Four Wives (31 page)

B
Y SEVEN THIRTY IT
was too late to park in the driveway. The valets were meeting everyone at the entrance of the Beck estate, then parking the cars along the road. A hired policeman was directing the traffic from the street, which was now backed up for a quarter of a mile. Sitting in her Volvo, sandwiched between the Mercedes, BMWs, and seven-seater SUVs, Marie felt dwarfed on all fronts. They were moving slowly, inching their way to the entrance, and Marie wanted to scream. She’d left the last trace of her patience at the courthouse, squabbling with the judge over the welfare of the Farrell children.

It was the one angle she hadn’t thought through when she’d staged the coup earlier that day. Connely, West’she knew they’d get on board placing the Farrell kids with their father. But not knowing the case as well as they did, not understanding that Farrell’s lie about his daughter’s death was motivated by devotion to his wife and not something more sinister, the judge had required a great deal of convincing. They’d tracked down Farrell and dragged him in with the kids. All of them had met with the judge in her chambers. And, in the end, it was Patricia West who’d saved the day. As the court appointed guardian, her opinion weighed heavily, and she had sided with Marie.

Finally, Marie was close enough to see the cop. Leaning over to the passenger side, she rolled down the window and yelled out to him.

“I need to get through!”

The cop shrugged as he mouthed a word to her’
sorry.
Checking the lane of oncoming traffic, Marie waited for it to clear then pulled around the line of cars and into the driveway. Past the cop, who was now motioning wildly at her, past the cars waiting for the valet, Marie maneuvered to the side of the garage and parked in the grass. Finally on the inside, she took a breath and pulled down the vanity mirror. Still dressed in a navy pantsuit, she took off the jacket and unbuttoned her pinstriped blouse to just above her bra. She pulled a small brush from her bag and straightened out her hair, then dug deeper for her lipstick. The morning’s makeup was all but gone and her face had taken on the gray tone of worry. She applied a thin coat of Firefox Red to her lips, then rubbed a bit between her fingers and brushed it on her cheeks. That was it’the best she could do with what she had at her disposal, and it was barely bordering on presentable. Behind her, she could see the formal cocktail dresses with their plunging necklines and leg slits, the professional coifs and expensive jewelry. For a second she thought of the dress that was hanging in her closet. She had been so close to pulling this thing off, and now she was three hours late and dressed like Annie Hall. Gayle would have to forgive her.

She got out of the car and walked as gracefully as she could to the front entrance. Forced to slow down by the meandering crowd, she let herself take in the scene. The sun was low, almost gone now, and the sky had taken on a glorious orange hue. The grounds were perfect, vibrant green grass cut low, blooming flowers in small beds around the old oak trees and interspersed with the sculpted shrubs lining the house. The stone walkway was adorned with ivy and loose petals. Somehow, everything was just as it should be.

“Good evening, and welcome.” A man in a black tuxedo was greeting the guests at the front door, taking the ladies’ wraps and directing them around the side of the house to the party in the back.

Marie followed the nicely dressed people, finding a semblance of calmness inside her as she realized there was no disaster underfoot. The caterers had set up the appetizer stations in the right spots and were now passing hot hors d’oeuvres. The tables were presentable, with white and cream linens and gold-trimmed plates. Round glass bowls with colorful peonies sat in the centers, giving the yard a springtime feel. In the back corner, the band was setting up while a harpist played Mozart. And the weather’the one wild card’had turned out to be perfect, not a chill in the air.

Waving to people she knew, making excuses not to stay and chat, Marie worked her way through the crowd to the back entrance. She found Gayle just inside, speaking with the caterer in the kitchen.

“I’m so sorry!” Marie said, scanning her friend’s face for some sign of emotion. Anger, fear, nervousness’something. But Gayle was calm, her movements slow and nonchalant. The smile on her face was like none Marie had seen before.

“Hi, Marie. Do you know Brad?”

Marie looked at her with surprise. Of course she knew the head caterer’she’d been dealing with him directly for weeks.

“How’s it going, Brad?”

The man was on the move. He filled her in on the food schedule for the night, seemingly relieved to be speaking with someone other than Gayle. They were handling the cooking from the setup in the garage, as requested, and it was causing all kinds of headaches. Still, it was getting done, and Marie felt a powerful sense of relief that there was no one disrupting the inside of her friend’s house. In fact, everything was coming through as planned.

When Brad scurried off again, Marie tried to capture Gayle’s attention. “Was it crazy here, getting set up? Did you get my messages? And where the hell is Janie? “

But Gayle was distant, her mind on prescription autopilot. “It’s all fine. Isn’t this wonderful?”

No matter how well things had turned out, Gayle Beck would never consider a gathering like this one’at her home’
wonderful.
Never.

“Have you heard from Love?” Marie asked, again trying to get Gayle to tune in.

“She’s on her way, isn’t she? Her flight was delayed.”

“That’s what I heard. I just thought she’d be here by now.”

“Don’t worry. Everyone did such a beautiful job, Marie. And Anthony was a trouper.”

Now Marie knew something was wrong. She didn’t even think her husband would show. “Anthony?”

Gayle nodded. “He got here at five o’clock. Took all the plans, put everyone to work. Really, he was incredible. Why don’t you go outside, get something to eat.
Enjoy
yourself.”

Searching for clues to make sense of her friend, and now her husband, Marie noticed that Gayle’s champagne glass was empty and this satisfied her for the moment.

“I’ll see you out there,” Marie said. But she didn’t go outside. Instead, she walked through the house to the side entrance and headed for the garage. The cars had been removed to make room for the gas-powered chafing dishes and prepping tables. Men and women in white and black uniforms rushed about, filling trays, cooking, cleaning up the spills on the floor. And at the center of the storm was a middle-aged man in a gray suit who looked more like a lawyer than a chef.

“Anthony?” Marie asked, as she got closer.

Her husband smiled. He wanted to put his hands on her shoulders, rub out the tension that seemed to cover her from head to foot. But he hadn’t touched his wife in weeks and decided to follow caution.

“How’d I do?”

“The question is,
what
did you do? How did you know I couldn’t get here?”

Anthony looked confused now. “Some kid from the courthouse called and gave me your message.”

“From the courthouse?” Marie’s heart stopped. “What did he say?”

“That you were stuck on a case and needed me to get here ASAP for the setup.”

“How did you know what to do?”

“The plans were here. The people showed up. I gave them their orders. Not exactly rocket science.”

Marie smiled.
My thoughts exactly.
It was comforting to be on the same page with her husband again. Still, she was unsettled as she thought about what had transpired. Randy had gone out for coffee’that was when he’d made the call. He had known she needed help and somehow he had believed that Anthony would come through, even when she herself had not.

“I don’t know how to thank you,” she said. But it was more than that. Looking at the balding, slightly bulging man who had just recently slipped from his position as the center of her world, Marie could feel something again. It wasn’t a burst of love, an overflowing of attraction. Instead, it felt like a slow trickle from a faucet that was once again open’a stream of hope that her husband was actually still alive inside the man before her.

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.”

T
HE 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.