by Wendy Wax
She looked away then, because she was actually afraid that if she didn’t, she was going to spill everything: What Malcolm wanted her to do and what she wanted from Malcolm. How much she wanted him to redeem himself. Or maybe she wanted Malcolm to redeem her. Maybe she just wanted him to prove that it wasn’t her parenting that allowed him to disengage his conscience at will.
“You need to decide whose side you’re on,” he said. “And soon. Before your friends here find out who you really are and wonder why you haven’t tried to help the authorities find the person who ruined their lives.”
Below there were footsteps on the pool deck. Nicole looked down and saw Deirdre dragging the Frankenstein dummy past the pool and toward the reclinada palm. With Chase’s help, she tied it to one of the three trunks so that it dangled out over the grass near the seawall. Then she walked away, leaving Malcolm’s effigy swinging in the morning breeze.
Maddie fell asleep just before midnight, nodding off with the cell phone still clutched in her hand, her mind only partially numbed by the sunset margaritas she’d consumed. She hadn’t brought up the deadline she’d given Steven and neither had the others, but she’d fallen asleep with the sound of a clock ticking off the minutes in her head.
The text came in at 12:01, though she didn’t see it until the next morning. It read, Please think of yourself as the IRS. I have to file an extension. I love you. It had been sent from Steve’s cell phone. Which could have been located anywhere. Including the family room couch.
Thirty-four
From her perch at the highest point of the scaffolding where the living room chimney met a large section of angled roof, Avery kept an eye on the activity below as the first wave of designers unloaded furnishings and accessories at tightly controlled intervals and began to set up the rooms and spaces they’d been awarded.
In the back, a long garden hose snaked across the pool deck and emptied water into the resealed and newly tiled pool. Big cardboard cartons containing outdoor furniture sat waiting to be unpacked. Any and all exposed pipes had been reburied. Renée Franklin’s landscape plans, delivered just yesterday, included a bed of flowering perennials to camouflage and mark the area.
Deirdre buzzed in and out of Bella Flora, seemingly everywhere at once, managing the ebb and flow of workmen and designers with a calm efficiency that was difficult to dismiss. Even from this height and distance, Avery could tell she was reveling in her role of Queen Bee.
Baked by the sun and knocked out by the one-two punch of heat and humidity, they broke for lunch around twelve thirty, heading for the pool house, which was the only space that currently possessed both air-conditioning and seating. Kyra, now too bulky and off center to climb the scaffolding, painted what she could reach in the early mornings before the heat became unbearable and then spent the rest of the day shooting video of Bella Flora’s final transformation. She was already seated at the kitchen counter when Avery and Madeline staggered in out of the heat. A half-eaten sandwich, a tall glass of milk, a jar of dill pickles, and one of the more sensational tabloids sat open on the counter in front of her. Tears streamed down her sunburned cheeks.
“I thought we agreed we weren’t reading those rags anymore,” Madeline said, striding to the tiny kitchen to remove the tear-stained publication.
“We agreed not to waste money on them.” Kyra scrubbed at one cheek. “It was free. Someone slipped it under the door. I found it on the floor when I came in.”
Maddie pulled the perennial pitcher of iced tea and the cold meats and cheeses out of the refrigerator, positioning herself directly under the air-conditioning vent. Nicole headed straight for the bathroom, so Avery squeezed by Maddie to wash her hands in the kitchen sink.
“What crap are they writing now?” Avery dried her hands on a paper towel and reached for the tabloid. A picture of Daniel Deranian and Tonja Kay walking arm in arm, their heads bent together, on an undisclosed beach carried the headline “Reconciled!” An incredibly unflattering profile shot of Kyra standing alone and pregnant on the sand-strewn path to the jetty had been inset beside it with the caption, “Already Forgotten?”
Maddie took the stool next to Kyra and the still-open tabloid from Avery as Nikki came out of the bathroom and began to assemble a sandwich. A ringtone sounded and they all checked their phones. As the distinctive notes of “There’s No Business Like Show Business” played out, Avery followed the melody to Deirdre’s mattress, where she ran a hand over the sheets. Finally locating the cell phone under the pillow, she answered, knowing that Deirdre was expecting a call from a salvage house. “Hello?”
“Glad I caught you, Dee. I’ve been calling all morning.” The voice was female and rushed. She clearly thought she was talking to Deirdre.
Avery opened her mouth to explain but didn’t get a chance as the voice continued in the same rush. “I just wanted to congratulate you on all the publicity you’re getting down there. When you told me about Deranian’s little girlfriend, I knew it was a gift from the PR gods. And those YouTube posts with you leading the charge are pure gold!” There was a delighted chuckle. “We’re in a perfect position to negotiate with that moron at Lifetime. I still can’t believe they dropped you. And to think they thought you were too old to pull the demographic. Ha! Wait until they see how often your name is popping up now on the Internet.” The woman was on a roll. “Those young designers don’t know shit and they don’t have the A-listers you do. Tonja remembers that freebie you did for her when she was stinking up the box office a couple of years ago. There are a lot of celebrities who still want to work with you.”
At the bar, Madeline flipped the pages of the tabloid. Nicole slid her plate to the empty spot at the bar and climbed onto the stool. Kyra munched on a pickle; the tears still streaming. But the everyday realities seemed almost surreal to Avery as Deirdre’s true motives and manipulations became clear.
“Dee?” The woman behind the voice finally seemed to realize she was the only one talking. “Deirdre? Are you there?”
“Sorry. You’ve got the wrong number.” Avery hung up. Even as disappointment spiked through her, she chided herself for expecting anything else. Deirdre could spout all the bullshit she wanted about making amends and trying to reconnect. For Deirdre it was “business as usual,” and as usual the business that mattered most to Deirdre was Deirdre.
There was a sharp intake of breath at the counter.
“Oh, my God!” Madeline said. “There are pictures and paragraphs about all of us.”
Nicole went still at the counter. Kyra sniffed and swiped at her nose with the back of her hand.
“I’m the over-the-hill desperate housewife,” Madeline said, wrinkling her nose and turning the page. The irritation in her voice grew. “With the pregnant, celebrity-obsessed daughter.”
Madeline skimmed the article with her forefinger. “Avery’s the former airheaded HGTV star who was booted out in favor of her ex-husband.” She winced and shot a sympathetic glance at Avery. “Deirdre’s apparently our savior.”
Avery closed her eyes against the added insult. When she opened them, Kyra had lifted her video camera to shoot their reactions.
“But I don’t see anything about . . .” Maddie’s voice trailed off as she creased the paper at the fold and brought it closer to her face. The room grew quiet with an uncomfortable anticipation. All eyes, and the lens of the video camera, were now on Maddie.
“The most surprising member of the cast at Ten Beach Road is celebrity matchmaker and dating guru Nicole Grant,” Madeline read out loud. She looked up briefly at Nikki, who’d gone so still Avery wasn’t sure she was breathing. “They’ve got a whole list of your highest-profile matches and marriages.” Maddie looked down again and went back to reading. She looked at Nicole, then back down at the paper again. Her voice tripped over the next lines. “. . . Who in yet another bizarre twist also happens to be financial bad guy Malcolm Dyer’s older sister.”
Madeline stopped reading. There was a silence so massive a c
aravan of semitrucks could have driven through it.
Avery moved to the counter, Deirdre’s offenses already fading in the light of this revelation. Her gaze, like Madeline’s and Kyra’s, was now fixed on Nikki.
“Is that true? Are you really Malcolm Dyer’s sister?” Kyra asked.
“Well . . .” Nicole began.
“Are you or aren’t you?” Avery asked.
Nikki’s gaze darted between the three of them, quick and furtive, like a fly trying to assess from which direction the fly swatter might come.
“Answer the question!” It was Maddie, usually the peacemaker, who refused to let her off the hook.
“Yes.” Nicole nodded, her expression numb. “Malcolm’s my brother, but . . .”
“No,” Maddie said. “There can’t be any buts about that.”
“What the hell are you doing here?” Avery asked, trying to make sense of it. “Did he send you to gloat?”
“Or is he hoping you’ll help him find some way to screw us out of Bella Flora, too?” Maddie asked. The horror and disbelief all of them were feeling were starkly etched across her face.
“No!” Nikki said. “I’m a victim like you are. He stole every penny I had invested with him. He didn’t leave me with anything.”
“Right.” Avery wasn’t buying it. “You expect us to believe that your own brother stole all your money?”
Nikki nodded. Her voice, when she spoke, sounded like something torn from her throat. “It’s true. If I had more than two hundred dollars to my name I wouldn’t be sleeping on a mattress and slaving on this godforsaken house.”
It was a sign of just how agitated they were that they let her get away with the slur to Bella Flora.
“There must have been some mistake. Were you estranged? Didn’t he realize . . . ?” Maddie seemed to be struggling to make sense of it, but Avery didn’t want to understand it. There was no explanation that could justify Nicole’s dishonesty.
“I raised him.” Nicole slumped in her seat, her voice barely a whisper. “Badly, it would seem. But for all intents and purposes, I was his mother. There was no mistake.”
Another silence fell. Kyra lowered the camera and switched it off. Nicole looked at all of them in turn, her face a glut of emotion. Avery saw shock, hurt, anger, disappointment, and ultimately an odd sort of resignation. But Avery didn’t care how Nicole felt. She could barely stand to look at her.
“You just stood there when we hung him in effigy,” Maddie said, shaking her head in disbelief. “And you never said a word. Not once in all the thousands of times we discussed and cursed Malcolm Dyer did you mention that you were related to him.” She folded her arms across her chest as if warding off cold. “I feel so betrayed. How could you?”
What Avery felt was ill. Their closeness, the sense that they were in the trenches together, was all one great big lie. “I can’t work beside you. And I sure as hell am not going to sleep next to you.”
Nicole didn’t respond, and she didn’t look surprised.
Avery turned to Madeline. “I need for her to leave,” Avery said. “Now.”
“But she’s an owner,” Maddie said. “Can we just tell her to go?”
“She can have her third when we finish and sell,” Avery said. “We’re not trying to steal from her.” She took the time to emphasize the pertinent words. “But every time I look at her I’m going to know that she’s Malcolm Dyer’s sister and that she’s been lying about it from the moment we met her.”
“I didn’t lie,” Nikki said. “I just couldn’t tell you.”
Maddie shook her head one final time. Her brown eyes were dark with hurt and anger. Leaving Nicole sitting alone at the counter, she and Kyra came to stand on either side of Avery.
“We’re almost done anyway.” Maddie’s voice shook, but her tone was resolute. “I’m sure if you leave an address with John Franklin, he’ll make sure you get your share at closing.”
The three of them left the pool house and went back to work without further conversation or a backward glance.
It took Nicole less than fifteen minutes to gather her things and stuff them into the trunk of the Jag. Chase called out after her, asking where she thought she was going, obviously assuming she was trying to duck out of work. Only Joe Giraldi actually tried to stop her, striding out to the car just as she slid behind the wheel and bending double to lean in through the driver’s side window. “Where are you going?” he asked. “What’s happened?”
“As if you don’t know!”
Nicole revved the gas pedal with her foot and sent the grit under the wheels flying. “It was a nice touch, planting the story in that tabloid as if some scuzzy reporter was the one who figured out my connection to Malcolm,” she said. “Did you arrange for the paparazzi, too?”
He looked surprised but quickly masked it. “That wasn’t us. I told you you were running out of time. Anybody bothering to dig would have figured it out. We didn’t want you to be found out.”
“I don’t really care what you wanted, Agent Giraldi. And I sure as hell don’t care what my alleged partners think. All these months we’ve spent together, all of this ‘pulling together because we’re in the same boat’ crap! And as soon as they hear I’m related to Malcolm, I’m the scum of the earth.”
She pushed at his hands, wanting only to back down the drive and leave the house along with everyone and everything inside it, behind her. After all these years of going it alone, she’d bought into the hype, had actually felt as if she and Maddie and Avery had formed some sort of bond. She could hardly believe how stupid she’d been. Or how much the rejection hurt.
She’d been right to teach Malcolm that each man had to be for himself. As soon as you started worrying about others your chances of success shrank down to nothing.
“Nikki, look. It doesn’t have to be like this. Just work with us and I can explain that . . .”
“Leave me alone!” she shouted. “I don’t need you running interference when you’re just trying to get me to do your dirty work.”
She shoved at his hands again and slammed the gearshift into reverse. “And you better stay out of my way. If I see your face even for a second, you’ll be sorry.” She hated how childlike and impotent she sounded. Without another word she smashed her foot down on the accelerator, not even caring whether she ran over his feet or ripped his stupid arms out of their sockets as she backed down the brick driveway for what she assumed would be the very last time.
Nonetheless, Nicole watched Giraldi watch her leave in the Jag’s rearview mirror until he and Bella Flora grew small and disappeared from view. She actually cried all the way over the Corey Causeway Bridge into St. Petersburg and on a large section of Interstate 275. But by the time she reached Tampa she knew where she was headed. And exactly what she had to do.
Thirty-five
The house was still packed with frantic designers and Maddie and Avery’s shock over Nicole’s true identity was still fresh when Chase called a halt to the day’s painting. Maddie and Avery had simmered with anger and righteous indignation for most of the afternoon, calling up instance after instance when Nicole could and should have told them the truth, expending far more time and energy piecing together the clues they’d somehow missed than perfecting their brushstrokes.
In the pool house, Maddie found Kyra on the couch fiddling with her editing equipment, a wan smile on her face. The tabloid article lay crumpled but still legible beside her.
When it was time to prepare for sunset, Maddie foraged in the refrigerator for a bottle of white wine and a beer for Chase, uwilling to try to follow in Nikki’s frozen-drink footsteps. With Kyra’s help she arranged snacks on a tray and carried them out to the pool.
“Everything feels so weird,” Kyra said, taking in the sparkling pool and the new wrought-iron patio furniture artfully arranged around it. Massive clay containers with a 1920s feel dotted the resurfaced pool deck, waiting for Renée Franklin and her gardening crew to fill them. The concrete picnic tabl
e with its mosaic top had been moved to the small porch on the west side of the house. There was no sign of their neon-colored beach chairs.
“I know,” Maddie said, setting veggies and dip and a bowl of Cheez Doodles in the center of the large round table. The new furniture was the least of it.
Kyra set down the wine and glasses, then went back inside for Chase’s beer and her own iced tea. “I can’t believe how much we can fit on this table.” As opposed to the packing box they’d begun with and the garage-sale find that had replaced it.
“It’s Brown Jordan,” Deirdre said coming out of the house with Chase. “It’s one of their newest groupings. Top of the line.”
Avery came out of the pool house showered and changed. Deirdre flashed her daughter a smile that froze on her lips when Avery looked right through her.
Nicole would have had no problem adjusting to the high-end furniture, Maddie thought as they hovered around the table not quite able to claim it as their own. She would have done more than adjust; she would have loved it. Maddie kept this thought to herself but suspected from the angry, yet baffled expressions on the others’ faces that she wasn’t the only one thinking of Nicole at that moment.
“Ahhh.” Chase reached for the lone cold beer and lifted it to his lips with a grateful sigh, then drained half of it in one long, thirsty gulp. “I needed that.” He looked around the pool area. “It’s been a pretty bizarre day,” he said. “Not to mention that we’ve lost a high percentage of our work force.” He took another sip of beer. “Giraldi’s gone, too. It kind of makes you wonder if that guy was who or what he claimed to be.”
“There’s an awful lot of that going around.” Avery aimed a pointed glance at Deirdre as Maddie poured her a glass of wine and positioned it and the bowl of Cheez Doodles within easy reach.
