Bette

by Lyn Cote

  Too stunned to move, Bette watched him drive away. Her heart thudded against her breastbone. She bent over, feeling nauseated, and wretched in dry heaves. This can’t be happening. What am I missing? What do I do now?

  After the nausea passed, Bette staggered back into the cottage, feeling weak—dazed. Had she and Curt just had what amounted to a physical fight? How did this happen? How did we get here? What’s responsible for this?

  She stood in the tiny kitchen, wringing her bruised hands. “What should I do?” she whispered to the empty room. Tears began to leak from her eyes, flowing down, dripping to the floor. Finally, she bent down and gathered up the canned goods and bread that had spilled out of the bag and had rolled over the wood floor. Putting the items away in the small pantry, a homey chore, soothed her frazzled nerves and she was able to think.

  Something had changed Curt. Something had happened to him in Europe, in the war. She shoved her mussed hair back from her face. Over the past month, she’d repeatedly tried to draw him out and he had rebuffed her each time—often walking out on her and not coming home for hours. He didn’t want her to know some . . . secret.

  At this thought, her jaw firmed. She knew all about how to keep and how to uncover secrets. She marched into their bedroom and reached under the double bed. Just yesterday, she’d surprised Curt as he was pushing his Army duffle back under the bed. At the time, she’d thought it was just a reflex—a residual jitteriness leftover from combat.

  Now, without any qualms, she yanked the heavy cotton-khaki duffle bag out and tossed it up onto the neatly made bed. She unzipped the bag. Inside were Curt’s service revolver and three letters. She lifted out the secreted letters. Shock buzzed in her head.

  But then her training took over. She studied the front of the three envelopes, reading the mailing address—a post office box in a nearby town—and the return addresses—a town in France. She looked at the postmarks for dates. The three letters had all been received during the past two weeks. Then, methodically, as if she were routinely investigating for British or American intelligence, she arranged the letters on the bed, according to postmark. Then she sat down and began to read them, one by one.

  The first began: “Mon cher, Curtis.” Bette read each letter in order, and as she deciphered the broken and misspelled English, anger sparked and burned in the pit of her stomach. A small photograph with scalloped edges fell out of the third and most recent letter. When she’d finished this letter—which Curt had received only a day ago, she looked down once more at the duffle at her feet. His service revolver lay there, just within reach.

  Night had fallen before Bette heard Curt’s car ease up the lane behind Ivy Manor. She sat at the little kitchen table, waiting for him, ready for him.

  He let himself in through the door and halted just inside. The bellowing and croaking of frogs at the nearby creek sounded loud in the silence between them. He stared at her and shut the door behind him. He still wore his suit, but he’d loosened his tie, opened his shirt.

  She’d neatly laid the letters and the revolver out on the kitchen table with its red-and-white printed cloth. Curt’s face paled as he took this in. “You went through my things.”

  “She’s very pretty,” Bette said in a lethally soft, assessing tone. “I’d say about ten years younger than I am—about the age I was when you took me to the prom.” She held up the photo and read the name off the back. “Maurielle—such a pretty name, too.”

  Curt swallowed. “I didn’t mean it to happen—”

  “That’s probably true,” Bette went on in her cool, impersonal voice. She felt encased in ice while she roiled with hot lava inside. “But she meant it to happen—”

  “She’s not like that,” he fired up.

  “Does she know you’re a married man?” Bette’s eyes narrowed and her jaw was so tight it was painful.

  “Well, yes, but—”

  “Then she planned it,” Bette snapped. She offered Curt a pen and paper, snapping them sharply down on the table in front of him. “Here. It’s time you wrote her the truth—that you’re a married man about to become a father and you’re sorry if this hurts her—”

  “No.” He drew himself up. “I want a divorce.”

  Bette had thought she was already as angry as she could be and survive. But the force of her reaction to this horrified her. Now she knew why she’d carefully loaded the revolver and brought it to the table. She saw herself picking up the revolver and pointing it at Curt. She closed her eyes and drew in breath to steady herself. No, I won’t do that.

  She surged to her feet, stalking over to him. “Divorce?” She drew back and slapped his face as hard as she could. Pain shot up her arm, but it was a good pain, a satisfying pain. Curt looked stunned. He rubbed his cheek and split lip with the back of his hand. A fleck of blood smeared his cheek.

  “Divorce is out of the question.” She flexed her fingers, itching to slap him again. How dare he insult her, how dare he play her false? “I’ve invested ten years of my life in you. I am carrying your child. We took vows. Lifetime vows.”

  “I love Maurielle.” Curt’s face took on that look she knew so well—that stubbornness of his. “I’m going to marry her.”

  “You love me,” Bette growled into his sanctimonious face. “You are infatuated with her.” She spat out the final word as if it were sour milk.

  “No, I’m not.” Curt drew himself up even straighter. “I want a divorce. I know this is difficult—”

  “Difficult? Try impossible. Let me make this very clear.” She lifted her chin with defiance. “I will never agree to a divorce. And no judge in Anne Arundel County or anywhere in America will ever grant you a divorce. You have no grounds.”

  “You can’t mean that.” He pulled back as if she’d slapped him again. “It isn’t reasonable.”

  “Reasonable? You’re the one who’s being unreasonable. I refuse to let you disgrace me with a divorce. I am a Carlyle of Ivy Manor.” She folded her arms over her breasts. “No Carlyle has ever been divorced and I will not be the first. You will write this cheap little French . . . home-breaker, tell her you’ve changed your mind, and then you will live up to the vows you made to me.”

  “I don’t love you anymore.” He stood ramrod stiff now.

  His words didn’t even graze her. “And I don’t love you either. But I’m expecting your child and you will remain my husband—till death do us part.”

  “I’m leaving you. You can’t make me stay,” he said stiffly.

  “That’s right, but I can prevent you from divorcing me. Let’s see if Maurielle wants you if she can only be your mistress. Write and ask her.” Bette flipped a hand in his face and let her sarcasm flow—unrestrained. “Let’s just see what she has to say. And tell me how many school districts will hire a teacher who’s still married with a child but who keeps a French mistress?”

  Bette ripped the photo of Maurielle in two and threw the pieces into his face. “If you’re going, get out. The sight of you makes me sick.”

  That warm evening—a precursor of summer heat to come—Bette navigated the shadowy, empty back roads so she wouldn’t see or be seen by anyone. After her two confrontations with Curt, she felt hollow, drained. And somehow shamed. Though she’d had no part in Curt’s infidelity, she felt smeared with its indelible stain, which seemed as crimson and sticky as fresh blood.

  Without knocking on the back door, she entered the quiet McCaslin house. It was Wednesday night and Bette knew the housekeeper and her husband would be at the Wednesday night prayer meeting at their church and the house would be empty. She needed to talk to someone without being overheard and this was the one place she could have privacy. And there was only one person she felt could understand her situation, even though he wouldn’t be able to help her.

  She dialed the operator on the old-fashioned phone in the front hall and then paced, receiver in hand, waiting for the long distance call to go through. Finally, the voice she’d hoped to hear came over the phone
line, faint but still familiar. Weak with relief, Bette plumped down on the chair beside the phone table. “Jamie, I had to talk to someone.”

  For a moment standing at the window of his apartment on the Naval Base at Pearl Harbor, Jamie couldn’t believe his ears. This was one of his rare weekdays off. He hadn’t expected to hear from Bette. And worse, she sounded desperate. “Bette? Is that you? What’s wrong?” The thought that something might have happened to Uncle Roarke shook him like angry hands. I should have gone home on leave.

  Bette burst into loud sobs.

  “Oh, no, something is wrong.” He clutched the phone. “Is it Uncle Roarke or Aunt Chloe?” His voice rose. “Are they sick?” Not dead, please. Please.

  “No, no.” Bette’s voice trembled. “It’s not like that. I didn’t mean to worry you. It’s Curt.” She stopped to gasp for air.

  Jamie’s tension loosed. “What’s wrong with Curt? Is he sick?”

  “He just moved back to his parents’ house.”

  Jamie doubted his hearing. “He what?”

  “He wants a divorce,” Bette announced in a harsh, flat voice. “Curt says he’s in love with a French girl and wants a divorce.”

  “He’s nuts,” Jamie muttered gruffly. “Doesn’t he know how lucky he was to come back from the war? And have a good woman waiting for him?”

  Bette continued between fresh sobs. “He says . . . he doesn’t . . . love me any . . . more.”

  Jamie shook his head. The blue outside his window shone so brilliantly that it almost hurt his eyes. “What are you going to do?”

  “That’s why I called you. I can’t bring myself to tell my mother and stepfather about Curt, about what he’s done. But everyone will know. People will see that he’s back with his parents. Gossip will start. I can’t face it. What do I do, Jamie? I don’t know how to bring him to his senses.”

  Jamie clenched his fist and wished he had something convenient to punch. The tropical beauty just outside his window mocked Bette’s disastrous news. He’d chosen to stay away from family. The war was still too real to him to go back to Maryland and live as if it had never happened. “I should be there. Maybe I could talk to him.”

  Bette gave something that sounded like a painful laugh. “I don’t think that will do any good. He’s so blasted stubborn. When are you coming home, Jamie?”

  He didn’t want to answer. “If you need me, I’ll get leave.”

  She’d stopped weeping but sounded drained of emotion, strength. “No, you couldn’t do anything. It’s just that you were the only one I could tell, maybe because you’re so far away.” She drew in a deep breath. “I’ve told him I’ll never give him a divorce. If he brings her to the States, she’ll never be accepted.”

  “I should think not. No one would receive her. What a rotten thing to do to you. Someone ought to take him out and horsewhip him.”

  “There’s more. I’m pregnant.” Bette’s voice was muted by fresh tears. “He got me pregnant knowing he wasn’t going to stay. I feel like I could kill him.”

  Jamie shook his head. He rubbed his hand against the back of his neck. Words failed him.

  “I think I’ll go crazy if I stay here and have to face the gossip.” Bette’s voice was suddenly infused with an edge of panic. “I’ve waited ten years for Curt and me to be together and start our family. Now he wants someone else.”

  “What are you going to do, Bette?” he asked, feeling guilty, but knowing it wasn’t in his power to help her.

  “Something drastic.” Bette’s voice rose. “Something soon.”

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Washington, D.C., June 1946

  Arriving in D.C.’s large, bustling station on a bright June morning, Bette felt smaller, more insignificant, than she already did. But at least in this place crowded with strangers she was anonymous. Here, no one would shake a finger in her face and scold her for being a bad wife or gossip behind hands that her husband loved another woman. Shopping in Croftown had become purgatory. Why did everyone assume that Curt’s leaving was her fault?

  Shaking off these depressing thoughts, she hailed a taxi and rode to Georgetown—and found herself gawking like a tourist. Where had the pre-war lazy, small-town Washington, D.C., gone? Evidently while she’d spent her war years away in Bermuda, the capital had exploded with new buildings and neighborhoods. Would her plan work out? Would she fit into this modern, bustling city? Did she have any other choice?

  With a strange sense of coming home, she arrived at the Lovelady townhouse and paid off the cabbie. When she’d called Drake earlier in the week, he’d graciously but somberly told her to treat the townhouse like home for as long she needed it. Busy in New York City, he wouldn’t be using it any time soon and he hadn’t delved into her reason for needing it. She’d been grateful. Putting Curt’s betrayal into words was something else she couldn’t bear doing again. Telling Jamie and finally her parents had been wrenching. She still hadn’t been able to tell her parents she was expecting.

  She unlocked the townhouse door and recalled the first time she’d arrived in Washington. But those memories included Curt and were sharp, slicing, bittersweet. Curt had loved her then. I was so young and naïve. I never thought . . .

  She stopped that line of thought. From her days in Bermuda, she recalled how some women she’d worked with had behaved when affairs had ended badly. Self-pity and clinging were negative and unattractive. She wasn’t going to wear her heart on her sleeve for Curt or any man. Her marriage had failed, but she still had to live. And that was what she was here to start doing.

  She let herself inside the silent, stuffy townhouse and walked upstairs. After Curt left—even before he’d moved out—the little cottage behind Ivy Manor had become a silent, haunting mausoleum, the final resting place of her bright hopes for a life with Curt.

  But that was back at Ivy Manor, she reminded herself, and she’d left it all behind. So she opened the windows in her bedroom, letting in fresh air, and unpacked the few pieces of clothing she’d brought with her. For a time, she stood in the middle of the room, frozen with self-doubt. And she knew why. Memories of Curt and her pre-war life in this city, when she’d slept in this room, kept intruding, rolling over her—hot and imperative. She squeezed her eyes shut and clenched her fists. This isn’t like me. Snap out of it, Bette.

  Critically, she checked her appearance in the wall mirror—it was important that none of her doubt show—and then headed downstairs. Ignoring the persistent tug of misery, she donned her hat, forced herself outside, and hailed another yellow taxi. A trip to Garfinckel’s, her favorite department store, to buy some suitable clothing could only help and was absolutely necessary. She had to do something, had to keep occupied, had to figure out what she was going to do for the rest of her life—without Curt, and raising a child alone.

  And surely in this large, busy city, she wouldn’t run into many people who knew her from before. There was one person above all others she never wanted to know about Curt preferring another woman. But they wouldn’t be moving in the same circles this time around. She’d make sure of that.

  After a day of filling out applications at various governmental agencies and another day of interviews, Bette had a new job at the State Department. She’d started as a receptionist with the promise that she could work her way up to personal secretary. Now at the end of her first day, she finally arrived home after six. As soon as she closed the townhouse door behind her, she slipped off her pumps. She hadn’t spent such a boring day since she’d filed and typed and filed at the War Department.

  A shadow moved in the doorway from the kitchen at the rear—a blond man. Bette blinked. “Drake?”

  “No. Ted.” Ted Gaston stepped out of the shadows into the hall.

  Shock riddled Bette, taking her breath. “How did you get in?” she finally blurted out.

  “Really, Bette, that’s not worthy of you.” Ted gave her one of his lazy smiles and advanced toward her.

  She realized then that she was i
n her stocking feet and for some silly reason that upset her. She shuffled hurriedly back into her shoes and then took a step back. “What are you doing here?” Her heart pounded so hard that she felt nauseated. Images, sensations from the past surged through her mind and rocked her emotions. Ted was the one person she’d hoped to avoid.

  “And what are you doing getting a job as a receptionist of all things?” He smirked at her. “What is this world coming to?” He clicked his tongue like an old woman.

  She still couldn’t grasp that he was there standing in front of her. “How did you find out I was here?”

  “Let’s go into the kitchen. I made iced coffee. I figured you’d need a lift after a hard day of answering the phone and smiling at every idiot passing through the State Department.” He took her hand and led her to the rear, to the small kitchen. “You must be bored with a capital B.”

  Her mind couldn’t take it all in. Questions clogged her throat, so dumbly she let him lead her to the white wooden table. But his touch still had the power to affect her and she pulled her hand from his grasp. Staring up at him, she sat down. With a flourish, he served her a tall glass of creamy iced coffee and then settled across from her and sipped from his own frosty glass.

  She leaned her head into her hand and closed her eyes against the piercing pain of imminent disclosure. Ted must know about what had happened between her and Curt. And oddly, seeing Ted only forced Curt back into her mind. How many times had Ted taunted her to forget Curt? How had Ted known that Curt would betray her in the end? Or did he know? These questions were all land mines. She stuck to the mundane. “How did you find out I was here?”

  “You know how.”

  “Tell me,” she murmured and took a creamy-sweet, icy sip. Ted’s presence lapped against her, enticing her to forget Curt, to remember, to imagine many things . . .

  Ted let out a long-suffering, very theatrical sigh. “Mr. Lovelady told his mother who happened to call Mrs. Hoover who then mentioned it to her son who called me and said to find you.”