Shadow Creek

by Joy Fielding

  “Would you like some iced tea?”

  “No, thank you.”

  “You’re sure? I’m going to have some.”

  “Why are you being so nice to me?” Jennifer asked.

  Val shrugged. Why was she being so nice? “It’s just a cold glass of tea. Take it or leave it.”

  “Well, okay. Iced tea sounds great. If you’re sure it’s no trouble.”

  “No trouble at all.” Val led the wary young woman into her recently refurnished living room, directing her toward the new purple velvet sofa in front of the leaded front window. “As you can see, I’ve made some changes since your last visit.” Her tone was casual, even friendly. Val could see that Jennifer didn’t know whether to relax or run for the hills. Well, what do you know? she thought. Maybe watching Jennifer squirm was the real reason she’d invited the young woman into her home. This might actually be fun, she decided. “Be right back.”

  Brianne was waiting for her in the kitchen. “What are you doing?” she asked.

  “Getting our guest some iced tea.”

  “Are you crazy?”

  “Probably. Are you packed?”

  Brianne’s shoulders slumped even as her eyes rolled toward the ceiling. “What are you trying to do? Win points with Dad?”

  “Don’t be ridiculous.” Is that what I’m doing? Val wondered.

  “I’m not the one who’s being ridiculous,” Brianne said before stomping out of the room.

  “And get dressed,” Val called after her. Now where was I? she asked silently. “Ah, yes. Getting the lovely Jennifer some iced tea.”

  Jennifer was indeed lovely, Val was forced to admit. Not slutty at all. She was tall and slender, with large breasts, slim hips, and an enviably narrow waist. Her dark blond hair fell to her shoulders in a series of expensively layered waves around her heart-shaped face. Her eyes were big and blue, her cheekbones high and pronounced, her lips seductively full. And her legs went on forever.

  Right to the ceiling, Val thought, once more picturing those legs on either side of her husband’s head.

  “Shit,” she whispered, banishing the image while trying to avoid her own reflection in the dark glass of her microwave oven. I used to look like that. At least a little, she amended, as she removed two glasses from a nearby cupboard and filled them with iced tea. At five feet, seven inches, she was relatively tall, although probably two inches shorter than Jennifer, and she’d always been slim, although she had maybe ten pounds on the younger woman, who had the added advantage of being ten years her junior. They shared roughly the same hair color, although Val’s was darker and had more curl. Nor were her eyes as big or as blue. And her mouth failed to form the same naturally seductive pout when at rest. Val’s lips were thinner, more ordinary. “Shit,” she said again, slightly louder this time. She tucked her green-and-white-striped blouse into her white capris and kicked off her strictly utilitarian white flats, revealing unadorned toenails in need of a trim. No siren-red nail polish for her. She couldn’t even remember the last time she’d had a pedicure.

  That was about to change. Melissa had suggested the possibility of a spa day as a way of capping off their three-day birthday sojourn in the city. Val had initially balked at the idea of spending an entire day being massaged, pampered, and painted when she could be out running around Madison Avenue, traipsing from the MoMA to the Met, trying to squeeze in just one more gallery, one more interesting shop. She’d never been someone who enjoyed sitting still.

  “The only woman who can keep up with me,” Evan had said, sounding both pleased and proud.

  And yet he’d left her for a young woman who clearly had no problems with sitting still no matter where she was, be it in a sports car idling on the street or on the new purple velvet sofa of her fiancé’s soon-to-be former wife.

  Impressive in its own right, Val decided, returning to the living room with a glass of iced tea in each hand. “I forgot to ask whether you wanted sugar.”

  “No, thanks. I don’t take sugar.”

  “Sweet enough, are you?”

  Another wince from Jennifer that made Val smile. She handed Jennifer the glass of iced tea, then sat down in one of two beige linen tub chairs in front of the sofa.

  “I like what you’ve done with the room,” Jennifer offered, taking a sip of her tea and allowing her gaze to flit aimlessly about, careful to avoid looking directly at Val.

  “I’m so glad you approve,” Val said before she could stop herself. Then, “Sorry. That just slipped out.”

  “It’s all right. I don’t blame you for hating me.”

  “I don’t hate you.” Val was surprised to realize this was true.

  “We honestly never meant to hurt you,” Jennifer offered weakly, focusing her attention on the multicolored swirls of the silk and wool rug that covered the hardwood floor.

  “It just never occurred to you that having sex with my husband in my very own bed, which I’ve also replaced, by the way, might hurt my feelings,” Val stated, not about to let Jennifer off the hook with something as mundane as a simple apology, especially one as blatantly insincere as this one.

  Maybe she really did hate her.

  Jennifer’s gaze shifted guiltily to her lap. She sipped at her tea, said nothing.

  “Sorry,” Val said again, thinking that one insincere apology deserved another. “This is awkward enough. I shouldn’t have said that.”

  “No, you’re right. What we did was thoughtless.”

  It was Val’s turn to fall silent. “Okay, then,” she said after a pause of several seconds. “Moving right along … Those might not be the best shoes for hiking.” She pointed toward Jennifer’s feet.

  Jennifer laughed, perhaps a bit too loudly. “Oh, I have running shoes in my suitcase. And Evan bought me a pair of hiking boots.” She stopped, cleared her throat, took another sip of iced tea.

  Val flinched at the sound of her husband’s name on the other woman’s lips. “Is this your first trip to the Adirondacks?”

  “Believe it or not, it is, yes.”

  “Oh, I believe it.”

  “I’ve never really been into hiking. Or any sports, for that matter. Except for tennis. I’m pretty good at tennis.”

  Val nodded. What was Evan doing with this girl? she wondered. He hated tennis. It was the one sport he couldn’t abide. “Tennis is for cowards,” he used to say.

  “Evan was never much of a tennis player,” Val said now. “He’s more into extreme sports.”

  “Tell me about it,” Jennifer said with a laugh, clearly relieved they’d found something to agree on. “He scares the hell out of me sometimes. The risks he takes. Bungee jumping, mountain climbing, helicopter skiing. Well … you know.”

  “Yes, I do.”

  “You like those things, too, I understand.”

  “Yes, I do,” Val said again. Or, at least, I did, she added silently.

  “I just can’t imagine jumping out of a helicopter and skiing down the side of a mountain.”

  Is she joking? Val wondered. “Well, you don’t actually jump out of the helicopter with your skis on,” she clarified.

  “You don’t?”

  “No. The helicopter drops you off at the top of the mountain, and then you ski down.”

  “Oh, that’s great. I’m so relieved,” Jennifer said, without a trace of self-consciousness. “I mean, it’s still scary, but not quite so bad. Obviously I’m not a skier.”

  “Obviously.”

  “I don’t like being cold.”

  “Perfectly reasonable.”

  “I don’t like anything where I’m not in control of my feet.”

  Val immediately pictured Jennifer’s feet squirming high above her husband’s head.

  “I broke my wrist twice ice-skating when I was a kid,” Jennifer babbled nervously. “Roller-skating is just as bad. I dislocated my shoulder the first time I tried it. And just the thought of water-skiing makes me a nervous wreck. I’m not much of a swimmer.”

  Again
Val pictured Jennifer tumbling over a rock formation and falling into Shadow Creek.

  Going down once … twice … “It sounds like you should stick to tennis,” she said before Jennifer could take her final bow.

  “I think you’re right. And Evan’s been taking lessons.”

  “He has?”

  “He’s picked it up very quickly.”

  “He picks most things up very quickly,” Val said with a smile. She could tell by the slight widening of Jennifer’s eyes and the smile that froze on her lips that the poor woman didn’t know quite how to take this latest barb. “I understand you met my husband through work,” Val continued sweetly, as if she were interviewing a potential nanny.

  “I didn’t know he was married when we met,” Jennifer explained quickly.

  “The gold band on his left hand wasn’t enough of a clue?”

  “He wasn’t wearing one.”

  “Really?” Had Evan made a practice of removing his wedding ring before he got to the office?

  Jennifer nodded. “We’d been working on a campaign for his new hotel …”

  “When luxury beckons …” Val said, remembering an early mock-up of the brochure.

  “Yes. I believe that was one of the slogans we discarded.”

  “Among other things.”

  Jennifer took another sip of her iced tea, then quickly lowered the glass to her lap, as if she were beginning to suspect it contained poison.

  “Go on,” Val prompted. She’d never actually heard the story before, in all its inglorious detail.

  “We’d been working late,” Jennifer obliged her by continuing, “and Evan suggested we break for dinner.”

  “And you were hungry.” It was Val’s turn to study the carpet at her feet.

  “Over dinner he told me he was very attracted to me and that it might be a problem with us working so closely together. I told him I was attracted to him, too, so what problem could there be? That’s when he told me he was married. He said he wanted everything to be honest and aboveboard.”

  “Except where I was concerned, of course,” Val qualified.

  “Maybe we shouldn’t be talking about this,” Jennifer demurred, looking anxiously over her shoulder toward the front window, obviously praying for the sight of Evan’s Jaguar.

  “Maybe not,” Val agreed. Interesting as the story was, she already knew how it ended.

  And it wasn’t with “They all lived happily ever after.”

  At least, as far as she was concerned.

  Except …

  “It’ll be strange,” Evan had said earlier. “Being there without you.”

  “Someone’s pulling into your driveway,” Jennifer said now.

  Val jumped to her feet. “Evan?”

  “No. Two people. A man and a woman.”

  Melissa and James, Val realized, marching from the living room. She should have called them, told them Evan was going to be late. “Hi,” she said, opening the front door to her two best and—if she was being honest—only friends. She’d pretty much given up on the idea of girlfriends after Evan had run off with one of her bridesmaids. But then, Melissa had never posed any kind of threat, and James … well, James was James.

  “You ready to party, birthday girl?” Melissa asked, her natural exuberance filling the small foyer. Melissa was forty-six but seemed curiously both older and younger than her years, an old soul brimming with childlike enthusiasm. She stood only five feet, two inches and weighed all of ninety-five pounds, but she was a powerhouse, full of energy and good humor. She wore her straight black hair in a blunt cut to her chin, with thick bangs that completely covered her forehead and extended over the tops of her oversized black square-framed glasses. Her small eyes were equally dark; her lips were never without their trademark coral lipstick. When the travel agency she’d founded and operated for fifteen years had fallen on hard times, she hadn’t wasted any time on tears. She’d simply closed up shop and started a new business, turning her long-standing hobby of collecting vintage costume jewelry into a booming business. Her pieces were often showcased in the pages of Vogue and other fashion magazines and were regularly photographed gracing the emaciated bodies of celebrities and socialites on both coasts.

  It was this no-nonsense, no-holds-barred approach to life that had drawn Val to her. Melissa was also an inveterate gatherer, amassing enviable collections of everything from antique tin toys to Depression-era glass dishes. Her house in Westchester was filled to bursting with once-popular china dolls, old cameras, and ancient, cast-iron piggy banks. She also collected husbands, having been married and divorced three times and widowed once. Ever since her last “and best” husband had succumbed to cancer three years earlier, Melissa had sworn to wear nothing but black.

  “You only wear black anyway,” James had pointed out.

  Curiously, for a woman who’d never had any children of her own, Melissa was surprisingly maternal, another quality that had no doubt attracted Val, who still ached for the protective embrace of her mother’s arms, for the healing kiss that made everything “all better.”

  James, on the other hand, was the proverbial Peter Pan, the little boy who never grew up. He favored creamy pastels and had never been married. “Even if I weren’t gay, I wouldn’t get married,” he’d insisted many times over the years. James was the same height as Valerie and the same weight as Melissa, or so he claimed. He lived on coffee, fruit, and raw fish. His hair was a shock of carrot-orange spikes, although admittedly there weren’t as many spikes as there used to be. A former dancer who’d been a staple in Broadway musicals ever since he turned eighteen, he’d retired when he broke his ankle at the age of thirty-five. For the last several years, he’d been working for Melissa, scouting for great vintage brooches, bracelets, and necklaces at various antique and collectible shows up and down the east coast.

  Val had met Melissa when she and Evan used her travel agency to book a trip to the Grand Canyon about a dozen years earlier. She’d met James through Melissa, who’d grown up on the same street as James and used to babysit him when he was a child. Val credited the two of them with getting her through the last year with her sanity largely intact.

  “What’s wrong?” James asked as soon as he saw Val’s face.

  “Nothing.”

  “Let me guess,” Melissa said, already walking toward the living room. “Evan’s running a bit late. Oh, my God,” she said, stopping in the doorway, staring at the young woman sitting in the middle of the purple velvet couch. “Tell me that’s not who I think it is.” Her jeweled fingers quickly covered her coral-colored lips.

  “Is that ‘the Slut’?” James whispered, resting his chin on Val’s shoulder in order to muffle the sound of his words.

  “Don’t call her that,” Brianne said, approaching the trio from behind and pushing past them into the living room.

  Val was relieved, both for her daughter’s sudden appearance and the fact she was wearing clothes.

  “Hi, Jen,” Brianne said, joining the young woman on the sofa.

  Jennifer’s relief was so palpable, she looked as if she might burst into tears. “Your dad’s running a little late.”

  “So I gather. Love your shoes.”

  “Thank you. Those jeans are fabulous.”

  Val found her jaw tightening at the easy camaraderie that existed between her daughter and her husband’s fiancée. We used to have that, she thought, feeling Brianne slip even farther from her reach. “These are my friends, Melissa and James,” she said, forcing the words from her mouth. “This is Jennifer, Evan’s …”

  “We know,” James said. “Those are fabulous shoes. Louboutins?”

  “Yes,” Jennifer said. “I’m impressed.”

  “James is a shoe freak.” Brianne laughed. “You’re such a cliché,” she told him, managing to make the barb sound endearing.

  “Right back at you,” James said.

  The phone rang.

  “That’s probably my mother,” Val said, quickly excusing h
erself from the room.

  “Mom says you have tickets for Wicked tomorrow night,” she heard Brianne say on her way to the kitchen. “Haven’t you already seen it, like, thirteen times?”

  “Eighteen,” James was saying as Val picked up the phone. “I’m going for lucky number twenty-one.”

  “A total cliché.” Brianne’s laugh filled the house.

  “Hello?” Val said.

  “Hey, you,” said Evan.

  Two minutes later, Val returned to the living room. “Brace yourself, everyone,” she said. “There’s been a change of plans.”

  FOUR

  ARE WE THERE YET?” Brianne asked from the front passenger seat of Val’s crowded SUV some three and a half hours later.

  “Still a ways to go,” Val said.

  “How much longer?”

  “At least an hour. Maybe more.”

  “Shit.” Brianne pulled her BlackBerry out of her oversized leather purse.

  “Who are you texting now?” her mother asked.

  “Sasha.”

  “You just saw her.”

  “So?”

  Val gripped the steering wheel, watching her knuckles grow white. This wasn’t going quite the way she’d expected when she’d agreed—against her better judgment—to act as chauffeur for her daughter and her husband’s fiancée, then somehow managed to cajole Melissa and James into postponing their trip into Manhattan in order to drive to the Adirondacks and the Inn at Shadow Creek.

  First of all, she’d forgotten what a long trip it was—five hours of twisting and congested highway—and while it was true she’d driven up here dozens of times and probably knew the way blindfolded, all previous trips had been with Evan, and he’d always insisted on doing the lion’s share of the driving.

  Second, while it was also true that Jennifer’s car was too small to hold Evan’s daughter, his fiancée, and their combined luggage, they could have simply postponed their trip until Evan’s business was completed, as Jennifer had suggested repeatedly. It hadn’t really been necessary for Val to put her own plans on hold to accommodate her soon-to-be ex. So why had she?

  The answer was sitting in the seat beside her, pointedly ignoring her.