Part 17 (1/2)
”I'm Angela Day.”
”Oh,Angela, ” Caroline said, her Southern accent becoming more p.r.o.nounced as she emphasized Angela's name. ”I'm Caroline. Sam's wife.”
”I know.”
”It's nice to meet you after all this time.”
”Nice to meet you, too,” Angela said coolly.
”You must be here to pick up Hunter.”
”Yes.”
”Well, please come in.” Caroline opened the door wide, beckoning her inside. ”It must be cold out there.”
”It's not bad.” The temperature had turned warm around noon, climbing into the fifties and quickly melting yesterday's snow. But here it was after dark, and Caroline didn't know it had gotten warmer. She probably hadn't been out of the house all day. And, if she had, it would have been through a heated garage and straight into a waiting limousine. Angela was well aware of the charmed life Caroline Reese led.
”I believe Hunter's still at the pool with his father. He's such a wonderful little boy. I really love spending so much time with him.”
Angela said nothing.
”Do you want to wait here or would you like to go out to the pool?” Caroline asked.
”I'd like to go to the pool,” Angela replied quickly.
”Of course you would,” Caroline agreed, reaching out and patting Angela's hand. ”I understand completely. Let me get someone who can take you. I would, but Sam and I are going out later, and I was just headed upstairs to start getting ready when you rang the doorbell. I'll be right back, okay?”
”Okay.”
In person, Caroline wasn't as pretty as she was in photographs. She was tall and blonde, but very pale, almost ashen, and not at all exotic. Plain, in fact. So many times Sam had told Angela how he found exotic women-like her-so much more physically alluring. Like the woman she had caught Sam in bed with. Just as often Sam had told her how he could never be attracted to a woman like Caroline. But perhaps that had been a lie, as so many other things he said had turned out to be. Maybe, like most men, he could be physically attracted to almost any woman-at least for a time.
Caroline returned a few moments later with a scowling, middle-aged black woman in tow. ”Alice will take you out to the pool, Angela.”
”All right.” Alice wore a gray and white maid's uniform, complete with a lace bonnet.
”It's been nice to meet you, Angela,” Caroline said with a smile.
”Yes, nice to meet you, too.”
”Get along, Alice,” Caroline ordered, gesturing to her right with a flip of her fingers as she headed toward a staircase and the second floor. ”Take Ms. Day to the pool.”
”Yes, ma'am,” Alice said tersely. ”Please come with me, Ms. Day.”
Angela followed the woman through a maze of rooms to a long set of steps at the bottom of which lay the underground pa.s.sageway leading to the pool. The pa.s.sageway was wide, carpeted, and dimly lit by lamps affixed to its dark green walls. Off the corridor were guest bedrooms and recreational rooms. Some of the rec rooms were furnished with wide-screen televisions surrounded by comfortable sofas and chairs, others with pool tables, Ping-Pong tables, or exercise equipment. Angela shook her head as she walked with the maid. Hunter had all of this available to him twenty-four hours a day. How was she ever going to compete?
The air in the corridor turned warm and humid, and they reached the far end of the corridor and the bottom of another stairway leading up to the pool. As Angela neared the top step, the pool came into view. It was ma.s.sive, fifty yards long and thirty wide, with a huge sliding board as well as two diving boards at the far end.
Her eyes widened when she spied her son. ”Hunter!”
The young boy stood at the end of the pool's high-dive board, poised ten feet above the water's surface. ”Mom!” he yelled back, waving excitedly. ”Watch this!”
”Hunter, no!” Instinctively Angela began running down the deck toward the high-dive, her hard-soled shoes clicking on the cement as she raced past lounge chairs and tables. ”Don't, honey!”
But the boy paid no attention, swinging his arms by his sides three times, then leaping fearlessly from the board, shouting as he fell toward the water.
Her only thought was that Hunter was about to drown. He shouldn't be jumping off a high-dive. He was only six years old, for G.o.d's sake. She was going to kill Sam for being so irresponsible.
She watched in horror as Hunter hit the water and disappeared beneath the surface with a splash. But he popped up almost instantly, laughing and whooping as he dog-paddled toward a ladder on the side of the pool.
”Hunter, you scared Mom to death,” Angela admonished, relief was.h.i.+ng over her as she knelt down and helped him climb up the ladder. ”Please don't ever do that again.”
”It was easy,” he said, throwing his arms around her neck and giving her a loud kiss on the cheek. ”How ya doing, Mom?”
Angela closed her eyes, hugging him back and laughing, feeling the water dripping all over her but not minding a bit. ”I missed you so much,” she whispered.
”I missed you too, Mom. Love you.”
She adored those words. Adored the emotion he could evoke so quickly. ”I love you too, sweetheart.”
”Watch me do it again,” he said, pulling back and giving her a smile.
”Hunter.”
”What?”
”You lost a front tooth. What happened?”
He giggled and pulled his lip back. ”It fell out yesterday,” he explained, his words almost unintelligible with the finger in his mouth. ”The big tooth is already coming in,” he said, tilting his head back. ”See?”
”Yes, I can,” she said softly, spotting a tiny line of enamel protruding through his upper gum where the baby tooth had been.
Hunter hadn't mentioned the tooth being loose when they had spoken by phone last Sunday evening-the night before she had left for Wyoming-and suddenly she was overwhelmed by how quickly he was growing up, struck by the fact that she hadn't been around for the loss of his first baby tooth. And that, because of the situation, there might be many more of these once-in-a-lifetime events she would miss.
”The Tooth Fairy gave me fifty dollars, Mom. The money was under my pillow when I woke up this morning.”
”Fifty dollars?”
”Yup.” A puzzled expression spread across the young boy's face. ”Fifty dollars. Is that a lot?”
”I would say so.” To her maybe, but not to Chuck Reese. ”Too much.”
”You know what?” Hunter asked, his voice dropping.
”What?”
”I don't really think it was the Tooth Fairy that gave me the money.”
”You don't?”
The boy shook his head deliberately. ”No. I think it was Caroline.”