Читать книгу Window Dressing - Nikki Rivers - Страница 11

Buzzed from the caffeine in two orders of Chocolate Suicide, I ran up the stone steps of Moira’s Tudor and jabbed the doorbell.

“Door’s open,” Moira yelled.

I found her in the living room, wearing only a pair of French-cut panties, rolling around on a Pilates ball.

“Jesus, Moira, what if I’d been the UPS guy or something?”

Moira jumped off the ball, her breasts bouncing with enthusiasm. “Then I guess I would still be getting some exercise,” she said with a smart-ass grin.

Moira was always alluding to other men and rumors were rife among the neighbors on Seagull Lane. I’d taken a “don’t ask, don’t tell” attitude and had no idea if the rumors were true.

“Geeze, honey,” she said as she took in my appearance, “you look like hell. And what’s that all over your shirt?”

I looked down. “I’ve just done two rounds with Chocolate Suicide.”

“Well, it obviously didn’t kill you, but, sweetie, you sure look wounded.”

For one harrowing moment I thought she was going to hug me. I don’t consider myself to be all that narrow minded, but that didn’t mean I wanted to feel Moira’s bare breasts against my T-shirt. Thankfully, she grabbed a kimono off the sofa and slipped into it. But not before I had enough information to put another Seagull Lane rumor to rest. Not an ounce of silicone on that body. I’d never seen them in action this long before. They were real, all right.

Heavens, was this any time to focus on another woman’s breasts? My world was crumbling. What did I care about silicone? “Something terrible has happened—” I began.

“Well, I’m here to listen and help but you seem awfully rattled. Before you start spilling your guts, you need a martini.” She peered at me again from under her false eyelashes. “Or maybe three.”

I was in no shape to argue. I followed her into the kitchen and watched her make a shaker of martinis.

“Here,” she said, handing me one. “Drink up.”

I’m usually a white wine kind of gal, but the first sip went down easily. Delicious and cold enough to ice skate over the surface. I took another sip. And another.

“Good,” Moira praised. “The color is starting to come back into your cheeks. Now let’s go get comfortable so you can tell mama everything.”

I followed her into the living room and sank onto one of the two white sofas that flanked the fireplace. While the women of Whitefish Cove often worked for years at taking layers of paint off their woodworks and crown moldings, Moira had done just the opposite. Everything was painted a creamy white—even the stone fireplace. Sacrilege to most of the ladies of the Cove, but I thought it was really quite striking. The color in the room came from a red shag rug on the floor and the artwork on the walls—which were mostly bold slashes of color on canvas—the kind of stuff you look at and think you could do yourself just as well. But what did I know about art?

“So,” Moira said once I’d let the down-filled cushions of the sofa enfold me, “spill it.”

I chugged the rest of my martini, put the empty glass on the coffee table, and spilled. The look on Moira’s face grew more horrified with each word.

“Honey,” she said when I’d finished, “you must have had a man for a lawyer.”

I shook my head. “Nope. A woman.”

“Traitor bitch,” Moira mumbled.

“Not really. I insisted on doing it this way.” I braced myself, figuring Moira would look at me and say stupid bitch. But she didn’t. Instead, she asked me why.

“Okay,” she said, “you’re not dumb. So what were you thinking?”

“I was thinking that I wanted my life to go on just as I’d planned it,” I said. “I wanted to be a ‘stay at home mother,’ I wanted to be a block watch captain, room mother, chairman of the annual Christmas cookie exchange. I wanted to drive a minivan to soccer games and sew Halloween costumes. I wanted everything that Roger had promised me when I’d married him, damn it. And I didn’t see why Gordy should have to suffer having his life uprooted just because his parents had fallen out of love. Besides, I’d always planned to go back to school and eventually support myself. I mean, I had no intention of living off a man who didn’t love me for the rest of my life.”

“I’m not sure I share your ethics on that one,” Moira murmured as she refilled our glasses from the shaker she’d brought with her from the kitchen.

“The most important thing to me was to know that Gordy would be taken care of until after college.” I shook my head in disbelief. “I guess that’s how I screwed up. I thought I was going to be taken care of for four more years, too.” I leaned forward again and buried my face in my hands. “Don’t you see? I thought I had four more years to figure out what to do with the rest of my life.”

Moira set her glass down on the table, then gathered me to her ample, unfettered bosom. “You poor thing,” she murmured as she rocked me in a way that my own mother certainly never had. I closed my eyes and settled in. Of course, Bernice wouldn’t have been nearly as comfortable to be held against, either. My mother had good bones and never put anything into her mouth that could lead to hiding them. When she was upset, she lost herself in sit-ups or yoga, not double helpings of dessert.

My eyes popped open. OMG! My mother! How was I ever going to face my mother with this?

Comforting as they were, Moira’s arms weren’t going to cut it. I pushed away from her and grabbed my glass off the coffee table, downing the second martini, which wasn’t nearly as cold or delicious as the first, in one huge gulp. I burped then wailed, “How the hell am I going to tell Bernice?”

“I think we need more booze,” Moira said.

She’d met my mother.

Moira was back in the kitchen, shaking up the last of a bottle of Stoli, when Stan came home. I sat up straighter and tried to look less like a tearful lush, then I remembered that Stanley Rice, who at six foot three and about one hundred forty pounds looked like Ichabod Crane in Ralph Lauren, wasn’t known for a keen sense of observation when it came to anything other than business and his model railroads in the basement. He barely glanced at me.

“Hello, Lauren,” he murmured absently while he sorted through the stack of mail he’d brought in with him.

“Hi, Stanley,” I said, trying not to slur my words. Not that he’d notice that, either.

Moira came into the living room with the shaker and another glass. She poured Stan a martini. “Here you go, snookums. Something to fortify you.”

Stan looked blankly at the glass Moira had thrust into his hand. He took a sip and a small smile played around the corners of his thin mouth. “Ah,” he breathed.

“That’s a good boy,” Moira said. “Now you go downstairs and play with your trains until dinner is ready.”

Stan shuffled off like an obedient mental patient. I still hadn’t figured out how someone as vibrant as Moira had ended up married to the barely breathing Stanley Rice.

“I should go,” I said as I tried to stand up.

“Don’t be silly.” Moira refilled our glasses. “You’re staying for dinner.”

I looked around the room. “What dinner?”

She raised a perfectly arched brow. “You have heard of delivery, haven’t you?”

She fished a cell phone out of her kimono pocket and ordered a pizza.

With a tummy full of pepperoni pizza to help soak up the vodka, I wove my way back home under darkness, hoping that the ladies on Seagull Lane were all too busy either scrapbooking or exfoliating to see the shameful condition I was in.

At nine o’clock the next morning, I shot up from a dead sleep into a sitting position. Someone is in the house, was my first thought, followed closely by Something must have crawled inside my mouth and died last night. My third thought was spent wishing I could unscrew my head and set it aside for the day because the pounding going on inside of it was driving me crazy.

And then I heard the noises from downstairs again.

I threw back the covers on my four-poster bed, then crept to the top of the stairs.

A woman was standing at the foot of them, shaking the newel post.

“Excuse me,” I said. “What are you doing in my house?”

The woman looked up at me. “Oh, hello, there. I guess you didn’t hear the bell.”

“I guess I didn’t,” I muttered.

She held up a set of keys. “So I just let myself in. I’m Sondra Hawk. We spoke on the phone.”

I’d been right. She did know how to accessorize.

Shiny black boots, shiny black purse, shiny black belt, shiny black hair cut as severely as the black and white houndstooth check suit she was wearing. The jewelry all looked like real gold. And there was just enough of it to announce that Sondra Hawk was both successful and tasteful.

Suddenly, I was keenly aware of what I must look like. Not to mention smell like. According to my T-shirt, I’d had chocolate, and something red. Most likely something Italian because I was pretty sure it was garlic fermenting in my mouth.

Damn it. Sondra the Hawk was probably wondering how someone like Roger Campbell could have ever been married to someone like me. A thought, unwelcome as a swarm of wasps at an ice cream social, entered my mind. I wondered if they’d had sex, yet—Ms. Coordinated of 2006 and Roger “I have all my shirts custom made” Campbell. If they hadn’t, I figured they’d eventually get around to it. And on sheets with a minimum 600 thread count. I thought longingly of the yellow sprigged sheets currently on my bed wishing I were still snuggled between them even though I was pretty sure that no one had ever bothered to count their threads.

But there was no running away from the woman with the leather notebook that matched her bag. Anyway, was I woman or wimp? I decided to hold my head high, despite the map of indulgence on my T-shirt. I started down the stairs. “May I ask what you’re doing here, Ms. Hawk?”

“I’m here to inspect and get to know the property, Mrs. Campbell. We at Priority Properties pride—”

“Yes, I know. You pride yourself in getting to know a house before you list it.”

She gave me a frosty smile. “So if you don’t mind, I’ll just make myself at home and take a look around.”

“And if you don’t mind, I’ll accompany you.”

“Certainly,” she said. “Of course, some people find it too emotional an experience—”

She let her voice trail off as she shook the newel post again then jotted something down in her notebook.

“No entrance hall,” she murmured as she jotted some more.

There had once been a tiny entrance hall and an enclosed staircase. The one big change Roger and I had made in the early years was to tear down the wall so that the narrow staircase was now open to the living room. Which meant that there was really no entrance hall, but I’d always thought it was worth it because it had opened up the living room so much.

“Small, isn’t it?” Sondra commented as she moved to the center of the room and inspected the ceiling. “This should really be replastered,” she said. “And I would strongly suggest changing your window treatments.”

I’d made the simple tieback muslin curtains that hung in the front windows myself. I’d always thought them charming. Sondra’s tone had reduced them to rags. I didn’t want to know what she thought of the rest of my decorating. She was probably inwardly sneering at my blue-and-white check camelback sofa and my chintz wingback chair, the cushion worn down to fit my tush like a baseball in a glove.

“You’re lucky wide-plank floors are back in style, but this one needs refinishing—or you could just carpet over it. It would probably make the room warmer.”

The dining room didn’t fare much better than the living room, but it was the kitchen that really took a beating.

“You’d be wise to have a new floor put in and the built-in booth in the breakfast nook should be torn out to open the room up.”

She wanted me to get rid of the booth where Gordy had eaten Froot Loops and fish sticks? Where he’d helped me decorate Christmas cookies and did his homework while I cooked dinner? I was debating whether to cry or to kick her out on her tight rear end when something she said caught my attention.

“Excuse me—what was that you just said?” I asked.

“I was just saying that you’ll have to get right on this list of improvements. It’ll be a miracle if we’re ready to show by the end of October. Once we hit November, things slow down until well after the holidays.”

“You mean the house could just be sitting here, empty, all through the holidays?”

She gave me another frosty smile. “Well, we don’t like to think so. I mean, our sales staff is excellent. But, this house hasn’t got much more than location going for it. I suggest we get it on the market as soon as possible. But, even with the best of properties,” she added in a tone that made it clear that this was not one of them, “people just don’t like to relocate during the holidays.” She sighed. “Now let’s take a look at the upstairs.”

I followed her up but I hardly heard anything else she said as she inspected the larger bedroom in the front and the two smaller ones in the back and I only vaguely heard her outrage when she discovered the one small bathroom with the claw-footed tub. I was too busy forming a plan.

Once she was gone, leaving a list of problems behind, I called Roger’s office. His secretary tried to put me off but I told her to tell him it was regarding the sale of the house. She put me on hold but it wasn’t long before Roger picked up.

I didn’t waste any words. “Roger, I think we need to talk. Could you drop by after work today?”

“If you spoke to your lawyer, Lauren, you know I’m well within my rights—”

“Roger,” I said pleasantly, “please. I know the house is going on the market. Sondra was here this morning and we went through the entire house together,” I said, making it sound like we’d bonded while discussing cracks in the ceiling. “She made a list of liabilities that I think we need to discuss.”

“Liabilities?”

I smiled. I’d gotten his attention.

“What kind of liabilities?”

“Well, the list is quite detailed and I thought we should probably go over it together.”

“Just fax me a copy, okay?”

“Roger, since I’m going to be living here while these repairs are being done, I’m the one who will have to handle the plasterers and painters and the carpenters. So I think—”

“Plasterers? Carpenters?” he grumbled before giving the kind of sigh that would have made me nervous if we were still married. “Yes, maybe we better discuss it.” I could hear him flipping pages on his day planner. “I’ll be there around six-thirty.”

“Perfect,” I said. When I hung up the phone I headed for the shower. I needed to get rid of the stench of yesterday’s pity party, then start making a grocery list.

I’d decided to splurge on ingredients, so I drove to the Market in the Cove in the heart of the village. When I pulled into the parking lot my heart did a little flip. God, I used to love this place. When Roger and I were still married I relished shopping here on Friday mornings, planning special dinners for the weekend. Once Roger split I’d started going to the bigger, less expensive chains. But they were just grocery shopping. The Market in the Cove, with its low green awnings and its clusters of pumpkins and corn stalks flanking the entrance, was an experience.

Buckets of fresh cut flowers greeted me as soon as I was through the door. Warm gold and vibrant orange zinnias. Jaunty brown-eyed Susans and roses of yellow and pink and red. There was a bucket of pale, creamy giant mums. I decided I had to have some of those. I grabbed a shopping cart and chose half a dozen. After the flower girl, in an adorable cobbler’s apron, wrapped them for me, I moved on to the butcher’s counter. The butcher wasn’t the same one as in the old days, but he was just as friendly when he held out the length of white butcher paper where an expertly trimmed loin of pork reclined for my approval before he wrapped it.

The fresh vegetable section was even more beautiful than the flower department. Every tomato appeared to be the same size and fully ripe. The asparagus was thin and tender enough to make one doubt the calendar and there were varieties of mushrooms I’d never even heard of. I chose a selection of vegetables to marinate and pan grill and was sorting through the fresh rosemary when I heard a familiar voice behind me.

“Lauren! I haven’t seen you shopping here in ages!”

I grimaced. Amy Westcott. The biggest gossip in the Cove. I made myself smile before I turned around.

“Amy! What a surprise!”

Amy lived across the street from me in a huge Colonial that was decorated within an inch of its life. She had parlayed a fondness for painting vines, flowers and birds on assorted surfaces into a business. Amy’s Ambience, her little gift shop in the village, was stocked with the overflow from her house as well as hand-dipped candles, homemade soaps and a selection of useless, overpriced gifts. Moira and I had often speculated on how she managed to keep her shop open since there never seemed to be any customers.

“Is it true what I’ve heard?” she asked with that overly concerned air that people affect when they’re hoping that whatever horrible thing they’ve heard really is true.

My stomach clenched. Had Amy somehow heard that I was soon to be homeless? “I don’t know,” I answered pleasantly. “That depends on what you’ve heard.”

“That you’re selling your little house!” she exclaimed, her fresh-scrubbed face looking the picture of innocence. Amy never wore makeup. She didn’t have to. This was a woman who’d sailed through high school without a zit or a blackhead to slow her down. And she was sailing into middle age with barely a crow’s foot to her name. “I mean, I saw Sondra Hawk over there this morning, so I just thought—”

“Oh, that,” I said as I turned my attention back to the rosemary. “I was just having the house—um—appraised.”

“Appraised?”

I didn’t have to look at her to know that she was skeptical.

“Yes. I’m thinking of having another bathroom put in,” I said, a little astounded that I’d grabbed this idea out of thin air.

“But, didn’t Gordy just leave for college? I would think the last thing you’d need is another bathroom at this point.”

I looked at her in her white button down and sixteen inch strand of pearls and wanted to tell her that it was none of her business but it’s like I was programmed to be nice. So instead I gave her a bright smile and said, “Well, you never know what the future will hold, do you?”

I could see that this response had whetted her appetite for more information. I decided to counterattack. “So how is Chuck doing? The stock market is so unpredictable these days.” Chuck was a stockbroker who liked to brag that his clients were the only ones who hadn’t lost money in the ’90s.

“Oh—well—Chuck is fine. And, as always, he just has a knack for picking the right stocks,” she said with a brief laugh, then opened her mouth to pounce again.

I beat her to it.

“And the girls? How are Annabelle, Belinda and Camille doing?”

“Oh, the ABCs are doing terrifically,” she gushed. “I’m sure you heard about our Belinda coming in first at her twirling contest and—”

I nodded, smiled, oohed and aahed in all the right places as Amy talked batons and gymnastics and swim meets. The ABCs, as Amy and Chuck liked to refer to their girls of eight, ten and twelve, were, as Moira liked to put it, “nauseatingly talented.” Not to mention Amy’s favorite subject. She could go on for hours. And that’s exactly what it felt like she was doing.

I looked at my watch. I didn’t have any more time to be nice. “Oh, gosh, look at the time!” I interrupted. “Gotta rush. Nice to see you.” I tossed a bundle of rosemary onto my other groceries and took off, rattling my cart down the aisle and leaving her standing there in her Eddie Bauer khakis with a dumbfounded look on her face.

Shameful, maybe, but I fully admit that I enjoyed every minute of preparing that meal, even though I was going to be feeding it to Roger.

The plan was to fill the house with the scents of home cooking so he wouldn’t be able to resist accepting my invitation to stay for dinner. Then I’d whet his appetite with baby spinach and fresh pears tossed with his favorite vinaigrette and a sprinkling of blue cheese and walnuts and wow him with my honey mustard pork loin and my pan grilled vegetable medley. I’d lull him with freshly baked yeast rolls then move in for the kill with warm apple crisp.

First I’d have him eating off our wedding china, then I’d have him eating out of my hand.

One thing in life I was sure about. I was a damned good cook. It was one of the reasons Roger had married me.

It was just past noon and I was kneading the dough for the rolls when I heard the front door open and close, followed by the tap-tapping of high heels on my liability floors. I thought at first that it might be the Hawk again, back to insult the backyard or something. No such luck.

“Hello, Mother,” I said when I looked up to find her standing in the kitchen doorway. “What brings you out to the Cove?”

But I didn’t really need to ask. She had a shopping bag from the upscale boutique she managed dangling from her arm. The only time my mother made a visit was when she’d plucked something tasteful from a clearance rack that she was certain would be perfect for me. Luckily, with her discount, she got the stuff for next to nothing so I didn’t really feel guilty that I never wore any of it. I was totally honest with her about this, but Bernice, who’d done some modeling in the fifties and sixties and still dressed, groomed and moved like she was camera-ready at all times, just could not seem to give up trying to dress me. It’d been a battle between us since I was about ten and decided I’d rather be comfortable than look “pretty.”

My mother, even at sixty-two, was still what I thought of as a Hitchcockian beauty. Tall and blond and sophisticated with a very chilly edge. She was wearing a pencil-thin camel skirt and a cream cashmere twinset. Her skillfully colored champagne hair was drawn back in a perfect French twist. Her earrings were small swirls of gold surrounding pearls. I looked down at my flour-dusted denim coveralls and sneakered feet.

Like I said, my mother and I are nothing alike.

“I brought lunch,” she said as she held up a little shopping bag from the café near her boutique, “but it looks like I needn’t have bothered.”

“Actually,” I said, “I could use some lunch. This is for dinner.”

“Are you having a party?” she asked skeptically.

“No,” I answered as I went back to kneading the dough.

“Surely you don’t bake this kind of thing for yourself?” Her voice held the kind of horror mothers usually reserved for something worse than the possible consumption of carbohydrates.

“No, Mother, I don’t.”

She reached into the refrigerator and brought out a pitcher of iced tea.

“Is that your honey mustard pork loin marinating in there?” she asked.

“It is.”

She poured herself a glass of tea, then sat down in the breakfast nook and started to lay out what she’d brought for lunch. Salads sans dressing. My mother carried her own fat-free concoction in a handsome little bottle she kept in her huge, tote-size purse.

“Well, it can’t be that you’re seeing someone,” she said.

Although she was right, her tone still pissed me off. “Why can’t it?” I asked with the petulance that only she can bring out in me. “Just because I haven’t dated anyone since that excruciating blind date back in nineteen ninety-eight—” I sprinkled more flour on the ball of dough “—doesn’t mean that I couldn’t date if I wanted to.”

“Well, are you seeing someone?” my mother asked, her voice icily amused.

“As it happens, no,” I answered curtly.

“Then what’s with all this mess?”

To Bernice, a mess in the kitchen was anything that eventually led to washing dishes. My mother’s idea of preparing dinner is to stop at the deli or pick up the phone. I probably teethed on biscotti and I was pretty sure my first solid food had been something with olives and feta cheese.

“Actually,” I said, despite my reservations, “I’m expecting Roger for dinner.”

“Oh, my God,” Bernice exclaimed, a forkful of arugula halfway to her mouth, her beautifully made-up green eyes wide, “don’t tell me you’re so afraid of the empty nest that you’re going to try to win that asshole back.”

I stared at her, wondering if her latest Botox treatments had somehow affected her mind but she didn’t seem to be drooling or anything.

“Get serious, Mother. I would prefer,” I said, picking up the dough and giving it a good bashing, “to never be in the same room with him again if I could help it. It’s the nest I’m after—empty or not.”

Okay, I’d said it. And I knew it would bring on the questions. And I knew what her reactions to my answers would be. My mother was not going to be pleased to find out that I was willing to flatter and feed my ex-husband just to keep from getting my ass tossed into the street. But what the hell, might as well get it over with.

I took a deep breath. “Mother, there’s something I have to tell you,” I began, preparing to spill my guts while my mother sipped her tea.

“This has too much sugar in it,” she said before I managed to get one word out. “I don’t see why you don’t leave it unsweetened and offer your guests the option of artificial sweetener.”

I rolled my eyes like a teenager. “Well, Mother, it’s not like I have crowds coming through here every day asking for iced tea.”

She eyed my hips. “Then do it for yourself,” she said.

Maybe I’m too sensitive, but I’m not fond of pouring my heart out to someone while they’re insulting me. The fact that it was my own mother just added to the fun.

I slapped the dough against the breadboard, sending up a little puff of flour. And then I told her my story.

And what did she say?

“Of course, it would never occur to you to just go out and get a job.”

I had to force myself to stop kneading the dough. It was long past time to shape it. Face it, the last five minutes had been overkill, but I’d needed to keep my hands busy while I told my mother what a mess I’d made of my life. “Of course, I’m going to get a job,” I said as I opened a cupboard door and searched for a baking sheet. “But I need time to find one, Mother.”

“Right. You’ve only had ten years,” she answered.

That my mother disapproves of my choices in life is no secret to anyone who has ever seen us together. But, just in case I might have forgotten, she was kind enough to take this opportunity to remind me.

“I honestly have never understood why you didn’t finish college. You weren’t raised to be dependent on anyone, Lauren. Certainly not a man. I’ve been taking care of myself since I turned sixteen. I’ve—”

I found the pan I needed and slammed it onto the counter top. “Just because you programmed yourself to be the woman you wanted to become when you were twelve years old and first discovered that you had cheekbones doesn’t mean—”

She didn’t let me finish. “Oh, you think that isn’t exactly what you’ve done?” she asked.

I gasped. “That’s nothing like what I’ve done!”

She shrugged. “Keep your little delusions, Lauren, if it makes you feel noble. At least I have the consolation of knowing you aren’t trying to win back that jerk you married.” She stood. “That said, I hope you intend to do some grooming before Roger gets here. It wouldn’t hurt to have him feel sorry that he screwed up for a change.” She picked up her enormous purse. “Take a look at what’s in the shopping bag,” she said. “And don’t be stubborn about it.” She came over and kissed my forehead—easy since she was about five foot eleven, even without the mules, and I was five foot six—murmured disapprovingly over my hair for a few moments, then clicked her way back to the front door. “Good luck with Roger,” she yelled before the door slammed.

“That woman drives me nuts,” I muttered to the dough as I started to shape it into dinner rolls. Face it, we drove each other nuts.

I’d always suspected that my mother had “career girl” stamped on her birth certificate. It wasn’t that she didn’t like men—there had been no shortage of men over the years to take her to dinner, the theater, New York—she just didn’t want to be married to one. She certainly hadn’t wanted all the things that came with marriage in the fifties and early sixties. I was obviously an accident. She’d stayed married to my father just long enough to give birth to me. Gorgeous and irresponsible, Daddy had set out for the Florida Keys before I’d learned to talk, but I still heard from him every Christmas and on my birthday. And I still kept a picture of him, wearing swim trunks and a tan George Hamilton would envy, on my bedroom dresser.

I finished shaping the rolls, covered them with a gingham linen towel and went to the sink to wash my hands. I kept glancing over my shoulder at the shopping bag Bernice had left in the breakfast nook. Curiosity finally got the better of me and I wiped my hands on a towel and went to investigate.

Another little black dress. I drew it out of the bag and held it in front of me. Not bad. Maybe I’d wear it tonight. If it fit. I looked at the tag and was surprised to see that it was actually my size. Maybe Bernice had finally gotten it into her head that I was never going to be a size eight. I grinned. If that was the case, then anything was possible.