by Wendy Wax
When she heard a key in the door, she reacted without thinking, sliding under the covers still dressed, like a child about to run away from home.
Home.
It came to her then, in the dark as she listened to the others getting ready for bed. She couldn’t wait for her Sunday afternoon flight out. She’d never make it through Mallory’s promised powwow or brunch or the limo ride to the airport afterward. She wanted to go home right this minute. She didn’t know how she was going to make it happen, but she needed to be home in her own house and her own bed as soon as humanly possible. If not sooner.
Moving on instinct she hurriedly changed her clothes, packed her suitcase, and phoned the airline. Then she was scribbling a note and propping it on the cocktail table and tiptoeing out of the room, without a single thought in her head except getting back to Atlanta as quickly as possible.
4
Every novel is an attempt to capture time, to weave something solid out of air. The author knows it is an impossible task—that is why he keeps on trying.
—DAVID BEATY
The 6:00 A.M. flight out of LaGuardia deposited Kendall at the Atlanta airport at 8:29 on Sunday morning. Exhausted, she deplaned and made her way to baggage claim then took the shuttle to the remote parking lot where she’d left her car. She felt as if she’d been gone an eternity rather than a mere forty-eight hours.
Traffic on Interstate 285 was light and she made the trip to the northeastern suburbs in record time, pulling into the driveway of her house on the dot of 10:00.
The twins were in Athens at their last week of the summer session. Cal’s car wasn’t in the garage and there was no sign of him in the house. After bumping her suitcase up the front stairs to the master bedroom, she wheeled it through the bedroom into the master bath and propped it open to get out her nightgown and toiletries.
She was creaming off her makeup—applied so hopefully yesterday afternoon in New York—when she looked into the bathroom mirror. Unable to face her ravaged reflection, she stared beyond it to the mirror image of the bedroom behind her.
Kendall’s fingertips on her face stopped in midmotion. Carefully she cupped her hands beneath the stream of water and rinsed off the remaining cold cream then patted her face dry with a hand towel. Only then did she turn around to consider their king-sized bed, which she noted with a peculiar mixture of resignation and horror, appeared patently unslept in—the comforter, shams, and pillows aligned exactly as she’d left them on Friday morning—a feat Cal would never have attempted to duplicate.
The garage door rumbled open downstairs, announcing Cal’s arrival at the same time the possible ramifications began demanding access to her heretofore numbed brain.
An interior door slammed and Cal’s footsteps sounded on the back stairs. They were not the eager steps of a lover, but the long, dragged-out footfalls of a husband who had not been expecting his wife home quite yet. And who might even now be trying out explanations for why he hadn’t answered the house phone all weekend.
Kendall stood there in her rumpled nightgown and makeup-less face as Calvin walked into the master suite freshly showered and shaved. His gym bag dangled from one hand.
“You’re home early.” He stepped up and bent his tall, spare frame to give her a kiss on the cheek along with a whiff of minty mouthwash and woodsy cologne. “How’d the conference go?”
Kendall’s antennae quivered. Sunday morning usually found Cal still in bed or stubble faced and surly behind the Sunday newspaper. But here he was all bright eyed and bushy tailed. Her gaze stole to the crisply made bed. His gaze followed hers and then came back to her face.
“Did you win?” Cal’s tone was calm, matter of fact. It contained no admission of guilt and no real interest in what she’d suffered over the weekend.
Kendall looked directly into his eyes, not wanting to see the truth there. Her brain began to poke at all the evidence, but some self-preserving censor commanded it to back off, for which Kendall was thankful. If there was such a thing as a good time to find out your husband was cheating on you, Kendall was pretty sure nine out of ten women would agree that this definitely was not it.
Like a pigeon bent on Capistrano, she’d managed to sneak out on her friends, get to the airport, onto a different flight, and then drive home almost entirely on instinct. And those instincts told her she absolutely could not handle the end of her personal life right now. Not on top of the demise of her career.
Those self-preservation instincts turned out to be pretty heavy duty. One minute Kendall was staring into Calvin’s face, the next the air was whooshing out of her lungs and her brain was going wonderfully mushy.
Then her knees buckled beneath her and everything went dark.
Mallory St. James had breakfast with Faye and Tanya before dropping them at JFK for their flights home to Chicago and Tampa. They spent the meal and the limo ride trying to reach Kendall, whose note had said only that she’d decided to go home early and would be in touch when she got herself “back together.”
“I can’t even let myself think about what time of morning she must have left,” Faye said, picking half-heartedly at her eggs Benedict.
“Sylvia must have hit her with something pretty big for her to bail like she did,” Tanya agreed, pushing her plate away.
“Well, I don’t like how she ran out on us.” The bright yellow yolks on her fried eggs stared accusingly at Mallory. “I only let her off the hook last night because I figured we’d all be able to help better this morning.” Mallory looked at the others and knew they were feeling as guilty and out of sorts as she was. “We’ve always shared the bad times along with the good.”
Tanya shot her a piercing look. “When did we ever help you? I’m not aware of you having a bad time.” She flipped her hair over one shoulder. “Except maybe that cover where they used that shade of blue you didn’t like?”
Mallory put down her fork and attempted to still the rush of anger. These women who knew her best knew her so little, but then that had been her choice, not theirs. “I’m so sorry I haven’t had more problems.” That you know about, she added silently. “If it’s any consolation, I feel like shit about it. Sometimes I’m afraid to mention anything good that happens because I don’t want to make you feel bad.”
There was a heavy silence. Mallory felt like a hen that had surprised the whole henhouse by laying a ten-pound egg. They prided themselves on being honest with each other, but they were women. Sometimes they put protecting feelings above the truth. Or looking self-sufficient above asking for help. And, of course, the version of her past that Mallory had shared with them had been carefully edited. If she ever admitted the real reason she wrote so compulsively, would they understand?
“Well that’s not right, Mallory.” As always Faye was the peacemaker. “We’re glad for your success, aren’t we, Tanya?” A salt-and-pepper eyebrow sketched upward above the dark frame of Faye’s glasses. Her gray eyes were warm.
“Of course we are.” Tanya took a sip of orange juice. “I’m just all worked up about Kendall. I feel like we failed her last night. And I hate to think about her all alone in Atlanta right now dealing with everything on her own.”
“She has Cal,” Mallory said, not sure why she said that when she knew better than anyone that being married didn’t guarantee you a safety net.
They all sighed. They’d been friends too long for any of them to hold out any real hope of Cal as a comfort.
“And Melissa and Jeffrey are only an hour away at UGA in Athens,” Mallory said as they divvied up the bill for the food they’d barely touched. “Kendall’s a big girl. She’ll be fine. Let’s just promise that whoever reaches her first will let the others know.”
Now Mallory stood in the foyer of her newly renovated Greenwich Village brownstone, trying to shrug off the nagging sense of worry that had ridden home with her. They all cared about Kendall and wanted to help her, but a woman had to build her own safe harbors and escape hatches in this life.
&
nbsp; “Mal? Is that you?” Her husband, Chris, called out.
“Yes.” She sat her suitcase down on the marble floor and propped her laptop up against it.
“I’m in the kitchen.”
Mallory pushed through the far door of the circular entry-way and stepped into the sun-dappled kitchen, by far her favorite room in the house. Two banks of windows framed the lush walled-in garden and allowed one to sit at any spot at the kitchen table and still have a view of it.
Chris, who had overseen the seemingly endless renovation and managed to make it possible for her to work throughout it, stood at the stovetop set into the octagonal island. The hair at his temples had begun to gray perfectly and his chiseled jaw and carved cheekbones made him look more like a male model in a Williams-Sonoma ad than an actual living, breathing, cooking spouse.
Chris waved his spatula at her. “Thought I’d make osso bucco for an early dinner. Or are you full from eating in restaurants all weekend?”
Mallory pinched a handful of grapes from a bunch in a cut-glass bowl on the counter and popped one in her mouth, feeling his positive energy lift and buoy her. “Sounds good,” she said.
“Do you want to go to a movie while it’s simmering? Or maybe adjourn upstairs for a nooner?” He moved up behind her and nuzzled the nape of her neck, smelling of man and meat, a fairly potent combination. Mallory knew from experience that he could put her in the mood in five minutes flat if she let him.
Her gaze strayed to the clock on the microwave and she struggled against the temptation. What could be better than an afternoon in bed with Chris? Certainly not the pages she had to write. For a long moment Mallory considered shrugging off the clock and throwing herself into her husband’s arms. But making love wouldn’t keep her in charge of her destiny; she already knew that writing could.
Turning, she gave him an apologetic peck on the cheek and ducked under his arms. “It’s way past noon, and I haven’t done my twenty pages yet.”
“It’s Sunday afternoon and you’ve been gone all weekend. Don’t you think you could start thirty minutes later?” Disappointment thickened his voice. “Better yet, why not take the rest of the day off?”
But Mallory never ever took the day off. No matter what.
She kept her voice purposely light. “Can’t,” she said. “You know I have to do my pages first. I always do my pages first.” What a dreary fact of life that was.
A look of irritation passed across his face. He was irritated? Mallory folded her arms across her chest. At the moment even arguing seemed more attractive to her than sitting down to work. “When did that become a problem for you?”
“It’s not a problem,” Chris said, stepping away from her and back to the simmering pan. He fixed his gaze on the cookbook propped on the counter. “I’m thinking about six o’clock for dinner. Will you be able to take a break then?”
But now Mallory found herself unwilling to let him sidestep the issue he’d raised. “You didn’t think my having to write first was a problem when it was paying for this money pit we live in.” The words were out before she could stop them. “Or making it possible for you to leave the architecture firm and go out on your own.”
She was going too far, she knew it, but it was such a relief to let loose after a weekend of thinking about each word before it was uttered. In her study she’d have to think about each word before she wrote it.
“I said, no problem, Mal. There’s no need to turn this into a big thing.”
As always, Chris refused to engage. There were no knockdown drag-outs in the Houghton/St. James household. The man had been determinedly even-keeled practically every minute of their twelve-year marriage. Usually she treasured his calm. Sometimes she wanted to kill him for it.
“Fine,” she snapped. “Then there’s no problem.” She walked briskly to the foyer to retrieve her laptop and then walked back into the kitchen. “I’m glad to hear it!” She was practically shouting now. Perversely, the calmer he got, the more agitated she became.
Angry, she stomped past him and into her study where she slammed the door to prove it.
But once she was behind the closed door of her office, it took an immense act of will to cross to her desk and sit down. Because the real truth was if there was anything she didn’t feel like doing right now it wasn’t making love to Chris.
It was writing.
She glanced around to make sure she hadn’t made the admission aloud.
In fact, she almost never felt like writing anymore. Which was something she’d studiously avoided mentioning to Kendall, Faye, and Tanya, as well as her expensive Park Avenue therapist, and her annoyingly wonderful husband.
It used to be that she could simply sit down, boot up her computer, and the words and images would flow effortlessly from some deep well inside of her. But it seemed the well had dried up. Nothing flowed from her anymore, not even drivel. Now each word was painstakingly mined and placed. Great spans of time were spent attempting to create characters that differed in even a small way from the characters she’d written before. And then she had to find the words to describe them.
She caught herself staring out the window searching the gnarled oak in the garden for inspiration. Stray noises reached her from the kitchen, and she regretted the angry words she’d hurled at Chris. Maybe she should go out and make up with him, coax him into bed for a change.
That would be far more pleasurable than trying to eke out today’s twenty pages. What better way to procrastinate than in bed?
No. Mallory booted up her computer and took out her notes. She was a professional writer and she had work to do. If she was going to make her deadlines, she was going to have to write her twenty pages today, tomorrow, and every day after that. If she allowed herself to think about the number of words she needed to produce, the sheer weight of them would crush her.
She couldn’t let that happen. Because writing had been her ticket back to the world of financial security and she could never allow herself to forget it.
Mallory lifted her fingers above the keyboard and prayed she would find some kernel of something buried deep inside then chided herself for the thought.
If no kernel presented itself, she would have to invent one. She didn’t have the time to wait for inspiration, divine or otherwise. If she waited until she really felt like writing, it would never happen. And then all of the lovely things that filled their lovely home and their lovely life would cease to exist. No sane human being would let that happen more than once in a lifetime.
Mallory shifted purposefully in her seat. She couldn’t afford to be afraid. Nor could she afford to run out of words. So thinking, Mallory St. James tuned out her hurt husband in the other room, her hurt friend down in Atlanta, and the smell of the simmering osso bucco. Then the woman who had once been known as Marissa Templeton placed her fingers lightly on the keyboard and began to type.
5
Books choose their authors; the act of creation is not entirely a rational and conscious one.
—SALMAN RUSHDIE
Unfortunately fainting was only a temporary escape. You couldn’t rely on it on a regular basis, though it occurred to Kendall, when she came to on Sunday evening on the bed where Cal had placed her, that the women of Scarlett O’Hara’s day probably hadn’t fainted so often because their corsets were laced too tightly, as was rumored, but because there were so many unpleasant things they didn’t want to deal with.
Kendall could relate. Between her failing career and her suspicions about Cal, the list of things she simply could not face was growing by the minute.
When the kids were still at home, when the foundation of her career could still bear weight, she might have tried to discuss things with Cal or suggest seeing a marriage counselor to help them save what they’d had for the last twenty-three years.
But with everything collapsing around her at the same time, Kendall was afraid to talk to Cal. She had a very bad feeling that if she did, the first words out of Cal’s mouth would be, �
��I’m leaving!”
Earlier when he’d lifted her from the floor, she’d roused long enough to refuse to let him call a doctor or take her to the nearby walk-in clinic. Claiming exhaustion, she’d curled on her side and feigned sleep until she finally nodded off for real. Now she lay awake beside her snoring husband, staring at the wall trying to figure out her next move. When nothing came to her, she eased carefully off the bed, tiptoed into Melissa’s bedroom at the opposite end of the hall, locked the door, and slid between her daughter’s sheets, where she fell asleep sometime before dawn.
A sharp knock on the door awoke her about 8:00 A.M. Monday morning. “Kendall? Are you in there? Are you all right?”
Only half awake, Kendall tried to process her next move. For lack of a better alternative, she remained quiet while Cal rattled the doorknob. “Are you all right, Kendall?”
No response.
“We really need to talk.”
If there was anything in the world Kendall did know, it was that she didn’t want to do that.
“I’ve got to work on the Bryer report tonight,” he said finally when she didn’t say anything. “But I’m not leaving until you tell me you’re OK.”
“I’m OK,” she called from bed, wanting him to leave.
“I’ll try to be home by ten,” he called back. “There are some things I want to tell you.”
Most likely the very things she didn’t want to hear. Kendall lay in bed listening to Cal clomp down the stairs and tromp through the kitchen to the garage. She thought he might have been whistling. Then the garage door went up, actually making Melissa’s bed vibrate. Kendall felt it go down, too, but she stayed in bed awhile longer listening, just in case he had just pretended to leave in an effort to flush her out.
Exhausted, she wandered downstairs and poked in the refrigerator for something to eat but found only half an out-of-date container of blueberry yogurt and a shriveled peach, which she disposed of. Whatever Cal had been doing all weekend had not included a trip to the grocery store. Or eating at home.