The First Wives Club (2 page)

But now there was no time. There wasn’t even time to think any more about Cynthia. Only things to do. Annie told herself she had better get moving. In the immaculate tiled kitchen she went to the built-in desk in the corner beside the window. Here was where she did her writing, stuff that didn’t amount to much. She’d published only two books of short stories, one just before her marriage, the other after, and both long, long before her children.

But Aaron and her growing family had made her quit. The third book wasn’t good enough for publication, he had said. Probably he was right. Still, she kept it up and the manuscripts piled up in the desk drawers.

She reached into the second desk drawer and found her large phone book.

A reproduction of a Mary Cassatt was on the cover, a painting of a mother and her little girl. Annie sighed. All at once she longed for a cup of coffee, good and strong, with a lot of sugar. She’d given up both, but she could use the jolt now. No. Bad idea. Instead, she put some water on for tea and then sat down at the desk.

First, of course, she’d dial Brenda, her best friend in New York.

Brenda was funny, solid, honest. But sometimes, well, not sensitive.

Still, Annie wanted to call her, to be reassured and ground. She looked at her watch, the gold Cartier Panther that she never took off.

She liked always to know the time. It was almost a quarter to seven.

She hated to do it to Brenda. While Annie was naturally an early riser, she knew Brenda sometimes slept till noon, and they had an agreement that Annie wasn’t to call before eleven. Well, that rule wasn’t in force now. Annie punched one digit and her automatic dialer beeped the familiar tones into her ear. Not surprisingly, it rang quite a few times before it was answered.

“Who the fuck is this?” Brenda’s voice was always husky, but at this hour it was a virtual growl.

”It’s me. I’m sorry to wake you but—” “Not as sorry as you’re going to be. What the fuck time is it, anyway? Jesus Christ, Annie, it’s not even seven o’clock. Your only hope is that it’s seven at night and I slept through the whole goddamned day.”

“Brenda, I wouldn’t call if it weren’t serious.”

“Are you upset about Sylvie leaving? I’ll wake up. Is that it?”

“No. No. It’s not that. Cynthia Griffin died.”

“Who?”

”Cynthia Griffin. You know, Carla’s mother.” Brenda’s son, Tony, had briefly been in a class with Carla at Country Day.

”Shit. Well, it’s a damn shame when anyone dies, but what are you calling me for? At six A.M.?”

”The funeral’s tomorrow morning.”

“Jesus, what did she die of, the plague? Why are they sinking her so fast?”’ “Brenda, she killed herself. She did it a couple of nights ago. They didn’t find her until yesterday. A very bad scene, apparently.”

“Jesus.” Brenda was silent for a few moments. ‘Christ, she had the balls to check out, huh? I’m surprised. She was such a cold, snotty WASP.” Annie thought of Cynthia’s hot tears on her shoulder at the hospital. Sometimes Brenda was completely impossible. A reverse snob, and always hiding her feelings with wisecracks.

”Are you going or not?”

“Of course I’m going. Where and when?”

“Ten o’clock at Campbell’s.”

Brenda groaned again. “Gil couldn’t wait to bury her, huh? What a strunz.” ”I’m going to call Hudson and have him drive me. If you want, I’ll pick you up at nine.”’ Another groan. “Jesus, Annie, it doesn’t take an hour to drive ten blocks, even in Manhattan. Anyway, this week the city is a ghost town. Everyone’s pushing Memorial Day.

They’re out at the Hamptons, or up in Connecticut. And there’s no airport checkin at Campbell’s. Make it ten. We’ll be fashionably late.”

Annie sighed. “I’ll pick you up at nine-thirty. Don’t keep me waiting. Now I’ve got to go. I’ve got calls to make.”

“What calls?”

”Gil asked me to help, to let some people know.”

“Nothing like short notice to help keep down the turnout.”

”Oh, it’s not as if he planned it that way.”

“Wanna bet?”

“With a thing like this I suppose it’s best to make it as discreet as possible.”

“You gonna call Aaron?”

Annie felt something in her chest flutter. “I hadn’t thought of it.”

She paused. He should be told. He’d want to come. He always considered Cynthia flaky, but he had liked her. Annie was going to see her ex-husband the day after tomorrow, at their elder son’s graduation from Harvard. She’d hoped it would be a happy time, that maybe . .

.

She thought of calling him now, of the possibility of another woman answering the phone.

“I’ll call him for you,” Brenda offered. sensing Annie’s hesitation.

“Would you?”

“Sure. It would be a pleasure to wake that dickweed up early.”

Brenda blamed Aaron for leaving Annie, but Annie herself still couldn’t go that far. And secretly, she still hoped. Well, perhaps Cynthia’s tragedy would bring them together again.

”Thanks, Brenda. See you tomorrow at half-past nine. Go back to sleep.”

She hung up and crossed to the range, turning off the flame under the kettle.

She’d have to call Elise next, but she wasn’t looking forward to it.

And then all the other phone numbers she’d have to track down. Plus there was packing to finish for Sylvie, and tranquilizers for the cat to be picked up from the vet. She had to select her clothes for the graduation and have Ernesta pack her overnight bag. Then she’d think about the funeral. She’d have to dress.

Aaron would see her. She felt the flutter in her chest again. Vanity, vanity.

As if it mattered what she wore or how she looked. Cynthia was dead.

But still. She would see Aaron. Maybe talk to him. Maybe even cry together. Oh, Aaron. I could use comfort now. But Aaron was still angry at her over Sylvie.

Over sending Sylvie away to school. Although he himself didn’t visit their daughter much since he’d moved out, and wasn’t participating in her care, he didn’t want her sent away to school.

Annie looked over at the neat breakfast setting that waited for her and Sylvie on the table. She’d set it last night, in another universe, before she’d heard the news about Cynthia.

Annie realized she was still holding the kettle. Suddenly she turned, roughly shoving it back on the range. With renewed energy she reached for the refrigerator and began rooting through the freezer. Somewhere in there was a pound of French-roast Brazilian coffee, and she was going to have a cup. After all, she was alone now and no one would see her fall from grace. One of the few comforts of the deserted wife.

All at once a wave of loneliness hit her so hard that she had to clutch the side of the refrigerator until her knuckles whitened. She thought of the day she had stood in the same spot, watching, as Aaron walked through the kitchen with his clothes packed, ready to leave them at the service door. “I’ll just bring these two with me and have the porter hold the rest downstairs,” he had said.

Annie had nodded silently.

“I’m going to stay at the Carlyle for a while. And you can reach me at the office during the day.”

She had nodded again, mute, stupid with sorrow and confusion.

“Let’s just try to give each other some space, okay?”

“Space is the last thing I need,” Annie had said. She knew the moment she said it how forlorn it sounded.

He looked at her kindly. At heart, Aaron was kind. “Don’t look so tragic, Annie. This too shall pass,” he said. Then he was gone.

He had said it was a temporary separation, but he had lied. Aaron —her college sweetheart, her love, the good father to her sons, the man she believed in above all others—he had walked.out. She clutched the refrigerator handle, dizzy from the memory.

She stood alone in her shining, immaculate, empty kitchen until the feeling passed. Annie thought again of Dr. Rosen, her therapist for over three years, who had so abruptly terminated her. Perhaps she should call her, just for help to get through this latest episode. But Dr. Rosen had hurt her, had called her a “dependent personality” and “a martyr,” and though a part of Annie agreed with the diagnosis, she wanted to prove Dr. Rosen wrong.

Annie knelt and stroked Pangor. “Are you hungry, baby?” she said, opening a can of Ocean Feast, his favorite cat food, grateful for the activity, grateful for the cat’s affection, even if it was tied to his stomach. Maybe, if she took pains with her makeup, if she got to the funeral early, maybe she’d see Aaron. The divorce was so recent.

Despite this separation, the fight over Sylvie, maybe he was as unhappy without her as she was without him. Though he hadn’t seemed unhappy two nights ago when he called about the graduation plans. But this news would rock him. Perhaps now they’d talk. He’d look at her and remember that once, once, it had been so very good. Maybe the funeral would bring back some of the past, the past worth saving, worth cherishing.

Maybe.

Annie was the kind of woman who believed in taking actions, and to some extent it worked for her. She was healthy and attractive and had managed to marry well, bear and raise three children, nurture strong friendships, do a great deal of charity work, survive a separation, create this perfect home and a life of some elegance and comfort in the costliest and perhaps most beautiful square in Manhattan’s Upper East Side. She could still turn men’s heads, though she knew she was subtle rather than stunning. But she was alone, and her husband had abandoned her. The trouble was that, like Cynthia, Annie was only the first wife.

Campbell’s Soup.

Probably half of the wealthy WASPs in the so-called silk stocking district of Manhattan and virtually all of its celebrities are buried out of Campbell’s Funeral Home. It is also a second home to paparazzi, who snap pictures of the bereaved family and friends (when it is a noteworthy death) and are then served coffee and doughnuts (charged to the funeral) at the side entrance.

Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. Here we go again, Larry Cochran thought, loading his camera. The people who buy the tabloids eat up those haggard faces in the photos.

Today’s, however, was not a noteworthy death. When Larry Cochran showed up, it was simply because he had nothing better to do and also because he could use the free breakfast. He quickly checked out the scene and immediately gave up hope of a score. Some matron from Connecticut. No one anyone ever heard of.

Typical. He’d been running low on luck for weeks.

He spent a little while bullshitting with Bob Collechio, who ran the catering.

He didn’t want it to be too obvious that he was scarfing up the pastries like an animal and trying to stay in out of the rain. His press pass expired at the end of June, and if he didn’t get some shots soon, he’d not only be penniless but undocumented. It never ceased to amaze him that things really could always get worse, and usually did.

“So, anything new?” he asked Bob.

“Well, this one was a cute job. She offed herself. A cutter. The spic maid found her a couple of nights later, emptied out in the bathtub. Didn’t need to drain her before they embalmed her, but I hope the big shot bastid ex-husband don’t expect no discount. It was a rush job. Brought her in yesterday and they’re sinkin’ her today.”

Larry internally winced at spic and at his own image of the sanguine bathtub.

Larry was visual. He saw things that other people described. Which helped him make his living as a photographer and film editor, he admitted, but made his internal world almost too graphic. He needed cooperation from Bob, but felt like a worm dealing with him.

“So why the rush?”

“Ah, she’s the first wife of some big deal Wall Street guy, ya know, and now he’s got the new one stashed on Park Avenue, so I guess he don’t want no muss, no fuss, know what I mean?” He winked at Larry.

“It ain’t good for business when you lose the ladies’ sympathy vote, ya know.” He laughed, a tinny sound that seesawed unpleasantly.

“So what’s her name?” Okay, it was a long shot, but maybe there was something in it.

“Griffin.”

“As in Gil Griffin? Gil Griffin’s first wife?” This could be news.

Everyone knew Gilbert Griffin. He was the barracuda of hostile takeovers, one of the big players at the big players’ table. And he was class. Not like Boesky or Milken. Discreet. Well, he had been until the scandal broke over his office romance with that blond M.B.A he was mentoring, the one with the slightly horsey face and the unbelievable body. He’d denied it for months in the press, talked about his home and wife, but then when the pressure was off him, he divorced the first one and married the M.B.A. After a brief new flare-up the Boardroom Sex Scandal headlines had died down. Now Larry couldn’t even remember the M.B.A’s name, or the name of Gil’s first wife either.

He was real bad with names, but great with faces. What do you expect from a photographer? He looked up on the bulletin board over Bob’s head. Cynthia. Cynthia Griffin. “Listen, thanks for the tip. I think I’ll stick around.”

The tip paid off when, a few minutes later, a big black Mercedes limo pulled up and Elise Elliot Atchison stepped out. Of course, Larry recognized her immediately. He’d know those bones anywhere, the shape of her unforgettable face. She was wearing a deep navy suit with a creamy white blouse, and her long, long legs were sheathed in silky stockings that matched her simple beige high-heeled pumps. Her hair, a dozen shades of blond, was pulled back into a French braid, and her eyes were hidden by enormous sunglasses, her head swathed in a dark blue chiffon scarf.

Only last week, Larry had seen one of her old films, a favorite of his, Walking in the Dark. Now he lifted his camera for a shot, but he had taken so long to make his move that he missed her. That hadn’t happened in a long time.

He realized he was actually excited. And it wasn’t because he could sell the photograph, which he was sure he could do. It was because he actually was impressed. He, Larry Cochran, New York newshound and filmmaker-to-be was impressed. She must be, what, fifty-five?

Sixty?

She’d come along right after Grace Kelly, had been promoted as her successor. Well, however old Elise Elliot must be, she still looked beautiful. Larry wondered briefly how she knew this Cynthia Griffin, but immediately flashed on the scene in Nobody’s Fool, when the Elise Elliot character had attended her sister’s funeral. This could have been a replay, but thirty years later. Too bad he’d missed the shot, but he’d hang around and get her coming out.