Part 10 (2/2)

”Nice dress,” Neal commented. ”But it's a little big, don't you think?”

Alice brushed back thoughts of her father and rolled her eyes. ”I'm doing Poppy a favor. Don't ask what it is.” She hoped she sounded carefree. ”I'm going to change, then go out. Sorry. I won't be gone long.”

He nodded, but he followed her up the stairs and into the bedroom. She hoped he wouldn't prod her for details.

”They can't reschedule the dinner,” he said as Alice went into her dressing room. ”For Thursday night. Can you please find another solution for Kiley Kate?”

”What about Emmie? She'd love to go to the dinner with you.” Emmie was Neal's older sister, a New Age priestess who now was a certified Ayurveda consultant and spent a lot of time standing on her head. Neither Alice nor Neal would suggest that Emmie take Alice's place in Orlando, because she wasn't a responsible candidate for a chaperone. Too much marijuana in her twenties; too much meditation in her thirties. Alice had never pointed out that their daughter, Felicity, was a great deal like Emmie. Alice, after all, secretly envied their independence and their feral natures and the fact that neither had ever played follow the leader the way she had with Elinor, the way Melissa did with her husband.

He laughed. ”Tang Industries might specialize in resort spas, but the only health thing that concerns them is the state of their bottom line.”

”They're capitalists.”

”Emmie's not.”

”No kidding.” She stepped out of the housekeeper's dress, unashamed to expose her middle-aged, slightly tattered body in front of her husband. She'd never been embarra.s.sed, insecure, or ashamed of anything in front of Neal. More than once, she'd wondered why. Did it mean she wasn't ga-ga, head-over-heels in love with him? That she'd never felt the need to be perfect for him?

She'd married him, mostly, because Elinor had married Malcolm. She'd had Melissa because Elinor had Janice; Felicity, after Elinor had Jonas. One child would have been sufficient for Alice, but, as always, Elinor had set the pace for her life.

”If Elinor jumped off a bridge, would you?” her mother had asked on more than one occasion.

Well, of course the answer was yes, probably, though Alice never admitted it.

Pulling on a long, plum-colored, cotton skirt and matching tee, Alice slipped into ballet slippers of the same shade. ”I'm sorry, Neal, but it's presumptuous of them to expect everyone to be available at the drop of a hat.”

If he pushed her a little she might have acquiesced, might have decided to beg Melissa to go to Orlando in her place. But Neal apparently was done pus.h.i.+ng, because he only said, ”Never mind, then,” and departed the room, leaving Alice to wonder if she took him for granted, and if she'd regret it one day.

Twenty.

Elinor must have thought it was pretty funny when CJ had told her she was seeing Ray.

Pulling into the driveway of Elinor and Malcolm's ”country house,” CJ seethed. She'd never blamed Elinor for the tragedy of her life, for the emptiness she'd endured since Jonas had been conceived, for Cooper's lost love, which she'd relinquished to honor Elinor, Malcolm, Jonas.

She'd never blamed Elinor, and yet, and yet...

She ached. She ached.

She'd told Ray she had a headache and asked him to leave. How could she ever have s.e.x with him again? How could she enjoy his closeness and his warmth knowing Elinor had-once again-been there first?

And when had it been, anyway?

Last week? Last month? Last year?

Had it been before Elinor had picked up with the vice president, if that was with whom she'd picked up?

It was almost eight o'clock now. CJ had sped to the house in anger, steeled to confront her sister, ready to blast her for all of her sins, primed to announce she was done coming in second. Maybe she'd say she was not going to house-sit, that it was time Elinor learned to clean up her own messes.

CJ flicked off the ignition and slammed the car door behind her. She marched up the front stairs and rang the bell.

Once.

Twice.

She waited a moment, then tried to peer into the library, but the drapes had been drawn.

She rang again. No response.

Perhaps Elinor and Jonas had gone out for dinner. Mother and son.

She ached again.

Wrapping her shawl tightly around her, CJ sat down on the stairs. She'd wait there for hours, if she had to.

But it was only twenty minutes later that Elinor's Mercedes pulled in.

”Everything's okay,” Jonas announced as he plodded across the gravel to the stairs where CJ sat. ”Mom isn't being blackmailed. It was all a joke.” He laughed because he was a happy, trusting boy.

CJ stood up and moved her eyes to Elinor, who jangled her keys as she approached. ”You're a day early,” she said. ”Did your decorators arrive ahead of schedule?”

If Jonas had been Malcolm, CJ might have spit out the truth. She might have told Elinor to stop lying and face up to what she had done. But Jonas was not Malcolm, so CJ said, ”No.” She would always protect Jonas, as if she'd been the prost.i.tute whose child King Solomon had offered to cut in half to learn its true mother, to see which woman would renounce her baby rather than have him come to harm. ”Something has come up,” CJ continued. ”We need to speak. Jonas, will you excuse us?”

”Sure,” he said, though his smile faded. He no doubt saw the same shadow in CJ's eyes that had lingered in his hours earlier.

He took the keys from Elinor, said good night to CJ, and went into the house.

CJ swallowed her guilt.

”It's dark,” Elinor noted. ”What on earth is so urgent?”

”I'm here for the truth, Elinor. Why didn't you tell me about you and Ray? How many secrets do you have?”

CJ expected her sister to laugh. She expected her to say something glib, like, ”I never thought he was as good in bed as Malcolm, how 'bout you?”

CJ expected almost anything out of Elinor. She did not expect her sister to sit down on the stairs, drop her face in her hands, and say, ”My life is completely f.u.c.ked up.”

CJ sat quietly while Elinor cried. After a moment she put her arm around her sister's shoulders and tried-in vain-to pretend that she wasn't crying, too. Like it or not, she hurt when Elinor did, the mirror of their DNA.

”I've never been good at being faithful to Malcolm. It's not that I don't love him, you know.”

<script>