by Janice Weber
Ross could tell from her tone of voice that Emily was still burned up about the purple bikinis she had found in his briefcase. He decided to respond with urbane indifference. “That’s nice. How’s Philippa holding up? Any booze left?”
“I’m going to Los Angeles tonight.”
Ross’s indifference vaporized. “What the hell for?”
“Breakfast.”
“Three thousand miles for breakfast? Whose idea was this? Yours?”
“Philippa’s. I’ll be back late tomorrow.”
“Is she going with you?”
“Of course not.”
“You don’t mean to tell me you’re playing dress-up again.” Hearing no response, Ross capitulated. He had no choice. “Have fun, then, dear. I’ll be here when you get home.”
“See what I mean?” Philippa cried as Emily hung up. “You have a perfect life. Your husband lets you do anything.”
Realizing that she had just handed her husband a free night with his secretary, Emily snapped, “Just shut up! You have no idea what you’re talking about!” She grabbed her sister’s suitcase; better leave before she changed her mind.
“I really appreciate this,” Philippa said, following Emily to her car. “You’re the best sister in the world. Let me know if you want to stay out there for a while.”
“As in trade places?”
“It’s crossed my mind.”
Emily tried to smile as if such a suggestion amused her. “By the way, what am I supposed to do with this producer?”
“Just be yourself! Have fun!” Philippa began to cry a little. “Be careful.”
“Likewise. If you need anything, call Ross. He’s number six on the speed dial.” Emily put the car into Reverse. “If I die with a mouth full of pancakes, you’ll know I wasn’t making this up.” Waving, she drove off.
Philippa waited for many minutes, listening to the soft whoosh of leaves. Finally confident that her sister would not be returning, she went to the cabin and forced a half-hour delay with cable news. Then, using her credit card, she phoned Boston. “Guy Witten, please.”
“Emily?” said a voice. “How are you? It’s Bert!”
“I couldn’t care less who this is. Is Guy there? It’s rather important.”
“Hey boss! Get the phone!”
Philippa’s heart thumped harder with each passing second. You are out of your mind, she thought just before Guy said hello. “Have you forgiven me yet, dear?”
He hesitated a few seconds, torn between hanging up and forgiving her. As usual, the sound of her voice withered all his manly resolve. “Of course I haven’t forgiven you.”
“Were you hurt the other night?”
“Only a sprained wrist and thirty-seven stitches. Not worth mentioning. I take it you escaped without a scratch.”
Philippa laughed caustically. “Tell me that to my face, you cocksucker.”
Emily had never called him that before, even in jest. Guy did not find the endearment attractive. “What’s the occasion, Plum?”
“I’m at the cabin in New Hampshire. You know where that is, don’t you?”
“Seeing as I’ve never been invited there, no.”
Damn! “Well, look on a map,” Philippa said. “Endicot Lake. It’s the big house with lots of glass brick and a red door. I must see you tonight. Right away.”
“You mean just a few hours from now?”
“That’s correct. And I’d appreciate you bringing along a bottle of decent scotch.” Stung by the ensuing silence, Philippa said, “I’m leaving tomorrow and never coming back. I would like you to hear a brief confession before I go.”
“Never coming back? Where are you going, Filene’s Basement?”
“How dare you make fun of me! Go sprain your other wrist!” Cursing, Philippa slammed down the phone. That conversation had not turned out correctly at all. What had made her cut Guy off like that? Now he’d never visit her. And he didn’t even know where the place was? What kind of inept affair was her sister conducting here? Philippa toppled impotently onto the couch. So much for coming clean. She was an idiot for even having considered it.
Philippa revived when a thunderclap shook the cabin. Pelting rain quickly followed. Her stomach wobbled: Guy was driving north. She felt it. About now he would be passing Emily on the opposite side of Route 95. If he drove fast, estimated time of arrival would be about nine o’clock. What would she say to him? What would she wear? In a welter of generosity, Philippa had just sent her best outfits, not to mention her diamonds and makeup, to Los Angeles with Emily. She ran to the bedroom and tore into her remaining suitcases. Soon a large mound of feathers, sequins, and stretch lace covered the bed. Philippa ran to the mirror and studied the rich violet splotches all over her face. Horrified, she took another boiling shower, then dressed in Emily’s baggy farmer clothes. She ran to the stereo, looking for background music. Bruckner? Mahler? Where the hell was Sinatra? Philippa had to settle for something called Bolero, which she vaguely remembered from another beach movie. Lightning fulgurated over the lake as she turned off the lamps and poured a glass of vodka to steady her nerves. Each time Philippa tried to compose a confessional speech, she began to quiver terribly. What if Guy beat her to death here in the woods? Left her body on the deck for the wolves to devour? She was about to call the airport and intercept Emily when she heard a car rolling into the driveway. Philippa doubled over with fear as a door slammed outside. She heard quick, crunching footsteps on the porch, then rapping on the cabin door.
“I’m here, Em,” Guy called. “Open up, baby!”
His voice melted her paralysis. Philippa’s desire to see him overcame her desire not to be seen by him. She flung open the front door: There he stood, smiling and mythical, exactly as she remembered him. “Took you long enough, dear boy.”
In the steady rain, Guy stared at her battered face. “Plum?” he whispered uncertainly.
Something spit from the shadows. Guy fell to the ground.
11
Moments after Emily had told Ross she was going to Los Angeles, Marjorie walked into his office. Ten steps away, she could feel the black waves throbbing from his brow, flooding the room. Marjorie couldn’t tell whether his mood had been caused by the recent phone call or their argument over the purple bikini this morning; after disappearing half the day, Ross had holed up in his office, barely speaking to anyone. Finally, unable to avoid him any longer, she had tiptoed in. “Everything all right, Ross?” she asked.
“Yo.” He looked at the papers she had brought. “What’s all this?”
“Letters of understanding. Sign here. And here.” She pointed him through the pile. “Will you be able to do some drawing tonight?”
Ross smiled wanly; that was Marjorie’s nice way of asking why the hell he hadn’t been drawing like a good boy all day. “I plan to.” He capped his fountain pen. “Thanks.”
She smiled wanly back; that was Ross’s nice way of asking her to leave. “I’ll be here until six. Let me know if you need anything.”
He had seen Marjorie’s legs almost every day for the last fifteen years. Still, Ross watched them as Marjorie left; they were a necessary pleasure, food for the eyes. And, like a mother’s love, they were a constant. Why had he blown up at her this morning? “Falling apart, old boy,” he heard Dana whisper in his ear. How true. But that was because he couldn’t grasp the links between current events. Ross found himself thinking constantly about Dagmar, who was connected to Joe, who was connected to Dana: What had gone on there? Information incomplete, so he passed to Peace Power Farm. It was somehow connected to Diavolina to that woman named Ward to Emily. He wished he had listened better to Emily’s brief adventures at the restaurant, but they had only been recounted tersely, late at night, in a wash of more agitating topics. Pass again. Now his wife was suddenly going to California. That sequence involved Philippa and, somehow, Guy Witten. It had to. Emily claimed that the trip was Philippa’s idea. What was so important that Philippa had to send her sister
three thousand miles to breakfast? Perhaps Emily was fibbing. Perhaps the trip was her idea, and Guy Witten was going with her. One way to find out.
“Where are you going this time?” Marjorie cried as Ross sailed past her desk.
“Out for coffee.” Ross ducked around the corner to Cafe Presto. Inside, a few weary shoppers sat eating pie while, behind the counter, cranky old Bert was cleaning up. This was the time of day when customers gravitated toward bars, not coffee shops. “Hi Bert,” Ross said, asking for a cup of decaf. “Holding down the fort, I see.”
“Of course! Everyone around here takes off whenever they like. One of these days I’m going to do the same.” Bert placed a cup on the counter. “This must be Mr. and Mrs. Major day at Presto. Your wife called a while ago.”
“No kidding.” Ross forced himself to swallow some lukewarm brown liquid. “What for?”
“Don’t know. She talked to Guy.”
“Maybe she wants her old job back.”
“Maybe. But he might not give it to her. She called him a cocksucker. Shouted it so loud I heard it and I was standing two feet away. Then she hung up on him.” Bert shrugged. “Emily’s been pretty uppity lately, if you ask me. You can tell her I don’t appreciate being talked to like a servant.”
A moment’s incomprehension, then, Eureka! Philippa! Ross nearly cried with relief as much mud became crystal. “Sorry she bothered you,” he said. “Is Guy around? May as well apologize to him, too.”
“Guy took off. I’m alone, I said. Lazy bunch of shits working here, if you ask me.”
Ross went to a vacant bench outside Quincy Market and thought very heavily about driving to New Hampshire. It had to be Philippa up there now, yes? She had sent Emily to California on some wild goose chase so that she could do a little more fishing with Witten. Evidently her last meeting with him at Cafe Presto had only whetted her appetite; Ross could just imagine Philippa waving good-bye to Emily, watching her drive off, waiting a safe interval, then calling Witten with some maid-in-distress folderol. This very moment, he was probably speeding up to the country with a bottle of scotch and an umbrella-sized erection. Ross flirted with a perverse desire to walk in on the two of them tonight. Philippa, consummate liar, would never be able to explain herself. And Guy ... here Ross’s enthusiasm cooled. Merely embarrassing the man was insufficient compensation for the destruction he had caused. Guy would only laugh at his mistake, hatchet Philippa, and home in again on Emily. She’d forgive him, of course; they’d reconcile ...
Ross distractedly left the bench. Forget driving to New Hampshire; winning that skirmish would lose him the war. Better to hope Philippa drowned Guy in her own intrigue. Ross thought briefly of going to the airport with an armload of roses for Emily, who thought she was doing her sister a favor, poor thing. Eventually, she would discover the truth. Ross was uncertain whether he should look forward to that day or pray that it never came. In any event, Philippa’s game could not go on much longer. What did she hope to achieve, anyway? Guy was not a total dunce. What would he do upon discovery that he had been taunted and wounded by a parody of his beloved? If Guy were any man at all, like Othello, he would murder Philippa. On the other hand, what if he decided that Philippa was an acceptable consolation prize? Christ! What if he and Philippa actually hooked up? Married? Brother-in-law!
Ross began walking rapidly down Tremont Street, toward a secondary nest of riddles that had to involve Guy Witten. He arrived at Diavolina as the bar was beginning to clog with war-weary businessmen and an assortment of adults who had not accomplished one iota of what they had set out to do that day. For a long moment Ross stood at the entranceway, observing the decor. The little sconces, the layout of glass racks above the bar, the turquoise-heavy color scheme looked like early Dana, or a ripoff thereof. He’d have to ask Marjorie about it. Ross took a seat at a vacant section of bar, waiting as the she-Atlas behind it tapped a few beers. Her body fascinated him, as it did many other patrons: Were the muscles between her legs anything like her biceps? What if she decided to hook her ankles around your back and squeeze? That had to be Ward, Ross thought as she dropped two olives into a glass. Emily hadn’t been exaggerating about her fearsome size. Once upon a time, Ward must have had a nice face. Now ... well, maybe it was the steroids.
“What’ll it be, dear?” Ward said.
“Knockando straight, please.” Ross chewed a few peanuts while Ward found the bottle. As she was placing it in front of him, he said, “Thanks for firing my wife yesterday.”
Ward paused, processing the data. Reaching an ambiguous conclusion, she returned to Ross’s place at the oak bar. “You’re Mr. Emily, I take it.” He didn’t obtest. “Care to explain that remark?”
“Nothing to explain. Thank you for firing her. She needed a rest.” Ross sipped his scotch. “I’m curious, though. You seem to have gone to a bit of trouble to hire her. Why did you can her after just a week? She wasn’t stealing provisions, was she?”
“I get it. You’re going to sue me,” Ward said. “Go ahead. I don’t care.”
“Why should I sue you? You’ve done me a favor.” Ross saw several more people sit at the bar and look expectantly at Ward: He would have to strike quickly, blindly. “You’ve done me two favors, in fact. Thanks for taking out the front window of Cafe Presto.”
Ward’s fingers quietly wrung her service towel; for a moment, Ross thought she was going to reach over the counter and do the same to his neck. Instead, Ward looked into the dining room, where a man was walking slowly from table to table, inspecting place settings. “Zoltan,” she called, barely raising her voice. The man came over at once. Ross tried not to stare at his surreally painted face. “I’ll just be a minute,” Ward told him, then looked at Ross. “You, come with me.”
Downing his drink, Ross followed her to a disheveled office. The shades were drawn and the walls seemed to throb under the fluorescent light. On Ward’s desk, tall piles of papers leaned slightly this way and that, awaiting the one good sneeze or door slam that would level them. Last year’s calendar hung on the wall above a file cabinet that may have been dropped from a helicopter. Barbells and free weights dotted the carpet. There was no space in this room to think, let alone work, yet Ross remembered Emily saying that Ward stayed here all day long. The air was already giving him a slithery, hallucinogenic headache, as if he were wearing someone else’s eyeglasses.
Ward cleared a place for him on the love seat by tossing away a sweatshirt. She sat behind her desk and studied him for a long moment. “So you’re Emily’s husband,” she said. “No wonder the poor thing wanted to work all day and night.” She pulled a bottle of crème de menthe from her desk. “Drink?”
“No thanks.”
Ward replaced the bottle. “How did you know about Cafe Presto?”
What? No hedging? This woman was kamikaze; the least a gentleman could do was respond in kind. “I happened to be standing outside and got the license plate of the truck. I went to the Peace Power Farm this morning. Someone there sent me here.”
“Standing outside Cafe Presto, eh? I didn’t see anyone.”
“I was in a little alcove across the street.”
“And what were you doing there at that hour? Looking for meteors?”
“I was watching Guy Witten.” That didn’t sound too swift, so Ross added, “I have a score to settle with him.” That sounded even worse. “It’s a business matter.”
After a moment, Ward retrieved the liqueur from her drawer. Her Adam’s apple jerked up and down a half dozen times as she swallowed the thick, emerald liquid. “I just wanted to wreck his window,” she said, wiping her mouth. “I had no idea he was sitting inside.” A terrific smile lit up her face. “That was a bonus.”
When the smile didn’t go away, Ross became uneasy. “I take it you have a score to settle yourself.”
The smile vanished. “Right. And you’d better not horn in on me, buster. I’ve been waiting too long for this.”
For what? Ross didn’t care. He
had just seen God. “He sprained a wrist, you know.”
“I can read the newspapers.” Ward’s smile returned. “The wrist was for warm-ups.”
“If you’d like a word with Guy,” Ross said slowly, because this woman was out of her mind, “I have an idea where he might be tonight. We have a little cabin in New Hampshire. I think he’s meeting my sister-in-law there.”
“Oy! You don’t mean that cheap blond whose date dropped dead in my restaurant.”
Ross winced: Dana. “That’s the one. I think Guy’s been seeing her.”
“The bastard. Always looking for fresh meat. Although I wouldn’t exactly call your sister-in-law spring lamb. Where is this place now?”
Ross drew her a map. “This isn’t one hundred percent certain, you know.”
“I’ll take that chance.” Folding the paper into her pocket, Ward studied Ross for a long moment. “Why did you come here? Sheer curiosity?”
“Only as far as my wife is concerned,” he answered. “What’s the connection between you, Cafe Presto, and Emily? She’s not involved in your end of this, is she?”
“Nope. I only hired her to aggravate Witten. Steal his chef. Drives people nuts.”
“But then why’d you fire her?”
“Because people started dropping dead after she got here. That’s bad karma. I don’t take chances with that. Anyway, she served her purpose.”
“Your purpose, you mean. What about Emily? She didn’t enjoy getting the boot.”
“She didn’t argue much, mister.”
Ross stood up: Marjorie was probably waiting for him with a baseball bat back at the office. “Thank you for being so frank.”
“Why not? You want what I want except I have more balls than you do. Or maybe less to lose.” At the door, her hand crushed his. “And I doubt you’re going to turn me in.”
Ross nodded tiredly; women were always so right. “Say hello to Guy for me.”
