Terry laughed. “Somehow, you don’t seem like the ruthless type.”
“Well, I was. I was so good at what I was doing, in fact, that I got promoted. And then, of course, I wasn’t dealing directly with the public anymore. I started sitting behind a desk, pushing papers around.”
“But don’t tell me. You turned out to be good at that, too.”
“Well ...” Jessica didn’t want to appear too immodest. “They were thinking of promoting me to vice president at one point.”
“At one point?”
“That was around the time I got pregnant. I put in a request for a leave of absence before they chose the new V.P.” She shrugged. “You know what they say. Timing is everything.”
“Yes,” he agreed, fixing his blue eyes on Jessica with an intensity that prompted her to look away. “That is what they say.’’
* * * *
“We can earn Ph.D.’s, fly airplanes, change our own flat tires,’’ Jessica said with a sigh, “but no matter what, we women always end up back in the kitchen.’’
“I know exactly what you mean.” With a loud sigh, Nikki deposited two heavy grocery bags onto the kitchen table. “Remember how back in the seventies, a woman’s ability to change a flat was the ultimate test of her liberation?”
“And rewiring a toaster, don’t forget that,” Jessica reminded her. “Of course, I never managed to master either of those things.” With a rueful smile, she said, “Maybe that’s why I’m in here, chopping, dicing, mincing, and pureeing while David is out in the living room, rehashing the Nets game with Jared.”
“Well, at least we can all thank God for takeout,” said Nikki. “Instead of slaving over a hot stove all we have to do these days is open up a couple of cartons, and voila! we have dinner for seven.” To illustrate her point, she reached into the bags and pulled out a foil container of pasta salad and a loaf of Italian bread the size of her arm.
The take-out food had been Jessica’s idea. This time, she decided, when the two families got together for one of their frequent dinners, they would let someone else do the cooking. She had left the main course decision up to Nikki, meanwhile opting for the simpler salad-wine-dessert portion of the meal. Dessert was courtesy of Entenmann’s, the wine courtesy of Paul Masson. The salad, meanwhile, still remained an impressive bushel basket of green things, enough for an army of rabbits.
“Well, the modern way may be easier on the biceps,” said Jessica, freeing a head of lettuce from its plastic bondage, “but it still comes down to the same thing. We’re the ones who end up permanent members of the clean-up committee of life.”
“Hey, I have an idea. Why don’t we go out there and recruit one or two of those able-bodied men?”
“Aw, it’s not worth the trouble,” Jessica said with a wave of her hands. “Besides, I don’t really mind doing salad duty. I’m just blowing off steam.’’
“Still in that funk of yours?”
“I suppose. How about you? Am I imagining things, or are you looking a little peaky around the gills? I love that expression, even though I don’t have the slightest idea what it means.’’ She peered at Nikki more closely. “But I mean it.”
Nikki laughed. “Oh, I’m tired, that’s all. Both girls have had earaches for the last couple of days, so they’ve been up at night a lot. I guess I haven’t been getting enough sleep.”
Automatically Jessica’s eyes sought out Sammy, who at the moment was in the dining room with Nikki’s girls, showing off his collection of sadomasochistic toys.
“Don’t worry; they’re okay now,” Nikki assured her. “The antibiotics kicked in pretty fast this time.”
“The wonders of modern science.” Jessica handed Nikki a small, sharp knife and a cucumber. “Here. Be creative.”
“Are you sure we shouldn’t make those muscle men give us a hand?’’
“Nah. Besides, I wanted the chance to talk to you alone.”
“Oh, really?”
“Yeah. I have something juicy to tell you.”
“Oh, really?” Nikki’s dark eyes lit up with curiosity. “What is it, Jess?”
Jessica leaned against the slab of plywood that served as a kitchen counter. She folded her arms across her chest, hugging herself as she gazed off in the direction of the cabinet that housed her fine china, these days about as useful as her white wool slacks. “Nick, I met this guy a few days ago, at the progressive dinner, and—”
“Oh, really?” Nikki drew closer. The curious glint was already gone; instead, she looked impressed.
When Jessica saw how she was reacting, she immediately put the brakes on. “Oh, no, no. Wait a second. It’s not as if anything really happened.”
“Oh, really.”
“In fact, maybe I shouldn’t have even brought it up.”
Nikki groaned. “Jessica, give me a break. So who is this guy?”
“Actually, he’s Lloyd Nolan’s brother. Remember, our ex-real estate agent? The guy who was murdered a few weeks ago?’’
“Sure I remember.”
“Well, Terry—that’s his name, Terry Nolan—came to Sea Cliff to tie up some of his brother’s loose ends. He also wanted to get to know him a little bit. Apparently they were never very close, and Terry’s feeling some regrets about that now that he’s gone.”
Nikki made a face. “From what you told me, this Lloyd Nolan person was kind of a creep.” She took in the dreamy look in Jessica’s eyes. “I take it this guy was not particularly creepy?’’
“Let’s just say that he’s not the way I’d ever expect Lloyd Nolan’s brother to be. He is a lot younger, of course,” she added thoughtfully, as if searching for an explanation herself.
“Okay, so what happened?” Nikki demanded. “Tell me everything.”
“Well, as I said, nothing actually happened. We just kind of . . . connected, you know?”
“Yeah, I know. You felt the old chemistry, right?” Nikki shrugged. “So you and this Terry Nolan have the hots for each other.”
“No, no, not . . .”A diabolical smile crept slowly across Jessica’s face. “Well, yes, I guess you could say that.”
“So what are you going to do, Jess?” Nikki demanded excitedly, unable to resist getting caught up in this romantic little game. “Are you going to let him know that, you know, that he turns you on?”
“No, of course not!” Jessica was quick to insist. Then she remembered whom she was talking to. With a slight giggle, she said, “Well, if I ever run into him again, I suppose I could ask him over for coffee. There is something to be said for being a good neighbor and all.”
“All right! Peyton Place, here we come.”
Jessica was suddenly annoyed. Maybe it had been a mistake, telling Nikki about the little crush she had developed. Already she was feeling silly—worse than the proverbial schoolgirl, more like a desperate suburban matron who was getting her kicks in the most inappropriate places.
“Don’t get carried away, Nikki. I am a married woman, remember?”
“Hmmm.’’ Nikki turned her attention back to the cucumber. “I don’t know, Jess. Maybe you should offer this guy more than coffee.”
“Hey, you two. Need any help in here?”
Just then David came bounding into the kitchen, offering both an extra pair of hands and an end to this conversation that Jessica was suddenly regretting ever having begun. “That’s one offer I never turn down,” Nikki said. “Here. See what you can do with this. The knife’s on the table.” She tossed him the cucumber.
David eyed both the women suspiciously. “This isn’t supposed to be symbolic or anything, is it?”
* * * *
It was supposed to be like old times, one of those informal evenings when four adults who sincerely liked each other sat down together at the dining room table and drank too much, ate too much, and laughed more than grown-ups were ever supposed to. And it seemed to be proceeding that way, at least on the outside. The wine flowed freely, conversation was easy, and the food was a success, if
a tad lukewarm. Even the kids cooperated, keeping each other more or less occupied with only an occasional need for adult intervention to prevent permanent scarring.
But there was a definite tension in the air, however subtle. Jessica couldn’t help noticing it, even though she kept telling herself she was just being a neurotic hostess. Something was up with Nikki, and it was more than just being tired. Jared, too, seemed a trifle distracted.
In the end, she decided that the best solution was simply to leave it alone, to mask whatever uneasiness she was feeling with red wine. She piled pasta salad onto her plate with abandon, broke off a generous chunk of Italian bread, and dug right in, telling herself that it made no sense at all to try dieting on a weekend.
“So tell me. How are the McAllisters finding life in the suburbs? ‘‘ Jared asked when the food supply was so low that the group’s only option was the further consumption of wine. He reached for the newly opened bottle and helped himself to another splash. By now Jessica was feeling positively mellow, so much so that she was having trouble sitting up straight. “It’s been, what, a couple of months now since you moved out?”
“About that,” David replied, at the same time that Jessica chimed in, “Nine weeks and three days.”
“Living in the ‘burbs is great,” David went on, casting a look in his wife’s direction that said, in no uncertain terms, my turn. She deferred willingly, since at this point every word that was coming out of her mouth was, thanks to the wine, as much of a surprise to her as it was to everybody else. “I love being a home owner. This place is going to be fantastic once it’s fixed up. And it’s really convenient, having a car—”
“With free parking, right on the premises,” Jessica interjected.
“We’ve got all this space, Sammy’s got his own room now . . . really, it’s just great.’’
“Wow. You sound like the spokesman for the Nassau County Chamber of Commerce,” Jared said. “I can just picture your enthusiastic expression plastered across the TV screen as you recite the new slogan, ‘Come to Nassau County. Come to where the taxes are.’ “
“You advertising people. You see everything in its simplest terms.” It was difficult to tell whether Nikki’s annoyance was real or merely teasing. “All David is trying to say is that he likes it here, for heaven’s sake.”
“Well, not everything, exactly,” David said. “I must say, one thing that’s a real drag is the commute into the city. Every day on the Expressway, sitting in traffic, crawling through the tunnel. ... To tell you the truth, it’s getting to me a lot more than I ever expected.
“As a matter of fact,’’ he added, his voice becoming strained, “working at good old Stanton, Markham & Hayes is also starting to get to me.”
Jessica’s eyebrows shot up. This was certainly news to her. As far as she knew, working for a big-name engineering firm-the biggest-name engineering firm, in fact—was of the utmost importance to her husband. It all had to do with the fact that as a child he had watched his father, a general contractor, weather the ups and downs of having his own business.
Never before had Jessica heard her husband make such an across-the-board negative comment about Stanton. She was about to express her surprise, in fact, when Nikki broke in.
“Gee, that’s interesting,” she said, her tone uncharacteristically dry. “And here I always thought that kind of thing didn’t bother men.”
“What do you mean, ‘that kind of thing’? What are you talking about?” David asked.
“Oh, you know, things like commuting, wearing a necktie and a suit in hundred-degree weather, working day and night, no matter what kind of crisis was going on at home. I thought it was simply part of the male mentality that work is all-important. That everything that goes along with it should simply be accepted, no questions asked.”
“You know, it’s funny you should say that,” Jessica said brightly, so intent upon getting her point across that she had failed to notice the underlying anger in her best friend’s voice. “Once upon a time, when I was young and innocent, I really used to believe the theory that men and women’s minds were identical, that it was just the different, ways they were brought up that made them turn out so different.”
David glanced over at Jared, a hurt look on his face. “Are we ‘different’ ? I never thought of myself that way.’’
“Oh, come on. You know what I mean.” Jessica was not about to be teased out of this one. “Anyway, now that I’m older and wiser—”
“With a definite penchant for speaking in clichés—” Jared interrupted.
Jessica chose to ignore him. “Now I believe that men’s minds and women’s minds really do operate in different ways. Not that both sexes aren’t capable of learning and doing and knowing all the same things, just that their inherent way of looking at things is different. In general, I mean.”
“Maybe that’s why women and men have such a hard time getting along,” Jared said lightly, swirling around the wine in his glass.
“Gosh, and here I thought that men and women were finally starting to get it together.’’ David leaned his elbows on the table. “Isn’t that what the eighties were supposed to be all about? Pairing off? Enjoying married life, having kids, buying a snow blower and a clothes dryer that both sexes could operate?”
“Actually, I’ve developed a theory about that.” Jessica held up her wineglass and peered into the deep red liquid inside. She was seeing in it a beauty she had never noticed before, a warning that she had downed too much of it. “Are you ready for this?”
“Do we have a choice?” David teased.
“I’ve observed that the nineteen eighties, the Reagan Years, were a time when everybody went around pretending that they were happily married and everything was hunky-dory. You’re right, David, everybody was buying houses and having children, the McAllisters included. And with few exceptions, everybody has just been going along pretending that home and hearth was all that mattered.”
“So what’s your theory?’’ David asked impatiently.
“My theory,’’ Jessica said with great drama, leaning forward to place her wineglass on the table, “is that the next decade, the nineteen nineties, is going to be a decade of divorce.
“The happy-go-lucky facades are going to start crashing all over the place. I predict that couples are going to be splitting up, shuffling, and reshuffling like packs of cards.” She sat back, almost smug.
“Jessica.” David spoke with mock seriousness. “Are you trying to tell me something, or what?”
There was a long silence in the room, one that was supposed to have been filled up with the sounds of Nikki and Jared chortling. Instead, there was nothing but dead space. Jessica looked over and saw that Nikki’s expression was stricken. Jared, meanwhile, was keeping his eyes fixed on the edge of the table.
Jessica opened her mouth to make some cute little quip about how her guests, like her, had obviously been hitting the wine bottle with just a bit too much enthusiasm when she realized that it was not the wine that was responsible for the sudden frost in the air. She could feel herself panicking without really understanding exactly what was going on.
“Well, you know, it’s just a theory,” she said lamely. “And you know, that reminds me, we’d better bring out dessert before the kids start to fade. I’ve been promising Sammy a piece of chocolate cake since eight o’clock this morning, and it’s almost time for him to start getting tired and cranky. Now, who wants coffee? I have both decaf and regular.”
* * * *
Late that night, after Sammy was asleep and the dishes had been stacked in the sink to be dealt with in the dawn’s early light, Jessica was still wide awake, anxious to discuss the evening. She waited until David had turned out their bedroom light before she spoke, wanting to take advantage of the air of intimacy created between two people lying side by side in the dark, their warm flesh separated only by flannel.
“Hey, David?”
“Ughm?”
Gently she
said, “I didn’t know you were having problems at Stanton.”
“I didn’t say I was having problems,” he snapped.
Beside her, she could feel him tensing up. Had she spoken too bluntly, or was it just too late for a heart-to-heart talk? Or had she perhaps entirely missed the point of what David had said earlier?
“Oh. I guess I wasn’t listening. Anyway, speaking of problems,” she said, quickly moving on, “I really got the feeling that Jared and Nikki are having a rough time.’’
Talking about other people was bound to be safer. But she got no response, not even a grunt. She plunged right in anyway, addressing her comments to the ceiling.
“I mean, it was obvious that something is going on with them. Nikki hasn’t said anything ... oh, she makes jokes all the time, of course, but that’s just Nikki. That’s her sense of humor.’’
She paused, then said, “You know, I feel kind of bad that she hasn’t confided in me. After all, I usually expect Nikki to tell me everything. She always has. It’s not as if we ever keep secrets. Neither of us has ever worried about how the other would react.
“Not that I would ever tell her anything that was a secret between you and me, of course,” she was quick to add. “But she seems really upset about something, and that gets me upset. What do you think this is all about?”
She turned to seek out David’s reaction. But he was already asleep.
Chapter Seven
“Sammy, sit down,” Jessica insisted for the eighteenth time since the McAllisters had sat down for what was supposed to be a nice, quiet family dinner.
The three of them were gathered around the kitchen table for meat loaf, string beans, and rice—”American night,” as she had dubbed this particular menu. Jessica felt it was important that the evening meal be observed as a family time, a chance to share the events of the day in a relaxed, warm atmosphere.
Sammy, however, did not quite see things that way. In fact, his interpretation of the dinner hour was that it was a chance to try out for the Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey Circus. One minute he was perched on top of his kitchen chair; the next he was climbing up the wooden rungs along its back. King Kong-style.
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