Crossroads

by Belva Plain

  * * *

  The elevator had reached the sixth floor. During the ride, Jeff had gone on about Gwen’s reading.

  “I watched your audience tonight,” he said. “The kids were enthralled. I predict that Abby will take her place someday next to Winnie the Pooh, and all those creatures written by Dr. Seuss.”

  “She’s just a little squirrel trying to figure out who she is, and what she wants.” Gwen had tried to shrug away the gushing compliment.

  “Aren’t we all?” He had turned to her. His eyes were fixed on her face as if he was searching for something.

  Mercifully, at that moment, the elevator doors had opened.

  “I don’t think I want anything to eat tonight,” Gwen said as she moved into the hallway. “I think I’ll skip dinner.” She held out her hand for Jeff to shake. He ignored it. He was smiling that desperate smile again. “Thank you for coming all this way,”she faltered.

  “It was my pleasure.” He didn’t move. But when she turned and headed for her room, he started following her. They reached her door. She opened her handbag and fished around for her room key. “Thank you again for coming. It was so nice of you. . . .”

  * * *

  Jeff watched Gwen fumble with her handbag. She was nervous—and he knew why. She didn’t want to sit through a long meal knowing what was coming after. That was why she’d said she didn’t want to have dinner. She’d finally understood what was happening between them—surely her remark about the little squirrel proved that—and now she didn’t want to wait for him any more than he wanted to wait for her. Their time had come! He wanted to laugh out loud. There could be something good in his life!

  He watched as she found the key, but it slipped through her fingers and fell to the carpet next to her feet. Before she could bend down, Jeff had scooped it up. He put the key in the lock, opened the door, and was moving into her room.

  * * *

  Later, when Gwen thought about it, it seemed to her as if she’d watched what happened next but hadn’t really been a part of it. She saw herself move to the door to block the path of a man who looked like Jeff but couldn’t be Jeff, because Jeff would never behave this way. She heard this awful new Jeff whisper in her ear, as he tried to force his way past her, that she was the only thing that mattered to him now, that he couldn’t lose her too. And she heard someone—a Gwen who was also unrecognizable—say that please, he mustn’t do this. And the Gwen who wasn’t really Gwen pushed hard at the Jeff who wasn’t really Jeff until she was off balance and when he stepped back, she fell to the floor. There was a popping sound as if something had snapped. And then Gwen wasn’t watching from a distance anymore, because that was when the pain came. It shot through her hand to her wrist and up her arm in a white hot streak, and the dizziness that accompanied it made her mouth water with instant nausea. She looked up at Jeff as the tears sprang to her eyes. She was on the floor, his expensive loafers—a fine, buttery soft leather—were inches away from her face. He had to see how badly she hurt. Foolishly, stupidly, she waited for him to help her to her feet.

  “You slut!” he spat at her. “You tease a man, you let him think . . . well, to hell with you! To hell with all of it.” He turned on his heel and strode away.

  Chapter Thirty-five

  Gwen wasn’t sure how long she stayed on the floor. But eventually the first screaming pain died away and she was able to get to her feet and close the door. Gingerly she tried moving her fingers—she’d heard somewhere that she wouldn’t be able to do that if her hand was broken. The test was a success—if agonizing. The fingers were mobile. What she had was nothing more than a nasty sprain. There was a bucket of ice in her room; she stuck her hand in it and kept it there until it was numb. The wrist was swelling but the pain had become a dull throb. She had some aspirin in her purse and she swallowed a couple of tablets. Slowly and painfully she set about the process of gathering her belongings and putting them in her overnight bag. There was no way in hell she was staying in this room tonight.

  * * *

  The road was curving and Jewel was driving way too fast. She knew it and she didn’t care. She had to get away from Langham, had to get away from the vision of her husband kissing Gwen’s hands. Gwen Girard! No, get it right, damnit, she was Gwen Wright! Forget the blue-collar loser she had married. She was Cassie Wright’s spoiled brat daughter who always got everything she wanted. Now she had Jewel’s husband, and . . . The curve ahead was sharp and the divider in the middle of the road suddenly loomed up from out of nowhere. Jewel slammed on the brakes and felt the car swerve first to the left and then, out of control, to the right. The back wheels lost traction, the car spun, the divider was coming nearer. Helpless, Jewel could only wait to see how hard the crash would be when the car smashed into it.

  At the last second the car righted itself and stalled. Miraculously, it had stopped inches away from the divider. If there had been anyone else on the road, if the car had just pulled a little more to the right . . . Shaken, Jewel started the engine and drove slowly and carefully to the nearest exit. She kept on going until she found an all-night diner, where she pulled in between two trucks, and sat shaking, as she replayed in her mind the close call she’d just had. She could have been killed. And it was all Gwen Wright’s fault. Dull, boring Gwen who had managed to steal Jewel’s husband. Tears started down Jewel’s cheeks; they came faster and faster as little animal cries of pain emerged from her throat. With trembling hands, she dug her cell phone out of her purse and dialed Wrightstown information.

  * * *

  Stan was waiting for Gwen to call. By now she’d have finished her reading, she’d be in her hotel room. She had to know how sorry he was that he wasn’t there with her. She had to know how much he’d want to hear from her. She was always the one who made up first when they had a fight. She’d call. She would.And when she did, he was going to say he could have been wrong about Jeff Henry—even though he didn’t believe it. But Gwen still hadn’t called. He looked at his watch; he’d give her five more minutes and then he’d call her. He started for the kitchen to get a drink of water, and the phone rang.

  “Gwen!” he said joyously into the phone. “Gwen, darling . . .”

  “If you want to know where your darling wife is, try my husband’s room at the Langham Inn,” gasped a voice that was vaguely familiar.

  “Jewel? Is that you?”

  “Yes,” Jewel cried. “He said he was working. I went there to see him. I thought things were going to be better. . . .”

  “Jewel, where are you?”

  “He put the damn house in my name!” She choked out the words through sobs. “He put most of his portfolio in my name.

  A man wouldn’t do that if he was going to leave—that’s what I thought.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about—”

  “Jeff!” she screamed. “And your perfect little wife. They were up there together. I saw them in the parking lot of the hotel, and they went up together in the elevator. God knows how long they’ve been meeting like that. . . .”

  “Jewel, you’ve got it wrong, Gwen was in Langham for a reading—”

  “I don’t care why she was there! I knew he was leaving me for someone. She’s the one. If it had been anyone but her! Anyone else! I could have—”

  But she got no further because Stan cut her off. “I’ve got to go, Jewel,” he said and hung up the phone. He paced for a moment trying to clear his head. What Jewel had said was absurd; until that day, he had been the one who was going to Langham with Gwen, so there was no way she’d planned an assignation with a lover. Even if he’d thought Gwen was capable of doing such a thing. Which he didn’t. But Henry was a different matter; he was capable of anything—including following Gwen to her reading and trying to seduce her while she was alone and vulnerable. And she would have been very vulnerable in that hotel in Langham by herself. . . . He ran to grab his car keys off the sideboard. There was the sound of scratching at the front door as if someone was tryin
g to unlock it, then the doorbell rang. He answered it.

  Gwen stood in the doorway. Her hair was dripping wet from the rain, and her face looked drained and white. She was carrying her overnight case in her left hand, and there was a large bulky towel wrapped around her right wrist. It appeared to be damp.

  “You were right!” she said. “I’m so sorry. You were right!” Then as he moved to take her in his arms she said with a little gasp of pain. “My hand!” And she started to cry.

  It took a little time for him to get the whole story out of her. Then she had to convince him that there was no need to see a doctor because it really was just a sprain and he had to scold her—very gently—for driving home instead of calling him to come and get her. And she had to explain that she’d been so upset that driving with a hurt wrist—and after all it was her right wrist and she was left-handed—was easier than staying in Langham another second. He’d threatened to find Jeff Henry and kill him, and she’d begged him to let it go because it had been partly her fault. And he’d stopped talking about it because she’d looked like she might cry again, but he’d promised himself that he would have a meeting with Mr. Henry very soon.

  Then he had to take her into the bathroom and stand guard while she took a hot shower, and dry her off himself with the biggest towel he could find and put her to bed and lie down next to her and listen while she told him about the reading and the good part of the night, before Jeff had appeared in the parking lot of the library. And sometime after that she drifted off to sleep with his arm around her—placed very carefully so he wouldn’t hurt the injured wrist—and then later, not wanting to disturb her, he fell asleep at her side still fully dressed.

  Sometime in the middle of the night, the pain in her wrist woke her and he got up to bring her an aspirin, after which he undressed. As he was climbing into bed next to her, he sat up with a jolt. He’d just remembered something that had been gnawing at the back of his mind. He hadn’t really registered it because so much else had happened, but now it came back to him. It was something Jewel had said.

  * * *

  The next morning Stan awoke while Gwen still slept and dialed his mother-in-law’s phone number. Cassie was an early riser, and she answered on the second ring.

  “I have a problem and I don’t know where to go,” Stan said.

  “I think something’s happening at JeffSon.” He told Cassie briefly about the numbers that hadn’t added up, the way he’d been treated after he’d reported his discovery, and the final scene with Jeff Henry in which he had quit.

  “It does sound suspicious,” she said thoughtfully. “But it could have been a legitimate mistake.”

  “I tried to tell myself that too,” Stan said. “But then I heard that Jeff Henry has been moving all of his assets into his wife’s name.”

  There was a long silence on the other end of the phone, then Cassandra drew in a breath he could hear. “It’s probably better if you don’t say anything more about this until I look into it,” she said. “I’ll let you know what I find out.”

  “I’ll wait to hear from you.”

  “And Stan?”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you own any JeffSon stock?”

  “No. I never bought any when I had the chance.”

  “Thank God.”

  * * *

  The collapse of the JeffSon Corporation was a clap of thunder on a mild afternoon.

  Very few people could possibly have imagined what had been happening in the sleek glass and chrome offices in Texas, New York, and Wrights town. And perhaps if there had been more time, the bailouts from Tokyo, London, or Dubai might have come through and no one would ever have known. But there hadn’t been enough time—or luck—and soon the shock waves were roiling through the business community. It had started, said the Wall Street pundits, in a little backwater town in New England. Cassandra Wright, the low-profile but powerful CEO of Wright Glass works, had somehow gotten wind of something that didn’t smell quite right at JeffSon and she’d alerted Tommy Rubin, the stock analyst who had a popular radio talk show dealing with finances. Tommy began poking around, and three weeks later he was advising the public to unload its JeffSon stock. The house of cards that had been JeffSon came tumbling down soon after, and the rest, as they say, was history. Teachers in Georgia and civil servants in California suddenly found that retirement was out of the question—their pension funds, which had been invested in JeffSon stock, were now worth pennies on the dollar. Senior citizens who had placed their trust in the company’s promises would not have an independent old age; they would be living off the kindness of their children. And parents who had believed that Jeff Henry’s dream company would secure their children’s college funds were now facing their high school seniors empty-handed. Most of the men and women who had worked with Stan at JeffSon and taken the stock options were wiped out. Jeffery Henry was one of the most hated men in America.

  Inevitably, the investigations followed. And the lawyers. “Get yourself the best, you’re going to need them,” the head of the New York accounting firm advised Jeff. That was before his own lawyer convinced him to take a deal and cooperate with the authorities in their investigation of Jeff. Mark Scotto had already taken his deal.

  In her big mausoleum-like house Jewel panicked. Once she’d thought that the worst thing that could happen to her would be an affair between her husband and Gwen. She’d accused him of it, and he had denied it so vehemently that she had actually believed him. And she’d breathed a sigh of relief because she’d faced her biggest fear, found out it was nothing, and she was home free. There was nothing more life could do to her. She’d thought. Now it seemed that she’d been terribly, horribly wrong. “What do you mean?” she screamed at her husband. “What the hell are you telling me? That they’re going to put you in jail?”

  He had taken off his jacket and, sweating in his shirt, had sunk into the chair nearest the door of the huge living room. He rubbed his head as if it ached.

  “Haven’t I explained it to you at least ten times? Haven’t I? For God’s sake, what more do you want me to tell you? I’m not in prison yet, for Christ’s sake. Calm down!”

  “But I don’t understand what this is.”

  “Don’t shriek at me. Of course you don’t understand it. What do you know about the law? What do you know about money? All you know is how to spend it.”

  There he sat. His legs were sprawled, while one hand wiped his forehead and the other dabbled in the bowl of nuts on the table beside his chair. The nuts made a revolting sound as he crunched them. She kept staring at him as if she were trying to recognize and remember some stranger’s face and name. Jeff ’s tie was loosened and lay on his heaving chest.

  “I would have been all right,” he said. “I could have claimed that I didn’t know anything. I was on the road hyping the company. I didn’t pay attention to the day-to-day operations. I didn’t know about the offshore accounts. . . . I was innocent. . . .” He trailed off. “But she found out. That bitch Cassandra Wright found out I was transferring assets to you . . . that was what started it all. . . .”

  And Jewel remembered sitting in her car after she’d nearly run off the road because she’d just seen her husband kissing Gwen’s hands. Jewel remembered the rage that had swept over her. She remembered wanting to make Gwen—lucky, pampered, undeserving Gwen—pay for once in her life.

  So, blinded by jealousy, without thinking of the consequences, Jewel had called Stan Girard to tell him that his wife was no better than her birth mother who had been a whore. She had also told Stan Girard that her husband had just put their house in her name.

  Jewel looked around the room, at the tall window that framed a suddenly frightening vision of an eternal, limitless, empty sky.

  She turned back to Jeff and demanded in a voice that was low and hoarse, “Why didn’t you tell me this before? Why didn’t you let me know what was going on? If I’d known how bad it was, about the courts and prison . . . Why the hell didn’t y
ou tell me?”

  “Might as well ask a man from Tibet why he doesn’t have a conversation with a Bulgarian. They don’t speak the same language, that’s why!”

  She felt oddly disconnected. Her mind flitted through crazy split seconds: The curtains in the room looked like something in a funeral parlor. What was going through Jeff’s mind at this minute? His features were the same, the firmness of the mouth, the way the eyes looked at you as you spoke to him and as he measured you . . . but he was a different man now. He was bankrupt. He was going to jail. And overriding everything else was the thought she could not get out of her mind, the thought she knew would be with her forever: She had helped bring about his downfall. It wasn’t all her fault, she knew that, but it had taken just one tiny moment of jealous rage to begin the process that had led her husband to the indictments he was now saying he could not beat. One sliver of a second. Now Jewel was left with a meaningless and yet frightening mingling of words about quarterly losses, retirement accounts, lost jobs, millions of dollars, lawyers, more lawyers—all things she neither knew anything about nor understood. And somewhere in the muddle of guilt and fear that filled Jewel’s head was an unexplainable, queer kernel of bewildered, awful pity for Jeff, who had once loved her so much.