and started kissing. This was a lie, of course. I wondered if Charlotte would buy it. Why not just say, “Isabelle and I were hunting around for something in the Smoothie Cabin. So when you, Victor, Billie, and Craig suddenly opened the door, I had to conceal what we were doing. I couldn’t think, so I grabbed her and made it look as if we were hiding out to smooch. I know it looked bad, but…?”
How would that work?
“Do you mean to tell me,” Charlotte whispered fiercely, “that a fifty-something man would prove to be so attractive to a twenty-something woman, an employee of the spa, no less, that she would grab him on spa property and start kissing him? You must think I’m awfully naive, Jack.”
“Let me ask you this, Charlotte,” Jack replied, his voice low. “Do you think Isabelle is nice looking?”
Charlotte sniffed again. “No, I don’t. She’s…too thin.”
“Not all the women in the world are as lovely as you, my dear.”
“Jack, don’t—”
“I’m not done. Do you think it’s even possible that she would want to try her making-out skills on an old guy like me? Maybe because she thought I wouldn’t say no?”
I rolled my eyes.
Charlotte said, “Oh, Jack, come on.”
Jack said, “Look, Charlotte, I’m sorry. Isabelle was helping me look for something. I heard people coming, so I grabbed her. End of story.”
“What were you looking for?”
“Just…something that didn’t belong there. That’s all. Look, will you come over and spend the night with me? Please?”
Again I had to remind myself to keep my eyes on the road, as it twisted and wound all the way back to Aspen Meadow. As far as I knew, aside from Finn, Jack had never had overnight guests. I didn’t want to ponder why he was suddenly offering Charlotte an invite.
Unless…unless he thought she had some information about Doc Finn? Maybe Billie had confessed something untoward to her mother? I wondered.
Jack liked Charlotte. He didn’t love her. I wondered if that was enough for Charlotte. And if it was too much for Jack.
Man, relationships! You think once you get out of high school, all the mucky mess and emotions and expectations and disappointments are behind you. News flash to the uninformed: they last your whole life.
Charlotte was saying, “Stay in your house? To night? Jack. Thank you. Please listen, though. My only daughter is getting married tomorrow afternoon, and I have a thousand things—”
“May I come over to your place, then? You’re always inviting me. This afternoon, I’ll take you out to lunch, and then we can have some fun, and then I’ll take you out to dinner, and we can have some more fun.”
“I thought you were taking me to the rehearsal dinner to night.”
“Oh, yeah, the rehearsal dinner. Forgot about that. Where is it?”
“Well,” Charlotte said tentatively, “since we changed the venue, we’re doing the walk-through, a rehearsal, yes, at Aspen Meadow Country Club. Then I’m throwing a dinner party for the bridal party, also at Aspen Meadow Country Club. You are invited. You’ve always been invited.”
Jack said, “May I take you out to lunch? Wherever you want to go.”
Charlotte paused. I couldn’t resist: I looked in the rearview mirror. Jack was kissing Charlotte on the neck. It sure as heck wasn’t Charlotte who was all charm.
Charlotte sighed. “All right, then,” she whispered at last. “But you have to promise to be out of the house by eight tomorrow morning.”
AS I PILOTED my godfather’s Mercedes down Upper Cottonwood Creek Road, I called Tom on my cell phone. There was no answer. He was probably still with the county medical examiner. Reluctantly, I punched the numbers for Arch’s cell.
“Jeez, Mom,” he said when he finally picked up. “It’s summer, and I’m still in bed over at Gus’s house.”
“Sorry, buddy.” One of the conditions of our buying Arch a cell phone was that he was not allowed to turn it off, ever. Unfortunately, Arch’s teenage sleeping pattern didn’t match my grown-up working one, and invariably we were at odds over who was bothering whom. I said sweetly, “Listen, bud, can you get up and come get me over in Flicker Ridge?”
“Now? You have got to be kidding me.”
“Yes, now. Sorry.” Just after his sixteenth birthday in April, Tom and I had bought Arch a used VW Passat. One of the conditions of that purchase had been that he would help out occasionally with running errands. Since Arch’s driver’s license had been freshly minted, he’d been very happy to “get a ride,” as he put it, although it seemed to me that what he was getting was not a ride, but wheels. Another Mom job: learn how nomenclature differs from one generation to the next.
Arch said, “Do you remember that Gus and Todd are coming with me, and spending the night?”
“Oh my, I forgot.”
“We’re not going to bother you, Mom. And it’s way past our turn to have everybody.”
Actually, he was right. This summer, the Druckmans and the Vikarioses had done the heavy lifting in the Entertain-the-Kids department. They’d always insisted that they loved having the boys as much as possible. And I believed them, but my gut still gnawed with guilt. The Druckmans were leaving on Monday for a family fishing trip in Montana. When they came back, school would be starting. I needed to do my bit, as Arch had reminded me. Over the protestations of Jack, I gave Arch the address of the Attenborough residence.
“Just take my car home,” Jack said. “Charlotte can run me back to my place in the morning.”
“I cannot run you anywhere,” Charlotte said huffily. “I’ll be too busy!”
At the Attenborough place, I told Charlotte and Jack I would just wait inside Jack’s car until Arch arrived. Jack said that was fine, but please would I lock the car and bring him the keys? I agreed, and the two of them took off for the house.
Truth to tell, I also wanted to stay in the car because I figured the last place Billie would look for me was right out in front of her own house. To make sure, though, when Craig Miller drove up in his Lexus, I ducked. I felt childish, but I really, really didn’t want Billie to catch sight of me.
After what I thought was a safe interval, I lifted my head, only to scream when I saw Craig Miller smirking at me through the driver’s-side window. He had his hands in the pockets of his khaki pants, and he was rocking back and forth on his loafers, the preppy Cat Who Swallowed the Canary.
“You about scared me to death!” I said after I finally found the proper button to bring down the window.
“Are you hiding from Billie?”
“I, well, I…yes. Is she coming out here to tell me she wants some more changes to the menu?”
“I doubt it. I saw you, but she didn’t. She was too busy complaining about the spa venue. All the way back I heard about how impossible it was all going to be. It was really a fun drive. But don’t worry, she’s going to stick with having everything there. Since the date has been changed so much, we had to go with some later reservations to the Greek isles, so we’ll actually be staying at the spa for the first couple of days of the honeymoon.” He laughed that snuffly laugh of his, but I wasn’t disarmed by it. When Craig glanced up at the house, I felt a twinge of fear that he would signal Billie. I was ever mindful of Henry Kissinger’s dictum:
“Billie’s not going to be looking out the window, and see you out here, is she?”
For answer, Craig chuckled again. As he rounded the front of Jack’s car, I wondered for at least the fiftieth time what this handsome, well-built doctor saw in Billie. He was a self-assured professional who, Marla had told me, was only twenty-eight. Billie was thirty-six, not terribly attractive, and a bitch. Her mother was nice, and she was rich, but Craig wasn’t marrying Charlotte.
Then again, who was I to decipher the motivations of love? My first time around, I’d married a violent narcissist, which showed you how much I knew.
“I know I’ve said this to you before, Goldy,” Craig began, once he was sitting in the passenger seat. He turned to face me, his expression all earnestness. “Billie and I are just very, very appreciative of all the work you’ve done for us.”
“I’m just doing my job, Craig.”
