Genuine Lies (29 page)

“Can’t I?” He poured and drank deliberately, with desperation and without enjoyment. Eve knew he wanted to get drunk. Needed to. And the hell with tomorrow’s payment. “She still blames me, Eve, and why shouldn’t she? If I had been there, if I had been with her when she went into labor instead of off in London shooting a fucking movie, we might all be free today.”

“That was almost forty years ago,” Eve said impatiently. “Isn’t that enough penance for any God, for any church? And your being there wouldn’t have saved the baby.”

“I’ll never be sure.” And because of that, he’d never found absolution. “She laid there for hours before she managed to call for help. Goddamm it, Eve, she should never have gotten pregnant in the first place, not with her physical problems.”

“It was her choice,” Eve snapped. “And it’s an old story.”

“The beginning of everything—or the end of it. Losing the baby broke her until she was as delicate mentally as she
was physically. Muriel’s never gotten over the loss of the child.”

“Or let you. I’m sorry, Victor, but it hurts me, it infuriates me to watch her make you suffer for something that was beyond your control. I know she’s not well, but I find her illness a poor excuse for ruining your life. And mine,” she added bitterly. “By God, and mine.”

He looked at her, troubled gray eyes seeing the pain in hers and the wasted years between them. “It’s hard for a strong woman to sympathize with a weak one.”

“I love you. I hate what she’s done to you. And to me.” She shook her head before he could speak. Again her hands reached out to cover his. This ground had been well trod. It was fruitless to drag their heels over it again. “I’ll survive. I have and will. But I’d like to believe that before I die I’d see you happy. Truly happy.”

Unable to answer, he squeezed her fingers, drawing what he needed from the contact. After forcing himself to take several long breaths, he was able to tell her the worst of his fears. “I’m not sure she’ll pull out of this one. She took Seconal.”

“Oh, God.” Thinking only of him, she wrapped her arms around him. “Oh, Victor, I’m so sorry.”

He wanted to burrow against her, against that soft sympathy—and the want sliced at him because he could still see his wife’s colorless face. “They pumped her out, but she’s in a coma.” He scrubbed at his face, but couldn’t wipe away the weariness. “I’ve had her transferred, discreetly, to Oak Terrace.”

Eve saw Nina come to the door, and shook her head. Dinner would wait. “When did all this happen, Victor?”

“I found her this morning.” He didn’t resist when Eve took his arm and led him to a chair. He settled there, before the fire, with his lover’s scent and his own guilt hammering at his senses. “In her bedroom. She’d put on the lace peignoir I’d bought her for our twenty-fifth anniversary, when we’d tried, again, to put things back together. She’d made up her face. It’s the first time I’d seen her in lipstick for over a year.” He leaned
forward, burying his head in his hands while Eve massaged his shoulders. “She was clutching the little white booties she’d knitted for the baby. I thought I’d gotten rid of all those things, but she must have hidden them somewhere. The bottle of pills was beside the bed, with a note.”

Behind them the fire crackled, full of life and heat.

“It said that she was tired, that she wanted to be with her little girl.” He sat back, groping for Eve’s hand. “The worst of it was, we’d argued the night before. She’d gone out to meet someone, she wouldn’t tell me who. But whoever it was had gotten her stirred up about your book. When she got home she was wild, in a dangerous rage. I was to stop you, I had to stop you. She would not have her humiliations and tragedies put into print. The only thing she’d ever asked of me was that I keep my sinful relationship private and spare her the pain of exposure. Hadn’t she honored her vows? Hadn’t she nearly died trying to give me a child?”

And hadn’t she chained a man to her in a loveless, destructive marriage for nearly fifty years? Eve thought. She could feel no sympathy, no guilt, and no regret for Muriel Flannigan. And beneath the love she felt for Victor was a resentment that he should wish her to.

“It was an ugly scene,” he continued. “With her damning my soul and yours to hell, calling on the Virgin for strength.”

“Good Christ.”

He managed a wan smile. “You have to understand, she means it. If anything’s kept her alive these past years, it’s been her faith. It’s even kept her calm most of the time. But the book, the idea of it, sent her over the edge into a seizure.”

He closed his eyes a moment. The image of his wife writhing on the floor, her eyes rolled back, her body bucking, made his skin clammy.

“I called for the nurse. She and I were able to give Muriel the medication. When we finally got her to bed, she was quiet, weepy, apologetic. She clung to me awhile, begging me to protect her. From you. The nurse sat up with her until dawn. Sometime after that and before I checked on her at ten, she took the pills.”

“I’m very sorry, Victor.” She had her arms around him now, her face pressed to his, rocking, rocking, as she would a small child. “I wish there was something I could do.”

“You can.” He put his hands on her shoulders, pulling her back. “You can tell me that whatever you have written, you won’t include our relationship.”

“How can you say such a thing?” She jerked away, amazed that after all these years, after all the pain, he could still hurt her.

“I have to ask you that, Eve. Not for myself. God knows not for myself. For Muriel. I’ve taken enough from her. We’ve taken enough from her. If she lives, this would be more than she could survive.”

“For nearly half of my life Muriel has held the upper hand.”

“Eve—”

“No, dammit.” She swooped back to the bar to slop champagne in her glass. Her hands were shaking. By God, she thought, there wasn’t another man on earth who could make her tremble. She wished she could have hated him for it.
“I’ve
taken from
her?
” Her voice cut the air between them like a scapel, separating it into two equal parts that could never, never make one whole. “My God, what a crock. She’s been your wife, the woman you’ve felt obligated to spend Christmas with, the woman you’ve had in your home night after night while I’ve been forced to live with whatever’s left over.”

“She’s my wife,” he said quietly while shame gnawed at him. “You’re the woman I’ve loved.”

“Do you think that makes it easier, Victor?” How much easier, she wondered bitterly, was it to swallow a handful of pills? To end all pain, to erase all mistakes instead of facing them. “She had your name, carried your child inside her in front of the world. And I have your secrets, your needs.”

It shamed him that he’d never been able to give her more. It ripped at him that he’d never been able to take more. “If I could change things—”

“You can’t,” she interrupted. “And neither can I. This book is vital to me. Something I cannot and will not turn away
from. To ask me to do so is to ask me to turn away from my life.”

“I’m only asking you to keep our part of it ours.”

“Ours?”
she repeated on a laugh. “Yours, mine, and Muriel’s. Plus all the others we’ve taken into our confidence over the years. Trusted servants and friends, self-righteous priests who lecture and absolve.” She made an effort to beat back the worst of her anger. “Don’t you know the saying that a secret can be kept by three people only if two of them are dead?”

“It doesn’t have to be made public.” He rose, snatching at his glass. “You don’t have to put it in print and sell it at any bookstore … or supermarket!”

“My life is public, and you’ve been a part of that life for nearly half of it. Not for you, not for anyone will I censor it.”

“You’ll destroy us, Eve.”

“No. I thought that once, a long time ago.” The last of the anger drained out of her as she looked down into the bubbles dancing in her glass, and remembered. “I’ve come to believe I was wrong then. The decision I made was … incorrect. I might have liberated us.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

She smiled secretively. “Right now it only matters that I do.”

“Eve.” He tried to bury his own anger as he crossed to her. “We’re not children any longer. Most of our lives are behind us. The book won’t make any difference to you or to me. But for Muriel, it could be the difference between a few years of peace, or of hell.”

And what of my hell? The question raced through her mind, but she wouldn’t voice it. “She’s not the only one who’s had to live with loss and pain, Victor.”

His face ruddy with emotion, he pushed himself out of the chair. “She might be dying.”

“We’re all dying.”

The muscles in his jaw worked. At his sides his big hands closed into fists. “Christ, I’d forgotten how cold you can be.” “Then it’s best you remember.” Yet she put a hand over
his and it was warm and soft and loving. “You should go to your wife, Victor. I’ll still be here when you need me.”

He turned his hand over, held hers tight for a moment, then left.

Eve stood for a long time in a room that smelled of woodsmoke and whiskey and packed-away dreams. But when the decision was made, she moved quickly.

“Nina! Nina, have someone bring my meal to the guest house.”

Eve was already to the terrace doors before Nina rushed into the room. “To the guest house?”

“Yes, and right away. I’m starving.”

Brandon was in the middle of building a very intricate space port. The television flickered in front of him, but he’d lost interest in the sitcom. The idea of building a floating walkway between the docking area and the lab had just come to him.

He sat on the living room rug, Indian-style, dressed in his faded and much-loved Batman pajamas. Scattered around him were a variety of action figures.

At the knock, he looked up and peered at Eve through the terrace doors. His mother had given him repeated instructions not to open the door to anyone, but he certainly knew that didn’t include their hostess.

He scrambled up to throw the latch. “Hi. Do you want to see my mom?”

“Yes, eventually.” She’d forgotten how appealing a freshly scrubbed, pajamaed child could be. Beneath the scent of soap lurked that wild forest smell that was boy. Her fingers itched with a surprising urge to ruffle his hair. “And how are you, Master Summers?”

He giggled and grinned. She often called him that if they happened to pass on the estate. Over the last weeks, he’d come to like her in a distant way. She had the cook send over frosted cakes and pastries which Julia meted out. And she often waved
or called out to him when his mother or CeeCee watched him at the pool.

“I’m okay. You can come in.”

“Why, thank you.” She swept inside, silk robe swirling. “My mom’s on the phone in her office. Should I get her?” “We can wait until she’s done.”

Not quite sure what to do with her, Brandon stood and shrugged. “Should I get you something—like to eat or drink? We’ve got brownies.”

“That sounds delightful, but I haven’t had my dinner yet. It’s on its way.” She dropped onto the sofa and took out a cigarette. It occurred to her that this was the first time she’d had an opportunity to talk to the boy alone in what could be considered his home. “I suppose I should ask you the usual questions about school and sports, but I’m afraid I have little interest in either.” She glanced down. “What are you doing there?”

“I’m building a space port.”

“A space port.” Intrigued, she set the cigarette aside, unlit, and leaned forward. “How does one go about building a space port?”

“It’s not so hard if you’ve got a plan.” Willing to share, he sat on the rug again. “See, these things hook together, and you’ve got all kinds of pieces so you can make layers and curves and towers. I’m going to put this bridge between the docking bay and the lab.”

“Very wise, I’m sure. Show me.”

When Nina arrived five minutes later with a tray, Eve was sitting on the floor with Brandon, struggling to link plastic pieces together. “You should have had one of the servants bring it.” Eve gestured to the coffee table. “Just set it down there.”

“I wanted to remind you that you had a six-thirty call.”

“Don’t worry, dear.” Eve let out a little crow of triumph as the pieces clicked. “I’ll get my beauty sleep.”

Nina hovered, hesitated. “You won’t let your dinner get cold?”

Eve made a few agreeable noises and continued to build.
Brandon waited until the terrace doors closed, then whispered, “She sounded like a mother.”

Eve glanced up, brows lifted high, then let out an uproarious laugh. “My God, child, you’re absolutely right. One day you’ll have to tell me about yours.”

“She hardly ever yells.” Brandon’s mouth pursed as he worked out the engineering of the bridge. “But she worries all the time. Like I might run out in the street and get hit by a car, or eat too much candy or forget my homework. And I hardly ever.”

“Get hit by a car?”

His chuckle was quick and appreciative. “Forget my homework.”

“A mother’s meant to worry, I’d guess, if she’s a good one.” She lifted her head, smiled. “Hello, Julia.”

Julia only continued to stare, wondering what to make of the fact that Eve Benedict was sitting on the floor playing with her son and discussing motherhood.

“Miss B. came to see you,” Brandon supplied. “But she said she could wait until you were off the phone.”

In an absent and automatic gesture, Julia switched off the television. “I’m sorry I kept you waiting.”

“No need.” This time Eve gave in to the urge and stroked Brandon’s head. “I’ve been beautifully entertained.” She rose, suffering only minor aches in her joints from squatting on the floor. “I hope you don’t mind if I eat while we talk.” She gestured to the covered tray. “I haven’t had time for dinner since returning from the studio, and I have a story to tell you.”

“No, please, go right ahead. Brandon, tomorrow’s a school day.”

It was the signal for bedtime, and he sighed. “I was going to build this bridge.”

“You can build it tomorrow.” After he’d gotten reluctantly to his feet, she cupped his face. “It’s a first class space port, pal. Just leave everything here.” She kissed his forehead, then his nose. “And don’t forget—”