The First Wives Club (13 page)

And Aaron. Aaron, his name became a litany. Please, God, let him love me. Let this be a worthy prayer.

She’d guessed correctly that the Jesuits wouldn’t give up vespers. The service began and the chanting and incense transported her, weaving its simple cloak of peace around her. For a moment, she lost sense of time and place. Then suddenly, like an answered prayer, she knew what had to be done. I’ll call him! I’ve been too cold. I’ll tell him how I feel. I’ll show him. Perhaps he doesn’t know. But he must know.

I’ll tell him. Yes, this was right. Feeling inspired, empowered, she genuflected beside the pew and whispered, “Thank you,” to the echoing emptiness and quickly left the church.

Annie found a pay phone on Madison Avenue. Of course, she thought, he’s waiting for me to call him. He is unsure. He’s afraid it will be like it was. He doesn’t know how I’ve changed. How I’ve grown. How different things will be now that Sylvie is gone. Why didn’t I think of this before?

There was no shaking in her hand as she dialed Aaron’s number at the Carlyle, no tremor in her voice as she asked for him. What if he was away for the weekend? What if he was out on a shoot or at the office?

Not until she heard his voice did she feel the panic. He did love her, didn’t he? He’d said so.

“Aaron, it’s Annie. I’ve got to see you.”’ “Annie. Is something wrong?”

“No. No. But it’s very important, Aaron. I have something to tell you. May I come over to see you?”

”Now? Today? Is it necessary?”

She pushed against the reluctance in his voice. “Now,” she said firmly. After he agreed, Annie put the phone back on the hook and wiped her moist hands on her skirt. Too bad she wasn’t well dressed.

Well, this couldn’t wait. She walked the few short blocks down Madison Avenue, her eyes looking straight ahead. When she got to the Carlyle, she realized she was breathing rapidly and willed herself to slow.

Quietly, as calmly as she could, she crossed the small lobby. No one stopped her. Even in her casual clothes she looked as if she belonged.

She took the elevator up to his floor.

She rang Aaron’s bell and waited. Oh, God, no answer. She rang again and waited. When Aaron finally opened the door, Annie sucked in her breath at the sight of him.

“Annie, I didn’t expect you so quickly. Come in,” he said, closing the door behind her as she entered the sitting room. He continued, “You must have been at the corner when you called. I didn’t realize.”

She looked around the small but elegant room. Who paid for this? she wondered idly. She supposed his firm did. “I talked to Sylvie,” Aaron said, almost defensively.

‘ Oh?”

“Yes, I talked to her yesterday. She says she likes school. We had a good talk. Maybe the place is okay.”’ He paused, running out of words.

Annie walked to the window and looked down onto Madison Avenue. She saw couples walking arm in arm, and at this moment it seemed to her like an omen.

Yes, people should be in couples. Aaron and she would be reunited.

Thank God.

“This is an amazing view. So different from ours.”’ Then, for the first time, she lost her composure and blushed. “I mean, of Gracie Square.” She stopped for a moment, disconcerted. This was going to be harder than she’d thought. “One could look out this window for hours, or days even.”’ “Would you believe I haven’t looked out it once since I’m here.” Aaron laughed, averting his face. This was going nowhere.

She felt the pressure to do something.

Annie walked around the room, feeling suddenly selfconscious. Her skirt was ridiculous, and Aaron noticed these things. She sat on the sofa, while Aaron walked over to the small bar. “Would you like a sherry?” he asked. She accepted, then held her glass while he poured himself a Scotch and took two quick sips. He looked over at her as he sat down in the club chair. She could see the strain on his face.

”Is there something wrong, Annie? If it isn’t Sylvie, is it one of the boys?”

He sat forward in his chair.

“Oh, no, nothing like that. They’re all fine, Aaron,” she assured him quickly.

He looked so handsome, his warm skin so smooth, his black hair so very shiny.

And he loved her. He’d said so. But she couldn’t help but notice that he had taken off his wedding band. She’d never removed hers.

She took a sip of sherry to bolster her resolve and placed the glass on the coffee table between them. At that moment, her love for him was so strong, she was certain that he would feel it, would know and return it. “Aaron, I’m going to be very direct,” she said. “I think I can be that with you, after all. I’ve done a lot of thinking since Alex’s graduation, and I’ve made a decision.”

With surprise, she watched Aaron get up and walk to the half-opened door to the next room. Why did he always move away from strong feelings? ‘No, please, Aaron. Let me say what I’ve come to say.” She motioned him back to his chair.

Reluctantly he returned. ‘I’ve been waiting for your call since then.

I was beginning to think you didn’t call me because you didn’t want to.

It wasn’t until sitting in church today that I realized why you hadn’t called.”

”Church?” Aaron asked irrelevantly. “Since when do you go to church?”

Annie clasped her hands together on her lap and sat straighter, as if to give emphasis to her words. “You were afraid of hurting me again.

You needed me to call you. And I think you need to know just how much I love you. So, here I am, Aaron. To let you know I’d like us to try again.”

She looked around the elegant but anonymous room and said, ‘Come home, Aaron.

This isn’t the place for you. We’ll start over, without the strain of Sylvie.

She’s doing well now, Aaron. And for us the good things we shared could get better. I know that now.” Annie smiled and opened her hands, palms up. But Aaron slumped down into his chair. Annie looked at him and blinked. “You do want this as much as I do, don’t you?”

she asked.

”But you don’t understand, Annie,” he blurted. “It’s over.”

“Over?”

“Annie, we’re divorced. Remember? Our marriage is over.”

“Well, that was started a year ago. But things changed. How could it be over, Aaron? Up in Boston—” “Nothing happened in Boston, Annie,” Aaron interrupted. “We just had a good time at our son’s graduation.”

His eyes flickered toward the bedroom door.

What was he so nervous about? Annie wondered for a moment. Then, the force of what he had said began to break through the wall of hope and magic and crazy, childish religion she had conjured up to buttress her obsession. Her face reddened with the humiliation and her body began to shake. It couldn’t hurt more if he had hit her. But no, it couldn’t be. It couldn’t be that it was all over. Not when he had told her he loved her. Not when he’d taken her to bed.

Not when he sat there now, just across from her, so warm, his flesh so good, so healthy, so male.

“Annie,” he said gently, ‘I’m getting married.”

Annie’s hand went to her throat, as if to choke the scream she was hearing in her head. “Getting married, Aaron? What do you mean?”’ “Just that, Annie. We’re divorced, and now I’m getting married.”

”Just like that?” Was she going crazy? Perhaps he didn’t love her.

But he certainly couldn’t love anyone else. This wasn’t possible .

.

. it couldn’t be. It left her breathless.

“Not just like that. Believe me. Not just like that,” Aaron sighed.

Still she couldn’t believe it. He was making it up. It was insane.

He’d have to prove it. Like a child, she had to demand proof. “To whom? Whom are you marrying?” Annie heard her voice and realized it was almost shrill.

”Leslie Rosen.”’ “Who?” The name seemed familiar.

“Dr. Rosen. I’m marrying Leslie Rosen.”

For a moment she paused. It wasn’t true. This was a joke.

Unbelievable. Not her Dr. Rosen. Then she laughed, confused.

“Aaron, you can’t. She was my therapist. My sex therapist. You didn’t even like her. You only consulted with her twice, and you didn’t even like her.”

“Annie, that was almost two years ago. Things have changed since then.

”Yes. You’ve left me and Dr. Rosen terminated me.” Annie felt her heart begin to pound, her face flush with blood. “Is this what that was about?”’ She gasped. “Oh, my God, Aaron. How long has this been happening?” She covered her face with her hands. And then she thought again of the Ritz.

“You made love to me, Aaron. You came into my bed and came inside me.

It was like it used to be, Aaron. You even said so.”

The door to the bedroom swung open and Leslie Rosen walked into the room.

‘That was all a long time ago, Anne. Come on now. This daydreaming, this living in the past must stop.” She strolled over to Aaron’s side of the room and placed her hand on his shoulder. “You’re still playing the victim, Anne.”

Annie’s mouth opened. Her face burned. Oh, God. They had betrayed her. Aaron.

Dr. Rosen. Both of them. And now to have the two of them witness her humiliation was more than she could tolerate. She jumped to her feet, her hands clutched in fists at her sides, her wedding ring cutting into the tender flesh of her ring finger.

“I’m the only one in this room who isn’t crazy,” she said, spitting the words out in tight little gasps. She was absolutely breathless, so she paused for a moment. They must be able to hear my heart pounding.

Aaron sat there, staring at her, Dr. Rosen stood behind him.

Silent.

United. She looked at them and for a moment the room actually seemed to swim around her. Dr. Rosen’s hand remained on Aaron’s shoulder, as if she claimed him as her property.

“I didn’t understand,” Annie muttered. ‘I didn’t know you hated me so much.”

Tears filled her eyes, but she refused to cry in front of them. She focused on Aaron. “I can only believe that you’ve gone insane.”

She would not cry, but the pain was intolerable. She averted her face.

She felt like a small child in the presence of two cruel and sadistic older children. She must get away from these people before they could hurt her more.

She breathed deliberately and tried to move.

“I am going,” she said quietly. ‘Don’t speak to me. I hate you both.

You are demented, both of you. I am going.”

As she took her first step, a rush of dizziness nearly felled her again, but she managed to rise, groping for something, a chair, anything, to help her get out of there. Shaking, she turned her back on them and walked to the door. Her feet felt leaden, weighted to the floor. It seemed to take a very long time to cross the room. Finally, with her hand on the knob, she looked over her shoulder.

“Oh. By the way. I might be living in the past. Daydreaming, as you said. But Aaron did fuck me in Boston. The past in this case is less than a week ago,” she said. ‘And he fucked me in all senses of the word.” She opened the door, and with as much dignity as she could muster, she left them there.

Elise Is Not Amused.

Bill had asked Elise to have lunch with him. That was unusual, but of course having any meal with Bill lately was unusual. She spent a lot of time alone in Greenwich, or in East Hampton during the summers.

Manhattan made her feel claustrophobic. Let’s face it, Elise, New York belongs to all those women who work. Like Linda Robinson, Tina Brown, Alice Mason, and that dreadful Mary Birmingham, who’d taken Gil Griffin from Cynthia. Even that poor flake Mary McFadden managed to work.

Yes, New York was for the shining workers. So what if she got the best tables at Mortimer’s, Le Cirque, and the other spots for ladies who lunch, she always felt disposable and on stage window dressing for the people who really mattered.

Again her mind flashed back to Room 705 and her indiscretion last week.

Oh, God. Well, I won’t think about it. But he had a camera. I distinctly remember a camera, she thought. Then she pushed the whole episode out of her mind. I’ll first stop off at Martha’s to see what they might have, then lunch with Bill.

She felt comfortable at Martha’s, the most exclusive shop in the city.

There she would pull herself together without having to worry about being watched, without having to endure presumptuous salesgirls.

As Elise rode to Manhattan, she became aware of how uncomfortable —physically uncomfortable—she felt in her skin. She avoided the urge to pour a vodka from the console in front of her and fidgeted instead at her hemline, her hair, then her skirt again. I’m dressed like a Greenwich matron going to the city for lunch, she thought. I can’t even shop in these clothes.

The image frightened her, so she pushed the button of the intercom to her driver and said, “I want to stop at the apartment first.” I have to get out of this outfit, she told herself.

Riding up in the elevator, she wished she had thought to have Chessie come back to the city with her. She longed for Chessie’s tender, discreet ministrations and her impeccable taste, but here in Manhattan they only had the butler, cook, and cleaning woman. Elise, like Oscar Wilde, was easily satisfied by the best, but it was getting harder and harder to find. How would she get along if Chessie ever left her?

Chessie looked after her wardrobe and her hair and her calendar. Well, Chessie would never leave, so don’t let’s worry about it, she told herself.

Yes, don’t let’s worry. The worry was poisoning her life, increasing her drinking, telling on her looks. She looked at herself in the elevator mirror and managed a smile. She’d dress and make up even more carefully than usual.

She’d stun them when she met Bill for lunch.

Entering the apartment, she went directly to her bedroom, which was large and high ceilinged, with an Austrian crystal chandelier that Elise absolutely never turned on. Overhead lights were decimating.

Her rooms were lit by table lamps that all had sixty-watt pink-toned bulbs, and the shades were all lined with pink silk. The walls were also pink, a shade that helped reflect color kindly. Detailed Adams plaster moldings graced the walls as well, and there were two recessed niches with shell-like arches at the top. Each niche held a priceless porcelain vase that Elise had inherited from her mother’s vast collection, now housed in its own wing at the Metropolitan. Otherwise, the room was surprisingly ordinary, furnished in slightly dated (and slightly tatty) upholstered furniture.