Laura detected a trace of bitterness in his voice.
27
TO MAKE THE guest list for Gwyneth Gilpatric’s renowned New Year’s Eve parties, the famous television news personality had to find you interesting. Having wealth and power helped, but those alone wouldn’t open the door. Gwyneth had to think you were fascinating in some particular way. This meant that, at times, there was an unlikely mix at the penthouse on Central Park West.
Waiters in black pants, white shirts, red cummerbunds, and matching bow ties moved unobtrusively through the guests who milled around Gwyneth’s expansive living room. Gleaming silver trays bore hors d’oeuvres of smoked salmon pillows, miniature crab cakes and grilled herbed-chicken satays. The champagne flowed freely and the wet bar in the library did a steady business.
Dressed in a floor-length, very full black velvet skirt and a ruby wrap top that sashed around her trim waist, Gwyneth greeted her guests at the door. Delia stood at her side, taking coats. When Laura arrived, Gwyneth gave her a big hug.
“I’m so glad you could come, Laura, darling. And who is this beauty you’ve brought with you?” Gwyneth inquired, extending her hand.
“This is my best friend, Francheska. Francheska Lamb.”
“Welcome, Francheska Lamb. Any friend of Laura’s is welcome here. You girls go ahead in and mingle. There are lots of stimulating people here.”
Throughout the evening, Gwyneth would play the gracious hostess, making introductions and hoping that her guests would click and enjoy one another. If they didn’t, that was regrettable, but not tragic. Gwyneth supplied the atmosphere for a fabulous party. She felt it was up to her guests to put their energy into having a good time.
When Gwyneth was confident that most of her guests had arrived, she swept across the foyer and into the living room to talk to Dr. Leonard Costello and his wife, Anne.
“Leonard, Leonard. It’s so good to see you. And Anne, what a beautiful dress! You look terrific!” Gwyneth kissed the air beside the couple’s cheeks.
“You’re looking fabulous as always, Gwyneth,” replied Dr. Costello coolly, as his eyes scanned her face. She sensed that Costello, one of New York’s leading plastic surgeons, was checking for any telltale signs of failure in his artistry. He would have a busy night if he kept that up, since he had worked on the faces of more than half of the women and men in the room.
As the Costellos left to take in the view of the Manhattan skyline, Gwyneth had a few moments to stand back and observe the party. Laura and Francheska were engrossed in conversation with Mike Schultz and his wife. It occurred to Gwyneth that when she had told Laura to bring a friend, she had hoped Laura would be on the arm of a handsome young man. Oh, well, the dark-haired beauty added to the glamour of the party.
Gwyneth made a mental note to get over there soon and breakup that little group. Laura could talk to Mike anytime. There were other people Gwyneth wanted her to be exposed to tonight.
Joel didn’t look any too happy. What gall he had in even coming tonight, after their bitter fight yesterday.
She wouldn’t put it past him to think that he could charm her into changing her mind and staying at Hourglass! And she’d also bet that he had probably had one of his notorious fights with Kitzi before he arrived. Joel had often told her that whenever he and Kitzi were required to show up as a couple at anything that had to do with Gwyneth, Kitzi would fly into a rage. That’s probably why Kitzi hadn’t come with him tonight—not the “headache” Joel claimed she had.
Gwyneth chuckled inwardly.
28
KITZI MALCOLM FUMED. What a hell of a way to spend New Year’s Eve. Feigning a headache and alone.
Of course, she reassured herself that the old saying was true: it was better to be miserable in mink. And that she was.
Three minks hung in the foyer closet, and a sable and two beavers. She hardly ever wore them, though, always afraid that some animal activist would spray red paint on them as she came out of Saks Fifth Avenue. What was the use of having them anyway?
What was the use of having any of this stuff? The designer dresses, the Italian shoes, the Cartier watches and the Harry Winston jewelry. They really didn’t make a tinker’s damn bit of difference in the long run. Not when your personal life was in shreds.
She had sold out a long time ago, accepting Joel’s peace offerings. Allowing him to mollify her with expensive gifts which they both knew did nothing to heal the emotional rift between them. Never really addressing the problems that they had.
The situation seemed to suit Joel just fine. He had his trophy wife safe at home in the duplex overlooking Central Park while he did just as he pleased. Kitzi presided over their social life, arranging dinner parties and chairing charity events that Joel hosted and got publicity for. He loved having his name out there as one of the players in the competitive New York City social scene. It helped Hourglass, he explained.
Everything was about the show. The people they socialized with, the vacations they took, the charities they supported. They spent very little time together. Joel was always too busy with Hourglass.
Birthdays, anniversaries, any illness Kitzi had over the years were only paid attention to if Hourglass didn’t need Joel. The broadcast schedule was a demanding one, she knew. Every week another hour of prime-time television had to be produced. And not just any old hour. It had to be strong enough to keep the broadcast at the top of the ratings heap. A heap that grew increasingly more competitive as all the networks continued to add magazine shows to their schedules.
When she complained about it, Joel grew angry. Did she want to be some little housewife somewhere in the boondocks? He insisted that she knew what she had signed on for when she married him.
But she had not counted on his philandering. Not as much philandering, anyway. No, she was not naive. She knew that many men strayed, especially in the circles she and Joel traveled in. Her friends said it went with the territory. Power was a great aphrodisiac.
Women, young and old, were turned on by Joel’s power and prestige. Joel was well aware of it and enjoyed it. Kitzi had seen it. At KEY News functions, women reporters and producers who wanted to work on Hourglass flirted shamelessly with him, acting as though Kitzi weren’t even there.
But Joel was past screwing around at the office. A sexual harassment lawsuit had seen to that. There were plenty of women outside of KEY News who were eager for flings.
But like all of Joel’s rules, this one had an exception.
Gwyneth Gilpatric.
He could not get over his obsession with her, and Kitzi had often thought that Joel would leave her for his anchorwoman. But he hadn’t. Not yet anyway.
Kitzi had confronted him about it, more than once. The fight tonight had been especially fierce.
“If you think I am going to spend New Year’s Eve watching you fawn over that woman, you have another thing coming.”
“Kitzi, Kitzi. I always have to keep Gwyneth happy. It’s always been for the good of the show.” Joel smirked.
“The show, my ass. I’m telling you, Joel, I’ve had it. With the show, with Gwyneth, with you.”
“And what, my dear, are you going to do about it?” Joel purred sarcastically, defiantly.
Kitzi knew she was cornered. What was she going to do about it? Was she finally ready to divorce him? No, not yet. Not until she got all her ducks in a row.
“Well, I’m sure as hell not going to her damn party!”
“Suit yourself.” Joel shrugged. He had calmly walked off to take a shower and dress, leaving Kitzi to stew alone.
It was time to make an appointment with a lawyer.
Kitzi pulled the tie closer at the waist of her peach silk lounging robe, walked over to the built-in mahogany bar and poured herself another vodka on ice. Happy New Year.
She hated herself for what she was going to do next. She crossed the expansive living room, over the antique Persian carpet, past the sumptuously upholstered sofas and the Regency chairs, benea
th the Baccarat chandelier, heading for the terrace. A gust of biting winter wind smacked against her as she opened the French doors, whipping her thin dressing gown around her legs. Tufts of old, crusted snow dotted the terracotta tile that floored the terrace, her silk-covered mules stepping carelessly through them. Her ringed, manicured hands gripped the nozzle of the frozen telescope.
She did not have to aim it. It was already trained on Gwyneth’s apartment across the park.
29
“DID YOU SEE his expression when he spotted you? I’ve heard the phrase ‘the color drained from his face’ many times … this is the first time I’ve actually seen it happen. He was ashen.”
Laura and Francheska huddled together in the powder room, ignoring the polite knocks on the door as other guests waited outside. Francheska calmly brushed lipstick within the lines of her full lips as Laura continued agitatedly.
“You knew he was going to be here, didn’t you, Fran?” Laura asked, talking to her friend’s reflection in the mirror.
Francheska nodded, her mane of dark hair shining in the powder room’s strong light. She wore a form-fitting bronze strapless gown, the bodice trimmed with natural brown mink. She was dressed to command attention.
“Len did mention he was coming. You, if anyone, know how he is, Laura. He loves dropping names and trying to impress me with whom he knows and what he’s doing.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because, if I had, you would have freaked out and been worried that there was going to be a scene. You would have been too nervous to bring me as your guest. When you asked me to come to this party, I wrestled with the question of ‘should I’ or ‘shouldn’t I’ tell you that Len and his wife were on the guest list. But I really wanted to come and I didn’t want to run the risk of you taking back the invitation.”
“Oh, Fran, don’t do anything like this to me again. Okay? I don’t like that kind of surprise.”
“Relax, Laura. This is going to be fun.”
Another knock on the door signaled they really had to go back to the festivities and Laura gave a last tug at her wispy bangs, making sure they covered her scar.
“What are you going to do now?” whispered Laura as the pair walked back toward the living room.
Francheska giggled. “Maybe I should go up to the Costellos and start a conversation. I’ve never met ‘the Mrs.,’ though I’ve heard so much about her.”
Laura laughed despite herself. “You wouldn’t dare.”
“I’m thinking about it.”
“Well, if you do that, I’ll pull the good doctor aside and thank him for all the inside dope he’s unknowingly provided on who was going to die next. Though he doesn’t know it, he’s really helped my career.”
30
RICKY POTENZA DID not feel the cold as he paced up and down the Central Park West block outside Gwyneth Gilpatric’s apartment building. He was not sure if he was going to be able to get past the doorman, but he had a plan.
He’d been waiting for this night for a long time—thirty years, really. Actually planning the specifics over the last year since reading in the hospital last January about Gwyneth’s annual New Year’s Eve party. He remembered it very clearly. Sitting with the other chain-smokers at Rockland Psychiatric Center, flipping the pages of People magazine. Reading about the schmaltzy party KEY News star Gwyneth Gilpatric threw each year for the rich and famous. Haunted by the smiling image of the woman who stared back at him from the glossy pages. Gwyneth Gilpatric, the woman who had changed his life forever.
Of course, he had been seeing her on television for years. There had been lots of time to watch television at the mental hospitals. And when he was home in between hospitalizations, television was his main pastime. He made it a point to watch Hourglass every week.
It galled Ricky to hear his mother rave about Gwyneth. She thought Gwyneth Gilpatric was so wonderful, a Jersey girl made good. “Gwyneth grew up in neighboring Fort Lee, you know,” his mother repeatedly told him. If she only knew.
Ricky listened silently to his mother’s enthusiastic admiration, listened silently and fumed. It wasn’t fair. Gwyneth, a national figure, feted and awarded, while poor Tommy lay rotting in the mud.
But now they had found Tommy. He saw it on TV, though his mother had been quick to snap off the set. She didn’t want him to relive all that, she said. Didn’t she know that he had been reliving it all again and again, day after day, for the last three decades? Reliving it in his head, but never bringing himself to talk about it.
Everyone had tried to get him to talk. His worried parents, the suspicious police, and, over the years, the concerned doctors. They thought he was traumatized simply by the disappearance of his best friend. If they knew that Ricky had been part of his best friend Tommy’s death they would not have treated him so well.
By the time the Cruzes realized that their son was missing the morning after Tommy was killed at Palisades Park, Ricky was home safe in his own bed, pretending to be asleep. He feigned ignorance when his mother broke the news to him that Tommy was missing, swore that he hadn’t seen his buddy since they parted company at dinnertime the night before. But as his parents and the police continued to question him over the days that followed, Ricky began to shut down. Silence was his defense.
We all have a breaking point. That’s what the doctor told Ricky’s parents. Ricky has met his breaking point. You must not push him.
So they had not pushed. They’d followed the doctor’s orders, gently trying to get the increasingly brooding, introverted Ricky interested in things again. They encouraged him to go out and play with the other kids, to get involved in sports or clubs at school. They tried to get him to audition for the school plays, hoping to find something that would bring him outside himself. Nothing worked.
Adolescence and the hormonal changes that went with it made things worse. Ricky grew more angry and violent. The acting out grew more angry and violent as well. One day after school, he climbed on the roof of the Potenzas’ three-story brick home and hurled the family’s cat to the ground below. That night he took his father’s razor blades to his wrists.
There followed the first of a lifetime’s worth of stays in various mental institutions.
At first the Potenzas had tried the private hospitals, thinking that money could cure their son. Ricky, heavily sedated, would seem better for a while, but the psychiatrists all agreed that medication alone would never cure him. The young man refused to open up in talk-therapy sessions. Until he did, Ricky was not going to get well.
The years passed and the hospital debts grew. The Potenzas sold their house in Cliffside Park and moved to a small bungalow over the state line in Rockland County, New York. There Mr. Potenza died. Three days after the funeral, Ricky was picked up by the police as he tried to jump into Lake Tappan.
The police brought him straightaway to the nearby Rockland Psychiatric Center, a state-run facility. With little money and exhausted, Ricky’s mother had no choice but to leave him there. As time went on, she resigned herself to the fact that it made no difference where he was. Her son was not going to get well.
So it went, a pattern developing. Ricky would stay at Rockland for months at a time. Then the staff would say he was well enough to come home. Another crisis sent him back. And on and on.
Now he was on another of his home furloughs.
His mother tried to make a normal life for them, tried to make Ricky appear as if he were normal. She did not want him to look like some sort of seedy, scary-looking crazy person. She made dental appointments, took long walks with him for exercise, made sure he got frequent haircuts. For Christmas, she saved from her modest secretary’s salary and bought him a camel hair overcoat, wanting her son to look the part of a handsome, well-dressed forty-two-year-old man.
Now on Central Park West, no one looked askance at Ricky Potenza. He looked like he belonged there.
Ricky watched as a half dozen men and women approached, and prayed that they wou
ld turn into the doorway of Gwyneth’s building. As they did, he fell inconspicuously behind them. One of the men told the uniformed doorman his name, said they were going to the Gilpatric party, and the doorman nodded.
“Go right up, sir.”
They all went up in the elevator together.
Gwyneth had gone on and thrived. It wasn’t fair.
31
OVER THE PARTY din, Joel Malcolm was explaining the concept of Casper’s Ghostland to his amused Hourglass producer Matthew Voigt.
“And this is supposed to be a secret death pool?” asked Matthew.
Joel grinned defiantly. “Yeah, it’s done anonymously, on the Internet. We all get a monthly bulletin that’s sent to our e-mail address, letting us know whose name we’re holding for the month. And if nobody in the pool dies over the next thirty days, we all ante up and Casper assigns us a new name. I’ve had Bryant Gumbel over at CBS three different times during the last two years. He’s still going strong, damn it!”
“And it’s how much a month?”
“A thousand bucks. But think how much you can win! The pot is really growing.”
“Too rich for my blood.” Matthew laughed. “Besides, they wouldn’t let me in anyway—I’m not high enough on the media totem pole.”
Joel shrugged and looked over Matthew’s shoulder, his keen eyes scanning the party. “There she is. The blonde in the dark blue dress.” He elbowed Matthew. “That’s Laura Walsh, the one I told you about.”
Matthew Voigt caught sight of Laura as she stood across Gwyneth’s opulent living room. “Whoa. This is going to be a pleasure.”
“Hold on,” warned Joel. “This is work, remember?”
“Who says work can’t be fun?” answered Matthew as he took off in Laura’s direction.
He followed her over to the bar and listened as she ordered a Cosmopolitan. As Laura took a sip of the pale pink cocktail, he introduced himself.
Let Me Whisper in Your Ear Page 8
