Thorns of Truth (23 page)

“Your turn,” she urged.

“Not yet,” he whispered.

Rose moaned softly as he quickened, then slowed. Then she
was
coming. Again. Straining against him while he kissed her, catching her lower lip lightly between his teeth, filling her mouth with the taste of her own womanhood, like some forbidden fruit.

Not until she was spent, and lay gasping in his arms, did Eric allow himself to come, too: a single, almost savage thrust that tore a harsh cry from his throat.

It was several minutes before either of them could speak.

“Rose?” His voice was a low rustle in the darkness.

“What?”

“I meant what I said before.”

She rolled onto her side so that she was facing him. In the dim light from the hallway, Eric’s eyes gleamed. She felt an ache now where there had been only sweet release.

“I can’t promise you anything,” she told him.

“I’m not asking you to.”

“What if this whole thing turns out to be a mistake?”

He tensed. “It won’t. Whatever happens.”

She shivered. “That’s the part that worries me. Not knowing.”

He was quiet for so long she began to feel panicky. Had she revealed too much? And, God, what if he
had
really meant it? How could she love him back? There was no place in her twice-mended heart strong enough for love to grow.

Then came that smoky voice again, rising out of the darkness—the voice of someone who’d learned the hard way not to pack more than he could carry.

“One day at a time, okay?” Smiling a little, he touched her cheek.

Past his shoulder, Rose could see into the bathroom, where a patch of blue terrycloth—the robe that hung on the back of the door—was reflected in the medicine-cabinet mirror. Max’s robe. It brought memories of the day, shortly after the funeral, when Mandy had helped her empty Max’s closets. The two of them briskly packing up sweaters, shirts, slacks, suits. Labeling boxes, putting everything in order for the Housing Authority Thrift Shop. Even managing to wring a small laugh out of a pair of never-worn reindeer-printed boxer shirts—a joke Christmas gift from a client.

The robe had somehow escaped the purge. Rose didn’t notice it until after Mandy had left. Since then, it had become her secret vice—like Mandy’s drinking. She hoarded it, sneaking into the bathroom every so often just to bury her head in its nappy folds, inhale her husband’s scent. She knew it was holding her back in some way, but couldn’t seem to stop.

Tomorrow would be exactly one year since Max’s death.

She looked back at Eric, his profile outlined in the soft light, as clearly as a horizon. Oddly, she felt a pang of loss, not for Max, but for what she’d be throwing away if she turned her back on this chance.

One day at a time, that’s all he was asking.

Could she give him that much?

You’ve made it through three hundred and sixty-four,
urged the voice in her head.
What’s one more?

Chapter 8

M
ANDY GRIFFIN STOLE
a glance at her wristwatch, and thought,
Fifteen minutes, tops. Then I’m home free.
From where she sat, alongside her client at the polished beech conference table, across from Robert Greene and
his
client, she could see through the floor-to-ceiling glass wall into the reception area just beyond—a cool island of pale woods and brushed nickel, with double doors leading out to the elevators … and to salvation.

Luigi’s wasn’t far, just two blocks from the office—a low-key Italian restaurant with a bar tucked away in back, where the lights were low, the TV always on, and, most important, the drinks never stopped coming. She saw herself perched on a leather-padded stool, hefting a Jack Daniel’s double on the rocks, the glass heavy in her hand, its icy cold numbing her fingertips … and was swept by a longing so intense it was all she could do not to bolt for the door.

Mandy gripped the arms of her chair. Her temples throbbed; each pulsebeat like a tidal surge squeezing through a narrow rocky inlet. Her mouth tasted of cotton balls dipped in rubbing alcohol, dry and faintly astringent.

Stay cool,
she commanded herself.
You can’t let them see.

She directed her gaze at Robert, whose dark head was bent over the sheet of figures she’d just handed him—her proposed distributive award for the soon-to-be-ex-Mrs. Rifkin. Robert, she noted approvingly, wasn’t allowing the rudeness of his client—bald, portly Mr. Rifkin, shifting in his chair like an overgrown first-grader—to distract him. In his slate-gray suit and Dunhill tie, a platinum watch thin as caviar toast showing below one starched cuff, Robert was every inch the white-shoe gentleman.

As polite and well mannered now as he’d been last night, when she’d declined his invitation to stay over—for the third time in less than three weeks. He’d said that he understood, and that, yes, if it got out, the Rifkins
might
take it the wrong way. He’d even kissed her lightly on the mouth as she was getting out of the cab.

But appearances, Mandy knew all too well, could be deceiving. Now she wondered, did he guess? The Rifkins, she thought with a stab of guilt, had been the furthest thing from her mind last night. The truth was that, as much as she enjoyed Robert’s company—
desired
him, even—nothing was more alluring than the privacy of her own home, where she could drink freely, as much as she wanted.

You’re imagining things,
she told herself. If Robert had even the slightest idea, wouldn’t his disgust show? When she’d suggested they get together this weekend instead, wouldn’t he have made an excuse of his own?

Robert, as if sensing Mandy’s anxious scrutiny, glanced up at her. He was rubbing his chin—a habit she found both endearing and somewhat irritating. “Off the top of my head, Mandy, I’ve got to say, eighty thousand for the contents of the Boca Raton residence seems pretty steep.” He flashed her a smile that said,
Let’s stop kidding around and get down to business.
“I know it’s insured for that much, but—come on— realistically, what’s the resale value here?”

“The yacht’s included in that,” piped Flora Rifkin, a gimlet-eyed blonde of a certain age, interchangeable with a thousand other wives of Jewish manufacturing barons who’d migrated to the East Sixties by way of the Grand Concourse. All of them, like Flora, with lacquered hair and nails, wearing chunky gold earrings and toting quilted Chanel handbags.

Tightly wrapped,
Mandy thought. That’s how Dad would have described Flora. The kind of package you opened carefully, lest it contain something other than new bank checks, or the latest offering from Fruit-of-the-Month Club.

“Yacht? You call that toy boat a
yacht
?” roared Leo, her estranged husband. “What, I’m Ari Onassis all of a sudden? A Sunday outing with the Freedmans is high-seas adventure?”

“Call it what you like. It’s yours, Leo.
You
wanted Boca, so you could loll around all day watching Miss Sports Illustrated show off those boobs you bought her.” Flora made a scornful gesture with a clawlike hand cured by the Florida sun into pemmican. “Me? I’ll take the money. You want this divorce, buster, you got it … but, like I said, it’s gonna cost you. Big. A lot bigger than what that
shiksele
of yours has stuffed in her bra.”

“You leave Tamara out of it!” Leo’s beefy face flushed an alarming red. Head wagging, he turned to Robert with an aggrieved look. “You see? You
see
what I’ve had to put up with?”

Robert, looking faintly embarrassed, cleared his throat and said, “Look, there’s no reason we can’t all be civilized about—”

“Civilized? Is that what you call shtupping a girl young enough to be your granddaughter?” Fury had twisted Flora Rifkin’s heavily made-up face into a Kabuki mask. “Forty years, and this is what I have to show for it? An
alter kocker
for a husband, who doesn’t have the decency to pay what he owes!”

Leo hauled himself to his feet. His pale-blue eyes bulged from the puffy flesh surrounding them, making him appear, in that moment, almost comical—Ralph Kramden bellowing,
One of these days, Alice, I swear …

He jabbed a stubby finger at his wife. “I don’t have to listen to this! You think I need another ulcer on top of the one you already gave me? Next time I see you, lady, will be in court.”

Mandy’s head was pounding like a St. Patrick’s Day parade, and she had a sinking feeling that her escape wasn’t so imminent. Sweet Jesus. How much longer—ten, fifteen minutes? Could she hang on that long?
Yes, of course you can,
a brisk voice assured her … a voice that made her think of her mother, when Mandy was little, declaring impatiently that she couldn’t have to go
that
bad, surely she could hold it in until they found a restroom.

Bartender
…
make that
two
doubles.

Mandy, stepping outside herself for an instant, felt appalled. My God, had it gotten as bad as all that? It used to be she’d merely looked forward with pleasant anticipation to the bourbon and soda that awaited her at the end of the day. Now, swallowing hard against the dryness of her throat, she felt nearly sick with need. She could almost
taste
it—the chilled kiss of the glass against her bottom lip, that first tingling rush. If it were in front of her now, she wouldn’t be able to resist.…

But drinking on the job, everyone knew, was strictly
verboten.
Even at lunch, Mandy seldom indulged in more than a glass of wine. Weeknights, too, she kept it to a minimum, unable to afford a major hangover. In ten years, she’d called in sick, oh, maybe five, six times. If anything, the other partners complained she was
too
compulsive about her work—it made them look bad, they joked.

But lately it was as if the internal brakes that used to respond to her slightest touch had grown glassy and sluggish. Each time, she had to pump a little harder … and even so she often felt herself skidding off the road. Her only defense was to remind herself, over and over, that if she had a problem it was nothing like that associate, Stan Mays, who’d worked here briefly, a few years back … before he was packed off to rehab in disgrace. Or how would she have been able to bill so many hours each month?

If everyone else slaved as hard as I do, they’d need a drink after work, too,
she reasoned. Anyway, what was she talking about here? A couple of bourbons in the evening, just to unwind. If not for that, she’d never leave here; she’d work herself right into the ground.

It’s not as if I’m an alcoholic.

Feeling stronger, Mandy spoke up confidently. “Mr. Rifkin, do you have any idea what taking this to court would cost you?” She leaned on her elbows, fixing him with her bulletproof gaze—perfected through years of handling difficult divorces. “Try two years of your life, and that’s just for starters. By the time you walk out of that courtroom, you’ll be at least a million out of pocket on legal fees alone. And as far as the distributive award goes, what judge wouldn’t feel sympathetic toward a wife of forty years you abandoned for a younger woman?”

Leo opened his mouth and shut it again, like a fat goldfish. He dropped back into his chair so heavily that a little
chuff
of air was forced from its cushion—a sound that made Mandy think of the polite euphemism used by her mother—living in Florida now, God bless her 401(k)—for breaking wind: “poot.”

Yes, she thought, that about summed it up. Leo Rifkin was nothing more than a silly, overblown poot.

Mandy had to clamp her lips tightly shut to keep from snickering. She was on the verge of really losing it, she knew. Her craving for a drink, like a long drought, had left her so parched, she was actually cracking apart inside. Even her stomach was burning now, making her think of the Alka Selzer she always kept on hand in the credenza behind her desk. That, and a fifth of Jack Daniel’s—her first-aid kit, to be cracked open only in the event of a true emergency. Just knowing it was there brought a measure of comfort, its unbroken seal assuring her she wasn’t anything like
them
—the bums she passed every day on her way to work, huddled in doorways with their wrinkled paper bags, reeking of cheap liquor.

Across the table, Mandy caught Robert’s eye. He was frowning slightly, as if puzzled about something. God. Why was he
looking
at her like that? Had he guessed that, on the inside, she wasn’t anything like the plastic Mandy doll she dressed each morning with such elaborate care? Powdering her nose to cover the tiny broken veins, making up her eyes to hide their puffiness.

Or, worse, did he suspect that the bottle of merlot they’d killed with dinner was merely a warm-up for what she’d put away after she got home?

Mandy was flooded with shame. Then something even more disturbing occurred to her.
He probably thinks it’s something
he
did.

She winced at the thought, wishing there was some way of reassuring him. It wasn’t his fault. Robert didn’t deserve this. Besides, she adored him. Honestly. He was kind, considerate, sexy, and intelligent. Handsome, too. That rare man her single girlfriends believed extinct.

Robert had only one major flaw: he didn’t drink. Not to speak of. An occasional cocktail, wine with dinner, that kind of thing. She couldn’t imagine him snatching back from a too-eager waitress a glass with a thimbleful of wine still left in it. And surely he’d have been hurt to know that the whole time they’d been holding hands at dinner—even during her bitchy imitation of Judge Forrester, which nearly gave him a hernia from laughing—she’d been eyeing the bottle on the table between them, gauging how soon she could pour herself a refill, and how much she could get away with before he started to notice she’d drunk much more than he.

Now, in the sleek conference room that always made her feel a bit queasy, as if she were in a glass elevator, Mandy saw that Robert’s put-out expression was softening into one of admiration and affection. She relaxed, feeling some of her tension drain away. Incredible. He actually
believed
that what he saw was what he got.