Mary Clark - We'll Meet Again

“That’s her story.”

“And I believe it. Now that she’s home, I intend to be with her whenever she wants me. And when she doesn’t want me, I’ll give her space. Okay?”

“You’re very attractive when you’re mad and trying not to show it, Jen. Let it out. You’ll feel better.”

Calvin Whitehall pushed back the chair from the dining room table and crossed to his wife. He was a formidable-looking, broad-shouldered, broad-chested, heavy-featured man in his mid-forties, with thinning light red hair. Thick eyebrows over ice-blue eyes enhanced the aura of authority that emanated from him even in his home.

There was nothing in Cal ’s presence or bearing to suggest his humble beginnings. He’d put a lot of distance between himself and the two-family frame house in Elmira, New York, in which he’d been raised.

A scholarship to Yale, and the ability to quickly mimic the manners and bearing of his more highborn schoolmates, had led to a spectacular rise in the business world. His private joke was that the only useful thing his parents had ever given him was a name that at least sounded classy.

Now, comfortably settled in an exquisitely furnished twelve-room mansion in Greenwich, Cal was living the life he had dreamed about for himself years ago in the tiny, spartan bedroom that had been his retreat from his parents, who had spent their evenings drinking cheap wine and quarreling. When the quarrels got too loud or became violent, the neighbors had called the police. Cal learned to dread the sound of the police siren, the contempt in the eyes of the neighbors, the snickers of his classmates, the comments around town about his trashy parents.

He was very smart, certainly smart enough to know that the only road out for him was education, and in fact, his teachers in school soon realized he’d been blessed with near-genius intelligence. In his bedroom with its sagging floor, peeling walls, and single, dim overhead light, he’d studied and read voraciously, concentrating particularly on learning everything he could about the possibilities for and future of the computer.

At twenty-four, after getting an MBA, he went to work at a struggling computer company. At thirty, shortly after his move to Greenwich, he wrenched control of the company from the bewildered owner. It was his first opportunity to play cat and mouse, to toy with his prey while knowing all the time that it was a game he would win. The satisfaction of the kill appeased in him the lingering anger at his father’s bullying, the subsequent necessity of toadying to a variety of employers.

A few years later he sold the company for a fortune, and now he spent his time handling his myriad business enterprises.

His marriage had not produced children, and he was grateful that instead of becoming obsessed over that lack, as Molly Lasch had done, Jenna devoted her energies instead to her Manhattan law practice. She, too, had been part of his plan. The move to Greenwich. The choice of Jenna-a stunningly attractive, smart young woman from a good family of limited means. He knew very well that the life he could give Jenna was a big attraction to her. Like him, she enjoyed power.

He enjoyed toying with her too. Now, he smiled down on her benignly and ran his hand over her hair. “I’m sorry,” he said contritely. “It’s just that I think Molly would have welcomed a visit from you even if she didn’t call. It’s a big change to come home to that empty house, and it’s got to be pretty damn lonely for her there. She had plenty of company in prison, even if it was company she didn’t appreciate.”

Jenna lifted her husband’s hand from her head. “Stop it. You know that mussing my hair annoys me.” Abruptly she announced, “I have a brief I want to go over for a meeting tomorrow.”

“Always be prepared. That’s being a good lawyer. You haven’t asked about our meetings today.”

Cal was chairman of the board of Lasch Hospital and Remington Health Management. With a satisfied smile, he added, “It’s still a little tricky. American National Insurance wants those HMOs as much as we do, but we’ll get them. And when we do, we’ll be the biggest HMO in the East.”

Jenna looked at her husband with grudging admiration. “You always get what you want, don’t you?”

He nodded. “I got you , didn’t I?”

Jenna pressed the button under the table to signal the maid to clear. “Yes,” she said quietly, “I guess you did .”

The traffic on I-95 is getting into the California freeway class, Fran thought as she craned her neck, looking for a chance to change lanes. Almost immediately she had regretted not taking the Merritt Parkway. The semitrailer ahead of her was rumbling so loudly that it sounded like a bombing attack was underway, but it was traveling ten miles below the speed limit, making the experience of being stuck behind it doubly irritating.

Overnight, the skies had cleared, and as the noncommittal weatherman on CBS put it, “Today will be partly sunny and partly cloudy, with a chance of rain.”

That covers just about every possible situation, Fran decided, then realized she was concentrating on the weather and the driving conditions because she was nervous.

As every rotation of the tires brought her nearer to Greenwich and her meeting with Molly Carpenter Lasch, she felt her thoughts insistently returning to the night her father shot himself. She knew why. On the way to Molly’s house she would be passing Barley Arms, the restaurant to which he’d taken her mother and her for what turned out to be their final family dinner together.

Details she had not thought of in years came back to her, odd little facts that for some reason stuck in her memory. She thought of the tie her father had been wearing-blue background with a small green check pattern. She remembered that it had been very expensive-her mother had commented on it when the bill came in. “Is it sewn with gold thread, Frank? That’s a crazy price to pay for a tiny strip of cloth.”

He wore that tie for the first time that last day, Fran thought. At dinner, Mom had teased him about saving it for my graduation. Had there been anything symbolic about his wearing something so extravagantly expensive when he knew he was going to kill himself because of money problems?

The exit for Greenwich was coming up. Fran left I-95, reminding herself again that the Merritt would be a more direct route; then she began watching for the local streets that after two miles would lead her to the neighborhood where she had spent four years of her life. She found herself shivering, despite the warmth in the car.

Four formative years, she told herself. And they certainly were.

When she drove past Barley Arms, she resolutely kept her eyes on the road, not permitting herself even a glance at the partially concealed parking lot where her father had sat in the backseat of the family car and fatally shot himself.

She deliberately avoided as well the street on which she had lived those four years. There’ll be another time for that, she thought. A few minutes later she was pulling up to Molly’s house, a two-story ivory stucco with dark brown shutters.

A plump woman in her sixties with a cap of gray hair and bright birdlike eyes opened the door almost before Fran’s finger left the doorbell. Fran recognized her face from the newspaper clippings of the trial. She was Edna Barry, the housekeeper who had given such damaging evidence against Molly. Why would Molly rehire her? Fran wondered in astonishment.

As she was taking off her coat, steps sounded on the stairs. A moment later, Molly came into view and hurried across the foyer to greet her.

For a moment they studied each other. Molly was wearing denim jeans and a blue shirt with the sleeves rolled to her elbows. Her hair was twisted up and casually pinned so that tendrils fell around her face. As Fran had noticed at the prison, Molly looked too thin, and fine lines were starting to show around her eyes.