by Nancy Thayer
Alice stopped. “Here’s what we’ll do. My son Alan just moved in with me—”
“What happened?” Marilyn asked.
“Long story, but he’s getting a divorce and wants to start over on the East Coast. Anyway, I’ll have him rent an old car and get it over to you, Faye, for you to use out at the Eastbrooks.”
“Great,” Faye said.
“Now, Shirley,” Alice continued. “I’ve got another business meeting with you Wednesday night, right?”
“Right. And Saturday I’m going to Jennifer D’Annucio’s to give her her first free massage.”
“And I’ve started temping as Alice’s secretary,” Marilyn told the others.
“Have you met Alison?” Faye asked.
“Briefly. She is an ice queen. But Barton, her secretary, seems rather nice.”
“Okay, then,” Alice concluded. “Looks like we’re on course. See you all again here, next week.”
They paid the bill and left their table, striding through the crowded restaurant, smiling and talking as they went. At the door, Marilyn, Faye, and Shirley all stopped dead.
Alice nearly ran right into Shirley’s back. “What are you doing?” she asked.
Faye grinned. “We’re waiting for you to open the door.”
16
Faye—“Mrs. Van Dyke”—sat at her computer, collat-ing a file of dinner guests and their allergies, preferences, and, if they’d eaten at the house before, those menus. She printed it off and went down the hall and into the kitchen.
“Oh, good, you’ve got the list,” Margie Porter said. “Have time for some tea?”
Faye looked at her watch. “Yes, I suppose, while we go over the names.”
Margie bustled around, warming the teapot with hot water, then filling it again with tea leaves and fresh water and setting it on the table with the sugar bowls and a milk jug and spoons and a plate of her homemade snickerdoodle cookies. Margie was a great pleasure to be around. Comfortably in her sixties, straightforward, easygoing, she loved to cook and she loved to be around people. She’d been with the Eastbrooks for fifteen years, and her only complaint was that she wasn’t allowed to have her cat in the kitchen with her—too much danger, Missus said, of just one floating cat hair getting into the wrong person’s soup.
“How are you settling in?” Margie asked, sighing as she sank into a chair.
“I’m doing all right, I think. Mrs. Eastbrook seems to be a perfectionist, but I can handle that.”
“Missus has a good heart and Missy is a darling.” She held out the plate. “Have a cookie.”
“Thanks, not right now.” Knowing how important appearances were to the Eastbrooks, Faye had determined not to gain another ounce. Smoothing her silk jacket over her stomachs, Faye looked at one of her lists. “Is it Miss Eastbrook’s fiancé and his family who are coming to dinner tonight?”
Margie skimmed the page. “Yes, it is. My goodness, wait till you see them! The Beckers are a real pack of geniuses, all three, absolutely Albert Einsteins. The father’s won all kinds of scientific awards, but he can’t carry on a normal conversation to save his life. The son, Teddy, now, he’s better. Teddy’s nice. And the mother’s nice, she’s the most down-to-earth of the three.”
“Is she a scientist, as well?”
“Yup. But not genetics. I think she studies bugs. Dead bugs. If you can imagine. But that’s good, that’s probably why she doesn’t mind her husband’s looks. He resembles a bug himself, one of those roly-poly creatures? He’s short and plump and bald. He wears thick glasses and mumbles.”
“Does Teddy look like that?”
“Well, he’s younger, of course. Not fat, yet, but he’s short and sturdy, you know that kind of fireplug build. He’s got nice thick hair, for now; they say baldness is inherited, though.”
“Doesn’t seem like the kind of man who would be Miss Eastbrook’s match.”
“Not superficially, no.” Margie set her cup down and aimed a steady gaze at Faye. “What you’ve got to remember about all the Eastbrooks is that there’s more there than meets the eye. They look so perfect they seem like they’re all whipped cream and no substance, but the substance is there, believe me.” She shook herself.
“Enough gossiping. Let’s finish the list. Okay. They’re having the Daunnises, too. That’s good. Mrs. Daunnis is due for another face-lift, I believe, and Mr. Daunnis is planning to run for state representative in his district out in the Berkshires.”
“Good heavens, Margie, you know everything about these people!”
“Yes, and you will, too, but no one will know that, if you do your job right,” Margie said.
Later that afternoon, Faye gathered her clipboard and pen and keys and made the rounds of the house. The guest bath had fresh towels and flowers. The downstairs was spotlessly clean. The drinks table in the living room was all set, except for the ice, which one of Margie’s girls would put in the silver ice bucket just before seven. A tulip drooped from an arrangement on the mantel. Faye adjusted it.
Missus—as Margie called her—was in her bedroom taking a nap, and Faye assumed that Doctor was, too. He had a busy schedule, operating in the morning, doing rounds the rest of the day, entertaining at night. Faye couldn’t understand why these people drove themselves so hard. They scarcely had a minute to enjoy all they had.
Faye walked to the far end of the house opposite from her own quarters, at least sixty feet away. She looked into the family room. A large, sunny room, it held overstuffed sofas, a thirty-six-inch TV, state-of-the-art stereo equipment, an old pinball machine, and a refrigerator full of soft drinks.
Faye had never seen anyone in this room.
On the opposite side of the room there was a door, one she’d never been through. Heaven knew there were enough oddities in the structure of the house. Mrs. Eastbrook had shown her the door leading from her office to a tunnel running between the house and the clinic and the spa, so that Doctor could get from one place to the other in bad weather.
But Mrs. Eastbrook hadn’t lingered in the family room during her tour, and Faye had been so overwhelmed with all the rooms that she hadn’t remembered to ask about it.
Now she crossed the thick creamy wall-to-wall carpet and put her hand on the doorknob and turned.
It was locked.
She’d seen—she thought she’d seen—Lila go through this door, with a tray of food. But where did this door lead?
“Mrs. Van Dyke?”
Faye nearly vaulted straight up into the air, but she kept her cool. “Yes, Miss Eastbrook?”
“Is there something you’re looking for?” Lila Eastbrook’s voice was cold.
“No. I’m just doing my rounds early this evening, being sure all the doors are locked.” Thank God she had her clipboard with her.
“You never need to check that door,” Lila Eastbrook said. “It’s always locked.” Like her mother, Lila Eastbrook was diminutive and sweet-faced, but her voice was steel.
“Very well.” Faye crossed the room, and together both women left the family room and went back to the main hall. “If you don’t mind my saying, Miss Eastbrook, your hair looks especially pretty today.”
“Really?” At once Lila Eastbrook transformed into an eager, hopeful young woman. “My fiancé’s coming to dinner tonight.”
“How very nice.” Faye stepped into her own office.
“Yes,” Lila agreed, a giant smile on her face. “Very nice.”
Smiling, Lila Eastbrook went up the stairs toward her bedroom.
She must love him, to smile like that, Faye thought.
Then she settled at her desk and pored over her calendar, trying to find a time when Lila and her mother would be away from the house, so she could take a little stroll around the house to see what kind of addition extended from that door in the family room.
After dinner was over, the Eastbrooks and their guests went into the living room for brandy and coffee. Faye helped the maids snuff the candles and clear the table, then l
eft them in the kitchen with Margie.
Out in the dark night, a brisk wind made the April air seem cold, and Dr. Eastbrook had lit the fire Faye had laid earlier in the day. Silently, on her soft-soled shoes, she went through the hall, blazing with light beneath its crystal chandelier. Through the slightly open door to the living room, she glimpsed the group, relaxed and jovial after a sumptuous meal, laughing and talking as the firelight gave off its golden warmth. Faye was possessed by a childish urge to peek in, catch Marilyn’s eye, and wink. She suppressed it.
Slipping past unnoticed, Faye went down the hall to the family room. Her footfalls were absorbed in the thick carpet as she crossed to the wall of bookcases. She was restless—perhaps it was the wind, clattering and fussing nervously at all the windows. She hadn’t brought any books with her, but she was sure she’d find something in the family room shelves.
Sufficient light illuminated the room from the brilliant hallway, so she didn’t turn on the overhead light. Just out of curiosity, she tried the handle of the door leading away from the family room. Still locked. She listened. Faint sounds of laughter and chatter filtered through the door. Another party? Some of the staff? But no, the more she listened, the more certain she became that they were only television voices she was hearing.
All at once voices came from another direction. Lila Eastbrook said urgently, “Teddy—in here—quick!”
Faye darted into an alcove with a window seat and heavy curtains and flattened herself against the wall. She dare not let the young woman see her there, so near the forbidden door. She hadn’t turned on the light when she entered the room, but when any light came on, it would expose her. What could she say she was doing there in the dark?
Then the door to the hallway shut, blanketing the room in darkness.
Faye heard rustling, and small exhalations, and giggles, and groans.
“God, Lila,” Teddy Becker moaned. “We’d better not—”
“Oh, Teddy, I love you so much! I don’t want you to go home! I want you to come to bed with me, and sleep all night with me. I want to wake up seeing your face.”
“And I want to be with you. And we will be together. Just a few more months.”
“I hate it that we have to wait.”
“I know. I know. But we’ll have all of our lives together, Lila. And it means so much to them.”
“Oh, Teddy, you’re so good, so sweet, so kind, you’re my teddy bear—” Lila’s murmured endearments were cut short by Teddy’s kisses.
“Enough,” Teddy panted. “We’ve got to join them, they’ll wonder where we are.”
The door to the hall opened. Light spilled into the room. Teddy and Lila went out. Faye snatched a book from the shelf and hurried out into the hall, which was empty. She heard Lila laughing in the living room.
Gliding past, Faye went down the hall to her room, where she would wait with an open door and an attentive ear for sounds that the party was breaking up, that it was time for her to slip down to the entrance hall to open the closet and, modestly, with downcast eyes, hand out the coats.
17
Wednesday evening, Alice sat at the yellow Formica table in Shirley’s kitchen, her laptop open before her, and a cardboard box full of old bits of paper— Shirley’s record-keeping system—next to her.
Across from her, Shirley bent over a yellow legal pad, the tip of her tongue tucked into the corner of her mouth as she concentrated on making a list of every one of her current clients, how long they’d used her services, their addresses, their physical conditions, and their financial status. If Shirley thought they might be interested in her retreat, she was to put a star by their name.
An icy wind pelted the windows and walls. Frustrating early-April weather. Alice had spent the day laboring away on TransWorld Insurance employment benefit statistics. It helped greatly to have Marilyn in her office; at least she no longer had to worry that her own secretary was collaborating with the enemy. And Marilyn was surprisingly efficient, especially considering she’d never been an executive secretary before.
Still, Alice was exhausted from being on guard around Alison Cummings, plus the cold, wet weather made arthritis rip through her system like a staple gun stabbing her nerves. And, there was Alan. He was so tired, he’d said, from working eighteen-hour days, racing through life, trying to be the best, the richest, the quickest, the smartest. He just wanted to be still for a while. And every day he did look better. He was eating more, reading more, and laughing. Often, when she came home from work, he had meals waiting for her. So Alice was optimistic, but the thought of his sadness shadowed her heart.
Shirley looked comfortable in leggings and a long purple T-shirt. “You look tense,” she observed.
“I am tense,” Alice agreed, rolling her shoulders.
“Look, you’ve got one piece of torn paper here that says ‘ginger-scented candle.’ ”
“Yes. That promotes health.”
“A ginger-scented candle promotes health?” Alice looked skeptical.
“Haven’t you ever heard of aromatherapy?”
“Vaguely. Do you always burn candles when you give massages?”
“Sure. Usually.”
“So they would be considered a business expense.” Alice made a check.
“I guess—it sort of spoils the sense of the thing to think of it that way. Listen, Alice, you look tight as a wire. Let me give you a massage.”
“My back does hurt.” Alice sighed. “But we’ve got so much work to do.”
“You’ll be more productive if you feel better.”
“All right. I’ll have a massage, but I insist on paying for it.”
“Nonsense! You’re my friend! Look how you’re helping me!”
“Shirley,” Alice said firmly. “Right now you need to treat me like a consultant.”
Meekly, Shirley nodded. “All right.”
“Come on, Shirley,” Alice coaxed. “Look at me. Think. What kind of car do I drive?”
“Um, a Mercedes?”
“An Audi. And what does that imply about my financial state?”
“You’re rich.”
“Right. So I can afford to pay top dollar for a massage.”
“Yes, but—”
“You’ve got to start thinking like a businesswoman if you’re serious about your retreat.”
“Okay. Got it. So do you want a massage now?”
“Yes, all right. And do it exactly as if I were a real customer, okay?”
“Okay.” Shirley pushed back her chair. “It will take me a few moments to get the room ready. In the meantime, you can use the bathroom. It’s best to use the john before you lie on the table.”
As she washed her hands in the bathroom, Alice stared gloomily at her reflection. She knew she was doing the right thing, having a massage; it would help her evaluate Shirley’s work, and she would be paying Shirley. But she had so much work to do for TransWorld; it seemed frivolous to be having a massage, lazy. Once you started on the slippery slope to indolence, it was hard to retrace your steps. She had to prove to herself and others that she could still keep up with the youngest and fittest.
Still, she plodded down the hall to the massage room and entered.
Shirley had changed into loose white cotton pants and a loose white jacket. “Just put your clothes on that chair,” she said. “Lie down on the table, faceup. Cover yourself with this sheet. I’ll knock before I enter.”
The room was steamy with warmth, and Alice was pleasantly surprised to discover the table was warm, too, and firm, but padded. A scent drifted through the air—cloves? Vanilla? She couldn’t make it out. A mobile of the planets hung in one corner of the room, a teardrop of prismed glass dangled by a slender thread in the window.
Shirley knocked, then entered. Humming to herself, she slipped in a CD, and a gentle Bach concerto spun its notes into the room.
An hour later, Shirley said, “Take your time. When you’re ready, dress and come to the kitchen.”
A
lice, facedown, thought she might be able to manage that in a century or so. She was so relaxed her body seemed to float like a bubble on the breath of the universe.
With great determination, she peeled herself off the table, dressed, and went into the kitchen.
“That was wonderful,” she told Shirley. “You’re amazing.”
Shirley smiled. “Thanks.” She handed Alice a glass of water.
Alice drank it, then reached into her purse for her wallet.
“I’d really feel better if you didn’t pay me,” Shirley insisted.
“I’d really feel better if I did,” Alice shot back. “I’ve got the cash—or would you prefer a check?”
“Cash is fine.”
Alice handed Shirley a one-hundred-dollar bill.
“I’ll see if I have the change.”
“I don’t want change,” Alice said.
“But this is too much!” Shirley declared.
“Shirley.” Alice put her hands on her hips. “Isn’t your fee eighty-five dollars?”
“Yes.”
“So I’m tipping you. A little more than fifteen percent. Don’t your clients tip you?”
“Um, sometimes. Mostly not.”
“It’s just normal business to give and receive tips.”
“Okay. Thank you.”
“All right, then. So I’ve given you cash. What are you going to do?”
“Um—”
“It’s a simple question. Why are you so worried?”
Shirley squared her shoulders. “Grab your coat.”
Alice followed the other woman out the kitchen door, through the wind and rain, and into the chilly silence of the garage. Shirley’s old VW Rabbit sat in the middle, surrounded by rakes and hoses, terra-cotta pots and an assortment of broken objects—a bike missing one wheel, a rusting toaster oven, a kitchen chair missing its seat.
With a great deal of clunking and clanking, Shirley moved aside the rakes, spades, and half-empty bags of potting soil.
“Usually I have to do this more quietly, but now that Jimmy’s gone—” Face red with exertion, Shirley hoisted aside a thirty-pound bag of manure and yanked on an oil- and dirt-encrusted bit of concrete. Beneath it was another bag of manure.
