by Nancy Martin
I cleared the lump in my throat. "In case I didn't make it clear before, Michael and I are not together anymore, Emma. I finally figured out that associating with a criminal isn't the yellow brick road to happiness. And he seems to feel I don't fit into his plans anymore, either, so it ended on a civil note, quite calmly."
Emma looked at me as if I'd tried to take a trip to Pluto on a pogo stick. "So you're not telling him about the kid?"
I folded my napkin.
"It's either that or . . ." Emma sounded mystified, and then the other possibility finally hit her. "Holy shit! The kid isn't Richard's, is it? Nora, have you been doing the hokeypokey with the reporter, too?"
Libby was coming to the end of her phone call, and rather than explain the mess that was my life to both my sisters, I decided to escape while I could. I dropped my napkin on the table and stood up. Libby signaled that our conversation wasn't over yet, but I decided to run while I could. I departed, winding my way through tables of Daffodil luncheoners.
The fashion show models milled around in the lobby of the country club, too busy checking each other for lipstick on their teeth to take notice of me. I over-tipped the teenager at the coat check, grabbed my coat and headed across the tartan carpet. The club was very faux Scotland, with a mural of the Highlands painted along the hallway and dozens of tarnished golf trophies in a glass case. I rushed past as if pursued by a regiment of demonic bagpipers.
I paused in front of a mirror by the double doors to slip on my grandmother's vintage swing coat, the perfect garment to hide my coming figure flaws. Before I buttoned up, however, 1 looked at my reflection and found myself involuntarily exploring the new topography of my body. I put my hand on my thickening waist. In the mirror I looked very different already. In just two and a half months, I'd lost weight in my face and gained incredibly round and tender vulnerabilities elsewhere. All my bras were tight, and I felt constantly hot and swollen with hormones. My stomach had a distinctly new silhouette that the clothes from my grandmother's closet didn't quite conceal anymore. And although I prided myself on remaining steady in a crisis, lately I'd become more temperamental than an alien monster worthy of Sigourney Weaver's rage.
And within my now frequently uncontrollable body blipped the heart of a human being who planned to spend the next twenty years relying on me—a woman with equal quantities of financial stability and common sense. Zilch in both categories.
The baby's father? I hadn't come to terms with that yet. I wasn't ready to admit—even to myself—who had helped me mix the magic that resulted in the child I carried.
It was all a terrible mess.
So how come my mirrored reflection was smiling?
"If you're hallucinating," Emma said behind me, "do I get to slap you?"
She had come up quietly and was watching my face in the mirror. I quickly fastened my coat. "Don't start anything you can't finish."
She followed me out the door into a cold blast of March wind. "Where are you going?"
"To work."
"Let me drive you."
"I don't need a babysitter."
"Yet," said Emma.
"Take a hike!" I snapped.
Emma laughed. "By God, I thought you never lost your cool. Come on. You need a ride, don't you? I'll drive."
We were on the sidewalk by then, and the March wind whipped my hair across my face. I pushed it aside with irritation. "Don't you have to punch the time clock somewhere?"
"Not for hours. Are you okay?" She squinted at me. "Healthwise, I mean."
"Emma—"
"Because the last time, remember," she said, "you had a miscarriage."
Years ago, when my marriage to Todd had been at its worst, I'd gotten pregnant, but lost the baby within a matter of weeks. Except for my sisters, I hadn't told a soul, not even my mother or my friends or Todd, who couldn't think of anything at that time but cocaine. Bringing a child into the maelstrom of Todd's drug addiction would have made a bad situation even more terrible. I'd been almost relieved when the pregnancy ended. I wrestled with my own grief and guilt at the time, but coping with Todd had soon overshadowed everything else. Only in the last year or so had I started to feel something for that lost baby.
Emma read my face. "You don't look well. Is the morning sickness really bad? Or is there something worse going on?"
"I'm fine."
Emma caught my arm. "Tell me the truth."
It felt oddly good to have someone else in the loop. Someone I didn't have to lie to. "I'm supposed to be careful," I amended. She didn't need to know the rest. My doctor had cautioned me, however, and repeating her warnings aloud somehow felt like making a miscarriage more likely.
But Emma guessed, her smirk long gone. Her grip on my arm eased. "C'mon," she said. "I'll drive you."
"What about Libby?"
"She'll be busy for a while." Emma hooked her arm through mine and pulled. "I left her my cheesecake."
I liked to think I didn't need help anymore. That I was an adult who'd been through my share of trouble and survived. But Emma's pull felt reassuring. I let her drag me across the slushy parking lot.
"I should call Rawlins," I said. "He's supposed to pick me up."
"What, you've hired our nephew during his spring break?"
"Why not? I need a driver, and it keeps him out of trouble."
"Where's Reed?"
I had an annoying tendency to faint, which nixed a driver's license, so a driver was the only way to keep my job. Fortunately, my original employment agreement has provided the services of a part-time chauffeur at the expense of the newspaper. "Reed's in London," I said. "Semester abroad. Rawlins has been filling in."
Emma pulled her cell phone from her pocket. "I'll call him. He'll probably be glad to have an afternoon off. Where are we headed?"
"The Fitch estate. I'm meeting Delilah Fairweather there."
I allowed my little sister to boost me into her pickup—a rattletrap vehicle better suited to farm animals than my Ferragamos, but today its blasting heater felt good on my toes. With Emma multitasking behind the wheel, she spoke with our nephew as we hurtled out of the parking lot and hit the road.
"So I'm taking over," she said into her cell phone. "You can be a juvenile delinquent this afternoon."
I heard Rawlins laughing when she terminated the call.
"Don't you have to go to work?" I asked, hoping she might break down and tell me about her new job.
"Later," she said. "Much later."
Since our parents' hasty departure, Emma had turned her skills and lifelong fondness for lost causes into a sometimes successful career training show jumpers for the Grand Prix circuit. For several years she had lived frugally but well enough on the meager income she earned from work she loved, so I was suspicious about her new employment.
I said, "You're keeping secrets. And if Libby's upset, it must be something very tacky."
Emma shot me a wry glance. "Don't worry about me, Sis."
"When are you going to tell me about your job?"
"You're pregnant now," she said. "The news might be harmful."
"It's that bad, huh?"
"Not bad," she said. "Just. . . different."
Chapter Two
We roared toward the suburb of Philadelphia commonly called the Main Line, a posh yet pastoral enclave where grand houses stood behind discreet hedges planted long ago. The names that lettered brass plates on the stone pillars flanking so many driveways had been listed on the passenger manifest of the Mayflower and were later carved in the stone facades of Philadelphia landmarks. Their backyards included shooting ranges, tennis courts and sometimes even polo fields. They kept employees on staff to clean their floors, their guns and their tax returns.
The people here lived a way of life my sisters and I understood. We'd been brought up in the same lavish world and only lately lost the fortune required to maintain such a lifestyle.
At a crossroads marked by split-rail fences and green pastures that looked a l
ot like the horse farms of Kentucky, Emma hung a sharp right turn and pulled through a gate tall enough to rival the entrance to Oz. She gunned the truck through the gates and drove up a winding driveway lined with trees. Forty pristine acres rolled gracefully away from the drive, dotted with yellow and purple crocuses. Grazing on the new shoots of grass in the distance were three sheep—the remains of the purebred Shropshire flock that had roamed the estate grounds years ago and given the whole landscape the look of a Gainsborough painting.
Gradually, the manor house that most of us still called Fitch's Fancy came into view—one of the most spectacular in a spectacular neighborhood.
First we saw the crenellated battlements of the house rising above a grove of hemlocks. Then Emma's truck rounded the last curve, and the home greeted us with all the majesty of the Northumbrian castle it had been patterned on. The stone walls climbed with thick ivy, curls of smoke wafted around the chimneys, and the lancet windows winked in the sunshine. The house gave every impression that we'd entered another century, although the truth was given away by a satellite dish on the roof.
"Boy, it's a bitch, isn't it?" Emma rested her foot on the brake and peered through the dirty windshield. "This place was really something in its day."
"It still is. Sort of."
We both saw the crumbling stones in the walkway, the rampant ivy, the dislocated downspout dripping rainwater. Fitch's Fancy had been neglected.
"Why are you meeting Delilah here, of all places?"
Delilah Fairweather was the city's most popular event planner, with a schedule busier than that of Condoleezza Rice.
"It was the only way I could catch her. She has an appointment here this afternoon. She's supposed to be organizing a museum party for Saturday night. But she's dropped the ball on a few details, and I said I'd check on things."
"That doesn't sound like Delilah."
"I know. Lexie asked me to give her a gentle reminder."
Plus I was a little worried about my friend. Delilah had dodged me twice already and missed a lunch date. She never passed up an opportunity to enjoy the seared tuna or the people watching at our favorite downtown lunch spot.
Before Emma could respond, an old white Bentley suddenly roared around a low stone wall. The antique car hurtled toward us with the accuracy of a cold-war torpedo.
Emma blew her horn and yanked her truck over to avoid a crash, and the car almost shot past us free and clear. But it was towing a small flatbed trailer—-just big enough to haul two mud-spattered motocross bikes and a blue surfboard. The trailer clipped Emma's bumper and slewed sideways. Then it hit a pothole and tumbled over, dragging the Bentley off the driveway and halfway into the ditch. We heard an awful bang, and Emma cursed. I grabbed the dashboard and caught a quick glimpse of the driver—an old man with a shock of thick white hair and huge rubber goggles that gave him the look of a demented pilot who had just beaten the Red Baron in a dogfight.
Emma jerked her truck back onto the driveway before we crashed, too. "Who the hell was that idiot?"
"Pierpoint Fitch, I think."
"Is he dead?"
Both of us popped open our doors and stepped out onto the gravel. Emma ran toward the car. I found myself trapped against the pickup by the fallen surfboard. Pierpoint Fitch, best known as "Pointy" to his friends, unfurled his storklike body from the car and stood up, looking bizarre, but uninjured.
"Hey, hot dog," Emma called. "You okay?"
"No thanks to you," he snapped, shoving his goggles to the top of his head. His hair immediately stood on end as if he'd stuck his finger in a light socket.
"Me? This is your fault!"
"Poppycock!"
Pointy Fitch, nearly eighty, had a pair of baggy shorts hanging on his bony hips—shorts that would have looked more natural on a skateboarding teenager than an elderly millionaire. His skinny, blue-veined legs disappeared into a pair of enormous sneakers, and he warded off the afternoon chill with a faded blue sweatshirt emblazoned with the name of a prep school he hadn't attended in sixty-five years.
He stomped around the Bentley to inspect his overturned trailer. The sight of the damage prompted him to let out a string of quaintly Victorian curses. "Blast! What an infernal, confounded botch!"
"Cool your jets," said Emma. "We'll call a tow truck."
"The devil with that!" He reared back and gave the trailer hitch an ineffectual kick. Then, "Ow!"
"What are you trying to do? Break your foot?" Emma bent and expertly pulled the pin from the hitch.
Immediately, the trailer disengaged from the car and keeled over. We heard the motorcycles crunch under the weight of the trailer.
Pointy squinted at my sister with new respect. "You're not half bad for a hoyden. You're one of those Blackbird widows, right?"
"Don't get your hopes up, old man. I only date grown-ups."
Affronted as a maiden aunt who'd just heard a naughty limerick, he blustered, "Don't be ridiculous, young lady! I am a gentleman!"
"That's what they all say. Hey, are you hurt?"
"Certainly not. I'm as tough as pemmican." He used his knobby knuckles to rap his own skull. "See? Indestructible!"
"Maybe we should take you to the hospital, just to be sure."
"I'd rather be boiled in oil by South Sea savages than set foot in a germ factory like a hospital. No, thank you, no hospitals for me!"
"Humor me, you old geezer. Let's get you checked out."
"You'll have to wrestle me to the ground," he replied. "And a little wisp like you would have your hands full."
"Who you calling a—hey, where are you going?"
He had turned away and marched back to his car. "I have pressing matters to attend."
"But what about your trailer?" Emma called.
"Leave it!"
Without further exchange, Pointy climbed back into his Bentley, started the engine with a roar and drove off in a spray of gravel.
Emma walked back to me. "What the hell is a pemmican, anyway?"
"I always thought it was like beef jerky."
"What a loon. Isn't he the maniac with the Frisbees?"
Millionaire Pierpoint Fitch had not settled into a dignified retirement from his long and spotty banking career with a suitably quiet pastime like stamp collecting. No, Pointy Fitch had taken up sports and traveled around competing in everything from miniature golf to the senior badminton championship. His family thought he was eccentric. Everyone else figured he was nuts.
Eyeing the crushed motorcycles, I had to agree with them. "I thought Pointy was into tennis and archery. This looks dangerous."
Emma nodded. "Last I heard, he was shooting marbles at some coot convention in Atlantic City. Where do you suppose he's off to in such a hurry today?"
"A Mensa meeting?"
Emma laughed. Except for a few distant cousins, none of the Fitches were known for the sharpness of their wits.
"Look," I said, "thanks for bringing me, but there's no need for you to stick around. I'll walk up to the house from here. Delilah's bound to be waiting for me."
"Forget it," said Emma. "I'll go park by the sheep barn and come find you. Don't slip and fall. This sidewalk hasn't been swept in years."
As she drove away, I hiked up the slate walkway into the geometrically perfect garden of yews, ornamental trees and delicate ground covers. If the Fitches lacked the education and God-given talent to create great beauty, at least they had enough sense to hire those who did. Although it had been ages since a gardener had properly tended the elaborate plantings, I could still see the bones of good design beneath the overgrowth.
I slowed my pace as I reached the fountain—empty today but for the marble figure of a naked woman taking aim with a bow and arrow, symbols of the Fitch family's favorite pastime. The huntress had always made me smile because her eyes were slightly crossed. I reached out and gave her bare behind a pat, then looked up at the tall windows of the ballroom.
I was too young to remember the days when bons vivants a
nd madcap heiresses drank Prohibition liquor at glamorous Fitch parties, but I had certainly attended my share of swanky bashes in the house. My family and the Fitches went back a few generations. The spring balls were noisy and fun—fancy dress with big bands from New York and, later, with local rock groups that rattled the windows. The famous archery tournaments had been the kind of blazingly sunny summer afternoons where children played red rover on the lawn, chased everywhere by Fitch sheepdogs, while Fitch servants churned ice cream, and parents drank gallons of juleps and tried to shoot arrows at straw-stuffed targets.
But as I reached the first plateau in the garden, I suddenly saw a huge moving van parked on the lawn by the back door. The logo of Kingsley's auction house was printed on the side of the truck. The Philadelphia-based company specialized in estate sales.
It was never a good sign to see an estate sale company pull into your driveway.
Two uniformed employees struggled out of the house carrying a glass-fronted bookcase. A third Kingsley's employee leaned against the kitchen entrance by the dog door with a cigarette.
I stopped on the walk, struck by the end of a great family's story. Once moneyed and influential, the Fitches had tumbled to this—the day when all their possessions went off in a truck to be sold.
"Nora?"
I spun around to see Boykin Fitch standing in the brambles beyond the ornamental garden. In a pin-striped suit and a pair of thick rubber boots, he looked surprised and ludicrously handsome entangled in the weeds.
"You startled me, Boy." I smiled. "But I think the first time I met you, it was right here in this garden."
He grinned as he disengaged his boot from a thorny trap and began to climb over the hedge to greet me. "Were we looking for champagne?"
I steadied his arm as he lost his balance. "Yes! Your grandparents chilled it in the snowbanks on New Year's Eve and forgot where all the bottles were. We used to keep those old kerosene lamps out here for searching, remember? Are you looking for some now?"
"No." He managed to get over the hedge, but cast a puzzled glance at the weeds around him. "I think I dropped my wallet." He grabbed one buttock and frowned.
