Athena's Daughter (29 page)

Deep silence descended as Derek looked at
them, his hands shuffling slowly through the images. The muscles in
his throat moved as he swallowed. “Yeah, she…She’ll like these.” He
began going through them again, his teeth worrying his bottom lip.
“Are you having copies made of these?”

Athena caught her breath. “If you want me
to.”

He nodded, his eyes on the pictures. “I’d
like them, yes.” Straightening his shoulders, he put the photos
back in the envelope, but paused, looking confused. “There’s
something else in here.” Dipping two fingers into the envelope, he
fished around and pulled out the baggie. The minute he got a good
look at what it contained, he froze.

Every fiber of her being told her to look
away, but she couldn’t. She had to see his reaction.

Almost immediately his eyes acquired an
unnatural shine, and he blinked in an effort to dispel it. He
swallowed again, and cleared his throat. “Really outdid myself on
the jewelry, didn’t I?”

“It meant more than any diamond you could
have bought,” she replied through trembling lips.

His chest hitched as his breath caught. He
cleared his throat again. “You’re, uh, you’re giving it to
Elizabeth?”

“I thought she might like to have it.”

His gaze stayed riveted on the purple circlet
of string. “Would you mind terribly if I gave it to her? Since I…I
gave it to you, I’d rather like to give it to her, too.”

“Oh.” She licked her lips. “I guess so. Only,
I wasn’t planning to give it to her for several years. I don’t
think she’s old enough to take care of it right now.”

“You’re right; she’s not. I’ll just hold on
to it until she is.” He paused in the act of tucking the baggie
into the front pocket of his jeans and glanced up at her. “If
that’s okay with you.”

“Sure,” she replied after a slight
hesitation. “Just don’t…don’t lose it.”

“I won’t lose it, Athena.”

A certain tone in his voice made her look
quickly up at him, but he had transferred his attention to the
fireplace.

“Anyway. What I came over here to tell you is
that I won’t be eating with you and Elizabeth tonight. I’m going
out to dinner.”

Icy coldness seeped through her as his
meaning became clear. She had to force her voice around an
industrial sized lump that formed in her throat. “Oh? Who
with?”

The fingers of his left hand twisted the ring
on his right, betraying his nervousness. “Barbara, the receptionist
at the attorney’s office.”

“Hm.” She tried to keep her voice neutral. It
was hard since what she really wanted to do was scream at him, jump
up and slap the hell out of him. “I didn’t know you two were so
close.” In her mind’s eye she saw the slim receptionist sitting
behind her desk with every shining hair in place, and wearing a
suit that cost as much as Athena earned in a month. If that bitch
dared to show her face in Athena’s house then she’d get slapped,
too.

“Well, we’re not.” He moved forward and
touched the items on the mantel, fingers moving restlessly over
picture frames, candlesticks, and a lumpy ceramic pot Elizabeth had
made at school for Athena’s Mother’s Day gift. “But I thought I
needed to get out for a bit.”

“Sure.”

“I guess I’d better go up and tell Elizabeth
I won’t be here to tuck her into bed tonight.”

Oh, so he was planning on a late night, was
he? The icy feeling disappeared, replaced with a white hot sheet of
anger. “Yeah, good luck with that.”

He opened his mouth as if to reply, but shut
it again without saying anything. With a nervous shrug he left the
room.

Athena jumped to her feet and yanked the
picture envelope from under the cushion. It took every bit of
willpower she possessed not to shred it into confetti and flush it
down the toilet. With shaking hands she threw it back into the
shoebox, followed by the rest of the memories that now meant less
than nothing to her.

An indignant shriek from Elizabeth made her
jerk her head up. Just wonderful. He was going to get the child all
upset, and then walk out and leave Athena to deal with the fallout.
And the son of a bitch was taking her ring with him!

At the sound of his footsteps on the stairs,
she dashed into the kitchen and pretended to be busy. Of course,
that might not have been the best idea since the kitchen was where
all the sharp knives were.

The sound of a car horn out front brought as
much dread to Athena as the sound of Charon’s boat would bring to
doomed souls waiting on the banks of the River Styx. She clutched a
half used roll of paper towels so hard it bent double.

“That’s her, then,” Derek said from the
living room. “I’m gone.”

“Goodnight,” she called after him. As the
door closed behind him, she added in the same sweet sing-song
voice, “I hope you get a venereal disease.”

The sound of a car door was followed by the
purr of what was undoubtedly an expensive motor pulling away from
the house. Athena stifled a tortured cry of grief into the mangled
paper towels as a swift, sharp pain cut through her chest.

Yep, there went her heart breaking again,
just like she’d predicted.

“Three strikes, Derek,” she whispered. “Three
strikes and you’re out.”

Elizabeth rejected supper, fought Athena
through her bath, and refused to be comforted at bedtime. For the
first time in years Athena was forced to let her daughter cry
herself to sleep, and it made her livid.

Seething with anger, she sat in the den
listening to Elizabeth’s sobs drifting down the stairs, and
directed every curse she knew at Derek’s head. This little date of
his was so obviously meant to hurt her, and it was unconscionable
of him to let his daughter become collateral damage.

Worrying about Elizabeth kept her mind off
her own pain, but as the little girl slipped into sleep and the
house grew silent, Athena’s thoughts turned to her own broken
heart, much as she tried not to think of it. He was leaving the
following week for Muscle Shoals; why did he feel the need to do
this now? She hadn’t made any further advances, and did her best to
keep her distance. The only thing she could think was that the
morning after their escapade he was so disgusted by what happened
that he wanted to erase her from his memory as quickly as possible
with the first woman that came along.

She grabbed the remote control and aimed it
at the television hoping to find something to take her mind off the
searing hurt at the thought of Derek with someone else. But Friday
night programming was more inane than the usual fare, and she
flipped past
Chico and the Man
,
Planet of the Apes
and
The Six Million Dollar Man
before she gave up and turned
the set off. There was no way she’d be able to keep her mind on a
book or magazine, so she accepted the fact that she was just going
to torture herself all night and no help for it.

Hoping music would help, she got up and
turned on the radio. Huge mistake. 10cc’s “I’m Not in Love” flowed
through the speakers and straight into her heart where it stabbed
like shards of ice. She stood in front of the stereo staring at the
lighted dial, and let the tears slide down her cheeks as she
listened to the singer try to convince himself that he wasn’t in
love. Athena could have written that song about denial and pain and
love that wouldn’t quit. No matter how much she tried not to love
Derek Marshall, she loved him all the more. Even though he didn’t
love her.

As the song ended, she turned off the stereo
and all the lights, and determined to go to bed. Maybe she could
fall asleep and escape the hell her life had become. But even the
thought of bed held no comfort. All she could think of was waking
up the week before next to Derek.

Her iron control broke, and she crumpled back
onto the couch in the dark room, deep sobs tearing through her
chest. She wrapped her arms around her body and rocked back and
forth, keening with grief. Her mind kept conjuring up the image of
that receptionist with her perfect smile, perfect hair, perfect
life. She recalled with clarity the gleaming polish on the woman’s
nails, an indulgence for which Athena never had the time or money.
And then she imagined those nails digging into Derek’s back as he
touched her the way he’d touched Athena, his beautiful body sliding
over that skinny bitch, and…

“No,” she moaned. “Please, God, no more. I
can’t.” She had to stop it. It would drive her completely insane if
she didn’t.

Though she would never do it, she imagined
herself marching into the attorney’s office on Monday morning. She
would borrow something smashing to wear from Andi, and look every
inch as self-assured and haughty as that slut Barbara. Sweeping
into the partner’s meeting – because all lawyers had partner’s
meetings on Monday mornings, didn’t they? – she would announce that
their receptionist was…was…behaving lewdly, that was it. Yes, she
was behaving lewdly with one of their clients. Then they would fire
her on the spot, and Athena would stand there and gloat.

For a little while she was comforted by the
thought of Barbara being out of her cushy job, forced to work as a
cook at a barbeque joint in Midtown where her skin would get greasy
and her hair would be covered by an unflattering plastic hairnet.
She’d lose whatever fancy living arrangements she had, and would
have to move to the crummy apartment Athena endured for so many
years. That expensive sounding car would get repossessed, and she’d
be forced to take the bus everywhere.

As the fantasy wore down, Athena sighed. Not
only would she never have the guts to tell on the little bitch,
even if she did it probably wouldn’t matter. Girls like that always
fell on their feet. Girls like that had rich parents who supported
them until they could marry an equally rich man and continue the
golden life they’d led in high school. Fuck, she’d probably end up
with Derek if she was forced out of her job.

Huddled in a miserable ball, she at first
thought the car outside was just driving by at a slow speed. But
when it came to a halt, she raised her head, alert. The motor shut
off, and Athena jumped to her feet. There was no way in hell she
was going to allow Derek to take that woman to the guest house, not
with Elizabeth at home.

She ran barefooted into the living room and
approached the large multi-paned window from the side. Hiding
behind the curtain, she peeked out and saw the dark shape of a car
parked at the curb in front of the house. As she watched, the
passenger door opened, and the dome light illuminated Derek’s hair
before he got out of the car. Before she could move, the driver’s
side door opened and the skinny, snake-like silhouette of Barbara
the Bitch slinked around the car. Athena heard her muted voice and
saw Derek turn back to her.

Bile rose in her throat as the woman swayed
into Derek and pressed her nasty lips to his in a kiss that seemed
to go on for hours. At last they separated, and Derek started for
the house again. Alone. Athena’s shoulders sagged as she watched
Barbara get back into her car. The tension returned when she
realized that when Derek came in he would find her standing there
spying on him.

Heart pounding, she darted out of the living
room and into the hall just as Derek’s key scraped against the
lock. Her hip banged painfully into the doorway to the kitchen as
she skidded on the tiles. Damn it! Why had she gone into the
kitchen? She should have run into her bedroom and pretended to be
asleep. Too late now.

As Derek’s footsteps approached from the
living room, she ran on tiptoes into the small pantry and pulled
the door almost closed. Adrenaline made her breathing quicken, and
she clapped her hands over her mouth to try to muffle the sound as
she heard Derek cross the kitchen and step down into the den. The
French doors rattled as he went out, followed by the sound of his
key locking the doors behind him.

Athena slipped from the pantry and watched
him through the breakfast nook window. The lights from the pool
were bright enough that she could make out his form as he went into
the guest house. He was home. And he was alone.

Her breath gusted out of her in a huge sigh,
and she started shaking with reaction. She stumbled over to the
stove and leaned close to see the clock. It was only nine o’clock.
Well. Either Barbara was a lousy lay, or Derek’s evening hadn’t
panned out the way he’d planned. Her momentary elation evaporated
as quickly as it had come. One night he wouldn’t come home, and she
couldn’t bear another night like this one.

Things were going to have to change.

The next morning, Elizabeth woke doing an
excellent impression of Reagan from
The Exorcist,
only it
was Reagan after she’d been possessed by the devil. She refused to
cooperate with Athena about anything, whether it was breakfast,
brushing her teeth, getting dressed or brushing her hair. At her
wit’s end, Athena finally left her daughter wailing on the floor of
her room dressed only in a pair of light blue panties and with her
hair a tangled nest.

Dashing into her bedroom to do something with
her own hair, Athena caught a glimpse of the clock and moved even
faster. If she didn’t hurry, she was going to be late. Of course,
the minute she tried to put her hair into a ponytail, the elastic
broke. Muttering an obscenity, she searched the various jars and
baskets on the counter in vain for a replacement. She crouched down
and opened the cabinet under the sink, hoping a new package might
be lurking within.

Good grief, she hadn’t even opened this
cabinet since the day they moved in. Andi had unpacked the bathroom
for her, and it was clear she just shoved everything under the sink
in no order whatsoever. Grimacing, Athena pushed aside a half-used
can of hairspray, a dusty glass with four old combs in it, and a
box of tampons until she found an unopened package of hair
elastics. She ripped open the package and took one out before
shoving everything back into place with a half-formed thought of
organizing the cabinet that night.