A Woman's Place: A Novel (27 page)

Illicit? True. We weren't supposed to do anything to validate Dennis's charge. But the charge was already made and believed, Dennis and I were separated now, and Lord knew what he was doing with Phoebe or some other young thing. Besides, I had spent my life calculating my risks, carefully weighing one side against the other before making decisions, and look where it had gotten me. On the other hand, I had bought my lighthouse on impulse, and I loved it. So if I kissed Brody and loved that too, what was the harm?

"Live dangerously, Claire," I urged without realizing that I'd spoken aloud until I heard Brody snicker beside me. My eyes flew to his, surprised, then defiant.

He shot me a whoa-there expression that said he wasn't disagreeing, and his actions followed suit. No sooner had he guided me to the Range Rover and tossed my bags in the back, then he took my face in both hands and kissed me again.

There were no tentative touches this time, just a full, wide-open, no-holds-barred kiss right off the bat. Yes, I had imagined what kissing Brody would be like, but this was something else. It was the kind of thing that cleared my head of any other thought that might have been there. I didn't mourn Connie, didn't pine for the kids or simmer over Dennis or worry about Wicker Wise I didn't think about anyone's disapproval, not Carmen's or the court's or Dennis's. Nor did I worry about whether someone would see us and tell. What Brody was doing to me with his hands, his mouth, his body, right there, pressed tight to the Range Rover's side, was worth the risk. He smelled good, tasted good, felt good. He had me coiling my arms around his neck and kissing him back, teasing his tongue, nipping his lips, sharing my breath with him and wanting more still.

I hadn't known I was so hungry. I hadn't known this kind of hunger even existed.

Where it would have ended, had it been up to me, I didn't know. I was out of control and entranced. Brody was the one who had to draw back, though he did it slowly and with reluctance, if the way his lips clung after his body had left and even then kept coming back for one-last-times.

He dragged in a long, ragged breath and dropped his head back for a minute. When it came forward, he looked naughty.

"There," he said. "Was that so bad?" It was my turn to snicker, which I did loudly. I put my forehead to his chest. It picked up the beat of his heart. Hard not to, it was so loud and fast.

"Just think what it would be like to neck," he said.

"What did we just do?"

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"Kiss. Period."

"It felt like more."

"Soon, baby. Soon."

I thought to say that he shouldn't be so smug, or assume certain things, or call a nineties woman baby, for heaven's sake. But, so help me, his smugness was earned after a kiss like that, his assumption had a fifty-fifty chance of being right, and as for the baby part, nineties woman or no, it had felt pretty good.

Dennis had never called me baby. He had sung to me and taken pictures of me, and I had felt special each time, but he had never coddled me or treated me like I needed protection, and maybe I didn't. But, boy, was it nice to lean on someone for a change. Boy, was it nice to be taken care of. Even competent women needed that, every once in a while. Soon after the start of our meeting, Dean Jenovitz outlined a game. I couldn't very well refuse to play.

"Consistent," he said.

I considered his scale. If I rated myself low for the sake of modesty, he might buy into that rating. Modesty had a limited role when it came to salesmanship, and salesmanship, it seemed, was what this study was about. Not justice. Salesmanship.

I gave myself a nine.

"Resourceful."

"Nine."

"Competent."

"Eight."

"Why not a nine again?"

"Because competence is relative. What I do, I do well, but there are other things that I don't do well at all. I farm those things out. I know how to delegate. That's half of why I'm good at what I do." Jenovitz sat staring at me. I thought to say more. But I didn't want to say more. I had said what I felt. So I just sat there staring back. Finally he said, "Are you angry?"

I blinked. "No. Why do you ask?"

"When you were here last time, you were nervous. You're different today."

Nervous last time? Hell, yes. My future pivoted on this man's opinion. Different today? After the past twenty-four hours? After the past ninety-six?

"Maybe," I said.

"Maybe what?"

"Different." I looked down, frowned, studied the black beads on the tail Page 141

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of my belt and said more quietly, "Angry."

"Care to say why?"

My head came up. "Because I'm in the middle of a situation that I didn't want and don't like. I spent the afternoon with my children yesterday. Every other word out of the little one's mouth has to do with when I'm coming home, and the big one is subdued, and they both get edgy--hell, I do, too--when the end of our time together nears. I don't know what they're feeling after I drop them back with their father, but I know what I am, and it isn't warm and fuzzy. It's lonely. It's afraid. It's worried. I keep thinking that it didn't have to be like this, that it could have been gentler, but thanks to my husband and the court, it isn't. This is very, very hard for me, Dr. Jenovitz. I'm a mother. I love my kids. Every ounce of maternal instinct I possess is telling me they'll be hurt. So, yes, I'm angry. I have a right to be, don't I?"

"Not if the charges against you are true."

"They aren't," I insisted and sank into the chair. There were times when the bid to prove my innocence seemed futile. Okay. I had only had a single hour with Jenovitz so far. But, God, it felt like more.

"That's what I'm trying to determine," he said. "Anger gets in the way."

"Last time you said I should be mourning. Isn't anger just like it, kind of a natural step in the process?"

"Yes. Though not as productive."

"It vents feelings. I do have lots of those, even though the judge would like to think I'm a cold hearted businesswoman."

"Speaking of which," he said and paused to lean sideways, open a drawer, and fish inside. I heard the rustle of plastic wrap. When he straightened, he was fumbling a sourball from its wrapper. Seconds later, he pushed it into his mouth. "Speaking of which," he talked around the candy, "we were discussing competence. And delegating. Would you say that delegating is necessary for a working mother?"

"No," I answered more calmly. The venting had helped. "I'd say it's necessary for any successful executive."

"But a working mother can't do without it?" I often discussed that with the women I worked with--my office assistant, the manager of my local store, franchisees around the country. Most were mothers. We shared war stories all the time. "A working mother needs help. We're holding down one too many jobs to do everything ourselves."

"Lining up that help can be a job in and of itself. It takes being organized. Rate yourself there."

"Organized?" Not hard to choose. "Nine." He shifted the sourball, then said, "Imaginative?" What the hell. If he wanted to call me conceited, he would anyway.

"Nine."

"Compulsive."

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"Three."

He looked surprised, sitting there with his bushy brows raised and the candy bulging against his cheek. "You don't see yourself as compulsive?"

"No. Does my husband?"

He bit down on the candy. I had to wait for my answer until the crunching was done. Then his words poured out as if to make up for the delay. "He mentioned it. He feels you're compulsive with regard to achievement. He fears you're too rigid when it comes to the schedules your children keep. He fears you're too demanding of them."

"I'd have said he was the demanding one. He's the one who gets upset when Johnny's grades aren't good enough, or when Kikit lapses back into a lisp. I'm not demanding. The kids' schedules aren't rigid. I make them go to school, that's a must, but they've always been the ones to ask for the after-school things. They have musical ability, but neither has wanted lessons either in voice or an instrument, and I haven't pushed. So Kikit does ballet and gymnastics and library, and Johnny plays sports. The only thing I ask of them is that if they take something on, they give it their best shot."

"Your husband says they're busy nearly every day after school. Does it worry you they don't have down time?"

"They have down time--suppertime, evenings, days when they don't have plans, weekends. I schedule my own work around those times."

"Must be a challenge."

"Not usually. Since I'm the boss, I can work when I want. It gets back to the issue of help. I have good support staff. That's one of the things I decided on as soon as Wicker Wise started to grow. My kids come first. My staff knows that."

"Sounds pat." What he meant, what his tone inferred, was that I was being glib.

"Ask the people I work with," I suggested. "Please. Their names are on my list." In addition to the six who knew Kikit and Johnny best, I had included the managers of both the Essex and the Vineyard stores, plus, of course, Brody.

"Did you ever want to be anything else?"

"Career-wise?" When he nodded, I thought back. "I wanted to be a doctor, had that childhood dream, you know, of saving lives. That was before I took biology. I wasn't very good at it."

"Was that why you didn't pursue it?"

"Partly. The other part had to do with money. I didn't have it. Then I met Dennis, who had a little, but by that time I was involved in interior design and had forgotten about being a doctor. Good thing. Dennis wanted a full-time wife."

"So how did the interior designing fit in?" Jenovitz asked and opened the drawer again.

"I had been working as a furniture buyer for a national chain of home stores. I resigned my job when I got married and started doing freelance design work instead."

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He was listing toward the drawer, looking at me while rummaging inside.

"How did Dennis take to that?"

"Just fine. He hardly knew I was working. He was stunned when tax time came and he saw how much I was earning. Not that it was that much. But it was more than he expected. It was like that for a long time, my work being unobtrusive."

"Not now," Jenovitz said. He came up with another sourball, pulled the wrapper off, popped it in.

"Maybe not, but back then we didn't depend on my income to live. Now we do."

"You certainly do." Sucking hard, he leaned forward and shuffled through papers. "Your house is worth"--his brows rose when he saw the figure-"quite a bit."

"Dennis fell in love with the house."

"You didn't?"

"Not that house. My first choice was another one. It was older and had more unusual lines. It was less expensive, but it needed work."

"Didn't Dennis see the same potential?"

"No. He loved the colonial. So we bought it."

"But you do like fine things."

"Don't we all?"

"We're talking about you, Mrs. Raphael. Materialistic. Rating, please?"

"Five," I said without pause. "I spend money on things I can afford, and enjoy them, but I can live without them. I did for a long time."

"Ah, yes. Growing up. You had less than your children do now. Do you think that they're spoiled?"

"Maybe a little. Parents enjoy giving their children things they didn't have themselves. I'm no exception."

He pushed the sourball into one cheek. "Would you say that your children are happy?"

"Right now, no. They're confused about what's happening between Dennis and me. In general, yes, they're happy."

"How can you tell?"

"They smile. They relate well to people. They don't act out. They do well in school."

"They've been in a two-parent home," he remarked. "How important do you think that is?"

Of all the things he had asked me, this was one of more relevance to my children's future. Uneasy, I said, "It's something I always wanted for my children. Something I assumed they would have. That's one of the reasons I didn't want Dennis to talk about separating." Page 144

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"You haven't answered my question."

No, I hadn't, because it upset me. Dealing with the everyday details of my life kept me buffered from the overall reality, which was that my kids wouldn't be living with both of their parents, together, ever again. And they shouldn't, under the circumstances. It wouldn't be healthy. Dennis resented me, and, increasingly, the feeling was mutual. Not a good atmosphere for adults, much less kids.

"Mrs. Raphael?"

"A two-parent home is nice," I said, "but it isn't the be-all and end-all. It isn't a guarantee that the child will be happy. Many a happy, well-adjusted child has come from a single-parent home."

"You, for example."

I had been well-adjusted. Happy was another matter. For simplicity's sake, I said, "Yes. Me. It depends on how that single parent handles the situation. It depends on the child, too, and on the dynamics between parent and child. My mother and I were alike. We helped each other."

He sat back, sucking his candy, waiting.

I filled the silence by saying, "My sister, Rona, was something else. She and my mother had a different relationship."

"In what way?"

"I wish I knew," I said with a diffident laugh. "Actually, I know how it was different. I just don't know why."

He frowned, set his elbow on the arm of his chair, put his chin on his fist.

"They rubbed each other the wrong way," I started in with the how. "What one wanted, the other couldn't give. What one had, the other belittled."

"Which of you is older?"

"Me."

"You must have been a hard act to follow."

"It wasn't that. Mom and I were close. Rona felt left out. So she tried harder. But the harder she tried, the more she bombed." Jenovitz looked intrigued. It occurred to me that, being an experienced psychologist, he might suggest how I could deal with Rona better.