Chapter One

 

 

“I have a love child.”

“Ed, I don’t have time for games. OK, OK, give me a hint. Movie? Novel?” She continued to slip his tux from its protective covering, twist the hanger handle perpendicular, and stretch to secure it over the closet door. She smiled. They hadn’t played a version of What’s That Line? for years. But back when things were simple—before children, a demanding job with a six-figure salary—they’d open a bottle of wine and just be together. Would it be like that again now that he was retiring?

She glanced at the man sitting on the edge of the bed holding two socks under the dim light of the table lamp. Were they both black? It would matter to him. She distinctly remembered packing two black.

“Let me check them in natural light.” She reached out, but he pulled away and dropped the socks on the floor.

“It doesn’t matter.” He put his face in his hands, then abruptly dropped them to his lap. “Shelly, I’m not playing a game. I’m not playing games any more.”

“All right. But you have to get dressed.” A note of concern thinned her voice.

Time was slipping away. There would be five hundred people in the ballroom downstairs in less than an hour to celebrate Dr. Edward Sinclair’s retirement. And their thirty-fifth wedding anniversary, not to mention her sixtieth birthday of last week. Milestones. Were they coming faster now? All bunched together in some ominous package?

No, she couldn’t think that way. This was another beginning—maybe the best one so far. Certainly one they had both looked forward to.

“Darling, are you feeling all right?” She leaned in, touched his cheek, and felt him tense. Now concern hovered in a line lightly etched, but no doubt permanently embedded, across her brow. Just more lines to match the faint tic-tac-toe grids at the corners of her eyes. And just another reason to think about cosmetic surgery and to lengthen her bangs in the meantime.

“God damn it, Shelly. Sit down.”

“I forgot the sheeting on table six. It has a tear.” She reached for the phone. His hand quickly covered the receiver.

“Don’t. Leave it. Just listen to me.”

“If you knew how much I have to do …” She let the sentence trail off. What was wrong? The air in the room seemed stale. She looked for a thermostat—prominent in most hotel rooms, but not this one. Would a window open?

“I won’t be celebrating tonight. I won’t be going downstairs. I won’t be going on the cruise Monday morning. I thought I could go through with this but I can’t … I’d just be prolonging the inevitable.”

He sat staring at the floor. Shelly waited, almost afraid to breathe. What did he mean he wasn’t going on the cruise? They’d had tickets for six months.

“Shelly, I’ve asked someone to marry me.”

“Marry? You … you have a wife.” Her stomach fluttered and she swallowed twice. What was he talking about?

“You’ll get pretty much what you ask for.”

“Ask for?” She could hear her breath coming in labored spurts. Deep breaths. Breathe in, breathe out. This was a joke. Maybe if she moved … got air in the room … she walked toward the window.

“I won’t cheat you. You can have the house—I suggest selling it and investing the money. I can’t imagine you wanting to keep it up or even live there, for that matter.”

“It’s our home. We built it.” The window didn’t budge. Locked down tight. Guess they didn’t want you to jump —though it was beyond her how much damage you could do from the second floor. Still, at the moment …

“Shelly, look at me. The house has outlived its usefulness.”

She swung back around but kept a hand on the windowsill. Balance. She had to keep her balance. Her hands were suddenly so cold and numb she barely felt the metal. Maybe if she closed her eyes this would all go away. When she opened them Ed would be smiling, standing at her side, murmuring his appreciation for all she’d done in planning the party …

She looked at him sitting on the edge of the bed, averting his gaze, not able to look her in the eye. Instantly, a flicker of anger squashed the queasiness and began to restore warmth to her fingers. This was not a dream; the bastard was dumping her—discarding her like used clothing. Choosing a night of celebration to do so. Well, he wouldn’t see her fall apart. Somehow she wouldn’t give him that satisfaction. She forced her shoulders back, her head up and willed her voice not to crack.

“A house is like a family member, Ed. The neighborhood … all our friends … it doesn’t outlive its reason for being.”

“I’m giving you two million dollars. You can go where you want, build or buy what you want. I suggest something modest and invest the rest—it has to last you for awhile.”

“And you?” She was amazed at her steely, emotionless tone.

“I bought a house a few years back. It’s in a good school district.”

“What does a good school district have to do with anything?”

“I have a four-year-old daughter, Shel. I have a love child.”

“You also have two sons, Ed.” Maybe a reminder of family would bring him to his senses.

“At twenty-eight and thirty-three, I think they stopped needing me a long time ago.”

“Is that what this is all about? Being needed?” Had she not been paying attention? Not noticed the possible hurt of an aging father when sons established their own lives?

“I don’t need an armchair psych diagnosis. I fell in love; we’ve had a child together and we’re going to establish a home for our daughter.”

“Just like that? Out with the old, in with the new?” Anger again sparked from nowhere but she worked to keep tears in check and her voice strong.

“We haven’t had a relationship for a long time.”

“How can you say that? You’re my husband.”

“A husband is not a relationship.”

Silence. She swallowed, then, “Do I know her?”

“Yes.”

She waited. “Well?”

“Shelly, I really think the less we talk about this, the better. Paul Green is handling the details. You can get your own lawyer, but I don’t see why you’d want to waste the money. There won’t be anything to contest.”

“Nothing to contest?”

“I said earlier I’ll be generous.”

“Who is she?” Why was he dodging the question? Shelly was mentally running down a list of their friends— who was single, who had shown interest—but for the life of her, not one name popped out. Almost all their friends were married—and happily so. But, she thought ruefully, wouldn’t they have said the same about the Sinclairs?

He looked away, then back. “Tiffany.”

She choked back a laugh. “Oh, come on. This is a joke, isn’t it? The receptionist? She’s twenty-four? Twenty-five?” And an insult, but she bit back the words.

“Twenty-four.”

“You’re sixty-three.”

“I don’t have to be reminded.”

“I thought men had midlife crises in their forties.”

“I wouldn’t call this a crisis—we’re very much in love.”

“My God, she’s thirty-nine years younger.”

“I don’t think age matters.”

“I never thought I’d wake up at sixty to realize the secret to happiness was perky boobs and elastic skin.” Because that was the only thing the trailer-trash tart had that she didn’t. What had happened to valuing a partner’s years of support? Of growing old together with shared memories of family? This wasn’t a level playing field.

She watched Ed shrug. “Whatever, Shel. I’m leaving now. Say what you want downstairs or have an announcement made. Our friends will understand.”

“What is there to understand? A sixty-three-year-old man gets his jollies with a twenty-four-year-old—is going to marry a twenty-four-year-old—and all should be forgiven.”

“There’s nothing to forgive.”

“Then overlooked—maybe that’s a better word. When you attend dinner parties with Miss Pop-Tart by your side, our friends will just pretend nothing has happened. Tell me, are you going to get her teeth fixed, or is she going to continue to look like trailer trash?”

“I won’t listen to this. Tiffany has been disadvantaged—never had the breaks we’ve had. I intend to rectify that.”

“I just bet you do. You don’t see money as a motivator in all this?”

“Tiffany and I have been together for five years. We’re confident of our love. I’m through discussing something you don’t understand.”

“Oh, I understand all right. You fucked a nineteen-year-old who had a baby at twenty. All when you were the ripe old age of fifty-eight and all behind the back of your wife.” It was amazing how good the anger felt when it surfaced.

“I’m out of here, Shelly. I won’t listen to that kind of language.”

“Room service.” A couple firm raps accentuated the young-sounding voice outside the door.

“Well, it must be the clowns. Right on cue. I’ll just send them in.” Shelly stepped forward, the anger bubbling like the bile riding up the back of her throat with no place to go.

“What are you talking about?”

“You wouldn’t have a clue. Oh, shit. The champagne—I’d wanted to toast the start of our new life.”

“Not totally inappropriate.”

“Fuck you.”

She grabbed her purse, opened the door, pushed past the cart with a silver ice bucket, champagne flutes, and assorted canapés, then took the stairs to the parking garage. He’d parked next to her. The sleek black Porsche screamed midlife crisis. Her car, a station wagon overflowing with gifts and table decorations. Table decorations! Oh my God, she’d totally forgotten … fifty miniature love boats and scantily clad, plastic, bobble-headed natives in grass skirts. And the sprays of orchids …

She dug in her purse for the spare set of keys to the Carrera. Somehow it just wasn’t her problem anymore.