Second Child (7 page)

At last Phyllis’s hands dropped away from Melissa’s shoulders. Her expression softened into a smile. “That’s right,” she said. “What happened yesterday was your fault, and it was your own guilty conscience that made you walk in your sleep.”

Melissa nodded numbly, then looked pleadingly up at her mother. “Is it all right now?” she asked.

Phyllis’s smile remained in place, but a cold look came into her eyes that renewed Melissa’s terror. “We’ll see,” she said. “We’ll see what happens for the rest of today.”

At a little past noon Phyllis pulled her Mercedes into the parking lot of the Cove Club and flipped the visor down to examine her hair and makeup in its illuminated mirror. A single strand of her pale blond hair had escaped the severe French twist at the back of her head, and she carefully worked it back into place, then applied a touch of gloss to her lips. At last she got out of the car, acknowledged the valet’s friendly greeting with a curt nod, and walked into the foyer of the club, pausing for a moment, as always, to admire the view of the open Atlantic from the picture windows that comprised the entire eastern wall of the building’s main lounge. She glanced around, almost nervously, then chided herself for falling victim once more to the uneasy sense that even after thirteen years she still didn’t quite feel as if she belonged here. She glanced into one of the full-length mirrors that covered the huge pillars supporting the roof, and reassured herself that she was dressed perfectly—the emerald-green suit was made of pure silk, as was the cream-colored blouse beneath it. Her
stockings, with their fashionably patterned seams, were free of snags, and though her shoes weren’t quite comfortable, they went perfectly with the suit. As the maitre d’ approached, Phyllis smiled at him with just enough coolness to keep him gently in his place.

“I hope I’m not the first,” she said. “I always hate sitting by myself.”

“Not at all,” André replied smoothly. “The rest of the ladies have just begun their drinks.” He turned, leading Phyllis into the main dining room where, in the far corner, she could see the other three members of the club’s Social Committee already seated at Lenore Van Arsdale’s usual table.

And then, as she approached the table, her blood froze.

Lenore, and the two other women, too, were all wearing warm-up suits, their feet clad in tennis shoes or sandals. None of them wore even a hint of makeup. As André held Phyllis’s chair out for her, Lenore smiled with what might have been sympathy. Phyllis was certain it was a look of amusement.

“I’m so sorry,” Lenore apologized. “I should have called and let you know some us were having a game of tennis this morning and we’d decided not to dress. But you look wonderful! I’d never have the nerve to wear that color so early in the day—I always save the really bright things for big parties where I want to be sure Harry can keep track of me.”

Phyllis felt herself flush with humiliation, and hoped the color in her face wouldn’t show under her makeup. So they’d played tennis but hadn’t invited her. And how dumb did Lenore Van Arsdale think she was, coyly suggesting her clothes were wrong? Why
shouldn’t
she wear this suit at lunch? Yet as she nervously glanced around the dining room, she realized Lenore was right—all the women in the room were dressed in soft pastels—simple cotton skirts with expensively casual knit tops. How could she have been so stupid? At the last meeting—

And then she remembered. At the last meeting all the other women had been going on to a large cocktail party.

A cocktail party to which she herself had not been invited.

She came out of her reverie as she felt Kay Fielding
squeeze her arm, and realized that though Kay had spoken to her, she hadn’t heard a word the woman had said. “I’m sorry,” she apologized. “I’m afraid my mind drifted.”

“Well, I certainly can’t blame you,” Kay said, her voice filled with sympathy. “After what’s happened …”

Once again Phyllis flushed. “I can’t tell you how sorry I am,” she said. “I can’t imagine what got into Melissa. I suppose it was the disappointment of her father having to leave, but she asked me to apologize to everyone.”

Kay’s smile faltered. “Apologize? For what?”

Phyllis swallowed. “The—The party yesterday. I’m afraid Melissa behaved abominably, and I want you all to know I’ve spoken to her about it.”

Lenore Van Arsdale’s tinkling laughter rippled across the table. “Oh, for goodness sakes, Phyllis—what’s a child’s birthday party without a disaster? And who can blame Melissa for being upset—we all know how she feels about her father!” Then her expression turned serious and she leaned forward, her voice dropping. “Kay was talking about poor Polly. It’s just ghastly. How on earth could such a terrible thing happen?”

Suddenly the other three women were leaning forward, too, their gazes fixed on Phyllis. And for once, she realized, they truly wanted to hear what she had to say. Doing her best to remember every word Charles had told her on the phone that morning, she described what had happened.

When she was done, Lenore Van Arsdale sat back in her chair, sighing heavily. “It’s horrible,” she said. “Well, thank God at least Teri got out. But what’s going to happen to her now?”

Once again every eye at the table fixed on Phyllis Holloway. “Why, she’s coming to live with us, of course,” she said. “After all, she
is
Charles’s daughter. Where else would she go?”

Kay Fielding’s perfectly manicured fingers toyed nervously with her fork. “We were simply thinking—well, we all know about Melissa’s …” Her voice trailed off for a second as she searched for the right word. “…  well, her
problems,
Phyllis. She’s always been such a high-strung child.”

Phyllis felt her face burning, but forced a calm smile. “Actually, I think it will be good for her to have Teri
here,” she said. “Sometimes I think a lot of Melissa’s problems are simply a function of her being an only child.”

“Perhaps you’re right,” Kay Fielding replied, though her voice clearly indicated she doubted her own words. Then she brightened. “And certainly Teri has all the right genes. After all, she’s a Holloway on one side and a Porter on the other. You can’t really beat that, can you?”

Eleanor Stevens spoke for the first time. “Polly certainly managed to,” she observed archly. “I mean, can you imagine, giving away every cent she had? Her parents must still be spinning in their graves.” She shook her head sympathetically. “The things that child should have had that her mother simply denied her. Sometimes I think Polly must have been crazy.”

Lenore Van Arsdale shot Eleanor a disapproving look. “It was Berkeley that did that,” she pronounced. “If she’d gone to college at a decent school, she’d have been fine. She was my best friend for years, and I can tell you that there was nothing wrong with her until she went to California. But when she came back, she was never the same.”

“Well,” Kay Fielding said brightly, “at least we’re getting Teri back while there’s still time for her to get off to a good start in life.”

The conversation went on, but Phyllis was no longer listening. Instead, her mind was working furiously. Until a few moments ago, though she’d not said a word of it to anyone, she’d wondered what on earth she was going to do with Teri MacIver in the house. It was bad enough having to cope with one teenage girl, especially one as difficult as Melissa. But two? The prospect had been almost more than she could cope with. And yet, she saw now, there was another side to the coin. These women—these women who never let her forget for a minute that she was not really one of them—were obviously ready to accept Teri MacIver back into the fold, despite the fact that they hadn’t seen her for more than thirteen years. Teri, she was certain, would be invited to all the little parties from which Melissa had been excluded. And there would be parties at Maplecrest now, too, for it would be up to her to reciprocate the hospitality that certainly would be showered on Teri. Yes, perhaps Teri would finally provide the
key to acceptance in Secret Cove that Phyllis knew had always been withheld from her.

And it wasn’t fair.

Just as it wasn’t fair that she’d always had to live with the knowledge that if Polly herself had come back, these women would have accepted her back into their circle just as if she’d never left at all.

Just as if Polly Porter had been as good a wife to Charles as she herself was.

But at least in her heart she knew it wasn’t true. Polly hadn’t been nearly the eccentric paragon all these women remembered. Indeed, sometimes Phyllis wanted to tell them what had
really
gone on at Maplecrest before Polly had finally left. Even now the memories still burned brightly.

One night, in particular.

There was a party scheduled at Maplecrest, and though it hadn’t been Phyllis’s job, she’d done all the planning for it, working out the details of the menu with Cora, ordering the flowers from the shop in the village, making certain every aspect of the party would be perfect.

And all that day Polly, clad in frayed jeans and a sweatshirt, had sat curled up on the sofa in the library, reading poetry.

Poetry, for God’s sake!

An hour before the party was to begin, when Charles had suggested she might want to start dressing, she’d only glanced indifferently up from her book. “Maybe I’ll skip it,” she’d said. “It’s just the same old dull crowd, going on and on about nothing.”

Phyllis, who had happened to be in the library at the time, had seen the hurt in Charles’s eyes. He’d even glanced at her, but it hadn’t been a glance of embarrassment because she was overhearing his wife’s words.

It had been a plea for understanding.

And she
had
understood.

Understood that Charles needed a wife who would willingly throw herself into the only life he’d ever lived.

He’d needed a hostess who could entertain his business associates without her eyes glazing over from boredom.

He’d needed a partner who understood that the Holloway
fortune was something to be appreciated and nurtured, not sneered at.

He’d needed her, not Polly.

But none of them—not one of the women who had been Polly’s childhood friends, had ever understood that. Polly would forever be Polly, whom they’d known all their lives, and she would forever be Phyllis, the outsider.

But now, with Teri MacIver coming back, all that might possibly—finally—change.

As the lunch wore on and the women began discussing the final plans for the costume party that traditionally marked the middle of the Secret Cove season, Phyllis managed to pay attention, if not actually participate in the discussion. But most of her mind was occupied with planning for Teri’s arrival. Perhaps she was wrong, after all, about the small room next to Melissa’s. Maybe Teri should have something larger. It wouldn’t do, not to welcome this second, unexpected child properly into their lives. She made a mental note to talk to Cora again when she got home. No, better to call her now—perhaps she’d stay after lunch and enjoy a martini or two out by the pool. Excusing herself, she left the table and went in search of a phone.

As soon as she was gone, Lenore Van Arsdale leaned forward again, her voice low. “My God,” she said. “Can you imagine what Polly must be thinking now? Not only did Phyllis manage to get hold of her husband, but now she’s got her daughter, too!”

“What I don’t understand,” Kay Fielding put in, “is why Charles stays with that woman at all. The way she treats him—”

“It’s Melissa,” Eleanor Stevens replied. “Charles has always been a decent man, and I simply can’t imagine him abandoning Melissa to Phyllis.”

“But he wouldn’t have to,” Kay protested. “There isn’t a court in the world that wouldn’t give him custody.”

“Of course not,” Eleanor agreed. “But that’s not really the point. The point is that Phyllis would put up a terrible fight, and Melissa would be right in the middle of it. And knowing Phyllis, she’d drag it on for years, even if she knew she’d lose. Charles won’t put Melissa through that, and I don’t blame him.”

“But to stay with Phyllis.” Kay sighed. “It just seems so unfair. And it’s not as if it’s helping Melissa. Living with Phyllis would drive anyone crazy, and poor Melissa just keeps getting stranger and stranger. It’ll be a wonder if—” She fell silent as she felt Kay Fielding kick her under the table, and turned her head just in time to see Phyllis herself standing frozen behind her chair.

Five minutes later, behind the wheel of her Mercedes, Phyllis vented her cold anger as she slammed the accelerator to the floorboard and heard the rear wheels screech as they lost their traction. She shot out of the parking lot and started down the coast road, rolling the window down to let the wind blow in her face.

The words she’d heard Kay Fielding utter as she came back to the table still burned in her mind: “…  poor Melissa just keeps getting stranger and stranger.” No wonder she’d had so much trouble breaking into the world of Secret Cove. Everyone in town thought there was something wrong with her daughter! And why shouldn’t they? Ever since the day she was born, Melissa had been different from the rest of the kids in Secret Cove. She hadn’t been like Teri at all.

Teri, in the few months during which Phyllis had been her nurse, had been a perfect baby. Blond and blue-eyed, she’d never fussed at all, instead smiling happily up at anyone who happened to be there. She’d seemed to watch whatever was going on around her, smiling and laughing, reaching out for everything and everybody.

Not like Melissa, who seemed to spend most of her time crying, except when her father picked her up. And while Teri, even as a baby, had been so outgoing, Melissa had been painfully shy, refusing to play with the other babies on the beach, always preferring to be by herself. Always shutting herself away. Behaving strangely. Making her mother a laughingstock.

Since the day she was born, Phyllis thought, Melissa had kept her from being part of the Secret Cove Crowd.

It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t how she’d planned it at all. She’d taken Polly’s place as Charles’s wife and as the mother of his child. It was only right that she should also
have had Polly’s place in the Crowd. But it had never happened.