The Wrong Wife

Tonight had been really bad. She’d heard that some elderly, sick people lost their connection to the present, and kept getting today mixed up with yesterday, but Grandmere’s mind had always been sharp. Too darned sharp.

She took a deep breath. Grandmere had always been so angry at life, and now she had nothing to look forward to except death. It must be hard to see Annabelle with her life ahead of her. At times like this, she wanted to hate the old woman, but as she’d told Marian, Grandmere was all she had. All she had ever had since her father disappeared.

As she drove by the elaborate four-car garage, she saw the lights were still on upstairs. It was only nine o’clock. Surely she could call on Jonas.

But not without phoning first. She used her cell phone, and, when he picked up, told him that she was downstairs and asked for permission to visit.

“Of course, Miss Langley.”

When he opened the door, she hugged him. “What’s with the ‘Miss Langley’ stuff, Jonas?” He stood aside to let her into his cozy living room. A book lay open on the arm of his easy chair under a reading light. The room was furnished in castoffs from the big house and some of the finest rugs. Jonas at least appreciated them.

“You’re all grown-up now. I shouldn’t be calling you Annabelle.”

“Bull. I’ll always be Annabelle to you. You got any cold beer?” She collapsed on the brown velour sofa and laid her head back. The nerve along her right temple throbbed. She massaged the pulse gently and hoped it wouldn’t keep her awake.

“Lite or regular?”

“Oh, Lite, please, if you have it.” The beer should at least help her relax. She patted her hips. “Always Lite. And I’ll take it straight out of the bottle, thanks.”

Jonas handed her a long-necked bottle covered with ice crystals and took his own to the easy chair. “And then you’ll belch loudly?”

Annabelle laughed. “As loudly as possible. Make sure she hears me all the way across the backyard. Times like this I wish I chewed tobacco so I could hawk and spit.”

“Well, I don’t. She get to you tonight? Was it a bad one?”

“Worse than usual. Now she says that Mrs. Mayhew beats her, steals from her and is starving her.”

Jonas snorted. “Nonsense. I watch pretty closely and I’m a fair judge of people. Beulah Mayhew’s the best you’ve had. Let’s hope she stays. When you going back to New York?”

“I can’t, Jonas, not right this minute.”

“You should get out of this town as quick as you can. Put her in a nursing home. I know you don’t want to, but I’ve been checking them out. They’re expensive, but there are a few good ones.”

Annabelle shook her head. “I can’t abandon her. As much as I hate to admit it, she didn’t abandon me, and she could have.”

“No, she saw to it that you paid for her generosity every day of your young life.” His face clouded. “There are times I could kill her myself.”

Annabelle finished her beer, went over and set the bottle on the drainboard by the sink. “Well, don’t. You’d get caught and then where would I be? You’re my only friend in the world. Thanks, Jonas. By the way, what I could see of the yard looks lovely as always.”

“I try. Hard to get decent help these days.”

“At least money is not a problem. Not for her, at any rate.”

“For you?”

“Not at the moment.” She brushed her lips across his cheek.

“If you do need money, let me know. I have some put by.”

“I’m fine, Jonas, really. Elizabeth pays me better than I deserve, and I get the apartment rent free.”

“Just remember, I’m here if you need me.”

“I always need you. I’d never have gotten this far without you. And if you ever call me Miss Langley again, I’ll deck you.” She trotted down the steps and waved over her shoulder. She could see Jonas standing in the open door of his apartment in her rearview mirror until she turned out of the driveway.

Before she went to bed, Annabelle carefully rolled the clean, dry lace between sheets of acid-free tissue. The blood had come out completely, thank God. The lace was from an early-twentieth-century wedding dress. With luck it would become another bride’s treasured memory. With luck, yards of fine Swiss batiste, some supervision from Mrs. Jackson’s chef d’atelier, and the fine mending and sewing talents of Marian and the other seamstresses.

Annabelle stripped and pulled on the oversize silk pajama top that served as night wear. As she looked at herself in the mirror and picked up her toothbrush, she murmured, “Elizabeth needs a chef d’atelier the way I need a third leg.” She knew she was only a glorified seamstress and purchasing agent. Marian and the Vietnamese women who sewed for Elizabeth needed precious little supervision.

Still, she was grateful to Elizabeth for making a place for her, giving her a fancy title and even providing living quarters rent free.

“Your being here frees me to go to lace auctions and hunt garage sales for old lace dresses and things, and allows Marian to get on with the sewing and mending,” Elizabeth told her. “Of course I need you.”

Kind woman. They were all kind. And she was grateful. Only sometimes she got so tired of having to be grateful.

CHAPTER FOUR

“WHY DID I AGREE to this?” Annabelle said to her reflection. Maybe she’d simply tell Ben she’d changed her mind about going to Elizabeth’s dinner party. Elizabeth obviously had no idea Ben planned to bring her, otherwise she would have mentioned it. She probably thought he was bringing the tall blonde he’d been looking at dress designs with.

She bundled her masses of hair into a semblance of a French roll and sprayed it long and hard with a hair spray that was guaranteed to hold like superglue, but tendrils still escaped around her face and at the nape of her neck. The heck with them.

She pulled on an ankle-length black skirt and slipped her feet into a pair of chunky black shoes. God, she looked as though she’d been working in the salt mines of Transylvania!

She flipped the shoes off and into a corner of the closet, then ripped off the skirt and threw it onto the floor after them. Once, just once, she wished she were six foot four and weighed ninety-six pounds like the models in New York. Instead, she resembled her roommate Vickie’s two rescued alley cats, Dumpy and Frumpy.

She pulled a pair of black slacks off a skirt hanger and climbed into them, then a flame-orange turtle-neck sweater, and over that a wildly patterned Tibetan quilted tabard.

Lord, she’d burn up at a dinner party in April!

Off came the tabard and sweater. Off came the slacks. Onto the floor.

Okay. Something simple but elegant. She reached into the back of the closet and pulled out the black Chinese silk cheongsam Vickie had made her for Christmas. She’d never had the nerve to wear it. It fit perfectly, but the style was more suited to the tiny Chinese ladies from the Lower East Side and Mott Street. When she glanced at her watch, she nearly whimpered. Ben would be on time, of course. And that gave her five minutes.

She yanked the silk dress over her head, pulled on a pair of high-heeled black strappy sandals she’d bought in a moment of madness because they were on sale, grabbed her small black purse—the closest thing she had to an evening bag—and did up the fancy gold frogs along the neck of the dress.

She hadn’t even looked at the mirror when the bell at the foot of the stairs sounded, and a moment later she heard Ben’s voice. “It’s open. Okay if I come up?”

“No! I mean yes!” She shoved the closet door closed on the disaster inside. He might take one look at her and offer to take her to McDonald’s instead of his mother’s house.

She heard his footsteps at the top of the stairs and turned to face him.

“Suffering succotash,” he whispered.

She caught her breath. “I’m sorry, Ben. I told you I didn’t have anything to wear.”

He shook his head. “Couldn’t prove it by me. You look gorgeous.”

“I do? I mean, I don’t. I feel like a sausage.”