Читать книгу Don't Scream - Wendy Corsi Staub - Страница 14

It was Fiona who selected the meeting place: Glenview Springhouse, an elegant eighteenth-century country inn not far from where the Mass Pike and Interstate 91 converge. It’s centrally located for all of them: a little over an hour west of Boston, ninety minutes north of Danbury, and almost an hour east of Cedar Crest.

It makes sense for Brynn and Fiona to go together. Fee insists on driving, though Brynn offered.

“I can’t leave the office until noon, and I’ve got to get back for a three forty-five appointment,” was her reasoning.

Brynn pointed out that they would get there and back in the same amount of time regardless of who drove.

Fee didn’t dispute that, but Brynn could tell she wanted to…And she would have been right.

The speedometer of Fiona’s silver BMW quickly rises to eighty as they leave Cedar Crest, and never falls until they pull off the exit.

“You drive like the car was just catapulted out of a cannon. You know that, don’t you?” Brynn pulls her cell phone out of her purse as Fiona stops at a light and quickly snaps down the visor mirror to check her reflection.

“Of course I know that. I can’t afford to tool along taking in the sights. Who are you calling?”

“Garth.” She pauses, about to hit SEND. “Why?”

“Why are you calling him?”

“To see how the boys are doing.”

“Already?” Fiona’s tone smoothly melds amusement with disapproval.

Brynn shrugs and dials anyway, needing the connection to her life back home. Especially now, when she’s about to come face-to-face with the past.

She told her husband the truth about today’s getaway, in a sense, saying she and Fiona are meeting two old sorority sisters for lunch near Springfield.

She just didn’t tell him why.

Nor did he ask.

He merely told her he was glad she was taking some weekend time to do something for herself for a change.

She felt guilty that he was so sweet about it, and about the money she’ll be spending on a fancy lunch they can’t really afford.

“Hey, it’s me. How are the boys?” she asks when Garth cheerfully answers the phone.

“They’re good. Where are you?”

“Just about to get to the restaurant.”

“That was fast.”

“You have no idea,” she says wryly. “What are the boys doing? Did you remember to give Caleb his antibiotics? Did they eat lunch?”

She glances at Fiona, who is looking in the mirror. Her lips are pursed to apply more lipstick, but probably would be anyway.

“I’m making lunch now, yes on the medicine, and they’re on the couch watching Dora the Explorer.”

“That’s what I was afraid of.”

She made Garth promise he wouldn’t stick the kids in front of the television all day.

“It’s just to keep them out from underfoot while I make lunch.”

She wonders what he can possibly be making that’s so involved it might take longer than a minute or two, but doesn’t ask. She would if Fiona wasn’t sitting beside her in silent disapproval.

“You know the boys like the crusts cut off their bread if you’re making sandwiches, don’t you?”

He pauses just long enough for her to realize that, somehow, he doesn’t know that.

“I know.”

She smiles faintly. “Just making sure.”

“Listen, have fun,” Garth says before they hang up, as the light changes and Fiona guns the engine to hurtle them on toward the inn.

“I will.”

No, she won’t.

“Tell the girls I said hello.”

“I will.”

No, she won’t.

He knows Tildy and Cassie, of course, just as he knew Rachel. He had them in class during their days at Stonebridge. Both Tildy and Cassie popped in and out of Brynn’s life in the early years of her marriage, before the boys came along and everyone drifted.

But today isn’t about catching up on each other’s families, jobs, lives.

It’s about something Brynn isn’t yet prepared to dredge from the murky depths of her memory.

But it’s too late to back out now, even if she dared suggest that to Fiona.

She and Fee haven’t spoken much during the drive—and not at all about the birthday cards, or Rachel, or the past. Or, thank goodness, the expensive Lladro figurine Jeremy demolished in Fiona’s office yesterday, which Brynn offered to pay for, and was grateful when Fiona refused. She knew it would probably cost more than a mortgage payment, and she and Garth are having a hard enough time making those lately.

Fee spent much of the last hour on her cell phone with clients, in as blatant disregard of the mandatory hands-free headset tossed carelessly on the backseat as she is the posted speed limit.

At least she didn’t smoke.

Well, not after the first cigarette she was already puffing on when she pulled into the Saddlers’ driveway.

Brynn asked her not to smoke in the car.

“I can roll down the window.”

“It still bothers me. I get nauseous, and you don’t want me to vomit all over your car, do you?”

Obviously, Fiona did not.

Glenview Springhouse is a sprawling, white clapboard house. Judging by the rambling architectural style, Brynn concludes it’s probably been added on to repeatedly over the years. The restaurant entrance is off to one side, in a wing that consists mainly of a glassed-in atrium.

Here we go, Brynn thinks, still clenching her cell phone in a hand that remains white-knuckled even now that her speed-demon friend has stopped the car.

She can’t help but wonder what she’s doing here.

She should be home in Cedar Crest, eating peanut butter sandwiches—no crusts—with the boys, and nagging Garth about fixing the plastic towel bar in the bathroom that dropped off the tile wall again this morning.

That’s her life, not this…this…

This nightmare.

“Do you think they’re here?” she asks as Fiona pulls into an empty spot and turns off the engine.

“Tildy definitely is.” Fee indicates a gleaming red Ferrari 612 Scaglietti parked nearby.

“That’s her car? How do you know?” Brynn asks uneasily, remembering Fiona claimed earlier that she hasn’t seen Matilda in years, either.

Claimed?

So you think she was lying about that?

Why would she?

Her thoughts awhirl with paranoia and suspicion, Brynn can’t seem to look her friend in the eye.

No matter. Fee is too busy looking herself in the eye, focused again on the visor mirror as she says matter-of-factly, “I don’t know it’s Tildy’s for sure. But that’s a quarter-of-a-million-dollar car, and I’m willing to bet it’s hers. It’s her style.”

Brynn, noting that she herself failed to discern said quarter-of-a-million-dollar car from the red Hyundai parked next to it, is mired in a familiar sense of being well out of her league.

When she first met the infinitely astute Fiona, Brynn marveled that a girl who grew up in a blue-collar Cedar Crest household could possibly be so worldly.

Brynn has long since accepted that it’s no accident. Driven by ambition long before she was voted Most Likely to Succeed at Saint Vincent’s High, Fee shed her local roots like a worn housecoat.

She’d have gone away to college if her parents could have afforded it; instead, she used local connections and worked her way through Stonebridge. By the time she was asked to pledge Zeta Delta Kappa, no one outside her closest circle of friends even realized she was a townie.

She seemed to have everything, even back then: brains, ambition, friends, a great wardrobe—and one of the hottest boyfriends around.

Four years older than Fee when she began her freshman year, Pat was a law student at Stonebridge by day and a bartender by night. Plenty of girls were drawn to his affable personality and striking good looks. Black Irish, Fiona used to say, with his shock of dark hair and sooty lashes that fringed coal-colored eyes.

Pat was from New York—Brooklyn. He was going to be a big-shot lawyer. Fiona often spoke of how they would move to Manhattan, where she would work for some top PR firm.

But Pat never made it to the Bar, thanks in large part to the bar: the Rat, where he worked.

It was obvious that Pat preferred doling out drinks and socializing to studying law. Obvious, that is, to all but single-minded Fiona, so in love with Pat that she saw only what she wanted to see.

Brynn supposes their relationship boiled down to plain-old chemistry: a wild, mutual attraction that struck at first sight, lingered for a few years, and wore off soon after the wedding.

They had been married a few months when Pat flunked out of law school.

Stunned, Fiona turned up on Brynn’s doorstep late that blustery night, saying she had left him.

“I don’t belong with some loser dropout. I deserve a lot better than that.”

The next morning she woke up, ran straight to the bathroom to vomit, and miserably asked Brynn to run over to CVS to pick up a pregnancy test.

Ashley was born eight months later.

To appease his wife—and support her and his new daughter—Pat landed a job with a couple of sleazy divorce attorneys up in Pittsfield, working as a paralegal. He continued to tend bar at the Rat at night and on weekends, but spent every spare moment with Ashley.

He still does. He’s a devoted daddy—even Fiona will give him that.

Pat longed for a second child.

Fiona Fitzgerald Public Relations was born the September Ashley entered preschool, and there was no looking back. Fee might not be working in a fancy, high-profile New York PR firm, but she was running a thriving business. One that unfortunately propelled her spiraling marriage right into the ground.

Brynn often wonders whether her friend ever has regrets—and whether she occasionally she envies the Saddlers’ stable lives.

Probably not.

Now, watching her friend check her teeth for lipstick, then snap the visor mirror back into place, she asks, “What do you think they’re going to say about all of this?”

They, of course, are the two sorority sisters presumably waiting inside.

“Only one way to find out. Come on.”

Reluctantly, Brynn climbs out of the car and follows Fiona on wobbly legs.

It’s too late in the season for summer vacationers and too early for foliage spectators, yet the inn’s large dining room is fairly crowded this first weekend after Labor Day. The round tables, draped in rich amber linen and centered with flickering candles and fresh autumn-hued flowers, are occupied mainly by couples and retirees.

Matilda Harrington is the lone occupant of a round table for four. She had asked the hostess to move her twice before deciding this was as private a location as possible, in a relatively secluded corner beside a tall, lace-curtained window.

Tildy sips her chilled white wine and takes in the Colonial ambience: the low-beamed ceiling, white-painted woodwork, gleaming, dark hardwood floors. Windows on three walls open onto profuse perennial gardens in brilliant, late-summer bloom and, beyond, a verdant woodland backdrop sure to be ablaze with color in another couple of weeks.

Glenview Springhouse would be the perfect place to spend a romantic birthday weekend, considering that she can’t appear in public with the man in her life. Not as a couple, anyway.

Just last night, she made the mistake of saying, “I’m so sick of sneaking around that I’m starting to think I don’t care who finds out.”

His eyes darkened so swiftly at that remark that she wished she could take it back. He grew quiet and left soon afterward, saying he had to get home.

He always has to get home.

What Tildy wouldn’t give to spend just one night—the entire night—in his arms.

I deserve that, she concludes. And this would be the perfect place.

She’ll have to pick up an inn brochure on the way out, so she can show it to him. With enough advance notice, maybe he’ll be able to swing it.

“After all,” she’ll tell him, “I’m only turning thirty once in my life. I want to celebrate it privately, with you.”

She’s beginning to wish she had never planned the big party. She booked the date—the night before her birthday—at the Imperial Ballroom at the Park Plaza Hotel a few months ago.

Spotting her sorority sisters approaching the table with the hostess, Tildy lowers her wineglass. Maybe she should have invited them to the party, she thinks—but only for a split second.

No, she shouldn’t have. They’re not a part of her life now. They wouldn’t fit in.

Brynn, she hasn’t seen in years. Tildy notes, reluctantly, that her former sorority sister hasn’t lost her fresh-faced, wholesome prettiness, nor her willowy figure.

But the cut of her dark blazer is all wrong, and she’s wearing it over a pair of Gap khakis, with flat brown loafers of all things.

Tildy herself is appropriately dressed in Ralph Lauren Black Label, perfect for a Saturday luncheon in the country. Fresh from the salon, her hair is newly cut in sophisticated layers that fall to her shoulders.

Brynn’s is still long, pulled back in a simple ponytail, and she’s got on precious little makeup.

With some eyeliner, a flattering haircut, and stylish clothes, Tildy thinks, she’d be a knockout.

As it is, she just looks so…small-town New England. Like someone’s wife, someone’s mom. All of which, Tildy reminds herself, she is.

But she doesn’t have to look the part, for God’s sake.

Jealous, are you? an annoying little voice pipes up.

Certainly not. Not of Brynn’s looks, anyway.

And not of anything else. Not anymore.

Ah, there’s Fiona. She hasn’t changed much since she was in Boston in June, when Tildy introduced her to her old boarding-school friend James Bingham over an elegant seafood dinner at Aura.

Her well-cut trim charcoal designer suit is a little businesslike for Tildy’s taste. Still, it’s expensive, fashionable, and becoming, and her legs look fabulous in the above-the-knee pencil-slim skirt and tall-heeled pumps. Her jewelry is gold and tastefully expensive.

Her painstaking assessment sliding north, Tildy notes that Fee’s hair is twisted from its sleek right part into its usual smooth auburn chignon, her porcelain skin is flawless as ever, and her green eyes are expertly highlighted with a smoky shadow.

She looks good, she thinks grudgingly. But not better than I do.

Standing, Tildy takes turns air-kissing both their cheeks and notices that Brynn’s eyes are suspiciously bright.

“You’re not going to cry, for God’s sake, are you?” she asks lightly as they pull out chairs.

Rather, she intends it to come out lightly, a quip among old friends.

Instead, she sounds bitchy, even to her own ears.

“I’m trying not to.” Brynn studies her cloth napkin as she spreads it in her lap. “I’m just a little emotional about…everything.”

“You always were,” Fiona comments with a hint of affection, and gives her shoulder a pat. But, looking at Tildy across Brynn’s bowed head, she smirks, just a little.

“And you never were,” Tildy can’t help but comment, as she lifts her glass again in a silent, and not necessarily approving, toast to Fiona.

“I never was what? Emotional?” Fiona shrugs and picks up the leather-bound wine list. “To my credit, no, I wasn’t. I wasn’t a lot of things Brynn was. Is that Chardonnay you’re drinking?”

“Pinot Grigio.”

Fiona flags a passing waiter; not theirs. “I’d like a glass of the Bouchard Père & Fils Puligny-Montrachet. Brynn?”

She looks up. “Oh…Just an iced tea, please. With lemon.”

“Oh, come on, Brynn, live a little,” Tildy urges. “At least have a glass of wine with us.”

Brynn shakes her head. “I’m just getting over strep throat and I’m still on antibiotics. I’ll be the designated driver.”

“I don’t think so,” Fiona says briskly, and turns to Tildy. “Have you heard from Cassandra?”

“She left me a message this morning.” And one last night, as well. Tildy screened both calls.

“What did she say?”

“Just that she’ll be here. She must have hit traffic. Did you know she’s getting married to some guy in November?”

“She e-mailed us both when she got engaged,” Brynn says. “I called her to say congratulations and catch up. She told me about her fiancé…She said they met at the hospital where she’s doing her residency. He’s a doctor, right? A podiatrist or something?”

“I think so.” Tildy idly inspects her manicure.

“She said you met him when they came to Boston for a Red Sox game this summer. What’s he like?”

Tildy wonders if Brynn really cares, or is just trying to keep the conversation afloat until Cassie arrives and they can get down to business.

Fiona is busy pulling her Blackberry from her pocket and flipping it open under the table, checking for e-mail.

“Alex? He’s nice enough,” Tildy says briefly. She can think of nothing to add other than, “Good-looking, too.”

“Oh, it’s Alex?” Brynn asks. “I thought it was Alec.”

Hmm. Maybe it is. Tildy makes a mental note to pay more attention next time Cassie mentions him.

Fiona tucks her phone back into her pocket and casts a glance over each shoulder before asking Tildy in a low voice, “So, what did you think when you got that birthday card in the mail?”

“To be honest? I thought one of you had a sick sense of humor.”

“It wasn’t us,” Brynn tells her definitively. “And Cassie swears it wasn’t her. So unless it was you—”

“It wasn’t me. Please!” Tildy rolls her eyes.

“Well, then, who the heck do you think it could have been?”

Hmm, Brynn seems to have a bit more spunk than she ever did back in college, Tildy notes with some satisfaction. Good for her.

“I don’t know what to think,” she replies evenly, and fights the urge to pick up her wineglass again. She doesn’t want them to think she’s drinking to calm herself.

And anyway, she’d better keep her wits about her, or this could go very badly.

Fifteen minutes after watching Brynn and Fiona climb out of the BMW and walk into the restaurant, Cassie is still sitting in her Toyota parked at the far end of the parking lot.

She’s got to go in.

Either that, or just drive away.

But she can’t just sit here indefinitely, mulling things over.

I shouldn’t have come at all.

Really, there’s so much she could be—should be—doing instead, with every free moment she’s not working at the hospital. She has to finalize the reception menu. Meet again with the seamstress who’s doing the final alterations on her wedding gown. Give Alec’s sister the final guest list for next month’s shower, which she was supposed to have completed weeks ago.

“Go ahead and invite anyone you want,” Tammy urged her. “Neighbors, distant relatives, old college pals…I’m serious, I’ve got plenty of room.”

Cassie suspects that her future sister-in-law is as eager to be graciously accommodating as she is to show off her newly built 7,000-square-foot brick Colonial facing the Long Island Sound.

“Someday, we’ll have a spread like this, baby,” Alec said when they walked through it for the first time last month. “You and me and our five beautiful kids. They can each have their own room.”

“Five kids?” Cassie laughed nervously.

“You’re right, let’s go for six. I don’t like odd numbers. And we’ll put up a big stable for Marshmallow, and you can ride him whenever you want, every day if you want.”

“Ride him where?”

“On our beautiful property. We’ll have a few acres, lots of trees, a water view, white picket fence, the whole nine yards.”

White picket might as well be barbed wire, she found herself thinking illogically, as her fiancé pulled her in for a kiss.

She tried to relax and let him kiss her, but she couldn’t.

“What’s wrong?” he asked.

She shook her head. “Nothing.”

He gave her a long look and was about to question her further when his sister stuck her head in and told them dinner was ready.

How much longer can I go on pretending everything is fine? Cassie asks herself now, resting her head against the steering wheel.

She had enough to worry about before this whole Rachel thing reared its ugly head the other day. Between her medical residency and her wedding plans, she’s barely had time to digest what that birthday card might signify.

All she knows is that her life is finally thrashing out of control like a wild stallion.

And she has two choices.

She can either tightly take hold of the reins while there’s still time…

Or she can close her eyes, allow fate to toss her wherever it may, and pray for a safe landing.

There she goes at last, heading tentatively up the wide brick steps and disappearing into Glenview Springhouse.

For God’s sake, it took Cassandra Ashford long enough to get out of the damned car.

In contrast, it takes no time at all to furtively dart from the silver BMW to the red Ferrari to the blue Toyota and slip a white envelope beneath the driver’s side windshield wiper on each.

There you go, ladies. A nice little surprise for all of you…

Especially Matilda.

She’ll look at it with confusion, and certainly with disdain, and, perhaps, ultimately, with dread.

That’s the point.

At the very least, she and the others will come to realize that they aren’t alone here at this secluded inn in the woods.

That, in fact, after this they can never really be sure they’re alone anywhere.