How Cassy had gone from being a straight heterosexual woman to being heartsick over her ineptitude at loving a woman sometimes made her think she had lost her mind. But then she would remember her marriages and think, Aha! That’s right! I’m inept at falling in love, period!
One Sunday afternoon Alexandra and Will stopped by the Darenbrooks’ penthouse for Cassy to sign off on special expenditures before she left for England the next day. Jack and Langley had already flown over. They went over the paperwork and Cassy signed off on it (almost all of it; “Damn, we were hoping you might not notice that part,” Will said, seeing what item she had drawn a line through and initialed) and then Will left and Alexandra stayed behind.
They were in the den and Cassy walked around the bar to get Alexandra the glass of water she’d requested. Then Cassy just stood there, frozen, and let her head slump down. She felt so utterly beaten suddenly. Alexandra asked her if she was all right and Cassy didn’t answer her. She couldn’t. In a moment Alexandra came over to stand next to her, lightly touching her back. “What is it? What’s wrong?”
“I miss you,” Cassy whispered, head still cast down. “I know I shouldn’t say it, but I miss you so much I don’t know what to do anymore.”
Alexandra had done the right thing, of course, which had been to take her hand away and take a step back.
“I wish you would go now, before I completely humiliate myself.”
She thought Alexandra would say something like, “You couldn’t humiliate yourself with me, Cassy.” Or something. But she didn’t. Alexandra simply left, as all people in committed relationships should do, and later acted as though nothing had happened.
Cassy was startled from her thoughts when a large man came barreling through the doors of Thatcher, Wyndam & Lamont. He gave a nod and a grunt to Cassy and said something to the receptionist which prompted her to hurriedly pick up the phone. “Mr. Tarnucci has arrived.” The receptionist hung up the phone and stood up. “I’m to take you right in.”
Cassy wondered if this could be Tarnucci the real estate developer. If it was, he was an extremely wealthy man. He had swooped into Manhattan after the stock market decline to start buying buildings.
“Are you sure I can’t get you something other than water?” the receptionist said when she came back out. “Attorney Thatcher said it may be another half hour.”
“No, I’m fine,” Cassy assured her. She did call her driver, though, and gave him the new time estimate.
“She knows,” Alexandra said to Cassy a few years ago, closing Cassy’s office door behind her. “Somehow Sally Harrington knows.”
Cassy rose from behind her desk. Sally Harrington had been writing a major profile on her for Expectations magazine. “Knows what?”
Alexandra met her eyes. “About the first time I lived in New York. What happened.”
Cassy felt a chill run through her. “But how could that possibly be?”
“I don’t know,” Alexandra said, starting to pace, “but believe me, she knows.”
It was an important moment because it was the first time Cassy found herself being caught in the pretense of her image. She and Jackson had just paraded the perfect marriage for Sally’s benefit the weekend before in Litchfield. Having an affair with a young woman who was now her employee did not at all fit the profile Cassy had just presented to Sally.
At the very least, such a bombshell in Expectations, that Alexandra Waring had once had an affair with the female married president of DBS Television, would force one of them to leave DBS. More than likely it would be Alexandra. Cassy knew how the Darenbrook family operated: they would rally around Jack, and then around Cassy to forgive her, and then they would cast Alexandra out as the villainess who had taken advantage of Cassy while her first marriage had been collapsing.
Thank God, Sally Harrington turned out to be not only scrupulous, but clever. The publisher of Expectations had counted on Sally to hatchet Cassy’s image in exchange for a career in the big leagues. Instead, Sally handed over the evidence of the affair to Cassy and then somehow got something on the Expectations publisher that made her altogether kill the story.
“It was a journal my therapist made me keep at the time,” Cassy later explained to Alexandra, after Sally had returned it to her. She pointed to the fireplace in the den. “I burned it after she left. Can I get you something?”
“A vodka tonic,” Alexandra said, throwing herself down in a low, overstuffed chair.
Cassy stared at her. In all the years she had known her she had never seen Alexandra drink hard liquor.
“Please,” Alexandra said.
“Yes, of course.” Cassy walked over to the bar and made the drink for Alexandra and also made one for herself. Without asking she used diet tonic water, Grey Goose and a lime from the bar refrigerator. “It must have been taken in our robbery in Litchfield last winter,” Cassy said, handing Alexandra her drink and sitting down on the couch. “It was in the attic, for heaven’s sake.” She took a large sip of her drink. “I had no idea it was gone. At the time we didn’t even think they had gone up in the attic.”
Alexandra took a long pull at her drink. “This is very good, thank you. So, did you have anything else like that?”
Cassy shook her head. “No. I’m not even sure why I kept it. Because I hated keeping it.” She looked at Alexandra. “And I wrote a lot of things that weren’t even true. So it was stupid for me to hold on to it.”
Alexandra rested her drink on the chair arm. “I wish I could have read it. Because then maybe I’d finally know what had really been going on in your head.”
“You know what was in my head at the time.”
“No, Cassy, I don’t.” She took another sip of her drink. “I thought you were head over heels in love with me. And then one day—” she snapped her fingers “—it vanished. Gone. It was like nothing had ever happened between us.”
“It wasn’t like that.”
“Oh, yes, it was,” she insisted, nodding.
“That’s not how I felt.”
“Oh, no? So tell me what you wrote in the journal.”
“I told you, I wrote some things that weren’t true.”
“Then what did you write that was true?” She brought her drink up to her mouth again. “Hmm?” And then she drank the rest of her drink down, the ice falling against her mouth.
Cassy took her time answering. “I wrote about how wonderful you were as a friend, and then later I wrote about how wonderful you were as a lover.” She swallowed. “That was true.”
A little color appeared in Alexandra’s face. Then she launched herself out of the chair, heading for the bar. “And what did you write that wasn’t true?”
Cassy didn’t answer. She watched Alexandra pour herself another drink. A hefty one. To see her doing this astounded Cassy. And unnerved her. Alexandra was the kind of all or nothing person for whom adding alcohol might not be such a good idea. Particularly when for years Alexandra had always said she didn’t drink. Cassy wondered what other habits Alexandra might have acquired while being with Georgiana Hamilton-Ayres.
“I think I have a right to know what Sally Harrington read about me.” Alexandra sat down again, this time holding her glass in her lap. “Well?”
“I wrote that I cared about you, but I knew I was not in love with you. I wrote I was heterosexual and I was very sorry I was going to have to hurt you. Because I had to. Not only for my family’s sake, but for your sake.”
“Yes, well, I knew all that,” she said, sipping her new drink.
“I should hope you know what parts of that weren’t true, but were lies to myself to prepare me for ending it,” Cassy said. “I was in love with you, Alexandra. And clearly I was not heterosexual.”
“That much I did notice,” Alexandra said under her breath, putting her glass down in a crystal coaster on the coffee table with a distinct clink. “So what did you tell Sally?”
“I didn’t tell her anything. I just thanked her.”
Alexandra
had rubbed her eyes for a moment and then dropped her hand. “So Sally Harrington thinks we had an affair, but you turned out to be heterosexual and I turned out to be gay. So now you’re happily married to Jackson and I’m happily attached to Georgiana.”
Cassy nodded. “That’s about it.”
Alexandra thought for a long while. “So we lucked out,” she summarized.
“We lucked out,” Cassy echoed.
Alexandra let her head fall back against the chair to look up at the ceiling. “So the story is, once upon a time, somewhere in the universe, two planets collided before continuing to the orbits God had intended.”
Cassy couldn’t help but smile. “Only to collide again a couple of times.”
“Yes. Yes, they did,” Alexandra said. She put her elbow down on the chair arm and dropped her face into her hand. “I can’t stand how things are between us.” She lowered her hand. “I don’t know how things got so messed up.”
“It got messed up because you deserved a full-fledged partner, Alexandra.”
“The problem has always been,” Alexandra said with sudden animation, shifting in the chair to more directly face Cassy, “that the part of you that has always cared for me is the part of yourself you’ve never liked.”
“That’s not true.”
“Or the part you’ve never respected.” She pointed at Cassy. “You’ve always viewed your feelings for me as a defect in your otherwise perfect character.”
Cassy cringed. Then she shook her head. “No. Maybe way back in the beginning, Alexandra, but I haven’t felt that way for a very long time. I know, I’ve always had that good-girl syndrome. But it’s that wanting to be a perfectionist, it’s that which comes from my self-loathing. My feelings for you, my love for you, Alexandra, has always come from that part of me that loves me, if that makes any sense. It’s the healthiest part of me. Unfortunately, I’ve always hated myself a lot more than I’ve loved myself. And that’s why I have always messed it up.”
Alexandra got up out of her chair, turned away from Cassy and looked up at the ceiling again, her hair falling back over her shoulders. “I can’t believe you tell me this now. When I’m with Georgiana.”
“I love you, Alexandra. I always will,” Cassy heard herself say. “But I also know that at my age I’ll never be able to change enough to make you happy. Georgiana was the right decision. She loves you for you, she’s your age, she can even give you children—”
“Stop it,” Alexandra said, wheeling around. “Just stop—stop it! ”
“But it’s true,” Cassy told her.
“What is the matter with you, Cassy?” Alexandra said, coming toward her. “You know I love you! Georgiana wasn’t a decision. She was a reaction. She was a reaction to you wanting to stay in that hideous marriage instead of trying to figure out a way to make a life with me.”
“I think we’re saying the same thing but in different ways,” Cassy told her.
“No, we’re not,” Alexandra said, straightening up and throwing her shoulders back. “You’re telling me that I’m better off with Georgiana. And I’m telling you, take me away from Georgiana before it’s too late.”
At first Cassy thought she hadn’t heard Alexandra correctly. But she had. She looked down. “I can’t.”
Alexandra walked over, sat down next to her and took Cassy’s hands in her hands. “Look at me.”
Cassy raised her head. Alexandra’s eyes were searching hers. Over all this time, regardless of the situation, Alexandra’s eyes had always held the same question. How much do you care? “This really will be goodbye,” she murmured. “You know that.”
Cassy nodded.
Alexandra kissed her. There is no use to this, Cassy thought as familiar sensations began to register, of Alexandra’s mouth, of Alexandra’s hands moving over her arms, her back, her waist, her breasts. Alexandra fell back across the couch, pulling Cassy on top of her.
“All set, Mr. Tarnucci?” the receptionist asked. The big man had come out but there was still no sign of Mrs. Goldblum.
Cassy took a breath, crossed her legs in the other direction, and offered the man a polite smile on his way out.
14
Woodbury
THE ELEVEN-HUNDRED page outline of The Royal Court of Catherine the Great was finished and Amanda was trying to figure out how she might clear a period of time to transform it into the first draft of the book. Only through an intensely focused period of days and weeks would she be able to achieve the brief omniscient view of the masses of material to flesh out the book into a whole. After that it would be back to mere mortal paperwork, checking and rechecking and cross-referencing the working manuscript, page by page, line by line, stitching everything into place. Then she would take another intensely focused period to revise the book straight through, taking care to remove those stitches in an effort to make it appear seamless.
Amanda’s biography of Catherine the Great, which had been published over a decade before, had taken ten years to write. This book, about her court, made use of research from that first book but it was still taking another ten years to write. Why was it taking her so long? The answer was simple: Emily and Teddy. And the minute Amanda had thought she was really free to write full-time again—hello, Grace!
Now, with Madame Moliere here, Amanda had a chance to work again, but she balked at the idea of emotionally withdrawing from her children at a time when their father seemed so distant. And, too, because Madame Moliere had not warmed to her older children the way she had hoped.
Amanda glanced up at the kitchen clock, called to Madame Moliere that she was going out, put on her coat and went outside to meet the school bus. There had been a time in her life when Amanda had feared she could never be a good wife or mother; now she only worried about the wife part, which was the part that for years had felt like her most successful venture.
Howard wasn’t happy. The children complained he wasn’t fun anymore, that Daddy was always tired and always cranky. Over Thanksgiving weekend Howard had only looked at Amanda oddly when she made a romantic overture. She could have been a hooker trailing after him down the street for all the welcome she had received. Then he apologized, saying he was wiped out. That was not what had bothered her, though, that their sex life seemed to have utterly disappeared. What bothered Amanda was that instead of holding her as they fell asleep, as he had done for years and years, he had turned the other way and balled himself up around a pillow, mumbling something about being used to sleeping alone now.
And yet Amanda’s parents were shaking a warning finger at her! She understood why they had said what they did; they knew the only person whose behavior they might possibly affect could be Amanda’s, so they had fired a warning shot over her bow to provoke her into changing course. Amanda had also come to realize over the years that her mother had been far more aware of Amanda’s sexual lifestyle after Christopher, and before Howard, than Amanda had known at the time.
Her mother was also what was once demurely referred to as a “warm-blooded creature.” As a child Amanda had been dimly aware that her parents were hopeless romantics but when she herself had become more sensually inclined she refused to consider her parents in that light at all. Amanda still could not endure thinking about her parents in that way but evidently her parents did view her in that way.
But she was not going to have an affair with anyone! The question was, when had Howard started one, or when was he going to? The guilt she sensed in him was unlike anything she had experienced before.
The other day Madame Moliere had been watching a talk show in the kitchen and when the show started talking about the signs to look for, to tell if your spouse was having an affair, Amanda stopped to listen: sudden new interest in improving his looks: a diet, working out, new clothes or a special new effort made with hair; a sudden change in routine or schedule; blocks of time unaccounted for; a sudden increase in sexual appetite at home. Howard didn’t seem to have any of those signs (except hanging out in bars when Amand
a was in Connecticut! She was still getting over that revelation), but all kinds of things were setting him off when he was not by nature an irritable man.
“What makes you think anything has to be going on?” he snapped. “Did it ever occur to you I’m just tired?”
Amanda walked down the hill to the bottom of the driveway. Ashette followed her to the barrier of the electric fence, barked a couple of times in protest, gave up and then sat down to wait for her return. Amanda checked the mailbox. A lot of bills, none of which appeared terribly inviting. It was not even Christmas yet and look at all these bills: oil, electricity, telephone, Internet, satellite TV, satellite radio and credit card bills. Amanda had never owned a credit card before she met Howard. Now they seemed to have several. Or at least Howard did.
She heard honking and looked up to see a red pickup truck coming down the road. She smiled, holding her hand over her eyes, unsure who it was. As the truck bounced closer, squeaking on its springs, she saw it was Miklov. She had never seen him drive anything other than the league’s van on occasion because he didn’t own a car. He had come to the States with essentially the clothes on his back and Amanda knew he sent money home to his mother in the Czech Republic. The brakes of the truck gave an earsplitting screech as he pulled over and the engine shuddered a few times before shutting down. Miklov jumped down from the cab. “How do you like? It is mine!”
“You have your own truck?” Amanda said, clapping her hands together, wanting to appear excited because he so clearly was. The truck must represent a great deal to him, she knew. It represented Miklov’s first opportunity to go when and where he pleased. There must be the feeling of accomplishment from having purchased it. (Did she dare make sure Miklov understood all the ins and outs of registration, insurance and emissions testing?) “Congratulations!”
“It is not new,” he noted with a hint of apology.
Amanda was not particularly aware of changing styles in trucks but she did know the rounded roof of this one reminded her of a pickup on her grandmother’s farm thirty years ago. She also knew the paint should be shiny, not dusky, although she rather liked this textured brick color better than what might otherwise be an obtrusive red.
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