by Wendy Walker
Anthony reached out now and took her arm. “You can thank me by accompanying me to the party.”
Marie smiled and nodded. “That I can do.”
FIFTY-SEVEN
THE UNVEILING
THE COCKTAIL HOUR LINGERED well past nine, but no one seemed to notice. The food and wine were flowing, the band was playing, and most of the crowd was in a state of intoxicated abandon. Marie made her rounds, introducing herself to the ladies from the Cliffton Women’s Clinic.
“The party is lovely. We’re so fortunate that Gayle offered her home,” they all agreed, as though she’d had a choice in the matter’as though they hadn’t screwed her in the allocation vote.
“Yes. And now you can buy some really nice couches,” Anthony said with his trademark sarcasm.
Marie elbowed him as the ladies eyed each other, wondering if they had just been insulted. They were saved by the entrance of their fellow board member, Janie Kirk. Dressed in a short pink silk dress, high-heeled sandals, and professionally blown hair, she seemed to be doing just fine for someone on the brink of divorce. She was, however, alone.
“Isn’t this incredible?!” she said to Marie, pulling her away from the clinic ladies.
“It turned out.” Marie smiled as she looked the woman over.
“How’s Daniel feeling? Did they reduce the clot?” Anthony asked.
Janie smiled. “He’s doing much better. He’ll be back in the office Monday.”
“Give him our best.”
“Thanks, I will. Have you seen Gayle?”
Marie shrugged. “She was in the kitchen earlier.”
“Better find her. See if she needs anything.” And then she was off.
“Uggh,” Marie said.
Anthony smiled. “I don’t get why she bothers you so much.”
“She’s just so … perfect. She looks twenty years old.”
“Maybe she’s just trying to fill in the blanks.”
“What blanks?”
Anthony gave her a scornful look. “How could you of all people ask about the blanks in the life of a suburban housewife?”
Marie scowled. Why was he always so dead-on right?
As Janie weaved her way through the crowd, leaving in her wake a sea of awestruck men and jealous women, Marie looked at her husband. “Well she’s done a much better job filling in hers than I have mine.”
Anthony wrapped his arm around Marie’s shoulders. “I’ll take yours any day of the week.”
“Liar,” she retorted in a way that was wonderfully familiar.
They watched Janie enter the house through the back door, then focused their disapproval on the scene that remained. Clinging to party tradition, the initial burst of mingling had given way to the established town cliques. Parents of kids at the west side school clung together, as did those who lived on the east side of town. The private-school contingent found themselves in groups of two or three couples, and those without children sipped their drinks and scanned the crowd for social openings. It was all so expected. So restrained. So Hunting Ridge.
They caught Bill’s eye as he entered the yard, also alone. Anthony waved him over.
“Hey, man. Looks like you need a drink,” Anthony said. And Bill didn’t need convincing. They moved in a line to the bar, then found a spot to dull their nerves and wait for Love.
At nine thirty, the buffet was served. The band went on break to allow for an orderly dinner service, and the small clusters moved in packs to the tables under the tent. Seated at the table closest to the house, Marie, Anthony, and Bill looked at the three empty places.
“We know where Love is, but where the hell are the hosts of this party?” Marie said, mostly to herself. Her last sighting of Gayle had been close to eight o’clock, and Troy Beck had just disappeared through the kitchen.
“Maybe they don’t know dinner has been served. Should I look for them?” Bill offered, but Marie shook her head. After two glasses of champagne, she was just beginning to shed the day’s events from her mind. Vickie Farrell’s breakdown, the legal haggling, and Randy Matthews’s mysterious phone call’all of it was now muted by the soft buzz of bubbly alcohol. And, feeling a burst of himself for some reason, Anthony had entertained a small gathering of their “in-town” acquaintances with witty comments on local politics. Watching him in action, feeling his presence for the first time in months, Marie was remembering her husband and slowly losing track of the rest of it. The Becks could stay missing right through to the end for all she cared.
Upstairs, Gayle heard someone coming. Quietly, she returned the bottle of Xanax to the drawer, pushed it shut, then switched off the bathroom light. The door was open, but only a crack and there wasn’t time to close it. She heard the voices now. Her husband was in their bedroom, and he wasn’t alone.
They were hushed, at first, the voices, and broken by moments of silence. Gayle moved closer to the door, her senses now returning from the rush of adrenaline. She heard the rustling of stiff silk, then a heavy breath. It was unmistakable. He was with another woman in their bedroom and the thought of it was unbelievable. Then the voices returned, mere whispers sifting through the opening. She couldn’t make out the words, couldn’t place the other voice, the voice of the woman who was now in her bedroom. Gayle closed her eyes as she listened and the picture appeared before her. The sound of the silk rustling in his hands. The dress was being pulled up. Then the creaks in the floorboards that came with the shifting of body weight. They were leaning into each other now, maybe against the wall. His sighs grew louder, his tone was pleading. The woman was having second thoughts, maybe out of guilt. Maybe from the fear of getting caught.
The sounds grew silent, all but the whispering. His hands were still as he pressed his body against hers. He was convincing her to stay. Gayle heard the click of metal as the bedroom door was locked, then the floorboards again. There was shuffling, then the muted depression of the mattress as their bodies fell upon it.
She knew her husband, knew his every move of seduction. He was kissing her neck now, with a hand inside the dress, grabbing for bare skin wherever he could find it. His other hand was on her back, holding her firmly in place, making it hard to cling to any semblance of resolve. He knew just what to do, where to touch a woman when he wasn’t getting his way’this she remembered from days long past.
Then came the laughter. It was soft, but like a fingerprint, completely distinctive. The picture was now complete. The woman in her bed, lying under the body of her husband, was Janie Kirk. Sitting on the floor like a little girl, listening to her husband make a fool out of her in her own home, Gayle felt the last remnants of pride inside her die. For years she had tolerated his abuse to hold on to their marriage. And for the past several days she had carried on, pretending she didn’t see him turning now to their son.
She rose to her feet and walked back to the small vanity table. She opened the drawer and removed the pills, clutching the bottle in her hand. Then she walked to the door and pulled it open.
FIFTY-EIGHT
PROOF
“LOVE!” MARIE YELLED WHEN she saw her friend turn the corner to the backyard. Dressed in casual slacks and a T-shirt, Love was as out of place as Marie and yet, somehow, she seemed to float across the lawn. There was a new serenity about her, in her slow gait and gentle movements, that caught the attention of the table as she approached.
Thinking his wife was nothing short of heart-stopping, Bill became filled with the caution of uncertainty. He’d missed her calls, twice letting the phone ring when he could have gotten there in time. As much as he wanted to know how her reunion went, the larger part of him needed to cling to ignorance, even for just a little while more.
When she was close, he rose from the table and managed an appropriate smile to mask his concern, embracing his wife with a small kiss. “How are you? Are you in more pain?”
Love gently waved him off as she sat down at the table. “I’m fine, really. It’s about the same.”
�
��And the trip?” He knew he had to ask.
“It’s a long story. Can we talk later?”
Sensing the tension, Marie gave her friend a wink, then filled the silence with chatter about the crazy day that was, thankfully, winding down. With more than adequate embellishment, Marie walked them through the saga of the Farrell case and Anthony’s heroic efforts to save the party. Then the conversation returned to the uncomfortable absence of the hosts.
“Where could they have gone?” Love asked, and everyone knew what the question implied. They weren’t exactly the sort of couple to sneak off for a stolen moment of intimacy. That didn’t really happen in the suburbs, and Gayle, in particular, would sooner die.
“That seems to be the question of the day.”
Love checked her watch. It was nearly ten o’clock. “Aren’t they supposed to give the speeches soon? She has to be here for that.”
Marie nodded and shrugged her shoulders. “Maybe she doesn’t want to hear about the plans to redecorate.”
“Come on.”
Love got up from the table, and Marie followed. This was Gayle’s night. The party was a success and’the best part’it was almost over. There was no reason for her not to be here, at least not one that didn’t have Love unnerved.
Upstairs, the bedroom door was open. A light drifted into the darkened hallway from someplace inside the room, but it was too dim to be coming from the night table. As they approached the room, Love and Marie looked at each other, then stopped just outside the door.
“Should we go in?” Love asked. Marie didn’t answer. Stepping slowly, she walked inside.
“Gayle?” she called out. The light was coming from the bathroom, escaping from underneath the closed door. Then the door opened.
“It’s just me.” Standing in the doorframe with the light at his back was Troy. His jacket was off, his tie askew. And everything about him looked wrong.
“Excuse us, we were looking for your wife,” Love said, turning to leave.
“I spilled a drink. I’ll be down as soon as I clean up.” The answer was strange, not only because Marie had watched him leave the party without as much as a hair out of place, but because there was not the slightest hint of concern for his missing wife.
They said nothing to him but moved as one toward the bathroom. When they were face to face with the man, he held out his arms to block their path.
“I’ll be right down.” His voice was firm.
Still, Marie took another step forward, taking him by surprise. “I just want to see for myself.”
He laughed nervously until she was past him, inside the beautiful white room where Janie Kirk was fixing her makeup in Gayle’s mirror.
“You have to be kidding,” Marie said, looking back and forth between the two lovers. Barely dressed in the hot pink silk, there could be no other explanation for Janie Kirk to be in Gayle’s bathroom’with Gayle’s husband.
Janie was suddenly pale as she closed her cosmetics bag and walked to where Love was standing.
“I’m so sorry,” she said, first to Love, then again to Marie. Love studied her face, trying to place the look in the woman’s eyes. It didn’t take long for her to recognize it. Shame. Regret. Resolve that she would now have to face the scrutiny of others.
“Oh, Janie. What are you doing?” Marie asked, not wanting, or expecting, an answer. And none was forthcoming.
“Where is Gayle?” Love grabbed Janie’s arms. She had no use for Troy, or Janie Kirk, except to find her friend.
Janie hung her head. “She left a few minutes ago.”
“Did she see you?” Marie asked, searching the woman’s face for signs of contrition.
Janie was silent as she looked at Troy. Love and Marie didn’t wait for an answer.
“I’ll check for her car. You search the house.” Marie bounded out of the room for the stairs. Holding back her anger, Love looked one last time at Janie Kirk. As she headed for the hallway, she could hear the woman’s voice trailing behind her.
“I’m so sorry.”
FIFTY-NINE
DREAMS OF A CHILD
LOVE RUSHED THROUGH THE house, searching for Gayle. One after the other, she turned on the lights in perfectly decorated rooms, each one so carefully planned. Gayle’s grandmother’s antique secretary in the study, the restored wall sconce that had once hung in her room as a little girl, delicate moldings and brass door handles’in every corner were traces of her friend. Year upon year, the Hunting Ridge Women’s League had offered to include the Beck estate in the annual home show, and each time Gayle had refused them, instead writing a large check to the League. It wasn’t about appearances to her. This home was her sanctuary, the place where she could display the keepsakes of her memories and live among them as if they were the oldest and dearest of friends. In every room, Love could feel her presence. But they were all empty.
Marie caught up to Love in the foyer.
“Her car is still here. Did you look everywhere?”
Love nodded. “Maybe she took another car.”
“She wouldn’t leave without Oliver.”
Love turned toward the stairs. Oliver’s door was closed, the hall outside quiet, and Love had not wanted to wake him. Now she was wondering if he was even in there.
“I didn’t look in his room,” Love said. Marie fell in behind her as she headed up the stairs. Quietly, Love turned the handle. The room was dark with the greenish glow of a night light in the far corner. A window fan pulled in the cool night air and the soft buzz from the party on the other side of the house. Love walked softly across the carpet to the bed nestled in the corner. She could see the plush comforter piled high between large bed posts, and as she got closer, Oliver’s floppy hair appeared from underneath. She looked at Marie, who was still in the doorway, and nodded. Then she turned to leave, retracing her steps across the room.
A burst of air swept through the fan and into the room, blowing the sheer curtain from the window and letting in the dim light of the night sky. It was in that light that Love saw the shadow at the end of the bed.
“Gayle?” Love said in a whisper, her heart racing at the unexpected discovery.
Following Love’s gaze, Marie stepped inside the room. “Is she all right?” Marie asked of Love, but it was Gayle who answered.
“I just like to look at him sometimes.”
Love took a few more steps toward her friend. “He’s a beautiful child.”
“He’s a sad child,” Gayle said, her eyes still engaged by the sleeping boy. “Just like in the picture. I never let myself see it before.”
Marie and Love approached slowly until they were close enough to see the outline of Gayle’s face. “What picture, sweetie?” Love asked. She looked at Marie, who shrugged, equally bewildered by their friend’s comment and by the expressionless face that peered into the darkness.
“There’s so much sadness.”
Love touched her arm lightly. “We know about Janie. We saw them in your room, and we know you saw them, too.”
Gayle shrugged, as if to say, what can you do? Then she turned to face the women standing beside her. “Marie was right.”
“I’m sorry,” Love said, still unsure where Gayle’s head was. She was far too calm for a woman who’d just caught her husband with another woman, a friend, in her own bedroom.
Through the window they could hear the band stop and the orchestra of voices die down to one. The speeches were starting.
“We should go,” Gayle said. “Just give me a minute.”
Love looked at Marie, who nodded. “We’ll wait downstairs for you.”
When they were gone, Gayle took the bottle of pills from her clenched hand and slipped them far beneath the bed. First, she would go down to accept the gratitude from the rest of the board. She would make a toast to the clinic, to her friends who made the dinner possible, to the guests, and’ most importantly’to the women who would be helped by tonight’s party. She would mingle and charm, then direct the clean-up
when it was all over. And when everyone was gone, she would assure her friends that what she’d seen had not destroyed her. Janie Kirk in the arms of her husband making hollow protests as his hands reached deeper inside her dress. Then the looks on their faces when they saw her standing there’the evolution of shock to panic. Without a word, Gayle had walked past them as they held each other on the bed.
It was over in an instant. Still, it was surprising the things she could now recall. The smell of Janie’s perfume, the color of her nail polish as she held her hands over her mouth, the way a person does when something terrible has just transpired before their eyes. The plan was derived spontaneously, and it was thin. Check on Oliver, take a pill, hide. She’d slipped inside his room, then closed the door’closed out her husband’s voice as he called after her. Standing at the foot of the bed where her friends had found her, she had braced herself for the onslaught of emotion. Instead, she was drawn in by the roundness of his young face. Chubby cheeks, tiny nose, his lips open slightly and curled up at the corners. In his arms was a tattered baby blanket, the one that they weren’t allowed to discuss in the daylight but waited for him each night under the covers. He was at peace somewhere, his dreams sweet tonight. The dreams of a child. And as she watched him through the shadows of the room, the plan appeared inadequate. No provision had been made for the mornings, which would come, one and then another. As she stepped into the hallway, her conviction became clear. Something had to be done about the mornings.
SIXTY
LEARNING TO WALK
WHEN LOVE AND MARIE returned to the party the speeches were already underway. At a small podium with a standing mic was the chairwoman, a young ambitious New York transplant who had muscled her way past Gayle for the top spot on the board. She couldn’t match Gayle’s deep pockets, but she was savvy and knew Gayle would never leave the clinic, even if she were passed over for chair. With confidence and charm, she spoke of poverty, teen despair, class and racial barriers. She spoke of the clinic’s work, the services it provided (skipping the controversial things), and the statistics’number of girls served, low overhead percentages in the budget. It was after all of this that her face showed signs of worry. She was down to the end of her list and Gayle was nowhere to be found.