Women on the Edge of a Nervous Breakthrough (21 page)

  Tanya's mother answered, "Jefferson residence," as she always did, which Sarah thought unbearably pompous.

  "Helen? Sarah." She didn't mince words, stayed tough through the horrified gasps of denial from Tanya's mother—if Helen thought her daughter was saint material, she was the only one who did—and while Helen went to confront Tanya, who must just be home from school, Sarah waited, tapping the phone and pacing on the adorable pink Cinderella rug Amber had thankfully gotten so used to, she didn't notice it was too little -girl for her now.

  "Sarah." Said in the snooty tone Helen excelled at, the one that made Sarah want to grit her teeth. "On that day the girls were at Vivian Harcourt's. And you suspected T
anya
?"

  Sarah stopped pacing. She was pretty sure if she took the hot-pink and silver phone away from her ear and inspected the hand holding it, she'd find her knuckles had turned white. "Vivian gave condoms to sixteen -year-old girls?"

  "Not to T
anya
."

  Sarah's teeth gritted. As if Tanya would admit something like that to her mother. "I see. Thank you, Helen."

  She pushed the off button on the phone and set it back carefully in the hot -pink base.

  Well.

  Of course Tanya could be lying.

  Or she could not be.

  Which would mean Vivian Harcourt had given condoms to Sarah's sweet girl. Which would mean Vivian Harcourt had practically pushed Amber into sexual activity way too early for a girl like her. Maybe sex at sixteen had been old news to Vivian, but they did things differently in Kettle. They did them decently and at the proper time.

  Sarah opened the hand that held the condoms and stared at them, twin packs of ribbed, lubricated evil. She felt the fl ush in her face grow hotter. A strange ringing started in her ears, and she couldn't hear as well as usual, as if they'd been stuffed with cotton.

  She shoved the condoms in the pocket of her navy washable linen pants, leaped over the red vacuum cleaner, and raced down the stairs, not even stopping to put a coat over her blue and beige cashmere sweater with faux pearls.

  She and Vivian were going to have a little talk.

  Down the street, crossing it, running past parked cars, the cold air fierce and fortifying in her lungs, her navy -shod feet barely touching the pavement or the sidewalk or the cement of Vivian's driveway.

  She hammered on the back door, stabbed the bell three times, mama bear in action, barely breathing hard from her sprint, ready to sink her teeth into Lorelei Taylor's lovely white throat.

  Vivian's face appeared in the window, registered surprise, then hostile unwelcome.
Are we feeling a little guilty?
Vivian was many things, but not stupid. She undoubtedly knew why Sarah was there.

  Vivian glanced toward the street; Sarah followed her look and noticed men getting out of the cars parked by her house. Men staring with unabashed interest.

  The media. Why didn't they leave Kettle alone? Two days ago they'd approached Sarah as she shopped at Stenkel's and asked all kinds of questions about what Kettle's newest resident had been up to. Until the condom incident, Sarah had almost felt sorry for Vivian.

  No longer.

  One of the men pointed a camera. Sarah pounded on the door again. "Let me in."

  She did
not
want to be associated with Lorelei Taylor on the front cover of some sleazy tabloid that uneducated people would pick up in the supermarket and devour as truth.

  The door opened and Sarah pushed past Vivian, not caring if she was being rude.

  "Well, well, Sarah, what a nice surprise." Vivian shut the door behind her and leaned against it, arms folded, lids half closed, as if Sarah would be lucky to get out alive. "Did you stop to chat with our friends out front before you came in?"

  Sarah held up the condoms. "About how you're encouraging teenage sex?"

  Vivian's eyes shot wide and Sarah was surprised to see her look hurt for a flash before the rage returned. "You bitch. Is that what you told them this time?"

  "Did you give these to my daughter?"

  "Did you tell the reporters I did?"

  "No, did—"

  "You didn't tell them?"

  "It's none of their business what goes on here." Sarah took two steps forward and shook the condoms so hard, the bottom one flapped as if it was trying to break free. "Did you give these to Amber?"

  Vivian's eyes returned to their natural shape; her shoulders lowered.

  "Come sit." She gestured to the stool at her counter.

  "I don't care to sit in your house, thank you."

  "Oh come on, Sarah. We have to talk about it, you might as well be comfortable."

  Sarah inhaled two breaths' worth of air. Vivian had this infuriating way of making her feel uptight and ridiculous.

  "Fine." She sat reluctantly on the stool, totally discomfi ted when Vivian sat next to her. Bits of blue and brown printed paper—
wallpaper
?—clung to her loose striped top and her plain beige pants and her hair. She looked disconcertingly normal, especially now that she no longer seemed about to commit her second murder.

  "Have you talked to the reporters at all?"

  Sarah made a sound of impatience. "Is this some tactic to sidetrack—"

  "No, it's not a goddamn tactic. My life is being fucked with all over again, someone is telling these people everything I do, twisting it so I sound—" Her voice cracked, and she immediately resumed looking furious. "Just tell me. Did you say anything to them? Even innocently?"

  Along with the new nonslut outfit, lighter makeup, and short plain nails, Sarah noticed a strain around Vivian's eyes, an erosion of the cocky confidence she always had so fi rmly in place. "They approached me but I had nothing to say to them. I think their prying is disgusting. And the article they printed about you and about Kettle was . . . unfortunate."

  Vivian gave a strained laugh and put her head down so her rich brown hair flecked with wallpaper bits spilled all over the counter, and touches of her natural brown color revealed themselves at her roots, occasionally striped with gray.

  Sarah didn't remotely see what was so funny, and she found it insulting that Vivian assumed she'd betray her. "You know, if you were more careful about what you say and do they'd have nothing to report."

  Vivian lifted her head, all wide -eyed innocence. "Ya
think
?"

  Damn it. The woman was impossible. Sarah slapped the condoms down on the counter. "How did my daughter get these?"

  Vivian sat up slowly, and Sarah braced herself for the load of bull that was about to spill out of her, the same brand she used on the witness stand.

  "I gave them to her."

  The answer was so unexpectedly honest that the furious yes-you-did accusations Sarah was ready to hurl had nowhere to go. More than that, there were no grand, gloriously raging, and articulate accusations rising to take their place. Just choking anger and sadness and fear for her child. "She's not ready."

  "That's what I told her."

  Sarah held herself still on the stool. How stupid did Vivian think she was? "So you gave her birth control."

  "She asked for them."

  "That's reason enough? What if she asked for heroin?"

  "Sarah." The beautiful brown eyes were troubled, but steady and sincere. Of course they'd been that way on the witness stand, too. "I
told
her she wasn't ready."

  "Then
why
would you give her these?" She flicked at the black foil packages; they slid several inches and stopped just shy of the counter's edge.

  Vivian got off her stool and rounded the counter to the refrigerator. "Do you want some tea or something? A soda?"

  "No. I want to know why you gave my daughter condoms if you know she's not ready for sex."

  Vivian sighed as if Sarah were a dunce pupil she'd already had to explain the same thing to over and over. "I know she's not ready, and you know she's not ready, and I think even Amber knows she's not."

  "Exactly." Sarah gestured at the black square packages. "Which is why I don't want her to have encouragement from any source apart from that dreadful boyfriend of hers."

  "Tell me." Vivian popped the top of a diet soda and took a drink. "In high school, were you ever with a guy in the backseat of a car, or in the bushes at a dance, or in an upstairs bedroom at a party?"

  An adrenaline thrill threatened, and Sarah forced herself to resist the memories and to say with pride, "I told him no."

  Vivian took another sip, watching Sarah over the top of the can, and Sarah fought not to cringe, hearing her words reflected back in that way Vivian always managed, and knowing what she was thinking. Y
eah, well, not everyone's a frigid bitch like you
.

  "Sarah."

  "Yes, Vivian." She kept her tone as chilled as the can in Vivian's hands.

  Vivian leaned forward, put her elbows on the counter between them. "Haven't you ever lost control?"

  Sarah took a quick intake of breath, not quite a gasp, but nearly. The flush on her cheeks deepened, she was sure of it, and Vivian would see, leaning so close. A picture popped up, of herself writhing on the bed, Tom's name on her lips, convulsing in her second -ever orgasm. "Of . . . course."

  "Sometimes." Vivian watched her intently, and Sarah hated her for always seeming to know what Sarah was thinking. "It's good to lose control because it frees you. Know what I mean?"

  Sarah looked down at the clean counter and at Vivian's fabric-covered elbows.
No comment.

  "And sometimes it's not good to lose control and you want to take the whole thing back." She sighed, sounding genuinely frustrated. "In my case it's usually the second."

  Sarah glanced up, completely unsure how to take this lowering of Vivian's guard, one part of her daring to wonder if it was real, the rest of her waiting for the confession to turn into another joke featuring Sarah as the inevitable punch line.

  "You want to go into the living room?"

  "I . . ." Sarah looked around her. What was wrong with this room? Nothing, especially now that Vivian—or Mike—had painted some of the over-the-top cuteness out of it.

  But Vivian was already leading the way, heading for Stellie's old yellow -and-blue couch shoved to one side of the room, and throwing herself down on it, feet extended, hair splayed out over the cushioned back behind her.

  Sarah sat next to her, knees together, ankles to one side, wondering why the rest of the furniture had been moved into the dining room. The room without carpet did look much nicer, more sophisticated, cleaner, sharper, more like Vivian herself.

  "Relax, Sarah, you're making me nervous."

  Sarah leaned back gingerly, hating the view of herself through Vivian's eyes, perched on the edge of the couch like a nervous bird ready to take off at the fi rst sign of trouble.

  "Okay." She let her head drop. "I'm relaxed."

  Vivian gave her shoulder a playful swat. "Good for you."

  Yes, good for her. Except lounging on the couch with Vivian made this seem less like a confrontation and more like a girls' visit. Like the endless ones she'd made to her friend Nora's apartment in New York. The two of them, sprawled on Nora's burgundy striped couch, gabbing the night away, nursing wine and Pepperidge Farm cookies from the Chocolate Collection.

  "See, Sarah." Vivian put her soda on the hardwood fl oor and folded her arms across her flat stomach—for once completely covered by her shirt. "The media must have heard from a member of the Kettle Social Club. I'm sorry I thought it was you, but let's face it, we haven't exactly hit it off. And it seemed the perfect way to get back at me if you wanted to."

  Sarah nodded, very wary now. This explained the move to the comfy couch. To soften Sarah up, get her on Vivian's side so she'd spill who was leaking news to the tabloids. Yes, Sarah knew who had talked and why. But to whom did she owe her allegiance?

  "I'd like the leak to stop." Vivian turned her head, dark against the yellow cushion.

  "I . . . can speak to her." Her voice came out low and nervous. The power in those brown eyes was considerable, even when they weren't threatening.

  "Who?"

  Sarah swallowed convulsively and started to say,
I'm afraid I don't feel comfortable sharing that information with you,
but caught herself in time to avoid ridicule. "I can't."

  Vivian sat up and leaned elbows on thighs, hands dangling between her knees. "I came to Kettle to get away from this. I need it to stop, so I can move on. But I can't do it myself."

  Sarah desperately wanted to leave. She did not want to feel either kinship or sympathy for this person. This person could turn on her in a heartbeat, use whatever vulnerability she found in Sarah to her own advantage, anywhere down the road.

  "It's like stripping wallpaper." Vivian pried a gluey piece off her shirt. "No matter how hard you try to peel the stuff away cleanly, bits of it are going to stick to you."

  Sarah nodded, thinking of Tom, wishing she could go back to viewing morality in black -and-white terms. So much tidier. So much simpler to live that way. "I understand."

  "I'd like to know who, so I have some hope of stopping it."

  "Knowledge is power." Sarah laughed self -consciously, full of dread. Her father's favored philosophy had popped past her self -censor, and now Vivian was going to have her for lunch.

  "Knowledge?" Vivian turned her head, eyes full of engaging mischief. "Actually, Sarah,
tits
are power."

  "
What?
"

  "Tits." She pointed to her own, for once not on obvious display, and grinned infectiously. "Tits are power."

  "Oh, come on." Sarah felt a smile starting in spite of herself. "I hardly think you can equate knowledge to . . . breasts."

  "Tits."

  "Fine." She lifted her hand and let it drop on the sofa arm, feeling a rogue giggle tickling to come up. "Tits. Happy?"