Lori woke up, snapped on the lamp. One twenty-three a.m., seven twenty-three a.m. in New York, a Sunday. Jessica would still be asleep in Rob’s new apartment in Manhattan, but if she waited any longer, Jessica might be having breakfast with her dad and the new Mrs. Robert Staunton. It was now or never. Lori reached for the phone and dialed Jessica’s cell number.
Jessica answered after the first ring. “Who is it?”
“Jessica, sweetie.”
“Mom! What are you doing?”
“I know I wasn’t supposed to call, but I love you and I’ve missed you so much and I wanted to apologize for being angry at you. Can you forgive me?”
“I can’t talk! I don’t even know why I answered this stupid phone. God, Mom, how could you?” Her words sounded like the hiss of a cornered cat.
Lori felt them like a jab in her stomach. “Did I wake you? Is that it?”
“Wake me? Do you know what time it is? Seven thirty p.m. Valerie’s about to walk down the aisle!”
Lori groaned. She’d gotten it all wrong. New York was six hours back, not forward. Why was she so dumb? Why couldn’t she get her act together? Why? Why? Why? “Oh sweetie, I’m so sorry. I got confused.”
“I don’t believe you.” Jessica started to cry. “Oh shit, now I’m going to look terrible.”
Listening to Jessica’s sobs, a boulder dropped on Lori’s chest. “Jessica, you can never look terrible, you hear me? You’re beautiful even when you cry and please don’t use that word. I’m going to hang up now and you’re going to wipe your face with a tissue. You will always look beautiful and you’re going to be fine. I love you, honey.”
Lori hung up and lay back on the bed. My poor sweet daughter. She’s scared about the future, just like I am. Except Jessica’s thirteen. In a couple of years she’ll be clamoring to get away from her parents, to throw her beautiful self at what life has to offer on her own. I’m forty-one, look sixty, feel eighty.
Lori snapped off the light and closed her eyes. Her mother’s voice pierced the darkness. “Lori Corvino, stop feeling sorry for yourself this minute!”
For once she was right. And yet . . . Lori breathed deeply and tried to release the tension in her body, something that she was learning in Pilates class. And yet . . . she had to help Jessica and also help herself. How?
CHAPTER 3
* * *
Lori walked through the double doors of the customs area at Kennedy into the crowded arrival area. A line of darkly dressed men held up signs with names on them. It brought back the memory of the only other time she came home from abroad—a summer trip to Europe with Beth right after graduating from college. She’d been dating Rob for about a year and he was furious that she preferred ten days in foreign lands with Beth to his company in steamy New York State. Lori was flattered by Rob’s need for her, mistook it for devotion. She invited him to come along, out of loyalty more than desire, as she knew he would require all her attention and she wanted a last girl fling with Beth before they both plunged into new jobs—Beth as a social worker at the public high school in Hawthorne Park, and Lori as the owner of a company of one, Corvino Catering. Rob saw no reason to travel that far. “Not even for you.” Only later did Lori learn that he was terrified of flying.
As Beth and Lori walked out of customs, Lori had seen Rob in the front row of men, dressed in a dark suit, with a chauffeur’s hat on his head. When he saw Beth and Lori coming, he held up his sign, which read: Mrs. Robert Staunton? It had been such an exhilarating moment, the surprise of it had left Lori dumbstruck. Beth had to push her forward into Rob’s arms. Lori and Rob were married three years later, a week after Rob graduated from law school. Beth was her only bridesmaid.
Now Lori was standing alone, in a line for the van that would take her back home to Hawthorne Park, willing the memory away. The Connecticut van eased in front of her and stopped. The driver got out, swung the back door open, and began to stow luggage. As Lori moved up the line, she felt a tap on her shoulder.
“Let me give you lift.” Rob, without a sign this time, looking even more handsome, more tanned, nineteen years later.
Lori turned cold. “Is Jessica all right?”
“Yes, she’s fine. I just dropped her home.” His smile was reassuring, believable. Why was he here then—a day after he married someone else? And why hadn’t she put on makeup, combed her hair before getting off the plane? So many times she had fantasized about looking drop-dead gorgeous when she ran into Rob for the first time after their divorce. Well, not drop dead, but at least really good, and instead she looked like something the dog had slept on. If they had a dog, which they didn’t because Rob was allergic. Good, she would get a dog. A golden retriever that shed a lot of hair. That way Rob could never come back to the house. Great idea.
“Go away, Rob.” She reached down to pick up her suitcase. Rob grabbed the handle before Lori had a chance to. Bent close to his head, she smelled a new musky scent on him. Of course, that’s how it should be. He or Valerie had probably thrown out that last bottle of Armani she’d bought him just days before she found Valerie’s love note in his coat pocket.
“I’m taking the van, Rob. Suitcase or no suitcase.”
“We need to talk. The car isn’t far.” He walked away with Lori’s suitcase. Everything always on his terms. Even after the divorce. She meant to stand up to him. She had the strength for it finally—fury had poured concrete into her backbone—but she guessed that his need to talk had to do with Jessica. They had joint custody over her. Lori could divorce Valerie’s lover, but not Jessica’s father. Lori followed him, curious and a little anxious.
The day was cloudy and humid, but the silver Mercedes sparkled, it was so new. It still had that leather smell. Rob had waited until after the divorce was granted to buy the Mercedes and a two-bedroom apartment on Park Avenue. Lori had accepted a generous monthly payment for the upkeep of the house and Jessica’s needs, but only a lump sum for herself, enough to give her a year’s respite while she got Corvino Catering back on its feet. Still, she couldn’t help wondering how much money he had managed to hide from her and her lawyer. Maybe he had come to give her the monthly check he owed her. He was two weeks late.
“What do you need to talk about?” Lori asked after Rob paid the attendant and swung out of the parking lot.
“You look good,” Rob said. The compliment caught Lori unawares. To her shame later, she felt flattered instead of warned. “Trip okay?” He smiled. His teeth were now so white, they looked blue. Compliments of Valerie Fenwick, DDS, for sure. They made him look ridiculous.
“Fabulous. So what is this about?”
“You remember that according to our agreement, I get Jessica for a month during the summer.”
“Every other weekend and a month in the summer with the father to be mutually agreed upon,” Lori recited. “For the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays the parents agree to rotate. And also according to our agreement you are supposed to give me a check on the first of each month.”
“You’ll get it next week. I’ve had a lot of expenses lately.”
Sure, Lori thought, a big fat engagement ring, a new car, a new apartment, a wedding. Who knows what else.
“Look, the firm is very busy right now.” Rob was a labor lawyer, representing management. While he was still in law school, his goal had been the defense of the downtrodden worker, but with student loans to pay, marriage on the horizon, and a stubborn Irish pride that compelled him to be the sole breadwinner, he turned his back on the downtrodden and joined a four-name New York law firm that specialized in defending big companies. His name was now the fifth one on the masthead. In the months after Lori discovered his infidelity she tried to blame the wrong turn in his career, the giving up of his ideals, for what had happened. It was easier than to think she bored him.
“My whole summer is booked,” Rob said.
“Don’t worry. I’ll see Jessica has fun. For that we’ll need a timely monthly check.” Lori found herself smili
ng. She would have almost three months to try to convince her daughter that Dad leaving home was not all Mom’s fault.
“By the way, I got you a catering job,” he said. “Mrs. Charles Saddler of Bedford, not more than a ten-minute drive from the house, is giving a dinner for twenty-four on July twenty-eighth. She’s desperate for a caterer no one in her circle has used before. Saddler’s a client of mine.”
“No thanks, I’ll get my own jobs.”
“For Chrissakes, it’s a foot in the door of very rich people who entertain every weekend. Once you’re back at work, you’ll feel better.”
“Don’t patronize me, Rob!”
“Don’t yell at me.”
Lori stared at the hands on her lap, waiting for her heartbeat to settle down to cruising. She counted fingers; there were still ten. Then she noticed her wedding ring was still on her finger. She’d forgotten all about slipping it back on during the flight to Rome to ward off the possibility of any male attention in the land of Latin lovers. Lori slipped her handbag over her left hand, hoping Rob hadn’t noticed. Twenty-four hours was the length of time his ring had stayed on his finger after their wedding. Lori stole a glance at his hand, relaxed over the bottom of the steering wheel. Long-fingered hands she’d always loved stroking. Yep, there it was, a fat gold wedding band with some kind of scratches on it. Something picked by Valerie for sure. Unless Rob’s minimalist tastes had changed suddenly. Well, the twenty-four-hour wedding ring limit hadn’t passed yet. Valerie was in for a surprise. That thought made her feel generous.
“Thanks, Rob. I know you mean well,” Lori said, “but since Jessica is staying with me all summer I don’t want to take on any jobs. Not until she goes back to school. I don’t know if you’ve noticed or not, but she needs a lot of TLC.”
Rob took the exit to the New England Thruway before saying, “I didn’t say she was staying with you all summer.” His voice sounded as flat as roadkill.
“What did you say, then?”
“Look, the only vacation I can take this summer is two weeks starting next week. Valerie and I would love Jessica to come with us.”
Lori’s mouth went dry. “You want Jessica to come on your honeymoon?”
“It’s a vacation, not a honeymoon. It would be a great way for Jessica and Valerie to get to know each other. Valerie’s part of Jessica’s life now. I realize that’s tough on you, but that’s the way it is. Whatever you may think, I didn’t plan for all this to happen.”
What didn’t he plan for, Lori wondered. Fucking Valerie on his lunch hour, after work, on supposed business trips? Leaving Valerie’s love letter where she was sure to find it? Not giving her up after Lori confronted him? Choosing Valerie when she threatened divorce? It was useless to say anything now. They’d hashed this out over and over again. He would always need to feel the victim.
“If you have your daughter’s interests at heart, you’ll let her go,” Rob said. “ ‘She needs lots of TLC.’ Your words. She doesn’t need a hostile mother.”
“I see, it’s my fault.” Using her handbag as cover, Lori slipped the ring off her finger.
“I didn’t say that.”
“What did you say?”
“I’m asking you to let her go. Two weeks and then you have her for the rest of the summer.”
“She’s not an object we trade back and forth.”
“Exactly. Let her go.”
Her thirteen-year-old daughter in a strange hotel room for the first time, while next door her father made love to his new wife? No way. “Where are you going?” They’d honeymooned in off-season Nantucket—three days only thanks to little money. “Arizona? Wyoming? You always wanted to go out West, remember?”
Rob didn’t answer right away. Lori thought it was because of the large truck that was bearing down on them. Rob picked up speed, then turned into the slow lane. The truck zoomed past.
“Where?”
“Paris and Provence.”
Lori pressed her wedding ring into her palm, resisting the urge to throw it in Rob’s face. “Jess stays here.”
“She’s not going to like that. She’ll turn against you.”
Lori stared at the ceaseless traffic flowing ahead of her. “Don’t threaten me with Jessica’s feelings,” she said quietly. “My relationship with my daughter is now my affair, not yours. Butt out.”
“I’ll send you the check next week.”
“Jess stays here.”
Rob slowed the car down. The car behind them honked in protest. Lori sensed Rob watching her. In the old days, she’d found the sensation sexy. Now it scared her.
“What, Rob?”
He turned to look at the road, his expression hard. “I nearly got killed two nights ago.”
She had to laugh. There he was, playing victim again. “Cut the melodrama, Rob. It won’t work. Jess is staying in the good old U.S. of A. with me.”
“I’m serious. I was running across the street and a car aimed straight for me. If it hadn’t been for Valerie—”
“Why are you telling me this?”
“You have motive.”
“How about some of the poor people who lost their pensions or their health because of some of the companies you so successfully defended?” Lori thought she caught a flash of fear on his face. “You don’t really believe someone’s trying to kill you, do you?”
Rob didn’t answer.
Not fear. Guilt was what she’d seen on his face, Lori decided. Rob finally understood what an awful thing he’d done to his family. He felt he needed punishment. That’s what the therapist had told Lori when she’d thought that Rob leaving her was all her fault, for not rushing to put on makeup before he came home, for not dieting, for not paying enough attention to his needs, for not having picked up on the warning signs before it was too late. Her feelings of guilt had lasted only a couple of months thanks to the therapist and her girlfriends. Now it was Rob’s turn. That he had a conscience didn’t make her feel any more kindly toward him.
“I was in Rome, Italy, as you might remember,” she said. “I will admit I wanted you dead on many occasions, but I love my daughter too much to kill her father.” She pressed the window button. The glass slid down.
“You could have hired someone,” Rob said.
“You’re right, I could have, but you wouldn’t be here if I had.” Lori pushed her hand out the window. She thought she heard a “ping” when her wedding ring hit the asphalt.
CHAPTER 4
* * *
Rob drove away before Lori reached the front steps of the house they’d shared since Jessica was born—a small, two-story, whitewashed brick colonial in one of the few modest sections of Hawthorne Park, Connecticut. On the flight over, Lori had dreaded this moment: coming back to a house that was half-empty but still full of memories that hurt. She looked at her house with its dark blue shutters. It was the home she had dreamed of while growing up in an aluminum-sided four-family home with one plaster Madonna and all seven dwarves in the front yard. Here blooming yellow cabbage roses covered one side of the entrance. The living room windows boasted the crewel-embroidered curtains that she and Jessica had found at a crafts fair. Dandelions shot out between the bricks of the walkway no matter what weed killer she used.
Lori was suddenly filled with love for the place. And hope.
Before she could turn the key, Jessica opened the front door. Her tall daughter stood above her, wearing cutoff jeans low on her hips and a lime-green sports bra. A limp ponytail of hay-colored hair hung over one side of her head and made her look lopsided. Her beautiful, soon-to-be very upset daughter looked at her warily, her whole body tensed, as if ready to leap over her.
Without a word Lori dropped her suitcase and hugged Jessica. “I missed you so much,” Lori said.
Jessica pulled away. “Me, too, Mom. I made fudge!”
Her weakness. “Great!”
“I figured we needed a sugar high.” Jessica let out a small embarrassed laugh and picked up Lori’s suitcase.
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“Thanks, honey.” Lori’s heart quickened. She had to make Jessica understand that going on her father’s honeymoon was not appropriate. Not to Paris. Not to Cape Cod. Not anywhere. She had to hold firm.
The low afternoon light poured in from the open door, cheering up the normally dark narrow hallway. On the hall table a Coke bottle held a single yellow rose. “How sweet, Jessica. And the whole place smells deliciously of chocolate. After you, that’s the best homecoming present ever. Thanks.” Lori looked at her daughter. Let there be a truce. Let there be only love.
Jessica shrugged her shoulders, still holding on to the suitcase. “I couldn’t find any vases.”
“We need to buy some.” Lori had thrown all their vases against the pantry wall the night Rob accused her of being immature and provincial for not understanding his generosity in wanting to stay in the marriage for Jessica’s sake, even though he had no intention of giving Valerie up. Jessica had thankfully been sleeping over at a friend’s house. “But I like the Coke bottle. Let me go upstairs to wash up and change. Are you coming? You can unpack your present.”
“I better check on the fudge. It’s still in the oven. I’ll wait for you in the kitchen.”
Camilla T. Crespi - The Breakfast Club Murder Page 2