The First Wife

by Diana Diamond

  She dressed in shorts and a T-shirt, dug into the ice chest, and found a snapper cleaned, skinned, and perfectly boned. She sliced up a squash and cut a potato into small chunks. She mixed fruit juice into a marinade and poured it over the fish. Clad only in shorts, Bill staggered from the forward cabin, paused to slip his hands under her T-shirt and kiss her neck, and went topside to start the grill.

  Now they sat over the dinner, nibbling at the edges. He moaned with exaggerated pleasure. “Delicious!” he pronounced.

  Jane laughed. “You weren’t that loud in bed. It is true! Men would rather eat than get laid.”

  “Not true,” he protested. “We’re equally interested in food and sex.”

  They finished dinner and were sipping their wine, watching the sunset turn the water crimson, when a telephone buzzed in the cabin below. Jane turned a suspicious eye toward her husband, who was making a point of ignoring the phone.

  “What’s that?” she asked.

  “A satellite phone. It comes with the yacht.” He still made no move to answer it.

  “There’s a telephone on board. You promised we’d be incommunicado.”

  “It’s hurricane season. We need to have communications.”

  “How do you suppose someone found out the number?”

  He shrugged. “Beats me. Do you want me to answer it, to see who it is?”

  “If you touch that phone, I’ll throw it overboard just like I did your cell phone on our first date.”

  William smiled at the recollection. “You know something? That was the moment when I knew I loved you. When you plucked the phone out of my hand and threw it out the window, I thought, ‘Now, that’s a woman.’”

  She laughed. “I don’t know what got into me. There I was, with the most important man on the planet, throwing away his link with his empire. It’s a wonder you didn’t throw me after it.”

  “It’s getting late,” he said with a forced yawn. “Time for bed.”

  “What about the dishes?”

  “The seagulls will take care of them.”

  Jane lay awake well into the night, her new husband sleeping easily with one arm thrown across her. It was just the two of them, she realized. Andrews Global Network was on another planet, light-years away. Cassie and Craig’s torments couldn’t reach them. It was just she and a man who seemed to love her madly. She couldn’t remember ever feeling so content. She still didn’t understand why he loved her, but maybe all newlyweds were conscious of their incredible luck. Nor did she know what secrets he was hiding. But didn’t it take years for married couples to reveal themselves fully to each other? She couldn’t understand his past any more than she could predict their future. But what she did understand was the moment. She seemed to be as happy as any human being was ever likely to be.

  She awoke to the sound of lines running through blocks, and the snap of a sail as it first found the breeze. There was golden light easing through the portholes, and it moved up the bulkhead as the boat gently heeled. Jane kicked out of bed, retrieved the panties and T-shirt her husband had dropped beside the bunk, and climbed up until she could see into the cockpit.

  “Are we moving?”

  “Under way,” he corrected. “Take a look.”

  She went to the top step. They were moving easily, splitting the channel between two small islands of thick green foliage, headed straight toward St. John, a huge mountain that rose abruptly out of the sea. The sails were ballooned out over the side in an easy reach.

  “I’ll make some coffee,” she suggested.

  “Better hurry. It’s going to get choppy in a few minutes and you won’t want to be down below.”

  He was right. Just as she poured two steaming mugs, the boat heeled steeply. She saw white water rushing past the porthole. “What happened?” she asked once she had climbed cautiously back to the cockpit.

  “We’re into the wind,” he answered. They had turned into the teeth of the prevailing southeasterly. The sails were pulled taught. “We’ll be tacking into the breeze for the next hour or so, until we’re well out in the channel. I’m going to need your help.” He gave her a brief explanation of how they would move the jib from one side of the boat to the other each time they changed heading. Then he had her practice with the winch so she got used to the force she would be working with. They were nearly on the beach at St. John when he threw the wheel over. She cast off one sheet and began cranking in on the other. She felt the boat die as it came across the wind, then leap back to life when she took in the other sheet. “Whoa!” she cried out in delight.

  “Nicely done, matey.” They charged away from St. John on a northeasterly heading toward the Tortola coast.

  For the next two hours they beat a course to the east, back and forth across the wind. They were working as a team, William steering ever closer to the wind and trimming the mainsail while Jane dashed from side to side to tend the jib. Their mugs of coffee, now cold, sat untouched in the cup holders.

  “Ready about,” he called for the dozenth time.

  “Aye, aye, Captain,” she teased.

  “Hard alee,” and he spun the wheel. She tossed one sheet off its winch and carried the winch handle to the other side, where she pulled the line tight and began cranking. The sail that had gone limp filled and tightened until she could barely pull in more line.

  “Bend your back to it,” he ordered. And then they both burst out laughing. The boat heeled over and steadied on its new heading. The coast of St. John fell away to the south, and they were out into the more open waters of the Drake Channel.

  “Next tack, we’ll stay with a southerly course,” he decided. “It will be more relaxing.”

  “No way,” she answered, “this is too much fun. I feel like I’m really pulling my weight.”

  “And I feel that I’ve finally found a partner.”

  He couldn’t have pleased her more. Not found “a new partner” or “another partner,” but he seemed to mean the partner he had always been looking for. Was he saying that the fabulous Kay Parker had never filled the role? That would be hoping for too much. But she felt sure that, at least for the moment, he had forgotten about Kay. She was the one who was trimming his sails.

  They came about, and settled on a bow reach toward Norman Island, famous for the secure anchorage inside its bight, and the watery caves on its western shore. Jane went below and made crab-salad sandwiches. She brought them up with fresh cups of hot coffee. They were locked onto the breeze, heeling slightly, and making good speed through the water. She slid in next to him, behind the helm, and fed him from her plate so that he could keep his hands on the wheel. A small island passed by to port as they drew near the entrance to Norman Island’s harbor.

  Half an hour later they were riding at anchor between two other sailboats that were on cruising vacations. Bill lowered the inflatable dinghy and tested its small outboard. They climbed aboard and headed into shore, where they stretched out on a patch of sunbaked sand.

  Was this the time? Was this her chance to get answers to all the questions about Kay Parker that were swirling in her mind? And maybe get a sensible explanation of the payments he was making to the woman in Paris. She had given him any number of opportunities to volunteer the information, but he had always retreated. At times it seemed as if he were determined to hide the truth not just from her but even from himself.

  Jane rolled onto her stomach and propped up on her elbows so that she was nearly face-to-face with him. “Bill,” she said. He opened his eyes, saw her, and smiled. “Tell me about your first wife.”

  There was no reaction. He simply let his eyes close sleepily. “I’d rather talk about my new wife,” he said pleasantly.

  “I should know something about her,” Jane persisted.

  “Why?” he responded, a smile beginning to play on his lips. “Do you think I’m still in love with her?”

  “I think she’s the most important person in your life. I don’t think I’ll ever really know you until I unders
tand what she was like.”

  His eyes opened and his expression turned serious. “You must have researched her when you were looking into me,” he answered. “God knows, she generated enough press coverage.”

  Jane thought of the clippings that he had seen next to her computer. He was telling her that he knew she had been digging into his past. “That’s all about her public life, not her private life,” she countered. “I guess I want to know more about what she meant to you. About the two of you together. Like, how did you meet? Was it love at first sight?”

  Bill raised up on an elbow. “We met at a fund-raiser,” he said. “We were introduced by a director of the Metropolitan Museum.”

  “And?”

  “And what? We bumped into each other at different events. I escorted her to a few charity balls, and the newspapers started referring to us as an item. So … we became an item.”

  “You fell in love,” Jane suggested.

  He weighed the question. “Yes, we did. But not ‘love’ in the way you mean. More like a recognition that we were right for each other. I think that Kay and I were more in love with ourselves. We probably saw each other as fitting additions to our already glittering lives.”

  Jane was shocked. “That sounds too calculating. Like a marriage to form an alliance between countries.”

  Bill corrected her. “That’s the way I see it now, looking back from a distance. At the time, it didn’t seem calculating. Society said we were in love, and I suppose we thought it must be true. We were both ambitious, public people. How would we have known anything about love?”

  “Did she move in with you?”

  He burst out laughing. “Kay wasn’t the type to move in with anyone.”

  “Oh,” Jane said with mock indignation. “Not a tramp like me who would climb into any old bed!”

  “No, not a woman who would risk giving anyone even a momentary advantage over her. She was always guarded, unfailingly discreet.”

  “And you liked that?” she wondered.

  “I admired it. Kay kept to her priorities. She knew what it took to be the belle of the ball.”

  Jane felt chastised. Not that she was particularly interested in being admired, but that her shortcomings next to the first Mrs. Andrews were so obvious. She rolled away, onto her back. Maybe the things he could tell her about his first wife would be too humbling for her. Was that why he didn’t talk about her more freely? And who knows how badly she might fail in comparison with Selina Royce? Perhaps that was a question better not asked.

  Back on the boat, he cooked dinner on the grill while she set the table and struggled with the wine cork. They ate ravenously, stimulated by the sea air. When darkness fell, he stripped off her clothes and threw her over the side. Then he jumped in naked after her, found her by the ladder, and made love to her while they bobbed up to their chins.

  “I’ve never done that before,” Jane breathed with delight.

  “Me neither,” he claimed. “It just seemed like a good idea.”

  She was on deck the next morning when they pulled the anchor and raised the sails. They ghosted out of the bight, turned the corner at Treasure Point, and found an anchorage off the caves. They boarded the inflatable dinghy, raised the motor, and paddled through the first opening into a series of underground ponds that were connected by shallow streams. In the light carried into the caves by the crystal-clear water, they saw crabs and lobsters clinging to rocks and watching them cautiously. Schools of tiny fish scattered each time they dipped an oar. Jane shivered when a snake slithered down from a ledge and slid into the water, and then laughed at the comedy of two snails racing across a water-polished stone.

  When they finally paddled out and hauled themselves aboard their boat, she cooked a breakfast of bacon and eggs, which William assured her was the best he had ever tasted.

  “Are you trying to charm your way back into my bed?” she challenged.

  “The thought never crossed my mind.”

  “It didn’t? Some honeymoon this is going to be!”

  They dove over the side, frolicked around the boat, and then came back aboard to take the sun. Jane stretched out on the cabin roof, her head near the hatch and her feet under the boom. William was on the deck next to her. She was just about asleep when he announced that he was going down for a beer. “Want one?” he offered.

  She shook her head sleepily and let the warmth lull her back to her dreams.

  She heard the phone ring, really nothing more than a short, soft beep. Was it the phone? Or just one of the navigation instruments announcing that it was still on the job? Then she heard her husband’s voice, a muffled whisper behind a cupped hand. He had been next to the phone when it sounded and had picked it up instantly.

  “Yeah … it’s okay … what’s up?”

  So he had given someone the number. Probably Robert Leavitt, and obviously with instructions to call only if it was absolutely necessary. Otherwise, the damn phone would have been ringing constantly.

  “Who?” A pause. “Why would Taylor care?”

  Taylor? Roscoe Taylor? Was that who they were talking about?

  “I’m sure you’re right,” her husband whispered. “But why?” He was quiet for several seconds and then said, “No, I don’t think she put him up to it.” Another long pause, then, “She has no trouble asking her own questions.”

  She? Is he talking about me? What had she put Roscoe Taylor up to? Had Leavitt learned that he was looking into the brief career of Selina Royce, the woman he pretended never to have met? She suddenly felt chilly, as if a breeze had come up.

  “Okay, tell him about the spot we’re opening for an editorial director of the whole chain. He probably already knows that there’s no great demand for old newspapermen.” He listened, then concluded with “No, whatever you decide. Don’t call me, I’ll be home on Sunday.” She heard no click. He must have eased the phone back into its cradle.

  She kept her eyes closed when he came back up.

  “Are you asleep?” he asked.

  She groaned. “Almost.”

  “I’m sorry about that. I left orders that I wasn’t to be called.”

  “Was that the telephone?” she asked, her eyes still closed as if she were too intoxicated by the sun to care.

  “I grabbed it quickly so it wouldn’t disturb you. And I got rid of him quickly.”

  “Who?” Jane asked conversationally. She didn’t want it to sound like an interrogation.

  He drank from the beer bottle. “Bob Leavitt. I asked him not to call back again. Anything he has can wait until Sunday.”

  Again, she was careful not to sound too interested. “What did he want?”

  “Well, actually it was something you’ll be happy to hear. We’re promoting your friend Roscoe Taylor to editorial director for all the papers in the chain. It means more prestige and more money for him, and we think a better editorial product for the company.”

  She smiled, still keeping her eyes closed. “That’s wonderful. I hope he won’t think that the boss’s wife had anything to do with it, because he’s a great journalist. We need more like him.”

  He drank again. “Better get in out of the sun,” he said. “You’re starting to turn pink.”

  She showered in the forward head, wincing at the cold water and then slowly coming to enjoy it. But she couldn’t shake the half of the telephone conversation she had overheard. Without a doubt, the “Taylor who was digging” was Roscoe. And if it involved something that she might have put him up to, then it had to be the inquiries about Selina Royce that he had been making in San Antonio. Then the rest of Bill’s side of the conversation made sense. They were offering him a fat promotion, probably with the unwritten understanding that he stop looking into matters that didn’t concern him. And if he didn’t get the message, then he would indeed find that there wasn’t much demand for old newspapermen. What her husband had decided on was a power play, pure and simple. Team players were rewarded. Those who wouldn’t join the tea
m were crushed. It was Roscoe’s choice.

  29

  Jane dressed in the head so that she wouldn’t be offering her husband any suggestion of intimacy. Right now, she didn’t feel like being in his arms. The easy, loving husband she was just learning to love had deserted her. The secretive, paranoid power broker she feared was back in business.

  There was an uneasy silence over their lunch. His mood had obviously changed with the telephone call, probably because he now suspected that his wife was searching into the dark corners of his past. He kept up the pretense of good humor, complimenting the food and cheerfully recalling the morning’s visit to the caves. But his enthusiasm was hollow and difficult to sustain. Clearly his mind was elsewhere. For her part, Jane felt as if she had been thrown back to the periphery of his life. She was outside his protective wall, and he was perfectly willing to lie to keep her there. Kay Parker and her untimely death were at the core of his being, and he would go to any length to keep them from being disturbed.

  They set sail again, back on the easterly heading that required them to tack across the wind every few minutes. Andrews again became the enthusiastic captain, lavishing praise on even her most routine accomplishments. She was still excited in her role as partner in keeping the boat alive in the face of headwinds. The sheet handling, the crackling of the sails, and the occasional bath in salty spray took her mind off the betrayal she had suffered. It even brought her husband back from the edge of gloom that he had been tottering on.

  They found a mooring off the beach at Cooper Island and went ashore to a small resort that was built just out of sight behind the first row of trees. Bill promised her the best rum punch in the islands and made good at a small bar that stood at the water’s edge. They ordered a second, carrying their drinks with them to the resort dining room, where they feasted on lobster. They were both more relaxed when they motored back to their boat and made love passionately while stretched out in the dinghy. Then they skinny-dipped from the inflatable to the swim platform and fell into their bed.