A Scandal at Eastwick Page 6

  The years, certainly. They had all ended up differently than they thought they would in high school: Julia, the most studious out of all of them, had not become a neuroscientist or doctor or any of the professional figures of her dreams, and now instead was grim and serious, a teacher at a nearby school who kept her personal life tightly to herself. Katie, vivacious and outgoing, had gone into marketing, but she had drifted away from them the fastest, almost as soon as Lia had left, and now seemed to be sticking to the taciturn Bella as some sort of recompense for it, which Atul did not understand. Bella, funny Bella, had bounced around jobs before landing at a nonprofit, but her mood was always so black that Atul dared not say much at all to her, lest he come into her line of fire.

  Julia, at least, had told him what had derailed her life, the event three years before that had shattered her plans and crushed her spirit. The event it had taken her so long to recover from—if she could even call it that, she said.

  “So,” Katie said, once their forced banter died down. “Are we here to talk about the party?”

  Bella stiffened, and Julia looked away. Atul could feel Lia’s presence in the room and wondered again whether he should have invited her. But how could he, when his own suspicions were so strong?

  “Paulette is an awful woman,” Julia said, and Atul turned to her, surprised. “I hope whoever is blackmailing her gets all of her money and then some. And spreads whatever secrets they have anyway.”

  Bella laughed, and Katie joined in. Atul grinned uncertainly. He didn’t know Paulette, not really, but he certainly had heard some hair-raising tidbits.

  “Do you really think it’s Lia?” Bella asked, turning her eyes towards Atul once the laughter had died down.

  “I don’t know,” Atul said. He hesitated. “I—don’t think so.”

  “Then who?”

  “I think it could have been a hoax,” Katie said. She spoke lightly, but Atul could see the uneasiness in her eyes.

  “Probably,” Atul said. And then, hesitating—“Should we talk to her?”

  It was why he had called them all together, after all. Surely they had known; surely they, too, had wondered and worried about their friend. So much had changed over the years—everything had changed, really—but at the heart of it, wasn’t she one of them? Didn’t they have some duty to help her, when the tide of public opinion had set itself so fiercely against her? Atul had heard the rumors, knew what people were saying: the vindictive ex-girlfriend, the spurned former St. Clairite, blackmailing the poor widow because she was jealous, because she was poor, because she was just a good-for-nothing cast-off. It made Atul’s chest burn to think of it; Lia wouldn’t do something like that. Anyone who knew her would know.

  So why did the girls look at him so? Why did their gazes slide from his, or seek refuge in each other’s?

  “What?” Atul said. “You guys have been talking, evidently.”

  “You’re paranoid,” Julia said, though Atul looked at her skeptically. “We haven’t. We just all have the same opinion.”

  “Which is?”

  “Let Lia take care of herself,” Bella said quietly. “Sorry, Atul. You always had a big heart. But really, who’s heard from her in the past ten years? Even a ‘Happy Birthday’? Or what about when my mom died—and I asked her to come to the funeral?”

  “Or when I got engaged,” Katie said, blushing, because (Atul guessed) that had not lasted long: a summer affair, quickly abandoned for reasons Atul still didn’t know. “And I invited her to be a bridesmaid. I thought, well, maybe she just needed a good reason to come back.”

  Atul didn’t know what to say. Lia, their Lia—how could she have changed so much? Did she really think herself better than all of them now?

  “I don’t think Lia did anything,” Julia said, and Bella raised one eyebrow at her. “I don’t think—well, I just don’t think so. But who cares? Let Paulette get blackmailed. Let her secrets get out. Seriously, Atul.”

  She fixed him with a gaze that he could not meet. For of course Atul knew what the others did not, the secret that had been entrusted to him alone. When she had called him, three years ago, they had actually been going through their own dry spell of contact: Atul was busy with his new job, and Julia, well, Julia had always been closest to Lia. She had called him and, in a voice as flat as the Antarctic tundra, asked if he could meet her at the hospital.

  He hadn’t known what kind of hospital it was until he had shown up.

  “I’m not worried about Paulette,” Atul said quickly. “I’m more worried about Lia.”

  Julia’s parents had died in a skiing accident when she was twenty-one, their limbs tangled up together, both bodies crashing towards a tree. It still made Atul wince to think of it. She had been okay, for a while, after that—at least, everyone expected her to be a lot worse. But Julia wasn’t okay, that was the thing, and perhaps if Lia had come back she would have recognized that. Atul only realized that day at the hospital, when Julia was recovering from what she called her “little slip,” refusing to tell him details even as she asked him to visit her, and to tell no one.

  Her depression might have been triggered by her parents’ death, though her hospital admission came years after. Or it might have been genetic, or environmental, or a perfect storm of circumstance and opportunity. It didn’t matter. She had needed him, and he had been there. In a strange way, Harry had, too: he had run into Julia and Atul at the supermarket one day, when Atul was helping Julia shop for groceries. Harry must have noticed something off about her, for he invited himself—politely, unobtrusively—to hang out with them, and did so every week for the next few months. Strange, Atul thought, the number of sides people have: meet them in a different time, a different circumstance, and you always saw a new one.

  And then Paulette had gotten wind of it. Somehow. Atul still liked to think that it wasn’t Harry who told her. The next time she saw Julia, at the fancy grocery market downtown where everyone was shopping for blueberry pies for the Fourth of July, Paulette had stopped Julia to ask her how she was doing, resting one hand on her shoulder.

  “How are you feeling?” Paulette had asked, as Julia waited stiffly for the interaction to end. Atul had heard the story a few times, often enough that sometimes he envisioned himself there.

  “Fine,” Julia had said.

  “Really, dear?” Paulette said, clucking her tongue and looking Julia up and down. “Are you?”

  “I’m fine.”

  “Yes, well,” Paulette said, her thin lips pressed into the smallest, smug smirk, “just a tip, dear. Don’t go spreading your unhappiness. You’ll only make it worse for those around you.”

  And she had patted Julia’s shoulder and walked off.

  “Lia can take care of herself,” Julia said, and Atul pulled himself out of his reverie. “Just like we can.”

  Bella and Katie nodded.

  Chapter 18

  Paulette paced her bedroom. She wore a pair of fuzzy gray slippers, the ones that Stuart had bought her ten years before. Calm down, she told herself, using Stuart’s stiff voice. Calm down, calm down, calm down.

  It didn’t work. Paulette pulled her bathrobe tighter around her and continued pacing, more quickly now around her dresser, her armoire, her little ottoman and makeup stand. She needed to make her heart rate go down. Wasn’t this how people had heart attacks? Was she having a heart attack?

  She picked up her phone from the dresser and unlocked it, not slowing her pace. God, she wished she still smoked cigarettes. She needed something to do with her hands. Something other than flipping back to her phone contacts and letting her index finger hover over the names: Arthur, Harry, James, Arthur…

  None of them knew. None of them could console her. How could she share her grief if she could not share her secret? How could she explain her panic?

  She should have known, Paulette thought bitterly. She should have known that she was too happy, that fate would send her a blinding stroke soon enough. For years she had suffe
red through a bland marriage—if not unhappy, then not happy. She had married Stuart McKenzie because he had asked her, because she had been twenty-nine at the time—how old she had felt herself then!—and because the man she had been in love with had run off with a college co-ed who had a bubblegum laugh and a much more voluminous bosom. Stuart had given her two sons, she would concede that, but their marriage in the last ten years had been so rote, so uninspired. Paulette toyed with leaving, but of course she never would: she enjoyed her comforts, and she didn’t like anything that would mess with her routine. When Stuart had died, she figured she would continue on as a single widow for the rest of her life, finding her delight in travels to Europe or a new hobby for which she would undeniably have prodigious talent.

  Instead, love had struck her like a thunderbolt. It was all so bitterly unfair. She had never thought of Arthur, not really. He had always been handsome, yes, but so stuffy—and he was a professor, hardly making any money at all, at least by Paulette’s standards.

  Now she had her own money, and, of course, was wise enough to understand that Arthur’s wealth did not come from his job, but his inheritance. And what’s more, Arthur had noticed her first—had called her that one day, just a few months after his brother’s death, voice tremulous. Perhaps he had loved her, coveted her, throughout the whole of her marriage, but could say nothing because of his loyalty to his brother. Perhaps he had never taken a wife because he had pined over Paulette, pined over the life that his brother had, that she had given him. A little thrill went through her.

  The thing was, she had to be careful. Had to nip this—this inconvenience—in the bud, before it had time to destroy her. She wouldn’t let it. Why now? Why when she was happy? Oh, if she had still been married to Stuart, she wouldn’t care, not really—it might have been a relief, in fact! But now?

  Because the fact was, Paulette knew Arthur a great deal better now. She knew what he cared about, what made him tick. And respectability was at the top of that list. Arthur did not like a scandal. Arthur did not like rumors, or gossip.

  Except Paulette was now the subject of so many of them. All because of that girl, that damned girl! Snooping up in her room that one day, looking at Paulette with that faux-innocent actress face of hers, saying, Oh, Mrs. McKenzie! I’m so sorry, I had no idea…Codswallop. The girl knew. Oh, yes, she knew.

  Had she told Harry? Somehow, Paulette was sure she hadn’t. Perhaps she had wanted to stay in Paulette’s good graces, in case Paulette was to become her mother-in-law. Luckily, Harry had given her the boot for other reasons—perhaps due in part to Paulette’s gently worded hints. Her boys loved her. They listened to her.

  Paulette continued to pace, back and forth, back and forth. She would have to call the girl, that was all. Call and her get her to come over to her house, unaccompanied. She would demand that Lia tell her exactly what she wanted. Paulette would give it to her—she had no doubt in her mind that she would give it to her—but she would have Lia sign a non-disclosure, too, something official, something that made it so that she could never tell another soul, not if she didn’t want Paulette coming after her with all the wrath of hell and legal paperwork.

  Yes. The thought of lawyers calmed Paulette down. Lawyers meant action. She took a deep breath. The most important thing, Paulette told herself, was to act normal. She couldn’t let Harry see how agitated she still was—it was bad enough what a scene she’d made at the New Year’s Eve party. Yes, she would be cool as a cucumber from here on out. She would make a call to her lawyer, and then to Lia. After, she would phone Arthur and invite him to lunch, and proceed to laugh at herself for getting “so worked up” the other night. Arthur would forgive her. He had to.

  Even to herself, Paulette couldn’t explain the hold that he had over her. He was handsome, and tall, and scholarly, but Paulette had never cared much about those things. It was, she thought, the way he made her feel seen, the way that he listened to her as she spoke, as if she had something important to say. After thirty-plus years in her marriage to Stuart, and the raising of two boys, she had gotten used to being ignored. She was always met with the “Oh, Mom,” or the “Really, Paulette?” as if she were more an amusing side show than an actual person, someone whose views were to be gently mocked or ignored, never taken seriously. She was just a wife, a mother, a housemaker.

  Arthur was different. She was none of that to Arthur. In his eyes, she was just a woman. A woman that he loved. A woman whose companionship was enjoyable. In his eyes, she saw herself reflected back as she wanted to be: someone worthy.

  And she would kill before she let a girl like Lia Logan mess that up.

  Chapter 19

  Lia wanted nothing more than to go home. The problem was, she no longer had one.

  At one point, St. Clair had been home. Beautiful, frosty, mysterious St. Clair, with its deep, still lake and its grids of tree-lined blossoming streets. Next, Los Angeles had been, with its steep slopes and arid streets and crowds of beautiful young men and women cycling between gorgeous hotels or sleek office buildings and narrow apartments with half-functioning appliances and peeling wallpaper. Now—now nothing was home, except for the temporary opulent abode of the Eastwick mansion, the same place where Lia had experienced her newest humiliation.

  And what could she do? She had nowhere to go, except, perhaps, to her parents’ in Florida, a brightly lit condo always running at seventy-five degrees, with little green geckos sprinting across the concrete deck and giant conch shells in the bathroom. How long could she hide out there? Could she reinvent herself down in the Florida heat? Find a new passion, a new purpose? Or would she just be the girl who moved back in with her parents when she was close to thirty, who had nothing to show for her spent youth—no education, no spouse, no great new friendships, even, for her Los Angeles friends had always been flighty and fleeting. Then again, so had she.

  No; there was nothing to do but stick to the plan. Stay the last few days in St. Clair and then continue east, to where she had already set up a few apartment showings in New York City. She could survive the scandal; she knew the truth, knew she had done nothing to Paulette. Let the old woman slander her, let Harry and the rest of her old friends think the worst of her. After all, how much worse could it get?

  So Lia told herself, though her heart burned as she thought of the other night. She remembered again the wall between her and Atul and the others when she had tried to speak to them. How had she let herself grow so distant? What combination of embarrassment and ignorance had made her so neglectful of them? She had received their texts, their invitations, though less and less frequent over the years. She supposed she had felt that they were better off without her, that they really didn’t miss her, that they were more checking in to see what kind of a train wreck she had caused herself. Pride, vanity, foolishness. And now? Now she was alone, and deserved it.

  Lia’s thoughts swirled over these same familiar grooves during breakfast. Finally she stood, cheeks burning. She had to remain a few days longer in St. Clair—there was no getting around that. But she didn’t have to stay trapped in this mansion, like Rapunzel waiting for her evil stepmother (was it a stepmother? It usually was) to come and curse her once more.

  That was how she found herself, at ten a.m. the morning after the party, in a car on the way to downtown St. Clair. She balked at the expense at first, but there was no way around it—and besides, the generous payment from the Eastwicks was more than enough to cover the rental, though Lia had hoped to stash away the income for her unknown future.

  She entered the bakery café known as Margio’s, a place brimming with oversized French macarons and croissants and tartlets, wrought metal tables lined up neatly outside on the patio, closed in the frigid lakeside winter. She dipped into one of the larger booths inside, grimly smiling at the friendly barista’s greeting, and warmed her hands with her breath until she spotted a man and a woman entering, suspicious eyes sweeping left and right across the café.

  Lia waved
.

  James and Mariel McKenzie walked over. They were an oddly matched couple, in Lia’s eyes. Mariel was all broad shoulders, grim features, and practical gaze, while James was softer, more sloped in posture, almost reticent. Indeed, now Harry’s older brother looked very much like he wished to fold in upon himself and disappear, while his wife seemed accusatory, dubious.

  “I told James,” Mariel said, voice deep, almost soothing save for its harsh tone, “that he shouldn’t come.”

  James twitched at that. “You said…you said you had to explain something?”

  Lia swallowed. She had fastened on James and Mariel as the two safest members of the McKenzie family to go to—with Harry, she had a past, with Arthur, no relationship at all, and with Paulette…well, for obvious reasons she could not go to Paulette. But James might listen to her—James, who had known of her but never really known her, who would have no reason (other than his mother’s fierce accusations) to dislike Lia. Mariel she had invited as a second thought, a strategic move to not put James’s wife on the defensive.

  “I didn’t blackmail your mother,” Lia said. “I just want to get that out there first.”

  James and Mariel stared at her, unblinking.

  “I can see why she thought I might—I mean, I just came in from out of town. Perhaps she—well, I was the only new person there that night, wasn’t I?”

  “I’m sure you weren’t,” Mariel said. “There were a lot of people at that party.”

  “Right,” Lia said. “Well! It could have been anyone.”

  Still silence. This wasn’t going to be easy.

  “I just want, I mean to say that, I feel bad that she suspects me.”