Social Lives (24 page)

“Unbelievable, these women. Can't get a damned thing straight!”

“Yeah, yeah . . . ,” Sara said, pleasantly unnerved once again by his delightful sarcasm.

“I think they must be in the dining room.”

“That would make sense, wouldn't it?”

They walked down the staircase side by side, quiet at first but soon engaged in easy conversation.

“I think it's great you came today. Teenage girls need their dads.”

“Unfortunately for us old-timers, you are in a far better position to remember such things. I'll have to take your word for it.”

Sara laughed, mostly to herself. She hadn't felt like a teenager in more years than he could possibly know, knowing her so little.

“What is it the old-timers like to say? You're as young as you feel?”

“In Wilshire, my dear, what the old-timers say is you're as young as you
look
.”

Of course
, Sara thought. And the thought amused her. “I like mine better.”

Barlow stopped as they reached the last stair. He smiled then, warmly, as he turned to face her. “Well, then, how about joining me in the sand-box?”

Sara laughed out loud this time, and as she did, Barlow pushed through the fire door that led to the back of the inn, and also to his wife, who had just passed it by.

Hearing the laughter, Rosalyn Barlow turned instantly. She had been waiting these few minutes for a sign of him, a sign of something that would explain his car, which was now fully embedded in the snow. The look on his face when he saw her—fleeting as it was—told her all she needed to know.

Recovering quickly, Barlow paraded without hesitation up to Eva Ridley,
the tall gentleman who had paused beside her, and, of course, his wife, giving her a peck on the cheek. “Hi, honey. Hell of a day out there.”

Rosalyn smiled curtly. “You could say that.”

She didn't ask. It was time for the explanation, and they both knew it.

“I hope you don't mind that I joined you. I want to be more involved . . .
really
get involved. Hands on all the way.”

Rosalyn nodded smugly. “Great, honey. That's really great. I'm so glad you got the message about the change of location.”

Barlow had nothing. They both knew there had been no such message.

Rosalyn turned then to Sara. “Did you get lost? I'm so sorry . . . this place can be a real maze.”

Sara, being the only innocent party among them save the concierge, blushed with honest embarrassment. “I just got a wrong direction. I've never been here before. It's really a nice little hideaway.”

Barlow was smiling on the inside. If his wife had come to the wrong conclusion about things, she would certainly be wondering if Sara's comments had been cleverly woven to rub their farcical affair in her face. Either way, his mind quickly tuned in for a way to rebuke this conclusion and save Sara from the wrath of his wife.

But it was Eva who came first to the rescue. “I called Barlow, Ros. When you didn't pick up this morning, I thought I could get the message to you through him, and he pleasantly decided to join us as well. Then I found you on your cell and I forgot to tell you. . . .” Blah, blah, blah. She lied easily, only because the cause was worthy, and because it was her plan that was now getting turned on its head.

She'd had her feelers out—discreetly of course—since watching Barlow and Jacks emerge from the wine cellar that night. After three weeks of no information that had elevated her hopes that the
moment
between Jacks and Barlow had been just that, one moment, the call she'd been dreading had finally arrived. It had come midmorning, from her chef friend at the Lindly, who'd spotted the Corvette. Moving the meeting here, then giving Jacks just enough time to evade detection, was her way of sending a message:
Stop this thing before someone gets hurt.
Whether they would see it for what it was, or as a message instead from some greater power, didn't concern her. She knew in the brief seconds the plan was formulated that it would send their hearts racing and make them face the gravity of their actions.

Only now her plan had gone all wrong. Not only was Rosalyn misguided, but Jacks and Barlow would have even more cover under which to hide their affair. And poor Sara!

She turned to the waiter, who was growing impatient beside them. “I'm so sorry—I forgot we'd had a late addition. Can you reset for eight?”

The man tried to smile. “Not a problem. Shall we go to the table now?”

With an awkward silence surrounding them, Eva, Rosalyn, Sara, and Barlow followed the man to the back room, where they found Jacks sipping a glass of wine at the table by the fire.

She looked first at Eva, then to Rosalyn. “Hello, friends,” she said. “Crazy weather, isn't it? Came out of nowhere.”

“It certainly did,” Eva agreed, taking a seat across from Jacks. She looked damned put together for a woman who'd been upstairs with her friend's husband not ten minutes before.

“Jacks, my dear. Lovely as always. I see you've recovered from our night of debauchery.” Barlow said it with his usual flirtatious tone. And, as always, it went unnoticed by everyone except, on this occasion, Eva.

“Barely, but yes. I survived one more year. And you have decided to come and help in the search for a speaker on female sexuality?” The words were not easy to get out, but they were the words she would have said had she not been sleeping with the man, and so she forced them out with a wry smile.

“I have indeed. When Eva called this morning to tell Rosalyn where to meet, I just decided it was the perfect way to spend the afternoon. Of course, I had to come early for a drink or two.” Barlow was feeling at ease now. Eva, for whatever reason, had given him his alibi. Sara had been legitimately confused. Jacks had been at the table ahead of them. It didn't occur to him to wonder about Eva Ridley's motives, and, not knowing about the wineglasses, he made the wrong assumption about how easily his wife's suspicions could be assuaged.

Jacks smiled and raised her glass to toast his brilliant plan. What was brilliant was the coded message he'd just sent. Of course Eva had not called him. So why would she have covered for him? And why had she changed the location in the first place?

As they got settled in their seats, Jacks caught Sara's eye then mouthed the word
sorry.
Sara, not wanting to make a fuss, smiled and waved off
Jacks's apology for sending her to the wrong room, the wrong floor. Having found Barlow there, she had no reason to suspect the mistake had not been genuine.

Is it done?
Jacks wondered. She could see nothing on Rosalyn's face but the usual relief at being with friends, and a tense back as she sat next to Sara Livingston. The seed was planted there, but what about Eva? She must have suspected Barlow of some indiscretion; she must have known he would be here. The chef, maybe. Would she believe that Sara was his new dance partner? Jacks had managed to move the car just after leaving the ladies' room. The tracks were fresh, while Barlow's were covered. And Sara had parked under that tree.

Regardless of what Eva suspected, what mattered most was that Rosalyn was off course, and anything Barlow did or said that raised her guard would be like drops of water on the little seed that now lay in the ground.

Of course, it was more than a seed. Rosalyn's mind was stirring over the stained wineglasses she'd found that night, and retracing her memory of when and where she'd seen Sara during the party. Had she been gone that long? How long would it have taken? And what would provoke this young woman to want Ernest Barlow when she had the far more handsome, younger version in Nick Livingston? And, finally, why would they be so cruelly indiscreet as to meet right here, where they would surely be at risk of discovery? She could not sort it out now, with two more women just joining the table, smiling, making their introductions. Not now, while she had to find the right words to shape the debate about teenage blow jobs, of all blessed things, to save her daughter from the social vultures that shared the sky with her. But she would later, when she had time to think and piece it all together. The party. The glasses. Barlow's car. Eva's cover story. And, of course, the mysterious Sara Livingston, who was now dead center on her radar screen.

 

 

 

 

 

S
ARA LET THE WATER
run down her back, through her hair, and over her ears, filling them completely and blocking out the world. Her eyes were closed, and she could feel the air trapped inside her lungs as she held her breath, letting the water cover her entire face, her nose and mouth. When she couldn't hold it any longer, she emerged and gasped for air, her blood pumping and her head light.

She had learned this trick as a child, this way of shocking herself back from something she no longer wanted to think or feel. Or both. That she was doing it on the eve of Thanksgiving, the day of being thankful, made her sad beyond words.

She was about to go under again, a second round of shock therapy, when she heard Nick yell out from their bedroom, “Great dinner, babe! Really great.”

She turned off the water and opened the door, reaching for a towel. “Thanks.”

Then came the next question. “You coming to bed?”

It was totally predictable and dreadful all at the same time. “Just a sec . . .”

The dinner should have been great. It had all the makings of a great dinner. The turkey was made and set to cool. The china was pulled from
cupboards, dusted off, and set on the table. Wine was poured, and cartons of mashed potatoes, green beans, and gravy were nuked in the microwave and placed neatly in serving dishes. Sara had removed the plastic from the dining room floor, dusted and vacuumed until the air was clean and the room suitable for food consumption. Still, without draperies or paint, it had felt barren as they all sat down for the feast.

Sara reached for a towel and dried her face, then wrapped the towel around her body. Was it her imagination? No. It was there. As the plates were filled, a strange silence had taken over the room. It was the same silence that used to fill her house when she was a child and her parents were thinking things they didn't want to say. Like the night they met her sister's fiancé, or the morning after Sara blew her curfew. They loved a good heated debate, and they were not ones to shy away from the discussion of personal business. But there were some things that could not be said, some arguments that could not be waged, because once they were, they could never be taken back. And Sara knew exactly what they had not wanted to say earlier that night as they sat around her table.

It had been written on their faces, these lovely people who did not know how to fake it. As they walked through her enormous house that was now being expanded, as they listened to her vent about Roy the Contractor, Nanna, and her litany of other problems, she had seen their expressions morph from genuine excitement at seeing her new life to an almost grave concern. Then Nick had emerged from his man cave in a cashmere sweater, his hair just a little slicker than he used to wear it.

Through the turkey and cranberry sauce, they had learned that their once-intellectual daughter hadn't read the paper in weeks, hadn't even followed the latest Nick Kristoff series in the op-eds. And as they listened to the story of the Barlow Halloween party, the description of extravagance and the way their daughter had been transformed into a spendthrift queen about to be beheaded, their faces had again taken on the look that Sara dreaded. It was as though they had marbles in their mouths that they could neither expel nor swallow.

And she knew now, as she looked at her own face in the bathroom mirror, exactly what they were. Marbles filled with worry, with misgivings, and worst of all, wonderment at what had become of their daughter. It pissed her off and made her sad all at the same time. What had they expected? Had they
not been thrilled that for once she brought home a man who was not a self-centered child yearning to roam the world? They knew Nick's age, and hers. And it wasn't hard to do the math when Annie was born seven months after their elopement. None of this had been charted out, and yet they had the nerve to be surprised at her life and where it was taking her.

“Hey.” It was Nick, startling her from the doorway.

With the towel wrapped tightly around her body, she turned to face him with a smile.

“You almost done?”

“Yeah. Almost.”

She could feel him wanting to come in, come closer. Maybe pull the towel away and feel her next to him. But he didn't. “I'll be in bed.”

“I'm coming in a second.” She turned back to the mirror and thought about the pills she had removed from her purse and stored in the back of her jewelry box. She hadn't taken one for two weeks, hoping to clear her system before the tests were taken next month. After his prodding and pleading with her, she had finally given in to Nick's request, and they were now headed down the path of the fertility doctors.