Young Wives

by Olivia Goldsmith

  “What I’ve got is an innocent woman who wants some assurances and some help from the public servants paid to protect and serve her,” he said.

  Douglas stood up. “Mrs. Russo, if you are innocent and telling the truth, I’m sorry to tell you that you and your kids are about to unfairly be the recipients of a shitstorm of trouble. We’re looking for everything we can grab until the trial. You can’t leave the county. You got no guarantees that we won’t tail you or pick you up or do whatever it might take to take Frank Russo down. You may be subpoenaed, even as a hostile witness. You’ve got a simple choice—give us something to help us and walk, or go through this with him.”

  56

  Consisting of a confidence and a kiss

  Since her return from Marblehead Angie felt so much better—almost lighthearted. Who knew she had so much spite in her? As she drove to work in her old clunker, she actually laughed out loud. She still couldn’t think of the scene without smirking to herself. But it wasn’t really spite. Somehow, whatever the outcome between Reid and Lisa, Angie felt that she’d gotten her self-respect back. And if she hadn’t had the help of Jada and Michelle—or should she say, Jenette and Katherine?—she never would have been able to pull it off.

  She giggled at that phrase. She’d wondered if Reid had been able to “pull it off,” or if Lisa had left him right then and he was still attached to the mattress. If she had, Angie wondered how he’d get into his trousers. It was like that old joke about a guy with five penises—his pants fit like a glove. She guessed that Reid’s trousers, if he was still stuck to the mattress, would have to fit like a sheet. She almost laughed out loud, alone in the car. What giddiness. If only she had thought to snag a photo or two for herself out of all those Polaroids. She’d also wished she’d had the presence of mind to say, “Oh, Lisa, I’m so very, very sorry.” Just to rub her nose in it. But she hadn’t. Well, she’d pulled it off as perfectly as she could, and she was deeply satisfied. She knew that she and Jada and Michelle would laugh about it for the rest of their lives.

  Somehow she felt she could start living her life now. She’d make her job permanent, if there was budgetary approval. She’d start saving money for a new car, tell her parents about the baby, and prepare for it. She wasn’t afraid of raising the child on her own. Somehow she felt prepared for anything life dished out.

  She got closer to the office and the smile faded from her face. The only dark thing about these last few days had been sitting in the diner and watching Frank talk to Michelle. Because he’d never met her, she felt that she could take the risk of occasionally looking at him in her mirror, but even in reflection his intensity and anger were enough to frighten her. There was no doubt he was a good-looking man, and a sexy one. But there was also no doubt that he terrified Michelle. She prayed that Michelle wouldn’t back off her resolve, especially now that they had the incriminating tape. Her friends had helped her. Now she would help them, if only they’d stick to their plans.

  Angie had a few things she had to do today along those lines, and none of them would be pleasant. Most importantly, she had to inform Michael and the board that Jada was dropping her appeal. After the investment they’d made in Jackson vs. Jackson, Laura and the board would probably be disappointed. Angie still wished with all her heart that Jada would pursue a legal approach to her problems, but she of all people was in no position to insist on that. After all, the Marblehead caper was anything but aboveboard. Still, she worried that what Jada was thinking of was going way too far and might end in tragedy—for all of them.

  Then there was another difficult thing she had to do—she had to face Michael and inform him about her condition. She didn’t know why she had been putting it off; they’d barely spoken since he’d asked her out. She’d been busy, of course, but that wasn’t the only reason she hadn’t revealed her pregnancy. Maybe she was afraid that it would discourage Michael—and maybe she was afraid it wouldn’t. But as she pulled into her spot at the clinic, she knew she had to say something.

  Her morning was busy with appointments. She literally bumped into Michael in the hallway once, but he was with a client and she was on her way to meet one in reception. They exchanged looks, but not a word was spoken.

  In the early afternoon, there was a staff meeting where she broke the news to all of them that the Jackson case was off the agenda. Everyone was disappointed, but Michael was the one who raised the most objections. “What’s she gonna do?” he asked. “Just live with the situation? Pretend it doesn’t exist? Forget about her kids?”

  “I don’t know,” Angie lied calmly. “Maybe she’s going to seek private counsel.” She knew that reflected badly on both of them, but she just wanted this part of the board meeting to end. But Michael wouldn’t give up. He brought up three alternatives to present to Jada, as well as a final scenario for good measure. The guy was certainly dedicated.

  “Just bring her in. Let me talk to her,” he said.

  “I don’t think she will. She’s just not going to.”

  “She owes us that much,” he said. In the end, though, he and the board had to accept the decision. Angie gave them the letter that she and Jada had drafted and they went on to other business. If Angie noticed her mother and Laura looking at her with what seemed like disappointment, she just had to hope she was wrong or imagining it. It had been a big case, bigger than she could handle. She hoped it didn’t mean that when Karen Levin-Thomas came back that Angie would find herself without a job.

  She was finally back in her office, filling in a restraining order, when there was a knock on the door. Angie knew it was Michael’s knock. When she invited him in, she tried to mentally prepare herself for what she had to do. He looked uncomfortable. He ran his hands through his hair, which must have had the worst cut in Westchester. But a suit and a haircut could be fixed. “Angie, can I talk to you for a minute?” he asked.

  “Sure,” Angie agreed. “The county takes about a week to process these restraining orders anyway. What difference does a few minutes make?”

  Michael didn’t sit down. Instead, he leaned up against the wall, across from her desk. She had to look up at him. She wondered if it was a psychological maneuver to make her uncomfortable, or if he did it because he was uncomfortable himself. “Look, Angie, you don’t have to avoid me. I’m really sorry. I never mixed my professional and private lives before. It’s a testament to how much I like you, how much I enjoy your company. I’m sorry if you don’t want to go out with me. Maybe I shouldn’t have even asked you. I mean, you don’t feel harassed or anything, do you?”

  Angie almost laughed out loud, but restrained herself because she didn’t want to hurt Michael’s feelings. He was so very politically correct that only he could think about the possibility of harassment in their situation. He’d been so appropriate, so restrained, and so kind to her. “I don’t feel harassed, Michael. I feel complimented,” Angie admitted. “Frankly, I can’t imagine what you see in me.”

  Michael didn’t move or change his expression. “I haven’t dated for a while, Angie, but I guess I remember enough from when I did to know that’s just another way of saying you don’t want to go out with me.”

  Angie shook her head. How could she tell him? God, she owed it to him, she had to get this out. And if she didn’t, he’d see her “secret” soon enough—any day she was going to show in spite of her loose tops.

  But still, it was hard to say. She thought, if things were different, she might actually want this man. Of course, it was far too soon to tell if she wanted anyone, and she didn’t know him well, but she knew the things she used to care about didn’t matter to her any more. Looks, status, and money were all the gifts Reid had to give, and they were empty. Michael Rice wasn’t a handsome man, but he wasn’t what Jada called TUFW—Too Ugly For Words.

  Anyway, she’d had DDG and it hadn’t worked. Michael certainly wasn’t powerful in the world, and he was probably paid not much more than she was making, but he had integrity and compassion and a
warmth that she’d never felt from Reid. She looked at his roundish face, his glinting glasses. “Michael, I just think it’s best if we didn’t let ourselves get involved now. I mean, there are things about me that you don’t know.”

  “Well, there’s things about me you don’t know,” he said reasonably. “I thought that was why you dated someone—to find out things about them.” He shrugged. “I’m being stupid.” As he started toward the door, he added, “Okay, Angie. Forget about it. I’m sorry I bothered you.”

  Oh, he had it all wrong. He thought it was him. How could she let him know that wasn’t it? “Michael, I’m pregnant,” she blurted.

  He turned from the door. His face was calm. “Yeah. Of course you are.”

  “You knew? I mean, you know?” she asked.

  “Angie, I watch you very closely. Men do that. And I’ve been married. I’ve watched my wife go through two pregnancies.”

  “You know?” was all Angie could repeat. “You know, and you still want to go out with me?”

  “Yeah. Do you think that’s so odd?”

  “Yeah. I do, actually.”

  “Then I’m odd,” he said. He began to leave again, then stopped and turned around. “Wait. You thought I didn’t … Is that why you didn’t want to go out?” His face softened, and he smiled. He moved back to the desk

  Angie felt like an idiot. “You still do?” she said.

  As an answer, Michael leaned forward, put his hands on her desk, and kissed her.

  57

  Containing a date at the diner

  Michelle brushed out her long hair. She needed her roots done, but what was the point? She’d lightened her hair for Frank, and he wouldn’t see it, except for today.

  Angie had thought this through so thoroughly that even Michelle felt safe. Angie had set it up as if it were a bank heist, or a security sweep for a presidential visit. Jada had gotten behind it, too. Still, Michelle felt nervous as she twisted her hair up. Marblehead had been nerve-racking but fun. This, though, felt dangerous, and not funny at all.

  Michelle was waiting for Angie to start talking about possible sniper sights on rooftops, or for Jada to pull out Frankie’s walkie-talkies so they could keep in constant contact. Angie had even insisted that they bring a man—she said she felt awkward about asking Michael, so she had convinced Bill to come. Frankly, Michelle didn’t see much point in that. If Frank did go ballistic, which he wouldn’t, there was certainly nothing that weedy Bill could do about it. All of it made Michelle feel even more nervous, and at the same time as if she might laugh out loud.

  Michael Rice had contacted Bruzeman and started negotiations for support for the kids. The problem was that Frank kept insisting she should bring the kids home, that he’d support all of them as he always had. But Frank was a different man. It wasn’t that he had hit her. It wasn’t that she didn’t believe he was capable of doing it again, under the right circumstances. It was just that it wasn’t going to happen in a diner in Scarsdale. Not at one o’clock in the afternoon in front of a few dozen lunchers and as many service staff. “Look, we’re just going to talk,” she reminded Jada. “And only for a half an hour. Then I’m going to get up and go. That’s it. Nothing else is going to happen.”

  “Fine,” Jada said. “We’ll make sure of that.” Jada was going to sit in her car in the diner parking lot, watching Frank arrive and leave. Then she was to make sure he didn’t follow Michelle. Meanwhile, Angie was already stationed in a corner booth, her back to the table where Michelle was sitting, Bill opposite her. His eyes would stay glued on Michelle as if she were Leonardo DiCaprio.

  Michelle drove over to the diner alone, her heart thudding painfully in her chest. She didn’t want to wear a wire, and it was a good thing, because her chest felt like it was going to burst and the device would have been exposed. But once there, twenty-five minutes early to be sure they beat Frank in, she felt better. The one good thing about all the activity around this, as far as Michelle was concerned, was that it hadn’t given her too much time to be nervous about actually seeing Frank. She was more nervous about him seeing Jada or the others. She glanced briefly over at the corner booth where Bill and Angie were sitting. Angie, totally in her I Spy mode, pulled out a compact and actually looked in its mirror so that she could see Michelle without turning around. Again Michelle almost giggled out loud. As far as she knew, Angie didn’t even wear makeup that required a compact. Had she bought it purposely for this caper?

  But the giggle died in her throat as Michelle saw Frank coming up the stairs of the diner entrance. She felt a pull at her chest, a tightening that pushed the air out of her. He came in the door and saw her immediately. He slid into the seat opposite hers.

  It amazed her that he looked exactly the same. She didn’t know what she’d expected, but his hair was just as dark and glossy, his skin as smooth, his eyes as beautiful. He was wearing a black turtleneck sweater—one that she had given him last Christmas. Michelle admitted to herself that she still loved him. She knew what he was, and she hated it, but old feelings died slowly in her.

  He put both of his hands down flat on the table and she had to remind herself that they were the hands that had hit her. She looked up from them and back at his eyes. His eyes had always fascinated her. Now, if anything, they were deeper than ever—eyes she could get lost in.

  “How are the kids?” Frank began.

  “Okay.” She wasn’t going to talk much. They’d all decided that was best.

  “What did you tell them?” he asked. His voice didn’t sound defensive or angry, but oddly it didn’t sound concerned either. That wasn’t Frank. He adored the kids. He must miss them more than anything else. He was so calm, almost cold. Michelle knew him enough to know he was using a lot of control to achieve this apparent neutrality.

  “I told them that you had to go away for a little while and that the painters were working in our house.” She paused. “I don’t think they want more information than they can handle.”

  “You’re not going to tell me where you’re staying?” he asked, and there was some feeling in his voice now. Michelle just shook her head. She’d get up if he pushed her. “So, they’re okay,” he said going back to neutral.

  “Well, I guess as okay as they can be. They aren’t asking any questions. That’s a bad sign.”

  “It is?”

  “Of course, Frank. They know something is up, and they know I don’t want to talk about it, and they don’t want to know about it. What hasn’t gone wrong for them in the last few months?”

  Frank looked out the window, past the miniature jukebox affixed to the end of the table. For a moment Michelle thought he was going to focus on Jada’s Volvo, way to the side of the lot, but to her relief he was merely scanning empty space. Then he turned his eyes back to her. “Michelle, it’s not too late to fix everything that’s wrong. I promise you I can do it.”

  Again, Michelle felt an inappropriate giggle rise in her throat, but she certainly didn’t feel like laughing. It was a kind of horror reaction, like the time her mother had told her about her grandma’s death and Michelle had laughed out of nerves and … something else she still couldn’t identify. “How can you say that?” she asked him. “How can you possibly fix this, Frank? I have a list that’s twenty-two pages long. I don’t think that it can be fixed. The only way to fix it is by making it never happen, and that isn’t possible.”

  Frank stared at her and clutched the edge of the Formica tabletop. She couldn’t help but stare at his hands—the hands that had made her feel so good, the hands that had hit her. She watched the skin under his nails go white with the pressure he used to clutch the table. “Look,” he said, his voice lower but now more intense. “I can do it. I have a way around this with Bruzeman. I get off, we get the family back together, and I will never hurt you or the children again. Not in any way, Michelle.”

  For a moment she didn’t know what he was saying. Then she realized that he really expected, or at least hoped, that she’d fo
rget everything. That they were going to get back together. “Frank—” she began, but he interrupted.

  “I made a mistake, Michelle. One mistake, and it led to a few more. I didn’t see the way it would play out. I’m sorry. I thought I was protected. I thought you were protected.” He paused. She wondered if he meant payoffs, or political pull, or pals at the police headquarters, or … worse. She watched his mouth moving, but couldn’t hear him for a moment until she forced herself to focus. “It’s not too late to be protected again,” he was saying. “I don’t want you out there alone, Michelle. I don’t want the kids living in some motel, or some rental dump. I don’t want you worried about money, or me, or anything else. I want what we had. And we can have it again, Michelle.”

  The intensity of his voice, the force of will he projected from his eyes, even the strength of his grip on the table, exerted his old force on her. No wonder she had adored him for so long. He was handsome, he was sexy, he was intense. He seemed so certain, he seemed so solid and focused. He seemed like the most trustworthy man in America. But she’d been polishing an apple that was rotten inside, she thought. It had been no Eden, no garden of paradise. The apple had collapsed like the one at Shop Rite all those weeks ago, and Frank wasn’t Adam—he was the snake.

  “Michelle, think about last Christmas,” Frank was saying, “When I gave you the watch? And we put together the bunk beds? You remember dinner that night, and opening our stockings?” He let go of the table with one hand and dropped it out of sight. For a crazy minute she worried about a gun.