A Woman's Place: A Novel (19 page)

"Don't flatter yourself, Dennis. That partnership fell apart because your investments were lousy. Brody was the marketing half. He busted his butt trying to keep clients from jumping ship, but there was only so much he could do when your deal1 making failed. He stuck with that partnership longer than another man would have."

"It was guilt. He knew where he was going when he quit."

"Sure he did." I released my leg and stood. "Because he'd been working Page 96

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with me to support himself, working two jobs, practically."

"And dying to get out of mine for months before he finally did."

"He knew a sinking ship when he saw one," I said from the window now. The view was lovely, open ocean with its muted roar, a little wild like I felt. "He spent those months trying to convince you of that, but you wouldn't let go, wouldn't let go."

"Because that firm was my baby. I was the rainmaker."

"Please, Dennis," I cried. Fine and dandy for Carmen to advise restraint, but she wasn't the one hearing absurdities. She wasn't the one whose anger bordered on rage. "Brody was the one who set the whole thing up. He got the office, the name, the logo. He was the one who gathered the capital for your ventures, but when those ventures failed, what could he do? If he'd been ego-driven, he'd have demanded his fair share of the assets and then some, and if he'd done that, you'd never have been able to go out on your own."

"So I went out on my own, and he stole my wife."

"Why do you keep saying that? If you honestly believed it, how could you have lived with me so long?"

"Because I didn 't know"

"So how'd you find out?"

He paused, then muttered, "It just became obvious."

"Lipstick on his collar? Love notes in my purse? Romantic messages on our answering machine? Or was it your lawyer, Dennis? Not Art Heuber. Phoebe Lowe. Did she put a bug in your ear about Brody and me?"

"She's handled cases like ours before," he said, but a mite defensively.

"She's seen everything."

So. I had hit the nail on the head. The satisfaction of it goaded me on--that, and the fact that I was in my very own place. "In, what, seven years of practice? She's quite a veteran. But you didn't answer my question. Was she the one who thought up the idea of Brody and me as a couple? How did you meet her, anyway? And when? Last summer? Last spring? Or has it been going on for a while? A year? Maybe two? And what is it between you, anyway? A professional relationship, or something more?"

"That's none of your business. We're separated. I can do what I want."

"She's attractive, Dennis. You make a dynamite couple. Is that what this is all about, you having a mid-life itch that Phoebe Lowe wants to scratch?"

"You're a shrew," he said and hung up the phone. When the phone rang again five minutes later, I figured it was Dennis with a second wind and nearly didn't answer it. Then I thought of the other people it might be--most importantly, one of the kids--and I couldn't let it ring.

"Hello?"

"Hey."

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Brody. I let out a breath, habit telling me I could relax, then drew it in again, because relaxation wasn't all I felt. Somewhere way deep inside was an illicit little hum. I wondered if he felt it, too. A single hey didn't tell me a lot. "Where are you?"

"Home. The Vineyard's taken care of. Where are you?" He sounded easy, casual. Either he wasn't feeling that hum or had decided to ignore it. I followed his lead and took a deep breath. "I'm at the old Reaper Head lighthouse."

There was silence, then a warm chuckle. "Care to elaborate on that?" I did care to elaborate, went on for a good ten minutes describing my surroundings--walked through them as I spoke--because I think I'd been wanting to tell him all day, maybe even more than I'd wanted to tell the kids. His reaction was adult. His approval came from a different source. I knew he would love the sound of the place, and he did. I knew he would understand why I'd bought it, would see the challenge in it, the artistic possibilities. I knew he would appreciate my need to thumb my nose at conventionality. Maybe he would even understand my need to be by the sea.

By the time I was done with my description, I was in the lantern room, standing in the dark, looking out. The view at night was spectacular, a little frightening, a little awe-inspiring, a little lonely. I was glad he was on the phone.

Then again, maybe I was lonely because he was on the phone. I hoped not.

But when I pictured him, I felt that same little hum. Brody? Brody and me?

It was an intriguing thought. A little odd after all these years. A little funny. A little embarrassing. Still, intriguing.

"Okay," I summed up my thoughts on buying the lighthouse, "so it could be I'll be free to move back to the house by sometime next week, but maybe, just maybe I won't want to. That house was where I lived with Dennis. It's part of a life that he ended. Let him live there and pay for the upkeep. It's tainted." "Is that anger I still hear?" Oh, it was. Surprising, since I wasn't a chronic brooder or complainer. A new side of me was emerging. I wasn't sure I liked it, though it was probably healthy enough, given the circumstances. "It's like the anger of years has been packed away and is just now pouring out. Makes me wonder if I loved him at all."

"You did. Otherwise you wouldn't have stayed with him all those years." But I wasn't sure. I could reminisce all I wanted about one happy time after another that Dennis and I had shared, but the fact was that they had been fewer and farther between in recent years. That first year we met, when our a capella group had spent spring break singing for our keep at luxury resorts in Bermuda, Dennis and I had done a duet, backed up by the rest of the group. It was "For All We Know," a song of hope and promise, and we had been the perfect couple to do it, attractive, attracted to each other.

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It had been a long time since we had sung together, just the two of us. I had been raised to believe that marriage was the root of stability, success, happiness. So had I loved Dennis? Or had I loved the institution of marriage and simply accepted him as the price I had to pay to maintain it? I did things like that, made the most of situations that weren't ideal. Buying the Reaper Head lighthouse was a perfect example, a new house as the price for sanity, a lighthouse as the price of a smile.

"I think something's wrong with me, Brody. My life is a nightmare. I've been evicted and slandered, my mother is dying and I'm afraid to call her because she won't like what I say unless I lie through my teeth. My sister would jump at the chance to tell me how awful I am, my son won't talk to me, my husband is just waiting for me to trip up--and in spite of it all I had fun this afternoon. I went up and down the aisles of our warehouse, pointing at what I wanted, Bill and Tommy loaded the truck up there and unloaded it here. Granted, I'm talking basics--bedroom stuff, kitchen stuff, a sofa, a couple of chair sand even that was probably dumb, what with the floor guys sanding tomorrow and the painters coming after that, but I did it anyway."

"Nothing's wrong with you," Brody said. "You needed a break from the mess in your life. You needed to make that place yours. Is it livable?"

"Very. Warm, dry. Marginally empty still, but yes, mine. The view is--how to describe it? I'm up at the top, in a circular space maybe twenty-five feet in diameter, with glass all around. I'm looking in your direction. I think. Wave. No. Come see me?"

It was the most natural thing to say. But the words were no sooner out then I felt another twinge of that illicit little hum. With utter clarity--a memory, but so real--I felt his chest beneath my hand and his arousal beneath my thigh. I felt his warmth and smelled his smell, and liked both, wanted both.

Definitely wrong.

No, not wrong. Forbidden.

"Claire. About last night."

"Don't mention it. Nothing happened."

"Something did."

Oooh, yes, I thought, and the memories sharpened. "I think maybe we should forget that it did, though. Things like that can ruin good friendships. Not to mention the whole custody situation." Brody was silent for too long.

"Brody?"

"I don't want to forget it happened." I wrapped an arm around my middle and held on tight.

"And it doesn't have to ruin our friendship," he said. "Not if it's what we both want."

The question was there, begging my denial. But how could I deny the humming inside? It was picking up strength, tingling in my belly in ways Dennis had never quite caused.

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"What about Ellen McKenzie?"

"What about her?"

"What's between you two?"

"We're friends. Never lovers."

"I find that hard to believe."

"She's in love with a woman in Paris."

For a minute I couldn't think of a single thing to say. Then I swore softly. "The timing of this stinks."

"Yup. But it's there."

"Why nowT

Brody was silent again. Finally he said, "Because you need it now."

"I don't need sex."

"You need holding. Holding is foreplay when the chemistry's right." I felt a shimmery ache. "Don't say things like that."

"It's true. And if it hadn't happened last night, it would have happened tonight, or tomorrow night. It's there, Claire. Has been for a while."

"It has not."

"Oh, yes, it has."

"I have never felt what I felt last night." He sputtered out a laugh. "Well, you're right, there. But you've never slept with me before."

"I didn't sleep with you last night," I insisted and had an awful thought. "What if this line is bugged?"

"It's not bugged."

"People hear things on cellular lines. Listen in, sometimes. Be careful. Anything you say may be held against me."

"It already has been," he charged, all humor gone. "You're being punished for doing it anyway, so what's left to lose?"

"My kids!"

"You won't lose your kids. Not once your side of the story comes out. Not once the kids have been interviewed."

Reality returned with a shattering crash, like surf on the rocks below me, and the day's euphoria faded. I looked around my glass room, at the large bed with its wicker frame, the two huge sink-in-able wicker chairs, a wicker dressing table, two wicker dressers, all in a caramel shade to match the cedar holding the thick windows in place. My suitcases were on the floor, which would be carpeted in plum come morning to match the deep green and plum of the billowy down quilt I had Page 100

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bought for the bed. Everything here was mine. Everything was pretty and new and charming.

Still I wondered whether Kikit was in bed and what babies were sleeping with her and if she was singing them to sleep in her child-sweet soprano-my little Annie, singing her favorite, "Tomorrow," pretending that I was listening and beaming with pride. I wondered whether Johnny was lying in his bed looking at the night-glow stars we had put on his ceiling and wanting either to tear them off or ride one to find me and ask for a hug. I felt an awesome emptiness.

Needing to share my worry, I told Brody, "The judge shot us down on the Motion for Reconsideration, so Carmen's filing a Motion to Recuse, but that may not work, either. For each extra step we have to take, the process takes longer. I want something to happen, but nothing is. I called to make an appointment with the psychologist doing the study, and he hasn't called back."

"He will," Brody said.

"When? The sooner we start, the sooner we're done."

"He's probably still seeing clients. He'll call later, or tomorrow."

"What if he hates me?"

"How could he?"

"Selwey did."

"Selwey's a jerk."

"How do we know Jenovitz won't be?"

Brody didn't have an answer for that one, and didn't try making one up, which was another of the things I loved about him. It made what he did say that much more credible.

"Oh, Brody," I whispered and nearly invited him over again. I wanted him to repeat everything he had said about things working out with the kids, and I wanted him to hug me while he did it. I could control that little hum. I didn't have to act on it. Brody was my best friend, and I needed his support. It wasn't fair that I should be deprived of this, too. Quietly, with a gentle understanding that made me want to cry, he said,

"I'll come over in the morning, in daylight. Okay?" Since Dean Jenovitz was fresh in my mind, I was sure he was the one calling when the phone rang again, but it was Rona. I braced myself at the sound of her voice.

"Why haven't you called, Claire? Mom keeps asking, asking, asking. She only wants you, and I'm the one who has to make the excuses. Would it be so terrible to pick up the phone?" "I talked with her this morning."

"That isn't what she says. She's been imagining all sorts of awful things have happened. She isn't good, Claire. I don't know how much longer it'll be."

Looking out at the night ocean, I felt an enveloping darkness. "What do the doctors say?"

Rona snorted. "I spend half the day running around trying to find them. Page 101

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I think they're avoiding me, and you want to know why? Because they don't have any answers. When I finally pin them down, they frown, tap their pens on the chart, and look deep in thought, like they're considering new treatments. Only there aren't any. Mom knows that. She's gotten so morbid that being with her is impossible. She told me what she wants in her obituary. Get this. She wants to be remembered as a homemaker."

I had to smile. "I can understand that."

"She was never a homemaker. She was a bookkeeper. She rarely cleaned and never cooked. If anyone was the homemaker when we were kids, it was you."

"But she wanted to be one. Isn't that what counts?"

"See? You see eye to eye with her. That's why you should be here, not me."

"I want to be," I countered. "Believe me, I'd rather be there than here."