Blackbird 02 - Dead Girls Don't Wear Diamonds (6 page)

"Flan, no. Hold on—"

"I'm tryin'." He pulled me inside and kicked the door closed behind us.

In another instant, I was wrestling to get out of his embrace and trying not to breathe the bourbon fumes on his breath. "Flan, stop. I'm not going to do this!"

He was laughing and only halfheartedly trying to kiss me, but I was still angry, and that penetrated his drunken brain. "What's the matter, Nora? Don't you want to see what it's like on memory lane?"

"We've both moved to other streets." I backed up against a sink that had been fabricated into the shape of a monstrous blue sea shell. "Now, keep your distance." Less severely, I said, "Think of your wife."

"You're afraid of little Laura?" He leaned against the door to prevent my escape. "What about your new boyfriend? I hear he's the biggest badass in town."

"I don't have a boyfriend," I said.

"That's not what everybody's saying."

"Flan, let's go back to the party. I truly don't want anyone to get the wrong idea."

He blocked me again, standing very close. "Stop worrying. Laura doesn't care what I do."

"I'm sure that's not true."

He glanced away. This was a Flan I knew, too. Mercurial with caring qualities tamped down under the frat-boy persona. I realized he was truly upset about his wife.

"What's going on?" I asked. "You and Laura having a bad time?"

He didn't answer, but looked back at me, measuringly. "You ever think about us?" He tried to summon a smile. "About what might have happened if the good times kept rolling?"

"Are you okay?" I asked. I reached out and put my hand on his forearm. "Forget this pickup patter for a minute. It's me you're talking to."

He passed one hand down his face as if to wipe away the things he might be revealing there. "It's nothing," he said. "Just weird stuff that's been happening. Hell, sometimes I want to punch her lights out."

"What's going on, Flan?"

"Let's just say my marriage probably won't last the weekend."

The news surprised me. "I'm so sorry."

"You know, we're living in this house while we have some work done on ours. New wing, bigger kitchen. It's a mess. We're supposed to be sharing a suite here. But Laura moved out on me. Took all her junk across the hall, paraded everything past my father. You know how that makes me look?"

"It takes work to fix a marriage," I began.

"Oh, we've done plenty of work. You want to guess how many therapists I've paid? The woman is nuts."

"You don't really believe that."

"Oh, yes, I do."

I took a shot and said, "You must still love her."

He glared up at the ceiling and admitted, "I used to. But I don't even know who the hell she is anymore."

"I wish I could help, Flan."

He shook his head. Then he seemed to brush off the whole subject the way a big dog shook off pond water. He looked at me and pasted his bleary grin back in place. "I thought I'd cuddle up with the real
thing for once, that's all. You gonna let me kiss you, or not?"

"Not," I said just as lightly, wishing I could be helpful to my friend. Obviously, though, he was determined to play the role of the party boy, and I wasn't going to get through to him. I'd call him later in the week, perhaps. I said, "Now, let me out of here."

He bowed and obeyed, opening the door with a flourish.

And revealing us both to Laura Cooper, who stood in the passageway.

It was bad enough to be surprised by his wife.

But there was something drastically different about Laura Cooper. Something everyone in the world must have seen but me until that very moment.

I stared at her.

She'd done something to herself. She looked . . . different.

Her hair was cut to shoulder length and layered away from her face, the way I wore mine. And she'd colored it. Auburn—exactly my shade. She balanced on a pair of very high heels to stand to nearly my height. Her suit was pink—my color. All the details came together before me like a computerized picture morphing into a portrait ... of myself.

Laura Cooper had turned herself into a copy of me.

"Laura," I said.

Her expression twisted with rage, and then she threw her drink in my face.

"Screw you," she snapped in her tiny Carolina-accented voice. "Or did he do that already?"

"Oh, hell," said Flan. "Don't make a scene over nothing, you bitch. Not tonight."

She spun around and catapulted down the passageway.

"Laura!" Flan shouted. But he didn't move to go after her. All we saw was her auburn hair swinging as she stormed away.

"This is ridiculous," I said, dashing the wine from my face and taking off in her direction.

Laura was as quick as a deer. She headed straight back to the party, elbowed her way through startled guests and headed up the curving staircase as if shot from a circus cannon. She took the steps two at a time, drawing attention from the people gathered below. I didn't have a choice but to match her speed, and I knew heads turned to watch as I followed Flan's wife up the stairs.

"Laura," I said when I reached the landing. "Wait, please."

"Shove it," she snapped over her shoulder, clear enough to be heard below. "You're the one he's always wanted. Well, you can have him!"

I made it up the last run of stairs and nearly caught up with her in the hallway. But she thrust open a bedroom door and disappeared. I managed to reach the doorway in time to prevent the door from slamming in my face.

"Get out," she said, spinning away from me into the room. "I don't speak to my husband's girlfriends."

"I'm not anything to your husband, Laura," I said to her stiff back. "We were friends ten years ago. That's it."

"I'm not an idiot!"

"Of course you're not. That's why I came up here to explain."

She faced me, her absurdly made-up features pained beneath the cosmetics she'd used to make herself look like someone she wasn't. Her blue eyes overflowed with tears of anger and sorrow. With less
fury than before, she said with a much more ladylike Southern drawl, "I don't want to hear any lies."

"I'm not lying. I want you to know the truth. It was stupid for us to go into the bathroom like that. I didn't mean to embarrass you."

The fire went out of her, and her lower lip began to tremble.

I said, "I'm very sorry."

She bit her lip and hooked the loose strands of her dyed hair behind her ears in a gesture I suddenly wondered if she'd copied from me.

"I hope you can forgive Flan," I said. "He wasn't thinking straight. I should have done the thinking for both of us."

She blinked her huge eyes at me. She had the voice of a little girl under the best of circumstances, but just then she sounded like an eight-year-old. "He's a lousy excuse for a husband."

I decided there was no tactful response to that remark and kept quiet.

Laura went to the bed and sat down. With her head bent, she began to cry with a kittenish noise and no tears.

I glanced around the bedroom. A large, cheap vase of long-stemmed roses stood in the middle of the dresser, surrounded by the usual detritus of a cluttered female life—rolled-up pantyhose, makeup, handbags. Every inch of floor space around the furniture was packed with boxes, clothing and books. Mostly self-help books, I guessed, noticing the pile on the desk. She had set up a drafting table in one corner, and I could see architectural drawings under a T square. It looked like Flan was right. She'd moved all of her possessions into a room for herself alone.

Laura continued to weep. Either she knew how to
play a role, or she was in genuine pain. I took a deep breath, then went to the bed and sat down beside her. Awkwardly, I patted her hand.

My touch drew her sleeve back slightly. I couldn't help noticing a huge purple bruise on her wrist. I found myself staring. The imprint of someone's fingers were clearly visible on her slim wrist. I knew Flan could get out of control and throw his weight around, but this bruise was more than accidental. I looked more closely at Laura and realized the thick makeup had been applied to conceal a blue bruise beneath her right eye. Had Flan done this? I felt a wave of revulsion.

Inadequately, I said, "I'm so sorry."

She shook her head. "Flan hates me and I hate him." She caught my hand in both of hers and squeezed me so hard I almost yelped. She said, "I wish I'd never married him in the first place."

I was hazy on Laura's circumstances, but I dimly remembered she had been at Penn while he was in college there. I had attended Barnard and come to Penn on occasional weekends to be with him. She'd been in the background somewhere—a Southern girl out of place in Philadelphia. Had she been the coxswain on his crew team, perhaps? I couldn't remember. For all I knew, she had set her cap for him while Flan and I dated.

I flushed, thinking how I'd ignored her back then. She's been a face in the crowd to me. I'd obviously made a much different impression on her.

Miserably, she said, "It's you he always wanted."

"Laura, I'm sure that's not true."

"He loves everything about you. The way you look, the way you talk. You're Old Philadelphia, and I'm not."

"That's not important."

She ignored me. "My family is a big deal, too, in Charleston. But here, I can't—I'm not important enough."

"Laura, that's silly."

"When your husband got killed, he couldn't stop talking about you. For ages, all he could blab about was how pretty you looked at the funeral. A tragic beauty; that's what he said. And how brave you were. How nice you were to everyone even while you were so sad. All those rich people making a fuss over you. You were like a heroine in a book or something. When I—well, Flan thinks I'm crazy."

"I'm sure he doesn't think that at all."

She became aware of her appearance and tugged her sleeve down over the bruise on her wrist. "I can't get through to him. I try so hard to make him happy, but he shuts me out. Even in bed, he won't touch me no matter what I do to encourage him."

Cautiously, I ventured, "Have you spoken with anyone? A therapist? A minister? I think you could use some professional help, Laura."

She heaved a gigantic sigh. "I'll be okay. Thanks, Nora." She tried to smile. "I'm sorry I exploded like I did. I know I can get pretty upset."

"Please leave the apologies to me."

She smiled at last. "You're really nice. I didn't expect that."

I cleared my throat. "Thank you."

She reached out and touched my hair. "Maybe we could be friends."

I could see she was lying. She didn't trust me in the slightest.

Chapter 4

"That's it?" Emma asked. "That's all she said after you made whoopee in the bathroom with her husband?"

"Weren't you listening?" I asked.

"I wonder how long she was obsessed with you." Libby nibbled on a slice of provolone. "I mean, was she studying you back in college?"

"I doubt it," I said. "Surely somebody would have mentioned it to me earlier if this had been going on very long."

"Is it flattering?" Libby asked.

"My God, no! It's very weird."

"Laura was jealous. But why you, of all people? You're broke, your husband was an addict, and you've got more baggage than American Airlines."

"Thanks, Lib," I said tartly.

"I remember her at Rory Pendergast's funeral," Emma said thoughtfully. "And she did watch you, Nora. Flan carried a torch for you once, so maybe she's still taking it seriously. She may have been planning her makeover then."

"Those Southern girls can get very peculiar once they're sexually awakened."

"Anyway," I said, heading off Libby's next conversational train wreck, "that's not the end of the story."

"What happened after that?" Emma asked. "Did the White House guy escort you off the property at gunpoint? Did Flan take you back to the loo and have his wicked way with you?"

"No," I said. "I left the party, and Reed brought me home. But when I got ready for bed, I discovered Laura had stolen Grandmama's sapphire right off my finger."

Both my sisters gaped at my naked hand.

"Grandmama's ring!" Libby cried.

"How did she manage that?" Emma demanded.

"I can't figure it out. She must have slipped it off when we were sitting on the bed."

"The little sneak!"

"The little dead sneak," Emma reminded us.

My sisters and I allowed an uneasy moment of silence to pass in memory of Laura Cooper.

Then Libby said, "So all those rumors about her were true. She really was a kleptomaniac."

"How will you get it back, Nora?"

"I can't exactly go to the poor woman's funeral asking for my jewelry. After all, the whole family either knew about her behavior and hushed it up, or they genuinely didn't realize what she was doing and would be—oh, dear, and there's Flan."