My Three Husbands (17 page)

He'd called me Laurie Ann! The fake name I'd used as a lingerie model.

Whitman commandeered a big soft white chair and the dads eased me into it like I was an invalid. Daddy sat on the arm of the chair and rubbed my neck. Whitman sat opposite me on the ottoman. He slid off my shoe and lifted my foot to rest on his thigh.

“What are you doing, Whitman?”

“Massaging your ankle.” He pressed in with his fingertips.

“Here?”

“Why not?”

“Everyone's, like, looking.”

“Shyness from a former, like, topless dancer?” Whitman teased. “So let them look.”

The looks I got, or we got, were not like the adoring looks given to Mr. Famous English Actor. The thin tan blonde women wearing simple black cocktail dresses accessorized with gold, pearls, and diamonds eyed me like a disgusting bug they wanted to squash. Their husbands, on the other hand, were like gluttons eyeing the first course. I'd been familiar with looks like that since I was twelve.

“Let me get you a plate of food,” Marielle suggested. “The chef is brilliant.”

“Whudda they got?”

“What do they
have,”
Whitman corrected.

“Delicious little trout tartlets,” Marielle said.

I was more in the mood for sour cream and onion potato chips with really hot salsa. I didn't have a clue what a trout tartlet was.

“A little pastry shell,” Marielle explained, “with smoked trout and a tiny dollop of eggless lemon mayonnaise. There's also fresh alder-grilled Copper River salmon. Sautéed wild mushrooms. Pheasant roulades. Halibut cheeks. A divine orzo salad with lots of flowers and seeds.” She gave me an affectionate smile. “You can eat everything and not get fat.”

“Well,” Whitman said, “underneath all the glamour it's just a simple fat farm, after all.”

“I guess I wouldn't mind some tartlets and roulades,” I said.

“Yes, eat now,” Whitman said, “before the food fascist appears.”

Right there in front of me, he told Marielle and Fokke about my husband's aversion to foie gras and meats of all kinds. “Living in that tree must have turned him into an epiphyte.”

They laughed. I didn't. Number one, I didn't know what an epiphyte was, and number two, I thought it was pretty rude of my faux pa to make fun of my husband's eating preferences. Was I supposed to side with them against Tremaynne? Laugh at him?

A wife was supposed to defend her husband.

“Where is he now?” Fokke asked me. “Up in a tree? With the squee-rells?”

“I hope not,” Whitman said, smiling at me.

“All the trees left on this property are protected,” Daddy said.

“We didn't cut down any more than we had to,” Fokke nodded.

“For your damn golf course.” Marielle glided off. I thought she was the most beautiful middle-aged woman I'd ever seen. She had a kind of imperturbable serenity. Fokke, her millionaire husband, was just the opposite. He could never sit still and when he spoke it always sounded like he was gargling gravel.

Fokke asked me what I'd like to drink, then suggested a glass of 1997 something or other from a vineyard in Burgundy. “Good year,” he gargled, “you'll like it.”

Whitman, meanwhile, continued to massage my ankle. Daddy absently caressed the back of my neck as he sipped his wine and gazed around the room he'd created.

“You look happy, Daddy.”

He smiled. “Every once in a while I get to do a building I really love,” he said. “Something I'm proud of. It's always a battle, but sometimes you win.”

I could see how my mom would fall in love with him. Daddy was always so calm and purposeful. He was an artist, but his art was about creating order. That's really appealing when you're a woman living a scattershot life, making it up as you go along.

Whitman's hands felt good on my ankle. I wondered what it would be like to be Daddy, and have Whitman make love to me. I leaned back and tried to relax, but couldn't. I wanted to be with Tremaynne. I wanted Tremaynne's hands all over me. I wanted to be sucking his hot wet tongue into my mouth.

We made chitchat, going over the elk attack for the umpteenth time. I told them about my close encounter with the famous movie star.

“That pederast? Who cares about him?” Whitman said dismissively. “Jane Bugler's here. One of the most famous opera singers in the world. The greatest Norma of her generation.”

“She's going to sing later on,” Daddy said.

As if I cared.

My eyes wandered, scouting for real celebrities. I caught a glimpse of Marcello across the room. He was standing with an elderly woman wearing a dowdy flower-print dress. His eyes wandered, looking for someone else. They landed on me. He smiled, but I looked away, not wanting to plug in. I didn't want to acknowledge our guilty secret.

Fokke returned with my wine. “Where is your husband?” he asked.

I saw Daddy and Whitman exchange glances.

“He went into McCall,” I said.

“So you really love dis guy who sits up in de trees?” Fokke wanted to know. “What does he do dat for anyway?”

“He's a professional activist,” I said.

“How can you be active sitting in a tree?” Fokke asked.

“When you sit in a tree,” Whitman explained, “they can't cut it down.”

“Dat's ri-dic-a-lus,” Fokke insisted. “What would we do without timber? The building industry would collapse. Your fodder would have no verk. Where do you think the wood came from to build this place?”

“Tremaynne works for animal rights, too,” I said stubbornly.

“Ya,” Fokke said nervously, “don't tell dat to Marielle. She's crazy for all these animals, too.”

“You know what they do to those poor little monkeys in research facilities?” I said.

Fokke shook his head.

“Instead of letting them have sex, they electro-ejaculate them. For their sperm. They clamp this electric—”

Marielle returned with a plate of food. “I just saw your husband,” she announced.

I jumped up from the chair. “Where?”

“Outside,” Marielle said. “Down by the stables. I'm sure it was him.”

“What stables?”

“Outside. Down there.” She pointed beyond the food table. “He was talking to someone. Down by the horses.”

 

 

I ran outside, shoeless. Three broad flagstone terraces led down to an Olympic-size pool. Beyond that there was a strip of thick green grass, and then a winding path through giant pine trees to a corral, pasture and stables. Guests at Pine Mountain Lodge didn't have to stay in the lodge itself. They could rent luxurious cabins way out in the woods and ride back and forth on horseback. There was a long line of saddled horses tethered to a railing, waiting like cabs outside a New York nightclub.

“Tremaynne!” I shouted, skirting around the corral. The ground was hard and rocky. The soles of my nylons got shredded. “Tremaynne!”

The college-age kid working in the stable said he hadn't seen anyone who looked like the man I was describing.

“He was here just a minute ago,” I said. “Outside. Talking to someone.”

“I been in here,” he shrugged. “Feedin' the horses.”

I looked everywhere I could without going any deeper into the forest. The sun had gone down and the night turned suddenly cool. The air smelled sweet, like fresh water and crushed herbs. Nearby, the river flowed with a restless voice through the trees. Two horses, one gray and one white, grazed in the lush pasture beyond the corral. And way beyond that there was a landing strip with three single-engine planes parked outside a hangar.

Marielle must have mistaken someone else for Tremaynne. He'd probably taken the SUV and gone to McCall, as the original plan called for. All I had to do was go check with the valets.

But then I did see someone. Across the river. Near a clump of bushes in the woods. It was just a glimpse, but I thought I saw a flash of Tremaynne's orange backpack.

I called his name and headed for the bank of the river. No way I was going to cross. It was deep and fast and ice-cold.

I knew how much Tremaynne loved the wilderness, but I couldn't believe he'd just leave me on our honeymoon and go out into the woods to camp by himself.

I decided to postpone freaking out until I found out if the SUV was gone or not.

It got darker and darker as I hurried back toward the lodge. A bird with a sharp, raucous voice seemed to be laughing at me. Tiny bright lights flicked on along the path. My feet were sore from stepping on rocks. Above me, at the top of the three terraces, Daddy's beautiful building was silhouetted against an indigo sky salted with stars. From inside the lodge came a high soprano voice singing an opera aria, maybe in Italian, I couldn't tell.

It was like a concert. No one was talking.

“Now where are you going?” Whitman whispered when I snuck in between songs to retrieve my shoes and bag.

“Out for a smoke.” I crammed a trout tartlet into my mouth and washed it down with a gulp of burgundy.

“It's Jane Bugler,” Whitman whispered, nodding toward an enormously fat woman in a long orange crushed-velvet dress that made her look like a pumpkin. “Fokke flew her over from La Scala just for this.”

“Pretty voice but her dress sucks major league.” I decided to take the wine with me.

“Did you find Tremaynne?” Daddy asked.

I nodded and gave him the kind of lying smile I've always been so good at. “See you guys later.”

 

 

I slipped back outside and decided I'd have a smoke before going to check on the SUV. A glass of wine does not make sense without a cigarette.

I lit up and stood outside the giant glass wall, listening to the music and looking in at all the reverent faces. I'd been hearing about this Jane Bugler for years. She and Marielle had been students together at some famous music conservatory in Paris. At one time Marielle was training to be an opera singer, too. But then she met Fokke, and instead of an opera career she got yellow diamonds.

Someone coughed softly behind me. I turned around. Marcello was standing in the shadows, cigarette in hand, staring at me.

I was used to seeing him in a dark suit. I'd never seen him dressed casually. Tonight he was wearing a white short-sleeved shirt tightly tucked into loose gabardine slacks. There was no flab around his waist. His thick hair glowed silvery-white against his bronzed face. It was dark, but not so dark that I couldn't see a giant Rolex watch on his tanned, hairy wrist.

He sidled up to me and whispered,
“Buona sera.”

“Bona sera.”
I kept my distance. I didn't want him to think just because I'd posed for him in lingerie, and seen him jerking off into a hanky, that he could be intimate with me. I was, after all, on my honeymoon.

“You enjoy the music?” he asked, his voice pitched low, just for me.

“Not really.” I took a really deep drag, chased it with a gulp of wine, and let the smoke pour out of my nose.

“What are you doing with those men?” he asked.

I knew who he meant. “They're my dads.”

“Your sugar daddies?” There was a knowing edge in his voice.

“No. My fathers. My
dads.”

“They are homosexual?”

I laughed at his impertinence.

“Laurie Ann.” He moved ever so slightly closer. “I still think of you,” he said with a sudden gust of passion. “I still desire you.”

It was so totally unlike anything a man had ever said to me that I burst out laughing. Only I kept my lips shut, so instead of letting out a ladylike peal, I sounded like a snorting horse.

I could tell Jane Bugler was getting close to the end of her song. Her voice swooped up and down, gathering intensity. It had to be something about love. It always was, in opera.
“Amore!”
she sang.
“Ti amo!”

“You don't believe me?” Marcello's voice was husky in my ear. A stream of his warm cigarette smoke brushed my cheek. I could tell he was excited. I could feel it emanating from his body.

“It doesn't make any difference,” I said.

“Of all the women here,” he breathed, “you are the only one who excites me. You are the only one who could make me love you.”

“Thanks, but I don't love you.”

He turned away. “You think I am too old.”

Now I'd hurt his feelings. “No, it's not that.”

“Then what?”

“I'm
married.
Get it? This is my
honeymoon.”

“You were married before,” he said. “You posed for me when you were married the last time.”

“I needed the money,” I said.

He was silent for a moment. “Your husband must be very rich.”

I didn't say anything.

He let out a frustrated sigh. “If only I could touch your breasts.”

I stepped away, insulted, and crossed my arms.

“If I could just look at them.”

I tossed my cigarette into my wineglass. “Forget it.”

“I'll pay you one thousand dollars.”

The shock of it made me wheel around. I straightened my back. Marcello must have thought I was going to take him up on his offer because he was staring at my sequined boobies with fire in his dark eyes.

Jane Bugler's voice was getting louder and more dramatic, throbbing with emotion.
“Perché?”
she bellowed.
“Perché, perché, signor?”