“Yeah, he is pretty sweet.” Then she glanced at the gold watch on her slender suntanned wrist. “Oh, God, I told the eunuch I’d pick him up for dinner.”
“You’re picking him up? I thought he had that really nice Corvette.”
“Yeah, didn’t I tell you?”
“Tell me?”
“He only took me out in his Corvette for the first couple of dates. He then informed me that he didn’t want to risk somebody slamming into him so would it be all right if we took my car on dates?”
“Maybe you’re right,” Amy smiled. “Maybe he is a serial killer.”
Sally walked over to the kitchen door. “I’m expecting to see you there tonight, kiddo.”
“I’ll probably stay home.”
“He loves you,” Sally said softly. Then, “And he’s willing to take his car on dates. What more could you ask for?”
Amy laughed. Even though she got tired of Sally occasionally — which didn’t stop them from being best friends — Sally almost never failed to lift her spirits.
“Well, I’ll think about it.”
Sally winked at her. “See you tonight, kiddo.”
Then she was gone.
3
She was waiting for him when he got home.
She sat in the living room, in the rocker that had belonged to her grandfather, the only male she had ever truly loved, and she thought of how she was going to approach this whole thing.
She could just confront him, of course. That would be the simplest, tidiest way. And he would tell her how he’d fucked everything up — sounding like a frightened little boy — and she would then tell him how he should go about unfucking it up.
But confronting him that way wasn’t all that much fun. Over too fast.
Probably be better if she tried stony silence. That always drove him crazy. Absolutely bonkers.
Yes, she thought, listening to him beneath her in the garage that was directly beneath the living-room floor. Yes, stony silence it would be.
She sat listening to the grandfather clock ticking away eternity. That had belonged to her grandfather, too. Sometimes she just liked to sit here and listen to it tick. It was like communicating with her grandfather beyond the grave or something. Not that she believed that bullshit. David did, of course, because David didn’t have the nerve to confront the fact that when he died he would be no more exalted or longer-lived than roadkill. End. Fini. He was always trying to convince her of the afterlife. He knew that she was smarter than he was, and he knew that if she believed in it, then he could believe in it, too. Right now, since he couldn’t convince her whenever they had one of their Afterlife Talks, he still had nagging doubts.
All this had started with his illness eighteen months ago. The diagnosis. The surgery. The chemo. After that, David engaged her in more and more Afterlife Talks, and was frantic to get her to believe.
The house was a sprawling ranch-style made of redwood and native stone. It sat at the end of a long, curving, lonely road and was protected by enough security equipment to guard a sheikh. These days, with so many wackos running loose, a man like David couldn’t afford to take any chances. The place had a quiet elegance, wall-to-wall bookshelves on the north wall of the sweeping living room, an antique marble fireplace, and a large dining room done in country French.
She heard him come quietly up the interior steps leading from garage to kitchen. Heard him opening the kitchen door. Heard him coming into the living room. Felt him standing by the fireplace, watching her.
She feigned great interest in the paperback she was reading and looked up only after a full minute or so.
“Oh, hello, David.”
“We need to talk.”
“I’m just not in the mood for talking. Sorry. I’ll go fix us some dinner.”
“I said,” David said, “I need to talk. You know what I’ve been up to, don’t you?”
She looked at him and smiled. “Do I?”
“Don’t go bitch on me, Helen.”
“What a perfectly lovely thing to say to your sister. Your own flesh and blood. The woman who raised you. The woman who’s stood by you all your life. ‘Don’t go bitch on me, Helen.’ Perfectly fucking lovely.”
Academy Award performance here. Really grinding it into him. Really making him pay.
She set her paperback down, stood up, and said, “I’m afraid it’s leftover night. Some of that beef-and-vegetable stew from the other night. Fresh rolls, though. You really liked the rolls.”
The clock ticked. Grandfather. God, if only David had turned out to be half the man their grandfather had been.
“You’re deliberately ignoring me.”
There now. Great stuff. She loved it when panic hit him. Served only to remind him who was the real boss in this household.
“I’m not ignoring you, David. I’m simply doing what your doctors told me to do. Keep feeding you lots of good, healthy food. Is there something wrong with that?”
She smiled and walked out of the living room and into the kitchen.
He followed her. Good puppy.
She stared at the big double-door olive green freezer-refrigerator.
Everything she needed, except the rolls, was in Tupperware bowls of various sizes.
She opened the bowls, beef in one, vegetables in the other, rice in the third, and then carried them over to the microwave, which sat above the long, wide counter by the sink. Thank God for the microwave.
She put everything into microwave-safe bowls and then locked them in and set all the buttons.
“Helen,” David said.
She didn’t answer.
She went into the dining room, opened a drawer in the china cabinets, and took out place settings for two.
“Helen,” he said as she started to set the table. “Helen, we have to talk.”
Definitely Academy Award here.
Poor David was going crazy.
And she was unflappable. As if he weren’t even here.
“Helen,” he said. “Helen. Goddamn it.”
She looked up at him and smiled sweetly. “And here I’ve gone through life thinking my name was Helen Cummings. And now I suddenly realize that it’s Helen Goddamn it.”
He clamped a hand on her thin wrist.
“You know what I’ve been up to, don’t you?”
She was the perfect picture of innocence. “I don’t spy on my own brother.”
“You heard me arguing with her the other night, didn’t you, out in the drive?”
She set down a knife and fork on the place setting.
She had heard, of course. Darcy had pulled up in the drive around midnight and knocked on the back door. David had been up, watching Tom Snyder interview a Senate colleague of David’s.
Helen had been awake reading.
At first, she couldn’t get a good look at the girl standing on the dark drive with her brother. David had kissed her several times, and then the girl had leaned her face back into the moonlight.
Darcy Fuller.
That little bitch who’d been out here with her parents for a party over the Memorial Day weekend. Helen had the impression that it had been going on since then.
He never learned. Six or seven times in his long senatorial career, her brother had gotten involved with teenage girls. Six or seven times, Helen had had to work her magic to extricate him from what could have been a career-crushing dilemma. Thank God, most parents cared more about money than they did their children.
Now there was a new problem.
David had hooked himself up with the most devious little bitch Helen had ever known.
This one was a sickie, a real sickie.
Not enough that she was having sex with a United States senator. She had to have photographs of it, too.