Four Wives (28 page)

H
ER MIND WAS ON
fire as she drove through the Hills, her back in agony as she tore around the twisting corners, slowed by sightseers with their Hollywood Star maps. She reached her mother’s house, pulled into the driveway, and rushed inside.

The memories were relentless. Every moment, every detail of that night at the club was coming back now. The striped pink dress, high-heeled sandals with ankle straps. The makeup and hair her mother had done for her, the manicure from the nail salon. She was Alexander Rice’s brilliant child and being present at one of his parties was an enviable state of affairs. There were actors, writers, producers, and editors’and, of course, a broad sampling from the intellectual community. The great thinkers of the day who were always in need of a platform to expound their theories and thoughts.
This is your moment,
her mother had told her when she dropped her at the door.

It was the early eighties and times were good. Her father’s new book had been well received, bolstered by the buzz of his young daughter’s progress. The decor of the dinner club was dated’a seventies modern glass structure, it was white carpets, shiny chrome, and strange, colorful artwork from wall to wall. Love had felt invisible as she walked in. She was still a child at thirteen, and to many in the room, a hindrance. Barry White was blasting from the massive sound system brought in by the D.J. as guests huddled in small groups, mixing drinks and engaging in the eccentric rituals of drug intake. There were giant bongs, hash pipes, mirrored panels for the cocaine. Her father had rented the club out and hired his own staff to allow the indulgence, and none of it was new to Love.

“She’s old beyond her years,” her father said when she walked through the door. The sight of her, the out-of-place girl trying too hard to seem grown up, had hushed the conversation. Still, it took only a moment for her presence to be forgotten.

He gave her a quick, inebriated shoulder hug and made a few introductions. But he was quickly pulled away by a young woman with thin legs and fake breasts’still somewhat of a novelty back then. They talked in the corner while Love sipped a Diet Coke. She tried not to stare as her father expounded his brilliance to a woman whose sole concern was with the hand she was sliding down his pants. Thinking back, it was the reason she hadn’t moved away when Pierre Versande sat too close to her. Though still a child in many ways, she could feel the flirtation of her teacher. Then came the drink, which she held right up in the air as she took those sips. She did it again and again until her father’looking through the big brunette hair’ caught her eye. Watching her father watch her, she took a gulp of the champagne as Pierre fixed the strap on her dress, which had fallen off her shoulder. She was expecting an annoyed frown, some look of disapproval that would make her get up and find a TV to watch. But instead her father smiled, oblivious to anyone in the room but himself. And the woman with the hand in his pants. Not exactly the image he gave the public on all those interview shows. Love carried on in a futile protest, until she could no longer hold the glass. She felt Pierre take her arm and help her stand. Her vision was blurred as they walked to one of the back rooms. But even now, so many years later, she could still see her father smiling at her as the door closed behind them.

“Yvonne!” Love yelled as she burst through the door. The house was small, and she could see through the living area to the pool, where her mother was lounging off the flight. With three long strides, she was at the sliding glass doors.

“You’re back so soon,” her mother said, turning around when she heard Love’s pounding steps. It only took one look for Yvonne to know. Still, she asked the question.

“What happened?” Yvonne was standing now and tried to take Love’s arm. But her daughter pulled away.

“No one knew. No one ever knew the truth, did they? Not even Dad.”

Yvonne sighed hard, then sat back down. She’d known this day would come. Somewhere inside her, she had even hoped for it. Still, she was somehow unprepared.

“We had to make a decision, darling. You were a celebrity. There was no getting around that.”

“And you thought it was better for the world to believe I was a child whore than a rape victim?”

“It wasn’t like that. There were rumors about you and that son-of-a-bitch Versande. But it never hit the press.
Never,
” she said, almost proud that they had outsmarted the media vultures. “The truth would have made the headlines for months.
Think about it.
There would have been a police inquiry, maybe even a trial,” Yvonne continued explaining. “It needed to go away.”

Love looked at her with disdain. “For your sake, or mine?”

“For yours, of course, for yours!”

“And it never crossed your mind that it would look bad for you. A mother who allowed her teenage daughter to go to a party of lecherous drug addicts?”

Yvonne was indignant. “No! You were my daughter, Love. You were’ you are’everything to me. I was trying to protect you. I thought I could.”

Love exhaled deeply, trying to put the anger back in its place. There was so much blame to assign, starting with Pierre Versande, her father, her mother, and ending with herself for staying on that couch, sipping champagne, and letting him touch her that way. He had been her teacher, and she’d trusted him. She pictured her father’s face, the look of indifference as she walked away and into a back room that would change her life.

“That’s it,” she said, putting the pieces into place.

“What?”

“It was Dad. You called him on it, didn’t you? You told him what happened, what I said happened when I got home that night, when you had to carry me out of the club to the cab. You threatened to go public, didn’t you?

“Love, what does it matter now?”

“And he told you he would deny everything, say I got drunk and came on to Versande.”

Yvonne didn’t answer.

“That was why Versande lost his book deal. You had Daddy derail his career in exchange for your silence.” Love paced the small patio as she spoke, the words flowing as the thoughts came together. “Then you both pretended it never happened. God forbid the public found out.”

“Oh, Love,” Yvonne said. “It was more complicated than that.”

“What was complicated? The man drugged me. Then he raped me. You could have brought me to the hospital, done a tox screen. At the very least, they could have nailed him on statutory rape charges.”

Yvonne looked away, her face becoming even more evasive. For all these years, Love had carried that night alone, utterly and helplessly bewildered that her mother had not been outraged, driven to the most drastic of actions after what had been done to her little girl. But in her face now Love saw no remorse. Instead, she saw a wall of deception.

“What are you not saying?”

Yvonne shook her head.

“Mother!”

Still defiant, and desperate not to say the words, Yvonne took Love’s face in her hands. “Oh, Love, isn’t it enough already?”

But the question was answered by the anguish in her daughter’s eyes. She had been denied the truth for over twenty years, forced to live with an incongruous past. Yvonne had let herself believe that all of this would be cured by a reconciliation with her father’that gaining his acceptance again could obviate the need for knowing what had really happened that night. She could see now how foolish she had been.

“You weren’t drugged.” Yvonne finally said the words before she could think better of it.

Love stepped back, looking at her mother with dismay. “What are you talking about? “

“It was just the champagne, Love. You didn’t have a few sips. You had half a bottle. That was why you felt sick, why you were unable to stop Versande.”

“No, that can’t be right.”

“I did call a doctor to the house that night. And he
did
do tests. There was no mistake.”

Love saw the glass in her hand, the bottle on the chrome coffee table. Her father’s smile as he looked over the shoulder of that woman, the wink that came as he watched Versande pull her dress strap over her shoulder. Versande poured another glass, and now it was clear. He poured it into
her
glass, not his own. There was no thought given to any of it’only the bone-deep feeling of a father’s implicit rejection, the pull of rebellion as she drew the glass to her lips.

Confounded by her own memories, Love asked one more time. “Are you sure?”

Yvonne held her tightly as though she could somehow squeeze the past right out of her. “You were angry. You had a few drinks. It changes nothing’nothing! Paul Versande raped you that night.”

Love pulled away and looked at her mother. “Only you couldn’t prove it because I was drunk.”

Love already knew the answer. All this time she had been unable to stake her claim as a victim, passively accepting the judgments that had been cast upon her. That she
was
a victim in so many ways had not mattered. It was her own role that night that she’d been too afraid to face.

The two women stood by the pool, lost in a moment that was over twenty-five years gone. Finally, after so much time, it all made sense to Love. What she had done, what her mother had done. Then there was the fallout, the years of self-destruction that could have been avoided had someone told her the truth. And her father’the part he played in all of it, the kind of man he was. She would never understand how a father could love nothing in his own child but the things he sees of himself. The truth was finally on the table. The puzzle was completed and could now be looked at in its entirety, and, someday, maybe even put away.

She felt her mother’s arms around her. “I’m so sorry, Love. There are so many things I would take back.” Hearing the soft voice, Love closed her eyes and let herself stay in that place’the thirteen-year-old girl in the pink dress. “None of it was your fault.” The words reached back in time to that little girl as she lay in her bed, confused and ashamed, knowing her life would never be the same.

After a while, she pulled away and looked at her mother. There was no undoing the past, no going back to rewrite history. And there was nothing to be gained in a life immersed in regret.

“It’s OK, Mom,” she said, but Yvonne was already in tears.
“I’m
OK.”

“Oh, shit. Now my makeup’s running,” Yvonne said, dabbing a finger under her eyes. Love forced a smile as she helped her mother, gently wiping the black mascara from the woman’s soft white skin. When they were done, when her mother had fixed up her face, Love smiled again.

“I love you, Mom. But I’m going home.”

W
ITH A CASSEROLE IN
her arms for Bill and the kids, Janie knocked on Love’s front door. It felt strange to be there while Love was away. And there was so much she didn’t know about all of this’what was going on with her friend’s back, why they were all so cryptic at the meeting that day. And now this sudden trip to L.A. Other than asking her to take a shift helping out, no one had told her a damned thing. Had she not been so consumed with her own chaos, she would have been insulted.

“Hello? Bill?” she called out. There was no answer.

Slowly she pushed on the door, which was slightly ajar, and peeked inside. At the foot of the stairs was a little blond child, naked and wet.

“Jessie! Get back up here!” Bill was calling after her from the second floor.

Janie walked inside and set the casserole down on the hall table. “You’re all wet,” she said. “Did you have a bath?”

Jessica nodded.

“Don’t you want to dry off and get dressed?” Janie was kneeling beside her now, seeing her eye to eye.

With a defiant look, Jessica shook her head and crossed her arms against a naked belly. Janie held back a smile. She knew what this was about. Mommy was gone. The house seemed to ache for her already, and Daddy was outnumbered.

“Come on. I have treats, but you have to get dressed.” She spoke plainly and in an adult voice. Jessica gave it some thought before turning for the stairs.

Janie followed.

“Hello? Mr. Mom?” She called up to the bathroom in a friendly voice. It was far too playful for an exchange with a virtual stranger, a friend’s husband, but she was at a loss to come up with something more appropriate. She heard the reply call out from above.

“Who’s there?”

Janie climbed the stairs and followed the sound of voices to the bathroom. She squeezed through the door, which was blocked by Bill’s body as he kneeled at the side of the tub. Inside, submerged within a swarm of bubbles, were one little boy and one baby who seemed to be propped up by a very wet Baby Boppy.

“It’s me’I have dinner?”

Bill was flustered as he looked back over his shoulder. “Oh, right. I totally forgot.”

Janie stood awkwardly with her arms folded and nodded her head. “OK. So we’re having an early bath?” she said.

Keeping one hand on Baby Will’s shoulder to steady him, Bill strained his neck to look at her again. “We had a problem with an art project.”

“That explains the purple water.”

“Uh-huh.”

Grabbing some towels from the floor, Janie wrapped one around Jessica, then held out another. “Here, let me help you.”

Bill pulled the baby out and swung him over to Janie. Henry followed, climbing out of the purple water still covered in bubbles. Together the grown-ups dried the older two, then watched with relief as they scurried to their room in search of clothing. As he emptied the tub, Bill felt a wave of embarrassment. Janie Kirk had always struck him as a model mother. With four little kids, she somehow managed to dodge the mayhem that afflicted the rest of them. Even now, at the end of the day, there was not a hair out of place’and here he was, looking entirely incompetent.

“I’ll change him, if that’s OK.”

“Do you have time? Who’s with your guys?”

“The sitter is there. It’s no trouble, really. I’m here to help.”

Janie brought Baby Will to the nursery, dried him, changed him, then met Bill in the hallway.

“I brought hamburger casserole. Want help setting up?” she asked, handing him back his son.

Bill didn’t answer as he busied himself with the baby. He didn’t know Janie Kirk well and had planned on going it alone while Love was gone. Now her friends had stepped in to deliver meals and help watch the kids. He was not indifferent to the blow his pride was taking from accepting the offer. Still, he had a lot on his mind.

“That would be great.”

Janie was pleased. “You get the kids and I’ll put the food in the oven and set the table.”

“Sounds like a plan.”

Within the hour, everyone was fed, the baby was asleep, and the other two were snuggled on their parents’ bed watching a movie. Containment had been achieved.

The kitchen was another story.

“How is this even possible?” Bill asked, standing at the threshold of an incredible mess.

“What you need is a dog.” Janie grabbed a sponge, bent down, and began to collect the remnants of the dinner from the floor.

Bill started on the dishes. “A dog … ?”

“Yep. A dog and a dog trainer to go with it.”

Bill nodded, smiling. “I’ll add it to the list.”

When she’d finished the floor, Janie joined him at the sink to rinse the sponge. It was uncomfortable being this close to another strange man, another woman’s husband, and she moved away quickly. Instinctively, and with the guilt of a woman who had broken the most sacred rule.

“Have you heard from her?” she asked, looking for cover wherever she could find it.

“Not yet,” Bill answered.

“I’m sure she’s fine. She’s just meeting her father, right?”

Bill nodded. “It’s complicated.”

“What about her back?”

“Don’t get me started,” Bill said. Then the words flew out. “I didn’t think she should go.”

Janie looked surprised. “How come?”

He turned off the water and dried his hands. Then he looked at Janie Kirk, thankful she was not Gayle or Marie or anyone else who might know what he’d said to his wife before she left. Here was a blank slate on which he could make his case without being judged by his past indiscretions, and he found himself talking.

“Her back’and L.A. She had a terrible time there when she was younger. …”

“What happened?” Janie was interested now, and it made Bill want to tell her everything, get a new take on the situation. Was he a selfish ass for wanting Love to leave the past where it lay? Or was he right in thinking this would bring her nothing but misery? God, how he wanted an answer. He was too close to it now. Reason had abandoned him, leaving in its stead a ball of twisted thoughts. Still, it was not his place to reveal his wife’s secrets.

“You know’nothing good ever happens in L.A.,” he said flippantly.

Janie smiled, though her face held a trace of disappointment that he had retreated, that there was not going to be an honest conversation. She had so many questions.
Is your marriage in trouble! Does this life feel like a steel pipe
’
strong but hollow! Am I not alone!
There was something in his eyes, the kind of deep worry that threatened the core, and she wanted to understand its source.

Instead, she joined him in the casual banter. “What’are you afraid she’s going to have a fling with George Clooney?”

Bill let out a slight laugh. “I might actually feel better if she was.”

“That bad, huh?”

“What’you think George Clooney could win her over?”

Janie smiled coyly. “Well, he
is
a two-time Sexiest Man Alive.”

“Then I guess I’ll have to hope their paths don’t cross.”

Bill poured detergent into the dishwasher, his mind occupied by a vision of his wife with a man far more dangerous than George Clooney.

Janie smiled as Bill handed back her casserole dish. Then she turned to gather her things, her thoughts now spinning with theories and questions about what was going on in this house. She believed in her gut that there was no perfect union between man and woman, but it was easily forgotten in a town like Hunting Ridge. Sensing a trace of complexity, of less-than-picture-perfect marital bliss, made her crave answers.

Bill walked her to the door. “Thanks for everything,” he said.

“No problem.” She turned her back to leave. Then she stopped.

“Love will be OK,” she said. “She’s not that same young girl anymore. None of us are.” There was more she wanted to say, advice she could give after all that had happened. But she didn’t want to. God help her, she didn’t want to make things better here.

Bill managed a smile. “Thanks.”

She smiled back and looked at him for a moment longer. Then she walked to her car and drove off.

When she was gone, Bill locked the door and turned off the lights. As he made his way up the stairs, his mind played back to another time’that sidewalk cafe where he’d fallen in love with his wife. He pictured her defiance and the pain she was so determined to hide. He knew then that he could take her away from all that, and that giving her a new life would be empowering like nothing he’d ever experienced. Janie was right. Love
was
a different person now. She was strong and she had something that her father couldn’t touch. Still, what he’d seen in her lately was alarming’a trace of her former self that was as terrifying as it was attractive. She was brilliant, and her beauty could take his breath away. Alexander Rice would be a fool not to pull her back into his world.

His children were asleep in his bed and he didn’t move them. Instead, he turned off the television and crawled in between them. He closed his eyes and put his mind to work, pleading for a lucid thought. It didn’t matter whether he was right about the trip to L.A. She was there’right now. And no matter what they all thought of the man, Rice could give her many things. He could thrust her back into the spotlight, reinvent the life that might have been. How could he compete with that? But he would not give up that easily. Somehow, he would find a way to give her more.