Perfect Little Ladies Part 10

"You saw the note?" Ha ha. "Do you mean the note with the words cut out of a magazine?" Ha ha some more, this time enhanced by a fine shake of her head.

"Mother, this isn't funny. I saw the note in your purse. I went in there to get the keys to the garage so I could put away the canoe. And there it was, big as life."

"And you thought I was being blackmailed? That I'd lost my panties in a Dumpster in Manhattan?" Ha ha again. "Really, Jonas, that's rather crude." She wanted to stand up. She wanted to make a sweeping, grand departure from the terrace, as if everything was fine, as if he was such a jokester and his accusation was absurd. But despite the laughter, Elinor had become numb, so she stayed planted right there on the chaise.

"Aunt CJ said as much."

Elinor closed her eyes, wishing she'd stop feeling as if her airway was being cut off. "It's a joke, Jonas. If you must know, Alice and Poppy played a trick on me. We were shopping in the city and I picked out a lovely pair of La Perlas for Lucinda's lingerie shower. I'm sure one of her friends will be planning one. Anyway, Alice and Poppy accused me of buying them for myself, if you must know."

She paused a brief second, hating that the lies came so easily, that being deceived had become Jonas's birthright. "For some ridiculous reason, the girls thought it would be a hoot to send me a blackmail note." She had no idea if the story made sense.

"The panties are for Lucinda?"

Elinor nodded. "Two hundred and ten dollars. A very nice style."

"May...may I see them?"

Her senses shot back into her limbs. She bolted up from the chaise. "Jonas!" she said with a hearty laugh. "Are you challenging me?"

He moved next to her. He was taller than Elinor, as tall as Malcolm. "No, Mom. But..."

She waved her hand. "But, nothing. For one thing, even if I wanted to, I couldn't show them to you. They're in Washington. At the town house." She knew she should have felt guilty, but she was too...oh, G.o.d, she was too freaking exhausted.

"I can't imagine what CJ is thinking or why, but she's mistaken. Now please, honey," she said, softening her voice and straightening the collar of his Hugo Boss linen shirt, "let's forget this nonsense and have an early dinner. Shall we go out for Italian?"

Nineteen.

"The morons chose to pay the fine rather than follow the bylaws," Ray Williams said as he sipped CJ's best Bordeaux. She'd asked him to dinner because she'd wanted some balance: as environmental manager of the lake a.s.sociation and architect of the Mount Kasteel Town Hall, Ray had turned the term down-to-earth into a science. He offered a refreshing change from Elinor's world, and maybe later CJ would get to have s.e.x. It was never as tantalizing as it had been with Malcolm, or as satisfying as it had been with Cooper, but it would be s.e.x, and it would be nice-a safe, familiar distraction.

"That's awful," she said, toying with the rim of her gla.s.s. Ray was referring to the Santoris, the new lakefront residents who'd built a five-million-dollar getaway, then decided the tall pines blocked their view of the water. They'd lopped off the branches halfway to the tops, then left the tops intact. The results resembled the tail of a French poodle, and Ray was justifiably upset.

"They claim the bylaws stipulate the trees can't be cut down. They say they didn't cut them down, that they only trimmed them in the middle." He had two matching furrows in his forehead, which might have been a result of having been married too long to Naomi, a woman who was more interested in archeology than in her husband and son. Naomi lived in Egypt these days: the last Kevin had heard from his mother she'd been with a group who'd found another king's tomb, which Ray had proclaimed was just what the world needed.

"Ray," CJ said abruptly. "I'm going away for a couple of days. Do you think Kevin would like to dog-sit?"

Ray winced. "Hey. I wasn't finished talking about the Santoris." He smiled.

"Sorry," she said. "I'm preoccupied tonight."

"You're going away. Somewhere fun?"

He wouldn't ask for details, because details did not define their relationship. It was good, of course, because CJ could hardly tell him she was going to her sister's to sit by the phone and wait for a blackmailer to call.

"No," she said. "Family business." She didn't say she'd only be across town, that she'd decided not to subject Elinor's gleaming hardwood floors to an eighty-pound, yellow Lab. Besides, Luna loved spending time with Kevin. They had equal parts of high energy.

"Upsetting business?"

CJ shook her had. "Jonas's engagement party is Sat.u.r.day night. Elinor is becoming a madwoman."

Ray laughed. He knew Elinor, of course. They had been lake kids together-Elinor, CJ, Ray, and a half dozen others. Summer kids whose parents converged there each June and stayed until school reopened in September. Ray once told CJ that the year Elinor and CJ were twelve and he was thirteen, Elinor asked him to show her his p.e.n.i.s because she'd never seen one and she said it was "time" that she did. Naturally, it was erect because he was an adolescent and they'd been swimming and Elinor was wearing a bathing suit that was not a bikini but showed her young curves.

She'd inspected his p.e.n.i.s without touching it. Then she slid down her straps, showed him her b.r.e.a.s.t.s, and asked what he thought.

He'd said they looked like the anthills in the town picnic grove with tight little raisins stuck on the tops. He asked if her sister's looked just like hers.

Elinor had yanked up her top and told him to drop dead.

Ray had told CJ the story not long after she'd left Cooper and moved into the cottage, back when laughter had been essential and so hard to come by, back when they shared their first bottle of wine and she admitted to Ray that she was such a failure compared to her sister.

So he had made her laugh, because he was a good friend.

CJ supposed Elinor's action was indicative of the pragmatic, bold streak she would later fully develop. It hadn't occurred to her that Elinor might have simply been curious about s.e.x. As for CJ, she'd never been so, well, sensually inclined.

Had she?

"Ray," CJ asked now, "did you and Elinor ever have s.e.x?" The question popped out unexpectedly.

Ray nearly sprayed a mouthful of Bordeaux onto the couch. "What?" he laughed, wiping his mouth. "What a question!" He stood up, meandered to the sound system, and became suddenly interested in the CDs on the rack.

It was odd that he hadn't said no. It was more odd that CJ suddenly felt uncomfortable.

"Never mind," she said. "I was just thinking of the story you told me about when we were kids, when Elinor showed you her b.r.e.a.s.t.s. I don't know why I asked that. How ludicrous of me."

He was a tall, thin man, who looked even thinner when he stood sideways, as he stood now, perusing the CDs as if they were rare works of art. "It was over a while ago."

CJ winced. "What?"

He shrugged. "The thing with Elinor. The affair, whatever you call it. It was over a while ago, CJ. It has nothing to do with you and me."

Alice set her gla.s.s of wine in the refrigerator. No sense traversing the back roads to New Falls with alcohol on her breath. The police had become so unfriendly about that.

She closed the refrigerator door and decided to change out of the polyester before driving to Yolanda's. Even worse than sniffing for alcohol, the cops might be inclined to wonder why a woman who resembled a housekeeper was driving an Esplanade.

As she moved through the kitchen, Neal suddenly appeared in her path.

"Oh," she said. "It's you." She might have added "again," but she thought that might have sounded unfriendly.

"Imagine that," he said. "Your husband is home two nights in a row." He wasn't a bad guy. He was soft-spoken with her, though he wasn't that way in the boardroom, which was why they could afford to live in Mount Kasteel and half-support their grown children. His once dirty-blonde hair had washed into gray, but now most of that had washed away, too.

Still, she could have done worse. Neal was rock solid: a good husband, a good dad, a good provider. He still had gentle hazel eyes and clear skin without age lines, and he still wore only white shirts with pinstripes-blue, black, deep green, or maroon-and still wore his tie tac with the Sigma Pi logo, though he was no longer active in his college fraternity alumni a.s.sociation because he didn't have time.

All in all, Neal was a lot like Alice's father, who'd been gone for a dozen years, but whose gentle memory still brought her to quick tears.

"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 pushing, 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."