Her white aisle began to curve, and the rooftop started to spin slowly. As it turned to the left, Jane stepped with great determination to the right, trying to keep her course in a world that was suddenly disorienting. She looked out at the New York skyline and found it tipped precariously. She looked at the neat rows of guests and saw them disappearing into the edge of the pool. Jane tried to steady herself. But it was impossible. To the strains of Pachelbel’s Canon, the rooftop garden circled in one direction while the New York skyline rotated in the other. She knew she was in trouble and tried to find a friendly face in the congregation. All the faces were turned toward her with broad grins and wide eyes, like circus clowns or television puppets. They were all looking and laughing, wild with delight, while she was spinning, trying to reach out for help.
Jane tried to focus on the Gothic arch where she knew Bill was standing. But the arch had collapsed, and the three men—Bill, his son, and the judge—were elongated cartoons, their legs bent at the knees and then stretching out to the left to connect wildly distorted bodies. All three of them were smiling insanely.
Then she was pirouetting, spinning to her right on one foot, the other held delicately in the air. It was a triumph. She was dancing weightlessly while all her guests were grinning with delight. From the corner of her eye, she could see the skyline, rotating to the right like the figures on a carousel, moving faster and faster. And then the carousel stood on its end so that the buildings were rotating up and down like the cars on a Ferris wheel. Jane felt herself falling, her weight off her feet, her body tumbling weightlessly into the vortex of the spinning buildings. She landed with a jar that shook the air out of her body. And then the entire celebration turned to midnight black. For a moment she could hear the strains of the strings and the gentle murmur of her guests. But an instant later everything went absolutely silent.
26
He was standing over her in the white tie formal he had been wearing. “Are you awake?”
Jane squinted, unable to believe what she was seeing. “No. I’m still asleep and dreaming.”
“How are you feeling?”
Feeling? Was she sick? She looked around her bedroom and saw her wedding dress draped over the back of a chair. Her shoes were neatly paired beneath it. She should be wearing them. She was about to be married. Jane sat up abruptly. Too abruptly, because the background headache she was feeling was suddenly in the forefront. “What happened?” she asked.
“You fainted,” Bill said. “Just as you were starting down the aisle.” He leaned forward and kissed her cheek, then said with mock displeasure, “I’ve taken quite a ribbing about your drinking yourself unconscious to get out of marrying me.”
“Drinking?” Jane was mystified. “All I had was a little champagne, and that was … when was it… this morning?” She looked at the clock. “Oh my God …”
“Don’t worry,” he told her. “The guests have left for the evening. Most of them will be back tomorrow if you still want to get married.”
She lowered herself back down in the bed. “Bill, something knocked me out cold.”
He agreed with her and supplied her with any number of plausible excuses. The wedding preparations had been too rushed. She was trying to do too much, taking over his household while traveling to her job in Connecticut. His absence in the morning had put her under a great strain. Anyone might have fainted.
“Bill, it wasn’t the tension and it wasn’t the champagne. It was a drug, like the injection you get from a dentist. You start counting backwards and the next thing you know, you’re waking up.”
“We’ll screen our guests tomorrow to make sure there aren’t any dentists,” he said with a laugh, then kissed her cheek again.
“Tomorrow?” She was suddenly shocked by the idea. “Will I be okay by tomorrow?”
“Well, maybe a slight hangover, but the doctor says you’re in great shape.”
“The doctor?” She had no recollection of any doctor.
“I couldn’t just leave you there, lying in the aisle. We brought you downstairs and called the doctor. His expert opinion was that we should let you sleep it off.”
Jane thought of what the moment must have been like. Her collapsing in the aisle, the turmoil among the guests, the men carrying her down the stairs. Her first opportunity to shine as William Andrews’s new hostess and she had turned it into a fiasco. And then the doctor’s verdict, that she was drunk! At that moment she would have welcomed a diagnosis of stroke or brain disease.
“Bill, I’m so sorry,” she said. But she knew she hadn’t been drunk. Yes, she had taken a few flutes of champagne. It may have been on her breath to provide a ready diagnosis. But wine couldn’t have hit her like that. She had been fine until she drank the cup of coffee just before going up to the ceremony.
She sat bolt upright. “The coffee. There must have been something in the coffee.”
“Don’t worry about it.” He tried to ease her back down onto the pillow.
She looked around quickly. “Where’s the cup? There was some left in the cup.”
“I don’t see any cup,” Bill answered. “It’s probably in the dishwasher or on the caterer’s truck. But it doesn’t matter. The important thing is that you’re all right.”
She started out of the bed. “It matters to me.” His hand restrained her. “Bill, I wasn’t drunk and I’m not hungover. Mrs. McCarty told he that she had been distracted when she was bringing up the coffee. She had to handle other things. She probably put the cup down.”
“And you think someone put something into it. Jane, that would be a terribly sick joke.”
“It isn’t a joke. Someone doesn’t want us married. Someone rigged that damn dance floor to close over my head, and someone put something into my coffee. Don’t you see …”
He was losing patience. He had been terribly frightened when his bride collapsed in front of his eyes, then mortally embarrassed by the verdict that she had fallen into a drunken stupor. Now she was raving about plots to prevent their marriage. “Jane, I want you to get a good night’s sleep. Put all this aside and we’ll talk about it in the morning.” He stood up abruptly and left her room.
Jane was the first one down in the morning, and she sat in the breakfast room even as the sunrise was beginning to paint color onto the skyline. Mrs. McCarty brought her coffee and then sat across from her. “How are you feeling, dear? You have to take better care of yourself.” She was truly concerned.
“You remember the coffee you brought up to me yesterday, just before the … ceremony began?” She couldn’t say “wedding.” There had been no wedding.
The housekeeper nodded. “Yes, of course.”
“You said you were delayed. Did you ever put the cup down on a table or something?”
“On the piano bar,” she answered. “One of the women needed a safety pin. And also on the library table. His Honor forgot to bring a Bible. That’s what took me so long. If I didn’t know you were waiting, I’d have gone back to the kitchen for a hot cup.”
Jane allowed herself a moment of satisfaction. The drink she had taken only minutes before her collapse had been available to anyone in the apartment. To Cassie and Craig, who had probably put the burr under her saddle. To the imperious Ann Packard, who was holding on to control of Bill’s affairs with all her might. To the executives who wanted William Andrews’s talents all to themselves. To Kim Annuzio, who might have both professional and romantic designs on Bill. To Robert Leavitt, who probably resented her delving into the mysteries surrounding Kay Parker’s death. There were lots of suspects who would hate to see her have any more control over the man who sustained them all.
Bill sat across from her. “You look great,” he began.
“I feel fine.”
“Fine enough for a wedding? Because if you’re not, I can have the guests called. We can put this off to a future date.”
Jane thought of all the people who might want to keep her and Bill apart. “I think I’m up to it,”
she said with an enthusiastic smile.
“We’ll keep it short and simple, in the living room, and with whatever food the caterer can come up with on short notice.”
“I’ll have to wear the same dress,” she said.
“No one will notice,” Andrews answered. “They only saw it for a second.”
27
The flowered arch had been moved in front of the window, with the New York skyline as a backdrop. All the flowers that had decorated the alternate site for the wedding were still in place, still in full bloom under the soft afternoon lighting. There were a dozen guests, all people who had been on his side of the aisle. The judge was waiting.
Cassie went up the stairs in her bridesmaid dress, this time with her hair perfectly styled. “I’m supposed to walk down ahead of you, whenever you’re ready,” she announced. Good, Jane thought. That way I can keep an eye on you.
Cassie turned and posed at the top step. Below, the piano began pounding out the strains of the “Wedding March.” Cassie started down, one careful step at a time. Jane waited until she was halfway down and then, for the second time in two days, began her walk down the aisle.
Bob Leavitt and Craig were waiting with Bill near the arch. Cassie took a position to the other side of the judge and looked back at Jane. Her expression was one of complete joy. Jane had to give her credit. The kid could really act.
Bill stepped forward and took her arm, then led her forward until they were standing in front of the judge, who was wearing a dark business suit with a light tie.
“Dearly beloved, children, relatives, and friends,” His Honor began. Jane listened to the traditional wording as if she were a guest at someone else’s wedding. She didn’t focus on the true meaning of the ceremony until Bill, asked if he would love, honor, and protect her, said that he would. And then it was her turn. She listened carefully to the promises being asked of her and thought that she really should ask for time to consider. Instead, she heard herself say, “I do.” Then Bill was kissing her, the judge was shaking her hand and pecking at her cheek, and the small gathering of guests was applauding happily.
“Mrs. Andrews,” Bill said as he turned her and led her toward the dining room. He seated her at the center of a table set for a light supper and took the place next to her. The caterer, who had bounced back from yesterday’s disaster, poured champagne, and Robert Leavitt rose with a toast that hoped for their long life, continuing love, and, who knows, maybe even another son and heir. Hens were served in cognac sauce.
“Are you happy?” Bill asked, leaning toward her.
“Happy and amazed,” Jane answered. “How did you do this so quickly?”
The conversation over dinner was spirited, with tales of her husband’s foibles dominating. Jane learned that he had bathed in the Fountain of Trevi, fallen down the side of a pyramid at Luxor, and insulted the archbishop of Canterbury by calling him “Your Holiness.” He had testified before the wrong committee of Congress, met with the president with his fly open, and congratulated the governor of New York for the economic miracle of New Jersey. Bill laughed harder than anyone, seeming most human when he was down off his pedestal. But Jane noticed that not one of the many stories concerned his travels with Kay, or even came from the years when she was alive. Even in the most lighthearted moments, Kay was off-limits.
She looked around at the happy faces, wondering which one of them might be furious that the marriage had taken place. The corporate guests—Robert Leavitt, Kim Annuzio, Gordon Frier, Henry Davis, and John Applebaum—were completely involved in roasting their chief executive and seemed to be enjoying every moment of it. The children were angelic. She couldn’t help wondering which one of them had spiked her coffee. They were all pictures of innocence. She began to doubt her earlier certainty. Maybe it was the stress of the previous weeks, mingled with a bit of wine. Perhaps the sinister plot to keep her and Bill apart really was all in her mind.
They adjourned to the piano bar, and the judge formally signed the marriage license. “You’re legal,” he told William Andrews. “In fact, this may be the only legal thing you’ve ever done.” Bill served as bartender, pouring round after round to the off-key singers. Network executives took off their jackets and loosened their ties. Henry Davis, the financial vice president, began to doze in one of the soft chairs. Kim Annuzio kicked off her shoes and gyrated to a rock beat.
Jane was delighted as character after character stepped out of his corporate role and became recklessly human. The automatons surrounding William Andrews seemed to be human after all, which made Bill less of a mysterious icon. Even Cassie and Craig, on the sidelines of the party, looked like normal young adults. “This is going to work,” Jane told herself, delighted that the marriage she had just entered might even turn out to be joyous. She laughed out loud when Bill pulled her out into the center of the room to join Kim in her spastic dance steps. She was still dancing when the skyline behind the picture window turned red with the sunset.
“It’s time to go,” Bill suddenly announced.
“Go where? Isn’t this where we live?”
“On our honeymoon. I hope your bags are still packed.”
“Now?”
“Isn’t this when you usually have a honeymoon? After the wedding?”
The party moved to the foyer, where John Applebaum, head of the publishing division, loaded their duffel bags onto the elevator. Then Jane and William Andrews were pushed in by their waving guests. Someone even managed to throw a handful of rice before the elevator doors closed. A limo whisked them to the heliport, where the helicopter was waiting for the short flight to the Westchester County airport.
The pilot pushed their bags into the small luggage space. Then he helped them climb into the cabin. They found a bottle of champagne chilling in a bucket of ice. William poured while the pilot climbed aboard and started the turbine engines. Jane left the wine in her glass.
“This is a different chopper,” Andrews noticed for the pilot.
The man nodded. “Yes, sir. We sucked in some debris yesterday when we landed at that mountain house. So we’ve got it in the shop, checking out the engine. Just a precaution.” The whine grew into a howl, and the helicopter lifted off.
Mountain house? Jane remembered Bill saying that he had flown out to the house in New Jersey, which was in rolling horse country, definitely not on a mountain. There was only one house that fit with his claim of winding up a private legal matter. That was the ski chalet upstate that was built on the top of a mountain, accessible by only one road. The house where Kay Parker had been murdered.
Andrews raised his glass in a toast. “Here’s to one whole week without a single interruption.” She clicked her glass against his but sipped very slowly, now concerned about thinking clearly. What had she just learned?
That her husband, on the day of their wedding, had gone to the site where his first marriage had ended in a blast of gunfire. Why? Was he selling the place to put an end to the past? Did he want to be sure that Kay, and the agony of her death, would never intrude on his new marriage? That was a comforting thought. Or had he gone back to a shrine? Maybe to tell his first wife that no matter what, he would always love her? Or perhaps to ask her permission to get on with his new life? That was something Jane didn’t want to consider.
The momentary elation of the wedding party vanished. The image of her husband, happily entertaining his friends, faded. His romantic rush to have her to himself seemed fabricated. Once again, William Andrews became the secretive, ghost-ridden figure she had come to fear.
Was she making too much of it? Maybe he was simply authorizing necessary maintenance on the house or meeting with an architect about renovations. Or perhaps some legal matter concerning the property had to be settled in a local court. There were countless possible explanations that had nothing to do with his first marriage.
But one thing was certain. He had lied to her. Whatever he was hiding was more important than an honest beginning with his new wife. She re
alized that she couldn’t trust him, that he saw her as a danger to the secrets he was protecting and would never let her share the truth of his past. And now she was going to be alone with him in a sailboat far offshore, out of touch with the rest of the world. Jane set down the champagne glass and turned her face to the window.
28
They were in Tortola aboard a forty-foot sloop, rocking easily on the ebbing tide. Jane was grilling fresh snapper over a hibachi that projected out over the lifeline. Bill was up and down from the cabin, setting a table that fit across the cockpit and bringing up the wine they would have with dinner. He blinked into the light of the sun that was setting over St. John.
The jet from Westchester had taken over four hours to St. Thomas. Another hour was needed for the transfer to a small floatplane that flew over the sugary white beaches of St. John and put down in Soper’s Hole at Tortola’s western end. And then came the launch ride out to their charter, a new boat with clean lines that tugged gently on its mooring.
She had napped while Bill received their provisions from a tender. He had stocked steaks, fish, and lobster in the ice chest and had filled the cupboards with fresh island vegetables. Beer and soda had gone into the ice with the meat, and the rum and gin were put into a liquor cabinet that was designed to keep them safe no matter what the weather. She had come back up in a bathing suit and followed him around the deck as he checked out the rigging, the sail locker, the anchor, and the mooring lines. She went over the side for a quick swim around the boat while he tested the batteries and electrical circuits and measured the fuel and water. It was midafternoon when he appeared on deck in his shorts and dove over the side to join her.
They swam together, embraced at every opportunity, and kissed passionately at the foot of the ladder. Then they climbed aboard, showered together in the head forward of the master cabin, and fell still damp into the queen-size bunk. They made love slowly, drawing out each touch, each sense of intimate pleasure, for as long as they could. They climaxed together in a steely embrace that nearly crushed her. When he fell away, Jane smiled broadly. There had been nothing aloof about his lovemaking. In her arms, he was all that she had ever hoped for.
The First Wife Page 21