The First Wives Club (5 page)

Larry helped Elise as she almost staggered down the hall. He was taller than she, but not by too much, and she was surprisingly heavy for a thin woman. She was letting her head hang forward, and she kept saying, “Please don’t let anyone see me.” Over and over, quietly, in that lovely but frightened voice. “Please don’t let anyone see me.”

It was all right now. He’d spoken to them at the desk, handled it.

Thank God his credit card hadn’t been revoked. He had his right arm around Elise, supporting her. He stopped in front of Room 705 and fumbled with the key.

Sometimes he had trouble with locks. Today, thank God, it opened easily.

He felt as if he were in a dream as they crossed the room together and Elise sank onto the bed. Once there, her crying began in earnest. She clutched at the pillow under the perfectly folded spread and pulled it to her stomach. He stood over her, helpless, as she cried like a little child.

She lifted her head from the bed. ‘I’m going to be sick,” she told him, and moaned. Larry reached under her shoulders and helped her stand. They got to the basin just in time, and he held her head as she vomited into the sink. In between the retching, she moaned. Then, “Oh, don’t look!” she cried, but she was so ill he couldn’t leave her.

After a time she stopped, and he helped her stand, turning her from the mirror, gently wiping her face with a damp cloth.

When he was certain she could stand alone, he filled a glass with water and handed it to her. She rinsed her mouth, then picked up the courtesy toothbrush and began to brush her teeth. “Would you get me my bag?” she asked.

She let him stand in the doorway as she fixed her face. Expertly, she quickly reapplied lipstick and eyeliner, then highlighted her cheekbones. When she was done, she saw his reflection in the mirror and looked at him for the first time. She said nothing and walked past him back into the bedroom. He followed her.

”I hope you’re okay,” he said, very unsure of himself.

“Well, I’m not, but thank you. I’m miserable, and very embarrassed. ” “Oh, don’t be. I’m Irish, with five sisters. All of them threw up when they drank.” He was an only child, but he could improvise.

She looked away. ‘Well, then I’m lucky I ran into you, unfortunate as this may be.”

”My great pleasure.” She looked up, surprised to see that there wasn’t a hint of sarcasm on his rather long, intelligent face. Her eyes filled with tears again, and she turned away.

”I’ll just get my things,” she said, moving toward her scarf and jacket on the bed. She picked them up, then turned to find he was beside her, his arms around her. He pressed his cheek to hers, and she felt its surprising smoothness and great warmth. It burned against her cool one. Then he put a hand, carefully, on either side of her face and he was kissing her, softly, on the mouth. His lips were smooth, too, and he simply held her face up to his, his mouth on hers. It was a very long moment, and Elise felt herself tremble against him.

Then he let go and turned away. “Now I’m embarrassed,” he said, and she saw that he was. “I didn’t mean to. I’m very sorry.”

She had never, in almost twenty years, cheated on Bill. She hadn’t been brought up that way, and she was always smart enough to distrust the men who had made passes at her. This man was half her age, probably, and God knows what his background was. His shirt cuff was frayed, and his hair was badly cut. Still, she moved toward him. If he didn’t hold her, she would die. It was that simple. She had to be held. Nothing else mattered.

Larry wasn’t sure what was happening. She was near him and then she kissed him and then they were on the bed, and she was beside him and in his arms, her lovely face against his, her long body pressed to him.

She must have felt his erection now, against her thigh. Still he held her, and she began to stroke his face, so very gently. The tips of her fingers were cool, and she ran them into his hair. He couldn’t suppress a moan of pleasure. She was so beautiful, and now she was stroking his forehead. He didn’t know what she wanted, but he tightened his hold around her, and then she, too, moaned. It was a small sound from deep in her throat. I made her do that, Larry thought, and the feeling of power surged into his loins. Yet he made no move.

Elise was luxuriating in the circle of his arms. She hadn’t felt this good in years. She couldn’t think. She wouldn’t think. She ran her hand over his chest, then down along his thigh. He was hard, aroused for her. She was so grateful she felt she might cry. She mustn’t.

She moved her hand away and began to unbutton his shirt. “Please,” was all she said.

“Yes,” he answered, and sat up and stripped in a few graceful moves.

She felt awkward and frightened for a moment, lying there. But he turned to her and carefully began to undress her. She averted her face until he was done, then felt him lie beside her. He was long and smooth, and his erection pressed firmly against her leg. He turned her to him. “You’re so lovely,” he whispered.

Then he was kissing her again, small, dry kisses of great tenderness, covering her face. She was almost shocked by the tenderness, she hadn’t experienced it in such a long time and hadn’t expected it now.

For a moment she didn’t know what to do. Then he moved his mouth down to her breasts and covered them with the same kisses. She felt a flood of wetness between her legs and gasped at the pleasure of it. Oh, it had been so long, so very long. The goodness of the feeling.

“May I come inside you?” he asked, his voice blurred. She was startled by the question, wasn’t used to it, and then felt another rush of pleasure at being able to grant permission.

“Yes,” and he was inside her, moving so very slowly. There was none of Bill’s thrusting and sawing. She had forgotten, completely forgotten, what this could be like. Oh, the pleasure of it, the relief ! She was being held, and his smooth, young-smelling flesh covered her and entered her. This was slow, and he was so long that he could almost withdraw completely and then move back inside her when she felt she couldn’t bear the separation. She strained against him, and there was no pain, no boredom, no cessation of feeling. She was alive to every nuance, every change in him. He shifted subtly, moving on his arms, merging his hips with her own. She felt hungrier, needier than she ever had before, but her shame and anger were gone. All that was left was the pleasure, the benison of his body pressed into hers.

“Who are you?” she asked. He was looking down at her, watching her face, and then moving his eyes lower, watching himself enter her. He bent his head to kiss hen-again those hot, dry, sweet kisses. “Who are you?” she asked again, nearly out of her mind with the pleasure.

”I’m the man who wants to make you feel better than anyone ever has,” he said, holding her tightly as she came.

Cynthia Swann’s Song.

The first thing Annie heard when she opened the door to her apartment was Sylvie murmuring to Ernesta, and Ernesta’s gentle, lilting voice in response.

Annie paused for a moment, taking in the sounds, knowing they were to become her happy memories. Letting the door close with a clack, she tried to shake off the sadness, calling out with a lightness she didn’t feel, “Hi, ladies, guess who’s home.”

“Mom-Pom,” Sylvie called as she came bounding from the kitchen, a colorful napkin still tied around her neck. “Mom-Pom. Ernesta made me a grilled cheese sandwich and she let me make tomato soup and I didn’t burn myself cause I’m a good cook.”

Sylvie’s round face was bright with the joy of accomplishment, her almond eyes opened wide at its wonder. The face that had been so cute and beguiling on a five-year-old now seemed oddly out of proportion on a girl of sixteen. Not for the first time Annie tried to reconcile the teenage body of her Down’s syndrome child to the five-year-old’s mentality.

”Come back in here, Sylvie, and finish your lunch. That’s the good girl,” Ernesta called out.

Annie kissed Sylvie and patted her cheek. ‘Go on, honey. I’ll be there in a minute.” She watched as Sylvie skipped back to Ernesta.

Annie walked through the living room to the glassed-in conservatory where she kept and nurtured her small collection of bonsai trees. She sat back against the soft pillows of the antique chaise longue and took a deep breath, kicking off her damp, mud-stained pumps. She was so very, very tired. She didn’t know how she was going to do it. The funeral and burial and Stuart Swann had drained every ounce of vitality out of her, but she still had to lay out clothes for Ernesta to pack for the trip to Boston tomorrow. And there was still the packing for Sylvie to be finished.

Annie closed her eyes, wishing she could succumb to the sleep she needed so badly. Maybe things in Boston will go well, she thought.

Maybe things will get better. Then, sighing, she stood up and walked back to Sylvie.

Later, she was labeling some of Sylvie’s boxes when she heard the porter drop her mail on the mat outside the apartment door.

It was the usual collection. A bill from Bergdorf’s, a card from Alex up in Cambridge, half a dozen catalogues. And then there was the letter.

It was unmistakable. The Old Greenwich postmark. The weight of it.

With a sick feeling in her stomach Annie turned it over. There, in perfect engraved script, was the return address, Mrs. Gilbert Griffin.

Annie didn’t want to open it. She knew that what she would find inside Cynthia’s envelope would be shattering. And Annie already felt shattered.

Somehow she got down the hall to her bedroom and stretched out like a corpse on the bed, the letter lying on her lap like a piece of white shrapnel. As she opened the envelope, Pangor jumped up beside her and nuzzled his nose under her chin. Usually she found it comforting, but now it was distracting. She looked down at the spidery, shaky handwriting.

Dear Annie, Please forgive me for asking you to hear what I have to say. I’m afraid to die without letting the one person who loves me know why. First let me say that everything—everything—was my own fault.

My father had objected to my marriage, but I wouldn’t listen to him.

Then my lawyers didn’t want me to sign the power of attorney, but I did. And I never should have let him take Carla off the respirator.

It was all my doing, my fault.

You see, I’ve never felt important to my family. Stuart was always the favorite. I was a good girl, quiet in school, like you, but not smart like you. No one ever noticed me much. Then I got rather pretty and then there was Gil.

Gil wasn’t always the way he is now. When wefirst met, he was handsome and ambitious, not hard. He had energy that was irresistible. And he loved me. Of course, he loved my money and connections and his Jaguar more, I used to think, but never could allow myself to believe.

Dad didn’t really want to take him into thefirm, but he did. We gave him his start. Without the Swann family there would be no Gil Griffin, but perhaps I am wrong about that. Men like Gil will always find someone to help them.

Atfirst things were perfect. Gil loved me, and I loved him, and it was all I ever wanted. Then, one day, I accidentally scratched Gil’s Jaguar while I was shopping in town. When he found out, he was furious. He hit me without even speaking, and when I fell on the floor, he stood over me, screaming about what I had done to his car.

Then Carla was born and things began to get worse. Gil had hated me pregnant.

I was hurt and upset, but I did look so big, so distended, that I just waited until after the baby. Even then, Gil seemed distant. He was distant to Carla, too, from the very beginning. Some men just don’t like infants, I thought. I should have done something, but I didn’t know what. So I put off doing anything. I’m great at that.

And then, when Carla was three, I got pregnant again. I was afraid to tell Gil, but lfinally did. He went insane. He smacked me, hard, across the face.

Not once, but several times. But then again, we both just tried to ignore it.

And I did, for a while.

After that, he was nicer than he’d ever been to me, nicer than I imagined anyone could be. And so, when he asked me, almost a month later, to abort, I was shocked. I was three and a half months gone by then, and I wanted the baby. I had no idea that he wanted no more children. I refused. But he begged me, and then he threatened me and then he begged again. He was relentless. And in the end I gave in.

Nobody knew. We just said I had miscarried.

And there were many more beatings after that. Here’s the strangest part, I didn’t leave and I didn’t tell anyone. I was too ashamed. And I am to blame, because whenever he came back and said he was sorry, we made up. He’d say he’d been drinking too much, or the pressure of the firm or the pressure of the family had been unbearable. And I chose to believe him every time. As my daughter used to say, that was then and this is now. I said it, too.

And when Gil was made a partner, I thought everything would finally be all right.

But I was wrong. Once he was partner, he was unstoppable. He’d been managing my money, and then most of my family’s, and made them fortunes, but it wasn’t enough. He started those big takeovers, then got into all kinds of deals to finance them. My father and brother fought him. But the money was irresistible, and Gil got the other partners to turn against my dad. And the worst thing was, when my father came to me to ask me to vote with the family, I turned against him, too.

It broke my father when that happened. The stroke was just the finishing touch. Stuart hasn’t spoken to me since then.

I think you know the rest, Gil moved up to president and sold the firm out three years later to Federated Funds, and it became Federated Funds Douglas Witter. The Swanns were obliterated. He came to mefirst and askedfor a power of attorney. By then I really didn’t want to put all my shares and my portfolio in his hands, but when I said no, he made my life impossible. There was only Gil. I chose him again.

And there was Carla’s coma. Once again, it was a choice. And once again, against every instinct, I chose him.

And when he had taken everything—my family name, my money, my contacts, my children—he then began that disgusting public affair with the Birmingham woman. It was even in the business magazines, and I heard about every tiny thing from one “friend” or another. I begged Gil not to leave me, but of course he did.