Some Women (4 page)

“That's why I need your help.” Annabel's expression hardened.

“I'm so sorry I've been distracted with work and stuff with Fern.”

“Oh no. Don't get me wrong. You've been an amazing sounding board.” She looked down. “It's something else. Something your line of work uniquely qualifies you for.”

“What? Anything.” Piper bobbed her head feverishly, and Annabel was buoyed by her new friend's immediate loyalty. It felt like so many of the other women she called friends—the moms at Harper and Hudson's school and the few former coworkers she still kept up with—were fair-weather. They were there when the sun was shining bright, but as soon as there was even a threat of
rain, they scuttled away, pretending to be too busy with their own lives to take an interest in hers.

“I need you to catch Henry cheating on me.”

“What makes you think he's cheating on you?” Piper's eyes widened.

“It's the only explanation that makes sense. And there have been a lot of late nights in the past few months.” She'd been chastising herself for being so credulous. Had she really become one of
those women
? The ones who went on talk shows and swore they'd had no idea their husband was stepping out on them, despite the fact that every shirt collar of his had been stamped with a lipstick shade that wasn't theirs.

“Annabel, you know I'd love to help you. It's just that . . .”

“What?”

“It seems like a conflict of interest, don't you think? I mean, wouldn't you rather hire a private detective or something? They're trained for this kind of thing. I can get you names.”

“No. I need someone I can really trust. Someone like you.”

“As much as I appreciate your faith in me, I'm not sure . . .”

“Listen, I know it's a tall order, but if there's any way you can see to help, I'd be forever indebted to you.”

“I'm not saying yes, but, in theory, what if I did find something?”

“Right?” Annabel could tell that Piper was warming to the idea already.

“Are you sure you'd want to know?”

“Absolutely,” she insisted. Although she hadn't given much thought to that piece of it.

“People always think they do, but then they shoot the messenger. Or they regret it, like . . .”

“Like what?” Annabel leaned in closer, as if Piper was about to divulge a delicious secret.

“I was going to say like Fern will.” Instinctively, Piper clenched her teeth.

“Fern, as in your daughter?”

“You got it.” Piper sighed. “Apparently, she's decided she wants me to track down her father.”

“Oh, wow.” Annabel was momentarily distracted from her own onerous situation. She knew this couldn't be easy for Piper.

“
Oh, wow
is right! I mean, what the hell am I supposed to do with that?”

“That's a tough one.” Annabel sympathized. “Kind of damned if you do and damned if you don't.”

“Right. And that's exactly what I'm saying to you. Are you certain beyond a shadow of a doubt that you'd want to know if Henry is cheating? I just think some things are better left—”

“Piper.” Annabel cut her off.

“Yeah?”

“I've never been so sure of anything in my entire life.”

“Okay,” Piper conceded.

“Then you'll do it?” Annabel's heart was already thumping in anticipation.

“Let me look into it.”

“Thank you! You have no idea how much this means to me.”

“I'm not making any promises, though.” She smiled slyly. “But if there's something to find, I'll find it.”

“That's what I'm counting on.”

Mackenzie scrutinized her reflection in the antique vanity mirror suspended above her tempered-glass sink. She cupped one breast in each hand, balancing them in her palms like cantaloupes, and then applied the slightest pressure, as if to gauge their ripeness. Could they be tender? She poked and prodded some more. It was early yet—only day twenty-four of her cycle—but she had a feeling. A woman's instinct, if you will. This month would make nearly three full years of trying.

“Lucky number three,” she whispered, even though there was no one around to hear her. Perhaps releasing it into the universe would be enough.

Trevor was already in the kitchen, reading the morning edition of the
Journal
, one of the many newspapers and magazines his family business, Mead Media, published. Any minute now, she'd catch him shaking his head and grimacing over yet another careless
typo. She wondered if the errors actually niggled him the way they seemed to or if it was more about the fear instilled by his mother, Cecilia, that everything must be polished to perfection.
I will not have the good name I've worked so hard to build be tarnished by incompetent people.
It was her trademark refrain, especially when barked in that familiar husky voice with her finger pointed high in the air and an obdurate expression shrouding her ageless face.

Mackenzie clasped her eyes shut and, this time, squeezed her breasts even harder. Next she inspected her nipples. All of the pregnancy websites she'd referred to for research had listed darkening of the areolas as one of the early signs of conception. They did look a shade browner. Maybe.

Finally, fed up with speculating, she surrendered to the unknown. After all, she couldn't test for a few more days. Or maybe she could. She shuddered at the thought of how much money she'd spent on those little cardboard boxes, so full of promise. There were so many women out there who couldn't afford to simply pop into their local drugstore and buy a dozen tests at a time. She'd been one of those women before Trevor. But he didn't seem to mind. If anything, he'd encouraged her to do whatever it took to have a belly full with the heir to the Mead fortune.

How many times had she envisioned that moment? The one where she'd finally get the answer she was so determined to have: two straight pink parallel lines as clear as a cloudless day. She'd always been so close with her own mother that having a child would continue that same cherished bond, and was something Mackenzie had been looking forward to for as long as she could remember. She planned to teach her daughter (or son) how to cook and sew, the way her own mom had taught her. And to read and
snuggle with her kids every night in bed until they were too old to cuddle, if that day ever came. For her part, whenever Mackenzie went home, she still relished curling up with her mother on the couch. It had been their way since she was old enough to abandon her crib. She'd also vowed to be a present and attentive parent, as had her own mother, someone her kids could come to with anything, without fear of being judged. Wasn't an open line of communication the most important thing in any relationship?

Mackenzie willed herself not to reach into the cabinet, to hold out at least one more day. The sheer anticipation of waiting while the hourglass contemplated her fate was enough to fracture her tenuously positive disposition. She couldn't cope with a negative result today—she had a desk at the office piled high with papers and reports, all of which would need her immediate attention. Then there was a stream of conference calls leading up to a late-afternoon meeting with her mother-in-law. And for that she'd need to be at the top of her game. Every encounter with CeCe—whether personal or professional—required razor-sharp attentiveness and the focus of a brain surgeon performing a lobotomy.

She pulled a black ribbed tank top over her head, coiled her wavy blond hair into a knot, and wandered downstairs to the kitchen, hoping to distract herself with sustenance.

“Hey, honey.” She smiled at her husband, who was predictably hunched over the
Journal
, which was splayed in front of him on their oak pedestal table, a wedding gift from her parents.

“Would you believe this?” Trevor grumbled, flattening a crease in the page with his hand. “They switched the headlines. Unbelievable. My mother is going to be apoplectic.”

“Let me see.” She walked over and sat down beside him.

“Right here.” He indicated one article and then the next.

“Oh, wow.” She couldn't help but laugh at the irony, even though she concurred with Trevor that CeCe would be outraged. “They used ‘A Walk in the Bark' for the beauty-pageant piece and ‘Gowns and Crowns' for the one about the annual dog show. Not good.”

“That's an understatement.” He pressed his fingertips to his temples.

“How about some eggs and grits to make you feel better?” Mackenzie had long prided herself on her culinary skills. Having grown up in the Deep South—Georgia, to be precise—she knew her way around corn bread, fried chicken, dumplings, peaches, and most every kind of seafood. When she and Trevor had first started dating, he'd gained at least fifteen pounds and had insisted he'd be absolutely fine with being a fat old man, as long as she kept on cooking. And there was nothing a chef appreciated more than some good, old-fashioned flattery.

“That sounds great. Maybe a little turkey bacon?”

“Sure, no problem.”
Turkey
bacon. She'd come around to accepting it as a suitable enough replacement for the real thing, even though she'd been raised rendering fat. At some point, Trevor had decided that indulging in the many delicacies she whipped up would not be an ideal recipe for lifelong health. Unlike her, he didn't know how to eat in moderation; it was either all or nothing. Surprising, given that CeCe certainly did not approve of gluttony.

“Glass of orange juice too, please.” He looked up at her for just a moment and then went back to dissecting the paper.

Mackenzie smiled at him affectionately. Theirs wasn't a
rip-your-clothing-off, all-consuming kind of love—she understood that. Still, she cared for him deeply and he for her. He never raised his voice or questioned a single decision she made. Trevor could always be counted on to produce a sparkling bauble at Christmastime, two dozen of the reddest roses for Valentine's Day, and a fur or cashmere something or other when her birthday rolled around. He was a good husband. Solid in every way. So what if she wasn't desperate to pin him to the bed and have her way with him?

There had been too many jerks like that before him. The guys who lured you like an addiction and then discarded you when someone younger and perkier—someone more eager—emerged.

When she'd been introduced to Trevor by her college roommate, Zoe—another trust-fund baby—at a posh charity gala in New York City shortly after graduating, she hadn't been interested at first. Sure, he was cuteish, in a Michael J. Fox sort of way, with his shaggy brown hair and affable blue eyes. Still, he'd lacked that sensual, brooding posture she'd become accustomed to. Mackenzie had given him her number when he'd asked politely and, as she'd expected, he'd called the next day and every day after that, until he'd proposed with a six-carat cushion-cut diamond ring over a four-hour-long dinner at Le Cirque, one of Manhattan's finest restaurants. A month later, he'd announced that they were moving to the suburbs—to a five-bedroom home on six plush acres. Mackenzie would have to leave her position as an assistant producer at ABC News, but—not to worry, he'd assured her—there would be a job waiting for her at Mead. A job that, despite her initial hesitation to shift career paths, she'd come to both love and take great pride in.

Their wedding had been one for the storybooks, with everything executed by a celebrity planner to meet CeCe's meticulous stipulations and desires. Mackenzie had been so swept up in the glamour and extravagance of it all that she hadn't even thought to express her own needs and wants on anything beyond the dress, a Vera Wang strapless ball gown with intricately woven beading covering the satin bodice and with an abundance of lace and tulle.

It hadn't been until about a month or two after their honeymoon in the south of France that CeCe had started talking about a grandson. Oddly, the fact that no one had any control over the sex of their unborn child didn't seem to matter. She never once spoke of tutus, bows, or ballet classes. Only of a shrewd little boy to preserve the family name, a name she herself had married into.

Mackenzie carried a full plate of food and a glass of juice over to the kitchen table and set it down in front of Trevor.

“This looks delicious.” She leaned over so he could kiss her on the cheek. “You've always known the way to my heart is through my stomach.” He picked up a piece of bacon. “How
do
you manage to get it so crispy?”

“I'll never divulge my secret.” She rubbed his back. “I'm going to get dressed.”

“You're not joining me?”

“I'll grab a bagel on our way out.” The truth was, she wasn't that hungry. And even the enticing smell of her own home cooking hadn't been enough to distract her from the inevitable.

She headed straight upstairs to their bathroom, retrieved the pregnancy test from the cabinet, and tore it open before she could convince herself otherwise.

Maybe today she'd get her two lines.

•   •   •

Mackenzie stood outside CeCe's office with the poise of a saluting officer and rapped loudly on the door. Her mother-in-law had informed her on day one of the job that a firm knock was like a firm handshake and that anything short of that was
unacceptable
. It was probably the word she used most often.
The quality of the lettuce in this salad is
unacceptable
. So-and-so's snarky attitude and unwillingness to be a team player are
unacceptable
. Everything and everyone, with the exception of those I approve of, are
unacceptable
.
Mackenzie wasn't sure how she'd managed to fall within CeCe's classification of what was, in fact, acceptable, but she felt grateful.

“You may enter.” Her gruff roar pierced the feverish rumpus in the newsroom, and Mackenzie complied, closing the door quickly behind her.

“Hello, CeCe.” She'd once—and only once—made the mistake of calling her Mom, as her own mother had asked of Trevor. All CeCe'd had to do was widen her buglike eyes and purse her glossy lips in order to convey to Mackenzie the error of her ways, further indicating that a second gaffe would be
unacceptable
.

“Hello, darling,” she rasped, and swiveled around in her high-back chair. She was wearing an all-white, figure-hugging Chanel suit with crisscrossed gold Cs for buttons. Her straight red hair was cropped into a chin-length bob, and her heavy bangs evoked Anna Wintour—not an easy style to carry off.

Mackenzie thought back to the time in tenth grade when the barber in the small city she'd grown up in had convinced her to get bangs. He'd said they would complement her heart-shaped face.
He'd been wrong. And she'd cried for three weeks leading up to the school dance, when her mother, in a fit of desperation, had found a way to clip them to the side. She still cringed whenever she looked back at the photos.

“You wanted to meet with me?” Mackenzie couldn't help but notice CeCe's four-inch, nude patent-leather stilettos with their gold spiked heels, no doubt coordinated to the buttons on her suit. Not to mention the scintillating pair of gold and diamond stud earrings piercing her lobes. And then there was Aspen, her miniature poodle, situated on his plush dog bed beside her. Despite Aspen's size, he'd taken it upon himself to adopt the personality of a hundred-pound guard dog, snarling at anybody who came within three feet of his master. Not that anyone would dare to complain. Sometimes Mackenzie thought CeCe loved Aspen more than she loved her own son.

“Yes. Sit down.” She motioned to one of the smooth leather chairs on the other side of her sleek lacquer desk. Mackenzie had often wondered how she kept everything so immaculate—from her clothing to her furniture.

“If this is about the marketing report,” Mackenzie started, well aware that she was ahead of schedule on delivery, as she always was. She was dedicated to her job. Wholly devoted, actually. While she'd probably have been a great television producer, Mackenzie savored the hands-on creativity involved in cultivating a nugget of an idea into a comprehensive plan. She thrived on the pressure of managing a large team, ingesting their feedback, and then working together to realize their ultimate goal: to shepherd Mead Media into the twenty-first century. Although some people probably speculated otherwise, Mackenzie was more than the wife of Trevor
or the daughter-in-law of CeCe. She may not have earned her position in the traditional way, but she worked as hard as anyone else at the company.

CeCe held up her hand, and Mackenzie stopped speaking abruptly. “This isn't work related.” She cleared her throat.

“Oh?” Mackenzie noticed a new snapshot of Aspen bedecked in a fur coat on the credenza behind CeCe. She'd placed it front and center, upstaging a glossy photograph of CeCe flanked by Gwyneth Paltrow and Madonna, their arms entwined like best girlfriends. And an eight-by-ten of her dancing with Barack Obama.

“I was at the American Cancer Society gala at Cipriani last night.”

“Oh, right. I'm sorry we missed that,” she lied.

“Yes, as am I.” CeCe pressed her lips into a thin line. “At any rate, I met a lovely gentleman—Dr. Stanley Billingsly. Very charming. We got to talking, and it just so happens he's the leading fertility specialist in New York City.”

“Oh?”

“I'm certain he could help you.” She slid Dr. Billingsly's card across her desk.

“Thank you.”

“I'm concerned,” CeCe continued. “As I'm sure you're aware, or at least I hope you are, it's been three years, and here I am, still without a grandson to spoil.”