Eliza Starts a Rumor

by Jane L. Rosen

  “Ashley is home!” Mandy shouted.

  They took off to Eliza’s desk, babies in tow. Olivia sat on the floor with the babies while the others gathered by the window.

  Everyone but Olivia watched as Ashley Smith entered her house, walked into the kitchen, and poured herself a cup of coffee. Eliza bent down in front of Olivia.

  “Are you sure you want me to post it? We can still wait for Alison’s detective friend to call back.”

  Olivia got up, grabbed the binoculars from the shelf, and took a good look at the enemy.

  “It’s definitely her. Post it. I think our new plan is good.”

  Eliza nodded in agreement and got down to business.

  “Done!” she said. “Now we wait.”

  They could easily see with their naked eyes what was going on. Ashley climbed the stairs and appeared again in her bedroom window. Alison watched through the binoculars for more detail. They were all ready to duck out of sight if she shot a glance their way. The comments on the post were already pouring in.

  Paint an A on her lawn, scarlet letter style!

  Call her husband. Let him “get” her.

  Really? Are you really promoting domestic violence? Forget him, go beat her up yourself!

  WHY ARE YOU BLAMING HER? WHAT ABOUT THE HUSBAND? HE’S THE ONE WHO DESERVES THE BEATING!

  Eliza didn’t read the comments out loud. They would only have been entertaining if the victim of this whole mess hadn’t been sitting on the floor dangling a rattle in front of her baby girl. But Olivia stood again and checked them out herself, addressing the last one.

  “I know I should be concentrating on Spencer and that this woman has no loyalty to me, but I can’t help but feel betrayed by her as well.”

  They understood—at this point they all hated her, too. No one needed binoculars to see what happened next. Ashley sat on her bed, took off her shoes, and pushed herself back. She grabbed her phone and began to read.

  “She’s on her phone,” Alison reported to Olivia. “It looks like she’s listening to a message.” Alison looked through the binoculars.

  Olivia began to purposefully breathe in and out. The others unknowingly followed suit. Ashley Smith dropped her phone on her bed and covered her face with her hands.

  “She read it!” Alison shouted. The three women stood, grasping hands, as Alison reported her every move.

  “She’s making a call. She’s talking on the phone. She hung up. She’s putting on her shoes!”

  Alison looked down at the four women’s feet. Everyone was wearing shoes but Eliza. Ashley sat down on the edge of her bed. She held her phone in her hands as if it were the Holy Grail. Olivia’s phone rang. They all screamed, “Don’t answer it!”

  “I’m not,” Olivia said, and somehow laughed. They all joined in. She looked down at the name. It was Spencer. He left a message. She played it on speaker. He sounded weird.

  “Ummm. Hi. Um, where are you? I have a question. Call me back. Umm, OK, love you.”

  Olivia picked up Lily and stood. They all watched as Ashley answered her phone, shook her head, grabbed her purse, and hightailed it out of her bedroom.

  “We have to follow her!” Alison shrieked. Olivia started to go, but Alison grabbed Mandy. “You! You come with me. You two stay here with the babies.”

  Eliza took Zach. There was no time to think or waste. Olivia agreed, and within seconds Mandy and Alison were following Ashley Smith’s car down the road.

  “This is insane!” Mandy said.

  “Should I stop?”

  “Absolutely not. Let’s get this bastard!”

  Olivia called Alison’s cell, and she connected the Bluetooth.

  “What’s going on?” she asked.

  “We’re right behind her, on River Road.”

  “I’m staying on the phone. Be careful.”

  “Don’t worry. She’s not speeding, she’s just driving—somewhere,” Mandy added, which made Olivia feel a bit better about not risking their lives.

  Olivia read more comments popping up on Eliza’s computer. She actually made a joke: “She’s lucky the whole town isn’t chasing her with burning stakes.”

  “She’s getting on the highway.”

  “Which direction?”

  “North.”

  “Spencer’s office is at exit twenty-two. I bet she’s meeting him up there. Why else would she be going that way?”

  Andie Rand cut in. Alison was more than eager to confer with her and tell her what was going on. Andie was adamant that they still needed a photo.

  “I’m telling you. I reviewed her prenup. Visual evidence that can be exposed to the press is her only way to get what she deserves. I see this all the time. In the heat of the moment women just want out, but she’s only been married a short time. I’m concerned that she’ll be very much on her own without physical proof.”

  Her words gave Mandy and Alison a renewed sense of purpose.

  “Wait, she’s pulling into a truck stop.”

  “OK, pull in, too, but a few spots away from her. Feed Zach, as if that’s why you pulled over,” Andie instructed.

  “Do you think I brought Zach on a high-speed chase?” Alison interjected.

  “Oh. That’s a bummer. Babies are great props.”

  Alison turned to Mandy. “Remind me never to let her babysit.”

  Eliza called Mandy’s phone. “What’s happening?”

  Mandy put her on speaker, too, as Spencer showed up in his stupid flashy car. He pulled in right next to Ashley. Mandy reported it loud and clear.

  “Does Spencer have a red Porsche?”

  Olivia confirmed it, more embarrassed than ever to be married to him. She managed another joke. “Yes, and a small penis.” She blushed as she said it. All the women laughed, except for Andie Rand, who was all business.

  She made her feelings evident. “OK, no more jokes. We have one shot. This is what has to happen. Spencer will get into her car. You are to wait for them to go at it.”

  Alison was suspect. “How do you know they will?”

  “I’ve been doing this a long time. Trust me, they will. Don’t jump right out; give it about thirty seconds, then one of you has to approach the car. Who’s going to do it? Decide now.”

  “I’ll do it,” Mandy said. She felt good about it, like she was doing it for the women who came out against Carson. “I got this.”

  Alison shot her a look of confidence.

  “OK. Open the camera on your phone and switch it to video. Do you have enough battery?”

  “Yes, I’m at sixty percent.”

  “Great. Make sure it’s on record before you get out of the car. Walk directly there with the phone facing forward. Record them until they notice you; as they do, keep it on record but motion for them to pull down the window. Look right at your phone, like you are reading an address, and ask them directions. Got it?”

  Alison interrupted. “Look, they’re already on top of each other. Sorry, Olivia.”

  Mandy jumped into action as Alison reported her every move. She held the phone steady in front of her, alternating between looking at the car and watching the seconds rise on the counter. She stood at the window and recorded them. They were all over each other. She could see that Ashley’s blouse was open and that she looked like she’d been crying. She couldn’t believe they didn’t notice her. It felt like minutes, but when she looked down at the timer, she saw that only thirty-four seconds had passed. She waited a few more, then knocked on the window. She watched as Spencer flipped around toward her. As he rolled down the window, Ashley straightened herself out.

  “Can I help you?!” he barked.

  Mandy looked down at her phone as if reading from it. She saw that she was still recording. She knew it was priceless, albeit the footage was a little shaky from her nerves.

  “
I’m sorry. I’m having car trouble. I’m looking for Wally’s Garage.”

  Spencer was furious. As if being caught on tape with another woman wasn’t enough, he was quite rude. “I don’t know, lady. Look at your GPS and get the hell away from our car!”

  Mandy murmured an apology, but couldn’t help the grin bursting from her lips. His glare turned to confusion.

  You’ll figure it out soon enough, she thought, as she hurried back to the car.

  CHAPTER 38

  Alison

  Being a part of the big sting wiped out any lingering doubt in Alison regarding whether she was a fairy-tale girl or not. Until then thoughts of Jack—and Jackie—kept running through her mind. She had wondered how it was possible to miss someone she barely knew, or more accurately, didn’t know at all. After witnessing what she had with Olivia and Spencer, she was more sure than ever that there was no room for dishonesty in a relationship. She junked his last email attempt at an apology without even reading it and wrote one to Marc, asking him to come up to see the baby.

  She fussed around the house a bit, straightening up before Marc got there. With rush-hour traffic and the rain, she was sure that it would be close to eight o’clock when he arrived. Eliza, who was now her second-best friend in town after Olivia, suggested making a lasagna and saving the last ten minutes of baking time for his arrival. She wasn’t sure why she was acting like the happy homemaker, or why she was so quick to forgive Marc for being such a colossal prick regarding her pregnancy. For a second she wondered if she was creating a charade to distract herself from the one she’d unknowingly gotten caught up in.

  The doorbell rang at ten past eight. She looked in the mirror, straightened her hair, and waved a coat of pink gloss over her lips. “Who are you?” she said out loud to her image, as she wiped the gloss off on the back of her hand.

  Clumsiness always crept in when she was casually conversing with Marc Sugarman, and having delivered his offspring hadn’t made it any easier. In fact, his lack of emotional intimacy became more obvious in the emotionally intimate state of parenthood. His recent mushy revelations aside, he was not a people person and certainly not a baby person. On the plus side, he was refreshingly self-aware about it all.

  “I think I’ll be better with Zachary when he’s more sturdy,” he said hopefully, looking down into the baby’s crib.

  “You’re fine, Marc. Don’t worry about it.”

  “Wait, I brought him something,” he whispered, opening his briefcase and pulling out a pile of books. Not just any books, but a very thoughtful collection of childhood classics. Alison knew that Marc could not have selected the books on his own; in fact, he may not have even gone to the bookstore himself, but when she flipped through Ferdinand, Where the Wild Things Are, and Caps for Sale, and landed on Guess How Much I Love You, she was touched. As they left Zach’s room and passed her open bedroom door, something stirred in her. I never mind a crispy lasagna, she thought as she led Marc into her bedroom.

  Sex between Alison and Marc Sugarman had been molded to perfection over the years—each of them getting great pleasure from pleasuring the other. Alison knew that it was more about ego than anything else. They had established a rhythm, much like two Olympic figure skaters going for the gold. She could almost imagine the judges calling out their perfect scores for technical merit, required elements, presentation, and grade of execution. If emotional connection were part of the criteria they would have fallen flat. No triple axels in that category, for sure.

  Alison was aware that people, especially women, often thought about many things during sex. She did not. Occasionally her mind wandered to the brief she had to prepare the next day, but in general, she focused on what she was feeling and where she was feeling it. She did not think of Brad Pitt or her old boyfriend from high school or the cute exterminator who popped his head into her office on the first Monday of every month and asked, “May I enter?” She didn’t even like to listen to music during sex. She preferred that her mind and body be one.

  But today, as Marc’s hands were hungrily roaming her body, her mind started to wander to Jack Campbell. She thwarted it by purposefully opening her eyes and looking at Marc, watching his hands ride up the side of her torso; his lips trace her navel and come up between her breasts. But when she closed her eyes again, she pictured Jack’s lips and Jack’s touch. She remembered the C-O-C-O-N-U-T advice from the bulletin board and tried it out. The distraction was only temporary, within minutes she was back to picturing Jack, and with his image her desire grew exponentially. It felt too good not to continue, and so, for the first time that she could remember, Alison combined sex with fantasy. It was only when she realized it had never felt that good before that it concerned her.

  As they lay spent next to each other, Marc noticed that she wasn’t all there.

  “Was that good for you?” he asked.

  “Very,” she responded, hiding her concern.

  Over lasagna, the awkwardness between them that was never found in the bedroom or in the courtroom crept back in. Alison wondered whether they were trying to fit a round peg into a square hole. As if reading her mind, Marc came right out and addressed it.

  “Look, Alison, I know what I’m proposing is not some great romantic love story, but I think I know you pretty well, and I think you’re just as pragmatic as I am.”

  She hoped that he was still right. It really bothered her that she had been thinking about Jack during sex. It was as if having a baby had weakened her constitution, cracked it, like the Leonard Cohen lyrics, allowing the light in.

  “Let’s just take it one day at a time.”

  “How about two days at a time? Can you join me with the baby at my press conference announcing my candidacy?”

  “Of course,” she said, adding with real honesty, “I’m looking forward to it.”

  CHAPTER 39

  Amanda

  Mandy dragged Pippa with her to the Stop & Shop with a huge list from Eliza for Thanksgiving. She’d given Eliza a bit of a hard time about it, as she felt like she was getting worse and she wasn’t doing anything to help herself. The list of local therapists that Mandy had put together had remained uncalled; the self-help books she had taken out of the library for her, untouched. She was happy to help, but hated enabling her, even if this was a lot easier for her than baking a pie.

  As she contemplated the difference between yams and sweet potatoes (Eliza had asked for the latter), she spotted Dean Barr out of the corner of her eye. There was something about seeing him in this conventional environment that broke the spell. She laughed at herself for thinking about him in those adolescent terms, like he was still her teacher and ate all his meals in the school cafeteria. Every risqué encounter thus far had been in the high school or the parking lot.

  It was an odd thing; obviously as two adults they could “get a room.” She imagined that Dean had a room or two of his own to spare. She knew this cat and mouse game they were playing would either fizzle out or lead that way. She wasn’t sure which direction she wanted it to go.

  Pippa flew by her like a whirling dervish, bringing her back to the Stop & Shop.

  “Look, it’s Mr. Barr!”

  She wanted to stop Pippa in her tracks and avoid having what was sure to be an awkward encounter in front of her daughter, but how would she explain her reaction? She followed Pippa to the butcher’s counter just in time to hear Mr. Barr’s heartbreaking order.

  “Hello, what’s the smallest size turkey you have? It’s just me, but I’m good with leftovers.”

  Pippa looked up at her mother as if a puppy was about to be put down.

  “It’s not our place to invite more people to Aunt Eliza’s,” she whispered. Pippa gave her the death stare. Amanda gave in.

  “Hi, Mr. Barr.”

  He blushed. She wasn’t sure if the source of his embarrassment was his turkey-for-one request, or a reaction to seeing
Amanda with her daughter in public.

  “Hi, I, um, usually go out of town to my sister’s for the holiday, but with the play this weekend . . .”

  It was the turkey.

  Pippa doubled down on her stare. Amanda reacted.

  “We are spending the holiday at our neighbors’. She loves a big crowd, if you would like to come.”

  “That’s so nice, but I couldn’t impose.”

  Amanda breathed a sigh of relief. It was short-lived.

  “You have to come!” Pippa insisted, and added, as if starring in a Frank Capra film, “No one should be alone on Thanksgiving.”

  Mr. Barr smiled as the butcher made a suggestion. “How about a Cornish game hen?” he asked. His name tag read “Bart.” Mandy remembered the discussion on the bulletin board about him and tried not to get caught checking him out. She was beginning to feel like a real floozy. She smiled. He smiled back.

  “Do you know him?” Dean asked.

  She blushed. “No, no. Why?”

  “I swear since I’ve been standing here four women have come over and checked him out.” Mandy hid her laughter.

  Bart returned, holding up a small chicken like a product on the Home Shopping Network.

  “I won’t be needing it after all. Thanks.” Mr. Barr smiled shyly.

  Amanda took that as a yes and graciously gave him the details. They finished up their shopping. She stopped at home to drop off Pippa and a few bags before bringing the rest to Eliza’s. Her dad came out to the car to help.

  “Pippa invited Dean Barr over to Eliza’s for Thanksgiving,” she whined.

  “He’s a dean now?”

  “No, that’s his first name,” she said with a laugh.

  “That is funny. You know, you used to have a giant crush on him in high school.”