Tides of the Heart (7 page)

She’d been dressed in one of her hottest dresses, the white trapeze, unbuttoned nearly to her navel, the hem grazing her suntanned thighs. Jake was gone. Out of town again, leaving her alone. She’d hit Club LeMonde, in search of action. But the guy who picked her up turned out to be a virgin and thought she was his mother.

So she’d come home. Drunk. She’d poured herself another stiff one and downed it in one gulp.

And then Brad was there, standing in the family room, his big hands strong and eager, the muscles of his chest straining through his shirt, his dick so huge and ready, she could see it pulsating through his jeans.

She let him slide the fabric of her dress off her shoulder. She let him gently rub the skin. And then she let him kiss it, making tiny circles with the tip of his warm, wet tongue. And then he lowered his head and found her breast.

“God, how I want you,” Brad said. “How I’ve wanted you from the first day I saw you.”

She thought that she protested. But once his mouth was on her nipple, his tongue teasing, licking, sucking, firm, firmer, firmer …

Ginny moaned and parted her legs. “Bite me,” she commanded.

His teeth sank into her.

“Harder!” she screamed. “Hurt me!”

He bit her again.

Her body throbbed. And then he was between her legs, ramming and slamming that great big juicy dick over and over until she cried and shrieked and only wanted more.

And now, the memory of that night was too damn clouded to even make her want to cum.

“Screw it,” she said, hauling herself from the bed and stalking to her closet.

She jerked open the door and stared inside, remembering that after that night with Brad, she’d burned her clothes. Every last bit of sexy, white-hot clothes.

Somehow, she’d replaced them. She’d replaced the clothes but not the feeling. And now when she reached in, she wanted only sweatpants and a big, snuggly shirt. One of Jake’s shirts. One of dead Jake’s shirts.

Ginny was standing in the family room in sweatpants and Jake’s shirt, staring out the window, stuffing baked-not-fried Tostitos into her mouth when the doorbell rang.

It was probably another flower delivery from Lisa’s well-wishers. Or worse, it might be Lisa herself, the nice-nice daughter that Ginny really didn’t need right now. Not that she had any idea exactly what—or whom—she needed. She brushed some crumbs from her shirt and hoped Consuelo would quickly send whoever it was away.

“Ginny,” a small voice came from across the room. “It’s me. Jess.”

Ginny blinked at the nothingness outside. Jess?
No
, she thought. And yet she knew. It would not be out of character for Jess to come all the way across the country when she’d seen the media reports about Jake’s death. Like Lisa, Jess was nice.
God help me
, Ginny thought, then slowly turned around. And there was Jess. That whisper of a woman from another place in time.

“Jesus,” Ginny said, “what the hell are you doing here?” It hadn’t been that long ago—had it?—since Jess had shown up with the idea of a reunion. With the idea of meeting Lisa. She’d come unannounced that time, too. Unannounced, and most decidedly unwanted. And though they hadn’t seen one another since the reunion, they had stayed in touch—if phone calls once every few months and Christmas cards with kids’ pictures tucked inside was considered staying in touch.

Jess walked toward her now, a thin smile on her pale, New York-winter face. “Ginny, I think I need your help.”

Ginny looked back at the window, but there was no escape. She turned reluctantly to give Jess a kiss-kiss-hug. “I guess it’s ludicrous to say you weren’t expected.”

“If this isn’t a good time, I’ll leave.”

As Jess slipped from Ginny’s hug, Ginny noticed the pink that rimmed her eyes. It seemed a little odd—Jess had barely known Jake. Then again, as a kid she’d been prone to tears—she had spent many weepy days and nights at Larchwood, waiting for her boyfriend who’d never written. Yeah, Ginny decided, news of Jake’s death might be enough
to touch off a torrent of Jess’s ready tears. “Did you cry the whole flight out?”

Jess tossed her small, boxy handbag on the leather sofa, dead center on the cushion where Ginny. had fucked Brad’s brains out so very long ago, back when she had a libido, back before Jake was dead. Ginny shoved another Tostito into her mouth and waited for Jess to say how sorry she was that Jake was dead and ask what she could do to help.

Instead, Jess said, “It’s been a long time, Ginny. You look … good.”

“What I look like is a piece of shit,” Ginny replied and held the bag toward Jess. “Chips?”

Jess shook her head.

Ginny plunged her hand into the corn chips again and pulled out one, then two. She examined each carefully as if looking for the words she was supposed to say, as if they’d be imprinted between the flaky bits of brown stuff and the little flecks of salt. She knew she should thank Jess for coming. She knew she should say that Jess looked good, too, or that at least she looked the same, which, of course, was true. Ginny popped the chips into her mouth and wondered if teeny, tiny people ever aged, or if they one day simply folded up into an osteoporosislike, embryonic position and wrapped themselves in hand-knit afghans. “Have a seat,” she said. “I guess.”

Jess had a seat beside her handbag. “Ginny,” she said, “the strangest thing has happened.”

And then, while Ginny remained standing, eating, numb and motionless in the middle of her family room, Jess went on and on about some letter from her baby and a phone message and that Miss Taylor was dead and Jess’s kid might still be alive and she really didn’t think anyone would do this to her if it wasn’t true and God, what should she do.

She never even mentioned Jake.

“You’re the only one I have to turn to,” Jess continued. “You’re the only one who understands.”

She was wrong, of course, because Ginny didn’t understand.
She didn’t understand what the hell Jess was talking about or why she was here. “All I know is that you’re telling me Miss T. is dead.”

Jess nodded. “She died last summer.”

“Christ. I can’t believe that she’s dead, too.” The woman had kept tabs on Ginny like a hunter tracking deer, had seemed to know each thought she had and every move she made.

“Miss Taylor was old, Ginny. Not like Amy.”

Ginny turned back to the window. “Or Jake,” she said.

Behind her there was only silence—that bracing, dead-air kind of silence that happens just before someone cries. Or screams.

Then Jess found her words and her tiny voice asked, “What?”

Folding her arms around her waist, Ginny steeled herself and faced her friend once more. There was a look of shock on Jess’s face. “I thought that’s why you came. I thought you heard it on the news. Now that Lisa’s so damn popular …”

Jess rose and went to Ginny, putting her hand on Ginny’s arm. “Jake?” she asked.

“Yeah. Dead. Gonzo. Can you imagine?” She wasn’t sure, but Ginny thought she felt a big, fat lump of tears harden in her throat.

“I … I’ve been so immersed in my own problems I haven’t watched the news … or read the paper.…”

She swallowed down the tears. “Forget it, kid.” Quickly she glanced around the room. “I’m going to find that worthless Consuelo and have her get us some coffee. And maybe some of those little quiche things left over from the funeral.”

Jess stared at the floor, twisting that ring of hers the way she always had whenever she was upset, whenever she was thinking. “Ginny,” she said, “I have a better idea. Let me take you out for dinner. Then you can tell me everything that happened.”

Ginny looked down at her sweatpants. At Jake’s shirt. “I haven’t exactly had my beauty treatment for the day.” She did not mention that she had not showered in two—or was it three?—days now.

Jess shrugged. “I’ll wait.”

The restaurant was overcrowded, with tables crammed together, downtown Manhattan-style. The waiters, however, were Californiatanned and blond and wore tightly fitting muscle shirts that Ginny didn’t seem to notice.

“I’m so sorry about Jake,” Jess said, watching Ginny nibble on another sparerib between bites of butter-slathered fresh dill bread. She was glad she’d come. Ginny, of course, would never have asked her to. She would never have called and said “Jess, I need a friend.”

“Yeah, well, that’s life. We had a good few years.”

“And Lisa,” Jess said. “You got to share Lisa.”

Ginny nodded and kept eating while Jess tried not to stare. She couldn’t believe how ghastly Ginny looked. Even with makeup, Ginny’s face had a pasty pallor, as if the lifeblood had been sucked from her, as if she’d died along with Jake. And the baggy brown dress she was wearing was so … sexless. Not like Ginny at all.

“Ginny?” she asked quietly. “What are you going to do now?”

As if the pendulum of her clock began losing time, Ginny slowed her chewing, slowed her breathing. She lowered her eyelids. “Luckily, Jake was between film projects, so I don’t have to worry about his business right now. But don’t worry about me. I’ll be fine.”

Right.
Jess sipped her wine. “Change is scary,” she said. “We’ve both had a lot.”

Ginny didn’t respond. Jess sensed that Ginny didn’t want to talk about it, and it wasn’t the time to try and force her.

“So what do you think?” Jess asked. “Should I try to find
out if there’s anything to this letter? If my baby is still alive?”

“Shit. Don’t ask me.”

“But it’s worked out so well with you and Lisa.…”

“Yeah, well …” Ginny began, and then a smile crossed her mouth. “Lisa’s a good kid.”

“I’m not sure Maura will speak to me again if I do. I think she’d be pretty upset.”

“She’ll get over it. Kids are resilient.” Ginny polished off the last bit of her dinner.

“But how can I find out anything? With Miss Taylor gone …”

“You said her sister is still alive.”

“Alive, yes. But she’s not very friendly. Besides, how would she know?”

“Maybe Miss T. told her. Or maybe she has some old records or something. I remember Miss T. always was writing stuff down in those leather journals. God knows what she put in there. She probably recorded all the times we were bad.”

“Like when you took off for the Dew Drop Inn?”

Ginny laughed. “I still can’t believe the old bitch caught me.”

“She had friends in high places.”

“Old Sheriff Wilson—the mailman with a badge. God. I can’t believe Miss T. was sleeping with him. Hey—do you suppose she wrote about him in her journals?”

Jess was pleased to see that a small sparkle had returned to Ginny’s eyes. Not the same hell-raising, screw-the-world sparkle that had been the trademark of her youth, but a sparkle nonetheless. “I doubt it,” Jess replied. “But it would be fun to find out, wouldn’t it?”

Reaching for a last remnant of dill bread that lingered in the basket, Ginny proclaimed, “Then here’s what you’re going to do. You’re going back to see Miss T.’s sister. You’re going to win her over with your charm, and you’re going to ask her if Miss T. left her journals behind.”

“Oh, Ginny, I don’t know.…”

“Hey.” Ginny’s eyes were dancing, her face brightening. “If you want to find out about your baby, it’s probably your best shot. You can do it, kid. Just think about all the devious things I taught you.”

Jess laughed. “That was a long time ago, Ginny.”

Ginny shrugged. “Like I said, I think it’s your best shot.” She glanced around the restaurant and added, “I wonder if this place has anything decent for dessert.”

Two days later Jess found herself back on the other side of the continent, standing once more at the front door of the weathered Cape Cod cottage, wondering if she was out of her mind. She was not, after all, Ginny, who had been born with a gene called “brazen” and baptized into a life that necessitated its use for survival. And as Jess held her breath and rang the bell, she reminded herself that Ginny had nothing to lose. Ginny was not the one who had spent five years thinking her daughter was dead. She was not the one who had Maura, who would have to face Maura no matter what the outcome of this search.

She fixed her eyes on the door. Maybe this was wrong. Maybe she should leave. But then she heard the shuffle-shuffle of feet from within and the door opened.

“What do you want now?” barked Miss Taylor’s sister, Loretta.

“Please,” Jess said. And suddenly the words came out in a rush as she told the woman there might have been a mix-up with her baby. “I’m sure it’s a mistake,” she continued. “I was hoping you might have some old records of Miss—of your sister’s. Something to help me find out the truth.”

The old lady grumbled and wiped her gnarled hands on a faded, cross-stitched apron.

“Please,” Jess begged again, “I was so fond of your sister. She meant so much to me.…”

The woman scowled. “I never did understand why Mary Frances wasted her life with young girls who got themselves into trouble.”

Into trouble?
Jess winced at the old-fashioned attitude. “My mother died,” she said quietly. “My mother died and I was a scared little girl. I don’t know what I would have done without Miss Taylor. She was so kind … so kind to all us girls.”