“Shouldn’t I tell them something?” The two women stayed that way for a moment, with Tiffany slowly shaking her head.
“No … divorce….”
“Bill?” Kezia looked at her stunned.
Tiffany nodded.
“Bill asked for a divorce?”
She nodded yes and then no. And then she took a deep breath. “Mother Benjamin…. She called last night … after the Lombards’ dinner. Called me a … a … lush … an alcoholic … a … the children, she is going to take the children, and make Bill … make Bill …” She gasped, choking back more sobs, and then retched briefly, but dryly.
“Make Bill divorce you?”
Tiffany gasped again and nodded while Kezia continued to look on, still dreading to go near her.
“But she can’t ‘make’ Bill divorce you, for Christ’s sake. He’s a grown man.”
But Tiffany shook her head and looked up with empty, swollen eyes. “The trust. The big trust. His whole life … depends … on it. And the children … their trust … He … she could … he would …”
“No, he wouldn’t. He loves you. You’re his wife.”
“She’s his mother.”
“So what, dammit? Be reasonable, Tiffany. He’s not going to divorce you….” But suddenly Kezia wondered. Would he? What if the bulk of his fortune depended on it? How much did he love Tiffany? Enough to sacrifice that? As Kezia watched her, she knew Tiffany was right. Mother Benjamin held all the cards. “What about the children?” But she saw the answer in Tiffany’s eyes.
“She … she … they …” She was racked by fresh sobs, and clutched the bedspread beneath her as she fought to finish. “She has … them…. They were gone last night after the … Lombards’ dinner … and … Bill … Bill … in Brussels … she said … I … oh God, Kezia, someone help me please….”
It was a death wail and Kezia found herself trembling as she stood across the room and finally, painfully, slowly began to walk toward her friend. But it was like hearing it again … hearing it … things began to come back to her. There were tears on her own face now and there was this horrible, terrible urge to slap the girl sitting filthy and broken on her bed … an urge to just sweep her away, to shake her, to … oh God, no….
She was standing in front of her and the words seemed to rip through her soul, as though they were someone else’s, hurled by and at a long vanished ghost. “Then why are you such a fucking drunk, dammit … why … why?” She sank down on the bed beside Tiffany then, and the two women held each other tight as they cried. It seemed like years before Kezia could stop, and this time it felt as though Tiffany were comforting her. There was a timelessness about the arms veiled by black mink. They were arms that had held Kezia before. Arms that had heard those words before, twenty years before. Why?
“Jesus. I’m … I’m sorry, Tiffie. It … you brought back something so painful for me.” She looked up to see her friend nodding tiredly, but looking more sober than she had in an hour. Maybe in days.
“I know. I’m sorry. I’m a bad trip all around.” The tears continued to fan out from her eyes, but her voice sounded almost normal.
“No, you’re not. And I’m so sorry about the kids, and about Mrs. Benjamin. What a stinking thing to do. What are you going to do?”
She shrugged in answer, looking down at her hands.
“Can’t you fight it?” But they both knew otherwise. Not unless she cleaned up radically overnight. “What if you go to a clinic?”
“Yeah, and when I come out she’ll have a grip on those kids that will never loosen, no matter how sober I get. She’s got me, Kezia. She’s got my soul … my heart … my …” She closed her eyes again then, and the look of pain on her face was intolerable. Kezia put her arms around her again. She seemed so thin and frail, even in the thick fur coat. There was so little one could say. It was as though Tiffany had already lost. And she knew it.
“Why don’t you lie down and try to get some sleep?”
“And then what?” Her eyes were almost haunting.
“Then you can take a bath, have something to eat, and I’ll take you home.”
“And then?” There was nothing Kezia could say. She knew what the other girl meant. Tiffany stood up slowly and walked shakily to the window. “I think it’s time I went home.”
She seemed to be looking far beyond and far away, and Kezia berated herself silently for the wave of relief that she felt. She wanted Tiffany out of her house. Before Luke came home, before she fell apart again, before she said something that brought even one instant of horror back, she wanted her gone. Tiffany made her unbearably nervous. She frightened her. She was like a living ghost. The reincarnation of Liane Holmes-Aubrey Saint Martin. Her mother … the drunk…. She did not argue with Tiffany.
“You want me to take you home?” But she found herself hoping not.
Tiffany shook her head and brought her gaze back from the window with a small, gentle smile, and quietly shook her head. “No. I have to go alone.” She walked out of the bedroom, through the living room, and stopped at the front door, looking back at Kezia hovering uncertainly in the bedroom doorway. Kezia wasn’t sure if she should let her leave alone, but she wanted her to. She just wanted her to go home. To go away. Their eyes held for a moment, and Tiffany lifted one hand in a mock military salute, pulled her coat more tightly around her, and said, “See ya,” just as they had when they were in school. “See ya,” and then she was gone. The door closed softly behind her, and a moment later Kezia heard the elevator take her away. She knew she had no money to go home with, but she knew that Tiffany’s doorman would pay for the cab. The very rich can travel almost anywhere empty-handed. Everyone knows them. Doormen are delighted to pay for their cabs. They double their money in tips. Kezia knew Tiffany was safe. And at least she was out of her house. There was a heavy scent left hanging in the air, a smell of perfume mixed with perspiration and vomit.
Kezia stood at the window for a long time, thinking of her friend, and her mother, loving and hating them both. After a while, the two seemed to blend into one. They were so much alike, so … so … It took a long hot bath and a nap to make Kezia feel human again. The excitement and the freedom of the morning, of ditching that damn column, was tarnished by the agony of seeing Tiffany sprawled in the street at the feet of that horse, shouted at by the hansom cab driver, puking and crying and wandering lost and confused … and screwed over by her mother-in-law … bereft of her children, with a husband who didn’t give a damn. Hell, he probably would let his mother talk him into a divorce. And it probably wouldn’t take much talking. It made Kezia’s stomach turn over again and again, and when at last she lay down for a nap she slept badly, but at least when she awoke, things looked better again. Much better. She looked up to see Luke standing at the foot of the bed. She glanced at the clock by her bed. It was much later than she’d thought.
“Hi, lazyass. What did you do? Sleep all day?” She smiled at him for a moment and then grew serious as she sat up and held out her arms. He leaned over to kiss her and she nuzzled his neck.
“I had kind of a rough day.”
“An assignment?”
“No. A friend.” She seemed unwilling to say more. “Want something to drink? I’m going to make some tea. I’m freezing.” She shivered gently and Luke looked at the window and the night sky beyond.
“No wonder, with the windows open like that.” She had opened all of them wide, to banish the smell. “Make me some coffee, babe?”
“Sure thing.” They exchanged a haphazard kiss and a smile, and she took the newspaper from the foot of the bed where he’d left it when he leaned over to kiss her hello.