Married to a Stranger (2 page)

Before they’d met, David had lived abroad and traveled far and wide doing articles for a variety of magazines. His steadiest source of assignments was
Slicker,
a glossy men’s magazine in the
Esquire
mold, but with a younger slant. When he’d attended the fateful dinner party at Burke and Natalie’s, David had been living alone, subletting a New York City rent-controlled apartment. He never talked about old girlfriends, but Emma knew that he was just being chivalrous. Women always looked twice at him. Right at this very moment, the new receptionist was devouring him with her eyes. Even other men seemed to light up in his presence.

Emma ran to him, hugged him, and kissed his soft, insistent lips. She felt the flush that raced through her whenever they touched. We’re getting married tomorrow, she thought, and marveled anew at her luck and her happiness. “Hey,” she whispered. “What brings you here?”

“I’m here to make you change your mind,” he said.

“About what?” she asked, drawing back from him.

“About staying at Stephanie’s tonight. This is corny. It’s old-fashioned.”

Stephanie Piper, a middle school teacher who had been Emma’s roommmate in Clarenceville since she’d first moved here, was going to be her maid of honor at the wedding tomorrow. Only a month ago, Emma and David had faced up to the practicalities of their impending marriage, and in deference to Emma’s job, they had rented a house here in Clarenceville and moved in together. Luckily, despite the stresses of adjustments and wedding plans, their new home had proved to be almost as delicious a hideaway as his bachelor apartment. But tonight, Emma was returning to her old digs for one last “girls’ night” before the wedding. “I don’t care,” Emma said. “I am old-fashioned. I don’t want to see you until I’m walking down the aisle. Go have a bachelor party or something.”

“With who?” he said. “I don’t know anyone here anymore.” She knew it was true. He hadn’t lived in Clarenceville since high school. When she and David met at Burke and Natalie Heisler’s house, he was in town from New York City to visit his mother, Helen, who had advanced heart disease. As Emma had left the dinner party that night, she’d thought she might never see the mysterious writer again, but as soon as she got home, her phone was ringing. David was calling from the Clarenceville train station asking her to come back to New York with him that very night. After a moment’s hesitation, she had thrown caution to the wind and met him on the platform.

The rest was a whirlwind romance. Their six-month courtship had been confined to weekends and carried out at a distance. Because Emma shared her apartment in Clarenceville with Stephanie, they’d spent much of their time together in David’s place in New York. In fact, much of that time had been spent in the sparsely furnished bedroom of that apartment, ignoring the outside world altogether. They would take an occasional walk in Central Park or attend a movie or a play. But once they returned to David’s apartment, they would repair immediately to the bedroom, their lovemaking an insatiable addiction interrupted by late-night dinners of Chinese food eaten out of cartons, long conversations and helpless laughter, and games of nude Scrabble in bed, that generally ended with the board shoved aside, tiles scattered across the bed, and wooden letter holders clattering to the bedroom floor as they were distracted once again by desire. Through their entire courtship, she’d felt as if love made the rules. But tonight was different. This night was about traditions and transitions.

“So go out with Burke,” Emma suggested.

David grimaced. “I’m not sure he’s in the mood for a bachelor’s night. I mean, it’s asking a lot of him just to be in the wedding.”

Emma sighed, knowing he was referring to Natalie’s death. “I know. You’re right. Well, maybe you could run up to the City. I’ll bet you could enjoy yourself at the Short Stop.” The Short Stop was David’s neighborhood bar, where he had taken her a few times to have a drink and shoot the breeze with other writers and artistic types. “Just make sure you’re back here by ten tomorrow, mister.”

He grinned at her. “Nothing could keep me away,” he said.

“Dr. Hollis,” said the receptionist.

Emma tore herself away from his gaze and tried to look businesslike. “Yes?”

“This came for you.” She held out a plain, white envelope with EMMA HOLLIS printed on it in large letters.

“You’re busy. I’ll let you go,” David said.

“No, wait,” Emma said, clutching his arm.

David suddenly looked wary. “Is that one of those letters?”

Emma reached for the envelope as if it were volatile and tore it open with a slight tremble in her fingers. “I don’t know. It looks like the others.” She pulled out a sheet of paper. Her pulse was racing. “YOU COULD NOT UNDERSTAND THE DEPTH OF MY LOVE OR YOU WOULD NOT BE MAKING PLANS TO HURT AND SHAME ME.”

Emma nodded and tried to make her voice light. “I’m afraid so.”

“Let me see that,” said David, snatching the letter from her fingers.

Emma turned to the receptionist. Her heart was pounding, but she kept her voice calm. “Where did this come from?” she asked.

“I found it on the desk when I started my shift,” the receptionist said. “Is something wrong?”

“Goddammit,” said David, through gritted teeth.

“No. No. It’s all right,” said Emma to the receptionist.

David looked at her gravely. “This is not all right, Emma.”

“I know,” said Emma. First there had been a rose, left under the windshield wiper of her car. She remembered feeling…surprised and slightly flattered at the time. She assumed at first that it was from David, until she asked him about it. And then the notes began to arrive. “This is the fourth one.”

“Baby, we need to call the cops,” he said.

All the notes were on the same plain paper, printed on a computer. Whenever one of them arrived, Emma’s heart sank, and she spent the next few days reading hidden meanings into ordinary conversations, trying to imagine, as she talked to people she saw every day, if any of them were the ones studying her, dreaming of her. After a while, she would relax and begin to think that it was over, that the writer had found someone else to focus on. And then the next one came. Emma retrieved the latest letter from David, folded it, and stuffed it into her pocket. “The police can’t do anything about them. They aren’t threats.”

“What do we do? Wait until this guy does something crazy?” David said angrily.

“It probably is one of my patients. They get these crushes that spin out of control. Believe me, it creeps me out too. I feel like he’s watching me, whoever he is.”

“We can’t just let it go and do nothing,” David insisted.

“Most of the time, these…crushes don’t amount to anything,” she said.

“And other times…”

“And other times you get John Hinckley,” Emma admitted. “I know, David. But I’m trying to keep a cool head about it, because the police are not going to do anything about it. Ask Burke if you don’t believe me. He has experience with this stuff. Sending a love note is not a crime. Even if the writer is obsessed.”

“He’s hounding you…,” David said, clenching his fist.

“I know,” she said. “I know. Believe me, I am hoping this will wind down on its own. I hate it too, but I’m afraid it comes with the territory.” She ran her hand down the side of his clenched jaw. “Don’t let this ruin things. Please, David. I know it makes you angry. You have to take it with a grain of salt. I won’t deny that it makes me…uncomfortable. Because it does. But it’s par for the course in a place like this. We’ve got a lot of troubled kids here with a boatload of problems. Whoever this kid is, he’s probably young and lonely, and not able to communicate.”

“I’m not sure it is one of these kids. What if it’s some…lunatic?”

“Lunatics tend to be a little bit…showier,” said Emma wryly. “He probably would be strapping himself naked to the hood of my car.”

“Do you really believe that? Professionally speaking, I mean.”

“Yes, definitely,” she said. “So, come on. Try and forget about this for now.”

He took a deep breath. “Some pencil-necked geek probably has his closet walls plastered with your pictures,” David fumed. “Every time I think about that…”

“Jealous?” she said, squeezing his hand, trying to lighten the mood.

He sighed, and one corner of his mouth turned up. “I’m the only pencil-necked geek who’s allowed to do that.”

“You aren’t pencil-necked,” she said.

He made a growling sound and pulled her to him, squeezing her. She began to laugh. “Look, I really do need to get back to work,” she said.

“You won’t change your mind about tonight?” he said in a husky voice into her ear. “You’re going to leave me all alone in that big bed of ours?”

“Well, you better be all alone,” she teased. When Burke had first introduced them, he’d described David as his “playboy” best friend. And when she first got involved with David, Emma had truly expected it to be no more than an exciting fling. Now things had changed, and she hated thinking about his playboy past. But she wasn’t really worried. Their love went way beyond sexual attraction, even though their sexual chemistry was something rare and wonderful. She knew that irresistible attraction would eventually fade, as their lives went on together. Everyone told her so. But right now, it was impossible to imagine that she could ever see that smile, those eyes, and not feel stirred by desire. She gave him one more lingering kiss and pulled away from him.

“Tomorrow, babe,” he said. “You and me.”

“I know,” she said, beaming.

“My wife.”

Emma’s heart swelled at the sound of the words. “My husband,” she whispered.

T
HE
G
ENERAL
C
ROSSEN
I
NN
was a colonial-era building with a mustard-colored clapboard facade, crisp white trim, and brick chimneys at either end. It was located at the end of a quiet street with houses hidden from the road and was surrounded by acres of gardens and trees on three sides. Emma’s mother, who lived in Chicago, had rented the whole eight-bedroom inn for the night, even though Emma had told her repeatedly that the hastily arranged wedding was going to be tiny.

As she pulled up in front of the inn, Emma saw that Stephanie’s car was already parked there, as well as the florist’s van and the caterer’s truck. Last night she and Stephanie had had a great “girls’ night” together, eating junk food, giving each other pedicures, and dancing to their favorite tunes. They had parted this morning when Stephanie had insisted on going to the hairdresser, in honor of her role as Emma’s attendant in the ceremony. Emma had decided to stick with the natural look.

Emma parked beside Stephanie’s car and carefully removed the fat garment bag that she had hung from a hook in the backseat. The obscenely expensive wedding dress, which her mother had insisted on buying for her, was inside the bag, swaddled in tissue. Emma would have been content with a dress off the rack from Bloomingdale’s, but Kay had pleaded with her to let her fly into New York and take her to designer showrooms, and Emma had reluctantly agreed. Her last-minute wedding was not what Kay had always pictured for her only child. Emma thought that at least she could give in on the dress. Now, to be honest with herself, she was glad she had. She could hardly wait to put the dress on and see how she looked. Emma crossed the porch and opened the door to the inn. At the far end of the room, a young guy with glasses and a crew cut was setting up the chairs and music stands for the jazz trio that was going to play. Stephanie, dressed in jeans, her blond hair coiffed in an upswept, ringletted style, was studying the placement of the floral arrangments in the timber-beamed room where the ceremony would be held.

Stephanie turned around at the sound of the door opening and exhaled in relief.

“There you are. It’s about time. You’d think it was my wedding. The caterer is asking for instructions. I’m dealing with the florist. I thought these people knew what to do. Isn’t that why you hire them?”

“Don’t worry. My mom will be here any minute to whip everything into shape. I spoke to her on her cell phone a few minutes ago. She doesn’t want to miss a moment of this. Hey, I like your hair.”

“Oh please. I look like something out of
Gidget Goes to the Prom.
”

“It’s very elegant,” said Emma loyally.

“And yours makes you look like a sex goddess.”

Emma glanced at her hair in the mirror above the flower-bedecked mantel. It fell below her shoulders, honey colored and wavy. “David likes it loose. What do you think?”

“You look gorgeous. You’re glowing. But then…”

“Pregnant women do,” said Emma wryly.

Stephanie nodded and looked down at Emma’s waist. “I hope that wedding dress has some wiggle room.”

“Come on,” Emma protested. “I’m only two months along.”

“Good thing you didn’t plan the wedding for Valentine’s Day,” said Stephanie.

“I’m working as fast as I can,” said Emma.

The truth was that when, four months into their commuter romance, Emma found herself unexpectedly pregnant she secretly, sadly, expected it to be the end of her relationship with David. He had lived out of duffel bags in temporary quarters all of his adult life. Part of her was certain that, despite the intensity of their romance, it was just another fling for him, and that this news would send him fleeing. To her shock, he’d responded with an abrupt proposal of marriage. He wanted her and he wanted their baby. He could not be dissuaded. When she pressed him, asking him if he was sure this was what he wanted, he told her that she was his miracle.

“How can you be so calm?” said Stephanie. “Don’t you have jitters? All brides have jitters.”

“Well, I did throw up this morning after you left, but these days I often start the day that way. Morning sickness. Not jitters. What can I say? He’s the one. You know?”

“How would I know?” Stephanie said ruefully. When Emma first came to town and moved into the apartment, Stephanie had just kicked out Ken Treeman, the aptly named landscaper she had hoped to marry, until she found out he’d been cheating on her.

Emma was trying to think of an encouraging reply when she heard a familiar voice behind her. “Didn’t you two leave anything for me to do?”

Emma turned to see a fit-looking, platinum-haired woman in a turquoise bouclé suit standing in the doorway, beaming at her.

“Mom,” Emma cried, rushing to embrace her mother. “You look great.”

“Well, thank you. I was afraid I’d get all rumpled on the trip.” Emma’s mother and stepfather had flown in from Chicago and driven down from the Philadelphia airport this morning. Tonight, Kay and Rory were spending the night at the inn. Emma had wanted them to come the night before, but there had been no rehearsal dinner planned, and Rory insisted he had to attend a meeting with the family attorney in Chicago that absolutely could not be postponed. Emma did not believe him. She believed that Rory was avoiding her, with good reason.

“Rory bringing the bags in?”

“No…,” said Kay. “He dropped me off. He said he had to make one more brief stop. Something about business. I don’t know. He was very mysterious about it.”

Emma tried to keep her face expressionless. All her life Emma had adored her father and idealized her parents’ marriage. In her eyes Mitch and Kay Hollis had the kind of love that people wrote songs about, and Emma’s childhood in their rambling mansion on the shores of Lake Michigan had been blissfully happy as a result. When her father died during Emma’s first year of graduate school, she was devastated for herself but even more for her mother. She couldn’t imagine how her mother would be able to survive without Mitch Hollis. Ten months later, at her health club, Kay met Rory, a divorced investment banker. Before Emma knew it, her mother was remarried.

Kay and Rory sold the suburban mansion and moved to a fabulous penthouse on the Chicago Loop. Emma had rushed out to Chicago to rescue a trailerful of mismatched bric-a-brac and mementoes from her childhood home that her mother planned to jettison during the move. At the moment, Emma’s trove of white elephant objects resided in a storage unit by the Smoking River in Clarenceville. One of these days, when she got organized, Emma planned to empty that storage unit and distribute her mementoes around her and David’s new house, which had room to hold them.

As for Kay, she seemed to slide seamlessly into her new city lifestyle and gratefully handed over the family’s financial reins to Rory, who now managed Emma’s trust fund as well as the fortune from her grandfather’s shipping business, which Kay had inherited. Rory McLean was fifteen years younger than Emma’s mother, and Kay was thrilled to have a second chance at happiness. Though Emma did not understand how her mother could marry again so quickly, Emma had tried her best to be happy for her mother’s sake until one evening, two months ago, when she was out for dinner with David and saw her stepfather seated at a cozy table in a New York Italian restaurant called Chiara’s with his arm around another woman, laughing and whispering in her ear.

Emma froze in horror at the sight. By the time she’d decided to get up and confront him, Rory and his date had exited the restaurant. Emma was furious and wounded for her mother’s sake. Torn about what to do, she and David discussed it. David warned her against breaking her mother’s heart until she knew the whole story. Emma called her mother anyway, and Kay had cheerfully recounted that Rory was in New York on a business trip. Emma hesitated and then told her mother that she had seen Rory in Chiara’s, but that he’d left before she’d had a chance to talk to him.

“Wait until I tell him,” Kay had bubbled. “He’ll be so sorry he missed you.”

Sorry indeed, Emma thought. Once Rory heard that she had seen him in Chiara’s, he would be squirming and would certainly realize that he’d better explain himself. Emma was anticipating the moment with grim satisfaction.

“This inn is a lovely spot for a wedding,” said Kay, looking around the room.

“It’s not anything too fancy, but it’s such a small wedding,” said Emma.

“Well, they seem to have things well in hand. I suppose that table back there is for the gifts people will be bringing,” Kay said, pointing to a table that already had several white and silver wrapped boxes on it. “Honestly, what ever happened to the custom of sending them to the house?”

“Oh, Mom, don’t get all Emily Post about this. It’s fine.”

“I know, I know,” said Kay. “Don’t mind me. Everything will be perfect. It’s going to be a beautiful wedding. Now let’s get you dressed.”

“Your mother’s right,” said Stephanie. “Don’t you know that the most important thing about a wedding is how the bride looks?”

Emma beamed. “Of course.”

“You two run up there and get started,” said Kay. “I want to talk to the caterer for one minute and then I’ll be right up to join you.”

“Thanks, Mom,” said Emma, hugging her again.

“Let’s go, bride,” said Stephanie. “We have to see if we can still squeeze you into that gown.”

E
MMA STUDIED HERSELF
in the full-length mirror. “Well, what do you think?”

“Wow,” said Stephanie wistfully, gazing into the mirror. “That dress is fantastic.”

Gazing at the formfitting, strapless Duchesse satin gown, Emily had to admit that it was spectacular. The color of the fabric was the shade of Devonshire cream. The dress clung to her in a perfect line, and there was no telltale tightness around the middle. Her cleavage was slightly more pronounced than usual, but that was attractive. “It is pretty,” she said.

She turned and looked at Stephanie, who had come with her to help her pick a wedding dress, and then had chosen her own lovely, olive green gown the same day. “So’s yours.”

Stephanie stood up and twirled around. “I know. I love it. I’m glad your mother took charge of this dress business.”

There was a tap at the door, and Kay stuck her head in. “Can I come in?”

“Of course,” said Emma.

“Oh sweetie,” Kay breathed. “You are magnificent.”

“Thanks, Mom. The dress is gorgeous. How’s everything going downstairs?”

“Everything’s perfect. The flowers are beautiful and the fire is going in the fireplace. That little jazz group is setting up. The waiters are assembled. There are buckets of Veuve Clicquot, and there is a divine scent wafting in from the kitchen.”

Emma smiled. “Great.”

“And you look incredibly beautiful. There’s just one more thing. Close your eyes.”

“What?”

“Just close them. And lift your hair.”

Emma did as she was told. She felt her mother fastening something around her neck. “Wow!” she heard Stephanie exclaim.

Emma opened her eyes. A diamond choker blazed against the warm tones of her skin. “Oh, Mom.”

“It was your grandmother’s,” said Kay. “It looks perfect on you.”

Emma smiled at her reflection in the mirror and took a deep breath of satisfaction.

“There are earrings to match,” said Kay. “Here. And Stephanie, you look lovely too. You two really do look like you could be sisters.”

“I feel like her sister today,” said Stephanie.

Even as Emma looked tenderly at Stephanie, she could not help thinking about her dear friends who would not be here today. Foremost on her mind was Natalie, whose absence, of course, was tragic. Natalie had been erratic and often difficult in the months preceding her suicide, but Emma would always remember her the way she was when she first knew her. A scholarship student with a brilliant mind, she was a mimic and a daredevil whose antics made life thrilling and funny. Once, when Natalie had not studied for an exam, she stole into the classroom early and wrote “Professor Smith has postponed today’s test” on the blackboard. All the arriving students read the notice and left. In those early years, Emma hadn’t realized that Natalie’s reckless charm was a harbinger of mental illness.

Emma’s thoughts turned from her dear, lost Natalie to her childhood friend Jessica, who lived in New York. Jessie’s and Emma’s mothers had been friends from girlhood, and they had been thrilled that their daughters had forged an equally strong friendship. Emma had always assumed that Jessie would be her maid of honor on her wedding day, but it turned out that Jessie, and her husband, Chris, would not be attending the wedding at all. Jessie was six months into a very difficult pregnancy, and the doctor had put her on bed rest.

The impromptu nature of this wedding had made it impossible for a number of people close to Emma’s heart to attend. But Emma thought that she had always been lucky in her friendships, and even though Stephanie was a recent friend, they were already as close as if they had known each other for years. “Thanks for being here for me, Steph,” she said.

“Don’t cry. You’ll wreck your makeup,” said Stephanie.

There was a knock on the open door. Rory, wearing an expensive suit and tortoiseshell schoolboy glasses, his graying auburn hair slicked back off his freckled forehead, asked, “Is this ladies only, or can I come in for a minute?”

Emma turned back to the mirror and began to put on her earrings.

“Done with your business?” said Kay, walking over to her husband and kissing him on the cheek. “Oh, you’re perspiring, honey.”

“I’ve been rushing. Emma, you are a vision,” said Rory.

“Thank you,” said Emma.

“Where were you, anyway? What business could possibly be so important?” Kay asked.

“Well, that’s what I came up to talk to our girl about.” Rory looked at Stephanie. “Young lady, would you excuse us for a minute?”

Stephanie stood up awkwardly. “Me. Sure. I’ll just…” She lifted the hem of her olive green gown off the carpet and edged toward the open door.

Emma felt alarmed. Surely Rory couldn’t be choosing to explain his secret tryst right now, just minutes before her wedding. She watched as Stephanie swept out the door into the hallway beyond. “What’s this all about?” Emma asked indignantly.