank you, Marie,” Sandra said.

  “How long are you going to work?” Marie asked her. “I mean, you hear that women stay at work until their due dates, but isn’t that pushing it?” She realized how uninformed she was. How could I have lived a woman’s life, helped my sisters through their pregnancies, and not know?

  Sandra didn’t seem fazed by it. “I’ll work as long as I can. Something in my health insurance policy says I have to work until the doctor says I can’t any longer. So they have all the control. I may be canceled once they find out the horrible truth. Anyway, I would like to tell you all about my lovely experience as a kidnap victim of Bill Smith yesterday.”

  Marie gasped, disbelieving that Sandra could be relating something so awful so calmly.

  The sun slowly moved over the house, and one by one, the sunbathers packed up their towels and left the beach, and the day-trippers went back to their homes west as Sandra related the scary details of her encounter with a madman. She left out the story of Jack and Bill being lovers. That would be a tale that she would tell when she was alone with Pam. She understood how something like that could happen—the father forcing it and then the two brothers finding solace in each other. But she had to admit to herself that something of what she felt for Jack shifted when Bill repeated the story. It could have been a lie for all she knew, but something told her it was the truth. Another layer of the man Jack had been was exposed.

  She caught herself staring at Tom, wondering if his childhood had anything tainted in it, anything that could compare to the depravity of the Smith family. She hoped not. What happened in secret would always be revealed. People thought that their sexual sins didn’t harm them as long as they weren’t exposed. But look at what had happened to Jack. The fruit of his father’s sin had grown until they couldn’t fathom its boundaries. More and more would be exposed over time.

  Sandra thought of Bill and Anne. Did Jack infect Bill? How did Jack manage to die in a big city emergency room without his HIV status being revealed? She wanted to dig deeper into it, but wondered at the wisdom of it. Would it generate scandal? She imagined the children being hurt. She didn’t want her child to have that stigma. He may have his own health issues to battle. And what about Anne? If Bill had it, she most likely did as well.

  Tom excused himself and left the veranda to go make a call. Sandra grasped the opportunity to talk to Pam alone. “We have to talk about something Bill said about Jack, but I don’t want to do it with Tom here, okay? May I call you later, when I’m alone?”

  Pam nodded. Then they heard a call from the beach, out of sight because of the dunes. It was Jeff.

  “Oh, shit,” Marie said. Sandra looked at her questioningly, but Marie ignored it.

  “Hello, my favorite diners! I’m here to rescue you from starvation!” Jeff was loaded down with boxes; Tom was helping him by carrying what appeared to be a huge chafing dish. Jeff was behaving in a most flamboyant manner, too, completely infuriating her.

  Why’d he wait until now to reveal this side of himself? Even though it was over, she discovered that she was more than a little disappointed. He had lied to her. Her heart had started to reach out to him, and now there was nothing there for her. She was longing for intimacy. She wanted to lie next to a naked man again, have him lust after her body, react to her sexuality by getting an erection and saying he wanted her.
And she remembered that even before she knew Jeff was gay, there was zero chemistry between them. He didn’t appeal to her. But someone did, someone who was interested in her, who had frightened her with his willingness to lose his job, or at least put it in jeopardy in his pursuit of her. She would think about him for the rest of the evening.

  Chapter 41

  Dinner was nice, the food very good and the company interesting. Jeff refused all offers of help cleaning up. By ten, Pam had had it. She didn’t even put up a fuss when Marie announced she was leaving, too. She had too much to do in the city to stay; she would be right behind Tom and Sandra. Jeff lingered until Pam told him she was exhausted and asked him if he would excuse her if she went to bed.

  “Heavens no! You go. I’m going to clean up here and will let myself out. Is that okay with you? I’m driving up to Rhinebeck in the morning and like to have all loose ends tied up when I go.”

  They hugged, and she retreated to her bedroom, not caring that she was leaving a relative stranger in her house while she slept. Just able to get her makeup off and her pjs on, she fell into bed and was fast asleep by ten thirty.

  Marie drove like a maniac and was back in the city, in her own neighborhood, before eleven. She left her car on the street and went into the same bar where she’d seen Steve Marks the day before, threatening him with the police if he bothered her again. He was sitting at the bar. Not seeing her until she was seated in the back again, at the same table where she drank her wine, it took a few seconds for him to recognize her. She had on a halter top and shorts, her body lean and fit for a woman her age. She had no makeup on, and you could tell she had been out in the sun; there was the slightest red on her cheeks, and white shown where her sunglasses had rested on her face. He slid off his bar stool and made his way to her, smiling as he approached her table. Marie slid farther over in the booth, making room for him to slide in next to her so they could be seated together, both looking out.