Riverside Park (12 page)

“And you won't sign anything for anybody without letting me see it first, right?” he said.

“Yes!” she said, exasperated. She turned around. “Are you through?
American Idol
's on.”

“Yeah. For now.” He gestured. “Go on. Tell Simon he's an embarrassment to mankind.”

He turned the bedside lamp off on his way out and went back to their bedroom. Harriet was sitting on the edge of the bed in the dark. “Well, she didn't sell the kid,” he announced.

“So I heard.”

He sat down next to her, making the headboard thump against the wall. “You heard it all?”

“I was right outside the door.” She leaned against him and Sam put his arm around her. “I couldn't help myself.”

He kissed the top of her head. “You're a good mother.”

“You were wrong, Sam,” she said after a moment. “I might well have told her to have an abortion. If it was early on.” Pause. “I never thought it was ever going to be an issue. Not with all the contraception available to her.”

“You could be right,” Sam said glumly. “She might have done it on purpose. But why? What could she get out of it that she doesn't have already—or could have if she asked us.”

“He's married,” Harriet said. “I can feel it in my bones.”

“
What?
”

Harriet sat up straight. “My guess is she wanted to tie herself to someone whether he liked it or not. Force him to make a choice.” She sighed as she got up. “I guess we know what his choice was. Sam.” She turned around. “You do know that we have to adopt this child ourselves, don't you?”

WHEN EMMA SAW
the limousine waiting outside her building she was upset Cassy had gone to so much trouble.

“Honestly, Emma, I didn't,” Cassy said, walking slowly beside the older woman. Emma was holding Cassy's arm with one hand and using her walking stick with the other. “The car is something the company gives me so I can get everything done I have to get done.” She gave Emma's hand a pat. “Like see an old friend once in a while.”

As they emerged on the street a huge gust of wind blew up from the park and Emma's hand tightened on Cassy's arm as she stopped moving, closing her eyes against the cold. Cassy nodded to the driver who then hurried over.

There had been a great change in Emma Goldblum since Cassy had last seen her and she wondered how cognizant Rosanne was of what was happening.

“The last time I was in a limousine,” Emma told the driver as he helped her in, “was for my husband's funeral.” She allowed
herself to fall the last few inches into the deeply padded seat. She smiled at Cassy. “The time before that was when I was married.”

They rode along the West Side, chatting about the weather and whether it would snow in time for the holidays, when Emma suddenly said, “Rosanne has enough on her plate.”

Cassy hesitated, wondering if this was the beginning or the end of a thought.

Emma, who had her stick planted on the floor of the car, kept looking ahead. “I worry, Cassy, because she dislikes nursing. Very much. And yet she is forcing herself to continue in advanced study at school.”

Okay. Now Cassy knew where they were. “She may just need more time to get used to it, Emma. She ran her own business for so many years, it can't be easy to work for someone else.”

The older woman was shaking her head, eyes still forward. “She doesn't want Jason to be ashamed of her.”

“But Jason was never—”

“I know.” She took a breath. “She doesn't want him to go to college and then be ashamed to bring his friends home.”

“That's not about Jason, Emma,” Cassy said. “That's about how Rosanne feels about herself. As if the job makes the woman. If you ask me, anybody who can make a decent living working for themselves as a housekeeper is worthy of anyone's admiration. It requires a heck of a lot more discipline than it does working for someone else who tells you every move you have to make, when and how, and never feels obligated to fully explain why.”

Now Mrs. Goldblum was looking at her. Smiling. “Dear Cassy, I agree. That is why I wish you would talk to her. And perhaps assist her in finding another profession.” She chuckled,

covered her mouth with a gloved hand and, speaking around it, confided, “She says she hates being around sick people all the time. Can you imagine? A nurse who dislikes people who are ill? She says simply the most ghastly things about the doctors. And the head nurse. Oh, how she goes on and on about that nurse!”

The offices of Emma's lawyer, Attorney Thatcher (as Mrs. Goldblum respectfully referred to him) were located on Fifth Avenue in midtown and were particularly difficult to reach by car. The Christmas season was peaking and midtown was jammed with visitors wanting to see the window displays and decorations. Fortunately Cassy had allowed time for the traffic and she used the time to point out sights to Emma because Cassy knew she rarely came downtown anymore.

To a chaotic chorus of car horns the driver double-parked in front of the office building and helped Cassy get Mrs. Goldblum inside. It was positively freezing now, the urban canyon winds having grown strong.

“Mrs. Goldblum,” Attorney Thatcher said at the door of his offices. Since no billing attorney Cassy ever knew spent time waiting for clients at the door she knew his affection was real. She supposed there was nothing like seeing a client whose whole life you had changed for the better, which had been the case some years before with Attorney Thatcher and Emma Goldblum. “We're all ready for you.”

Cassy had assumed she'd be going in with Emma but Attorney Thatcher asked the receptionist to please see that Cassy was made comfortable while she waited. Emma took his arm and slowly off they went.

Well.

For some reason this errand was reminding Cassy of taking Henry to the dentist when he was little, wanting to
go in with him but the doctor saying it would be better if she didn't.

She wished she had brought some work up from the car and thought about calling the driver. Then she remembered the traffic outside and figured he had enough to contend with. She hung up her coat, told the receptionist, yes, a glass of water would be lovely, and chose a comfortable seat and a copy of
Architectural Digest
.

Their penthouse had been in here. Cassy had frankly been appalled when she learned her new husband wanted to put their private home on public view, but it seemed to mean so much to Jackson she hadn't said anything. Her old apartment, she had made sure, was off-limits, but she was quite sure no one would be interested in it since she had decorated it herself, something between “early attic” and “soft and easy.”

They were very different about the public-private thing. Jack loved the limelight and Cassy had never enjoyed it, feeling acutely self-conscious, but for professional reasons she had forced herself to get used to it. When she married Jack she realized too late how fully he intended to put their private life on view, at least those angles that flattered them most. Sometimes she wondered how much the secrecy of a relationship with Alexandra had inspired her to seek it again, to have at least one corner of her life be privately hers.

To see how little public criticism or fallout had resulted from Alexandra's relationship with Georgiana Hamilton-Ayres had been difficult for Cassy. No one seemed to blame either one of them for having fallen in love with the other; they were both such attractive young people. At that point it had only horrified and embarrassed Cassy to think of what she had expected Alexandra to endure in order to be with her. The envy and loneliness and sometimes downright misery Alexandra's new
relationship caused her seemed to be appropriate punishment. Cassy wasn't young like Georgiana; Lord knows she came with caravans of emotional baggage; and yet she had expected Alexandra to sacrifice a full-fledged personal life in order to sleep with her on occasion.

Cassy was ashamed.

She remembered being at a dinner party at Jessica Wright and Will Rafferty's apartment one evening with Jack, Alexandra and Georgiana (the latter having been introduced to Alexandra by Jessica) and feeling absolutely horrible because Jackson, as was his habit in public, fawned over her as his beloved wife. It was horrible because Alexandra knew what their marriage was really like and because Alexandra was in love with the actress. Three women at that table were going to go to sleep that night in the arms of someone they valued above all others while Cassy would be alone. Jack had something else on for that weekend.

So Cassy threw herself into things that gave her a sense of accomplishment. She and Jackson took Henry and Maria and Kevin and Kevin's girlfriend on a safari in Africa; she got her mother resettled in an exclusive retirement community in Cedar Rapids; and she almost doubled the hours of DBS programming on the air.

Still, her depression deepened. Jackson came to believe he was the cause of it and made an effort to spend more time with her. If he stopped wondering out loud at how much more aggressive she was in bed she might have settled into permanent acceptance of her marital situation. But Jackson did not stop wondering out loud and kept asking her if she was seeing someone else. She would tell him, no, Jack, obviously absence must make the heart grow fonder.

How Cassy had gone from being a straight heterosexual woman to being heartsick over her ineptitude at loving a
woman sometimes made her think she had lost her mind. But then she would remember her marriages and think,
Aha! That's right! I'm inept at falling in love, period!

One Sunday afternoon Alexandra and Will stopped by the Darenbrooks' penthouse for Cassy to sign off on special expenditures before she left for England the next day. Jack and Langley had already flown over. They went over the paperwork and Cassy signed off on it (
almost
all of it; “Damn, we were hoping you might not notice that part,” Will said, seeing what item she had drawn a line through and initialed) and then Will left and Alexandra stayed behind.

They were in the den and Cassy walked around the bar to get Alexandra the glass of water she'd requested. Then Cassy just stood there, frozen, and let her head slump down. She felt so utterly beaten suddenly. Alexandra asked her if she was all right and Cassy didn't answer her. She couldn't. In a moment Alexandra came over to stand next to her, lightly touching her back. “What is it? What's wrong?”

“I miss you,” Cassy whispered, head still cast down. “I know I shouldn't say it, but I miss you so much I don't know what to do anymore.”

Alexandra had done the right thing, of course, which had been to take her hand away and take a step back.

“I wish you would go now, before I completely humiliate myself.”

She thought Alexandra would say something like, “You couldn't humiliate yourself with me, Cassy.” Or something. But she didn't. Alexandra simply left, as all people in committed relationships should do, and later acted as though nothing had happened.

Cassy was startled from her thoughts when a large man came barreling through the doors of Thatcher, Wyndam & Lamont.
He gave a nod and a grunt to Cassy and said something to the receptionist which prompted her to hurriedly pick up the phone. “Mr. Tarnucci has arrived.” The receptionist hung up the phone and stood up. “I'm to take you right in.”

Cassy wondered if this could be Tarnucci the real estate developer. If it was, he was an extremely wealthy man. He had swooped into Manhattan after the stock market decline to start buying buildings.

“Are you sure I can't get you something other than water?” the receptionist said when she came back out. “Attorney Thatcher said it may be another half hour.”

“No, I'm fine,” Cassy assured her. She did call her driver, though, and gave him the new time estimate.

 

“She knows,” Alexandra said to Cassy a few years ago, closing Cassy's office door behind her. “Somehow Sally Harrington knows.”

Cassy rose from behind her desk. Sally Harrington had been writing a major profile on her for
Expectations
magazine. “Knows what?”

Alexandra met her eyes. “About the first time I lived in New York. What happened.”

Cassy felt a chill run through her. “But how could that possibly be?”

“I don't know,” Alexandra said, starting to pace, “but believe me, she knows.”

It was an important moment because it was the first time Cassy found herself being caught in the pretense of her image. She and Jackson had just paraded
the
perfect marriage for Sally's benefit the weekend before in Litchfield. Having an affair with a young woman who was now her employee did not at all fit the profile Cassy had just presented to Sally.

At the very least, such a bombshell in
Expectations,
that Alexandra Waring had once had an affair with the female married president of DBS Television, would force one of them to leave DBS. More than likely it would be Alexandra. Cassy knew how the Darenbrook family operated: they would rally around Jack, and then around Cassy to forgive her, and then they would cast Alexandra out as the villainess who had taken advantage of Cassy while her first marriage had been collapsing.

Thank God, Sally Harrington turned out to be not only scrupulous, but clever. The publisher of
Expectations
had counted on Sally to hatchet Cassy's image in exchange for a career in the big leagues. Instead, Sally handed over the evidence of the affair to Cassy and then somehow got something on the
Expectations
publisher that made her altogether kill the story.

“It was a journal my therapist made me keep at the time,” Cassy later explained to Alexandra, after Sally had returned it to her. She pointed to the fireplace in the den. “I burned it after she left. Can I get you something?”

“A vodka tonic,” Alexandra said, throwing herself down in a low, overstuffed chair.

Cassy stared at her. In all the years she had known her she had never seen Alexandra drink hard liquor.

“Please,” Alexandra said.

“Yes, of course.” Cassy walked over to the bar and made the drink for Alexandra and also made one for herself. Without asking she used diet tonic water, Grey Goose and a lime from the bar refrigerator. “It must have been taken in our robbery in Litchfield last winter,” Cassy said, handing Alexandra her drink and sitting down on the couch. “It was in the
attic
, for heaven's sake.” She took a large sip of her drink. “I had no idea it was gone. At the time we didn't even think they had gone up in the attic.”

Alexandra took a long pull at her drink. “This is very good, thank you. So, did you have anything else like that?”