just outside the maitre d’s station, and as people do when they’re talking on cellphones in public places, he had turned to face the wall. I stopped behind him, pretending to study a menu. He was almost whispering, but I overheard him make a lover’s promise. “I’ll never let anyone hurt you,” he said. “You are my lifeblood.”
When I got back from the ladies’ room, it was clear the party was over. Felix had already downed his vodka and pulled on his ski jacket. “I’m going up to my room to make some phone calls,” he said. “There must be somebody at NBC who’s taking care of business.”
Claudia followed his lead. “I guess we should go upstairs too. We have to pack.” She took Jill’s hand. “Thanks,” she said. “Given the circumstances, it was a very pleasant dinner. I’ll call you before we go to the airport.”
Tracy went to Bryn and stroked her hair. “Your mother always wanted the best for you – it wasn’t her fault that her life didn’t work out.”
“There’s nothing you can tell me about my mother that I have the slightest interest in hearing,” Bryn said, and she jumped up and ran from the room.
Taylor, oblivious, reached over and nabbed a chocolate truffle from Bryn’s plate. “Boy, this was some Christmas,” she said.
“You’ve got that right,” I said. “And do you know what the best part of this particular Christmas is?”
Taylor popped the truffle in her mouth and shrugged.
“In four hours, it will be over,” I said.
After the kids were in bed, Jill and I took a bottle of Hennessey and two snifters into the living room. I turned on the tree lights and lit every candle in sight. Jill handed me my drink.
I took a sip and sighed with contentment. “There’s nothing like Hennessey,” I said. “And we earned it. We got through the day.”
“We did,” Jill agreed. “Now there’s only the rest of our lives to worry about.”
“It’ll get better,” I said.
Jill gazed at the candelabra blazing on the mantelpiece. “I love candles,” she said. “They always make me think of college.”
“Stuck in Chianti bottles and lined up along your dorm window to prove you were a woman of the world?”
Jill smiled at the memory. “For me, candles meant Edna St. Vincent Millay – I loved her image of burning the candle at both ends, so you could make a lovely light.”
I swirled my brandy, watching the amber waves hit the curved sides of the snifter. “Living at full throttle becomes less appealing as the years tick by,” I said.
“Maybe,” Jill said. “But a wise man once told me that when it comes to life, ‘the bigger the investment, the bigger the payoff.’ ”
“So was this sage one of your long line of lovers?” I asked.
“No, but he was one of the few men I’ve ever truly admired. It was Ian, Jo.” The candlelight glanced off Jill’s diamond solitaire. “Did you ever realize how lucky you both were to get it right the first time?”
“I realized,” I said.
Jill stared at the flickering fireplace, mesmerized. “Sometimes watching your life with the kids and each other, I felt like the Little Match Girl pressing my nose against the window. I wanted that life, Jo – I still do. That’s why I’m ready to invest everything I have in Bryn.”
“Every investment carries the possibility of loss,” I said.
“I know. I’m not a complete idiot.” She laughed softly. “But hey, I’m the last of the red-hot Edna St. Vincent Millay fans – want to hear the best two lines she ever wrote?”
“Do I have a choice?”
“Of course not.” The tone was congruent with our usual easy mockery, but when Jill turned to me her eyes shone with a terrifying hope:
“Safe upon the solid rock the ugly houses stand:
Come and see my shining palace built upon the sand!”
CHAPTER
10
It didn’t take long for the sands under Jill’s shining palace to shift dangerously. Just after midnight, my son shook me awake. “Come down to my room, Mum.” As I fumbled for my slippers, Angus babbled, “I didn’t turn the lights on because I heard somewhere they can get violent if you wake them up.”
“What are you talking about?”
He lowered his voice. “Bryn’s sleepwalking. I was in bed just kind of staring at the wall, and she came in. Her eyes were open, but when I called her name, she didn’t hear me.” He pointed towards the graceful naked figure in the window. “Look at her. She doesn’t even know we’re here.”
The moon played tenderly on Bryn’s flawless body, outlining her slender legs, touching on the gentle curves of her buttocks. As we watched, she pivoted slowly towards us, staring at us from wide, unseeing eyes.
“Get her robe,” I said.
“You’re not supposed to interfere with them,” Angus said.
“This is a special case,” I said. “Get the robe.”
When Angus came back, I draped Bryn’s robe around her shoulders and led her back to her room. As I pulled the covers up, I leaned close. “I know you’re faking,” I said.
The bud of a smile touched her lips, but she didn’t say a word.
Bryn was at the breakfast table watching the birds crowding each other at the feeder when Willie and I came down the next morning. I let Willie outside, plugged in the coffee, and sat down. It was, I suddenly realized, the first time Bryn and I had ever really been alone together.
With her hair tied back in a schoolgirl ponytail and her face innocent of makeup, it was impossible to believe duplicity was even in Bryn’s emotional vocabulary.
She didn’t waste the moment. “I’ve been waiting for you,” she said.
“Here I am.”
“How did you know?” she asked.
“A gorgeous, perfectly groomed, naked girl bathed in moonlight – it was just too much. Why did you do it?”
“To get him on my side,” she said.
The memory of Bryn’s seductiveness with the camera was fresh. “You don’t have to use your sexuality to get someone on your side,” I said.
“It’s all I have.”
“That’s not true. There are other ways,” I said.
“Not for me,” she said. “I’m damaged goods. I’ve done terrible things.” She lowered her gaze. “None of them involved Angus, if that’s what you’re worried about.”
“Angus isn’t my only concern.”
“That’s right,” she said angrily. “There’s Jill too. Well, I’ve done things to protect her.”
“What kinds of things?”
“I can’t talk about it with you.”
“Did you call the police and tell them to check the garbage bin out back?”
Bryn froze, tense as a cornered cat. “Why would I do something like that?”
Her antagonism was palpable. I knew I had to disarm her. “I think you did it for Jill,” I said. “To protect her. It was a generous impulse, Bryn, but you need to do more. If you knew the pill bottle was there, then you know who put it there. You have to tell someone.”
“I’m not telling you,” she said.
“Could you tell a psychiatrist?”
