She Sins at Midnight (9 page)

Lila walked around the side of the building and briefly scanned the vista for her phantom brood. They weren’t there but Jilly and her kids were all set up. Trevor was jumping in and out of the shallow end and Jack was lounging on a blow up Barney chair. Titty was sitting in her bouncy chair looking like a mini fashion plate with her white eyelet bubble suit and matching sun glasses.

When she saw Lila, Jilly jumped up and threw her arms around her, “If it isn’t my best friend in the whole world! Would you mind watching the kids for two shakes while I use the little girl’s room? You would not believe what a production it is to drag all three of them in there and then try to keep them out of trouble long enough to tinkle.”

Lila laughed at her friend’s theatrics. “Oh for heaven’s sakes Jilly, go. Get yourself a cup of coffee if you want. Go for a Jacuzzi and steam. I’d love nothing more than to watch your perfect little angels.”

Jilly scoffed, “Lila Montgomery, I am only going to do it because you are too naïve to know what you’re getting into. When I come back, you are never going to voluntarily watch these hellions again.” She warned, “So I may be gone for a full half-hour.”

Jilly ran off so fast that Lila had to smile. She picked up Titty from her bouncy seat and serenaded her with the only kid’s song that she could remember. Titty cooed and smiled and seemed to actually sing along to her rendition of The Wheels on the Bus. In that moment, Lila fell head over heels in love with Jilly’s perfect little girl.

A
fter a restless night’s sleep, Creigh finally got out of bed and made himself a feast of scrambled eggs, applewood smoked bacon, Russian rye toast and freshly squeezed grapefruit juice. As he squeezed the juice, his mind once again strayed to the woman at the airport. He wondered why. Then remembered that the perfume she wore had a subtle grapefruity smell to it. With a smile on his face, Creigh devoured his enormous breakfast and made the call he had been thinking about since the middle of the night.

The phone was picked up after only one ring, “Stanton Harper Reality. How may I direct your call?”

“Stan Harper, please.”

“May I tell Mr. Harper who is calling?”

“Tell him it’s Creighton Ashwood.”

He was buzzed right through. Stan boomed, “Creigh Ashwood, you old son of a gun. When did you get back into town?”

Creigh filled Stan in on his arrival and told him that he anticipated staying for about a month. He also imparted the news that he had changed his mind about selling his mother’s house.

Stan made no bones about how happy that made him, “Good, maybe this means that it’s time for you to move back to Bentley. You know we have lawyers here too.”

Creigh laughed, “Yeah, yeah, I know. But what you don’t have are movies and that’s the kind of law that I practice.”

“We’ve got movies. Ever seen “Risky Business?” Part of that was filmed here. Then there was that old Rob Lowe film “Class?” That was filmed at the Edgerton estate.”

Creigh chuckled, “Two movies filmed over thirty years ago do not a movie industry make.”

The friends continued to chat for several more minutes. Stan invited Creigh to come over for dinner that evening but Creigh informed him that he had a previous engagement. When Stan found out who that previous engagement was with, he let out a low whistle. “That’s some prime piece of real estate, my friend. Need me to come along and help you entertain?”

Creigh laughed, “It may be prime property, but everybody has lived there if you know what I mean. And, no, you can’t come along. Deedee would kill me if I included you on a night out with Melinda.”

“How about this? How ‘bout I come to dinner with you tonight and when you bring Johnny Depp to town, I let Deedee go out with the two of you?”

“How about you, me, Deedee and Katrina having dinner together tomorrow night, just the four of us? Stan laughingly agreed, but not without first trying to find out where Creigh would be dining with his movie star client.

After chatting with his old friend, Creigh decided to put his running shorts on and burn off a little steam. He was not at all looking forward to his dinner with Melinda Forrester and hoped that some vigorous exercise would help dispel some of his irritation.

Creigh was nearly the entire way around Sugar Lake when he passed the entrance to the North Hills Country Club. He immediately had a craving for his favorite tangerine ice so he turned around and jogged straight to the juice bar, already drooling like Pavlov’s dog.

With his extra-large citrus slushy in hand, Creigh walked around back to the pool. He loved to watch the kids splash around. It reminded him of all of his happy hours spent there as a boy. As he sat down, his gaze was instantly drawn to a vision across the water. The most glamorous woman he had ever seen was singing to a charming baby. Wow! Creigh thought she looked like Rita Hayworth only a million times better. He couldn’t seem to take his eyes off of her, so when she took off her sunglasses, he immediately recognized her as the beauty from the airport. And just as he predicted, she had the perfect life with a husband and baby.

At that moment, Aphrodite, or so he decided to name her, looked up and caught him staring. He smiled and waved and was just about to cross the pool to say hello when a tall redhead in a hot pink string bikini jumped right into his arms. “Hey you big hotty, I heard you were home!”

Creigh grabbed a chair to balance himself before they both went tumbling into the pool and laughed, “Katrina, you’re getting a little big to blindside me like that. We could’ve both wound up in the water.”

She tossed her head and popped a bubble with her gum, “No way. You’re too big and strong to drop your most cherished goddaughter.”

Creigh walked her over to the side of the pool and leaned out so that all he had to do was let go and she would fall in. Katrina squealed and grabbed him around the neck just as he released her causing him to topple in right after her. He shouted out his surprise and immediately went after her to dunk her under the water as punishment.

Lila watched the scene unfold and wanted to scream. It was the Lothario from the airport. Not only did he act like a nut job at the terminal at LAX, but he cuddled up to that bimbo on the plane and then had the nerve to give her a flirtatious wave? It looked like he was even going to come over to talk to her when a redheaded Lolilta jumped into his arms. Before he had a chance to get out of the pool and fulfill his intent, Lila scooped up the kids and hurried them into the ladies’ locker room. It was bad enough she had to put up with shallow playboy types in Hollywood. She was not going to tolerate them in Bentley.

Creigh watched as his goddess collected two more children from the pool before disappearing into the locker room. He shook his head and thought it was one thing to harmlessly flirt with a young mother with a baby, but to flirt with a mother with three kids was just asking for trouble. So he got out of the pool, toweled off and told Katrina that she owed him a ride home after pulling that stunt.

Katrina responded, “What stunt? You dropped me into the pool!”

Creigh ruffled her hair, “Had I only dropped you in the pool, that would have be the end of it. But you dragged me along with you and for that you owe me a ride home.”

Katrina laughed, “Okay then. If you dare to be seen in my hideously outdated car, come on.”

Creigh smiled at his goddaughter’s theatrics, “No one bought you new wheels for your birthday then?” He asked, knowing that a new car was her biggest fantasy in life.

Katrina rolled her eyes, “As if. I’ve been told more times than I can count that an eighteen year old girl, who is going away to college, needs a new car like she needs another head.” She continued on imitating her Father, “Katrina Harper, you are more than spoiled already. After all, neither your mother nor I had a new car until we bought it for ourselves.”

Creigh laughed, “Well, you
are
spoiled, brat.”

She turned on him indignantly, “No Creigh, I’m not, really. I get straight A’s, I have a scholarship to Northwestern and I volunteer twenty hours a week at the hospital as a candy striper. Does that sound spoiled to you?”

Creigh countered, “
That
sounds like a very upstanding citizen who will soon be able to afford her own brand new car.”

Katrina rolled her eyes again and accused, “You people are dinosaurs you know.” On that note, the two of them traipsed off toward the parking lot.

J
illy had no idea what Lila was carrying on about. Something to do with a man named Julius, Playboy Playmates and an airplane? It didn’t make any sense. She tried to soothe, “Lila, calm down and start at the beginning. Who is Julius? And what does he have to do with what just happened at the pool?”

Lila explained all the pertinent details leaving out
She Sins at Midnight
. She merely told her that the man from the pool looked like someone she knew who was named Julius.

Incredulously, Jilly asked, “You know someone named Julius, as in Julius Caesar?”

Lila replied, “Jilly, that’s not the point. The point is that this, this… gigolo… has women coming out of his ears and he dared to smile at me as if I might be just another notch on his bedpost. And,” she ranted, “I was holding a baby! What kind of a pig flirts with a woman holding a baby? He didn’t even know that she isn’t mine.”

Jilly pined, “I wish some gorgeous pig would flirt with me. God, it would do wonders for my self-esteem if I still felt attractive to the opposite sex.”

Lila responded, “Bill is obviously attracted to you.” She indicating the children around them, “I mean, please, you have three kids.”

Her friend shook her head, “You don’t get it, Li. Bill
has
to be attracted to me. He’s stuck with me. I’d just like to get some outside validation once in awhile that I still have
it
whatever
it
is. I mean I look at you and think your life is ideal. You’re tall, you’re gorgeous. Incredibly handsome men flirt with you even when you’re holding a baby.”

Lila shook her head, “Jilly, you are the one who has everything.”

Jilly pointed to her shirt which was covered in a pattern that Lila was sure wasn’t the original, “Oh yeah, I have it all. See this stain? Baby vomit. See this one? Raspberry jelly.” Then she tugged on the ends of her hair. “See my glamorous hair? Hasn’t been trimmed in eight months.”

Before she could continue, Lila pointed to Trevor, “See that beautiful boy? Yours.” Then she pointed to Jack, “See that beautiful boy? Yours.” Bouncing Titty in her arms, she added, “See this gorgeous girl? Yours again!” With tears in her eyes, Lila asked, “What more could you possibly want?”

Jilly was little choked up as well and answered, “I know I have a good life, Li. It’s just that sometimes I get a little envious for what I don’t have. You know what I mean?”

Lila reached out and grabbed her friend’s hand, “Yeah, Jilly, I do. I see you with your perfect family and husband who adores you and it makes me feel like I haven’t accomplished anything in my life. I look at you and think that
you
have it all.”

Jilly threw her arms around her friend’s neck and sobbed, “Li, you can never go back to California, okay? I need you to stay here and tell me how great my life is. Because when you say it, I almost believe it.”

Later that afternoon, the girls deposited the boys at their swimming class and proceeded to the club’s dining room for lunch. Lila asked her friend, “How’s your mom doing these days?”

Jilly rolled her eyes, “She’s nuttier than ever. I swear I don’t know how I turned out as normal as I did with Libby as my role model. You know she’s taking a class at the community college in kick boxing? Last semester it was underwater basket weaving.”

Libby Simms had always marched to her own tune. Consequently, Lila always thought that she was the coolest of her friend’s parents. She used to let the girls do things that other parents would have had an apoplectic fit over. Like allowing them use all her make-up and clothes to play dress up. She let them stay up as long as they wanted at sleepovers. They could eat anything in the kitchen and play music as loud as their hearts desired. These were the reasons Jilly limited her mom’s unsupervised babysitting time. She was afraid grandma would spoil her kids rotten and she wanted them to grow up with something that she never had; a sense of structure.

Jilly added, “You know she’s teaching Jack Pig Latin.” She went on to explain some of Jack’s other accomplishments, including changing the message on the answering machine to include a litany of swear words. “Plus, he can whistle spectacularly loud, burp the alphabet and make fart noises on his armpit.”

Lila exclaimed, “He’s going to be the coolest kid in the neighborhood. Remember how long it took us to learn how to make fart noises?”

“But we were eleven. Jack is only three!”

Lila laughed, “Is your mom dating anyone?” Albert Simms left his wife and family the year that Jilly turned fifteen. He was a very stuffy man who was never around even when he and Libby were married. Unfortunately, he died a couple of years later, so Jilly never had an opportunity to make peace with that relationship.”

Jilly answered, “Oh yeah, she’s dating Jim Delworth, the pharmacist.”

Smiling knowingly, Lila asked, “You mean Jim Delworth who is only about fifty years old?”

“Yep. Mom has decided to try her hand at robbing the cradle. So she hooked up with a guy eleven years younger than she is.”

Lila exclaimed, “Good for her. Would it bother you if she were dating a man eleven years older?”

Jilly answered, “No, but that’s different. Oh shut up. So it’s not different. But it’s my mom. What if it was your mom?” Lila took that opportunity to re-explain the sexy goings-on at Casa Montgomery. Jilly laughed, “At least they’re married to each other.”

“Prude.”

Jilly’s eyes bugged out, “Well if that’s not the pot calling the kettle black.”

Lila insisted, “I am not a prude. And if a man were willing to invest more than three dates to the cause he might just find that out.”

After finishing the last bit of their shared lemon meringue pie, Lila spotted a face that she hadn’t seen in fifteen years. She whispered to Jilly, “Don’t look now, but isn’t that Jessica Bowman?”