Dating Game

by Danielle Steel

  She called the Regency after she hung up, but he wasn't registered there, and she tried several other hotels, and never found him. He was of course staying with Rachel, but none of them knew that. And she got up at six o'clock the next morning to call him at nine New York time, in his office.

  “What's going on, Dad?” she asked, for openers, hoping to get him to tell her honestly what had happened. “I didn't know you and Mom were having problems.” She tried to sound sane and rational, and not accusatory, so he would talk to her. But he seemed more than willing, and surprisingly honest.

  “We weren't,” he said fairly. “I am. How is she? Did you talk to her?” But he knew she had, since she had called him to inquire about their “problems.”

  “She sounds terrible.” Meg didn't pull any punches, and wanted him to feel guilty. He deserved to. “Did you just have a fit or something, and fly off the handle?” But that wasn't like him either.

  He sighed before he answered his daughter. “I've thought about this for a long time, Meg. I guess I was wrong not to say anything to her sooner. I thought I might feel differently if I waited, but I don't. This is just something I need to do, for me. I feel like I'm buried alive with her in Greenwich, and my life is over.”

  “Then get an apartment in New York, and move. Both of you. You don't have to divorce her.” She was beginning to feel hopeful. Maybe there was a solution, and she felt as though she owed it to her mother to help him find it. Maybe he would actually listen to her.

  “I can't stay married to her, Meg. I'm not in love with her anymore. I know that's awful to say, but it's honest.” Her hopes were dashed in an instant.

  “Did you tell her that?” Meg held her breath as she waited, realizing the full weight of the blow her mother had taken. It was beyond thinking.

  “As tactfully as I could. But I had to be honest with her. I'm not going to put our marriage back together. I wanted her to know that.”

  “Oh. Now what? Where do you both go from here?” She was fishing, but not brave enough to ask yet. She felt sick for her mother. This was not what she deserved after twenty-four years of marriage.

  “I don't know, Meg. She'll find someone eventually. She's a beautiful woman. It probably won't take long.” It was an incredibly insensitive, cavalier thing to say, and Meg wanted to hit him for it.

  “She's in love with you, Dad,” she said sadly.

  “I know she is, baby. I wish I were still in love with her. But I'm not.” Rachel had changed that. Forever.

  “Is there someone else, Dad?” She was old enough for him to be honest with her, but he hesitated. Just long enough to arouse his daughter's suspicions.

  “I don't know. There might be. Eventually. I have to sort things out first with your mother.” It was an evasive answer, and spoke volumes to her.

  “That's such a rotten thing to do to Mom, she doesn't deserve this.” All her sympathies lay with her mother, as Wim's did. He had done the damage, and he didn't have to pick up the pieces. She did. And they did. And he couldn't just assume that she'd find someone else, like changing hats or shoes or dresses. She might never find someone else, nor want to. She might be in love with him forever. In Meg's opinion, and her mother's, it was tragic.

  “I know she doesn't deserve this,” he said sadly. “I care about her a great deal, and I always will. I'll try to make this easy for her,” if for no other reason than to soothe his conscience. He had felt sick with guilt all weekend, but his passion for Rachel was undimmed. If anything, now that he was free to pursue it, it was stronger.

  “How easy can it be to lose your husband and everything you care about? It's going to be awful for her when Wim goes away to college. What's she going to do, Dad?” There were tears in Meg's voice as she asked him. She was worried sick about her mother.

  “I don't know. She'll have to figure that out, sweetheart. This happens to people. Things change. Lives go in different directions. People die, and get divorced, and fall out of love. It just happens. It could have happened to her, instead of me.”

  “But it didn't,” Meg insisted. “She would never have left you. She could never have done that,” she said loyally. She still loved her father, but she was heartbroken for her mother. Meg no longer understood him. He sounded like a stranger. A selfish, childish, spoiled stranger. She had never before seen him as self-centered.

  “I suspect you're right,” Peter admitted. “She's incredibly loyal and decent. I don't deserve that.”

  “Maybe not, Dad,” she said, sounding disappointed in him. “How soon are you going to do this?” She was hoping he'd take some time to think about it, and with luck, change his mind.

  “I think we're going to proceed in good order. There's no point dragging it out, or raising false hopes, and making it even more painful than it is. A quick, clean break will be a lot simpler.” For him, but not necessarily for Paris. And he didn't tell Meg that he had called an attorney the moment he got into the office, and told him to file the papers. He wanted to be divorced by Christmas. He had promised Rachel they'd be married by the end of the year, and it was what he wanted too. He also knew that Rachel wanted another baby, before the boys got much older.

  “I'm sorry, Dad. I'm so sad for both of you, and me, and Wim. This is so awful,” Meg said, and started to cry. She hadn't meant to, but she couldn't help it. And a few minutes later, they hung up. She felt as though in a single night she had lost not only her family, but all her illusions. Her father had turned out to be someone she didn't even recognize, and she was terrified that her mother would sink into a deep depression. There was nothing to stop her. She had no job, no children at home in a short time, and now no husband. All she had was an empty house, and her friends in Greenwich. It wasn't enough to keep her going. Or to keep the demons of darkness from her. It was all Meg could think about all day, and she called that night to report to Wim about her conversation with their father.

  “There's no way he's coming back,” she said somberly. “For whatever reason he flipped out, he's planning to stay there.” And after thinking about it, she added, “I think he's seeing another woman.” She had come to that conclusion when he dodged her question.

  “Did he say that?” Wim sounded horrified. It hadn't even occurred to him. Their father was so proper and upstanding, it seemed totally unlike him. But so was divorcing their mother. Overnight, he had become a stranger to his wife and children.

  “No. But I got that impression. We'll see what happens.” If he was seeing someone else, and she was important to him, she would surface sooner or later. It would certainly explain why he had walked out on their mother so abruptly.

  “Do you think Mom knows?” Wim asked sympathetically. Paris had gone to sleep at eight o'clock, long before he and Meg were talking.

  “I don't know. I don't want to upset her. This is bad enough without adding another woman to it. We're just going to have to do whatever we can to help her. Maybe I should come home next weekend.” But she had plans that would be hard to cancel. “Let's see how she is. I'll be home for your graduation anyway. What are you doing this summer?”

  “I'm going to Europe with four of the guys from my class,” he said, sounding glum about it. He didn't want to give up the trip he'd been looking forward to all year, nor did he want to abandon their mother.

  “She might be better by then. Don't change anything for now. I'll invite her out here for a visit. She doesn't sound like she wants to go anywhere right now.” Meg had called her that morning from work, and Paris sounded too depressed to even talk to her. Meg had suggested she call her doctor, but Paris didn't want to. This was not going to be easy, for any of them, except their father. “Call me if anything happens,” Meg told Wim. It was certainly an ugly end to his senior year, and a trauma none of them would forget or recover from quickly.

  “I don't think she got out of bed today,” he confided to her.

  “I'll call her tomorrow,” Meg said, as her doorbell rang. It was her boyfriend, and she promised
to call Wim the next day. He had her cell phone number if anything untoward happened. But at this point, the roof had already fallen in. What more could happen?

  Chapter 4

  It was Thursday before Virginia and Natalie got through to Paris. They had been trying all week, and were having lunch together when they called her on Virginia's cell phone. And for the first time in days, Paris answered. She sounded hoarse and groggy, and she had been sleeping. Virginia had heard the news from her husband on Monday night when he came home from the office. Peter had told him discreetly that he and Paris had separated over the weekend and were divorcing. Peter wanted to get the word out as quickly as he could, so that within a reasonable amount of time, he could be seen openly with Rachel. But they weren't the secret he hoped they were. Virginia's husband, Jim, told her about Rachel that night over dinner. And she shared the information with Natalie over lunch, before they called Paris. Within days, Paris had become what she most feared, an object of concern and pity. Both of her friends were horrified to realize what had happened. It was a reminder to each of them that no one was exempt from lightning striking when you least expected. No one could ever know what would happen. And just when you thought you could coast forever and were safe, you discovered that you weren't.

  “Hi, babe,” Virginia said, sounding sympathetic. All she wanted to do was put her arms around her and hold her. “How're you feeling?” she asked, and Paris could hear that she knew. She hadn't had the guts to call and tell her. She just couldn't. It was too awful. Instead, she had retreated into her bed, and sought refuge in sleep. She was only waking up when Wim came home from school, and he was cooking dinner. She had done nothing since Peter left the house on Saturday morning. She kept telling Wim she'd be fine soon, but he was beginning to doubt it.

  “Jim told you?” Paris asked, as she rolled over in bed and stared at the ceiling.

  “Yes, he did,” but Virginia still didn't know if Paris knew about the other woman, and she wasn't going to ask her. She had been through enough heartache. “Can we come over? Nat and I are just sitting here, worrying about you.”

  “I don't want to see anyone,” she said honestly, although she had finally showered on Monday, and again that morning. “I look awful.”

  “We don't care how you look. How are you feeling?”

  “Like my life ended last Friday night. Life as I know it anyway. I wish he had just killed me. It would have been so much simpler.”

  “I'm glad he didn't. Have you told Meg yet?”

  “The kids have been great. Poor Wim, he must feel like he's running a psych ward. I keep promising him I'll get up, and I mean to, but it's just too much trouble.”

  “We're coming over,” Virginia said in a determined voice, frowning meaningfully at Natalie across the table, and shaking her head, trying to give her a clue as to how Paris was doing. She wasn't.

  “Don't. I need some time to catch my breath before I see anyone.” She felt humiliated and broken. And even her best friends couldn't fix it. No one could. She had gotten a message on the answering machine from the lawyer Peter had retained for her on Tuesday. And when she called him back, she had thrown up after their brief conversation. It didn't bode well for the future. He told her that Peter wanted to file the papers soon, and get the show on the road quickly. And as he said it, she had been overwhelmed by a wave of panic. It was like free-falling out of a plane without a parachute. The only way she could explain the feeling was terror. “I'll call you when I feel better.”

  In the end, they left a bouquet of flowers, a note, and some magazines on her doorstep. They didn't want to intrude, but they were worried about her. They had never known a marriage as seemingly solid as the Armstrongs' to come apart at the seams as quickly. It was shocking. But they all knew it happened. Like death. Sometimes after a long illness, and sometimes with no warning. But always just as final. They all agreed that it had been a rotten thing for Peter to do to her, and none of them were anxious to meet Rachel. It was going to exclude him from the group that had been his friends for years, but Jim assured his wife it didn't seem to matter to him. He had a beautiful young woman on his arm, and a new life. He suspected that Peter wouldn't look back, or think twice about what he was doing. All Peter wanted now was Rachel. And all their friends could think about was Paris.

  It was a month before Paris came out of seclusion finally, in time for Wim's graduation. Virginia saw her there, and nearly cried when she did. She was thin and pale, impeccably dressed as always, in a white linen dress and coat, her hair in a French twist, with pearls at her ears and around her neck, and dark glasses to conceal dark circles and the ravages of the past month. The hardest of all for her was seeing Peter there, she hadn't seen him since the morning he had left her. He had had her served with papers three weeks before, and she just stood there and sobbed, in her nightgown, when she took them. But there was no sign of her distress when she saw him. She stood tall and proud and poised, said hello to him, and walked away to stand with a handful of people she knew, and left him to congratulate his son. Peter seemed to be in surprisingly good spirits. The only one not surprised by it was Paris. She had fully understood in the past month that she had been totally and completely defeated. And all she wanted now was for no one to see it. Her friends were solicitous, and she managed to get through a dinner for Wim at a restaurant. He had invited a dozen of his friends, and Meg had come from Los Angeles. She had agreed to have dinner with her father in the city, and he had had the grace not to come to Wim's dinner. And by the time she got home that night, Paris was exhausted. She lay on her bed feeling as though she had had open heart surgery, as Meg watched her from the doorway. Wim had gone out with his friends, and she had come home to keep an eye on her mother. She was incredibly thin these days, and seemed frailer than Meg had ever seen her. The word Natalie had used that day was brittle, as though Paris would break in half at any moment.

  “You okay, Mom?” Meg asked softly, and came to sit down on the bed next to her, looking worried.

  “I'm fine, sweetheart. Just tired.” It was like recovering from an accident, or a major illness. It had been her first time out in public, and it had cost her. She had had to dredge up every ounce of courage she had just to be there. She couldn't even enjoy it. The strain of seeing Peter, so estranged from her, was almost too much for her, and he had barely spoken to her. He had been civil, but distant. They weren't even friends now. She felt like her own ghost as she got through it, returning after her death to haunt the people she once knew. She no longer felt like the person she had been. Even to herself now, she felt like a stranger. She wasn't even married now, or not for long anyway, and her marriage had been such a major part of her identity. She had given up everything she once was to be Mrs. Peter Armstrong, and now she felt like no one. A faceless, unloved, unwanted, abandoned single woman. It was her worst nightmare.

  “How was Dad when he talked to you?” Meg had been talking to Wim at the time, but she had seen them together, albeit briefly.

  “Okay, I guess. He didn't say much. I just said hello, and then went to talk to Natalie and Virginia. It seemed simpler. I don't think he's too anxious to talk to me now. It's too awkward.” He was sending her a constant flood of papers to sign, settlement offers, which included the house, as he had promised. But just seeing the papers depressed her. She hated to read them, and sometimes didn't.

  “I'm sorry, Mom,” Meg said sadly. She had been shocked by how thin her mother was, and teased her that it was obviously due to Wim's cooking. But at least for once he wasn't worried about her, he could leave her in Meg's hands, and celebrate his graduation. He was leaving for Europe over the weekend. Paris had insisted he stick to his plans. She said she had to get used to being alone at some point. She was beginning to feel like a patient in a psych ward, and knew she had to deal with it before it killed her.

  “It's all right, sweetheart,” Paris reassured her. “Don't you want to go out and see your friends? I'm just going to go to bed in a f
ew minutes.” It was all she did now.

  “Are you sure you don't mind if I go out?” Meg hated to leave her. But by Sunday, she'd be truly alone. Meg had to go back to L.A., and Wim would be in England. He was planning to travel around Europe until August, come back for a few weeks, and then leave for college. These were her last days with him at home, the last with both him and Meg under one roof. Their life of living together as they had once known it was already over.

  And when she took Wim to the airport on Saturday, Paris felt as though someone had finally cut the umbilical cord when he left her. She had made him promise to buy a cell phone as soon as he got to Europe, so she could keep track of him and call him, but she finally had to let him go, and have faith in his ability to take care of himself, and be responsible. She felt as though she had lost yet another huge chunk of her life as she drove back to Greenwich. And she was utterly bereft the next morning when Meg left, although she tried not to show it. She wandered around the house like a ghost afterward, and nearly jumped a foot when she heard the doorbell. It was Virginia, whose son had left for Europe with Wim the previous morning. She looked faintly embarrassed when Paris opened the door, and felt she had to apologize for showing up without calling.

  “I figured if you were as nervous as I am about them, I'd better come over. Have they called you?”

  “No,” Paris said with a smile. She was dressed, her hair was combed, and she had put on makeup for Meg's benefit that morning. But she still looked as though she were recovering from a severe case of tuberculosis, or something equally unpleasant. “I don't think they'll call us for a few days. I told Wim to get a cell phone.”

  “So did I.” Virginia laughed, as Paris went to make coffee. “Where's Meg?”