“Do you think she was his mistress?”
“I have no idea. Possibly. But she was an excellent secretary, I know that. He had a hard time replacing her when she died.”
“And I went to work there then?”
“You went to work at Barrett’s then, and in a way it had to do with her death. Let me start further back in the story, though.”
“I’d like to know when and how we met. Your mother made it sound like I was out to catch you from the first.”
The smile flickering on his face was not a pleasant one. “She was pretty accurate about that.”
Marnie sat back, abashed to think such a thing could be true. At first, she thought maybe Ruth’s problem with Pamela had caused her to say the things she had about Marnie, but this statement, at least, was true. She wondered if the other hateful things Ruth said were true.
“To be truthful, we were just kids when we first met. Alice brought you to work with her a couple of times, but being four years younger than I was, and a girl to boot, I didn’t pay much attention to you.
“The next time I remember meeting you was when you worked at the Roadhouse. You were in those short shorts and tight tee shirt and flirting with everyone who came in. Everyone in town knew who you were. At least the men did.”
Marnie closed her eyes. She screwed up her courage to ask the question she might not like the answer to. “You intimated at lunch that I did more than flirt with the men. Is that so?”
“You gave the impression you slept around, but I don’t know if that was true.”
She covered her face with her hands. The lavender scent of the hand lotion she had applied earlier soothed her. Breathing deeply, she dropped her hands into her lap.
“Is that when we started dating?”
“No, I was dating Celeste, sort of engaged to be engaged. Our parents were good friends and encouraged the relationship. I used to come to the Roadhouse with my buddies. I’d have a burger and a beer and leave without a female companion. None of our girlfriends would be caught dead in there, but we liked the burgers they served up. I still do. And it was the macho place for guys to go.”
“Yes, I thought the burger today was good. I didn’t remember the place at all, but I wouldn’t have felt terribly out of place eating there as long as you were with me. It was Jolene’s outfit and you telling me I dressed the same way that upset me.”
David rested his head against the back of the chair and stared up at the ceiling. “Then a couple of years later a tragedy happened.”
“Alice told me about the plane crash,” Marnie said, softly. “David, I’m so sorry. It must have been terrible for you.”
“Yes, it was. Both my father and my Uncle John were killed, and my feelings of loss were not only emotional but also business related. They ran the plant together. The fact that they both died left a very big burden on my shoulders.”
“And I was working there by then?”
“Yes, you had gotten fired from the Roadhouse. When your mother died and you had no job, no way to support yourself, my father hired you, out of respect for Pamela, he said. You were kind of frightened then about how you were going to make a living. Your mother had been supporting you after you lost your job, and even though she had a little insurance, you worried about paying the rent. Dad thought highly of your mother so he gave you a job, with the understanding you would have to keep it yourself. That is, you’d have to be on time, show up every day, and do the work assigned to you.”
“That’s only fair.”
“Yes. All that happened a few months after I graduated from college and came back to be trained in the business.”
“Is that when we started dating?”
“No.” He smiled. “You’re still in a hurry, like usual. I’ll get to it. Promise.”
She smiled back and settled into her chair, trying to be patient and let David tell the story his own way.
“You would flirt with me, all right, any time you saw me. You went wherever the office administrator sent you. As far as I know, you did good work. The only complaint I ever heard was that you flirted with all the men, married or not, and the other women didn’t like that. When we met in the hall, you’d say ‘Hello, David’ in a sexy voice and give me a sizzling look. When we were around other people, you’d call me Mr. Barrett, and your smiles would be slightly less sex-filled. But it was obvious to everyone you were flirting with me.”
“How did I dress at work?”
“Your clothes weren’t inappropriate, exactly, but you knew just how tight and short and low cut you could get away with. You kept the men in all the offices in a constant state of arousal.”
“Did I date any of them?” Marnie asked with a frown. She couldn’t wrap her mind around the picture David was painting of her.
“Yes, some of the junior executives.”
“Did I—” She tried to build up the courage to ask the question “—did I sleep with them?”
David frowned. “I have no way of knowing for sure, but a couple of them bragged that you did.”
She closed her eyes as she felt her cheeks flame in shame.
“They could have been bragging, of course . . . just making it up to seem macho.”
“But you believed it?”
“Yes, I believed it. The way you dressed and acted made people believe it could be true.”
“Did we date then?”
“Not until after the plane crash. I made it through the funeral without falling apart, but when I was hit with the reality of managing a business that had taken two men with years of experience to run, plus deal with my mother, I couldn’t handle it.
“Oh, I went in to work and did what I could, but I couldn’t keep my mind on the problems at hand. I started drinking more than I should have. That caused me to spend less time at the plant, less time thinking about how to manage things and more time worrying about failing.”
“It was a big burden for anyone, especially for someone so young.” Marnie felt empathy for all David had gone through.
“My mother was on the verge of a nervous breakdown. She and my father had just moved into this house, which had been her parents’ home before their deaths. All the remodeling she wanted to do came to a stop.” He looked around the room. “That’s why the largest part of the house looks like this. The last time most of it was redone was fifty years ago.
“Celeste and I were engaged by then. She was angry with me because I couldn’t think about the wedding plans. She thought I spent too much time worrying about the business, while I couldn’t see how I was going to be able to keep the company afloat with my lack of knowledge. I couldn’t be bothered with wedding plans when I had so many other things to think about. I started going to the Roadhouse after work, and that’s where I saw you in your short, tight little skirt and low-cut, tight top.” He grinned at the memory.
“Was I working there again?”
“No, you just started showing up there in the evenings. You’d go home and change into an even sexier outfit than you had worn to work and go to the Roadhouse. Looking back, I realized Jolene must have called you and let you know when I came in. Or maybe you went there every evening hoping I’d show up. You were just waiting to catch me, but I didn’t realize it then. It didn’t take you long.”
Chapter 16
“You mean I chased you until you caught me?” Marnie said with a grin.
David grinned back. “You could say that, I guess, but it was you who caught me, and good.” The smile turned into a frown.
“How?”
“By getting pregnant.”
That statement wiped the grin off Marnie’s face. She had hoped that part of Ruth’s vitriolic tirade had been a lie. From Alice’s report earlier, she knew she had been pregnant with Jonathan when they married, but she
was still hoping they had married for love. The story David had been telling her was damning, but there was still a chance they had fallen in love during that period, and she had to know which story was true.
“David, I have to know. Were we in love, or did I get pregnant so you would marry me?”
He sighed deeply, leaned back, and closed his eyes. After a few moments he spoke.
“Marnie, I’m trying my best today to set aside any animosity toward you. I’m trying to tell this story as truthfully as I can. With all the shenanigans you have pulled over the last four years, and especially with this last one—and yes, I know I haven’t told you yet what it is—I would have said you did it to trap me into marriage. But this last week or so, since you came back as such a different person, when I think back to that period of time, I think maybe we were a little bit in love.
“You see, the Marnie I knew at first had more of the personality I see in you now. You were certainly more of an extrovert, both in your dress and your actions, but more importantly, I could confide in you—share my fears with you.” He leaned over and propped his elbows on his knees. “At least after I had a few beers. And you were the only person I could talk to like that.”
“Couldn’t you talk to Celeste? After all, you were going to be married.”
Marnie couldn’t believe she had said that to her husband, pointing out the fact he should have been able to talk to his then fiancée.
“Celeste didn’t want to talk about anything but wedding plans, and I didn’t want to appear weak.”
“But you could to me?”
“Yes. That’s one thing I’ve been thinking about this past week. You did listen to me. You soothed and petted me, told me everything was going to be OK. You told me everything I wanted to hear—that I was smart, that I knew more about the business than I thought I did, that I could turn to others for advice on matters I didn’t have the know-how on.
“That Marnie, the concerned, kind Marnie, was who I think I fell a little bit in love with.” He stood and paced in front of the chairs. “But don’t get me wrong, it was the alcohol combined with your seduction that got me into bed with you. Your encouragement worked, however. I turned to some of the top managers in the plant, and with their help, I began to see I could do it.”
“So at least I did something right.”
He sighed and sat down again. “Yes, I’ll admit it. You did something right. But I didn’t. I was still engaged to Celeste,” he explained, “but I was sleeping with you regularly. I was pretty careless at first when I was drinking so much, but later on I wanted to take precautions against pregnancy. You said you were taking care of it, and I believed you, until the day you came to me and said you were pregnant.”
“And so we got married,” she said.
“Not at first.” David rubbed his eyes. “At first I couldn’t believe it. You said you were on the pill. How could you be pregnant? I thought you were just telling me we had a baby on the way to get me to marry you or to get money out of me to stay quiet. By that time I knew how mercenary you were. Money was important to you—very, very important. I had been buying presents to keep you from telling Celeste about our affair. I think you and I would have been over except for the incredible sex we were having. It was like a drug to me. I couldn’t leave you alone.
“When you came to me about the pregnancy, though, I was so upset I wouldn’t even speak to you. You let me know it was either marriage or you would let the whole town know you were carrying the ‘Barrett bastard.’ That’s what you called him. You deliberately waited to tell me so it was too late to get an abortion.”
“An abortion,” Marnie said, aghast that she would even consider such a thing.
“Yes, that’s what you said. Although I would never have condoned such a thing, no matter what.”
“I would hope not. I would certainly hope not!”
“So we drove to Centerview and flew to Las Vegas to get married. It caused some stir when we got back, let me tell you. I had asked you to let me tell Celeste and my mother first, but you went to the Roadhouse and told everyone there, so it spread all over town in a hurry. Both my mother and my fiancée were humiliated.”
“Yes, I can see they would be,” she replied.
“I had moved back in here with my mother when my father died so she wouldn’t be alone. When we married, you moved in, too.”
“Had you been living with Celeste?”
“No. She was living with her parents until we married, and I had my own apartment until my father and uncle died. My mother’s life was put on hold. She could barely function, and I thought I needed to live here with her.”
Marnie looked around the room. “Well, all this explains the dichotomy in this house.”
“Dichotomy?”
“Yes, it means—”
“I know what it means,” he interrupted. “I’ve never heard you use the word before. You always seemed to have a limited vocabulary and would accuse me of putting you down when I used a word you didn’t know.”
“Really?”
“Really.”
She thought for a few seconds and then laughed. “I guess I don’t know what words I don’t know.”
David laughed with her and then grew quiet. “At first we found lots of things we could laugh about together, but by the time Jonathan was born, things had changed.”
“Changed how?”
“For one thing, you hated this house. You were always on me about buying a new one, or at least leasing an upscale condo. And Mother was on your case about everything you said and did, which just made you say and do more to upset her.”
“Tell me about Mrs. Tucker.”
“By the time Jonathan was two weeks old, it was obvious you wouldn’t be able to care for him. You didn’t want to. His crying upset you—you didn’t know what to do about it. Mrs. Tucker had been a nanny for a family Mother knew. Their children had grown, and Mother approached her about caring for Jonathan.”
“So she’s been with him from the beginning?”
“Just about.”
“And she does everything for him? I don’t do anything?”
“Your idea of being a good mother is stopping in the nursery on your way out and telling him to be a good boy that day and stopping in the evening to ask how his day had been.”
“That’s all?” she asked incredulously.
“That’s all. Mrs. Tucker has Saturdays and Sundays off. I take him along with me when I can, or one of the maids cares for him if I can’t take him to the plant. If I don’t have to work, I’ll take him to the park or to the movies—something like that.”
“Is she good to him, that is, kind?”
“Yes. I wouldn’t put up with her if she weren’t. But she is so much older she doesn’t do as many fun things with him as I would like. She’s not exactly cuddly and loving. She’s more like a teacher, but she’s dependable.”
“Why was Celeste caring for him recently?”
“When Mrs. Tucker had to go to her dying sister, Celeste volunteered to come care for him. I think my mother had a hand in that.”
“Why?”
“My mother wants me to divorce you and marry Celeste.”
“And Celeste is all too ready to step back into your life, right?”
“Right. She got married about six months after we did, but it didn’t last long. She’s been after me ever since it became obvious our marriage wasn’t a happy one.”
Marnie looked around the bedroom.
“How long have you been sleeping somewhere else?”
“Ever since I found out about your affair with Ray.”
Chapter 17
The room seemed like it was swirling. Marnie gripped the arms of the chair and commanded herself to calm down. Everyone had been giving hints
or telling her outright she was cheating on her husband. Now was the time to get it all out in the open.
She took a deep breath. “Who is Ray?”
For a while she thought David was not going to answer her. When he did, his sarcastic voice was back.
“This new you isn’t going to deny it?”
“How can I deny it? I don’t remember!” her voice rose and cracked. A hint of a sob threatened to take over. No, she told herself. I can’t break down again.
“I don’t remember” she repeated more calmly. “Not you and not a bit of what you’ve told me. Not this Ray. Not even my own son. Now please tell me, who is Ray?”
David’s stare threatened her composure. At last he spoke.
“Ray Boling was head of research and development at Barrett’s.”
“And he and I . . .” She found she couldn’t voice it.
“Over the last four years, I suspected you of having affairs several times, but I couldn’t prove anything. You always denied it, and since you were still flirting with every man around, it was hard to tell. I thought about hiring a private detective to find out, but I guess I didn’t really want to know. Plus, I was so busy getting the plant back to where it was before the deaths of my father and uncle that I let my private concerns slide.
The Memory of All That Page 8
