Jada had been right; the Polaroids were a really nice touch, and she knew that others had already been hidden in bureau drawers, in the desk, and even in the linen closet. If Lisa did hang around after this—which Angie truly doubted—she’d go batshit all over again when she found the photos.
As she walked across the living room, Angie could hear yelling up in the bedroom. She better move fast. She had one more thing to do, sliding the little journal she’d prepared onto a shelf behind another book. It was only then that she realized that now she didn’t really care if Lisa and that idiot got married or not. They deserved each other. Her pain was cauterized, her envy gone. She walked out the door of her first home for the last time.
“You know, I think I like this underwear,” Michelle said. “And I definitely like the orange lipstick on you, Jada.”
“I should have put some on him,” Jada said, “instead of just settling for the panties on his head.”
“Oh yeah!” Michelle agreed enthusiastically. They were all pretty boisterous. “And a bra. To match his eyes. Why didn’t we think of that before?”
Angie, sitting between them in the uncomfortably small shuttle seat, laughed. “As if what she saw wasn’t enough for Lisa to chew on,” she said. “A ménage à trois. Lesbianism. Adultery. Miscegenation. Plus a pinch of sadomasochism and cross-dressing?” Angie began to cackle. “Poor Lisa!”
That made Michelle and Jada crack up. They probably sounded as if they were drunk, but aside from diet Coke nothing had been consumed—except, of course, Reid’s pride and Lisa’s smugness.
The shuttle jumped and settled as it hit some turbulence, but though Michelle clutched the armrests, Jada just shrugged. “It’s nothing,” she said. “Just a mountain sayin’ hello.”
Michelle glanced nervously out the window and Angie smiled at her friends. “If we’ve got to go down,” she said, “this is when I’d like to go. I’d smile all the way to the ground.” Then she thought of the baby and changed her mind. She adjusted the belt across her expanding belly and wondered if she could go the rest of the flight without having to make yet another trip to the lavatory.
“It was unbelievable,” Michelle said, over her fright flight. She turned her back from the clouds outside. “I felt so powerful. I ran the show. And it was so easy,” she marveled. “We should celebrate. We should have done something really great.”
“Yeah. We should have spent the night at the Ritz Carlton.”
“I still can’t believe we got away with it,” Michelle said.
“Most men are easy,” Jada told her. “I just loved it when you invited us over to his place.” She turned to Angie. “You should have seen him slaver. I could have filled a bucket with his saliva,” she added.
“So tell me again what happened at the very end?” Angie asked. “When I discreetly left the room so that I wouldn’t witness their shame.”
“Again?” Michelle smiled. “I have a feeling this may become baby’s favorite bedtime story,” she predicted. “Kind of like what happened on the day I was born.” She made her voice sugary, like those recordings for very young children. “And then Auntie Jada handed the Bad Witch Lisa a magic bottle of nail polish remover. And she said, –This has the power to break the spell. At least it’s how we got it unglued last time.’ And Auntie Michelle said, ‘It burns a little, but he’s into that. If you really want to, just blow on it.’ The Bad Witch started to yell at the Wicked Prince. While she did, Auntie Michelle hid the other naughty, naughty pictures all over the castle, for the Bad Witch Lisa to find later. And then the two good Aunties disappeared, and left the Wicked Prince with his dick in a bind.”
“Yeah. And then the Witch probably turned into a dragon and set the whole bed on fire,” Jada finished. “But we were already on the way to Logan by then. And then we all had to wait on line at the car rental counter.”
“All stories end like that,” Angie said. “Instead of happily ever after. I just wonder if she unglues him?” Michelle asked.
“I wonder how much it will hurt?” Jada added.
“I always wondered why they called it Crazy Glue, but now I think I know,” Michelle laughed.
“Oh, I thought it was Five-Second Glue,” Angie said. “That would have been appropriate for Reid.”
Jada put her palm up. “Uh-uh. No details, sisterfriend. I don’t want to hear it. Yuck!”
Angie laughed. “God, it looked so kinky.”
“And he didn’t even get to touch us!” Jada gloated.
“Do you know the difference between sexy and kinky?” Michelle asked suddenly. Both of her friends shook their heads. “If you do it with a feather, it’s sexy,” Michelle said. “But with a whole chicken, it’s kinky.”
They all laughed. The flight attendant announced they were arriving in “the New York area.” Passing them, she looked annoyed, as if they were laughing at her. The three of them calmed down. Then Jada said, “God, I wished we’d brought a chicken.” Angie began to cackle, and her friends joined her. Jada shook her head. “Unbelievable,” she said. “I really do feel so … so powerful.”
“We are powerful,” Angie said. “Let’s not forget it.” She paused and looked from one to another. “Thank you, both of you, for your help.” She took their hands.
“Do we look like campfire girls at a seance?” Jada asked. “Or are we acting lesbian again?”
“Shut up,” Michelle said. “This is a tender moment.” She turned to Angie. “You’re welcome,” Michelle said. “He deserved every minute of it. And I hope Lisa finds the journal and shows it to him. Icing on the cake.”
“I hope she publishes it. What was in it? Where did you hide it?” Jada asked.
“I put the journal on the bookshelf. If she ever finds it, I wrote about how bad the sex was with him. I even put in something about how his dad felt me up at the Christmas party. And how Reid’s breath always stank in the morning. Plus, I made up this affair he had. The one with his friend from prep school.”
“A girlfriend or a boyfriend?” Michelle asked.
Angie grinned. “A boyfriend, of course.”
“What a bombshell!” Jada laughed.
“I didn’t say his name. I just used an initial—X. But I was really graphic. And I did say he was one of Reid’s closest friends. Let Lisa forever wonder. I wrote a really good couple of pages about finding him giving head in the men’s room of the club the night Reid passed out there, too. Very graphic.”
The plane was making its final descent as the three women laughed again.
“It was a good plan,” Jada admitted.
“Well, one down, two to go,” Angie told them.
55
In which Cinderella is delivered
Michelle went to open the numbered mailbox she had rented at Mailboxes, Etc. Not that she expected anything, she told herself. Don’t get your hopes up. Her idea was silly, and her ads were probably stupid, so she’d waited more than a week before she came to check, each day telling herself not to bother.
Now, opening the tiny door reminded her suddenly of the other box—the lockbox full of drug money that Jada had trusted her about and innocently put in her name. Michelle had been having dreams almost every night about getting busted.
Despite all her fears and her bad dreams, Michelle had done nothing. Typical of her, she thought with disgust. Without someone to tell her what to do, it was almost guaranteed she’d do nothing. But Michelle felt that in her situation now, doing nothing was no longer an option. It wasn’t just herself and Frank, but her children’s future, and now Jada’s and maybe even Angie’s at stake.
Since the Boston affair she’d felt as if … well, as if she could, maybe, make things happen. Now she struggled with the mailbox key and finally got the lock to turn. She opened the little door, and to her delight, there was a pile of envelopes. Michelle started to pull them out, but realized they were actually so densely packed that she couldn’t do it without tearing a few, so she stopped and just stared at the letters
in front of her. They were all responses. Responses to the ads she had run.
She looked at the clump of mail for a moment, not believing her eyes. Then, with a whoop, she began to pull them out and tear them open. She stood at the counter of the mail drop, her fingers shaking, as she read them and sorted them by category. There were responses from people looking for work—people who wanted to be her employees! A few she saw right away wouldn’t do, but there were lots of nicely typed—and several handwritten—intelligent letters. Once she had taken out the obviously crazy and one obscene one, as well as the two who had not included a phone number or return address, she had sixteen legitimate responses for help.
But even more unbelievably, there were five requests for her services, or at least people who were interested in hearing more about them.
These little piles of letters represented a whole new life. Michelle just stood there and stared. She’d had the power to get this kind of response? And on her first try? With only a few ads? Even if she never heard from any of these people again, she felt she’d already scored some kind of victory. What was even more extraordinary to her was that she’d done it, all of it, by herself. Maybe she’d still be cleaning, but she wasn’t Cindy anymore and she didn’t need a prince. She stared at the letters for as long as she dared to. They represented a new life—the possibility of a clean life, in both senses of the word. Michelle didn’t have to be dependent on anyone. She could take care of herself and her children.
She hadn’t advertised her services nearby but in northern Westchester instead; if all of this worked, she’d decided she would move even farther away from the scene of her husband’s crime. Maybe all of this could happen. It was a modest enough hope—to be able to work and take care of her children. But that was all she wanted. Michelle wasn’t interested in anything except self-sufficiency and peace. No more haunting dreams. She wanted to feel that she could provide whatever was needed and deal with whatever arose. And these letters—these precious letters—did more to make her believe that was possible than anything had before.
Time was passing. She didn’t know how long she’d been standing there, but she looked down at her watch and realized she’d be late for Michael Rice and the meeting he had set up. She stuffed the letters into her purse and then got into the Lexus—a car she now despised—and drove to the county municipal building.
As she got closer and closer, she lost all of that delicious feeling of lightness she had had and felt it replaced with dread and fear. Her chest tightened as if she’d tried to struggle into one of Jenna’s leotards. She knew why—she didn’t want to have to see District Attorney Douglas. He was the man who had ruined her life, frightened her and her children, and scarred them in a way they would never recover from. Now that she’d realized her husband’s guilt, she felt that she couldn’t really object to Douglas’s attitude toward Frank, but Michelle was afraid to find out what his attitude toward her might be. Hostile, she was sure. But she had to find out if she was free to move away, to leave Frank and go undisturbed, as far as the law was concerned.
Michael was waiting for her and she could see by the expression on his face that it wasn’t good that she was late.
“Let’s go,” he said, without any preamble. “It wasn’t easy to get this time with Douglas and I don’t want him to shuffle us off his calendar.”
Michelle nodded meekly and followed her lawyer into the building and up to the fourth floor.
George Douglas was a big man—beefy, but not fat. His hair was sandy red and thinning, plastered in thin strips over a mostly bald head, and his skin was freckled all over. He came out of his office as soon as his secretary had announced them. “Rice,” he said, and nodded curtly at Michael. “And you’re Mrs. Russo?”
Michelle couldn’t speak. He reminded her too much of her father, a man who had died almost twenty years ago but was the approximate size and shape of DA Douglas. If she wasn’t already terrified, which she was, she would have been by this reincarnation. Typical luck for her. Where was it written that this man she already feared would also have to resemble another man she’d feared? For a moment, she was afraid that she couldn’t cope, that she’d literally turn and run away. But there was nothing to do except take a deep breath and move forward as he ushered them into his office. His bald head glistened like his many plaques and trophies between the pomaded and carefully placed reddish strands plastered to his head.
“This is Assistant District Attorney Ben Michaelson and this is Stephen Katz,” Douglas said by way of introduction. “Michael Rice. And his client, Mrs. Russo.” He sat down heavily in a worn leatherette swivel chair, leaned back, and steepled his hands in front of his stomach. “So,” he said. “What have you got to offer, Rice?”
“We’re not here to offer anything,” Michael said. “As I told you on the phone, this is an open discussion to determine how justice can best be served.”
“Yeah, sure,” Douglas said. And for a moment Michelle raised her head from the defensive position she had tucked it into and dared to take a look at him. “Well, if you want justice to be served,” Douglas repeated, “here’s what you can do—you can have Mrs. Russo wear a wire and give us a recorded admission of guilt from her husband. Better yet, you could let us know where his stash is, and who he was working for. We already know who he was working with, so I’m not interested in the names of his soldiers.”
Michelle felt she might die, right there in her chair. All of these men were so tough and so quick to dispose of her, her husband, and the lives of her children. The most humiliating part of it was that she now knew Frank was guilty, and that they’d known before she did. She felt tears come to her eyes and she lowered her head again.
“Mrs. Russo is the mother of two school-age children. She’s also innocent, and completely unaware of any criminal activity on her husband’s part,” Michael said. “I’d also like to remind you that though he’s been charged, you still have no evidence and you’re conducting this based totally on the testimony of men who may prove to be unreliable.”
“Hey, Michael,” Douglas said. “Am I mistaken or did you come here looking for a deal, just like they did?”
“No, we didn’t. We just wanted to let you know Mrs. Russo plans to leave the county, and perhaps begin divorce proceedings.”
“Oh really? How interesting. And this is just coincidental, having no bearing on Frank Russo’s recent activities?”
“George, we’re not on trial, and Mrs. Russo doesn’t have to explain her domestic life to you or plead the Fifth Amendment. Just let us know if she’s free to go,” Michael Rice said. “You’re not charging her.”
“Not yet, but she’s not free to go,” Douglas said. “Now, if Mrs. Russo wants to turn state’s evidence in return for a guarantee that she will not be prosecuted, we might be able—might be able—to work that out,” he said. “But she’d be doing just the same thing as my other witnesses, so don’t malign them, okay?” Michelle felt panic, but tried not to show it. “I only let someone walk if they can bring me in someone bigger, not someone who’s irrelevant.”
For the first time, Douglas turned and looked directly at Michelle. “Do you know something useful?” he asked her. “Can you tell me who he spoke to? Who he brought to your house? Can you tell me where shipments came from? What cousins does Frank have who might, just possibly, of course, be connected? Who does he know from Colombia? Have you taken a lot of vacations in Mexico, or Caracas? You’re going to have to give it up, Mrs. Russo.”
She looked at the disgusting man. She could tell him the truth. “If I knew any of that, if Frank had done any of that in front of me, I wouldn’t be Mrs. Russo any more,” she said. “All I want is to find out if you think I’m involved, which I’m not. And whether or not I’m safe to take my children out of this county. I’m concerned about my children and”—here she took a deep breath—“I have no proof if Frank’s guilty or not, but I’m afraid he may be and that makes me frightened and ashamed.”
&nb
sp; “You’re afraid he may be guilty?” Douglas asked, his voice full of false concern. “You’re afraid he may be guilty? Let me tell you something. You know goddamned well that your husband has been playing the game. Either that or you are the most disloyal, disgusting wife I’ve run into in some time. You’re telling me you’re abandoning that son-of-a-bitch because he’s run into trouble with the law and you don’t even know if he’s guilty? You’re just afraid he might be. What kind of woman does that, Mrs. Russo?”
“I don’t like your tone, Douglas,” Michael said hotly. “I don’t like the way you’re talking to Mrs. Russo. We came here in good faith.”
Douglas looked at Michelle and she forced herself not to look away. “You know,” he said. “I don’t think that you’re a bitch, but I do think that you’re a liar. You’re not afraid he’s guilty. You know it. You know plenty, enough to make you want to get the hell away from the father of your children. Now, I’ll help you do that, but you got to help me, too. If you came here in good faith, then give me something.”
“Mrs. Russo has nothing to give you,” Michael said. “She’s innocent and she’s been terrorized both by her husband and by the police. Come on, George. It’s been brutal on her. And her children have become pariahs at school.”
Douglas took his hands off his belly and put them behind his head. “Well, I’m hurting for them,” he said, with what seemed like sincerity. “But you know what? I can’t cry for all the women I see who for years prefer to keep their eyes shut. Who don’t want to know exactly what their husbands are doing because, if they did, it might rock their boat. It might shake their world. It might even cut their income.” He paused. “You live on a nice street, Mrs. Russo. You drive a nice car. I know that for a fact. We’ve looked at your tax returns, we’ve looked at your husband’s business income. He’s not stupid, I’ll grant you that. But I don’t think you are, either. I don’t want to hear women tell me”—here he raised his voice in an unpleasant falsetto—“I didn’t know he was busting heads. I didn’t know about the thirty phone lines and the fact that he was taking more bets than OTB. I didn’t know who Lefty or Pee Wee really were.’ They know. They just don’t want to know.” Douglas shrugged. “What have you got for me, Michael?”
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