by Diane Moody
Donella wheezed so loud and hard, Julie wondered if she wasn’t having some kind of asthma attack.
“Donella?”
The wheezing turned into wild guffaws as Donella waved her hands, trying to catch her breath. When she finally ran out of laughter, she leaned her head back with a long, loud, cleansing sigh. “Oh Julie, you are so funny. You think the Ice Queen and I are friends? I must remember that the next time I need a good laugh. Oh my goodness, I have to admit it feels good to laugh again.” She patted Julie’s hand. “You’re a real stitch, you know that?”
“I don’t know about that, but it’s good to see you happy again.”
Her face lost all trace of mirth as she rolled her head back on the armrest. “Happy? I’m not happy, Julie. I’m just amused that you’d think Patricia Lanham and I would ever be friends. That woman is . . . she’s mean and spiteful and cruel and manipulative and spiteful . . . oh, wait, I already said that. And sneaky? Oh, the things I could tell you.”
Julie swallowed hard. No doubt, the proper thing to do in a situation like this would be to leave Donella to sleep off her inebriation. But the inquisitive urges battling in Julie’s mind flamed insatiably. Matt’s face flashed through her mind, but with a subtle shaking of her head, she ignored her conscience.
I won’t ask, but if she happens to say something . . .
Did she ever.
“She’s always treated me like dirt, you know,” Donella rambled on. “After all I’ve done for her, after all the secrets I’ve kept for her, she treats me like I’m nothing more than hired help. Let’s see, there’s the gardener,” she began, ticking them off with her fingers, “the chef, the chauffeur, the housemaids—not one but two—and then there’s dear old Donella. Keeper of secrets. Sworn confidant. Runner of errands, morning, noon and night.”
Donella lazily crossed her arms over her head, her face hidden beneath crisscrossed elbows. “Did you know Peter once told her to stop bothering me? He was furious with her for treating me like she did. Of course, he didn’t know that I did it all for him.”
Julie waited. She’d never heard Donella talk this much and couldn’t help feeling uneasy, as if she were eavesdropping on a private conversation. “Donella, maybe I should just go clean up the kitchen and let you rest.”
“Forget the kitchen,” she groaned. “It’s time I spilled the beans, and since you’re my only friend in ALL the world, you might as well hear it all.”
“But—”
“And see, that’s the irony of it all. Peter tried to get her off my back, but all the while, I was protecting him from her. Rather perverted, isn’t it?”
“Why did he need protection from his own wife?”
“Where oh where to start?” A belch sent her into another roll of laughter. “Oh dear, where are my manners?”
Julie smiled. “Not a problem. I won’t tell a soul.”
“See, that’s the thing of it. Secrets here, secrets there,” she continued, her head flopping back and forth with her singsong cadence. “She almost drove me mad with all that business about the love child.”
Julie sat up. “Patricia has a love child?”
“Good heavens, no!” she scoffed with a giggle. “She’s as barren as a barn door. Which is half her problem, the way I see it. Couldn’t have kids of her own, so she wasn’t about to let Peter have a bastard child with one of his bimbos.”
“Peter had a child with someone else?”
Donella let her head roll back to face Julie. “God only knows how many, the way he ran around with those women. But the only one we ever knew about was Jenny Gresham.”
“She’s his daughter?”
“No, silly. She’s the tramp who had an affair with him. Lasted three whole years,” she added, holding up four fingers. “When she told him she was pregnant, he insisted she have an abortion and gave her money for it. He knew Patricia would go ballistic if he had a child with another woman. Peter was many things, but he was scared to death of his witchy wife.” Her brow furrowed. “Come to think of it, I never knew why he was so afraid of her, but then it was none of my business.
“So if Jenny had an abortion—”
“Ah, but she didn’t. She took the money and disappeared. Told Peter she couldn’t live with herself after supposedly getting rid of her child, so she moved to Kentucky, but didn’t tell him where she’d gone.”
“I’m confused.”
“And I’m thirsty. Would you be a dear and bring me another margarita?”
“I’m not so sure that’s a good idea.”
Donella pinned her with narrowed eyes. “I didn’t ask what you thought about it. I asked you to get me another drink. The glasses are above the sink.”
Julie pursed her lips, but did as she was told. She quickly cleaned up the mess on the kitchen floor, then poured another glassful from the blender. She caught a renegade drop from the pitcher, and without thinking, licked it from her finger.
“Gyyyaahh!” She winced a gasp at the overpowering strength of the tequila. “My gosh, woman,” she murmured under her breath, “It’s a wonder you can put two words together.” Julie decided this would be the last of the alcohol for her grieving friend. As she started to leave, she stopped. Setting the glass down, she dug her cell out of her pocket, and quickly sent Matt a text message asking for a rain check: Donella’s having a rough time. I need to stay.
Spotting an open box of delicatessen crackers on the counter, she decided to make a snack in hopes the food would slow the effects of the alcohol.
“What’s taking you so long?” Donella bellowed from down the hall.
“Coming!”
Julie found some cheese to slice, some red grapes, and a small container of hummus in the refrigerator. As she put the platter together, her cell buzzed with a text from Matt: Call if you need me. Otherwise, I’ll see you later.
Returning to the den moments later, she found Donella struggling to sit up.
“Here, let me help you.” She turned to set the glass and platter on the coffee table, but Donella snatched the drink from her hand.
“Ahhh, that’s more like it.” She took a long sip and sat back. “I know you must think I’m a lush—”
“I do not,” Julie asserted. “I think you’ve had a ridiculously despicable thing happen to you today, and you’re simply trying to . . . process all of it.”
Donella’s eyes smiled over the top of her glass as she took another long drink. She wiped her lips with the back of her hand. “You really are the strangest girl. You think I’m ‘processing’ all of it? And here I thought I was drowning my sorrows.”
Julie gave her a smirk. “Tomatoes, tomahtoes. It’s all in your perspective, I suppose.”
“Which is it?”
“Which is what?”
“Is it tomatoes? Or is it tomahtoes?”
“It’s whatever you’d like it to be, Donella.” Julie put a slice of cheese on a cracker and handed it to her.
“So that’s what took you so long. Don’t mind if I do.”
“I still don’t understand about this so-called love child.”
“Oh yes, Pierre.”
“Pierre?” She recognized Peter’s password immediately. “That’s an odd name for a child these days. Is Jenny French?”
She answered matter-of-factly, her mouth still full. “No, she’s white trash.”
“Donella! That’s not a very nice thing to say.”
She took another gulp of her grog. “Well, hey—if the trailer fits . . .”
Julie rolled her eyes then reached for some grapes. “But Pierre? Seriously?”
“Pierre. Which is French for—”
“Peter. Got it.” Julie tried to understand why Peter would choose “Pierre” as his password if he didn’t even know the child existed.
“During those three years Peter was having the affair with Jenny, he took her on trips all over the world—Venice, Rome, London—but it was the trip to Paris when she got knocked up.”
�
�I get it now. But I thought Peter didn’t know about the child?”
Donella broke a cracker as she stabbed it into the hummus. “He didn’t.”
“Then how did—” Julie caught herself just in time.
“How did what?”
“Nothing. I’m just trying to make sense of it all. How did you find out about Pierre?”
“Oh, what a night that was. There I was, minding my own business, having dinner in my kitchen and watching the news, when here came Patricia, flying through my front door, slamming it behind her. She insisted I had to help her with an emergency; said it was ‘a matter of life and death!’ But then everything always is to that woman. She helped herself to a bottle of wine and sat down, telling me I must swear to never tell another living soul.”
Donella looked up at Julie with a sloppy smile. “And yet, here I am telling you!”
Julie didn’t have a clue how to respond, so she just smiled. “Did she explain why she needed to tell you about the child? Seems strange that she’d share that kind of thing with you, or anybody else for that matter.”
“But you’re not thinking like she does.” Donella tapped her index finger against her temple. “Patricia’s mind doesn’t work like yours and mine. She immediately went into survival mode with a grandiose plan. Said she’d ‘accidentally’ opened a letter addressed to Peter from some girl claiming to have a child Peter fathered. The girl wanted her child to know his father, but Patricia wasn’t about to let that happen.
“So she hired a private investigator and found out the girl was living up in Bowling Green, Kentucky. Patricia paid her a visit and promised to send her $5,000 a month until the child was grown, but only if she’d stay away from Peter. Jenny agreed, and that’s where I came into the whole sordid mess. Patricia gave me a checkbook to a private account, instructing me to write the monthly check and monitor the girl’s activity.”
“Why did you agree?”
“Julie, Julie, Julie . . .” She downed a piece of cheese and leaned her head back. “You just don’t get it, do you?”
“What do you mean?”
Donella pushed her hair out of her face and gazed at the ceiling. “People like Patricia Lanham are masters at maniption . . . I mean, manipule.”
“Manipulation?”
“Yes. That’s what I said. They don’t take no for an answer. Which is why she convinced me this was all for Peter’s good. To protect Peter’s good name.”
“And because you cared for Peter.”
Donella lowered her gaze and slowly turned toward Julie. “What did you say?”
Uh oh. “I’m sorry. I only meant—”
“You said I did it because I cared for Peter. You implied that I . . .” Her face began to crumble.
Julie grabbed the almost-empty glass just in time as Donella dropped her head in her hands and began to sob.
“I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have said that.” Julie knelt beside the sofa and wrapped her arms around the weeping woman. “I didn’t mean to cause you any more pain.”
She shook in Julie’s embrace, sobbing quietly for several minutes. “I loved him, Julie. I have always loved him.”
Julie let her cry and felt genuine sorrow for Donella’s plight, regretting all her misplaced opinions regarding the stern woman. She’d suspected something akin to a crush, but never anything like this.
Donella rested her head on Julie’s shoulder, still rocking gently and whimpering. “Back in the beginning, he loved me. Before all the others, he loved me. And I adored him. I would have given him the moon if he’d asked. We were so happy together—working alongside, sharing stolen moments together . . . I was the one he first took to Paris. I was the one he bought this house for. He wanted me to have everything I wanted, but all I wanted was him. I wanted Peter to marry me.”
She stopped, pulling back from Julie’s shoulder to wipe her tears. Julie handed her a napkin.
“But that was the one thing Peter couldn’t give me.” She wiped away the half-moons of mascara floating beneath her eyes. “And I told him if that was the case, then we had to stop seeing each other—romanily, uh, romantically anyway. He cried that night, our last night together. But he knew I was right. He knew it wasn’t fair to me.
“It was hard at first. Working so closely together like we did. But I bolstered my courage every day I went to work, determined to prove to him I could still maintain a priffess . . . a proft . . . a proffiss-shnul relationship with him. Then each night I’d come home and cry myself to sleep.”
“That must have been so hard for you.”
“It was. For a long time, it was. Then . . .” She took a deep breath and slowly let it out. “Then he started seeing other women. Some worked here. Some he met, God only knows where. A steady parade of them through the years, all much, much younger and much prettier than me.”
“But how could he be so heartless? He had to know how much that hurt you, watching them come and go?”
“I thought so too, at first. Then—and I know this pro’lly sounds crazy—I realized he was doing it partially because that’s his nature, but also because he knew it would stop me from hurting so deeply. He gave me anger to replace my sorrow.”
“Wait, you mean to tell me you thought he was doing it to help you get over him? What a bizarre way of showing he cared.”
“You want to hear what’s really bizzz-arre?”
Julie nodded.
Donella took one last swipe under each eye then sat up perfectly straight. She looked Julie in the eye. “I never stopped loving him, Julie. In fact, even though he’s gone now, I love him still.”
Chapter 18
Hours rolled by as Donella continued her long, emotional purge about life, the office, Peter Lanham, and his manipulative, despicable wife. At one point, Donella fell asleep mid-sentence. Julie covered her with a lightweight throw and hoped she’d sleep off the rest of the alcohol in her system. She took the opportunity to rummage around the kitchen to find something hearty to make for a late dinner. In the freezer compartment, she found a stack of Marie Callendar’s Chicken Pot Pies—the supreme comfort food if ever there was one. She popped a couple of them in the oven, opting not to look at the caloric value of the flaky pies. Sometimes things like that are best not known.
While they cooked, she prepared a salad of fresh greens, sliced strawberries, a handful of pecans, and some red onion drizzled with poppyseed salad dressing. Last, she brewed a pot of coffee, assuming that’s what one drinks after one has consumed vast quantities of adult beverages.
As she waited for the oven timer to go off, she checked her cell phone and found two missed calls and another text message from Matt: I’m starting to worry. Everything okay?
Julie hesitated. Memories of their previous scuffles flashed through her mind. On the one hand, she couldn’t wait to tell him everything she’d learned. On the other hand, she realized she’d risk losing whatever chance there’d been for a relationship with him.
Still, he needs to know, right? To keep such valuable information to myself would be, in essence, the same as withholding information, wouldn’t it?
Maybe she should ask Donella if she’d be willing to talk to Matt. That way, he’d get the information firsthand. Then again, what are the chances of Donella letting down her guard like that, especially in front of a stranger? Maybe she should whip up another batch of margaritas to keep her talking and invite Matt to stop by. No, she could never do such a heartless thing, taking advantage of Donella’s drunken stupor. Especially since Donella considers me her only friend.
Julie was still debating the subject when the timer went off. She put a steaming pie on each plate alongside a serving of salad, then set the plates on the table. “Time to wake up, Sleeping Beauty,” she mused as she headed back down the hall.
Tapping her on the shoulder, Donella startled, looking around until she noticed Julie sitting before her. Her eyes rolled as she fought to keep them open. “She told me once she wished he would die.”
/> An alarm went off somewhere inside Julie’s head. “What? Who told you—”
Her heavy eyelids closed again, but she continued. “Patricia.”
“When did she say that?”
“Huh?”
“Donella, when did Patricia say that? Was she talking about Peter?”
“Yes.” Her head rolled to the other side. “When she came here.”
“But when? When was that?”
“When she brought the checkbook . . . when she came that night, she was so . . . angry at him . . . pitiful.”
“Pitiful? What do you mean?”
Her head rolled back to face Julie. “She never got over it, not being able to have children.” Donella shook her head as she licked her dry, pale lips. “If she wasn’t so hateful, I might’ve felt sorry for her . . . finding out he’d made a baby with that girl when Patricia couldn’t have one. Hard to take.”
Julie gnawed at the side of her lip. The debate in her mind was settled. If Patricia had wished her husband dead, was it possible she made that wish a reality? Matt needed to know.
“Donella, I’ve made dinner for us. Let’s get you into the kitchen, okay?
She balked at first, but finally agreed. Moments later they were seated at the small kitchen table.
“Oh . . . my.” She stared at the plate before her. “I’ll never be able to eat all this.”
“No problem. Eat what you want, then we’ll save the rest.”
Donella broke the crust open with her fork allowing the fragrant steam to rise. She trolled her fork back and forth through the salad, then set it down. She glanced sheepishly across the table, her shoulders slumped. Julie couldn’t believe this crushed soul sitting across from her was the same cold and steely executive secretary she worked with. It was like staring at a mathematical equation that simply would not, could not, compute.
“What am I going to do, Julie?” She lifted her shoulders then let them drop again. “I’ve never worked anywhere else but Lanham’s.”
Julie sipped her coffee. “Don’t even think about that right now. You’re still in shock. Let’s get you back on your feet emotionally before worrying about that.”