The Good House: A Novel (28 page)

“You know,” I said, “the thing that bothers me the most about this whole situation is that it sounds like what you need is a good shrink, and the best one around is now your ex-boyfriend.”

“WHAT? I can NOT believe you just said that.”

“Said what?”

“EX-boyfriend.”

“You just told me he doesn’t want to see you anymore.”

Now Frankie had clasped my wrist. “Hang up,” he said, aloud this time. I shook my head and moved the phone over so that we could both listen to Rebecca’s ranting.

“That’s how he says he feels right now. It’s not how he really feels. That’s why I need you to talk to him. Please, Hildy. I think … I think he’s trying to get away from Elise and can’t. She has this almost satanic power over him. It’s sick.…”

“Okay, Rebecca, I have to go back to sleep. I have to go to work tomorrow.”

“Hildy”—Rebecca sniffled—“will you please try to talk to him? I had a bad crash on Tricky the other day. I trailer him over to the hunt club sometimes to use the ring. I set up an ‘in and out.’ I guess our stride was off. We crashed trying to jump the second jump. Tricky fell. He almost landed on me. It’s because I was so distracted. All I can think about is Peter. If you talk to him, I know you can get him to see the right thing to do.…”

I felt a slow rage coming over me. Mamie had told me about Rebecca’s bad fall. She had also told me that Rebecca was banned from riding at the hunt club unless she started working with one of the trainers there. Mamie said she had heard from Linda Barlow that Rebecca was planning to send Hat Trick back down to Trevor Brown in Florida.

“She’s ruining that horse,” Mamie had said bitterly. “What a waste.”

Now Rebecca wanted to use poor Hat Trick, and me, to manipulate Peter Newbold. A man I had known since he was a toddler. A man whose father gave us lollipops when we were vaccinated, who stopped by the house, frequently, after my mom died, just to check on my dad.

“I’m not planning on seeing Peter, Rebecca,” I said finally. “Imagine how upset he’d be if he knew we’d had this conversation. I’m not getting involved in this. I have nothing against Peter.”

“Ha, that’s very kind of you, considering the things he’s said to me about you. He told me that you’re a drunk and a manipulative scammer with your psychic act and that I was crazy to have ever let you suck all that information out of me. He called you a vampire. ‘Like an emotional vampire’ were his exact words when he described your tricks.…”

“Good-bye, Rebecca,” I said. I was shaking, but I tried not to let it show in my voice.

“Wait, no, Hildy…”

Frank pulled the phone from my grip and slammed it down on the table, and I burst into tears.

“What are you doin’? Aw, Hildy. Don’t cry, I told you she’s a crazy bitch.”

“Why would Peter say such mean things about me?” I sobbed. “I’ve never done anything to Peter.”

“Hildy, baby, don’t listen to that crazy bitch. She made that all up. Listen to me, now. Stay away from her.”

*   *   *

When I arrived at my office the next morning, Kendall gave me my messages. One was from Ron Bates, the real-estate lawyer. The other two were from Rebecca. I called Ron and he told me he had a client who wanted to buy the Dwight house. They were offering the asking price, $475,000. Cash.

“Who’s the buyer?” I asked. I was thrilled, of course. I had shown the Dwights’ house several times since we had put it back on the market, but the place was always in such disarray, it just seemed like a waste of time.

“The buyer wants to remain anonymous. Wendover Crossing LLC is the name on the offering sheet.”

“It must be the Clarksons, the couple who own the lot next door. That’s a smart move, to combine the properties. When do they want to close?”

“They said they’re not in any rush, but they could close right away if necessary.”

I hung up and immediately called Cassie with the news. She was ecstatic. The school in Newton had a summer program. If the buyer could do an early closing, they could move as soon as they found a new place.

When the Dwight agreement arrived, I drove it over to Cassie’s. Jake was home from school, sick, so she couldn’t get to my office. She greeted me at the door enthusiastically. Jake was standing behind her, swaying and singing incoherently.

“He knows I’m excited.” Cassie smiled. “He heard me telling Patch over the phone and he knows something exciting is going on,” Cassie said, beaming at Jake. The boy had grown, just in the months since I had seen him last.

“Hi, Jake,” I said, but he just kept singing and swaying. Cassie and I sat at the table and she signed all the papers.

“I called the school in Newton. They have a summer program that starts in June and they’re holding a spot for Jake. Patch and I are going to look at some houses tomorrow, when Jake’s in school.”

“I’m so happy for you all,” I said, and I truly was. The Dwights deserved a break and now they were getting one.

“Let me know when you find a place and we’ll set up a closing date,” I said as I left, and even though we’re not the touchy-feely type, either of us, Cassie hugged me tight before she locked the door behind me.

seventeen

I found out about Peter Newbold’s plan to sell his house from, of all people, Henry Barlow. Henry, the self-appointed AA spokesmodel, who used the Coffee Bean as his little personal sobriety salon.

I had planned to go into the office that Sunday, just a week before Memorial Day, because I wanted to start working on the Santorelli proposal without Kendall and the phones to distract me. I decided I would grab a coffee at the coffee shop, imagining that I would be the only one there at seven o’clock on a Sunday morning. I had imagined wrong. Henry was arriving just as I was, and he greeted me with a warm hug and a big “Mornin’, Hildy.”

We ordered our coffees and Henry asked me how I was doing. It was such a loaded question. He didn’t want to know about my health, or my business, or my grandchild—all the things that mattered to me. He wanted to know if I was “sober.” Well, yes, I was sober, so I said, “I’m doing great, Henry. Really great. Business is a little slow this time of year, but the weather is starting to warm up and people are beginning to look. I have a few exciting listings coming up.”

“Yeah, I hear the Newbolds are sellin’. Whatta they askin’ for that place? Right there on the beach and everythin’. Gotta be worth a wicked lot, that place.”

“The Newbolds?” I said. “Peter and Elise Newbold?”

“Yeah, Doc Newbold’s kid.”

“I don’t know anything about that,” I said.

“What? I thought you’d be the broker. Doesn’t he have his office in your building?”

“I think you’re mistaken, Henry. They’re not selling, as far as I know,” I said.

“Yeah, well, I’m pretty sure they are. Hannah Mason told me. She does their cleanin’. They’ve been cleanin’ out their attic, the cellar, the garage. Newbold’s wife was up all last week, driving her crazy. They’re trying to get the house ready to be shown. That’s what Hannah told me anyway.”

I just stood there staring at him. It was a little bit much to take in.

“See, if you came to more meetin’s, Hildy, you’d know all the stuff that goes on in this town.”

I had forgotten that Hannah was in AA. It was true, what Henry had said. People never talked about local gossip during the meetings, but afterward, when people stood around sipping coffee or smoking cigarettes outside of the churches, that was when you could really get an earful. The kid with the pierced eyebrow who ran the Coffee Bean handed me my coffee.

“You’re sure about this, Henry?” I asked.

“Yup,” he replied.

“Thanks.” I went out, got in my car, and drove to Wind Point Road. The Newbolds’ house stood there, as it always had, a Federal-era beauty at the end of a private road, right on a private beach. It had been in the Newbold family for generations. It was worth millions. There was no broker’s sign on the lawn. Yet. But if what Henry had told me was true, if the Newbolds had been talking to a broker, the only alternative to me, really, at this end of the market, would be Wendy Heatherton at Sotheby’s.

Peter’s father had been my family’s doctor for years. I was Peter’s landlord. I had known him since he was a baby.

It was the business with Rebecca, of course. The thing that didn’t make sense was the fact that Rebecca had stopped by my office a few days after her middle-of-the-night phone call and had told me cheerfully that she and Peter had patched things up. They were back together again.

It had been the week before, early Wednesday morning, after she dropped the boys at school. She walked in, greeted Kendall cheerfully, and then stuck her head into my office.

“Hey, Hildy? Do you have a second?”

“Um, sure…”

Rebecca sat on the chair across from my desk and smiled at me somewhat sheepishly.

“I’m so sorry about that call the other night,” she said.

“Not at all, Rebecca. Don’t give it another thought.”

“Well, I just wanted you to know that everything has been sorted out between me and Peter. We’re back together. We had a long talk the next day. He was so sorry, so apologetic.” Rebecca was staring down at her fingernails as she said this.

“What? Rebecca, that’s wonderful,” I said, though I was completely fed up with both of them. A
vampire,
he had called me. I wouldn’t let either of them know how much this hurt me, so I asked, “How are the boys?”

Just then, the UPS man walked up the side porch with a package, and Rebecca’s head swiveled around.

“Rebecca,” I said, “Peter is never here on Wednesday. You know that.”

“I wouldn’t be so sure of that,” she said, smiling. “I think I talked him into coming up today.”

“Isn’t he at the hospital on Wednesdays?”

“Usually. He told me he might take the day off, though. He missed me during our … misunderstanding. I miss him terribly. I called him last night. He was a little annoyed, I think.”

“You called him at home? Again? After you and he patched things up?”

“Well, yeah. He gets so busy at the hospital that he forgets to return my calls. I need to talk to him sometimes. I was frantic last night. I had this feeling … it was like a premonition that something had happened to him. That’s happened to me before, Hildy. When I was away at school as a kid, I woke up in the middle of the night, hysterical. I knew that my dog, Freshy, had died. I’d had that dog since I was five. I loved her. That morning, right after breakfast, my mother called. Freshy had died. So you can see why I had to reach out to Peter. I thought either something had happened or something was going to happen to him. I had to warn him. You’re not the only one with psychic gifts. I’ve had premonitions before.”

“Did Elise answer the phone?”

“No. Peter did. He wasn’t happy. I told him how worried I was. Told him to be careful because of this sense that I had … that something might happen to him.”

“It’s just not the best idea to call him at home,” I said.

“You think I don’t know that?” Rebecca sniped.

“Sorry,” I said, turning my attention to some papers on my desk.

“No, Hildy, I’m sorry. The whole thing has me a little stressed. It’ll all be better when we sort everything out. How we’re going to tell Brian and Elise. And the kids. But once it’s sorted out, everything will be better.”

“I know,” I said reassuringly. “This is just a tough time. Things’ll get better. What are you doing for the holiday weekend?” Memorial Day was coming up.

“We have to go to Nantucket. Brian’s business partner has a house there.”

“That sounds nice,” I said.

“I hate islands,” she said.

We chatted about the boys and the horses, and then Rebecca was off. But that night, on my way home, I swung by the Newbolds’, and sure enough, a light was on. Peter had come up midweek, just like Rebecca had said he would.

I drove to my office building, but instead of going to my own office, I walked up the stairs to the second floor. I own the building, so of course I have keys to Peter’s and Katrina’s offices. I tried several of the many keys on my key ring before I was able to find the right one to unlock Peter’s door. I pushed the door open, half-expecting to find the office all packed up in boxes, but it looked as it always had. I had been in there on various occasions. Peter’s ceiling used to leak. He had asked me to have it painted a few years back. I had hired a couple of Frank’s guys to do the job and I had gone in when they were finished, just to check on things.

It was a cozy space, with two armchairs facing each other and a leather sofa off to the side. An antique Persian rug covered the beige commercial-grade carpeting that I had installed, at his request, for soundproofing. Along one wall was a bookshelf filled with books about psychotherapy, psychoanalysis, neuroses, personality disorders, depression, addiction, psychosis, schizophrenia. There was Peter’s own book about bonding. There were also framed photographs of the moon above the sea—photos that Peter had clearly taken from his beach. Photos like the ones that Rebecca had told me she was using for her paintings.

I wandered over to his desk. I knew I shouldn’t be poking around his office, but I felt the entitlement of the betrayed. On his desk was a photo of him, Elise, and Sam, right there on the beach in front of their house; in front of the house that I had determined was probably a safe bet at a list price of five million. Next to the desk was a filing cabinet, and, yes, I opened it. He should have kept it locked. It had all his patients’ records in it. There were the names of my manicurist, my daughter’s best friend from high school, the mortgage officer at the Union Bank in Beverly, that nice Brenda from the library, Manny Briggs. What fun I could have had, had I been in a more mischievous frame of mind. But I was looking for one file and it wasn’t there.

I slammed the drawer shut and left the office, locking the door behind me. Down I stomped to my office and logged on to the MLS site. Nothing. Fifty-three Wind Point Road wasn’t on the MLS yet, so there was a good chance that a contract hadn’t been signed. It wasn’t even nine
A.M.
on a Sunday, but I flipped through my Rolodex—that’s right, I still use a Rolodex—and I found Peter’s contact numbers. I dialed his cell phone first. He picked up on the second ring.