He came, after all. I love him, after all. Dear God, what do I do now?
Heart soaring, she waved giddily, though he couldn't possibly have picked her out in the crowd, and waited while he fiddled in the backseat of his car. She moved away from the guests, the more easily to be seen.
I love you, she shouted to him in silence. I love you, I love you, I love you.
"Him! What's he doing here?"
Helen whirled around. Candy Green was standing behind her, glaring furiously in Nat's direction. She was a pale, blond woman, but right now her cheeks were red with anger, her green eyes dark with outrage. "He has a hell of a nerve," she said, putting down her untopped bowl of ice cream. She began looking around for her husband and daughter. "Henry!" she said, calling over across the crowd to him. "Round up Astra. We're leaving!"
"Wait!" Helen said, amazed by her vehemence. "What's wrong?"
"He's wrong," Candy hissed. "He made Linda's life hell, and now he's playing the do-good dad! It makes me sick!"
"What're you talking about?" Helen said, instinctively coming to his defense. "It's true, the man is career-driven—"
"Career-driven!" Candy was focused like a laser beam on the Porsche. "All those so-called business trips? All that time away? He took along some young twit! And Linda put up with it. And for what," she said through gritted teeth. "She was heartbroken. She should've left him as soon as she found out."
"Are you out of your mind?" said Helen, agape with emotion. The grass beneath her sandals began to sink away, like quicksand. "He's not the cheat—"
Candy fixed her burning gaze on Helen. "The hell he isn't. Linda had proof."
"Proof? What kind of proof?"
"Someone she trusted completely saw him at a bar in an airport with another woman before they boarded the plane together. That kind of proof!"
"That's not proof," said Helen, outraged. "That's malice!"
Stung by Helen's reaction, Candy became defensive. "It's true she was too proud to hire an investigator the way I told her to; but she had proof enough. There were other things—lipstick marks, long blond hairs. Not that she'd ever have noticed—she wasn't the type—if it hadn't been for the initial tipoff from her friend."
"Friend! That person was no friend," said Helen, deeply offended for both Nat and Linda.
Candy hardly heard her protest. "Look, there's the nanny. I'm amazed she stayed on; she must be incredibly devoted to Katie. That's something, at least. If she's still around, it must mean he hasn't set up his bimbo at the house." She laughed bitterly and added, "Not that he'd dare. Linda would come back to haunt him if he tried."
Poor Henry was hauling little Astra over to her mother as fast as he could. Candy grabbed her surprised daughter's hand, then turned to Helen with a forced smile. "Thank you for all the care you gave Astra. Do the same for Katie. And please," she added in an undertone, "think twice before you ask that bastard to a school event."
Helen had absolutely no answer to that. Her first thought as she watched the Greene family march off in protest was that someone might have overheard. She looked around her: apparently not. Everyone was having too good a time.
Still dazed, she swung back around to see Nat walking as fast as he could, carrying a big two-handled pan in his hands. He was grinning at his own awkwardness and making apologetic grimaces for being late. Behind him came Peaches, dressed like many of the guests in a flowing dress and wide-brimmed hat; and Katie, in a sky blue dress with a print pinafore over it.
How clever of Peaches, Helen thought with dull irrelevance. If Katie drips ice cream on herself Peaches can just slip off the pinafore. She really does plan ahead.
"Better late than never," Nat said as he got within earshot. He took in the table layouts at a glance and said, "Can you make room for this?"
"What is it?" Helen asked, staring blankly into the pot. It might as well have held fish guts.
"Toasted Almond Sauce," Nat said, not without pride. "Lots of it.''
"Why, Nat?" The question had nothing to do with the almond sauce.
"Why? Because one batch didn't look like much. So I made another. Then another. And I burned one. And meanwhile," he said, amazed at the variety of sauces already laid out, "I guess y'all can live without it."
Still having trouble taking everything in, Helen gave Peaches a vague greeting and Katie a halfhearted one.
Katie looked up at Helen and said, "You fell down. And Daddy picked you up. And sometimes he picks me up, too. When I hurt myself he picks me up. Did you hurt yourself?"
Helen opened her mouth to say something, but Peaches mercifully interrupted her. "Oh, look, Katie—there's Amy."
Katie skipped away to say hi to her new friend. Peaches smiled and said pleasantly, "Helen, I noticed you collect glass globes, and I thought you might like this one. It's spun glass—not solid—but I thought of you at once when I saw it."
She held out a small, palish-pink ball the size of an apple to Helen, who said distractedly, "Well, I don't actually collect ... but it's very pretty ... thank you."
Helen held out a stiff shaky hand to receive it. In the meantime Nat, tired of holding the pot, cleared his throat comically. It was enough to distract Helen even further. Somehow the ball slipped away and caught the back of a folding chair, shattering into many pieces.
Heads turned; the sound was an ugly intrusion. Helen's cry of dismay was an overreaction—it was only a bauble, after all—but by now she was completely off her mettle. "I'll get a napkin to put the pieces in," she said. "Peaches, will you stand guard so that no one steps on the glass?"
"Of course," said Peaches.
What a stupid thing to bring to an outdoor event, Helen couldn't help thinking as she began making her way through the crowd.
"Hey, hey, hey," said Nat behind her. "Do you want this stuff or not?"
Helen turned around, distracted beyond comprehension.
"Oh. You know, just ... stick it somewhere," she said.
Nat cocked one eyebrow, said "Fine with me" in a cool voice, and turned on his heel.
Helen grabbed two napkins, then hurried back to Peaches, who'd already picked up the broken glass. The nanny put the collected pieces carefully into Helen's open napkins, then said, "I'm sure I got everything. I went through the grass with a fine-tooth comb, but we can put two chairs over the spot for extra insurance."
"Good idea. Would you do that for me?" asked Helen, and she went to throw the shards somewhere out of harm's way.
On her way to the kitchen she was accosted by her daughter. "Mom! Taste this," said Becky, aiming a spoon at her mouth.
"Becky, not now—"
But Becky insisted and so Helen tried the sauce. In her present mood it tasted like warm, wet chalk. "What about it?"
"Isn't it fantastic? Mr. Byrne made it," Becky said, dipping into her bowl again. "He's a major hit, y'know. He spoons it on personally for you. Laurie's already gone back for seconds. She is, like, so uncool. I mean she just hangs on him."
"Is that what you ran here to tell me? That your best friend is flirting with Nat Byrne? What do you want me to do? Break it up for you?"
"Uh-oh." Becky rolled her eyes and said, "Never mind. You're obviously stressed out again." She turned and ran back in the direction of the toppings table.
Helen had to get away. She got rid of the glass and fled to her office, where she closed the door and collapsed in her swivel chair.
Nat Byrne, with a lover of his own? Helen refused to believe it. She'd prepared herself for many scenarios, but that wasn't one of them. His wife had been attractive, accomplished, vivacious. He had no reason to take a lover.
Using that logic, however, neither had his wife.
Maybe, in her preoccupation with her child and her pregnancy, Linda had begun to ignore him. On the other hand, he'd been busy with the Columbus Fund. Would he even have noticed?
He could've taken a lover in retaliation. She could've taken a lover in retaliation. They both had motive. They both ha
d opportunity.
Helen's head began to spin. She sat back in her chair, still convinced that Candy was wrong. Suddenly she remembered that the story she'd overheard of Linda Byrne's affair had also been second or third hand. Was it possible that neither story was true?
Helen knew that rumors tended to be false and that they could do terrible damage before they ran their course. But it was a fact, not a rumor, that something had gone very wrong in the Byrne marriage, wrong enough to end Linda's life prematurely and to leave Nat angry and bitter about it.
It was so frustrating. The more information Helen acquired, the more confused she became. There was no light at the end of this tunnel. There wasn't even a tunnel; only a criss-crossing meander of allegations. Helen closed her eyes, depressed and distracted by them, and shuddered.
And shuddered again. Violently.
The room had become ice-cold. Not cool, not chilly, not even cold: ice-cold. A wet, dank swirl, mixed, improbably, with the scent of Enchantra, surrounded Helen, pinning her to the chair as firmly as a set of chains.
None of the manifestations so far had come even close to this exercise of raw, brute power over Helen. The knockings, the jiggles, the scent of perfume—even the vision itself—had not been able to paralyze Helen so completely.
Linda Byrne.
She was in the room with Helen—some part of her, anyway—and Helen didn't know why. Breathless, motionless, utterly prostrate under the binding spell of the spirit's power, Helen tried desperately to think without panic.
Her options were pathetically few. She dared not scream—not there, not then. It would be the end of her career.
Nor could Helen try ordering the ghost away, even supposing she'd had the nerve. People were coming and going through the building, and Helen might easily be heard. A director who talked to herself wasn't much better than one who screamed at empty air.
Helen couldn't even make herself open her eyes; there had been too much horror in what she'd seen the first time to try it again. And so she sat, chattering with fear, as the coldness ebbed and flowed over her body, like waves on a beach in May.
I'm so cold, so cold, she thought, stupefied by what was happening. I'm not crazy, I'm not; but I'm so, so cold.
With her eyes still closed, she sat frozen to her chair, suspended in time, until she became afraid that someone would begin to search for her. Or worse still—that someone wouldn't.
Finally, desperately, she screwed up her courage and, at the risk of being heard, whispered, "I can't help you. Wherever you are, however you got there—I can't do anything. Leave me alone," she begged.
"Please, Linda," she said, saying the dread name at last. "Leave me alone." She cringed in her seat, expecting the worst.
The room got colder. Helen had never felt anything like the killing, chilling atmosphere that surrounded her. It was hard to breathe it into her lungs. When she did, it seemed to scorch the edges of her soul.
What do I do now? she thought, feeling more and more faint. That was the only trick in my bag. If this goes on, I'll die of hypothermia, if not of fright.
"All right," she whispered, beaten down by the awesome power that held her relentlessly in its grip. "I'll do it. I'll find out ...."
Find out what? She knew now what she was destined to do. "I'll find out why you died."
Suddenly the wave of cold withdrew, like a falling Maine tide, and she allowed herself, at last, to open her eyes.
It was over. Just like that. Helen stood up tentatively and looked around. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary. The room was June-warm and filled with the heady scent of a desktop bouquet that Candy must have arranged for her. Helen had been so upset that she hadn't noticed it when she first came into the office.
Cautiously, she tested her weight on each leg before taking a step or two. No wobbles. Good. There'd be no embarrassing fainting spell this time. In fact she felt oddly, remarkably invigorated—as if she'd just spent a weekend at a spa.
She went over to a narrow window in the corner of her office, one from which she could just catch some of the goings-on outside, and tried to make sense of the encounter.
I was tense; upset, she reasoned. Becky noticed it right off the bat. So I came in here to decompress. I fell into a deep meditation. I resolved to get to the bottom of Linda's death, a concern I've had since the day she died. Having reached a resolution, I awoke from my self-induced trance. Every day, business men and women do what I did to improve their productivity. Often they pay good money in seminars to learn how.
It was all perfectly normal, perfectly in tune with the age.
Having convinced herself of that, Helen became eager, almost hungry, to rejoin the crowd that had gathered on the grounds of The Open Door. Almost everyone she cared about was out there: the children, their parents. Her family. Katie. Nat.
Nat. From out of nowhere came an intensely detailed vision of him in his industrial-sized kitchen making Toasted Almond Sauce. It was a joyful, delightful thought. Nathaniel Byrne, career maniac and Fund Manager of the Year, slaving over a hot stove. Who could possibly have known?
Helen hugged the picture to her soul; it was proof, if proof were needed, that Nathaniel Byrne would never have cheated on his wife.
Chapter 18
Peaches paused in the shade of a maple tree from which she had a good view of the festivities. The shade was cool and the view strategic; she decided to have a seat.
In a rocking chair close by, an elderly woman in church-wear and white gloves sat with a pleasant if vacuous smile on her face. It took Peaches less than two minutes to figure out that the lady in the neat gray bun was not all there.
It took Peaches less than a minute more to decide that she would stick around, anyway. The lady in the neat gray bun was Mary Grzybylek, the aunt of Helen Evett.
"And which child is yours, my dear?" asked Mrs. Grzybylek.
Pointed to an arbitrary group of toddlers playing in the sandbox, Peaches said, "Behind the little blond girl." They were all blond, but never mind; the old lady didn't see too well, in any case.
But Mary Grzybylek smiled benignly and said, "This has always been my favorite thing. The weather is nice this time of year. On Halloween it often rains; on Christmas— I'm afraid of the snow and ice. But summer and ice cream, well, they go together with the little ones very well."
Peaches agreed, then stumbled over the pronunciation of the woman's name, which led to a short little discourse on Polish culture and cuisine. As soon as she could, Peaches brought the talk back around to Helen Evett.
"I've heard such wonderful things about The Open Door," she said. "You must be so proud of your niece."
It was like saying the words "Open Sesame." Out poured a torrent of praise for Helen Evett's character, backed up by anecdotes dating back to her childhood. All of it was confusing, most of it was boring; but there was one anecdote that stood out from all the rest.
Helen Evett, it seemed, had a thing against graffiti.
****
Still feeling bizarrely euphoric after her brief but profound ordeal, Helen began making her way back to Nat, who was in the playground with Katie.
She was nearly through the crowd when she overheard an innocent remark that made her pause: "He's not what you'd call a typical executive."
Gwen Alaran, a perceptive and intelligent woman with a career in public relations, could've been referring to any number of fathers there, but somehow Helen didn't think so.
"A typical executive loves to dominate," Gwen was saying. "Donald Trump, Lee laccoca—they get off on manipulating people. But him? My guess is that he'd rather be in a room with his charts and his laptop than with a dozen members of a board. You know what I think?" she added. "I think deep down he's shy."
"Shy? Are you kidding? He's been flirting with every female here."
"No," said Gwen. "He's been acting like he's flirting."
Helen couldn't resist edging into the conversation. "Whoever it is you're talking about," she said,
smiling, "I think I'd like to meet him."
Gwen's friend, a bosomy thirty-year-old Helen had never seen before, said good-naturedly, "Get in line, then, lady. I'm ahead of you."
Helen laughed while Gwen rolled her eyes and said dryly, "Smart move, Carrie. This is the director of The Open Door. Now she knows I've let you crash the party just to meet Nat Byrne."
After introductions, Helen said to Gwen, "You really think he's leery of people?"
"I do," Gwen decided. "He's so intense about his work. I think he's channeling not only all of his ambition but all of his emotions into it. It'll be interesting to see whether someone can reroute that energy."
Helen said softly, "Maybe it'll be his daughter."
"Maybe it'll be me," said Carrie, arching one eyebrow over a seductive smile.
All three women turned to give Nat Byrne the once-over. He was pushing his daughter, minus her flowered pinafore, on the swing as Katie shrieked, "Higher, Daddy! Higher!" He looked relaxed and easy, as if he'd never seen a computer or an airplane in his life—a doting father from a kinder, simpler time.
Gwen turned to her young friend and looked at her sympathetically. "On second thought, Carrie," she said, "you'd be wasting your time."
"Okay, Katie—kiddo—you asked for it! Sky-high!" Nat threatened, pushing her ever so slightly harder. His laugh—rich, ringing, content—sent shivers of joy through Helen.
Linda would love to see this, she thought, and then wondered whether Linda wasn't seeing it after all. It seemed to Helen that her spirit was part of the benign, gentle mood that pervaded the schoolyard: in some form, in some magical way, she was there, a broken-hearted mother longing to push her daughter on the swing just one more time.
From one mother to another, Helen said in a silent aside to Linda Byrne, I'd say your little girl's in pretty good hands right now.
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