Your Bed or Mine? (26 page)

“As you can see, ladies,” she said. “I’m bowing out now.”

Jen looked at Tish.

Tish looked at Jen.

They both looked back at Zada.

Tish said, “If it’s a diamond tennis bracelet instead of your pearls, I don’t want to know about it.”

Jen said, “I don’t want to know about it even if it’s just a dang candy bar and a pack of peanuts. Charlie never buys me anything.”

Zada made a mad dash across the street.

She ran around the side of the house, and hurried up the back steps. She walked into the kitchen. Rick was standing in the
den off the kitchen, his back to her.

“Hey you,” Zada said, walking toward him. “Tish and Jen are green with envy. They’re convinced you came home early to bring
me another present. Please tell me it’s my pearls back from the jeweler.”

Rick turned around.

Zada stopped walking.

He didn’t have to say something was seriously wrong; his ice-cold blue eyes said it for him.

“I’m the one who got a present today,” Rick said.

He handed her a photograph.

Nothing could have prepared Zada for the shock.

She looked at the photo, taking it all in at once.

Her.

The guy on the walking path.

Him, appearing to caress her face.

Her chin tilted sideways, appearing to let him.

She looked back at Rick. It broke her heart to see the tears in his eyes. “Oh, God. Rick.”

“Zada, don’t,” he said. “Don’t say a word. I don’t want to hear it.”

He walked over and sat down on the sofa. He wouldn’t even look at her.

“I know what this looks like,” Zada said, her voice quivering. “But, please, Rick. Let me explain.”

He shook his head disgustedly. He still wouldn’t look at her.

“I don’t even know this guy,” she began.

Rick exploded. “Christ, Zada!” He spit the words out at her. “He’s caressing your face, dammit. Give me a fucking break!”

“He is not caressing my face!”

Zada sat down on the sofa beside him.

Rick jumped up from the sofa when she did.

He stood above her, hands at his waist. He was more angry than she’d ever seen him.

Zada felt like throwing up.

“I swear to you,” Zada said, looking up at him. “I do not know this guy.”

Rick started to walk away.

Zada reached out and grabbed his arm. “He was on the walking path the other morning, Rick. He was walking one way, Simon and
I were walking the other way. We said hello to each other and he said he and his wife were moving to Woodberry Park. He reached
out and pulled a caterpillar out of my hair. That’s what he’s doing in this photograph. Not caressing my face!”

Rick jerked his arm away from her, and walked into the kitchen. Zada got up from the sofa and marched after him.

“I’m telling you the truth, Rick. I just wish whoever took this picture had waited one second longer. Then you would have
seen Simon lunging at the guy. He startled me when he leaned too close and touched my hair. I jumped back and Simon almost
nailed him.”

Rick yelled, “You really expect me to believe that some guy accosted you on the walking path, Simon almost bit him, and you
didn’t tell me about it?”

“It didn’t seem important at the time,” Zada tried to explain. “I totally forgot about it. You know how I am when I get engrossed
in the first draft of a new book.”

Rick grabbed the photo out of her hand. He held it up in front of her face. “I don’t call this being engrossed in your new
book!”

Zada grabbed the photo and threw it.

It floated across the room like a butterfly.

How ironic,
Zada thought, since a caterpillar had started it all.

“Alicia is behind this,” Zada said, more to herself than she did to Rick. “This picture is just like the one she described
in her fantasy. A picture that looks like one thing, but is actually another.”

“Alicia!” Rick looked at her like she was crazy.

“Yes, Alicia,” Zada said. “Jen and Tish and I have suspected her from the beginning of being the one who made those hang-up
phone calls.”

“Let me guess,” Rick said. “You’ve been too engrossed in your new book to mention you suspected Alicia made those phone calls,
too.”

“Dammit,” Zada said, “you’re twisting things around.”

“Me?” Rick shouted. “These stories you keep coming up with are so twisted the next thing you’re going to tell me is that you
forgot to mention you’re also a closet contortionist!”

Rick threw his head back and laughed.

A rather twisted kind of laugh, Zada decided.

Zada said, “Would you like for me to call Tish? She’ll be happy to confirm we’ve suspected Alicia all along.”

“Now there’s a reliable source,” Rick said. “Yeah, sure. Call Tish. Tell her to send Joe on over with the monitor.”

Zada winced and glanced upward to the ceiling.

Seriously, God.

Is it necessary to hit me with every crappy thing I’ve ever done all at once?

“Just one question,” Rick said. “What possible motive would Alicia have for putting caterpillars in your hair, hiding in the
bushes with a camera, and waiting for some guy to come along so she could snap a picture?”

“See?” Zada said. “You’re twisting things around again. I didn’t say I thought Alicia actually took the photo herself. But
I do believe she’s behind it.”

They stood there in the kitchen.

Her, staring at him.

Him, staring at her.

“Okay,” Rick said. He folded his arms across his chest. “Let’s go over to Alicia’s house right now. I’m dying to hear how
she set up that photograph.”

Zada blinked.

Several times.

What we say at the meeting, stays at the meeting.

Suspecting Alicia was one thing. Getting up in her face with a photograph—and possibly accusing her falsely—was another.

Zada said, “I said I suspected Alicia, Rick. I don’t have any proof. Not yet. But …”

Rick stomped back to the den before she could finish.

Zada stomped right along behind him.

“This isn’t even about who made the phone calls or who took the photo, Rick,” Zada said, fuming herself now. “What this is
about is trust. As crazy as everything sounds, I’ve told you the truth. You either trust me, or you don’t.”

Rick looked at her for a long time.

Long enough that Zada knew she was
not
getting through to him.

“I need some time, Zada,” he said. “Time to sort things out.”

“Define ‘some time,’” Zada said.

He shrugged. “A few days.”

“You’re kidding yourself, Rick,” Zada told him. “If you don’t have complete faith in me right now, a few more days isn’t going
to change a thing.”

W
hen Alicia opened her front door, Zada didn’t wait to be invited in. She slapped the photo against Alicia’s thirty-eight-inch
chest and pushed her backward into her own foyer. Unable to keep her balance, Alicia landed on her curvy thirty-six-inch butt
in the middle of her expensive Italian marble floor.

Zada threw the photo in her lap.

She glared down at Alicia, hands on her hips.

“I think that belongs to you.”

Alicia picked the photo up and turned it over.

All of the color drained from her face.

“Get up!” Zada ordered. “I want you to be looking me straight in the eye when I say what I have to say to you.”

Alicia pulled herself up.

The photo, now shaking in her trembling hand.

“Were you really that stupid, Alicia? Did you really think you wouldn’t be the first person I suspected when you made the
hang-up phone calls?”

Alicia kept silent, a stricken expression on her face.

Zada laughed.

A true she-devil laugh.

“God, I bet you were livid when I changed my phone number.”

Still, Alicia didn’t say a word.

“And then you were stupid enough to think I wouldn’t make the connection with the photo. Who’s the guy, Alicia? It obviously
isn’t your Latino ex-pool boy Javier. Is this guy one of your ex-lovers? Maybe an actor? Or is he just some guy you picked
at random off the street and paid to do your dirty work?”

“Zada,” Alicia began.

“Shut up!” Zada yelled. “I’m not through yet.”

She took a threatening step toward Alicia.

Alicia backed up, still clutching the photo.

“I want you to look me in the eye, Alicia. I want you to look me in the eye right now and tell me to my face you’re responsible
for that photograph you’re holding in your hand.”

Tears rolled down Alicia’s cheeks.

“I am so, so, sorry, Zada,” she finally said. “Yes. I’m responsible for this photograph.”

“Congratulations,” Zada said. “Your plan to break up my marriage worked.”

Zada turned on her heel.

But she turned back to face Alicia before she left.

“And don’t worry,” Zada said. “I’ll give Rick the house. I couldn’t stand the thought of living across the street from you!”

Seconds later Zada was standing on Tish’s porch.

When Tish opened her front door, Zada fell against her shocked best friend, sobbing uncontrollably.

When Alfie opened his front door, Alicia didn’t wait to be invited in. She slapped the photo against Alfie’s chest and pushed
him backward into his apartment.

“What in the hell were you thinking?” Alicia yelled.

“Now, Alicia,” Alfie said, backing up as fast as Alicia was walking toward him. “Calm down and let me explain.”

“Who the hell is Alicia?”

Alicia glanced at the tall redhead who had jumped up from the sofa. Her brother’s current flavor of the week was standing
with her hands on her hips, glaring at Alfie.

Alicia looked back at Alfie with a glare of her own.

“What did you and Eddie Salvo do, Alfie? Hide out in the bushes until Zada decided to walk her dog?”

“Who the hell is Zada?” the redhead wanted to know.

“I didn’t ask Eddie how he got the photo,” Alfie said. “Eddie’s a pro. I just paid him to get it.”

“What photo?” the redhead yelled.

“For God’s sake, Alfie,” Alicia said. “You’re playing with people’s lives here!”

Alfie said, “Just like your neighbors were playing with your life, Alicia!”

“They were
not
playing with my life!” Alicia screamed. “I didn’t have a life for them to play with. Don’t you understand that?”

“Jesus,” the redhead said. “I’m outta here.”

She stomped past them and slammed the door behind her.

Alicia walked over and flopped down on the sofa.

Alfie walked over and sat down beside her.

That they were twins, was obvious. Same identical features. Same blond hair. Same blue eyes. If the redhead couldn’t see that
for herself, Alicia decided, to hell with her.

Alicia said, “Do you know what’s so tragic about what you’ve done?”

Alfie winced. “Everything?”

“My neighbors ignoring me has turned out to be the best thing that’s ever happened to me. It made me realize that the reason
no one likes me is because I’ve never liked myself.”

“Sis,” Alfie said. “Don’t say that.”

“I’m serious, Alfie,” Alicia said. “I didn’t like myself when we were children, because I was embarrassed that we had so much
more than everyone else. I didn’t like myself before I married, because I was afraid every man I dated only wanted me for
my looks or my money. And I really didn’t like myself after I married Edward, because he played me for such a fool.”

“And you’ve been so depressed since the divorce, you’ve really had me worried,” Alfie said. “Until the week you spent getting
ready for the meeting at your house. That was the first time in ages you sounded happy.”

“And then stupid me burst into tears when you called me that Sunday morning to find out how the meeting at my house went.”

“Not stupid you,” Alfie said. “Depressed you. And then, you wouldn’t take my calls. And I panicked, okay? I didn’t care what
I had to do, as long as I could make you happy again. The revenge fantasy you told me about gave me the idea. That’s when
I called Eddie.”

“God, this is such a mess,” Alicia said. “The reason I’ve barely talked to you is because I finally realized my happiness
is my own responsibility. Not yours. Not my neighbors’. Not anyone else’s responsibility but my own. And that realization
finally jerked me out of my blue funk. I realized unless I wanted to be miserable the rest of my life, I was going to have
to take control of my own life.”

Alfie leaned over and hugged her.

Alicia sighed and said, “I was going to wait and tell you after all of the papers were signed, but now is as good a time as
any.”

Alfie sat up and looked at her. “Tell me what?”

Alicia smiled and said, “I’m going to put my broker’s license to good use again and start my own real estate company. That’s
what I’ve been so secretive about. I’ve been busy making all of the arrangements.”

Alfie’s mouth dropped open.

“Don’t worry,” Alicia said, “I’m not interested in commercial property. I won’t be in competition with you and Dad. I always
hated commercial sales. Every deal was so cold and impersonal. That’s why I want to sell residential property. Feel-good property.
How can I not feel good about myself, knowing I’ve made some family happy by helping them find the home of their dreams?”

Alfie groaned. “Did you have to bring up the ‘happy family’ part? I knew trying to make Zada’s husband think she was cheating
on him was a despicable thing to do. I kept soothing my own conscience, rationalizing that Zada didn’t need Rick if he didn’t
trust her. And that if Rick did trust her, I really hadn’t done any damage.”

Alfie let out a long sigh.

Alicia reached over and patted his hand.

“Of course,” Alfie said. “You being here obviously means the damage has already been done.”

“Not if I can help it,” Alicia said.

She leaned over and kissed her twin on the cheek.

She got up from the sofa.

And she headed for the door.

Someone else’s life was in need of some damage control.

Alicia was the only person who could provide it.