Perfect Little Ladies (26 page)

“I know it’s over. It was a lovely party.”

Silence.

“E?”

“Not the party. I mean it’s over. You know what I mean.”

Was she talking about the blackmail?

“E? Are you all right?”

“Go away. We’ll talk later, okay? I really don’t feel well right now.”

“Will you call me? Later?”

“Yes.”

“Promise?”

“Yes. Now go away.”

Malcolm was waiting out in the hall.

“She’s all right,” CJ said. “A little too much excitement, I guess.”

He took her by the elbow and guided her around the corner, where it was quiet, where it was dark.

“What’s going on, CJ? What’s happened to Elinor?” His voice was just above a whisper.

“I told you,” she began, but suddenly he stepped forward and placed his finger on CJ’s lips.

“No lies,” he said. “I want the truth.”

They hadn’t been that physically close in years, that breath-upon-breath close. Between them she could taste champagne that lingered in the air. Then slowly, slowly, his finger began to trace the fullness of her mouth; her old feelings began to stir. She closed her eyes and they were in the greenhouse, she was heavy with his baby, and she wanted nothing more than to feel him deep inside her, to smell his scent, to touch his sweat….

And then she heard her mother:
“Do you love him?”

CJ jumped away, the way she had back then. “Mac,” she said. “No.”

He stepped aside. He shook his head and laughed a little laugh. “It’s awful, isn’t it?” he asked with a halfhearted grin. “It’s awful that even after all these years, I don’t know which one of you I love. You or Elinor.”

She looked into his eyes and loneliness looked back. “Mac,” she said again, and in his gaze the answer emerged, the answer for her, for him, for them. “If I looked like someone else, would you even ask yourself that question? If I looked like Alice or Poppy…someone, anyone else?”

“I don’t know,” he replied, the honest lobbyist, the oxymoron of the nation’s capital.

She took his hands in hers. “I know I’ve always loved you, Mac. But I also know my sister’s feelings, sometimes as if they’re my own. I feel her happiness and joy. Sometimes if I have a headache, I’m not sure if it’s mine or hers. Don’t you see, Mac? Maybe the love I feel for you really is
her
love for you.”

He closed his eyes. “The twin thing.”

Then she held his hands up to her face, and he looked into her eyes again. “Elinor really does love you, Mac.”

“But sometimes it’s hard because of Jonas.”

“And yet…,” she said.

“And yet we wouldn’t trade him for anything.” Mac smiled.

CJ smiled.

Then the door banged open and Elinor blew around the corner and barked, “Malcolm, take me home.”

Forty-five

CJ went up to her room, the glow of the evening
gone, washed away by whatever had happened, or not happened, to Elinor, to CJ and Mac.

She didn’t know if she was right about her feelings really being Elinor’s. But feeling his touch again, being so close to him again, made her know this needed to stop, this doubt, this angst, this…love. For all of them, it was time to move out of the greenhouse and get on with their lives.

After all, he was Elinor’s husband.

And Jonas’s father.

And Janice’s father, too.

And CJ wouldn’t.

She couldn’t.

She was done pretending she could be otherwise.

Yes, she thought, sliding in the key card and opening her door, it was good she’d decided to return to Paris.
A chance to start anew
…

She flicked on the light switch…

For everyone’s sake.

She stopped.

She stared.

Her stomach lurched the way Elinor’s surely must have. For there, spread across the neatly plumped pillows, was an unmistakable pair of panties, lavender lace.

CJ shrieked. She slammed the door behind her without thinking that whoever had been there might still be in the room, in the bathroom, the closet.

She shrieked again. No one replied.

She ripped open the doors to the bath and the closet. She dropped to her knees and looked under the bed. No one was hiding. She was alone.

She fumbled through her purse. She found her cell phone. She pushed speed dial.

“You’ve reached Elinor Harding Young. Thank you for your call. I’m sorry I’m not able—”

Click.

Speed dial. She’d once plugged in the numbers of anyone, everyone, she might have needed to reach in a hurry. There had been few.

“Hello?”

“Who’s this?” CJ whispered. “Who’s this?”

“It’s Alice. CJ?”

CJ spit out the details as best as she knew them. “Please, Alice. Come to Washington.”

“I’m in Orlando. With my husband.”

“Please, Alice.” She told her what had happened. “Hurry,” she added.

Click.

Speed dial.

“CJ? What’s wrong?”

The voice sounded calm and collected for Poppy. “Poppy? Come quick. We need you in Washington.” She repeated what she had told Alice. Poppy told Manny.

“Manny says to get out of that room.”

“I’ve got the bolt on. I’ll keep the hotel phone beside me. If I hit zero someone will come running. Besides, it might not be any safer out in the hall.”

“Have you called the police?”

“No. I’m afraid.”

“Don’t worry. I’ll bring our own.”

Click.

Speed dial again.

“Hello. You’ve reached Elinor Harding Young—”

Click.

CJ moved to the window, clutching her cell phone. She sat in the plush chair overlooking the garden, but she didn’t enjoy the view. Her eyes were focused straight on the panties, and her heart was pounding like the bass in the band that still wafted up from the party.

There was only one person CJ wanted to call. One person who could be levelheaded, and it wasn’t Mac.

She speed dialed again. She held her breath, hoping he’d answer, hoping he’d welcome her call.

“Cooper?”

“CJ?” His voice was the same, in spite of the years. She closed her eyes and started to cry.

“CJ? Are you all right? What’s happened?”

“Cooper,” she repeated, because it was nice to hear herself say his name. Then she said she was fine and he said he was, too, and she launched into the tale about Elinor and the blackmail and their attempts to locate the culprit and the panties now perched on the bed. She did not mention Remy in deference to E. But CJ was as comfortable speaking to her ex as if they’d talked yesterday, as if she’d never left SoHo or him.

“Can you hold on a minute?” he asked once she’d stopped for a breath. “I need to take this in the other room.”

Oh God
, she realized with a thud to her heart,
he isn’t alone. Of course he isn’t alone!
Why on earth would he have been without a woman all this time, just because she’d been without a man except for Ray Williams, and he didn’t count?

Her bruised ego was about to hang up when he clicked on again.

“Sorry,” he said. “I needed to let the dog in before she woke up the neighbors.”

A dog. Not a woman. Still, CJ felt foolish. “Cooper, I’m sorry. It was bold of me to think I could call you on a Saturday night and not interrupt your evening. I’m sorry. I’ll call back another time.”

“Stop it,” he said abruptly. “I’m not glad there’s a problem, but I am glad you called.”

“So I’m not interrupting?”

“If you’re asking me if I’m with a woman, the answer is no. The only woman in my life right now is Molly.”

Molly?

“My golden retriever.”

She smiled.

“CJ,” he continued, “you need to call the police. You need to call the police, then call me back if you want.”

“I can’t,” she said. “I can’t call the police.”

Cooper laughed. “Because it’s Elinor?”

“No. Because it’s the vice president.” Then she told him the rest. “After this is over,” she said when she was done, “I’m going back to Paris. I’m going to stop protecting my sister and finally start my life over.”

“Ah,” he said. “Act two. Maybe this time you can rewrite a few scenes.”

She did not ask what he meant.

“You need to divorce me, Malcolm.”

Elinor and Mac sat in the back of the black Lincoln Town Car that Mac only used on special occasions. He’d always said it embarrassed him to be chauffeured around, as if he thought he was too important to tackle the Beltway himself.

He sighed. “What going on, Elinor?”

She gazed out the window at the indestructible stone buildings, the historic streetlamps, the sleek limousines that snaked through the grid streets, their dark, tinted windows harboring power within. Elinor had once found Washington exciting. She’d never expected to have to pay for her crimes. Perhaps that was a by-product of Father’s example, or maybe she’d simply lived too long in this city.

Beside her, Malcolm breathed. A small hollow grew in her stomach, the same one that had grown the night her mother told her she’d found Malcolm and CJ in the greenhouse. Together. Making hasty, cumbersome love. While CJ was heavy
with Jonas.
Their
baby, not hers, not Elinor’s, no matter how hard she had tried to believe it, no matter how hard she’d tried to convince the world, because it was what Father had told her to do.

She’d tried to tell Father about the scene in the greenhouse, but he’d said she was overreacting, that they both knew her mother was inclined toward the dramatic.

As with other things—such as the
incident with the gardener
—they’d never mentioned it again.

Still, it didn’t seem fair that now, after all these years, Elinor would turn out the villain.

She teared up, and it wasn’t an act.

“I’ve had an affair.” Elinor spoke softly, so the driver wouldn’t hear through the privacy window, though Mac had once told her that Jimmy was nearly deaf, that, at seventy-six, he needed the job to supplement his Social Security.

Mac didn’t answer. He stared straight ahead at the Plexiglas that separated the worlds of employer, employee.

“I’ll leave Washington quietly,” she continued. “I’ll go back to Mount Kasteel. Sell the estate. I’m sure I can move into the cottage with Jonas until I figure out what to do.” She stopped herself from adding, “CJ can move in with you, and you both can live happily ever after.”

He didn’t reply.

Outside, the nation’s capital continued to slide past, with its altars to presidents, its homages to the people, its secrets tucked in every corner.

“Congressman Perry knows,” she said. “I don’t know how he found out.”

The seconds, the minutes, gnawed at her pride. She dabbed her tears; he did not seem to notice.

“Malcolm,” she said, “I’m being blackmailed. The phone call you received was from the blackmailer. I wasn’t in Philadelphia. I was in Grand Cayman. I’ve kept an account there for years. I started it with my share from Father’s estate. I added to it whenever you gave me money for parties or decorating. When we remodeled the town house, I told you the cost was twice what it was. I put the other half in my account. I’ve let the money grow. I needed to know I’d have money to start over on my own.” She stopped for a moment, then added, “I’ve always been afraid you would leave me, Malcolm.”

If Mac was listening, he didn’t acknowledge her. It was irritating, painful, humiliating. It reminded her of eighth-grade geography class, when she’d copied the answers off Alice’s test paper and Mr. Laufer had guessed.

“I’m not going to give either of you an F,” he’d announced to the entire class, “because I’m sure this must be a coincidence. I know that neither of you—certainly not Elinor—would cheat in my classroom.” No, certainly not the daughter of the headmaster.

She had been too mortified to admit that instead of studying she’d been helping her mother plan the spring faculty luncheon because it would win praises from Father and did not interest CJ. She’d been too mortified to admit that cheating had seemed preferable to receiving an unacceptable grade.

“Malcolm,” Elinor said now because it did not seem the right time to degrade herself further by saying she knew he loved CJ more than he loved her, “the blackmailer found out I’ve been seeing Joe Remillard.”

Mac turned his face in slow motion toward her, as if the planet had stopped revolving and he was quietly catching
up. He looked at her briefly, then averted his eyes. “Jesus, Elinor.”

That’s when she got pissed. She wanted to lash out, call him a bastard, tell him he had no right to judge her after the things he and CJ had done. She wanted to remind him that he was the one who’d chosen to sleep in another bedroom, not her. She wanted to shout to the driver to pull over, then bolt from the car, slam the door behind her, and disappear into the night.

Then Malcolm asked, “Do the children know?”

She fell silent, the eighth grader swallowing guilt. She looked back out the window and wished she had never seen Washington or Remy or even Malcolm, for that matter, wished she had never loved Malcolm, wished she did not love him still.

“There’s a train out of Penn Station at three. We’ll pull into Washington around seven. If we wait for a flight, we won’t get there until later.”

“Three in the morning?” Poppy asked, and Manny nodded. “But what about your kids?”

“I’ve been gone two nights already and they’re fine. They know what I’d do if they aren’t. I’ll tell them I have to escort a prisoner.”

“Oh,” Poppy said, “right. I almost forgot about that.”

It was worse now that they hadn’t found any evidence against Duane, that the only clue they’d turned up was when Poppy found some of the words in
Vanity Fair
exactly as they’d been pasted onto the note. But the words in her copies of the magazine were intact, uncut, not used for blackmail. And Duane was still nowhere around.

The three of them—Poppy, Manny, and Yolanda—had
stayed at Poppy’s house all night and all day perusing every nook and cranny in search of anything that might link Duane to Elinor and the blackmail. But they hadn’t found anything. Not even love letters from ladies that Poppy had feared.