Part 6 (1/2)

She should be ashamed, but she was not. It was as if Elinor's infidelity had instilled a new twist on the rules.

What would their mother have advised?

”Do you love him?” Dianne Harding had asked CJ when CJ was heavy with a pregnant belly. Dianne had walked into the greenhouse at Elinor and Malcolm's new house in Was.h.i.+ngton and caught Malcolm and CJ in a kiss. Not just any kiss, but a breathless, tongue-touching, lip-melting kiss. Oh, and Malcolm's zipper was undone and CJ just happened to be holding his throbbing member in her hand, or at least that's the way Dianne Harding described it after Malcolm had zipped and CJ had turned red and they had pulled apart.

His throbbing member, CJ thought now with a hint of a smile. Her mother had sounded more like Poppy's, as if CJ and Mac had been in the middle of a romance novel and not a real-life family drama.

”Yes,” CJ had answered. ”I love him very much.”

Dianne had paced the narrow rows of the aptly called ”hothouse” that smelled of earth and dampness and of Malcolm and CJ and family betrayal.

”It must be your hormones,” Dianne said. ”When I was pregnant with you girls, I wanted to jump the mailman.”

Their mother always had tried to be more contemporary than their father. (”The world is changing, Franklin. If CJ wants to study at the Sorbonne, perhaps that's where she belongs.”) Still, this was the first CJ had heard that their mother had even known what hormones were. CJ had not, however, had the heart to tell her mother that her feelings for Malcolm-indeed, their feelings for each other-had begun that first night they had attempted to conceive, when they'd ”been one” according to Elinor's plan and CJ's ovulating schedule.

Dianne had stopped and turned and looked back at the lovers, at Mac, who was as frozen as the small statue of Saint Francis of a.s.sisi that he'd bought to watch over the shoots and roots and buds of the offspring in the greenhouse.

”I love her, too,” he'd said before Dianne had a chance to ask.

She stood quietly for a moment, or maybe it was a year. Then she said, ”Well, we can't have this, can we?”

She had not reminded them that Elinor was fragile, that she'd been through so much, that she trusted her husband and her sister with her life and, good heavens, with her child. She had not had to tell CJ that the headmaster would never allow it.

Instead, Dianne left CJ and Malcolm standing in the greenhouse.

Three weeks later, Jonas was born, and that was the end of that.

And now CJ thought about the black silk nightgown in her lingerie drawer. She hadn't worn it since she'd walked out on her husband, Cooper, who had then moved to Denver, as if distance would help him forget. She stared at her paintbrush, trying to decide whether or not to pack the black silk, when the crunch of tires upon gravel interrupted her thoughts. Peering out the window, she saw the Esplanade and watched the three women clamber out.

Thirteen.

”I need a wig Poppy announced when CJ met them in the driveway and they traipsed into the cottage. ”Should I be a brunette or a blonde?”

They dropped, one at a time, onto CJ's furniture-even Yolanda, who now seemed quite at home.

”A blonde,” Yolanda said. ”You're too fair to be a brunette. No one will believe you.”

”But will they believe she's lost her momma?” Alice asked.

Yolanda laughed and Poppy said, ”They will! They will!” her cheeks flas.h.i.+ng pink, the way they did when she was excited.

”Excuse me,” CJ said, ”what are you talking about?”

”Poppy wants to go back to the hotel tomorrow and pretend she's lost her momma,” Alice said.

”Maybe I can access security,” Poppy chattered. ”Yolanda says there must be a room where all the monitors are kept. If I can get in there, maybe I can see if there's a camera pointed at the Dumpster where Elinor's panties were found!”

CJ supposed a good shrink would diagnose Poppy as bipolar, with the emphasis on whichever pole was more manic. Between Poppy's erratic behavior, Elinor's need to control, and Alice spending her life mimicking Elinor, it was no wonder CJ had once gone off to Paris and left the others to their harebrained lives.

”She's hoping there's a tape of the blackmailer taking the panties out of the Dumpster,” Yolanda said. ”She thinks he'll turn and wave to the camera so we can see his face.”

”I do not!” Poppy exclaimed. ”Besides, none of you are coming up with alternative ideas!” Which made it sound as if she'd been speaking about alternative energy solutions or alternative medical miracles.

”If there is a tape, how the heck will we get it?” CJ asked. ”And do they even make tapes anymore? Isn't everything digitally recorded?”

Poppy played with her hair. ”I guess that's another thing we have to find out.”

”And we need to hurry,” CJ said. ”On Wednesday, Elinor will be leaving the country for a couple of days. She's going to get ransom money.”

No one asked where she was going or why she had to leave the country to get the cash. It was almost as if that part of the adventure was more information than they felt they should know.

Yolanda stood up. ”Sorry to break up the party, ladies, but I have to get home. If you insist on doing this, Poppy, come by the shop. I'll fit you with a wig.”

Yolanda left the cottage. The rest of them heard the roar of the Jaguar that had belonged to Vincent, Yolanda's dead husband. Poppy looked at Alice and Alice looked at CJ and CJ said, ”I think this is nuts,” but Poppy said she thought it was nice to have something important to do.

Alice wasn't certain she agreed with Poppy's a.s.sessment that thinking they could find Elinor's blackmailer was important. Childish, maybe. Risky, perhaps. And maybe, as CJ said, nuts.

After leaving the cottage, Alice dropped off Poppy and headed home to focus on her own things to do. Within a few minutes she was in her garage, then her kitchen, where she nearly jumped a d.a.m.n foot. Neal was sitting at the table with a bowl of minestrone and a pet.i.t baguette.

”Neal?”

Her first thought was that he'd been fired.

Or he'd heard about Elinor.

Or he'd learned of her out-of-town activities and had come home to confront her.

She rubbed her throat and dallied with the five-carat diamond necklace he'd presented to her on her fortieth birthday.

”Alice?” he replied with a note of sarcasm that he deferred to when he was trying to be funny.

She wondered if she'd turned off the computer in the media room, or if she'd left her e-mails displayed. She was still so unaccustomed to having something to hide.

Steam oozed up from her toes; she grabbed a place mat and fanned her face.

”Sit,” Neal said. He gestured to the slim, postmodern Sacha Lakic chair that he'd insisted on buying because he'd said less was more.

She sat.

”We made the presentation this morning. It looks as if we've landed the account.”

She couldn't remember if ”the account” was the beauty products manufacturer or the national chain of health-food stores. After so many years, they all sounded the same. ”That's great,” she said. ”Congratulations.” Apparently the conversation would be about him, not unemployment or Elinor or Alice's indiscretions. She set down the place mat.