Perfect Little Ladies (3 page)

Stiff? Ha ha, Poppy thought, that would be an understatement.

They’d been married seven years; he was her third husband—or was he the fourth? No, he was only the third. She kept forgetting that she hadn’t married Roger. She’d meant to, but Momma had coerced her into going to Monte Carlo, and that’s when Poppy met Duane, who was there for the gambling.

He was handsome and charming, more charming than Roger, and they’d fallen in love, and so there you had it.

Within weeks they were married in front of the long reflecting pool at the majestic pink and white Rothschild villa on Saint Jean Cap Ferrat.

Whirlwind,
Momma had called it and not added her blessing.

Poppy supposed that if she’d been smart, she’d have waited until they’d returned to the States to tie the knot. Maybe then she would have learned that though Duane indeed came from a silver mining family as he claimed, his older brother had bankrupted the mines. Duane had been on the Riviera trying to win back his fortune, but he’d won Poppy and her trust fund instead, and he’d never gone back to Reno or his destitute brother.

Momma had said there wasn’t much worse than old money now gone.

Still, it was too bad he couldn’t have at least kept a bit of the silver. Momma thought trinkets were so very pretty.

Poppy went to her closet and slipped into a long satin robe. Once, she might have slid between the sheets where Duane lay, might have let him cuddle up to her round little ass.

But unlike Elinor, apparently, Poppy had grown weary of sex. Duane didn’t work, and he didn’t play golf: he claimed that “nature photography” was his passion, but Poppy knew it
really was sex. Day, night, morning, afternoon. For pity’s sake, she got tired. A few years ago, she’d faked female problems. She’d suggested that he call a “service” she’d said that she’d understand.

They’d never discussed it again. Their lovemaking became thankfully sparse, and Duane often came home well after dark, long after the sun set on any pictures he might snap.

Moving into her bathroom, Poppy sat on the plush white stool at her vanity. She looked into the mirror at her pasty complexion that had grown even pastier since Elinor’s announcement.

Blackmail wasn’t a new concept to Poppy. Duane, after all, had been sort of blackmailing her all this time, had the ring on his finger and the funnel to her trust fund because of what he knew, or hinted that he knew. But Poppy wasn’t stupid. Let others think she had a silly, blind eye. If all it took was a few thousand dollars to Duane every month, a few moments here and there of acting as if she didn’t care how he spent his time, protecting her secret was worth it.

It was the least she could do for Momma after all she’d been through.

Poor Momma!

Well, Poppy wouldn’t think about her right now.

She’d focus on the pleasantries of life and how at least Duane was still not bad to look at. There could be worse men to escort her to places like the yacht club, where they were going tonight, worse men to have in her wallet.

Men,
she thought.
They could be such a bother.

But as she pulled back her red hair and looked into the mirror, a sickening thought washed over Poppy:

What if Duane had grown tired of her and the pittance of his allowance?

What if he’d learned about Elinor’s lover; what if Duane was the blackmailer?

Poppy stared at her reflection, blinked quickly three times, and decided she’d better not think about that right now, either.

Four

“Mother” Jonas said, “you remember the congressman?”

“Of course, darling, don’t be a goose.” Elinor held out her hand to the Honorable Congressman William Perry (R-Ill.) (or Indiana, one of those oceanless states).

“Delighted to see you again, Mrs. Young,” the congressman said. He had big hands, a big head full of big, white hair, and a deep, resonant voice. He looked rather uncomfortable in khakis and a polo shirt, as if he should have included a tie.

Still, he was perfectly civilized, and Elinor was determined to make this a nice evening, determined not to let anyone notice her occasional glance toward the phone, or otherwise reveal her fear that the
instructions to follow
would
follow
that evening in the presence of guests,
these
guests, of all people. The congress
man and his wife, after all, were far-right right-wingers, who would not be enamored to know that their daughter’s future mother-in-law had dropped her lavender lace panties in Midtown Manhattan, where they didn’t belong.

Elinor attempted a relaxed, confident smile. “Please,” she said, “call me Elinor.”

The congressman grinned a polite grin. “Elinor,” he said. “Your husband is showing Lucinda and my wife the topiaries. That’s quite a garden you have.”

“Thank you, we enjoy it.”

“Your husband designed it?”

“Yes, with our daughter, Janice.” Already her jaw was beginning to ache from her form-fitting smile.

The Honorable Congressman Perry turned to Jonas. “Betts and I haven’t met Janice, have we?” Betts was the wife presently in the topiaries. She’d been one of Elinor’s buttoned-up mentors when they’d first moved to Washington, one of the wives who’d invited Elinor to tea. She’d probably never even owned lavender panties, let alone had an affair.

“Janice is in Baltimore,” Jonas said. “Johns Hopkins. She’s a medical researcher.”

“A medicine man, like her father, then.” He made a slight noise that could have been a guffaw.

“Martini?” Elinor asked. The congressman nodded, and they wandered toward the living room, because that’s where Elinor had set up the bar. He examined the Frederic Remington over the mantel and the Winslow Homer by the French doors, and he chatted with Jonas while she poured the drinks from the crystal pitcher that had been a gift from Joseph “Remy” Remillard back when he’d been a senator and Malcolm had overseen the care of his elderly father, who’d been
diagnosed with Lou Gehrig’s disease. Malcolm was always doing things like that—helping others not because he was a lobbyist but because he was just a good guy. If he crisscrossed any political boundaries or breached any conflicts of interest, no one seemed to notice or care.

Still, she poured from the pitcher, always with the hope someone would ask where it had come from because it was so lovely, and she could say,
“Oh, just a small gift from Remy,”
Remy, of course, who was now the vice president of these United States.

To date, no one had asked.

She set the triangular glasses atop a small tray and walked them over to the congressman and Jonas. Jonas was taller than his future father-in-law and much better looking, with a bright smile of youth, his mother’s gray eyes, and thick ebony hair, which, though Elinor insisted he keep it trimmed short, really looked more attractive when it was a bit long.

The men snatched their drinks and Elinor snatched hers. She’d be smarter to have wine, but tonight she needed something stronger, something to prevent her from running, screaming, from the perfectly civilized room. Something to keep her face locked in its smile while she prayed that the phone didn’t ring.

CJ fixed a salad for dinner and thought about Elinor and Malcolm, who were probably sipping Domaines Ott and nibbling bruschetta with the Perrys and Jonas. Elinor would be wearing a Vera Wang summer shift; CJ had changed into Crocs and her favorite, paint-splattered shirt. After dinner she’d go out to her studio and work on new fabric designs. It would be more pleasant than wondering how Elinor had ended up in
this situation and how on earth it could be resolved. It would be more productive than thinking about Malcolm.

“Malcolm has been disinterested in me for a number of years,”
Elinor had said.

The very thought made CJ grow weak. She shook her head, then carried her salad to the small, round oak table that had “come with” the cottage, one of many things that had once furnished the lives of her parents and now furnished hers. Not much had ever originally “belonged” to CJ, except her ex-husband, and she’d tossed him like the salad before her.

She stabbed a grape tomato and three leaves of romaine. She wondered if having a lover had compromised Elinor’s sanity. It had been a while since CJ had had a serious relationship, but she remembered too clearly how it could mess with your mind.

Still, Elinor had a history of emerging a winner.

Of the twins, Elinor had, after all, wound up with the husband, the family, the stable, full life filled with good works and wide interests and bright, eclectic people. She had money and connections and social power; she had houses and things that were hers.

Why had she needed a lover?

“Malcolm has been disinterested in me…”

CJ chewed the tomato, wishing she didn’t feel just a teensy bit gratified that Elinor’s home life was not as the world had been led to presume.

Smugness was a sin, she supposed, but what the hell. For years, CJ had wondered why Elinor had ended up with it all, when CJ had been the one who’d sacrificed everything, who’d had her art and her work but that really had been all.

The worst part was, it was her own fault.

It had started nearly three decades ago. CJ was in Paris,
studying at the Sorbonne. While she was away, Elinor married Malcolm, a research scientist fresh out of medical school. Within months, Elinor gave birth to a baby girl, Janice. Hours later, however, she developed a fast infection and was rushed into surgery. A hush-hush hysterectomy followed. Then deep depression.

“She needs your help,” their father had said when he summoned CJ.

CJ went home without question. They might be different, but they were sisters.

So CJ had helped out with the baby, and with Elinor, who grieved for the other children she’d never have. She showed little interest in Janice, claiming it was too difficult to love an only child. Elinor was a twin, after all. As far as she knew, love came in twos. She told CJ and Malcolm that if only she could have one more baby, everything would be all right.

She was diagnosed with postpartum depression, though back then the condition was pretty much a mystery and there weren’t many drugs that helped.

Then Elinor announced that she had a plan.

Elinor always had a plan. She was the alpha dog twin.

“We’re identical,” she said to CJ. “Our cheeks and our eyes and our smiles are the same. So is our DNA.”

If CJ had Malcolm’s baby, she reasoned, it would be no different than if the baby had been in Elinor’s womb.

No one would know, so whom would it hurt?

Whom, indeed.

CJ stared at her salad now, her appetite suddenly gone. They’d been so young, and, of course, stupid. It had been long before technology was perfected, long before
surrogate
was a household word.

CJ and Malcolm would have to have sex.

“Once or twice ought to do it,” Elinor had said.

It had taken eight times for CJ to get pregnant, but only once for CJ and Malcolm to fall in love. It had startled them both—horrified them, really. The only way they’d been able to rise above it had been to try and pretend it had never happened,
pretend
being the operative word.

Elinor and Malcolm had moved to D.C., and CJ moved with them. No one but their parents—not Alice, not Poppy—knew that the twins had switched roles for nine months.

Over the years the lie grew familiar, if not comfortable. Afraid there would always be sparks between Malcolm and her, CJ became adept at dodging family parties and holidays. It was stressful and painful and just plain depressing. But each time CJ looked at Jonas, each time she witnessed the product their love had wrought, she couldn’t say she was sorry.

But now, if Malcolm was disinterested in Elinor—as shamefully gratifying as it felt—did it mean the worst thing CJ could imagine: that Malcolm had found someone else?

Five

Alice’s daughter, Felicity, was twenty-five,
too old to be snowboarding in Utah, where she lived off-season in a yurt. On the other hand, Alice’s other daughter, Melissa, was twenty-seven, not old enough to be the mother of three, the oldest of whom was Kiley Kate. Like Elinor and Malcolm, Alice and Neal had married so young that the lives they now lived seemed too old for them.

Maybe that was why Elinor had sought distraction elsewhere: She’d been suffocating as a New-York-to-Washington wife.

Maybe that—not roller-coastering estrogen—was also why Alice had been looking this way and that, obsessing about the potential of out-of-town penises when she should have been focusing on her granddaughter’s promising career.

She could ask Elinor if she agreed, but that would mean confessing her sins. Alice surely wasn’t ready for that. Besides, it wasn’t as if she’d had sex with the out-of-towners. (One night with Leonard had left her guilty enough.) Still, she did enjoy the little game she’d invented of flirting and teasing and knowing she still had what it took to turn a man’s head.

Hers was a harmless game.

On the scale of infidelity, however, Alice supposed her behavior might be considered as culpable as Elinor’s affair. Especially if Neal ever found out.

So, in lieu of confessing (at least not immediately), Alice decided to divert her attention by hopping into her big, white Cadillac SUV and driving to her daughter and son-in-law’s to deliver a surprise for Kiley Kate: a sequin-splashed, to-die-for outfit for the upcoming
USA Sings
audition in Orlando. After all, Alice and Kiley Kate would leave on Thursday, whether Elinor’s panties found their way home or not.

With a small sigh, Alice turned the Esplanade onto the back road that led to Melissa and David’s house that Alice and Neal paid for because David was just getting started in a Wall Street career, and status began with property worth. It ended, of course, when…if…character imprudence was detected—at least in Mount Kasteel, where status often outranked common sense.

Was that what Alice had become? An imprudent character?