Dangerous Pleasures (2 page)

“Mrs. Miller, it’s Mrs. Long from the principal’s office. I’m afraid Nathaniel is going to be sitting detention this afternoon.” The principal’s secretary sounded sympathetic, and almost embarrassed to be delivering such news.

Annie was astounded. Her oldest son, Nathaniel, and detention were two words that had never in his entire school career been spoken in the same sentence. “What on earth did he do?” Annie asked Mrs. Long.

There was a short pause, and then Mrs. Long said, “He called Mr. de Reeder a damned fool.” Then she lowered her voice. “Not that the entire faculty doesn’t agree with Nathaniel’s assessment, of course.” There was a humorous lilt to her words.

Annie sighed. “But Nathaniel should not have said whatever he was thinking. Please tell my son to apologize to Mr. de Reeder before school is out. And tell him to walk home. I won’t be picking him up. And, Mrs. Long, thanks for calling.”

“Um, one more thing, Mrs. Miller,” the high school secretary said apologetically. “Amy will also be sitting detention this afternoon.”

“What has my daughter done?” Annie wanted to know. Amy had been so difficult of late, but then, she had always been Daddy’s girl.

Mrs. Long couldn’t refrain from giggling. “Well, the ninth-grade girls have had this dare going all spring,” she began. “Some of them have been found out, and some of them have gotten away with it. Amy and another girl in her class were the last two to take the dare, and I’m afraid they got caught today.”

“Caught doing
what
?” Annie asked nervously.

“Not wearing underpants, and wearing very short skirts,” Mrs. Long said.

“Oh, my God!” Annie exclaimed. “And this was the dare?”

“Yes,” Mrs. Long answered. “Please don’t be too upset, Mrs. Miller. Girls this age are prone to do silly things. It isn’t that unusual. They so desperately want to be accepted. No real harm done. The school nurse gave them each a pair of new briefs to put on when they were caught.”

“How were they caught?” Annie asked, wondering if she really wanted to know.

“Ms. Franklin, the field hockey coach, noticed it when they were at practice.”

“Tell my daughter to walk home with her brother,” Annie said wearily.

“I will, Mrs. Miller,” the high school secretary said. “You have a good day.”

Annie sighed as she hung up. It didn’t get any easier.

Just after eleven the middle school called. The twins, Lily and Rose, had freed all the animals in the science lab because caging animals was inhumane, the middle school assistant principal told Annie. Unfortunately several of the mice had found their way into the school’s lunchroom, causing a stampede among the luncheon workers that had resulted in a sprained wrist for one of them. There would be a disciplinary hearing in the middle school principal’s office Wednesday morning at ten a.m. It was requested that Mrs. Miller attend this hearing. Until then the twins were suspended from school, and they would be sitting detention that afternoon.

“Tell them to walk home,” Annie said grimly, wondering what was next as she went out the door to pick up her youngest child at nursery school.

William Bradford Miller, named after his maternal grandfather, was four years old. Known to his parents as Whoops, he was Wills to everyone else. And Wills, it seemed, had brought balloons to school today for all of his friends, his teacher, Mrs. Gundersen said as she handed Annie the packet of extrasensitive sheepskin condoms.

“It’s not the first time this kind of thing has happened,” she told Annie laughingly, attempting to ease her embarrassment. “I get this kind of thing at least twice a year.”

“I don’t know how he could have possibly gotten hold of them,” Annie mumbled, wondering if she could make Whoops walk home. Where had he gotten them? Nathaniel?

“Oh, you know little kids. Nosy.” Mrs. Gundersen chuckled. “Aren’t you, Wills?”

She ruffled his hair fondly. “See you Wednesday.”

“Lunch and nap for you, buddy,” Annie said.

“No nap!” Whoops said mutinously.

“Nap for both of us, kiddo,” Annie told him as she strapped her son into his car seat. Yep, if today were any indication, the week was really going to suck.

C
HAPTER
O
NE

S
ome days, like today, Annie Miller doubted if she could continue to do it alone until all the children were grown. But then, what choice did she have? She hadn’t said anything to them, but she wondered if they remembered that two years ago today their father had stepped off a curb in London and been hit by one of those big red buses. He was dead by the time he had reached the hospital, and they had called her. It amazed her that Nat, her larger-than-life husband, could have been so easily killed. Had he lived he would have told her, and anyone else who would listen, that the bus got the worst of it. And then he would have laughed that big, booming laugh of his.

Annie let the tears come. She was alone, and there was no one to see her cry. God forbid that anyone think she couldn’t handle it. She knew what they said about her. They said she was brave, a trooper, a wonderful mother, devoted to her family. They said that Nat would have been proud of her, approved of everything she was doing. No one ever saw Annie Miller cry or show any sign of weakness. “That Annie Miller,” she had heard a woman in church say of her, “she’s one strong woman.” Sometimes, Annie thought wryly. Only sometimes. At other times she wanted to run away, because it was all just too damned much for one woman to handle by herself.

They had met in college. He was a senior. She was a sophomore. Their story was the all-American fullback and the cute, perky cheerleader. Nat had asked her to marry him just before he graduated, but even at twenty-two Nathaniel Miller was a careful man. He wanted Annie to finish her education while he got a master’s degree in business and then found a good job. And they had followed his plan carefully. Annie graduated and worked for a year before they were married in 1988. Nat Junior had been born in 1990, Amy in 1993. The twins, Rose and Lily, had been born in 1997. They had planned for four children, and felt quite foolish when a very romantic New Year’s Eve had resulted in the little boy she and Nat laughingly dubbed Whoops during Annie’s surprise pregnancy.

She had been born and raised in Egret Pointe. He had come from the city, but he loved her small town, and so they had settled there, buying an old colonial house on a dead-end street called Parkway Drive. They moved in just in time to set up the nursery for Nathaniel Junior. Nat claimed not to mind the long commute into the city and back each day. At least he didn’t have to drive it, which had always been a relief to Annie. He took the six-thirty a.m. bus in, and a five-o’clock bus home five days a week.

Nat had been an account executive with a large public relations firm. He had been in London overseeing the opening of his company’s new office when he had been killed.

Although his death had been ruled accidental, Annie had later learned from her husband’s insurance company that there had been a rash of incidents going about London where people waiting to cross busy streets were being pushed into oncoming traffic. But if Nat had been pushed, no one came forward to say so, and no one had ever been charged. So the death was ruled accidental and the insurance company paid on Nat’s policy.

Annie had been shocked to find that the insurance policy Nat had wasn’t enough for everything she would have to handle in future years. Her husband’s company, however, had, in a burst of generosity, paid off the mortgage on their house and turned over his retirement fund to her. With her father’s help Annie had invested almost all of it in funds that paid her an income. Her in-laws, her parents, and her sister helped out as best they could, but both sets of parents were retired now. Annie felt guilty taking anything from them.

She lived frugally, which wasn’t difficult for her, but the children, particularly Amy, had a hard time with the tight budget that ensued after their father’s death. Nathaniel had caught on quickly and gotten an after-school job he worked full-time in the summer. He was able to buy his own clothing now, and had a little pocket money for himself, for which Annie was glad. Girls, however, were a different animal. To be accepted, to be popular, girls needed fashion on the cutting edge. Amy was fourteen going on fifteen, and right now it was all about her.

Nathaniel was impatient with Amy. “You’ve got enough clothes,” Annie had heard her son saying to his sister one day. “You don’t need to wear something new to school every damned morning. You might try concentrating more on your studies instead of on what some skanky little actress is wearing.”

“You don’t understand,” Amy whined.

“What I understand,” Nathaniel said, “is that Mom needs a new winter jacket. The one she’s wearing she got seven years ago. But if you nag her enough she’ll probably spend the money on you.”

The twins, who cared only for animals, made fun of their older sister.

“Oh, Lily, do you like my jeans? They’re by Poo-Poo originals. Paris wears them
all
the time,” Rose said one evening in a falsetto voice, dancing about the room.

“Oh, Rose, do you think I’d look good in pink hair with purple stripes?
Teen Fashions
says it’s the latest trend,” Lily had replied, fluffing her hair as she pranced around.

Amy’s answer to all of this was usually to burst into tears, run upstairs, and slam her bedroom door.

Annie shrugged to herself as she thought about her children. She wished she could give Amy anything she wanted, but she couldn’t. Thank goodness Nathaniel understood the situation, and that the twins were right now low-maintenance kids. As for Whoops, he didn’t realize that almost all of his toys and most of his clothing were hand-me-downs. He was a good-natured little boy.

But college was coming up for her oldest son, and Annie didn’t know how they were going to make up the difference between tuition and the scholarships Nathaniel could gain. And she had no doubt he would get scholarships. But would they be enough? They would be getting letters from the acceptance offices any day now. Nathaniel had, of course, applied to several schools, including one of the state universities. But he had applied to Princeton and Yale as well. He had done a tour last summer of Ivy League schools with several of his classmates, and fallen in love with both places. Annie prayed her son would be refused or wait-listed. There just wasn’t enough money for him to go to an Ivy League school, and she couldn’t bear to disappoint him if he was accepted at either.

“Hello! Anyone home?”

“In the kitchen,” Annie called to her sister, Lizzie. “What are you doing here, and in the middle of the day, and the middle of a workweek?” she asked her sibling.

They were a year apart, and had often been taken for twins in their youth. Both women were tall, although Annie was heavier now. Both had bright blue eyes and rich chestnut-colored hair. Annie’s was pulled back in a horsetail and held with whatever she could find, which today was a rubber band. Lizzie’s hair, however, was cut fashionably short, with a wisp of bangs swept to one side of her head.

“I came to take you to lunch,” Lizzie announced.

“Why?” Annie wanted to know, immediately suspicious. Her younger sister was a corporate litigator with a big firm in the city. It wasn’t like her to drive all the way out to Egret Pointe to have lunch. Such a drive out and back would mean a day of work lost.

“Because, like you, I remember what today is, even if everyone else has forgotten,” Lizzie told her older sister.

Annie burst into tears. “Oh, Lizzie, thank you!” She sniffled.

“Mom’s picking up Wills at nursery school,” Lizzie continued. “We can pick him up after lunch. Okay? Go put something decent on, Annie.”

“Could we stop at the cemetery after lunch?” Annie asked her sister.

“Sure. We’ll get some flowers for the grave,” Lizzie replied.

“I’ll only be a few minutes,” Annie said, heading for the stairs.

“I know,” Lizzie murmured, resigned. It had always taken her at least thirty to forty minutes to dress and get ready to go out, but Annie could do it in ten minutes and look just as good.
No fair!
Lizzie thought.

Ten minutes later Annie descended the stairs again. She was wearing a pair of perfectly tailored pale beige cotton slacks and a white cotton sweater. There was a Navajo cornrow bracelet on her right arm, and turquoise earrings clipped to her ears. A touch of blue eye shadow, a bit of blush, and pale coral lipstick had completed her preparations.

“How do you do it?” Lizzie said. “You look great, as always.”

“It’s all at least five years old,” Annie told her sister. “After Nat died I realized I wasn’t going to be able to be Talbot’s best customer anymore. I take really good care of what I have. The kids need more than I do. They’re growing.”

“Speaking of my niece,” Lizzie said with a grin, “there’s a box in the back of the car for Amy. I forgot to bring it in, so don’t let me go back to town with it.”

“You spoil her,” Annie said, and she kissed her sister’s cheek. “Thank you!”

“I got her a couple of those little dresses that are becoming so popular with girls her age. Short. Flirty. Baby dollish,” Lizzie told her sister. “I figured with spring in full swing, and the end of school in another month and a half, she could use them.”

The two sisters exited the house and got into Lizzie’s Porsche convertible.

“Where are we going?” Annie asked.

“I thought the country club,” Lizzie answered. “It’s near.”

“I don’t have a membership there anymore,” Annie said softly.

“I do,” Lizzie replied as she swung the silver Porsche out of Parkway Drive and down another tree-lined street and gunned the car out onto the road that led toward the Egret Pointe Country Club. “Oh, shit!”

“What’s the matter?” Annie asked.

“Cop car,” Lizzie said, and automatically pulled over. “I wasn’t even doing the speed limit yet. These damned cops think anyone who doesn’t drive an SUV, van, or sedan must be looking to drag race.”