The Body in the Ivy (2 page)

“Millions, no make that billions, of people would kill for the chance to meet her. I can't believe you're hesitating!”

Faith couldn't believe she was, either. “Okay, I'll do it.”

“Good,” Hope had said. “I already told them you would.”

 

The whistle blew. The train was approaching a crossing. Faith looked at the gates and cars lined up behind them. The whistle blew again. Funny how the scene outside changed as she altered her gaze. Looking off into the distance, objects were easily identifiable; next to the tracks, everything was a blur. The opposite of life, she thought. You could tell what things were when they were in front of you, but not when they were far away. Or could you?

 

The drone of the jet engines had not lulled Roberta Dolan to sleep. Even if she had not been so excited, she
wouldn't have wanted to miss a moment of the flight. She had never flown first class before and the experience of having an attendant respond to her slightest need was exhilarating. The instant her glass was empty more deliciously cold Pellegrino water appeared; champagne had been offered, but Roberta tried to keep her body free from such toxins. She did accept another helping of the smoked Scottish salmon appetizer, though, with a slight pang of vegan guilt.

The call had come in late February when the weather in Calistoga had been bleak for paradise—rain and more rain. She had been surprised when the owner of the spa where she had been working for the last few years summoned her to the phone. No one ever called her at work. In fact, no one called her much at all. A man's voice had asked her if she was Roberta Dolan, and of course she was. That is, she was now, back where she started from, after two marriages, the second worse than the first if that was possible—and it was. “Yes?” she'd responded, and he'd introduced himself as Owen, the writer Barbara Bailey Bishop's personal assistant. Ms. Bishop was hosting a small gathering of female friends in June on her private island and wanted to provide massages in the spa. Would Ms. Dolan be willing to be the on-site masseuse? All expenses paid and a fee that was equal to what Roberta made in a year. She had gasped and accepted immediately. She had been so stunned that it wasn't until after she'd hung up that she'd thought to wonder why world-famous Barbara Bailey Bishop wanted her in particular. Yes, she was very good and the spa's star masseuse—highly skilled in Swedish, Shiatsu, Reiki, and reflexology—but how would Bishop
on the East Coast know that? Unless she had come to the spa incognito! Roberta had spent many happy hours during the intervening weeks thinking back over her clientele, choosing first one sheeted and turbaned figure then another as her benefactress. She'd also spent many hours preparing herself for her task. She did not know how old the women were or what conditions they might present, so she had prepared herself for all possibilities, meditating and centering, connecting the energy of her
hara
chakra, her lower abdomen, with her hands—letting the breath of her body transform itself into touch. She did this briefly at work before each massage, but engaged in the practice at length when she was home. She tried to visualize the island, the women, meditating in silence without her rain forest music so her mind could hear the sound of the ocean and the wind. At times she thought she could hear the low murmur of the women's voices—the receivers of her gift of touch.

The tickets and instructions had arrived shortly after the conversation, and the intervening months had passed quickly as she made her preparations. She shipped the stones she had collected over the years for hot rock massage, perfect for bringing gentle, soothing heat to each chakra and the area around it. Roberta treasured her stones. Then there were her oils for massage and aromatherapy. As a world-famous author, Barbara Bailey Bishop was bound to be stressed by the constant pressure to produce her books. Everyone has stress, of course; it's one of the life forces. So Roberta had packed her special chamomile oil, and tea. She gathered the flowers herself and prided herself on her clients' reactions, stress reduction the natural way. And lavender. It
was calming as well and wonderful for hair and skin. Skin. She'd mixed some oregano oil for cellulite. The smell sometimes made her clients hungry, but there was no doubt about its effect. Finally, she'd included hypoallergenic oils and creams, even plain vegetable oil infused with some extracts of orange, vanilla, and ginger from the grocery store for anyone severely allergic. If you can eat something without a reaction, it can be used on your skin. She sipped some more water. Hydrate, always hydrate—especially on a plane. She hoped she had thought of everything. There wouldn't be any way to replace something she'd forgotten to pack. Owen had assured her that Ms. Bailey's personal spa was fully equipped with a massage couch and chair, plus an abundance of linens, including robes. Everything she would or could need had been shipped several weeks ago, so that all Roberta had had to do was wait. And now, she thought, looking out the window at the piles of fluffy white clouds, the wait was over.

 

Hartford at rush hour. Hartford
always
seemed to be at rush hour, Lucy Stapleton fumed. She was listening to Anne Tyler's
Ladder of Years
. It was about a mother who runs away from home. A mother who actually does it, acts on that impulse all mothers have at some point. You're on the way to pick up milk and the thought that you could just keep driving becomes so tantalizing you have to pull over, get your bearings—and eventually your milk. Well, Lucy had left her home behind, but she would be back in a week. Ned would miss her, but not that much. Would enjoy the solitude with the girls gone, too. Young women did such extraordinary things these
days. At their age, she'd spent the summer playing tennis, sailing, flirting. Callie was building houses in Nicaragua, or at least Lucy thought that was the right country. One of those places. And not because it would look good on her college applications; she was done with all that, starting at NYU in the fall, much to Ned's annoyance. Now that his alma mater was taking girls, he figured that's where his daughters should be going—even if he wasn't comfortable with the change, an opinion he voiced vociferously. When Lucy pointed out this might be what was discouraging the girls from considering Yale, he tempered his remarks. When they still weren't interested, he'd said, “Let them go to Pelham,” and couldn't understand why his wife wasn't pushing her old school. NYU! What kind of people went there? Certainly not his kind, and he was damned sure he wasn't going to pay for it—until Lucy quietly told him she would if he didn't. Then there was the house-building project in Central America. “Dad!” Callie had exclaimed when he'd objected—she'd stopped calling him “Daddy” last summer, Lucy noticed. “I want to do this. It's important work. The world is not just Connecticut and a very small part of New York City, you know!” He'd freshened his drink, and Lucy's. “Talk to me in five years, or less, when you've gotten this out of your system, my little bleeding heart.” Their older daughter was at Stanford and spending the summer as a PA on an independent film that she had assured them would take Sundance by storm. Ned had wanted to know if it was X-rated, and had elicited a “Daddy!”—Becky hadn't followed her sister's example. Both of them called Lucy “Mom” and, except as toddlers, always had.

The traffic started to move. Lucy looked at the outside temperature gauge on the dash. It was hot for June, which made sense since it had been excruciatingly cold until late May.

When Barbara's assistant, Owen, had phoned in February to invite her for a week on Bishop's Island, she had hesitated. She hadn't seen the author in many years. She had told him she'd get back to him, then discussed it with Ned when she picked him up at the train.

“Go. Be indulged. It sounds like quite a place.”

The decision was obviously of little interest to him.

So she had called back and accepted. “A small, fun group of ladies,” Owen had said. “Barbara is sorry you two haven't stayed in touch and wants you to join them.”

A fun group of ladies. She'd been with groups of ladies her entire life, some a whole lot more fun than others. It remained to be seen where these ladies would fall.

 

It wasn't that she minded using Barbara Bailey Bishop's private plane. In fact, it was a kick, but Gwen Mansfield would have preferred to use her own. She had no trouble admitting to herself that it was all about control. Her whole life, her whole career, was based on taking control and maintaining it. She'd been divorced and then widowed, admittedly a loss of control on that one. The investment counseling she'd started to do after business school had been targeted on women, and after the thousandth time she'd heard herself deliver the same lines about female financial empowerment,
she wrote them down. Right time, right audience—women in the eighties. The first book became a financial bible; she became a regular on every show from Oprah to Louis Rukeyser, and her firm, the Mansfield Group, was still a wildly successful alternative to mostly men in suits at Smith Barney. She employed men, of course, and they dressed in suits, even on Fridays, but Armani not Brooks Brothers. Some of her female employees favored the same haute business couture, but many opted for a softer Eileen Fisher look. In sum, the Mansfield Group was
not
your father's brokerage house.

The attendant offered her a glass of champagne. “Dom Pérignon 1990.”

Gwen barely looked up from her laptop. “Laphroaig, a few rocks, and something to eat.”

“We have some nice smoked salmon. Ms. Bishop has it sent over from Scotland—”

“Spare me the details. I'm sure it's a fisherman who catches the fish in the morning, races to his smoke-house, and has it on the plane the next day or whenever. Whole grain bread, no crusts, cut in triangles, and unsalted butter and capers on the side.”

The drink, in a Baccarat tumbler naturally, arrived, followed swiftly by a refill in a new glass and the food. Gwen put her laptop on sleep and set it aside. The scotch had given her a pleasant buzz and the Scottish salmon looked good. When Bishop's assistant, Owen, had called in February asking her to provide a weeklong seminar in money management for a group of his employer's friends on the author's private island, Gwen had said no. She hadn't done groups for years. He mentioned the fee,
more than she expected, but at this point in her life, she could afford to turn it down. She'd thanked him for the offer, said something about being honored or similar bullshit, and hung up. That afternoon flowers arrived, nothing hokey like roses or orchids, but winter whites: peonies, lisianthus, ranunculus, lilacs, tiny dahlias, and snowberry branches in a large blue and white Ming ginger jar, the top nestled in a cushioned scarlet silk box that accompanied the arrangement. Gwen collected Chinese porcelain. The piece was exquisite, breathtaking with the flowers, each petal perfect, each scent heady but not cloying. It was like Gwen's perfume, a mixture made only for her. She had searched for a card, the name of the florist. Her housekeeper had said that it had been left with the doorman. They were at Gwen's duplex in New York's San Remo, a business pied-à-terre. She also had a house in Palm Beach and one in L.A., plus a suite at Claridge's in London.

“Ms. Bishop hopes you are enjoying the flowers.” The call had come the next day. Nothing crass, no “She hopes you will reconsider.” Just “Ms. Bishop hopes you are enjoying the flowers.” It was all about control and Gwen took charge. “I think I'll be able to work that week into my schedule after all,” she'd said. She'd always admired a good seduction.

 

The prospect was exciting. A week filled with music, her music and that of other dedicated musicians. Rachel Gold had had no idea the famous author Barbara Bailey Bishop was a music lover. She was turning her home on her own private island over to a select group, which she'd asked Rachel to lead. Even before Bishop's assistant,
Owen, had mentioned the fee for Rachel's services, she had decided to accept the offer. When he mentioned how much money was involved, Rachel felt dizzy and had to sit down. Her reputation as a classical guitarist was international, but limited. She was known as a “musician's musician” and her following veered toward the cultlike. Her recordings were not about to go gold. An old joke, but as true now as when Ms. Gold had started her career in the early seventies. The call had come in February, and thinking about the gathering in June had taken Rachel through the bitter winter days—days that sapped her spirit. It would be her own mini-Marlboro, mini-Tanglewood. Her mother had rejoiced with her and begged her to use some of the money to buy decent clothes. “If only the real Loehmann's was still around!” Mrs. Gold had spent wisely and well under the guidance of Mrs. Loehmann herself, making pilgrimages to Brooklyn each season for bargain known and unknown designer originals. When she was a child, Rachel had loved to watch her mother get dressed for the Met or Carnegie Hall. The swish of taffeta, glitter of tiny jet beads on filmy silk, the smell of Arpège—the Lanvin atomizer reverently lifted from the clutter on her mother's dressing table to deliver the final touch. Daytime wear was as ritualistic. Her mother would no more have left the apartment without matching hat, gloves, and purse than ride naked down Fifth Avenue in one of those touristy horse-drawn carriages.

Rachel was a regular on Amtrak, shuttling to Boston, D.C., Providence, but she'd never traveled on the Acela first class. Owen—or was it Mr. Owen?—had apologized for the inconvenience of changing trains
and had offered to send a car or Ms. Bishop's private plane. Rachel had gently but firmly rejected his suggestions. Things like that, rock star accoutrements, made her nervous. A train ticket was all she required.

The motion of the train was lulling her to sleep. She felt her eyelids grow heavy and flutter. She gave in, smiling to herself. This week will be a dream come true, she thought.