Close to Home

by Cynthia Baxter

  He began kissing her neck. “Hey, any chance you’re interested in doing it all—like right now?” In between kisses, he added, “I just took Sammy over to the Denholms’ for the evening, and we’ve got a good fifteen minutes before we have to leave. So what do you say, Superwoman?”

  Instead of being nattered, Jessica was annoyed. “I have to get dressed, remember?” She shrugged him off and turned to face the closet. It was time to make the decision she had been putting off all day: choosing between the lavender Belle France dress that said “sweet” and the straight black skirt and purple silk blouse that said “success.”

  “Besides,” she went on, her voice reflecting her irritation, “I’m not Superwoman. Nobody should be made to feel that they have to do everything, be all things to all people—”

  “Hey, wait a sec. That’s not what I mean.” David looked confused. “It was supposed to be a compliment.”

  “I know it was. And I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to sound so grouchy.” Jessica cast her husband a pleading look. “I’m just jumpy. Believe it or not, David, I’m actually nervous about tonight.”

  “Nervous? You, the woman who—”

  “Please, don’t start that again.’’ She held up her hands pleadingly. “I know it sounds silly, but this progressive dinner thing is my first real chance to get out and meet some people here in town.”

  David shrugged. “I thought it was supposed to be fun.”

  “It is. But it means spending an entire evening in the company of strangers.”

  “You know the old saying. There are no strangers, only friends we haven’t met yet.”

  “Thank you, Ann Landers.” With a grimace, she added, “Just humor me, okay? And help me decide which Jessica McAllister I should present to our friendly local townspeople tonight. Are we talking Linda Evans or Joan Collins?”

  David squinted at her. “Who?”

  The Sea Cliff Progressive Dinner was the civic association’s most popular fund-raising event of the year. On the first Saturday of every November, the town residents who had already mailed in their reservations and their tax-deductible checks stopped by the firehouse between three and five to find out which two homes they had been assigned for the evening.

  First, drinks and appetizers were offered by one of the many volunteer couples confident enough about their home’s charm and cleanliness to open it up to twenty strangers. Next, after an hour and a half at that location, there was a major reshifting. At a second home, dinner was served for a group of eight. Afterward, everyone gathered back at the firehouse. Up on the second floor, in one of the large community rooms, there was live music and a dessert buffet that would make Maida Heatter squeal with delight.

  “Well, at least the host and hostess will talk to us,” David said. “They’ll probably feel it’s their responsibility. What are their names again?”

  “We’re having cocktails with Arthur and Rose Mortimer on Downing Avenue. And dinner is right around the corner on Glenlawn. Laszlo and Anna Balazs.” Jessica reached for the lavender dress. “What are you supposed to say to a bunch of total strangers?”

  “Come in, come in! Me casa, su casa. Get it? That’s Spanish!” Their boisterous host greeted them at the front door of the modem ranch house that was their first stop. “And you . . . don’t tell me. Wait, wait . . . you’re the McAllisters, right? You’ve got to be, since everyone else is already here. Hah, hah! Now, you’re David and ... let me see, give me a chance. . . . David and Jennifer!’’

  “That’s Jessica.” She forced a smile as she handed her coat to Arthur Mortimer, a slight, balding man who talked just a bit too loudly.

  “Oh, Arthur,” his wife Rose tittered, coming up behind him. “You’re always so bad with names, I don’t know how you’ve gotten as far as you have in the business world.” To Jessica, she explained, “I swear, Arthur spent half the afternoon memorizing the names of all our guests for tonight. And he still can’t get them right!”

  “So you’re in business, are you?” David asked, handing his coat over to Rose and watching nervously as she trotted off to squirrel it away, off in another room. “What business are you involved in?

  “The business of making money!” Arthur Mortimer guffawed loudly. “Actually, I’m in the video rental business. I’m known as the Video King! Or at least my stores are. As a matter of fact, I’m opening my seventh Video King right here in Sea Cliff in just a few weeks. You’ll be able to rent till you’re spent, without even leaving the town limits! Get it? ‘Rent... till you’re spent?’ Hah, hah, hah!

  “Now come on in, you two. Let me get you a drink. Tonight we’ve got champagne mixed with peach juice. You’re not teetotalers by any chance, are you? No room for any of that here! Hah, hah!”

  What Arthur and Rose Mortimer lacked in the way of social skills, they more than made up for with culinary abilities. The buffet spread out on their well-waxed dining room table consisted of shrimp with Creole dip, lobster quiche, and avocado with caviar spread on English water crackers. Chewing and making conversation at the same time had never been one of Jessica’s fortes, but she did her best, approaching each new face with eagerness.

  Yet as eight-thirty neared and the Mortimers cheerfully reminded them that it was almost time for them to move on to their next location, she was weighed down with disappointment. The most stimulating conversation she had had was with a retired salesman named Edgar Keklak who, it turned out, had grown up in the house right across the street from the McAllisters’. That, and a thirty-second conversation with the Mortimers’ teenaged daughter about where the bathroom was.

  “On to stage two,” she said bravely as she and her husband strapped themselves back into the Volvo. “What do you think so far?”

  David squirmed in his seat. “Well, you were right. It is hard to go up to strangers and just start a conversation. I spent a lot of time—and I mean a lot —talking about the grass versus pachysandra question tonight.’’

  The second house on their list gave them renewed hope. It was a pink and green Victorian with window boxes, a big old-fashioned front porch, and a wicker swing right out of Tennessee Williams. Inside, oversized furniture that had been made comfortable by years of use was arranged around a stone fireplace.

  “We were just talking local politics,” their host, Laszlo Balasz, said once they had sat down in the living room with the two other couples who had already arrived. “One of the first things we intend to find out tonight is where you all stand on the Hempstead Harbor incinerator issue.”

  He wagged a bony, wrinkled finger in the air. “My wife Anna and I have lived in this town for fifty-five of our seventy-eight years, and I can tell you that we intend to fight it up to the very end. It’s one thing when this kind of obscenity is happening in someone else’s backyard. Then, it’s just something to read about in the newspaper. But this time, well, it’s just a little too close to home.”

  “Now, Laszlo, you can save the speeches for later,” Anna interrupted with an indulgent smile. “I thought we agreed not to talk politics until everyone was fed. Besides, you spent all day yesterday at that Fight the Incinerator rally. I’d have thought you’d have had enough for a while!”

  “Never,” Lazslo muttered.

  “Hush and come help me with the chicken paprikash,” his wife instructed. “We can put it on the table as soon as our other two guests arrive.”

  The hunched-over septuagenarian in the plaid flannel shirt was about to comply when the doorbell rang. The last guests were a mismatched pair, two of a rare breed who had ventured out to the progressive dinner without a partner to lean on and had just happened to arrive at the same time. Margaret Reilly, a feisty, take-charge kind of woman, was even older than Mr. and Mrs. Balazs. Jessica didn’t get the name of the young man who strode into the room confidently and gave everyone a quick nod.

  “Well, now we have a full house, so let’s eat,” Laszlo said heartily. “No use keeping all these good people waiting.”

  At the di
ning room table, Jessica found herself sitting at the end, with Margaret Reilly on her right. Catercorner to her, at the head of the table, was the latecomer whose name she had failed to get. He was good-looking, not in a Robert Redford way, but in an interesting way. His eyes were lively, and his light brown hair was cut in the new spikey style. What was most noticeable, however, was his smile—a big sloppy grin that transformed his entire face. She hadn’t realized she had been staring at him until he gave her a wink.

  “I. . .1 didn’t get your name,” she said lamely.

  “It’s Terry. I think our host was so relieved that his last guests finally showed up that he forgot to introduce us.”

  “Not to mention the fact that you’re the rebellious type. You know, the kind who refuses to wear name tags.’’ With her chin, she gestured toward his lapel. On her own, she knew, there was a little white rectangle that declared, “Hello! My name is Jessica.”

  “Well, Jessica,” he replied, glancing at her chest, “I guess that being a renegade is just something I was born to. It kind of runs in my family.”

  “Oh, really? Are your brothers by any chance named Frank and Jesse James?”

  “Ah. You could tell I was from the west, then.”

  “When you’re living on Long Island, just about everybody is from ‘the west,’ “ she returned. “I guess that explains why you don’t have one of those dreadful Long Island accents.”

  “You mean I don’t say ‘caw-fee’ and ‘chawk-lit.’ “

  Jessica laughed loudly, then realized she was the only one at the table doing so. In fact, everyone else was talking in somber tones. While she had been busy teasing her dinner partner, the conversation had drifted onto the recent murder in Sea Cliff.

  “Yes, they’re saying he was bludgeoned to death,” Margaret Reilly was saying, her lips drawing into a tight little line. “Right here in Sea Cliff. Goodness, I’ve never heard anything so grisly in all my years.”

  “It’s still hard to believe,” one of the others commented. “I mean, just about everybody in town had known Lloyd for years. He was practically a Sea Cliff institution.’’

  Jessica cast her new acquaintance a guilty look, wanting to apologize for her breach of good taste.

  “Wow, doesn’t this look good,” David said, quickly changing the subject. “Mrs. Balazs, you’ve really prepared quite a feast here.”

  “Anna likes to go all out for these progressive dinner things,’’ Laszlo said proudly.

  Jessica glanced over at her husband, wanting to cast a meaningful look that said, I wonder if we’ll be such a sweet, loving couple when we’re old. But he was busy picking up the spoon he had dropped on the floor.

  “Well, now, before we dig in, let’s make sure everybody knows everybody else,” Laszlo insisted. “Let’s go around the table and all say our names, just one more time.’’

  Everyone obliged. Terry was last, and he cleared his throat loudly before speaking.

  “Uh, my name is Terry,” he said in a soft voice. “Terry Nolan.”

  It was Laszlo who asked the obvious question, after what seemed a very long pause. “Nolan, huh? Not by any chance related to Lloyd Nolan, are you?”

  With a curt nod of his head, Terry replied, “Lloyd was my brother.”

  A dead silence fell over the room.

  “We’re all so sorry about what happened,” Jessica said bravely, knowing that sooner or later someone would have to say something. “As somebody was just saying before, a lot of us here in town knew him. He was, uh, a good man. Were you two very close?”

  “Not at all. Lloyd was a good deal older than me, so I never actually knew him very well.” He paused to clear his throat once again. “I’m the only family he had, so I’m here to be the executor of his will and to clear up his affairs.

  “But there’s another reason I’m here, too. I never really had the chance to get to know my brother when he was alive. So I thought maybe I could give it one last try now. I’ve put my freelance work on hold for a while and rented a little apartment right here in Sea Cliff. I figure I owe it to myself—and to Lloyd—to take advantage of this one last chance.” He smiled weakly. “You know what they say: ‘Better late than never.’ “

  There was a long silence.

  “Well,” David finally said with forced heartiness, “one thing’s for sure. Lloyd was certainly a first-rate real estate agent. He found us the perfect house.”

  “Yes,” Laszlo Balazs said dryly. “It’s true that the late Mr. Nolan had a sixth sense about land. Especially land that was bound to enjoy a sudden appreciation in value.”

  Terry frowned. “I’m afraid I don’t follow.’’

  “Young man, there are a lot of wheelings and dealings that go on in a place like Long Island where—”

  “Oh, hush now, Laszlo,” Anna warned. “You’re getting much too serious. This evening is supposed to be fun. Nobody here wants to hear the theories of some suspicious old man.”

  “No, I’d like to hear this, Mrs. Balazs. Really.” Terry was polite but insistent.

  “Well, uh, it’s just that, uh . . .” Laszlo was suddenly uncomfortable. “Let’s just say that there have been rumors.”

  “Please, don’t feel you have to protect me. As I said before, what I want is to find out what my brother was all about.”

  Laszlo looked him squarely in the eye. “They say Lloyd was involved in this Hempstead Harbor incinerator thing. That he was the silent partner in the firm that owns the land the thing’s supposed to be built on.”

  “In other words,” Terry said slowly, “he would have had a lot to gain by this incinerator going through.”

  “That’s right. He’d have a lot to gain, and everybody else would have a lot to lose.”

  “Well, I hope you’re satisfied,” Anna said, only half-teasing. “You’ve taken a perfectly lovely dinner party and turned it into a dreadful political discussion. Besides, I don’t think we should be speaking ill of Mr. Nolan. And I certainly don’t think you should be spreading nasty gossip that probably isn’t even true. Now, who wants to start passing these noodles?”

  As the table conversation broke up into several different discussions, Jessica found herself paired off with Terry again.

  “You certainly know how to get a party going,” she joked. “So you’re a stranger in town, huh? I never did get a chance to find out exactly where you’re from.”

  “I’ve been living out on the West Coast. Portland, Seattle, northern California, that area. I do free-lance work out there. Computers.”

  “I see. It must be very hard for you, coming to a new town like this.”

  “And finding out that my brother wasn’t such a saint?”

  “Oh, no. I didn’t mean that at all. I just meant that—”

  “It’s all right.’’ Terry waved his hands in the air. “To tell you the truth, I wouldn’t be all that surprised if it turned out that Laszlo’s ‘rumors’ were completely true. Even when I was a kid and Lloyd was a teenager, I remember him getting involved in crazy get-rich schemes all the time.”

  With a shrug, he added, “That doesn’t really matter to me right now. I’m not interested in judging him.”

  Jessica just nodded.

  “So as the old saying goes,” Terry went on brightly, picking up a knife to butter a piece of rye bread, “enough about me. What about you?’’

  “Oh, well, David—that’s my husband—David and I are relative newcomers here, too. We just moved out from the city a couple of months ago.’’

  “By ‘the city’ I take it you mean New York?”

  “Right.” Ruefully, she added, “It’s quite a change from what we’re used to.”

  “I can imagine. Personally I can’t imagine spending more than two hours in New York, but I can see that it has its attractions for some people. So does that mean you’re still commuting in every day?’’

  “Oh, no. I gave up my job a few years ago.” Apologetically she added, “You see, we have a three-year-old b
oy.”

  “Ah. So you’re trying out the mom business.”

  “Something like that.” Jessica laughed, delighted by a phrase that seemed to lend legitimacy to what she was doing.

  “And what were you doing before?”

  “I was a marketing manager with one of the big pharmaceutical manufacturers. Klinger-Wycoff.”

  “Drugs, huh? Funny, you don’t impress me as the usual drug dealer.”

  He was looking at her with great intensity. Jessica could feel her adrenaline pumping. Was she just imagining that Rhett Butler-like glint in his eyes, or was it just a hallucination, the result of too much of Arthur Mortimer’s peach champagne?

  What surprised her most was that just talking to Terry made her want to flirt. A mysterious kind of energy seemed to emanate from him. She saw it in his glinting eyes, in the cocky way he had of carrying himself, most certainly in the grin that stretched from here to there, transforming the bottom half of his face into an inverted triangle.

  “We didn’t call ourselves drug dealers,” she said with a demure smile, the kind she had grown up studying on the pages of Seventeen magazine. “Actually, we called ourselves marketing managers. It sounds so much nicer, don’t you think?”

  “Marketing, huh? You mean like advertising?”

  “That was part of it. Actually, I started out in market research. You know, talking to Mrs. America to find out what makes her buy Tide instead of Ajax. Except with over-the-counter drugs, it’s even trickier because of all the stuff people are hiding.”

  “Hiding? What do you mean?”

  “Oh, like they don’t really want to tell you about their consumption patterns. What I mean is, if you ask how often they take aspirin, they might say once or twice a month because they don’t want you to think they’re pill poppers. But when you probe under the surface a little, you find out they’re really swigging those babies down eight, ten times a day.’’

  Proudly she added, “That was my specialty. I was really great at getting people to break down and tell me the truth. I was ruthless, too.”