Perfect Little Ladies Part 19

Which was probably lost anyway.

She clicked back to the main menu. Did she have a signal?

Two bars. It might be enough.

Slowly, she punched in the numbers.

In a moment, the phone began ringing on the other end. 212. Somewhere in Manhattan.

She tried to remember to breathe.

She counted two, three, four rings. Surely voice mail would pick up.

Five, six, seven.

Then she was connected.

"Yeah?" It was a man's voice.

"Who is this?" she demanded, as if he would tell her and that would be that.

"Who you looking for, lady?"

"Where...where are you?"

"Hmm, well, let's see, I'm on the corner of Sixty-sixth and West End."

Her trembling eased. "Is this a pay phone?"

"Yes, ma'am. And this is Harry. I live on the park bench outside." The man chuckled loudly. Elinor hung up.

She looked out over the water as the sun rose full in the sky. She bit back her tears and wondered why she was surprised there were any pay phones left in Manhattan.

Manny didn't kiss Poppy again until after the sun had come up, until after she'd told him every detail of her life; until after he'd told her all of his.

She didn't expect he'd want to kiss her again, so as he leaned toward her, she turned her head and his lips landed square in her hair. They laughed.

"I still have to arrest you," he said.

"Because I'm a bad kisser?"

"Because you killed a man."

Oh, that.

"My guess is we can get you off on the petty theft if you're willing to return the things. Do you know where they all came from?"

Poppy nodded with a teeny bit of reluctance. She didn't mention the pieces her mother had helped herself to long ago, mostly throughout Europe. It was how Poppy had learned the craft. But this was about Poppy, not Momma, so she decided to keep Momma's part to herself.

"As for the murder," Manny continued, "you were underage. It was self-defense. Can you prove it?"

The only way to prove self-defense was if Momma came forward and finally told the truth. Fat chance of that. Momma had been a martyr on behalf of her daughter, and when she'd been released, she'd told Poppy it was over, their sins were atoned. The few times Poppy had tried to talk to her about it (like when Duane had popped into the room, unannounced), Momma had not been receptive to discussion. Besides, even if Poppy could convince her, in her current fragile condition, Momma might pretend not to remember the day, the event, or Mr. Harding, for that matter, who was of course dead, so that let him out.

"I can't prove it," Poppy said. "But it doesn't matter. I did it, not Momma. And if Duane thinks he's going to hold it over my head, he's wrong. I'd rather go to jail." For a minute, it was hard for Poppy to believe she was saying those words. But she knew it was time, had been time for a while. It was too late for her, but maybe not for Elinor, who had hurled her life into a blender.

Manny pushed a red curl off her forehead. He traced the outline of her face, then moved his finger across her cheeks, as if connecting her freckles. "You are a good daughter," he said quietly, "and a good friend."

"Elinor has always been good to me." She felt guilty for having thought Elinor had been sleeping with Duane. "It might hurt her and CJ to learn the truth about their father, but it's better than having my husband ruin Elinor's life." She looked into his dark eyes. "Do you think I can go to jail without anyone finding out about Momma and Mr. Harding?"

"I will do everything possible."

Then he leaned closer again. This time she let his lips travel toward hers. But just before contact, a light flipped on.

"Coffee, anyone?"

It was Yolanda, at the top of the stairs.

Poppy stayed with Yolanda while Manny grabbed coffee and half a bagel and said he was going to pay a visit to Duane. When the ladies were alone with little Belita, Poppy told Yolanda about Momma and Mr. Harding and Sam Yates, the erstwhile gardener.

"He was going to kill you?" Yolanda asked.

Until then, the fact hadn't really impacted on Poppy's brain. "Well," she said. "Yes."

"And you never told anyone what you did?"

"Momma knew. She made me promise never to tell. She said she would take care of it for me."

Yolanda cuddled Belita. "I understand that. I understand that kind of love a mother has for her child."

Poppy blinked. She hadn't thought of it that way before. She'd only thought about the fact that Momma had been doing something she shouldn't have been doing....

"So she went to jail for five years to protect you," Yolanda continued.

"And Mr. Harding, I guess."

Yolanda shook her head. "Having money doesn't mean one has brains, does it?"

Poppy did not take it personally.

Thirty-two.

Alice had driven to the airport because she hadn't felt like speaking to Neal. How dare he become so...unpredictable? Other husbands did that sort of thing, not hers.

She sat with Kiley Kate in the VIP lounge, waiting for the pre-boarding announcement. She sipped on a weak b.l.o.o.d.y Mary while her granddaughter yakked into a Bluetooth connection. Alice thought nine was too young for a phone, but she supposed some people thought it was also too young to be focused on a singing career.

"I packed my pink sequins and my dress with the pale blue pailettes," Kiley Kate said into the air. "I can do the Hannah in pink and the Christina in the blue." She chattered about rock stars as if they were her friends; her hands darted about as she talked, her little fingernails high-glossed and glittered. "If we end up in Hollywood, maybe you can come, too. That would be so much fun. Gram? Can she, Gram?"

Kiley Kate tugged on Alice's forearm. Alice knew she must have been talking with Shannon O'Neill, her bff, as she called her, her Elinor.

"We'll see," Alice said. "First we must get past Orlando."

Kiley Kate giggled and returned to her conversation.

Alice stood up and walked to the window. She nibbled on the celery stalk from her drink, a poor proxy for breakfast. She looked out at the planes lined up at the gates, taking people away, bringing people home, from here, from there, from everywhere. She wondered if Neal was cheating on her.

There, she thought with a crunch of the stalk that was louder than she would have wished, I've declared the possibility.

She thought about swallowing the celery but feared it wouldn't go down. Raising the square white napkin with the red and orange FlyUS logo up to her lips, Alice discreetly spit into it.

Was Neal really capable?

Was he really sneaky enough, distrustful enough, desperate enough?

She wondered what kind of a woman he would have selected. Young, probably. They always went for the young ones once they pa.s.sed forty. Pretty, of course. A new trophy.

And smart. Today, the young women were all smart. They zipped up the ladder right alongside the men, their laptops and their BlackBerries and their short-skirted suits with the lace camisoles poking out from the top. And their stilettos that glammed up their calves in the boardrooms. And their dark-framed eyegla.s.ses that hinted of their brains.

Would Neal ask for a divorce?

She plucked an ice cube from her gla.s.s and ran it up and down her throat. Why did they keep the airports so frightfully warm in the summer?

As best as CJ calculated, there were five cordless phones scattered throughout Elinor's house: three downstairs, two up. Hopefully no more.

She waited until she heard Mac in the shower, then she quickly swept the place of the handsets. Though she'd forwarded the calls to her cell, she didn't know if the house phone would still ring. She couldn't risk the blackmailer calling with Mac in the house.

After quickly zipping herself into the polyester, she carted the handsets to her car, started the engine, rolled down the driveway, and escaped to the train station, hoping Mac would simply think she'd gone home, retreated from the temptation of him.

Now, she sat on the rumbling, rattling commuter heading toward Manhattan, gazing out the clouded window at the summer-slow Hudson. Maybe she could find some answers this morning that would finally set Elinor-and the rest of them-free.

"Is this seat taken?"

The voice sounded familiar. It belonged to Ray Williams, and it was just what CJ didn't need.

"h.e.l.lo, Ray."

He sat beside her. "You going into the city?"

She decided not to point out that his question was moot, that they were both on the train headed south. "Yes."

"Me, too. I'm meeting with the Santoris' attorney."

"The Santoris?"

"The people who cut off their trees."

"I thought they paid a fine."

"The a.s.sociation decided it isn't enough. They want the trees removed and mature ones transplanted there. I found a place that will handle the job and move trees up to fifty feet tall. But we're looking at more than a dozen trees. It will cost some big bucks."

He was talking as if nothing had happened. He was talking as if he'd never told her that he'd slept with her sister and thought it was okay now to be sleeping with her.

Men, she thought. The only one she'd truly ever trusted was Cooper. Sleep is the poor man's Prozac. She wished she'd had some of either. Or both.

"So," Ray continued, "you're back? From your family business?"

CJ adjusted her purse on her lap, hoping that because he was a man, he wouldn't notice her suspicious attire. "I'll send Kevin home tonight." She could not, of course, go back to Elinor's. She supposed Mac would stay there until Elinor returned and they went to Washington for the party. As for the party, it was anyone's guess what might happen there. She was too tired of trying to figure it all out.

"CJ?" Ray asked, "is everything all right?"

"Sure," she replied, "everything's fine. There's just so much going on, with Jonas getting married and all."

He seemed to believe her. "Can we hook up for lunch in the city?"

She shook her head. "Sorry. I have an errand to run, then I have to get back."

Ray nodded, and CJ looked back out the window. She wondered if, after Jonas was married, she should go back to Paris once and for all, if she would find happiness in the cafes and galleries, away from the melodrama of Elinor's life, which always seemed to leak into hers.

Yolanda suggested that Poppy take a nap while she went downstairs to open the shop. She was halfway through Kristen Fitzpatrick's highlights when her phone rang.

She figured it was Manny with news about Duane.

"Yolanda?"

"Yes." She didn't know the voice. If he wanted a haircut, he would have called the line for the salon.

"This is Junior Diaz. A friend of your brother's."

She reminded herself that the next time she saw Manny, she should kill him the way Poppy had killed the gardener.

"Manny has told me a lot about you," he said.

"Has he?"

"He thinks we should meet. Have dinner, maybe."

"No offense, Mr. Diaz, but my brother also thinks he should run my life. The truth is, I'm not dating anyone right now. And I don't plan to in the near future."

"But-"

"But thank you for calling." She hung up the phone and returned to the highlights before she admitted he had a nice voice and maybe she was being mean.