Lie Still, page 3
“I bet you’re looking for a drink,” Jenny announced into the space left by my hesitation. In seconds, the two women had tugged me into the yard that spilled out of the atrium. The architect’s optical illusion with glass and nature made it nearly impossible to tell where the inside stopped and the outside began. That is, until I reached the invisible line, where the air-conditioned breeze evaporated and a stifling wall of summer air took my breath away.
I spied not one, but two outdoor rooms with plush furniture to sink into on either side of a lagoon-like pool. The fire pits glowed, even though it was 95 degrees outside. I smelled an industrial amount of mosquito spray. Chemical misters at work. Not good for Baby.
“So, what can you drink?” Jenny demanded. We moved toward a mini-bar covered with a fake thatched roof, where a tuxedoed young man with a green and yellow tropical bow tie stood, bored and hot. No one else had even ventured out here.
“White wine is great,” I said. “On the rocks. Makes it last longer. My New York doctor’s a woman who recommends one glass of that and a warm bubble bath every night.”
“A Texan already. Ice in everything. If you need a rec for an OBGYN here, we all use Gretchen Liesel. She also cleans up our mistakes.” Jenny winked. “Anyway, she’s here somewhere unless she got an emergency call.”
Jenny leaned in toward the bartender, showing that her small perfect breasts didn’t need a bra to prop them up. He didn’t care. I caught a glimpse of a Steinbeck novel propped up on the Jack Daniel’s. I was busily reworking my preconceived views of Texas. Abortions. Wink. Classic literature, but of course.
“José, one white and two reds, please,” Jenny commanded. I cringed at the Hispanic dig, until I saw that his name tag actually read “José.” Relax.
“Let’s sit over here and get acquainted.” She handed me my glass of wine and pulled us deeper into the mosquito jungle, toward a concrete bench set beside a koi pond. I breathed as shallowly as possible.
“First, we have a little bet going,” Mary Ann said. “A pair of Mephistos ride on this. How long did it take for Letty to tell you she is descended from the Robert E. Lees? In seconds, not minutes, because we know she couldn’t hold out that long.”
“I’d say thirty.” I swallowed a deep sip and wondered if a second glass of this elixir would hurt. I’d need it to get through the next two hours.
“Shit,” Jenny said. “I guessed ten. Mary Ann said twenty-five.”
“It was right after she mentioned that her husband was ‘the fourth,’ ” I added rashly, sucked in.
“Ah, yes. Dirty Harry.” Jenny grinned.
She dumped the remains of her glass into a spiky plant that drank it like a greedy alcoholic.
“Lookie over there. It’s little Misty Rich. The other new girl.” Jenny lowered her voice. “In a white dress and red fuck-me shoes.” But by the time I turned my head, Misty Rich—whoever she was—had slipped out of sight.
“Misty’s a freakin’ weird one,” Mary Ann informed me. “Pure trash. You can’t dress it up. She’s been here three months. Long enough for Caroline to become quite taken with her. Word is, she’s already invited Misty in.” She leaned closer. “We think Misty is into recreational drugs. We saw some scars. Caroline does love to find things to fix.”
“Mary Ann, you’re cut off,” Jenny decreed.
A low-pitched chime made all three of us turn back toward the house. Jenny pulled her friend up, gripping her arm a little harder than seemed necessary.
“Summoned by the royal gong,” Mary Ann said sarcastically. At the same moment, an elegant woman with coiffed silver-blond hair appeared at the opening of the atrium. It was impossible to tell if she had overheard anything. My two companions faded behind me like sullen little girls.
“So this is where you’ve been hiding my guest of honor.”
Caroline Warwick shaped thin lips into a smile, gliding toward me in ice-blue linen. I imagined the air chilling as she moved through it. Her grip was firm and dry on my hand, her voice Southern, but a violin, not a banjo. More Deep South.
I couldn’t determine her age. Fifties? Sixty? Caroline had an ageless sex appeal that reminded me of Lauren Bacall, appearing both youthful and old, her skin near-flawless, her movements controlled, graceful, almost sensual.
“I hope this invitation wasn’t an imposition, Emily. I’m sure you’re not quite settled yet.” Ema-lae. My name falling from her tongue was like a caress. So why was I certain my hostess didn’t give a flip if this was an imposition?
I smiled. “Not at all.” I caught the flash of something white out of the corner of my eye. The newcomer stood several feet behind and to the left of Caroline, a nymph in a frothy shift and fire-engine-red stiletto heels. Short, casually spiked dark hair, a heart-shaped face. A small dollar sign encrusted with diamonds hung off the silver chain around her neck—a little irony with her last name that I’d bet was intended.
Misty Rich straddled the line between Peter Pan fairy and punker. She was instantly my favorite person within a radius of 11,000 square feet.
She raised her wineglass coyly at me, brushing her hand against a green frond, familiar, as if we were already playing a game.
3
After two hours of a maverick card tournament that involved drinking, dice, musical partners, and trivia questions, my eyes blinked in slow motion. My mid-trimester bedtime clock had set itself at 9 p.m. and the alarm had buzzed about twenty minutes ago.
I was pretty sure I could fall asleep sitting up in this chair, in spite of the din of voices and laughter that rose with each bottle of Prosecco consumed. At Caroline’s wish, we’d “removed” ourselves to a game room set up with eight card tables of four chairs each. The buffet that ran along the wall was heaped with chocolate truffles, raspberries, and ice buckets chilling about a thousand dollars’ worth of fizz.
I’d played Bunko before, but this oddball Southern version required more than tossing the dice and luck. Good for me, since luck had never been my thing. But I was good at facts. Ever since winning the sixth-grade geography bee by knowing that the smallest country is Vatican City (what good Catholic girl doesn’t know that?), I’d realized the power of storing loose pieces of information.
To the delight of my multiple partners, including a frail old woman named Gert who called me Ruby all night, I was able to rack up bonus points by knowing that Audrey Hepburn won an Oscar for her debut role in Roman Holiday, that Van Gogh sold exactly one painting in his lifetime, and that the collective noun for a group of crows is a murder.
An hour and a half in, I gave up trying to remember too many names that ended in i or y or ie. I’d learned through rapid partner swapping that not everyone was a “regular” and that permanent admission into this club required Caroline’s approval, a “donor’s fee,” and maybe the selling of a teeny bit of one’s soul. Caroline didn’t play. Instead, she wandered from group to group, with her mouth drawn up like a coin purse. The purpose of a hostess is to make everyone relax, but her arrival had the opposite effect. Everyone swigged whatever she was drinking.
Caroline slipped past my table just as Marcy on my right began to yell into the most blinged-out, bejeweled phone I’d ever seen. “Really? Seriously? You’re bothering me with that right now? I have no idea where the frickin’ weed whacker is. We have a service, for Christ’s sake.”
She tossed the phone into a Louis Vuitton bag that could hold a horse’s head and scooped up her cards. “My husband just called to ask what I’ve done with the weed whacker because it isn’t hanging on the hook in the garage. He doesn’t want to use it. God forbid that he’d ever touch a tool. We pay someone $200 a week for that. He just wants to know where I put it. Jezus. Our son probably sold it on eBay. More power to him.”
Jenny’s boobs bounced stiffly as she tossed a round of sixes. “Last week, Rick called me at my best friend’s fortieth birthday lunch at Le Cinq to tell me the dog crapped a loose one all over the upstairs rug. I’m in Paris eating things I can’t pronounce and he wants to know what he should do. He runs a multimillion-dollar business.”
The owner of the Louis Vuitton purse smirked. “What did you tell him?”
“To be sure that when I walked in the door, it was like it never happened. Jesus, call the professionals.” Jenny nudged me. “What do you think, Emily? I thought New Yorkers had lots of opinions.”
The three of them waited expectantly, the dice still.
“Well,” I played it deadpan, “I think these things are never really about the dog shit and the weed whacker.”
Right answer. Everybody laughed. Lots of wine, lots of man bashing, lots of exclamations involving Jesus, and lots of me keeping my mouth shut whenever possible.
Misty and I finally landed at the same table on the two-hour mark. She’d abandoned her ruby heels somewhere in favor of bare feet. A French pedicure. Long pretty toes, which she tucked easily up under her on the chair. Dark, purposely mussed and moussed hair framed an expertly made-up face. Not beautiful but highly cute. The kind of girl that boys like to throw in the pool. I guessed her to be in her late twenties or early thirties. Her only other jewelry besides the dollar-sign necklace was a wide platinum wedding band. Her fingernails were bare and chewed to the quick.
“Hi, newbie,” she said.
“Hi back,” I replied.
Gert was hobbling her way over to round out the foursome at our table, tipping most of her glass onto the carpet on the way. Her gray hair peeked out under the Bunko crown, a Dallas Cowboys cap covered with rhinestones and assorted political and memorabilia pins, including one that read I MISS W. I had been trying very hard all night not to roll a Bunko and receive the honor of wearing it. Gert stopped abruptly in the middle of the room, as if she’d suddenly lost her place in time. I left Misty to grab Gert’s arm and guide her to the empty chair next to mine.
“Ruby!” she crowed enthusiastically, patting my hand. “There you are!”
“Alzheimer’s,” murmured Tiffany Green, who’d just rotated to the table. “My husband is her pharmacist.”
Tiffany shot Misty and me a cold stare and stopped her first roll in mid-air. “Have you two filled out your applications yet?” she demanded.
“What application?” I asked. Letty had mentioned an application, too. “I don’t understand the application thing.”
“I never got in,” Gert confessed forlornly. “I’ll be with my dear Frank and Jesus before I get in. Will one of you nice girls scatter my ashes at Lake Texoma?”
“Your husband’s name was Jasper, honey,” Tiffany said.
“I sure as hell know what my husband’s name was.” I had the feeling she certainly did. Gert held the piece of paper in her hand closer to the thick lenses of her glasses. “I also know that the phrase rule of thumb comes from an old English law that said a man couldn’t beat his wife with anything bigger around than his thumb. Give me three points for getting that. Who makes up these questions?”
“Look, I’m just wanting to know who my competition is,” Tiffany persisted. “There’s one spot open for fall. I’ve been waiting since last year, so I’m hoping y’all can see that it’s only right that it would go to me.”
“Will someone play a ghost hand for me?” I asked. “I need to find a bathroom.”
“Down the hall, three doors on the left,” Tiffany instructed briskly. “Or two doors. Or maybe it’s to the right. Whatever. You’ll find one. There’s at least ten potty rooms in this place.”
She threw the dice harder than necessary, one of them bouncing into Misty’s lap. “Y’all be thinking about what I said,” she muttered.
I shut the heavy game room door behind me and sagged against the flocked wallpaper of the hallway, the chatter from the room instantly muted. Mike owed me big for this night. A series of closed doors trailed away on both sides of me. Low-lit sconces. Ivy creeping up the walls. The whole effect reminded me of an old luxury hotel.
Pick a door, any door. Your grandmother and hot tea behind Door One. An illicit lover behind Door Two. A maniacal Jack Nicholson with a bloody knife behind Door Three. All better options than returning to Tiffany’s inquisition.
A dark maple staircase swirled up from the ground floor, breaking briefly for the second landing, and then disappearing above my head. How many floors, I wondered, for one rich lady?
The baby gave my bladder a swift kick. I counted three doors to the left and knocked.
Mary Ann’s voice filtered out. “It’s going to be a while. I’m puking.”
I tried a few more doors, all locked, finally finding a knob that turned at the very end near a back servants’ staircase. It opened up into a bedroom. I practically flew inside to the guest bath visible from the door. I barely made it to the toilet, shoving the door closed with my foot. Four glasses of water plus one roly-poly fetus was basic pregnant math, sort of like how a Ben & Jerry’s Half Baked ice-cream bar plus a small bag of salt and vinegar chips equaled a nice afternoon snack.
I washed up at a porcelain sink with a large purple orchid hand-painted inside the bowl. Embroidered towels. I dried my hands on my dress and ventured back into the bedroom. I could see my footprints stamped in the thick cream carpet like a fossilized dinosaur’s. Sheer lavender curtains were tied back on all corners of an old oak four-poster. I imagined pulling at the silk ties and lying there in a private purple cocoon.
I wondered whether I should fluff out my footprints. Leave no trace behind.
Mew.
Startled, I swung around, knocking my knee painfully against the trunk at the foot of the bed. What was that? A kitty? Maybe trapped in the closet? There were two doors in the room besides the one to the bathroom, one with a key in the lock. I picked the door without the key and found myself staring at a red Miele vacuum cleaner, a tight row of empty wooden hangers, and built-in shelves holding extra linens and towels. No cat.
I stared at the door with the key. There were way too many doors in this place.
Mew.
Tiny, soft, polite. The universal cat distress call.
What the hell. I turned the key, pushed the door open, and found myself on the threshold of another bedroom.
Two thoughts, almost simultaneously.
That was one mean-looking cat on the bed.
Hadn’t Mike told me that Caroline had lost a son?
This room belonged to a girl. A girl in transition. Pale pink walls and a cream-colored quilted bedspread with a battered teddy bear perched on top. Old-fashioned French Provincial furniture. A porcelain music box shaped like pink toe shoes rested on the dresser below a mirror. Postcards and random pictures were stuck inside the edges of the mirror’s frame, arranged a little too perfectly.
A movie poster of Rear Window was tacked to one wall and a smiling Elizabeth Taylor in National Velvet to another. The room felt unused but regularly dusted, like a set piece in a museum. The whole effect was disturbing.
The cat, an enormous, whorled yellow and white tabby with wide gold eyes, bared his teeth from a predatory position on the bed. He looked like he benched his weight at the cat gym and needed no rescuing from me.
“Shhh, sweet-sweet-kitty-kitty.” It came out the way I worried I was going to talk to my baby.
The cat settled back on his haunches, glaring. His eyes followed me as I drifted toward the bookcase and several rows of neatly lined-up volumes. At least twenty diaries, the kind with the cheap lock that any kid brother could pop with a pin.
My Diary, in worn silver lettering, was printed on each of the spines. No imagery of Hello Kitty, peace signs, or those Twilight guys. I shivered. I felt like I was standing in a pink funeral parlor. The little girl of this room didn’t exist anymore, I felt sure. I doubted she’d ever stood in this spot. The bed, the bear, the pictures, the diaries—all of it transported from another time and place.
My eyes landed on a cat box in the corner, spread smooth with clean gray litter.
No kitty footprints.
The cat had dropped a small, curly brown turd on the floor right beside the box.
His little message.
He wanted out.
The party was breaking up by the time I slipped back, women milling around, chattering, saying goodbye. I threaded my way to Misty, who was bent over, strapping on her shoes. I guessed the heels at six inches. Knockoffs.
“What took you so long?” she asked.
“A cat that needs an antidepressant.”
She stared at me a moment, then grinned, displaying small, pretty, very straight teeth. “I’m sorry we didn’t get a chance to talk more. How about lunch this week? My place? My husband’s out of town.”
“Sure.” I leapt at the friendly, casual invitation.
“Emily?”
I turned to acknowledge a fiftyish, plain, very tall woman, one of the few in the room to let her gray hair sprout however it wanted to. “I just wanted to introduce myself. I’m Gretchen Liesel. These girls are at full gossip tilt since your husband rode into town on his metaphorical horse.”
I’d gotten a good vibe off of Gretchen even though I had only observed her tonight from a distance. A nice, low laugh that carried. The night’s high scorer on trivia, besting me by a point. A gray dove in a room of peacocks. I turned to include Misty, but she had drifted away.
“Everyone tells me you’re the person to see about the baby,” I told Gretchen, smiling. “My OB in New York recommended someone, but she’s in Dallas. I’ve seen her once. At the Margot Perot Center. It’s a little farther to drive than I thought.”
“Her name?”
“Herrera.”
“I know her. She’s very good. High-risk pregnancies.” She paused as if thinking about that. “It’s not that far really. And the Perot center is state-of-the-art, embracing, even. Whatever you think of Ross Perot, you can’t argue with his ingenuity. Or generosity.”
“I voted for him,” I said.
Gretchen laughed. “Don’t say that too loudly. Here’s my card. I don’t steal patients, but I’m available to you locally in a crisis.”
We exchanged a few more words, mostly her admonitions about how pregnant women needed to be extremely careful not to get dehydrated in the brutal Texas summer. Eight tall glasses of water a day, at least. She urged me to stick a bunch of plastic water bottles in the freezer and grab one for the cup holder of my car every time I walked out of the house. Screw the environment for a few months. The water would melt just right, and I would be thirty percent less likely to faint.
