Court #82-268-D, the D denoting divorce proceedings. Living by himself in a condominium he'd sublet furnished at the splendidly refurbished Old Wisdom House overlooking Hampton Pond, he found the change of residence 'discombobulating,' his mind thrown off-balance by the unfamiliarity of living in someone else's luxury. He told Merrion it was like waking up in a rented room on the road morning after morning; 'It's a very nice hotel, but now I want to go home,' he said. 'I lie there as I'm waking up and I think: 'This is really a beautiful place, but when do I get to go home?'
He had chosen to live there as abruptly as Mercy had decided she'd had enough of him. Merrion lived there, having purchased a two-bedroom unit during the rehabilitation and conversion phase of the old inn into condominiums six years before. Because he knew and liked the woman who managed the place, Glenda Rice, he could get the rental set up for Hilliard fast.
The hurry had been Mercy's creation; having taken eight years to make up her mind what she wanted done, she wanted it done at once. The day after Tax Day, Friday the 16th, she had come home from her afternoon seminar in statistics at UMass. later than usual, delayed by the unusual length of the conversation she'd had with Diane.
She'd been troubled for a week by something she had overheard in the Grey Hills pro shop the previous Saturday. She had been sitting behind the sweaters racked on the chrome trolley in the women's clothing section, trying on new Foot-Joy spikes. She was trying to decide well before the golf season started whether to order a new pair, which would be a fresh nuisance to break in, or continue to put up with the existing nuisance: her shoes occasionally gave her blisters. A man whose face she could not see and whose voice she didn't recognize came up to the counter where Bolo Cormier sat on his stool at the register, moving his lips as he read his paper and drinking coffee as he did most days between golf seasons. They had some brief conversation to which she paid no attention, but then as she hunched over to lace up the brown-and-white saddle-shoe on her right foot, dropping her head below the sweaters, she heard the man say: 'Dan Hilliard been around today or's he with his new girlfriend down in Boston? I called his house and office didn't get an answer.'
She had turned her head quickly to peer under the sweaters as Bolo said 'Dunno, haven't seen him,' but had not had the presence of mind to part them before the grey flannel slacks and the dark-brown tasseled loafers turned away from the register and left the store.
'Well, but did you really need to?' Diane said over the salt-rimmed conical glasses of margueritas in the Flower Room at Gino's, water splashing from the fountain into the low-sided kidney-shaped fire-brick pool with the Trader Vic's-type tropical-rain machine showering softly down over it. The sound system played an instrumental version of 'Jamaica Farewell.' 'What difference would it've made if you had found out who it was? Or'd recognized the voice? The point is that it's common knowledge, out there at oh-aren't-we-elegant Grey Hills, that your husband's got a popsy on the side. It's not some chick who picked him up in a bar and he'd had a few too many drinks and he was lonely, so they had a one-night stand. This is an ongoing thing. He's having an affair, creating a new secret history with someone who lives in Boston. I mean, my God, Marcia, pardon me, but that's what I think should concern you. If you have any question here, it isn't who said he's got a girlfriend; it's: 'Who is the little slut?' That's what you need to know, so you can find out where she lives, hunt her down and scratch her eyes out.
'Assuming of course, that's what you have in mind; otherwise you don't need to know anything more. Do you have any idea at all as to who it might be?'
Mercy shook her head and chewed her lip. 'No,' she said, 'not now, I don't. A few years ago I would've said Yes. I was sure he was having an affair with this TV reporter Stacy Hawkes. You may've seen her; I know I used to, a lot, by accident. It's very hard when your husband's honey's on network TV. You can't help it; every time you see her, even after it's over, you think: 'There's the little tramp who stole my husband.' I think she's still on NBC; I know I wont watch NBC news.
She got married a year or two ago; a former congressman, I think, retired to become head of some foundation. She must go for older political types. I don't know how she looks now, but back then she was very attractive. Looked a lot like me, as a matter of fact, which didn't surprise me — they say men often pick girlfriends who look like their wives. Does the fondness for lookalikes mean they have no imagination? Or because that way it doesn't seem so much like cheating?'
Diane laughed. 'This's okay because it's the same, even though it's really different; and it's better because it's so different, but okay because it's the same.' Maybe that is how it works.'
'Assuming, of course,' Mercy said, 'that didn't sound like boasting. I probably should've said she looked the way I like to think I used to look, when I was about twenty; before three pregnancies and about fifteen years. The only stretch marks this kid would've known about would've been the ones she left on the truth.
'We met her I met her at an inauguration party. I didn't think they had it planned. Dan's not the type to do that, although I suppose she might've been: 'Ought to meet the incumbent wife here, see what I'm up against.' It seemed as though wed just happened to bump into her, turned around and poof, there she was like a genie; someone'd conjured her up. And the instant that I looked at her, before Dan'd even had a chance to introduce us or wed even shaken hands or said Hello or anything, I had the strongest feeling wed been sharing him. I just knew it. Her expression, you know? She looked like she was smiling very well, of course, as you'd expect, all that training they get before they go on-air, so they smile perfectly. But there was something else in it. Smugness, you know? Something almost gleeful.
'You may not know who I am, dear I'm the competition.'
'I looked at him, right off, but there was no sign of it on his face.
Completely pure-innocent look. Of course he's a politician; no matter what mischief he's really been up to, he always looks like he's serving Mass. And at the same time I was watching her, to see if she was glancing at him for the same reason I'd been doing. If she was, I didn't catch her.'
Mercy frowned. 'Not too long after that I read in the papers she'd gone to New York. So I haven't a clue as to who the current girlfriend is. The recumbent mistress.'
'Even so,' Diane said, 'is that really so important anyway? That you don't know who the bimbo is her name or where she comes from? You don't really care what her pedigree is; how big her boobs are; how she met him; or whether she's the same one he was fooling around with last year. Or even if she's the only one or just the main one he's screwing now. Why does that interest you? The important thing isn't who he does it with when he's not doing it with you; it's that he's doing it with someone else. And from what you've been telling me over the years, he's been doing it for a long time. You've told me several times that when you've confronted him, his stories didn't match up but you knew he had someone. You could tell he was lying.'
'I know,' Mercy said, 'I have told you that. I've told myself, too, many times. But I've never been able to prove it, actually prove he was lying. I've never been really sure.'
'Yes, you have,' Diane said calmly. 'Back when McGovern was running and they had that big fundraiser for him in Boston? Dan was supposed to introduce him and either he was about two hours late or else he never showed up at all? You told me then, what you heard people saying. Even your mother told you she'd heard rumors, where he'd been instead of where he should've been.'
'It was that he'd been with Stacy Hawkes,' Mercy said. 'I got very upset. I asked him about it and he assured me, he wasn't seeing her.
He was very contrite. He said he knew it looked bad, but it really wasn't what happened. He said he got tied up in a very hush-hush leadership meeting in the Speaker's office after five, something about the strategy they were going to use to grease a tax bill through or something, and he got so involved he lost all track of time. Not only that but he also thought he probably might've let it happen, in a way; allowed it to happen, some kind of a Freudian slip, accidentally-on-purpose. Because he'd let himself get roped into making the introduction at the McGovern dinner by someone he couldn't say No to be owed the guy a favor and might need him in the future.
When he wasn't really for McGovern, anyway; he'd wanted Kennedy. He hadn't wanted to make the speech in the first place.
'I don't think I really believed him. But he said it'd also hurt him with the party bigwigs, his not showing up like that, and he knew it'd also hurt me, and he gave me his solemn promise he'd never let it happen again. He promised me he was going to shape up, stop getting himself into situations like that where that's what people thought he was doing. And I didn't say any more.'
'In other words, he admitted it,' Diane said. 'And he promised you he wouldn't do it again. Those weren't the words he spoke to you, but that was what he was saying, and it was what you heard. You let him get away with it because you didn't want to hear him say the words he actually meant. And then you quickly made a very clear but
