Best Enemies

by Jane Heller

  I smiled. “You’re right. She can’t hurt me. Not anymore. But if he is dead, I think she’s the one who did it. I think she found out he was meeting me and got so mad that she killed him.”

  “You don’t think that and you know it. She was your friend for a very long time and, regardless of what’s gone down between you, you care about her.”

  “I do not.”

  “Yes, you do. You wouldn’t try so hard to impress her if you didn’t care about her.”

  “You’re wrong. I hope she fries for his murder.”

  “Amy.”

  “Fine, no frying. I’ll settle for a stoning in the public square.”

  “She didn’t kill him, because he’s not dead. Call it instinct, but that’s what I think.”

  “Okay, then where is he?”

  “Don’t have a clue.”

  “Well, you’re my go-to guy now. Plus, you’re the best mystery writer in America. If anyone can solve this puzzle, it’s you.”

  He rolled over onto me. “Why don’t we just leave it to the police to sort out? Or not?”

  “What do you mean ‘or not’?”

  “Right now, all they’ve got is an abandoned car. They’re probably figuring that Stuart’s alive and well and left town without telling anybody—to hide from creditors, to be with another woman, whatever. Their investigation has got to be very low-level at this point, because people vanish every day, usually of their own volition.”

  “Okay, but I’m still not crazy about being under suspicion. What’ll it take for the police investigation to go from being low-level to high-level?”

  ‘Time. The longer Stuart stays missing, the more heat you and Tara will feel from the cops.”

  “Swell.”

  “Not to worry. He’ll resurface. You’ll see. Meanwhile, I’d much rather concentrate on our new and improved relationship.”

  “Oh, you mean our pretend-free relationship?”

  “That’s the one. For instance, I could pretend that I don’t want to make love to you again now, but I’m not going to.”

  I laughed. “You can’t pretend about that. Your anatomy is giving you away.”

  He lowered his head and kissed me, and there was nothing inauthentic about what happened next.

  29

  There wasn’t a single item in the newspapers about Stuart. According to Tony, it was a non-story from a crime reporter’s perspective. As he’d already explained to me, Stuart could have just taken a trip without telling anybody. And it wasn’t as if he was famous and readers were clamoring to follow his every move. He was just the lesser of the two sons of a man who owned some gourmet food stores. His whereabouts weren’t news.

  Still, the fact that he was missing put me in an extremely awkward position. I was supposed to be forging ahead with the publicity for Simply Beautiful, which was due to hit bookstores in only four weeks. The entire campaign was predicated not only on what a perfect life Tara led but by what a happy marriage she had. I had arranged a multi-city tour for her, to be kicked off with a publication party—not at her house, because it was too far for the media types to travel, but at Julie Farrell’s Park Avenue apartment. What’s more, while I’d struck out with the three network morning shows, which had passed on Simply Beautiful because the subject was too soft (this from the same people who frequently do segments like “The Latest in Hosiery”), I’d managed to convince the producer at Today’s Woman, a hot new afternoon show, to have their anchorwoman, Barbara Biggs, tape an interview with Tara at the party. Even Celebetsy was impressed by that booking, although, according to Connie, she took full credit for it, claiming that I got it only because she was a personal friend of Barbara Biggs’s. Like that was possible. Betsy didn’t have any personal friends.

  “What should I do about the publicity?” I asked Tony one night. “I’m the only one at L and T who knows there’s anything wrong up in Mamaroneck. Apparently, Tara hasn’t even hinted to Julie that Stuart is AWOL.”

  “You have to call her,” he said.

  “Julie?”

  “No, Tara. Or better yet, go see her.”

  “Are you serious? She thinks I was having an affair with her husband. She’ll try to set me on fire with one of her stupid candles.”

  “Then tell her you weren’t having an affair with Stuart. Clear the air for once, Amy. You two have unfinished business, so finish it; then you can figure out what to do about the book. She may want to cancel all the publicity because of what’s going on.”

  “Tara? Cancel the publicity?” I laughed. “She’s never met a spotlight she wasn’t dying to shine on herself.”

  “Then you’re a perfect match,” he said. “You’ve never met a spotlight you weren’t dying to shine on an author.”

  He had a point. So, in the interests of doing my job and satisfying my curiosity about what had happened to Stuart, I drove up to Tara’s the following Saturday, knowing she was always home after her morning jog. I thought it best not to call first, figuring she’d slam down the phone when she heard my voice. Better to surprise her.

  I rang the bell and waited, telling myself it wasn’t a mistake to have come unannounced.

  She opened the door. As I’d anticipated, she was in her sweatsuit, her blond hair in a ponytail, her complexion dewy from her morning exercise. She was as beautiful as ever, but it was safe to say she was not happy to see me.

  “Whore,” she said.

  “Look who’s talking,” I replied.

  “I wasn’t engaged when I slept with Stuart four years ago,” she said.

  “No, but I was engaged when you slept with Stuart four years ago. To him.”

  We both took a second to breathe.

  “I wasn’t having an affair with him, Tara,” I said, hoping she’d let me in the house eventually.

  “A likely story. The police showed me his date book. Your little tryst with him was right there in his own handwriting.”

  “He asked me to meet him,” I said. “It was the first time he’d ever done that, I swear.”

  “And you went. He called and you just couldn’t restrain yourself.”

  “Only because he sounded desperate.”

  “Yeah, desperate to get you into bed.”

  “That’s what Tony said.”

  “Tony was right. God, you were always so naïve.”

  “And you were always so vain, as if nobody but you could ever attract a man. Well, memo to you: Stuart liked me; he liked me before you seduced him and he liked me after.”

  “Please. He liked everything with a vagina. If you think you were the only woman he invited to the Plaza, you’re delusional. That place was his home away from home. I’m surprised they had time to change the sheets between visits.”

  “Interesting. So he was fooling around on you. And you let us all think that you two were the picture of wedded bliss.”

  She looked away, as if she hadn’t meant to drop the tidbit that Stuart cheated on her regularly. But she had just confirmed what I’d suspected—that she’d been lying to me, to everyone, about the state of her marriage. Suddenly, my own lie loomed even larger. I couldn’t very well fault her for inventing a life when I’d been guilty of the same offense.

  “Could I come inside, Tara? We need to talk.”

  “About what? You want to know if I killed him? If his screwing around drove me to commit murder?”

  I didn’t answer right away.

  “Oh, give me a break,” she said. “If you think I did it, you’ve been reading too many of lover boy’s mysteries.”

  “Actually, he’s one of the reasons I’d like to come inside,” I said.

  “Stuart?”

  “No. Tony.”

  “Spare me the details about your goddamn wedding, would you? I’ve got my own problems.”

  “There is no wedding, Tara.”

  “Really? Don’t tell me this one dumped you, too?”

  I flinched but hung on. “Tony and I were never engaged. We only pretended to be.”
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  She arched a perfectly plucked eyebrow. “Now what are you talking about?”

  “Tony isn’t my fiancé. We were putting on an act for you and Stuart. I lied to you about him, Tara, but I’ll explain why if you let me come in.”

  “So come in already.”

  She opened the door wider and waved me inside. I escorted myself into the sunroom, the scene of our other chats, and sat down.

  She followed me there and sat, too. “I’d offer you a beverage but, considering how I feel about you right now, I’d probably throw it at you.”

  “I’m not thirsty. Listen, this insanity started when I ran into you on the street all those months ago. When I saw you that day, I thought I was over you, over what you and Stuart did to me. I’d been in therapy. I was content with my job and my friends and my single life. Sure, I hoped I’d find a man, but I was okay with not having one. Then you turned up on that corner, and I was totally unprepared. I mean, there you were with your gorgeous clothes and shoes and matching handbag, and—”

  “It’s called knowing how to shop, Amy. You make it sound like curing cancer.”

  “I’m paying you a compliment, Tara. I’m saying that you looked beautiful and I was as intimidated by you as ever. In my head, I was instantly your second fiddle again. My body may have been on that corner, but my mind was back in elementary school. Back in high school. Back in Stuart’s bedroom. It was traumatic.”

  “Too bad your shrink didn’t give you one of those panic necklaces.”

  “Shut up and let me finish. I was standing on the street, feeling crappy about myself, and you started telling me about you and Stuart, about this house and your radio show and his promotion at Lasher’s, about how fantastic your life was. It was really hard for me to take. By the time you asked me about myself—especially about whether I had a boyfriend—I felt as if I’d accomplished nothing. So I lied. I said I was engaged. I just wanted to show you, to prove to you that I’d done okay for myself, that I was right up there with the prom queen. I figured I’d never see you again after that, so what was the big deal?”

  “And then you found out about the book.” She shook her head. “You must have shit.”

  “I did. And it only got worse. You kept calling and insisting I bring my ‘fiancé’ here for dinner.”

  “And you kept telling me he was ‘too busy.’”

  “Right, until you insinuated that I might be bluffing about being engaged, remember? During one conversation, you said, ‘Maybe there is no fiancé.’”

  “Well, I was beginning to wonder.”

  “So I went running around the office, looking for a guy who’d play my fiancé for the night. Talk about panicking. I only picked Tony because you said he was your favorite author. Yours and Stuart’s. I thought, Now this guy would impress them, make them respect me, maybe even make them envy me. I convinced him to do it, Tara. And it wasn’t easy, because he and I didn’t get along.”

  She permitted herself a smile. “I find that hard to believe. You look like you’re mad about each other.”

  I smiled, too. “We are now, but we weren’t then.”

  “This is incredible. You dragged Tony Stiles up here to play a role?”

  “Yes. I told him it was just for one night. And then the tree fell in your driveway and we had to sleep in your guest house.”

  She nodded. “So that’s when you two clicked—when you were stuck in the same bed.”

  “Nope. We didn’t admit our feelings for each other until recently. I don’t know where the relationship will lead, because Tony’s not one for commitments, but we’re taking it day by day. What I’m trying to say is that I lied about him and I’m ashamed of myself. I should have told you the truth months ago instead of keeping up the charade. I’m sorry.”

  She nodded again. “It’s funny that you were intimidated by me. I used to wish I could trade places with you when we were kids.”

  “You wanted to be me?”

  “Sure. You were nice and smart and everybody liked you.”

  “Tara, they adored you.”

  “No. They were afraid of me. They sucked up to me. They held me at a distance. You were someone they could relate to, and I envied you.”

  “I had no idea you felt that way.”

  “Nobody did.”

  “Well, since you’re letting your hair down, do you want to tell me the truth about Stuart?” I said. “About what was really going on between you?”

  She got up from her chair, paced a little, then sat back down. “Only if you’ll give me your shrink’s number when I’m done.”

  “I promise.”

  She let out a long, tortured sigh. “I don’t even know where to begin.”

  “How about telling me when your marriage fell apart?”

  She laughed ruefully. “Like on our honeymoon.”

  “But I thought—”

  “Forget what you thought. Here’s the truth. Everything went to hell when you asked me to be your maid of honor and I was dumb enough to say yes.”

  “Why did saying yes make you dumb?”

  “Because you didn’t really want me in your wedding. You just asked me out of obligation.”

  “Obligation? It’s true that we weren’t spending as much time together as we used to, but we’d been best friends for most of our lives. I thought that should count for something.”

  “So you threw me a bone, introduced me to Stuart, figured you’d put me in the wedding party, then never see me again.”

  “Where’d you get that idea? It never occurred to me that we wouldn’t see each other again.”

  “Stuart told me. The night you left us for some publishing dinner. He took me to the Four Seasons, and after a lot of champagne, he came right out and said you thought I was shallow and superficial and in love with myself and that as soon as the wedding was over, we’d be history.”

  I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. “He had no right to talk to you that way. He didn’t know anything about our friendship. Why in the world would he cause trouble like that?”

  “Well, he did want to sleep with me. The guy was a cheater even then.”

  “Wait. So you slept with him that night? Your affair started the night I left you two alone?”

  “You got it. I was hurt by what he said. I mean, how demeaning was it that you put me in your wedding as a pat on the head for being your childhood pal but that, basically, you couldn’t stand me? I wanted to pay you back, so I took your fiancé up on his proposition and slept with him that night. It was supposed to be a one-night stand and you’d never be the wiser.”

  “I can understand why you were hurt, but you could have talked to me about it instead of having sex with the man I was about to marry.”

  “Oh, like you were always so honest with me? Please. Honesty has never been an option with us. Obviously.”

  “Okay, so you slept with Stuart one night. How did that lead to marriage? He wasn’t that good in bed, if you want honesty.”

  “No, he wasn’t. But he courted me as I’d never been courted before. He told me you two were having problems, then bombarded me with gifts. Before I knew it, I had fallen for him. Or so I thought.”

  “Well, he and I were having problems. He wasn’t wrong about that.”

  “Even so, I don’t know how I let myself get involved with him. You ended up with a broken heart. I felt awful about it for a very long time. I still feel awful.”

  “Okay, so you feel awful. But you’re leaving something out, aren’t you? What went wrong in your marriage? It certainly started off with a bang.”

  “Ha-ha.” She heaved another anguished sigh, only this one was accompanied by tears. “Six days into our honeymoon, I caught him flirting with a waitress. I figured it was harmless. Then we got home and I found out I had married the womanizer of the year. He slept with his secretaries, for God’s sake. One after the other. We only stayed together because we were both too paralyzed and self-loathing to do anything else.”

 
“I don’t know what to say.”

  She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. “And then came the book. I’d written it and included this big phony valentine to him. My plan was to get through the publicity somehow and divorce him once the hype died. How could I have predicted that it was Stuart who would die?”

  “You’re not sure he’s dead, are you?”

  “No. He could be living it up in Tahiti, for all I know. His brother, Jimmy, and I are trying to piece things together—quietly. Stuart was having problems at work, and we think his disappearance could be connected somehow. But we don’t want a scandal. Business at Lasher’s is bad enough.”

  So even the part about Stuart’s illustrious career was a lie. I tried to take everything in, absorb all the new information, but mostly what nagged at me was how so sad it was that Tara and I couldn’t have been there for each other through all our trials. Or, more accurately, that we couldn’t have been honest enough with each other to avoid the trials in the first place. Wasn’t that what best friends were supposed to be? Honest? At the very least? Had we clung to our respective types as prom queen and second fiddle so strenuously that we’d turned into childhood buddies who never grew up? Such a waste.

  “I’d like to lend a hand with the Stuart situation,” I said, “and we need to figure out how to deal with the book promotion. But mainly, I want us to start over, Tara.”

  “Start over?”

  “Well, start fresh. We can’t go back, can’t undo the hurt we’ve caused, but we can take another crack at our relationship. I’d much rather have you as a friend than an enemy.”

  She smiled through her tears. “Same here. By the way, have you ever noticed how I cry with you? I never cry around other people.”

  I stood up, went over to her, and hugged her. “No more crying,” I said. “No more lying, either.”

  She was about to say something, but the doorbell rang.