Crossroads (26 page)

Chapter Thirty-four

T
he reading at the Langham library had been a success. The children and their parents had listened to Gwen with a hushed attention that was incredibly flattering. They had stayed after the reading to ask questions, nibble on the refreshments provided by the library, and line up so that Gwen could sign their copies of
Abby
. Everyone seemed to having such a good time, Gwen thought they might have stayed for hours if there hadn’t been several claps of thunder indicating that a storm was on its way. It was only after that, that people began bundling up their kids and rushing out to their cars before the rain started.

“Didn’t you tell me you were staying overnight at the Langham Inn?” the librarian asked, as she walked Gwen to the front door. “It’s just around the corner in the historic district. If you’d like someone to show you the way, I can ask one of our volunteers.”

“Thank you, but I think I can find it,” Gwen said. What she wanted wasn’t a volunteer to show her how to get to the inn; she wanted Stan there in Langham making a fuss over her.

The reading at the library had taken a little more than two hours, and since it had started at five to accommodate the kids, Gwen now had the evening ahead of her. A very long evening which she would be spending alone in a hotel room in a town where she knew no one. It had sounded like fun when she’d booked her room at the Langham Inn, but she’d done that when she’d thought Stan was going to be with her. When she’d thought they would celebrate together with a dinner and maybe a glass or two of champagne. She wanted some champagne right now. She’d done well and there was no one to share the moment with her.

Up to the last minute she’d hoped that Stan would show up, that she’d look out into the crowd at the library—and she’d drawn quite a big one, according to the librarian—and he’d be sitting there with that tender, proud grin waiting for her to start, waiting to applaud when she finished. But he hadn’t come.

And she knew it was because she’d really hurt him. She hated herself for telling him about those glass figurines. It had been stupid and mean. But he had said things that hurt her, too . . .and then he had abandoned her.

Gwen headed toward her car, which was parked in front of the library. Suddenly she felt weary—a letdown after the high of the night’s successful event. Maybe she should cancel her room at the Langham Inn and just drive home.

“Gwen!” said a voice behind her. She turned to see Jeff coming toward her with an eager smile.

Oh, God,
she thought and didn’t know whether to be pleased or dismayed.

“Brava! You were wonderful!” he said.

“Jeff? What are you doing here?”

*                           *                           *

Jeff had planned to tell Gwen he’d come to Langham on business. He had planned to pretend that meeting her there was a delightful surprise. “This is my lucky day,” he’d say. “I can’t believe I’m running into you like this.” But when he saw Gwen he knew he had to be honest. The time had come for her to understand that she was the only bright spot, that now she was what made living worthwhile.

“I came to see you do your reading,” he said. “Did you think I’d miss it?”

“I never expected . . . I didn’t see you.”

“I stood in the alcove on the side. I was afraid I’d distract you.” He looked around. “You’re alone?” But he knew she was. He’d checked her audience from his safe alcove and he’d seen that her husband hadn’t bothered to come. The guy might be smarter than Jeff had originally thought, but he was still a dolt when it came to women. Well, good. Let Gwen see who had cared enough to show up for her.

“Yes, I’m alone,” she said.

“Well, we can’t have that on your big night!” he sang out brightly. “Let me take you to dinner.”

“I was thinking of going home . . . ,” she said tentatively. At that moment, the rain that had been threatening fell from the sky in a downpour.

“You can’t drive back to Wrightstown in this,” he shouted over a peal of thunder. “You’re staying at the Langham Inn, aren’t you? I’ll meet you over there.”

She hesitated, but only for a second because she was getting soaked. “Okay,” she said, and she dashed for her car. Jeff ran to the Lamborghini.

*                           *                           *

Jewel pulled into the parking lot in front of the Langham Inn.She’d meant to arrive earlier in the day so she could sneak into Jeff ’s room and surprise him, but she’d taken a wrong turn and gotten lost. Now she scanned the parking lot, looking for Jeff ’s car. The Lamborghini was nowhere to be seen. Good, he wasn’t checked in yet either. There was still time to surprise him. She parked her car and sat waiting for the storm to let up. She hadn’t thought to bring an umbrella, and when you were trying to seduce your husband you didn’t want to look like a drowned rat.

A few minutes later, she’d decided the rain would never stop and she was going to make a run for it, when she heard the familiar roar of a finely tuned Italian sports car and she saw Jeff pull the Lamborghini up to the front of the hotel. Now there was nothing to do but forget about surprising him, and let him know she was there. She watched her husband get out of his car.

She was about to call out to him, but then she saw that he wasn’t rushing into the hotel. He was standing next to his car as the rain fell on him and it was clear that he was waiting for someone. Sure enough, a second car drove into the lot and he waved, indicating that it should park next to his. The driver pulled into the spot next to Jeff ’s. And in the light from the windows of the inn, Jewel watched as the car door opened and a woman whose hair frizzed around her in a rusty red cloud stepped out. Jewel watched her husband move to the woman, take off the jacket of his five-thousand-dollar custom-made suit, and hold it over her head as a makeshift protection from the rain. They ran into the hotel together.

For a second, Jewel froze. Then her stomach began churning. There were two large bay windows at the front of the Langham Inn; through them, one could see everything that was going on in the lobby. Jewel got out of her car, ran to the inn, and fought her way through the boxwood hedge that surrounded the windows. There, in spite of all the demeaning clichéd scenes she’d watched in a hundred bad movies about jealous women and cheating men, she stood in the mud and spied on her husband.

*                           *                           *

Gwen’s mind was whirling. It was sweet of Jeff to have come to hear her read her book. But why did she feel so uncomfortable? He had led her into the hotel lobby to get her out of the rain, which was nothing more than any gentleman would do. And he wanted to take her to dinner. That was all.

“This looks good!” he said, as he looked over the menu that was posted outside the inn’s dining room. He smiled enthusiastically. Maybe too enthusiastically? Maybe a little desperately? Or was she just imagining things because Stan had accused the man of having feelings for her?
His tongue hangs out when he
looks at you,
Stan had said. And he’d said that Gwen knew it and she enjoyed it. And that was terribly, horribly unfair. Jeff had never done anything to suggest that he wanted to be more than friends. All he wanted to do now was celebrate her success—a success, mind you, that her husband hadn’t bothered to witness. It was all perfectly harmless. Or was it? Did a busy man drop everything and drive to another town to celebrate a woman’s success because he wanted to be her friend?

“Jeff,” she said, “I’m very grateful to you for having come all the way up here, but given what happened between you and Stan, I’m afraid I feel a little awkward. . . .”

For an answer he grabbed her hands. “Oh, don’t,” he pleaded.

“The fight with Stan was really for the best. I don’t think he ever really wanted to work for JeffSon—it was always a bad fit.

But you mustn’t let that get in the way of us.”

He held her hands up to his mouth and he kissed each of them. And then he looked at her. And that was when she saw it in his eyes—there was no mistaking it now—she knew. Stan had been right about Jeff. Her mother had been right all those years ago. And she, Gwen, had been an idiot. She’d been flattered by Jeff ’s attention. And yes, like some careless competitive teenager she’d loved it that she was besting beautiful, charming Jewel. She’d been irresponsible and childish and unbearably insensitive. She tried, ever so gently, to pull her hands away, but Jeff held on to them.

“What we have is something special, Gwen. I’ve never felt this . . . kind of friendship . . . with any other woman.” Then he paused. “Don’t let Stan come between us.” She couldn’t help shivering. “You’re cold,” he said softly.

“It’s because of the rain. . . .” She stumbled. “I got wet . . . I should probably go upstairs and change.”

“That’s a good idea. We both should.”

And he let go of her hands to push the button for the elevator.

“You’re on the sixth floor,” he said as the elevator doors opened.

“So am I.”

*                           *                           *

Jewel’s face was scratched from the boxwood branches, her shoes were sinking into the muddy mulch that surrounded the hedge. For once in her life, she didn’t give a damn what she looked like. She had watched her husband take Gwen’s hands and kiss them. Had he ever looked at Jewel with that kind of tenderness? Even when they were first together, had he ever held her hands as if she was something breakable and oh so incredibly precious? He had gotten into the elevator with Gwen. The indicator arrow above the elevator registered that they were going to the same floor. You didn’t have to be a genius to know what was going on between Jewel’s husband and Gwen Wright. Gwen was the woman Jewel had been fearing all these months—the woman Jeff loved, for whom he would uproot his life and get a divorce. Gwen who had had everything handed to her on a silver platter and deserved none of it! Gwen who was the daughter of Cassie Wright’s womanizing husband and his whore . . . Jewel wanted to smash Gwen’s face into a wall; she wanted to tear at Gwen’s skin with her perfectly manicured nails until the blood ran; she wanted to hit and maim and hurt. . . . She scrambled away from the window of the inn and through the boxwood hedge and ran for her car.

*                           *                           *

The elevator had reached the sixth floor. During the ride, Jeff had gone on about Gwen’s reading.

“I watched your audience tonight,” he said. “The kids were enthralled. I predict that Abby will take her place someday next to Winnie the Pooh, and all those creatures written by Dr. Seuss.”

“She’s just a little squirrel trying to figure out who she is, and what she wants.” Gwen had tried to shrug away the gushing compliment.

“Aren’t we all?” He had turned to her. His eyes were fixed on her face as if he was searching for something.

Mercifully, at that moment, the elevator doors had opened.

“I don’t think I want anything to eat tonight,” Gwen said as she moved into the hallway. “I think I’ll skip dinner.” She held out her hand for Jeff to shake. He ignored it. He was smiling that desperate smile again. “Thank you for coming all this way,”she faltered.

“It was my pleasure.” He didn’t move. But when she turned and headed for her room, he started following her. They reached her door. She opened her handbag and fished around for her room key. “Thank you again for coming. It was so nice of you. . . .”

*                           *                           *

Jeff watched Gwen fumble with her handbag. She was nervous—and he knew why. She didn’t want to sit through a long meal knowing what was coming after. That was why she’d said she didn’t want to have dinner. She’d finally understood what was happening between them—surely her remark about the little squirrel proved that—and now she didn’t want to wait for him any more than he wanted to wait for her. Their time had come! He wanted to laugh out loud. There could be something good in his life!

He watched as she found the key, but it slipped through her fingers and fell to the carpet next to her feet. Before she could bend down, Jeff had scooped it up. He put the key in the lock, opened the door, and was moving into her room.

*                           *                           *

Later, when Gwen thought about it, it seemed to her as if she’d watched what happened next but hadn’t really been a part of it. She saw herself move to the door to block the path of a man who looked like Jeff but couldn’t be Jeff, because Jeff would never behave this way. She heard this awful new Jeff whisper in her ear, as he tried to force his way past her, that she was the only thing that mattered to him now, that he couldn’t lose her too. And she heard someone—a Gwen who was also unrecognizable—say that please, he mustn’t do this. And the Gwen who wasn’t really Gwen pushed hard at the Jeff who wasn’t really Jeff until she was off balance and when he stepped back, she fell to the floor. There was a popping sound as if something had snapped. And then Gwen wasn’t watching from a distance anymore, because that was when the pain came. It shot through her hand to her wrist and up her arm in a white hot streak, and the dizziness that accompanied it made her mouth water with instant nausea. She looked up at Jeff as the tears sprang to her eyes. She was on the floor, his expensive loafers—a fine, buttery soft leather—were inches away from her face. He had to see how badly she hurt. Foolishly, stupidly, she waited for him to help her to her feet.