by Nancy Geary
“You’re not welcome here,” Bill Lawrence warned, keeping his voice deliberately low. He didn’t want Adelaide, whom he’d left in the library when he responded to the knock, to hear any commotion. Nor would he tolerate any disturbance to the evening. Carl’s unexpected arrival just moments before they were to leave for the rehearsal dinner threatened to be just that.
“I want to see Hope.”
“We’re late for a party. I’ve told you once. Get out of my house.” He tried to shut the door, but Carl blocked it with one hand. Bill stepped back, releasing the pressure. The last thing in the world he needed was a physical confrontation on his doorstep that evening. He momentarily debated some greater exertion, an effort to grab Carl’s lapel or make some bolder gesture, but realized its futility. “Please leave,” he repeated.
Carl reached toward him and, before Bill could assess what was happening, grabbed his throat. He felt a squeeze on his trachea and pressure on his Adam’s apple. For a moment he was still, trying to relax, to breathe some oxygen despite Carl’s powerful grip; but his head pounded, his vision blurred, and he started to feel dizzy. Was he going to faint? God forbid Adelaide should appear now. Time seemed to have slowed, and Bill tried to remember what the martial arts experts said about using the energy of the enemy, or something like that. He had no other choice. He managed to wedge his palms against Carl’s chest and, with all his forearm and elbow strength, pushed against his torso with a single heave. Carl released his grip and stepped back.
Bill rubbed his throat. He couldn’t think of anything to say and was reluctant to speak for fear his voice would betray him. What a night! They were late for the Cabots’ dinner, and he’d almost had a fight with a fisherman twenty years his junior, a man who could probably break his jaw or neck or spine without too much effort. Even as a teenager, he’d avoided fights. The world of physical intimidation between men was foreign. Calm down, he told himself.
“Take your money.”
Bill instantly recognized the crumpled envelope in Carl’s hand. “We had a deal.” It had been nearly two months since he’d been to see Carl and left the cash behind. Not a day had passed that he didn’t wonder if his plan had actually worked, if ten thousand was enough to keep Carl at bay. If so, it was less than the cost of the lighted tent that now filled his backyard.
“You can’t buy me.”
Everyone has a price, Bill thought, but he caught himself from speaking aloud.
“Our deal should be that I now break your fucking neck,” Carl said, his voice flat. “I’ve held on to your putrid money because I wanted to show Hope, to show her what her father was really made of. Now I have a chance.”
“I forbid it. You can’t—”
“I’m not leaving until I see her,” he interrupted.
Bill shook his head. “That’s out of the question.” He straightened his tie knot. “Don’t force me to call the police.”
“You can’t stop me. Your daughter loves me, and I have a right to that love. If you make her go through with this wedding, if you force her to betray me for a better balance sheet, she’ll be in trouble. Trouble that won’t go away, because I won’t go away. I can promise you that. I know what you are and you can’t control me.”
“Don’t threaten me.”
“Take your fucking money!” He thrust the envelope at him.
Startled, Bill took a step back. The crumpled envelope dropped at his feet just inside the threshold.
Bill stared at this man whose black eyes were difficult to read. He seemed so exotic in the Caucasian enclave of Smith’s Point. He hated that he’d been intimate with Hope, hated that they’d been so involved that she’d obviously confided things to him that he should never have been told. Carl was a scourge from whom Hope needed protection. She couldn’t become Jack Cabot’s wife soon enough.
He heard the click of Adelaide’s heels behind him. At that moment, Carl stepped back just enough for Bill to shut the door in his face. With his velvet loafer, he pushed the envelope under a skirted table to the right of the door. He turned to face his wife.
“Who was that?”
“Nobody… nobody at all,” he said again, as if to reassure himself.
“Please, Jack, just talk to me for a minute.” Penelope grabbed his arm.
“Don’t do this.” Jack glanced quickly around the porch, wondering if anyone noticed the wild look in her eyes or the tight grip she had on his wrist. Fortunately, the evening air was unseasonably cool, so none of the guests loitered outside the clubhouse. They’d forgone a view of the ninth hole and hurried inside to enjoy the music, the lavish hors d’oeuvres, and, most important, the well-stocked open bar.
“You can’t just walk away from me. I’ve been trying to contact you for days and you don’t even return my calls.”
“Penny, stop! I’m about to get married.” He lowered his voice. Her harassment felt like some bad rewrite of Fatal Attraction, and he wanted her to go away. But he also didn’t want to cause a scene. Few people knew of his brief involvement with her, if it could even be called that, and he wanted to keep it that way.
“What we had was a long time ago, and it’s over. I care about you. I truly do. And I’m sorry that you’re hurt. But I’m in love with your sister. Don’t make this any more awkward.”
“How can you love her? Don’t you see what she’s doing to you? You’ve been used.”
With his free hand, he took hold of her shoulder. Her eyes had filled with tears and her lips looked swollen. He needed her to calm down.
“Don’t you see how much I love you? I’d be everything you want. I’d be faithful to the day I died. I’d take care of you. I’d do everything in my power to make you happy. That’s what you deserve.”
“I’m flattered. I truly am,” Jack said, struggling to find the proper words. He hadn’t anticipated this outburst. He’d thought that if he ignored her endless correspondence, the whole problem would simply disappear. But he’d been naive, stupid, or a combination of both. He should have addressed her lingering attachment a long time ago.
“Don’t turn me away. I promise you won’t regret being with me. Didn’t I make you feel good? Didn’t I bring you pleasure? Tell me what you want and I’ll do it.”
What could he say now? His mind floundered, unable to come up with polite words to tell her he didn’t want to have anything further to do with her and that if she weren’t Hope’s sister, he’d be perfectly happy never to see her again. “It’s too late,” he said at last. “Hope and I are going to be married in less than twenty-four hours. Our opportunity’s gone.” He hoped his slight change in tactic would soothe her, that it would make her feel better if he appeared disappointed, too.
“Is that it? Is that the only reason?”
“Penny…” He tried not to show the exasperation he felt. “We can’t do this. Please. You’ll meet someone else. You’ll find someone good enough for you. I know you will. You’re a wonderful woman, and you deserve a man to treat you well.”
“She’s always won out over me!” she cried. “I won’t let her do it again. If you love me and I love you, we should be together. Tell her, Jack. You tell her or I will.”
He felt himself giving up. There was no way to get rid of Penelope without hurting her, but he couldn’t listen anymore. He twisted his arm loose. “I’m going inside now to celebrate with my bride-to-be. I’m sorry you’re upset. But I love Hope and I want to make my life with her.”
“That’s not what you said. You said if it weren’t for her you’d be with me.”
“That’s not the case,” he said, being deliberately vague. He leaned forward and kissed her cheek, feeling the clamminess of her tear-soaked skin. “And she is here, so all of this is moot. Good-bye,” he said, turning to go inside.
Frances and Sam navigated the thick crowd to make their way to the bar.
“This is quite a spread,” Sam remarked as he gazed about the ballroom. Circling the parquet dance floor were more than thirty tables, ea
ch with a vase of cream-and-peach-colored French tulips in the center surrounded by flickering votive candles. At every place was a handpainted plate that read In celebration of Jack and Hope, plus four forks and three different knives in shining sterling. Ten men in tuxedos played big band music.
Frances glanced down at the calligraphy on the white card she had picked up by the door. They were seated at table six, wherever that was. “Who are all these people?” she wondered aloud.
“Don’t ask me,” Sam said. “But I think when we get to the end of this line, we better order two drinks. Judging from the expressions on Fiona’s and Jim’s faces, it’s a double-fisted evening.”
Frances smiled. It had been odd. The Cabots had been waiting at the entrance to the ballroom to receive their guests, but neither Jack nor Hope had been with them. And it had hardly been a greeting, more like a brief handshake and minimal pleasantries. Even after she’d reintroduced herself, there wasn’t a trace of the socially effusive welcome she would have expected from the parents of the groom.
“Do you mind if I look for Hope?” Frances asked. She wanted a chance to see her cousin before they were seated and the evening slipped away.
“Go ahead. I’ll wait on line for the bar.”
“If dinner gets announced, I’ll meet you at the table.”
“Assuming I can find it.” Sam winked.
Frances circled the ballroom. It was hard to move, and her progress was slowed by familiar faces: Adelaide and Bill’s friends asking about her father, a few of Teddy’s well-preserved peers reminding her that they knew her when she was only “yea high.” Eventually she spotted Hope, who stood alone, staring out a bay window at the golf course beyond. She was almost hidden by thick folds of the floor-length drapes, and Frances wondered whether that was her intent. In the dusk light she looked pale, her cheeks drawn.
“I wanted to offer my congratulations before you were swallowed up by the evening,” she exclaimed, approaching her cousin. Hope seemed startled, as if she didn’t recognize her relative. Then, without any words of transition or pleasantries, she declared, “Mum tells me you work with abused women now.”
“Yes.”
“How did that happen?”
It seemed neither the time nor the place to discuss domestic violence, but Frances felt obliged to respond. She was the bride after all. This was her evening. “Sort of by happenstance, if the truth be told. When I left the Suffolk DA’s office last summer, I had a brief period of doing nothing before I realized that gardening and my dogs weren’t enough to fill the day. The Coalition Against Domestic Violence was looking for a new president, and the search committee asked a cop friend of mine for any recommendations. I didn’t have much experience with battered women because I didn’t do violent crime at the DA’s office, but I went and interviewed. And here I am.” She smiled. “I think they liked that I’d been a prosecutor for so long and had a lot of contact with law enforcement.”
“You tell me, then, why women stay.” Hope stared at her with an intensity that almost made her uncomfortable. Frances had heard the question a hundred times before, but never had it seemed so difficult to articulate a response. “Well… uh… it’s hard for someone who’s in a loving relationship like yours to imagine how scary, how painful, and how difficult it can be to be abused by your partner.” She paused, trying to gauge Hope’s reaction. Shouldn’t they be discussing the honeymoon or the trousseau instead of the plight of battered women?
“Go on,” Hope said. Her directness was off-putting.
“I think there’s a disconnect that happens in the mind of a victim, an inability to process that her husband has beaten her, or tormented her, or yelled at her, or isolated her in order to control her. The horrible acts—the crimes—get split off from the person the woman has fallen in love with. Somehow the batterer isn’t responsible for the consequences of his actions. Instead the woman takes responsibility. She’s not good enough. She shouldn’t have been flirting. Her dinner should be more elegant or her dress prettier. Some of the stories are really shocking.”
“Tell me the worst.”
Frances forced a laugh, nervous at Hope’s insistence. “Do you really want to know?” Hope nodded. “Well, there was an awful case just outside Riverhead. He was an engineer and she owned a clothing store. They’d been married four or five years and had a two-year-old son. One Sunday afternoon, the guy cut his wife’s head off and put it on a stake in the backyard. Neighbors having a picnic next door had heard her crying, apologizing over and over for burning the macaroni and cheese, but by the time anyone realized what was happening, it was too late. When the police began interviewing, they discovered the abuse had been going on for years. She had a hospital record three inches thick from various lacerations, burns, a broken arm, but nobody put two and two together.” Frances paused. “Why am I telling you these horror stories? We should be talking about the joy of your wedding.”
Hope leaned toward her. “No, we shouldn’t,” she whispered. “This is much more important.”
At that moment some young woman in a pink sundress rushed at Hope. “This party is so awesome!” she shrieked. “You look totally beautiful and totally happy!”
Frances reached out, meaning to touch Hope, but her hand only brushed the fabric of her dress. “I’ll catch up with you later,” she said.
Hope said nothing as Frances set off into the crowd in search of Sam.
“I told you I wanted that prenuptial signed or this wedding wasn’t going to happen.” Jim pulled up his zipper and moved to one of the several marble sinks to wash his hands. He’d surprised Jack by appearing in the men’s room.
“I did everything I could,” he lied. He’d had a difficult evening already, and he wasn’t sure how much strength he had to take on another battle.
“I don’t think so.”
His father’s tone was hostile and he looked around, hoping someone would interrupt them. Unfortunately they were alone. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“That paperwork is going to get delivered to me before anyone walks down the aisle.”
“Can’t you let it go? There’s nothing you can do to come between us. Nothing you say is going to make me change my mind about the woman I love.”
“Did you hear one thing your mother said to you this afternoon?”
Jack didn’t have to be reminded. Just hours before the rehearsal dinner was scheduled to begin, his mother had been on a crusade, a mission clearly designed to have him call off the wedding at the last possible moment. She’d relayed all kinds of personal details about Hope’s life, details that baffled him. How did she know such things? Why had she gathered this extensive information? The final blow had been her accusation that Hope couldn’t have children. With that, he’d left. He wouldn’t listen.
“Yeah. I did. Every word. And you know what? All I could think about was how manipulative she’d become. My own mother! But I told myself I shouldn’t be surprised. She’s been married to you a long time.”
“Hope can’t get pregnant and hasn’t had the decency to tell you that. Why can’t you process that she’s lied to you again and again?”
His mother had to be wrong. He and Hope had discussed a family on several occasions. He found it impossible to think she would have omitted such a crucial detail as they’d imagined together a little boy riding a pony on a lead line or a little girl sitting at a piano, banging out “Heart and Soul” on the keys. Once Hope had even told him how she’d wanted to decorate a baby’s room with stars and moons painted on the ceiling. “So that she can dream of flying far away,” Hope had said. Had it all been an act?
“Why can’t you two stay out of my life?”
“Your mother and I have never interfered in your life. We’ve supported choices that you’ve made, even ones that have cost us a considerable amount financially. But let me make one thing perfectly clear. My future is not going to be tied up with her,” he replied in a stage whisper. “And I suggest, son, that you accept
that.”
10
Penny! Penny!”
Penelope stopped at the top of the stairs and turned around at the sound of the loud whisper. Hope stood at the threshold of her bedroom, the silhouette of her lithe body prominent through the lace slip. Her fingers gripped the door frame as if her legs were barely able to hold her upright.
Penelope glanced at her wristwatch. The day of Hope’s wedding, with a luncheon scheduled in less than fifteen minutes, and she wasn’t nearly ready. Typical Hope. So self-absorbed, the time never occurred to her. The day before, she’d been late for the rehearsal. The wedding party—the bridesmaids, ushers, and flower girls—had stood idly among the pews, reluctant to express irritation at the bride. Even Adelaide, the queen of social grace, had run out of small talk with Reverend Whitney. Then, more than an hour after the scheduled run-through of the service and without a word of apology or explanation, Hope had appeared from a door near the sacristy, accepted a kiss on the forehead from Jack, and turned her attention to the minister’s instructions as if nothing unusual had transpired.
“Why aren’t you dressed?”
“I need to talk to you.”
Penelope sighed. Her half sister had never chosen to confide in her before. Why today? “I’m not sure this is the best time.”
“Please.” Her eyes were swollen and her upper lip quivered.
“All right. But you’d better make it quick. Teddy’s disagreeable enough without you keeping her waiting.”
“Aren’t you coming, too?”
“No. There’s too much left to do,” Penelope lied. This day—Jack’s wedding—was the hardest of her life, and lunch with her grandmother at a stodgy old club wouldn’t help. She didn’t need to be subjected to a minute more of cooing about the bride-to-be; she’d heard quite enough the night before. “I already called to cancel.” She entered Hope’s room and heard the lock on the door behind her.
