Peg said, “That is too bizarre.”
Tracy said, “You hear about people sneaking off with the jewelry.”
“Not in Vermont.”
“Linus was dumbfounded,” said Tracy. “He sent me to Dombit’s to get breakfast, which is what I have here.” She patted the big bakery bag. “Must rush back. But I had to tell you about Wilma first.”
“How is Linus?” asked Peg casually.
“Our cult leader?” asked Tracy. “Very tense. He and Wilma have been snapping at each other, and now this thief-in-the-night business. It’s been tough on him. He’s not complaining, still trying to keep up with the program. But that’s been a struggle. He gives us more and more free time.”
“And what are you doing with it?” Peg asked.
“Hanging with Ben, mainly. He’s a pal. I can’t get Luke’s attention. To be honest, I don’t really want it.”
“What about Gloria?”
“Gloria is otherwise occupied,” Tracy said, snickering. “With Ray. He’s been humbled. She’s been emboldened. They’ve fallen and risen, respectively, to each other’s level.”
“Gloria and Ray,” said Peg. “The princess and the pea brain. That might be weirder than Wilma the food burglar.”
“After you left, the air went out of the program,” said Tracy. “Out of Linus. He asks me about you. Wants to know if you’re okay. I think he misses you. You know, Peg, now that Wilma’s gone…”
Peg shook her head. “I can’t. Some information has come to light. Linus doesn’t want a relationship. I’m not going to hurl myself in front of a train.”
“What information?”
“Things I’ve heard.”
Tracy paused. “I’ve really got to go. Everyone is waiting for breakfast.”
“See you tomorrow?”
Tracy nodded. “About those things you heard, Peg? You’d do yourself a favor to consider the source.”
Peg would rather not. It would be wiser, she thought, to block out thoughts of Linus, what might have been. The moment had passed. Peg had to move on. Maybe she’d get lucky. Like Claudia, the ski instructor. Shot down by Linus, only to hook up with a marrying man a couple of weeks later.
The car in the driveway came to a stop. With Jack and Nina fighting upstairs, Peg was grateful for a guest. She walked off the deck, toward the front of the house.
But her guest wasn’t Tracy in her Camry. Peg nearly choked to see Wilma stepping out of her green hybrid. The backseat was packed to the roof with bags, boxes and, Peg noticed, mason jars with flour, rice and pasta.
Wilma waved. Peg approached, a bit nervously. “Going somewhere?” she asked, pointing at the car.
“I’m driving to New York City,” said Wilma. “A cousin of mine is letting me stay on her couch for a few weeks. Thought I’d try to find a publisher for my dissertation. It reads more like a pop psychology book than an academic paper anyway.”
“You’ll love New York,” Peg lied. “You should change your book title, though.”
“You don’t like The Outsider Syndrome?”
“How about something grabby, like The Allure of Alone: Symptoms and Solutions for the Chronically Single.”
Wilma said, “I love that! Can I use it?”
“My parting gift to you,” said Peg.
“I’d like to give you a parting gift,” said Wilma.
A slap on the kisser? A poison-pen letter? “How about five pounds of brown rice?” asked Peg.
“You heard,” said Wilma, frowning. “Want to know why I stole the food?”
“Because you’re crazy?”
“It was the only thing I could take that would upset Linus,” she said. “Although I got rid of something else that seemed to devastate him.”
“Don’t bother,” said Peg. “If Linus is sad that I’m gone, it’s because I can’t satisfy his hunger for self-denial.”
Wilma said, “I’m not going to take back what I said about him. But I might be wrong about you.”
“I’m not an outsider?”
“You probably are,” she said. “I mean that, with you, Linus may have met his match. Before, with those other women in the program, he talked about them every night. Linus wanted to assure me that he didn’t reciprocate their feelings. This session, though, he never spoke about you. He barely mentioned your name to me. That’s why I knew I was in trouble. And I acted badly. Unprofessionally.”
“You were hurt,” said Peg.
Wilma looked into Peg’s eyes, and Peg saw how much. “He tried to spare my feelings,” she said. “Keeping you at a distance—which I’m sure was a struggle for him—was Linus’s last kindness to me. You can take that information as a peace offering. Or an apology. Or a fond farewell.”
Peg said, “Fond?”
“No,” said Wilma, smiling genuinely, beautifully.
“You should smile more often,” said Peg.
“Maybe I’ll have reason to in New York,” said Wilma.
Chapter 33
From the sound of it, Nina and Jack were making up. As comfortable as Peg was with their relationship, she wasn’t interested in listening to their sex noises.
Peg quickly dressed in jogging shorts and a sports bra, and laced her New Balances tight. She hit Old Dirty Goat Road at a slower than usual pace, determined to enjoy this run. She would smell the flowers, inhale the exhaust-free air. Run for the pleasure of outdoor exercise, not as a way to distract or punish herself.
A mile later, jogging in peace and quiet (only one Subaru cruised by on the road), Peg’s legs lifted easily. As she ran, she counted mailboxes, each painted a bright color with the homeowner’s name stenciled in white. Peg recognized many of the names. She’d meet the rest of her neighbors soon enough. Wilma could take Manhattan. She could have the Bronx and Staten Island, too. In Manshire, Peg had never felt the ground so solidly beneath her feet.
She made it all the way to Main Street, five miles, in an hour. Slowing to a walk, Peg stopped into Dombit’s for a Snapple. Waiting for the cashier, she felt a tap on her shoulder.
Turning, Peg beheld a devastatingly handsome woodsman, as if he’d walked off the Alaskan hunks calendar, and onto the line behind her.
He said, “Can I help you with that?”
“I think I can manage a Snapple.”
“You can’t blame a guy for asking.” Indeed, she couldn’t. She smiled at him, paid and left the store.
“Peg!” shouted a voice from across the parking lot. It was Donna, sitting on the steps in front of the used bookshop, waving. Peg walked over. Sat down. Opened her ice tea.
“First day under ninety all week,” said Donna.
“I could use a sweater,” said Peg.
The woodsman was walking toward them. It wasn’t a long walk.
Donna said, “Peg, let me introduce my grandson, Reed. He just moved back to Manshire. From Alaska. He was logging there, but came back to live with me. I told him I could take care of myself. But he insisted.”
Peg said, “That’s awful sweet of you.”
“It’s the least I can do for my grandma,” he said.
Donna said, “Peg just moved to Manshire from New York City. She doesn’t know too many people. You should take her around, Reed.”
He nodded. Peg drank her Snapple.
Donna said, “Have you heard about Trevor Martin yet?”
Trevor Martin? Gloria’s father, the billionaire? “What about him?” asked Peg.
“He’s in Manshire. You know Bud? Over there, by the Dombit’s gas tanks? The one with the tattoos?”
Donna was pointing. Bud saw her and waved. Peg waved back. Donna said, “He told me that Trevor Martin pulled up at Dombit’s about an hour ago in a limo the size of a school bus. The driver asked Bud to fill it up. He did, but not quick enough for Trevor Martin. He lowered the window and yelled at Bud to hurry up. Bud said, ‘I can’t move any faster, but I can move a whole lot slower.’ Trevor Martin didn’t like that. He threw a hundred at him, called Bud an ‘in
bred mountain idiot,’ then had his driver speed off. Bud barely got the gas cap back on.”
“Where did Martin go?”
“Down Main Street, and up River Road. Why on earth do you think a man like that would come to Manshire?” asked Donna.
Peg knew only too well. Trevor Martin had somehow found Gloria, and he’d come to take her home. Peg gulped down her ice tea, told Donna she had to run, then did.
Reed trotted after her. When he caught up, he said, “I hope Grandma didn’t embarrass you. About my taking you around.”
“I don’t embarrass easily,” she said.
“Can I call you?” he asked.
Peg stopped walking, took a gander at him. He was exactly what she’d come to Vermont to find. An honest, caring man who could swing an ax. His eyes hiked across her body as if she were the Appalachian Trail. The way he looked at her, Peg knew she could have him. The old Peg, the Square Peg, would have been all over that, parting her lips, brushing her bangs, flirting provocatively, letting her sexual confidence do the work of ensnaring him. But that instinct had been beaten out of her. With a stick.
“I’ll call you,” she said. “Or not.”
She didn’t bother watching his reaction. She ran to the Federal at a fast clip. It was only half a mile, and she made it in under five minutes.
She could hear the shouting from the driveway.
Bursting through the front door, Peg followed the voices to the living room. Gloria sat on the couch, crying. Her father, Trevor Martin, billionaire, world-renowned for his savage business practices, was seated on the couch across from his fragile, weeping only child. He was wearing, by Peg’s guess, the in-need-of-a-trim wig, along with a navy suit and wingtips. He had to be roasting in all those clothes, but his forehead was dry, the kind of man who’d never let anyone see him sweat.
Behind Trevor, Luke stood rigidly with his arms crossed against his chest. He was wearing a navy suit like Trevor’s, and dark glasses. He looked like a G-man. Linus, standing behind Gloria, looked like a hippie freak in comparison. He seemed ruffled, too, unprepared for the verbal violence of the pharmacy titan.
“I’m going to take you apart, Bester, piece by piece, until there’s nothing left but spare atoms,” said Trevor. “Sending my daughter to backwater bars to pick up some country maniac who probably fucks his sheep? You call this therapy?”
“I did not send your daughter to bars to pick up men,” defended Linus.
Luke said, “I stand by my report, sir. Linus Bester has trained your daughter to make suggestive comments to men in bars. He’s an overeducated pimp, sir.”
“Luke, you bastard scum-sucking traitor!” said Tracy, entering the room with Ben on her heels. “I can’t believe we kissed, and that I liked it! I spit on you.” And she spit. On the carpet.
Linus said, “I’ll thank you to spit outdoors, Tracy.”
Peg, not yet noticed by the others, went over to Gloria on the couch. She put her arms around the weepy blonde.
“Who the hell is this now? Get your hands off my daughter!” shouted Trevor.
Peg ignored him. “Gloria, stop crying. You’re not a little girl.”
Gloria said, “I can’t help it!”
“Take a deep breath,” said Peg. “Contemplate your navel. Do you see yourself as someone who crumbles under pressure?”
Weakly, Gloria said, “Strongly agree.”
Luke said, “For the record, sir, I only kissed that spitting woman as part of my deep cover.”
“Was your hard-on phony, too?” asked Tracy.
Luke said, “This man“—he pointed at Ray, who was sitting on the bottom step of the staircase—”as I wrote in my report, has been pushing marijuana on your daughter. He’s seduced her several times. I have one of their trysts on videotape, sir.”
“I need a pill,” whimpered Gloria.
Peg said, “Did Luke report that he got so drunk he passed out on the kitchen floor?”
Luke said, “That incident was also part of my deep cover.”
Trevor said to him, “You’ve done an exemplary job, Kardash. Wait for me in the limo.”
Like a trained dog, Luke jumped at his master’s command. He picked up his suitcase—already packed—and headed for the front door.
Tracy said, “Come on, Ben. Let’s help Luke with his bag.”
Ben said, “Yes, let’s.”
They wrenched Luke’s suitcase from his hands, and chased him outside, slamming the door behind them.
Trevor said, “Bester, you will hear from my lawyers. Consider your life over. Gloria, we’re leaving.” He stood up. Man, he was short, thought Peg. Gloria must have gotten her height from her mother, the Swedish ex-supermodel. And what an enormous head Trevor had. Peg was amazed that such a puny neck could support that bulbous cranium.
From outside, Peg heard Luke yell, “Get away. Leave me alone!” followed by a crash.
Peg whispered to Gloria, “Say something.”
“What?”
“What one word comes foremost to your mind?”
Gloria turned to Peg. Her silken hair was tangled, her cheeks wet. Her eyes locked on Peg’s, Gloria said, “No.”
“Tell him,” said Peg.
Gloria turned toward her father. She repeated, “No. I’m not leaving. No, you’re not going to do anything to Linus Bester.”
That’s when the loud thwomp-thwomp of helicopters cut rudely into Gloria’s triumphant moment.
Tracy ran back inside. She said, “This is incredible. There are three news helicopters circling the house.”
From the open front door, Peg heard Luke scream, “Help! Someone help me!”
Tracy said, “I think Ben needs me,” and ran back outside.
“How the hell did those jackals find me?” ranted Trevor.
“Only one thing moves quickly in Vermont,” said Linus, smiling. “Gossip.”
Gloria, seizing rare opportunity, said, “Unless you do exactly what I say, I’m going to run outside. Naked.”
Trevor fumed, “You do not threaten me!”
Gloria stood up, and took off her top.
Trevor said, “Stop right there!”
She slipped off her shorts.
“I’m warning you,” barked Daddy Dearest.
Gloria hooked a thumb under her bra strap.
“Okay,” relented Trevor. “What do you want? I’ve given you everything a girl could desire. Clothes, jewelry, well-screened boyfriends, trips around the world, the best education money can buy. And still you’re not happy.”
“There’s one thing you’ve never offered me, Daddy,” said Gloria, sitting again, in her bra and panties.
Trevor sat down, too, clearly exasperated. “I’d love to know what that is.”
She took a deep breath, and said, “I want a job.”
“A job.”
“A good job.”
“Like what?” he asked.
“The cosmetics buyer for Martin Pharmacies,” she said.
“What about the person who does that now?”
Gloria answered, “He can work for me.”
Trevor actually laughed. “Although it disgusts me to say this, Bester, you may have helped my daughter grow balls.”
“Balls,” Linus said, nodding. “And a bat, too.”
Trevor said, “Okay, Gloria. If you put your clothes on and agree to leave this pitiful state immediately, I’ll give you a job.”
Gloria dressed herself, and walked over to Ray. He stood up and took her hand. She said, “Ray is coming with us.”
“The pothead?” asked Trevor. “Absolutely not.”
“We’re engaged,” said Gloria.
Peg slapped her forehead. “I don’t even have to date them anymore to be their Last Girlfriend,” she moaned. “One or two makeout sessions, and I turn men into prime marriage material.”
Gloria and Ray kissed tenderly. Trevor turned puce from the sight. When they broke their embrace, Gloria said, “Ray would like a job, too.”
The three of them, father, daughter and future son-in-law, left the Federal, Gloria pleading Ray’s case. Peg and Linus followed them out.
Luke’s clothes were scattered all over the lawn. His screams drew everyone to the back of the house. Tracy and Ben were carrying Luke (she had him under the armpits; Ben had him around the knees) down the mansion’s boat dock. Like a fish on a hook, Luke struggled and squirmed.
Tracy said, “Count of three.”
Ben counted. On three, they heaved Luke into the river. He made a satisfying splash. Peg, Gloria, Ray and Linus applauded. So did the jackals in the news helicopter above.
Peg said, “Excellent form.”
“I give him an eight,” said Linus.
Trevor yelled, “Kardash!”
Luke, splashing and groping toward the riverbank, sputtered, “Yes, sir?”
“I told you to wait in the limo!”
“Yes, sir.”
His suit dripping, river weeds clinging to his collar, Luke sloshed back to the car.
Gloria and Ray stepped into the massive automobile (big enough to be visible from space). Trevor got in last. Before he closed the door, he barked, “Bester!”
“Right here, Mr. Martin,” answered Linus.
“One leak about anything that went on here, you will spend the rest of your life with five lawyers up your ass.” He slammed the limo door, and away they zoomed, news helicopters following in the air like balloons on a string.
Linus and Peg stood in the driveway, waving as the car disappeared down River Road.
He said, “Luke had me fooled.”
Peg nodded. “He must have gotten low scores in conscientiousness.”
The two went back inside, stepping over the detritus of Luke’s luggage along the way. Peg flopped down on the couch where Gloria had been weeping. Linus sat next to her.
He said, “It’s official. This has been the worst session in Inward Bound history.”
“But probably the most exciting,” Peg said.
“I’m in love with you,” said Linus abruptly, reaching toward her, cupping her face with his hands. “Even if you don’t love me back, I want you to know.”
The Girlfriend Curse Page 25