by Jean Stone
Gabrielle began to cry, and Nikki said it was all right, that Dorothy was in a good place, though it was hard on Mary Beth, but then again, what wasn’t?
She had added the last part to help soften what clearly was upsetting to Gabrielle.
And then Gabrielle told Nikki that Aunt Dorothy had secretly visited her in England.
Nikki pulled to the side of the road and stopped. “I didn’t know that.”
“You didn’t know a lot of things. And I didn’t know why you never answered my letters. Neither you nor Mary Beth.”
“Your letters?” Nikki asked. “I never received any letters. I wrote to you a few times, but my mother said to stop, that it would only upset you and … and your father.”
“My father?”
“We thought he was with you, that he had taken you away.”
Gabrielle turned her head away. “No,” she said, “that was a lie.”
Nikki knew that now, of course. Mack had told her years before. But if she admitted it to Gabrielle, she’d have to tell her about Mack.
“Aunt Margaret tried to keep you from me,” Gabrielle said, and Nikki could not disagree. Then she shook her head. “And him,” she added. “She told me my father had disappeared.” She raised her chin as if trying to keep more tears from leaking out. “There are so many things I don’t understand.”
There was silence a moment, then Nikki pulled back onto the street. “Sometimes,” she said, “I think it’s better not to try.”
“You sold your what?”
They were getting ready for a cocktail party at the Cooper-Hewitt, not that many would be there (it was too close to summer), but they might as well go because you never knew who stayed in the city during the week.
“My diamonds,” Mary Beth repeated, with practiced blasé.
“Your Van Cleefs?” Eric turned an odd shade of white, and one corner of his mouth curled like the head of an angry king cobra.
She zipped her white silk skirt and hated that she’d had to cancel Hank and his three-hundred-dollar-an-hour, cash-only visits. She blamed the wedding and the Vineyard and, oh, she was just too damn busy (!), so that Hank would not suspect and pass it on. The truth, however, was that she needed his workouts as much as she needed his raw, blissful sex. Ah, perhaps again someday.
“And your diamond-and-pearl ensemble? Is that why you’re not wearing it?”
She’d never realized Eric had noticed so much. “It’s called survival, my dear,” she said, without looking again at his pasty flesh tone. “Someone has to pay attention to the money.”
“I canceled Brazil.”
As if one lousy trip would cover Shauna’s wedding. “The tip of the iceberg, I’m afraid. But not to worry, we have someone chasing our friend Lester down.”
“I thought we agreed not to …” he replied. “When people find out …”
Mary Beth sighed. “No one will find out. Now, be a dear and hand me those rings.”
He slid a trio of leftover gold filigree bands from the ring holder inside her armoire. He handed them to her and quickly turned away. “I’m going to change my shirt.”
“Why? The pale blue is fine.”
“I want my French cuffs. In case any word has gotten out, I want to wear my diamond-and-onyx cuff links. No one will question our financial health if they see I still have them.”
He was halfway out of the room when Mary Beth called out, “Don’t bother. I sold those, too.”
Fluffing her hair, she tried, she really did, not to act as devastated as she felt inside. She did not want to ignite his fear more than she already had.
“How dare you,” he said in an uncharacteristic voice.
Suddenly her resolve began to crumble. “How dare I?” She closed her eyes, and then she smiled. “Darling, I bought them for you, just as I’ve bought everything else. That gives me the right to dare as I wish.” She adjusted her sleeveless white silk weskit.
“What’s going to happen if Lester is really gone?” he asked. “What’s going to happen if we’re as poor as … this?”
“I have no idea. Perhaps we’ll have to get jobs.” She was, of course, joking, but this was no time to joke.
Eric stepped forward. “I have other options,” he said. “But what about you?”
Mary Beth did not know why that single comment fired straight to her heart, a missile of shock, a surprise attack. After all, she’d always known their marriage revolved around her money, the cog of happiness. I have other options, he’d said, as easily as if he’d said the time of day, with no consideration for her feelings or her pride. Her only other option had been Hank, another man whose services she’d paid for, too.
Her voice went low. “Then maybe it’s time for you to exercise those options,” she said. “Because if you can’t take the heat, I truly don’t need you in my fucking kitchen.”
It might have been half an hour, maybe more, but the next thing Mary Beth heard as she sat on her bed, still dressed in her white silk and staring at the floor, was her daughter’s soft voice.
“Mom?” Shauna asked as she entered the room. “What’s going on? Why did Daddy just walk out with suitcases in his hands?”
14
If I’m going to have a chauffeur, the neighbors damn well better see me,” Carla said to her son Donnie, who stood in the doorway of the kitchen looking at his mother as if she had three heads or none at all. She assumed it was because of the red, white, and blue capris that she wore, and the matching scarf tied at the open neck of her white cotton shirt that she’d bought at Bloomingdale’s that morning.
“The neighbors will think you’ve lost your mind,” Donnie said, “or that you’re going on a Princess Cruise.”
That’s what she got for having boys, not girls. The sailor-looking outfit was perfecto for Martha’s Vineyard, the sales clerk had promised. And, Carla’s mother would have loved it. As for her, she’d be a lot more excited if her obstinate son wasn’t giving her such grief.
“Donnie, please,” Carla pleaded. “All I’m asking is that you go outside this afternoon at two o’clock. If you see any of our neighbors, stall them until my limo arrives.”
He moved to the refrigerator, a favorite pastime in the fifteen or so years since he’d been able to reach the door by himself. “Your limo?” he asked with a hearty laugh. “I wish Carmine and Nardi were here. They’d love to see your limo.”
Carmine and Nardi were two of Carla’s brothers, the two she barely spoke to because they lived out on Long Island, having married girls from the other side of the subway tracks, the side that would die to be on Martha’s Vineyard. But Carla, not them, had been invited.
She smiled. “Well, I just bet they would.”
Taking out a half-gallon of milk, Donnie chugged from the carton, then wiped his mouth. “So what am I supposed to say to the neighbors? Stand by, my mother’s going to have a photo op?”
Carla straightened her scarf. “I try not to ask much of you, Donnie. Do I ask too much?”
“No, Ma.”
“I ask you to round up a few neighbors, that’s all. Do I ever ask for anything? I don’t even ask you to live here with me. I don’t want you to go to California, but haven’t I said you should get an apartment with some of your friends?” She did not know why she had turned the focus from the neighbors to Donnie’s independence. She supposed it was because it had been on her mind, the sense she was holding him back.
“Yes, Ma.”
She sidestepped her guilt. “So when I ask you this little favor, this one teensy little favor, don’t you think it would be nice if you did it for your mother? For all the years she had to work for that shit Lester Markham so you and your brother could live in a decent neighborhood and get a good education? This may not be my debutante ball, but it’s the closest I’ve come to society.”
Donnie rolled his eyes and took an apple from the bowl on the counter. With horse teeth that came from his father’s side of the damn family, he crunched into it. “Stop wh
ining, Ma. I’ll do it, okay?”
She tossed the scarf over one shoulder. “You will?”
“Of course. I was just having fun.”
“Fun,” she said, planting her hands on her round hips. “You boys and your fun.” She said it as if Vincent were there, too, her year-apart sons who had kept her alive if not sane all those years that she’d spent on the train schlepping to Manhattan from the Bronx, while Mary Beth and Nikki and Gabrielle had been chauffeur-driven everywhere, thanks to her, Carla DiRoma, who sent their checks out on time.
But this time, the chauffeur was coming for her.
“What are you bringing?” Donnie asked, chomping around the core as if this were his last meal, as if he wouldn’t turn around and make another small snack, peanut butter and jelly—pbj, he called it—on white bread, not even whole wheat. Carla wondered if he would eat so much if he had a girlfriend and regular sex.
“What?” she asked. “You mean like a casserole? You think I should bring a casserole?”
He rolled his eyes again and headed for the cabinet where the peanut butter was stored. “I mean like a hostess gift, Ma. Shouldn’t you bring a hostess gift?”
A gift. God, she hadn’t even thought about that. Well, it wasn’t as if she were an invited guest. Not really invited, not like a friend of the family or something.
Then she saw him laugh.
“You’re teasing me,” she said.
“Well, Ma … look at you. You’re dressed like you’re going to the America’s Cup. And you’re not being picked up until two, but you are all ready and it’s only three minutes past noon.”
She looked down at her sailor pants and couldn’t help but smile. “You’re right,” she said. “I’m ridiculous.”
He came over and gave her one of his big, wonderful hugs. “No, Ma, you’re not ridiculous. You’re just being you, and that’s okay.”
“You sure?”
“I’m sure. And don’t worry, I’ll go outside. And if nobody’s around, I’ll start banging on doors until I stir up eyewitnesses to my mother’s late-in-life debut.”
She hugged him back and thanked the Lord for giving her her boys.
She had shopped with Gabrielle until the shops had closed; she’d taken her to Vineyard Haven for dinner at The Black Dog Tavern. Then they’d stopped by Camp4Kids in time for “lights out.” Though Nikki enjoyed her cousin’s company, she had, in truth, been killing time until she felt assured that Mack was home asleep, out of the way. In the morning, Nikki checked to be certain Mack’s red truck was gone. Then she left Gabrielle sleeping, spent the morning at Camp4Kids, and drove up-island to the coffee shop where she now sat, still without any answers.
Why had her mother cut Gabrielle out of their lives? Why had Nikki and Mary Beth been told Mack took Gabrielle away, while Gabrielle was told that Mack had disappeared?
At one point years ago, Mack told Nikki that during that time he had drifted, getting work when he could, living in run-down hotels, often sitting in the dark, depressed and overcome by his grief at the loss of both his daughter and his wife, earning enough money to make two trips to Europe, both of which had been disastrous and had only added to his sorrow.
Until ten years ago, when Margaret died, when he’d come back to the Vineyard, when Nikki approached Mary Beth to let him live on the estate grounds.
There were questions Nikki knew would probably remain unanswered, the truths perhaps buried with Margaret Atkinson.
But answers or no answers, Nikki knew she had to tell Mack that Gabrielle was there.
Sitting in the out-of-the-way restaurant where Mack escaped for lunch in tourist season, Nikki could not imagine how she would feel if Dee were taken from her. As strained as their relationship could get, she could not fathom a greater hurt, even under the supposition that it would be for her “own good.”
The small bell above the door tinkled and Mack ambled inside.
“Hey,” he said, spotting Nikki. “What are you doing here? Not a good advertisement for the food at your dining commons.” He pulled a chair out and sat next to her.
“Macaroni and cheese today. I felt like ham.” She pointed to the rye bread sandwich on the plate in front of her.
Mack nodded, but she knew he did not believe her for a second or a minute or for all the tea in China, for which Dee had begged money but Nikki had said no.
“I have news,” she said. “Some is pretty; some is not.”
He folded his arms and looked across the room. “Cup of chicken noodle,” he called out to Irma, who stood behind the counter. “And tuna on toasted wheat.” His eyes came back to Nikki. “Tell me the not-so-pretty first. I’d rather feel sick on an empty stomach.”
She deliberately smiled. “I’m poor,” she said. “I have no money.”
The corners of his mouth turned up a bit, too. “None?” he asked. “Does that mean I’m buying lunch?”
Mack. Yes, that was Mack. Kind and soft, yet sturdy and strong. She twisted on her chair. “While you’re at it, maybe you could throw in a few extra dollars? Enough to support The Rose Foundation for a year or two?”
His eyes grew serious. “What’s up?”
And then she told him about her trust fund, adding that Sam Oliver had agreed to help. “But my hopes aren’t real high. It’s been a few weeks already …”
“That’s why you asked if I knew anyone,” Mack said. “A banker or someone …”
“Yes,” she replied. She would not tell him she’d gone to ask about Gabrielle. His daughter’s name would come up soon enough.
Mack ran his hand through hair that should have been thinner for a man in his late fifties, for a man who’d been through so much. “Jesus, Nikki, is there something I can do? Can I help the detective?”
Nikki shook her head. “I don’t know, but thanks. You’ll be the first one that I’ll ask.”
He did not mention he had not been the first to know. Reaching across the table, he set his hand on hers. “What’s going to happen, Nikki? What are you going to do?”
Irma appeared and Mack removed his hand from Nikki’s. The waitress set a cup of soup in front of him.
“I thought you were going to tell me Mary Beth was on her way,” he said, and that made Nikki smile again, for it was their trusted pact: Nikki always alerted Mack when her cousin was on-island, sort of like a Doppler radar warning of an impending hurricane.
“Actually, she is.”
Mack thought for a moment, then nearly dropped his spoon. “Oh, God,” he said, “is her money gone, too?”
“Yes.”
He scowled a tiny scowl. “How’s she going to swing the wedding? I’ve always had the feeling Mary Beth spends as much as she gets.”
Then his eyes grew solemn again, and Nikki knew that his thoughts had drifted, and she knew where they’d gone. She took a small bite of her sandwich and wished she’d ordered coffee to help wash down the lump that had grown inside her throat. “Yes,” she said, without Mack having asked. “Gabrielle has been affected, too.”
He looked off toward nothing, then looked back again. “It was her,” he replied. “At the estate. I nearly ran into her.”
Nikki paused, then she nodded. “It’s her,” she said slowly, “but she doesn’t know about you.”
With the check back from Brazil and the money from her jewelry, Mary Beth plunked the fees for April and May on the desk of PATRICIA KENDRICK, financial goddess of Harriman House.
“I’ll have the June money in a week or so,” she said with deliberate expectation that it would be acceptable. “An error was made, and some of my portfolio was inadvertently diverted into long-term investments.” She did not speculate how “long” the term might be.
Ms. Kendrick looked at Mary Beth as if to say we should all have such problems. “And July will be here before you know it,” the woman added, because Mary Beth was equipped with neither a calendar nor a brain.
Mary Beth smiled and excused herself. The she checked her watch and went out
side to wait for Charlie, who had dropped her off at Harriman House, then had gone to get Carla. She supposed there was time to visit Dorothy, but Mary Beth could not handle that today. The minutes of her own survival were too stressful now, as they swung around the ticking clock toward Shauna’s wedding day.
Gabrielle sat in Nikki’s studio, talking with Sam Oliver, who’d been sent by Alice to check in on her, or so he’d said. It only took a moment, however, for Gabrielle to realize that he was there to question her, to help him put together the missing pieces of Lester and the trust funds.
To help him determine if she were a suspect.
They sat in the studio, the crow’s nest of the lighthouse, because the light up there was better and the view was peaceful, and Gabrielle enjoyed being surrounded by Nikki’s wonderful work. She also realized Nikki had been right: Simply being in the lighthouse made her feel close to her mother.
“When was the last time you talked to anyone from the States?” Sam asked.
“Years. Until Carla DiRoma came to my house.”
“You never talked to Nikki? Or Lester?”
Gabrielle stared at Sam. “I need to know if this is confidential.” She did not want to lie, but if he told the others, then everyone would know.
“It’s an investigation, Gabrielle. If you know anything that will help find Lester …”
Could she trust him? Could she trust anyone?
She shook her head. “I hadn’t talked to Lester since I was in Paris.” That was true. She did not add that was the time she’d set up her account in Zurich, that she’d then arranged for Lester to deposit her money directly, that she’d given him the power of attorney to pay her taxes, that she hadn’t seen the statements in many years. She did not add that her husband knew nothing of her fortune.
“So you received your income monthly, as did Nikki and Mary Beth, and you never questioned if things were being handled correctly.”
