Mrs. Robinson (Mrs. Robinson #1) (7 page)

8

Grace Robinson

“Oh,
shit
. Stay here.”

Still panting from Ben’s unbelievable skills, I fell to the floor, rose to my feet, and started creeping down the hall toward the door. Usually Grace Robinson would
never
curse in front of company, but something told me the Grace I seemed to be quickly becoming was capable of doing all sorts of ungraceful things. As I got closer, my heart shuddered and then felt like it shrank away to nothing, leaving a black hole in its place.

It’s not Richard,
I told myself again and again as I approached the door.
It’s not Richard…he’s not about to walk though the door and find a hooker in our house…my life as I know it is not about to end when I open this door…

Finally I stopped at my door, terrified by the darkened figure on the stoop. I took one last breath, gathered every ounce of strength within me, and opened the door to find my neighbor, Cynthia, smiling up at me from the fourth step.

“Hi, neighbor!” she beamed, her piercing smile like an X-ray with a cherry on top. I didn’t know whether to sigh or have another heart attack. Cynthia Villa was a volcano of barely-contained rage held together with a smile; all gleam and sharp edges and bony elbows held out at odd angles – a velociraptor in pearls. She fed on secrets like babies fed on formula, and she was
dangerous
. “What are you up to this evening?”

“Oh, the usual,” I said, trying to make my voice sound normal.
And by “the usual,” I mean I am potentially wrecking my life by paying a stranger for sex.
“Wine and Netflix, you know.”

“Wonderful,” she said. She crept up a step and peered behind me, towards the kitchen. “The thing is, I was making a lemon tart, and I was just wondering if you had any extra lemons lying around?”

Shit
, I thought as I tried not to let the chaos inside me show on my face. Had she seen Ben? Did she know what I was doing? She had to, right? It wasn’t exactly out of the ordinary for her to go poking around the block looking for gossip to offer up to all the women at the golf club, but still: why
tonight
?

I stood taller and straightened my dress, deciding to fight her lemony smile with something even more tart. “I’m sorry, Cynthia, but I don’t have any. I threw out the last of my fruit during a deep cleaning this morning. Can’t keep that stuff too long, or the flies start to come – that’s what I always say.”

Her grin brightened as she reached up and patted at her strawberry blonde bouffant. She was still wearing her evening clothes and obviously hadn’t stepped anywhere near her kitchen all night – not that she ever cooked anything, anyway, as her latest divorce settlement from her latest cheating husband had afforded her a small army of staff that did everything from trim her bushes to curl her eyelashes.

“Ah,
such
a shame,” she grinned. “And you’re right – we
don’t
want the flies coming and poking around in our business, do we?”

I swallowed hard.

“Anyway,” she said, “I’m disappointed, because I was
really
looking forward to sharing a slice of tart with you, and maybe sharing some gossip, too. Unless – ” she looked behind me again, her eyes narrowed. “Unless you’re busy? Is Richard home, by chance?”

I shifted in the doorway to block her view. “I think I’ve had enough tart for one night, thanks. I’m hitting Netflix and bed – that new Shonda Rhimes show has been calling my name for weeks. See you at the charity event tomorrow?”

The way I’d phrased the last question told her it was time to go. Her smile faltered for a moment, and then she rearranged her shoulders and winked at me. “Yes, of course. Wouldn’t miss it. We’ll talk then. And Grace?”

Her cornflower blue eyes gleamed like blood diamonds, and I knew exactly what she was thinking:
who is this neighbor of mine, really? What’s really going on here? What has Richard done to her? And what has she done to herself?

“Yes?” I asked. Her eyes flitted down to my breasts, her smile as sour as the lemons she had asked for.

“I just wanted to tell you I liked your dress. That’s all.”

I swallowed and swung the door closed.
What the hell was that?
I thought as my knees buckled and I slumped against the wall. Was she simply trying to rub it in that I was a lonely abandoned shut-in, like usual, or had she seen more? And what was I even
doing
? This wasn’t some cheesy romantic novel – this was real, this was my
life
, and I was playing with fire. Actually, Cynthia Villa was worse than fire – she was ice, capable of freezing out everyone around her. Letting myself fall victim to Ben’s sexiness had been a momentary mistake, and now I needed to think this through and get real. I had a painting worth three hundred thousand dollars in my living room, thanks to Richard getting drunk at Sotheby’s and getting into a pissing contest with a rival – what on Earth was I thinking leaving a male escort alone in my house? And speaking of Ben – where the hell was he, anyway?

I turned to glance into the living room, and that’s when I looked down and noticed it: my bra was undone, and a purple hickey was already forming on my clavicle.

Oh
,
no
.

Just as my vision started to flicker and distort with panic, a door closing somewhere deep within my house brought me back to my senses. I simply
had
to find Ben. He could be doing anything, and standing here freaking out wasn’t going to help anything. I took one last breath and padded down the hall, suddenly afraid for some reason.

“Hello?” I asked into the darkness. “Ben? Or whatever your name is? Where are you?”

I turned into the living room and felt my stomach shrivel into nothing: he was gone. Where on Earth could he be? And
why
had he left? As my heart thundered in my chest like the clouds on a July afternoon I searched the kitchen, the powder room, even the pantry – he was nowhere. He’d disappeared, and now I had a total stranger wandering around in my house.

But just when I was
really
starting to panic, I turned a corner and found him standing in the library with his back to me…and not only that, but he was directly in front of the fireplace, where our safe was hidden behind the mantle. How in the hell had he already found it?

I grabbed the first thing I could find for protection, which turned out to be my niece’s tiny pink Dora the Explorer umbrella she’d left during her last visit. Sure, it wasn’t much, but I needed a weapon, and I wasn’t going to get killed by some prostitute – not unless I could help it, at least.

“This has been a mistake,” I said with trembling hands, the umbrella held up over my shoulders like a baseball bat. “I’m sorry. Please leave, and don’t ever-”

I paused. Ben was talking to someone on speakerphone and hadn’t heard me.

“Claire?” he asked, sounding scared. “What’s wrong, are you okay? Why did you call?”

Claire
? I thought with a frown. Thinking he’d called a girlfriend, I sighed and dropped the umbrella a little. Of course he’d lied about being single – why wouldn’t he have?

“Hi, bubby!” the person named Claire responded on the speakerphone, making me frown. I’d been expecting the alluring drawl of a cheerleader, but the voice that came from the phone was nothing like I’d expected. Bubbly and happy but somewhat muffled, she actually sounded somewhat like Mindy, the girl with Down’s Syndrome whom I brought meals to every Thanksgiving with one of the charities I sponsored.

“Hey, sweetheart,” Ben said, and I could hear relief and a smile in his voice. “How are you doing?”

“Good,” the girl said. “I have so much fun today. Miss Sherry put on PBS in my room.”

Ben sighed slowly, his shoulders dropping. “That’s amazing, sweetie. I thought – I thought someone was calling from your phone because you – you know what, never mind. Tell me about your day!”

As I listened in like some kind of stalker, Ben talked to Claire for a few more minutes and then excused himself politely. After he told Claire he loved her, he hung up and turned around to face me, a confused expression on his face.

“Um, is something wrong? Why are you holding that umbrella like that? And is that…is that
Dora
?”

I blinked a few times and then looked over my shoulder. Sure enough, I had forgotten all about the umbrella, which I was still holding above my head like a psycho. I probably looked like a total maniac to him, standing in a darkened doorway, clutching Dora the Explorer merchandise like a soldier headed into war.

“Nothing, um, I forgot I had it, sorry…but what were you doing in here?” I asked him, dropping the umbrella. “And who’s Claire? You should’ve told me you had a girlfriend before you came. I’m not comfortable with that. Maybe you should go.”

“Oh,” he said again, blushing maroon. “Sorry, I needed a moment to make sure she was okay, so I wandered back here. She’s not my girlfriend, she’s, uh, my sister.”

“Your sister?”

“Yeah, she’s, um, in the hospital for something. She usually doesn’t know how to call me on her own, so when she called while you were at the door, I was half afraid a nurse was calling with bad news or something.”

I stood back a little, horrified by my thoughts. “Oh. You were so sweet with her – I’m surprised. Is this a baby sister?”

He looked away. “She’s actually twenty-six. It’s…complicated. She has some issues we’re dealing with.”

“Oh, wow. Sorry.” I slumped and scratched my elbow. “God, I feel like such an idiot now. To be honest, when you disappeared, I almost thought you were stealing or doing drugs or something.”

He dropped his shoulders again. “Oh, thanks…”

“Ugh, just let me stop talking forever,” I chided myself. “There’s my old foot-in-mouth syndrome again. I was just caught off guard, that’s all. Sorry. I guess I’ve gotten so used to being let down by people, I’ve come to expect the worst, so I won’t ever be surprised.”

He nodded. “I know what you mean. Who was that at the door, anyway?”

“Oh, um…a neighbor.”

He looked over my shoulder. “Wait, what? What did she want? Did she see me? Do you want me to leave, or...?”

“No,” I said, stepping forward, “if anything, that’ll only make it worse. She’ll be watching the house until her nightly glass of sherry knocks her out, I’m sure.”

“Damn. What now, then?”

I studied him. I’d been wrong – he
wasn’t
bad – and now our night could continue. I glanced through the doorway to my expansive living room windows looking out onto the street. I was horny as hell, there was no denying that, and I didn’t want my nosy neighbor to keep me from the best sex of my life, and so I closed the doors into the living room and faced Ben. I needed another calming glass of wine in front of the flames of my automatic fireplace before I blew a gasket or something, and I needed it now.

“Here, let’s sit again,” I said. “God knows I need to sit down and shut up for a second.”

“Sounds good to me,” he laughed, amused with me for some reason. After I poured two glasses of wine we both settled into the wingback chairs facing the fireplace, which roared and cackled before us. Ben took a long sip and then stared into the flames, lost in his own mind. Soon it started to rain outside, the steady, raw drizzle washing the townhouse clean, the pitter-patter on the adjoining sunroom’s roof lulling me into some sort of trance. But at the same time, my stomach still churned and squirmed from being so close to Ben, which was directly at odds with the peace in my mind. How could his presence be so comforting and so electrifying at the same time?

“I’m sorry about your sister,” I said again, getting the succinct feeling that I wasn’t the only one in the room who was hurting.

“Thanks,” he said. “Sorry for ditching you. I missed her, and I was worried about her.”

“Of course. Are you her – uh, her…”

“Her caretaker?” he prompted. “Pretty much. Our parents…
removed
themselves from the situation some time ago. So it’s just me.”

“You mean they
left you
? With a sister who couldn’t take care of herself?”

His eyes grew larger, something seeming to bubble up from somewhere in his soul. “My parents should have never been parents,” he said, a new iciness in his voice. “It is not normal to put out offspring into the world and then just not care about them. But their total and complete failure at being humans taught me a lot, and I am all my sister will ever need, and that is that.”

I wanted to reach out and hug him, but I couldn’t. “That’s awful that you had to deal with all that,” I said, and he shrugged and looked away. And suddenly I realized the reason behind that strange darkness I’d noticed battling on his face with all the charming boyishness: carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders had forced him to grow up too quickly and become a man in a boy’s body. I thought of my own twenties, when I’d signed up to live in a fantasy and had instead been left alone in a cold, empty house all day, and the light around Ben seemed to change. “Is that – is that what made you do this?” I asked him, unable to stop myself, and he frowned at the flames.