Four Wives (32 page)

“L
OVE!”
M
ARIE YELLED WHEN
she saw her friend turn the corner to the backyard. Dressed in casual slacks and a T-shirt, Love was as out of place as Marie and yet, somehow, she seemed to float across the lawn. There was a new serenity about her, in her slow gait and gentle movements, that caught the attention of the table as she approached.

Thinking his wife was nothing short of heart-stopping, Bill became filled with the caution of uncertainty. He’d missed her calls, twice letting the phone ring when he could have gotten there in time. As much as he wanted to know how her reunion went, the larger part of him needed to cling to ignorance, even for just a little while more.

When she was close, he rose from the table and managed an appropriate smile to mask his concern, embracing his wife with a small kiss. “How are you? Are you in more pain?”

Love gently waved him off as she sat down at the table. “I’m fine, really. It’s about the same.”

“And the trip?” He knew he had to ask.

“It’s a long story. Can we talk later?”

Sensing the tension, Marie gave her friend a wink, then filled the silence with chatter about the crazy day that was, thankfully, winding down. With more than adequate embellishment, Marie walked them through the saga of the Farrell case and Anthony’s heroic efforts to save the party. Then the conversation returned to the uncomfortable absence of the hosts.

“Where could they have gone?” Love asked, and everyone knew what the question implied. They weren’t exactly the sort of couple to sneak off for a stolen moment of intimacy. That didn’t
really
happen in the suburbs, and Gayle, in particular, would sooner die.

“That seems to be the question of the day.”

Love checked her watch. It was nearly ten o’clock. “Aren’t they supposed to give the speeches soon? She has to be here for that.”

Marie nodded and shrugged her shoulders. “Maybe she doesn’t want to hear about the plans to redecorate.”

“Come on.”

Love got up from the table, and Marie followed. This was Gayle’s night. The party was a success and’the best part’it was almost over. There was no reason for her not to be here, at least not one that didn’t have Love unnerved.

Upstairs, the bedroom door was open. A light drifted into the darkened hallway from someplace inside the room, but it was too dim to be coming from the night table. As they approached the room, Love and Marie looked at each other, then stopped just outside the door.

“Should we go in?” Love asked. Marie didn’t answer. Stepping slowly, she walked inside.

“Gayle?” she called out. The light was coming from the bathroom, escaping from underneath the closed door. Then the door opened.

“It’s just me.” Standing in the doorframe with the light at his back was Troy. His jacket was off, his tie askew. And everything about him looked wrong.

“Excuse us, we were looking for your wife,” Love said, turning to leave.

“I spilled a drink. I’ll be down as soon as I clean up.” The answer was strange, not only because Marie had watched him leave the party without as much as a hair out of place, but because there was not the slightest hint of concern for his missing wife.

They said nothing to him but moved as one toward the bathroom. When they were face to face with the man, he held out his arms to block their path.

“I’ll be right down.” His voice was firm.

Still, Marie took another step forward, taking him by surprise. “I just want to see for myself.”

He laughed nervously until she was past him, inside the beautiful white room where Janie Kirk was fixing her makeup in Gayle’s mirror.

“You have to be kidding,” Marie said, looking back and forth between the two lovers. Barely dressed in the hot pink silk, there could be no other explanation for Janie Kirk to be in Gayle’s bathroom’with Gayle’s husband.

Janie was suddenly pale as she closed her cosmetics bag and walked to where Love was standing.

“I’m so sorry,” she said, first to Love, then again to Marie. Love studied her face, trying to place the look in the woman’s eyes. It didn’t take long for her to recognize it. Shame. Regret. Resolve that she would now have to face the scrutiny of others.

“Oh, Janie. What are you doing?” Marie asked, not wanting, or expecting, an answer. And none was forthcoming.

“Where is Gayle?” Love grabbed Janie’s arms. She had no use for Troy, or Janie Kirk, except to find her friend.

Janie hung her head. “She left a few minutes ago.”

“Did she see you?” Marie asked, searching the woman’s face for signs of contrition.

Janie was silent as she looked at Troy. Love and Marie didn’t wait for an answer.

“I’ll check for her car. You search the house.” Marie bounded out of the room for the stairs. Holding back her anger, Love looked one last time at Janie Kirk. As she headed for the hallway, she could hear the woman’s voice trailing behind her.

“I’m so sorry.”

L
OVE RUSHED THROUGH THE
house, searching for Gayle. One after the other, she turned on the lights in perfectly decorated rooms, each one so carefully planned. Gayle’s grandmother’s antique secretary in the study, the restored wall sconce that had once hung in her room as a little girl, delicate moldings and brass door handles’in every corner were traces of her friend. Year upon year, the Hunting Ridge Women’s League had offered to include the Beck estate in the annual home show, and each time Gayle had refused them, instead writing a large check to the League. It wasn’t about appearances to her. This home was her sanctuary, the place where she could display the keepsakes of her memories and live among them as if they were the oldest and dearest of friends. In every room, Love could feel her presence. But they were all empty.

Marie caught up to Love in the foyer.

“Her car is still here. Did you look everywhere?”

Love nodded. “Maybe she took another car.”

“She wouldn’t leave without Oliver.”

Love turned toward the stairs. Oliver’s door was closed, the hall outside quiet, and Love had not wanted to wake him. Now she was wondering if he was even in there.

“I didn’t look in his room,” Love said. Marie fell in behind her as she headed up the stairs. Quietly, Love turned the handle. The room was dark with the greenish glow of a night light in the far corner. A window fan pulled in the cool night air and the soft buzz from the party on the other side of the house. Love walked softly across the carpet to the bed nestled in the corner. She could see the plush comforter piled high between large bed posts, and as she got closer, Oliver’s floppy hair appeared from underneath. She looked at Marie, who was still in the doorway, and nodded. Then she turned to leave, retracing her steps across the room.

A burst of air swept through the fan and into the room, blowing the sheer curtain from the window and letting in the dim light of the night sky. It was in that light that Love saw the shadow at the end of the bed.

“Gayle?” Love said in a whisper, her heart racing at the unexpected discovery.

Following Love’s gaze, Marie stepped inside the room. “Is she all right?” Marie asked of Love, but it was Gayle who answered.

“I just like to look at him sometimes.”

Love took a few more steps toward her friend. “He’s a beautiful child.”

“He’s a sad child,” Gayle said, her eyes still engaged by the sleeping boy. “Just like in the picture. I never let myself see it before.”

Marie and Love approached slowly until they were close enough to see the outline of Gayle’s face. “What picture, sweetie?” Love asked. She looked at Marie, who shrugged, equally bewildered by their friend’s comment and by the expressionless face that peered into the darkness.

“There’s so much sadness.”

Love touched her arm lightly. “We know about Janie. We saw them in your room, and we know you saw them, too.”

Gayle shrugged, as if to say,
what can you do?
Then she turned to face the women standing beside her. “Marie was right.”

“I’m sorry,” Love said, still unsure where Gayle’s head was. She was far too calm for a woman who’d just caught her husband with another woman, a friend, in her own bedroom.

Through the window they could hear the band stop and the orchestra of voices die down to one. The speeches were starting.

“We should go,” Gayle said. “Just give me a minute.”

Love looked at Marie, who nodded. “We’ll wait downstairs for you.”

When they were gone, Gayle took the bottle of pills from her clenched hand and slipped them far beneath the bed. First, she would go down to accept the gratitude from the rest of the board. She would make a toast to the clinic, to her friends who made the dinner possible, to the guests, and’ most importantly’to the women who would be helped by tonight’s party. She would mingle and charm, then direct the clean-up when it was all over. And when everyone was gone, she would assure her friends that what she’d seen had not destroyed her. Janie Kirk in the arms of her husband making hollow protests as his hands reached deeper inside her dress. Then the looks on their faces when they saw her standing there’the evolution of shock to panic. Without a word, Gayle had walked past them as they held each other on the bed.

It was over in an instant. Still, it was surprising the things she could now recall. The smell of Janie’s perfume, the color of her nail polish as she held her hands over her mouth, the way a person does when something terrible has just transpired before their eyes. The plan was derived spontaneously, and it was thin. Check on Oliver, take a pill, hide. She’d slipped inside his room, then closed the door’closed out her husband’s voice as he called after her. Standing at the foot of the bed where her friends had found her, she had braced herself for the onslaught of emotion. Instead, she was drawn in by the roundness of his young face. Chubby cheeks, tiny nose, his lips open slightly and curled up at the corners. In his arms was a tattered baby blanket, the one that they weren’t allowed to discuss in the daylight but waited for him each night under the covers. He was at peace somewhere, his dreams sweet tonight. The dreams of a child. And as she watched him through the shadows of the room, the plan appeared inadequate. No provision had been made for the mornings, which would come, one and then another. As she stepped into the hallway, her conviction became clear. Something had to be done about the mornings.

W
HEN
L
OVE AND
M
ARIE
returned to the party the speeches were already underway. At a small podium with a standing mic was the chairwoman, a young ambitious New York transplant who had muscled her way past Gayle for the top spot on the board. She couldn’t match Gayle’s deep pockets, but she was savvy and knew Gayle would never leave the clinic, even if she were passed over for chair. With confidence and charm, she spoke of poverty, teen despair, class and racial barriers. She spoke of the clinic’s work, the services it provided (skipping the controversial things), and the statistics’number of girls served, low overhead percentages in the budget. It was after all of this that her face showed signs of worry. She was down to the end of her list and Gayle was nowhere to be found.

“Should we make excuses for her?” Marie asked Love as they stood in the back corner of the patio.

“What could we possibly say? That she’s stuck in traffic?”

Marie sighed as she searched the crowd for their friend. “I don’t know. I just hope she gets down here.”

“Maybe it’s for the best.” Love thought about what must be going on in Gayle’s head. Listening to the board’s plans for the money she had raised could very well push her over the edge, if she wasn’t already there.

“I’m going back up.” Marie turned for the back door. “Wait here in case she comes.”

Love was watching her walk away when she heard the voice on the speakers. Marie heard it as well and stopped in her tracks.

“Good evening everyone, thanks for coming.” It was Gayle. She’d come from the front of the house, circumventing the party and the possibility of running into Troy.

There was loud applause, and Gayle managed a smile. She waited a short moment, then carried on in a strong, firm voice.

“The Cliffton Women’s Clinic is very dear to my heart. I have served on its board for seven years, and I have followed it through tremendous growth. With the generous gifts from people like yourselves, we have been able to save many young, at-risk girls from the devastating cycle of pregnancy and poverty. You’ve heard the statistics from our chairwoman, so I won’t go on and on. It’s getting late, and there’s a lovely dessert bar waiting. Let me just say that I am proud to be a part of this fundraiser. With your help, we have brought in over seventy-four thousand dollars!”

Gayle paused as the crowd applauded again.

“Yes, it’s wonderful! And with this money we will be able to launch a new initiative’an exciting new program that reaches girls before they even get to our doors. We are calling it Smart Choices, and it will focus on preventive sexual education. Starting at age twelve, girls will be eligible for a free after-school program that will provide information about nutrition, the body, sexuality, pregnancy and STD prevention. We will offer these classes in our facility, and also through community organizations that wish to participate. By using a standard prototype and by training educators, we hope to establish a standard in sexual education for girls that will be accurate, neutral, and effective. Smart Choices is a natural extension of the services we already provide. Controlling the decision to bear children is the cornerstone of individual self-determination. It touches every aspect of life, in Cliffton and around the globe. I thank you for making Smart Choices possible! Enjoy your evening!”

There was more polite applause from faces that were now glazed over. She’d lost most of them after her first few words, but that was irrelevant. What mattered was that the members of the board heard it all, and that they would now be in a pickle if they failed to hold a new vote on the use of the money Gayle had just raised. If Smart Choices didn’t come to fruition, it would be a severe embarrassment. And Gayle knew they would all choose to jump on board.

Marie watched her as she stepped down from the podium. “Holy shit,” she said.

“Holy shit is right.” Love’s eyes were glued to their friend as she walked through the crowd. They were up from their tables now, mingling and getting dessert. Everyone except Janie Kirk.

“Oh, no’look.” Marie noticed her first, standing in the shadows beyond the patio. She’d been watching the speech from a distance.

Love turned in time to watch Janie dry her eyes, then leave from the back side of the house.

“Thank God,” Love whispered.

“Yeah. But what about the other one?”

They both looked for Troy, but he was’thankfully’absent. Gayle didn’t seem to care either way as she approached them.

“Well done,” Marie said, giving her a long hug.

Love agreed.
“Very
well done.”

Gayle smiled at them, though it was empty.

“It’s done. Now we’ll see.” She was not glowing with satisfaction, or optimism. Nor did she seem the least bit excited that she had just turned the clinic board on its head. Instead, she seemed disgusted that the mutiny had been necessary, that her husband had been unfaithful, and that her friend had betrayed her. Disgusted, and perhaps, determined.

“Come and sit with us’have a cup of coffee.” Love motioned to the table where they’d left their husbands. “Take a break until the party winds down.”

Gayle hesitated. She still had to face the board members who had gathered together at a far table to share their bewilderment and discuss their options. She had to face her husband who was hiding upstairs. Then, she would have to face herself.

“Come on. Screw all this nonsense.”

Marie, as always, had called it as she saw it. And for a fleeting moment Gayle pictured another friend who had once been able to make her see clearly.

“OK. Coffee it is,” she said, though her mind was on the gentle man with the gray hair who had left so abruptly. And for the first time in days, she felt a hint of peace.