for half an hour or so. I suppose you could come over then.”
“Great, I've missed her.”
“You haven't seen her in six months, Bart,” Molly said dryly.
“Well, I missed her today.”
“In that case, I suppose we mustn't be obstructive,” she said with elaborate sweetness.
“That would be sensible.”
Bart's visit wasn't prompted by paternal affection, but rather by a hellish curiosity. At the club that afternoon, after his racketball game, he'd run across Jason Evans and heard a fascinating bit of information. “Molly's picked up a damn rich friend,” Jason had archly declared.
When Bart had asked who, he'd shrugged.
“Beats me. Some corporation… no names. All very discreet. Two hundred thousand dollars discreet. Your ex- wife is now totally out of debt.”
“Very interesting,” Bart had said.
“I thought you'd like to know,” Jason had replied, a locker-room leer on his face.
Bart deliberately arrived before Carrie returned, intent on discovering the wealthy new “friend” who'd entered Molly's life. With that kind of money it wasn't an anonymous donor. His visit was fueled by nothing more than rabid curiosity-not necessarily malice. He'd always been the type to go through people's desk drawers and medicine cabinets. Insatiably nosy.
After a long, busy day, Molly had changed into a cotton caftan and was lounging on the couch, a glass of wine in her hand when Bart arrived. Out of an inherent politeness rather than any desire for is company, she offered him a drink while he waited for Carrie to come home.
Bart immediately launched into his probing catechism.
The evening sunset heightened the streaked gold of Carey's hair as he pushed open the wooden garden door at the entrance to Molly's home. Walking into a small, colorful English-style garden incongruously growing against an eight-story factory building, he strolled up the serpentine brick path to a carved front door. Near a lush, wandering wisteria which looked as though it had been framing the doorway for at least a century, a young girl was settling her bicycle into its wrought-iron stand. In a few steps he was close enough to say, “Hi, is your mother home?”
Her long pale hair swirled across her shoulders as she turned. A small, straight-nosed face with wispy brows and lacy lashes framing enormous dark eyes lifted from her task. The faintly slanted eyes, like an eastern princess from long ago, studied him.
A dozen searing questions streaked unanswered through his mind as he gazed at the young features so shatteringly familiar, like a miniature mirror-image softened by childhood and femininity. And for a moment, his heart stood still.
“You must be Carey,” the young girl said, looking up into Carey's startled face. “We both have the same name. Though Mom said the spelling's different for boys and girls.”
His composure restored, Carey managed a smile. “Just a couple of letters different, I guess. Here, let me take your package,” he offered. He willed himself to stay calm, but his hands tightened convulsively on the box when she handed it to him.
“Don't squeeze it,” Carrie warned. “The ice cream bars get mushy by the time I bike back. I better carry them,” she added decisively, noting how his large fingers were making indentations in the cardboard box. She took the package and said, “I thought you weren't coming till Thursday. You're cute,” she abruptly stated, then twirled and pulled open the door.
Before he could reply, she was through the door. “Come on up,” she sang out. “Mom's in the living room.” And she raced up the stairs.
He stood there for a moment contemplating numerous other possibilities that would reasonably explain the staggering likeness, other than the one burning in his brain.
And failed utterly.
He wanted to cry, but a dangerous fury related to deception, lies, and impossible hurt, damped the impulse.
He took the stairs two at a time.
With a minimum of courtesy, Molly had been dodging Bart's questions. “Look,” she finally said exasperatedly, “if this is going to be twenty questions, why don't I excuse myself and you can wait here alone until Carrie returns.” Rising from the Chinese silk couch, she started across the room.
Quickly setting his wineglass down, Bart reached out an arresting hand. “Hey,” he objected, his fingers tight on her wrist, “sit down, relax. No need to get huffy.”
“No
“Okay, okay, sit down. I'll stop. Just curious, that's all. I saw Jason today and-”
“What about Jason?” she coolly inquired, tensing with a bitterness she'd thought long gone. “So help me, Bart, if you're sticking your nose into my business again, I swear-”
“Temper, temper.” He pulled again on her wrist. “If you're nice and tell me a few things, I'll tell you what Jason said.”
“Go to hell.”
“You never did know how to argue reasonably, Molly.” He was smug from the sleek blackness of his hair to the white leather of his court shoes. His neatness annoyed her. He was dressed casually, having come over directly from the club, but he managed to look as though his sweats were pressed. And there wasn't a mark on his white sneakers. She didn't know why his fastidiousness provoked her, but it was probably because he'd complained about her messiness. If she'd only had sense enough to live with Bart before she'd married him, it wouldn't have taken more than a week to know how incompatible they were-parents or no parents, wedding or not. There's nothing like the cap-on-the-toothpaste argument to open one's eyes to marital discord.
He had always been tremendous fun to date, the life of the party, entertaining, and funny. It wasn't until they were married that she'd realized there was another personality beneath that stage facade. A person who was always right. A person who thought of himself first, last, and always; a man whose ambition was a consuming passion. Men like Bart wanted wives and a child (one was enough to complete the image of “family”; no sense in going overboard) as accoutrements to his life. It completed the picture. A successful man needed a family. Single men past a certain age were slightly suspect, not normal somehow.
So she and Carrie were the required actors in the scene: house, wife, child. Wave to Daddy when he leaves for work. Give him a kiss and a straight scotch when he comes home after a hard day at the office. Fade out…
Bart was also a nag. And that finally had driven her over the edge. The house wasn't clean enough or the yard was mowed clockwise instead of counterclockwise. “Don't bitch at me,” Molly would say. “Bitch at the maid or the yardman.”
“Do I have to take care of everything?” he'd scream.
“If you want to complain about their work, you'll have to do it yourself,” she'd reply.
Or Carrie's bike was in the driveway and he had to drive around it.
Or the pool man had the unmitigated gall to miss three leaves floating in the pool.
Important things like that upset the symmetry of Bart Cooper's existence.
And if Molly had a penny for every time Bart had said, “Why can't you hang up your wet towels; it only takes a second,” she would have been a millionairess. She didn't like to pick up her bath towels; she liked to toss them on the floor; she liked to walk on them. She picked them up later, but later wasn't good enough for Bart. Neatness was his religion. God help him. He was doing extremely well though, come to think of it. Was it possible God was a neatnik, too? Maybe she was on the wrong side of a philosophical issue and hadn't realized the direction of her life was being manipulated by a vengeful deity whose all-seeing eyes noticed dust bunnies under the bed.
But none of the differences had mattered when she found herself pregnant so soon after their marriage. And
