Serendipity

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CHAPTER ONE

Jory Ryan—that’s how she thought of herself now—finally gave in to the tremors she’d been holding in check during the past hour, but still fought her tears back. The front she’d managed to put up for Ross when he’d asked for a divorce was the hardest thing she’d ever done, harder than going through the miscarriage, harder than going off alone, harder than living alone, working and going to night school. Harder than getting through her estranged father’s funeral. But she’d done it, she thought. She’d not only persevered, but had prevailed, even when he’d tried to ease his own conscience by buying her off.

A day didn’t go by that she didn’t think of Ross Landers and the mistakes she’d made back in the beginning. Would she really have cried rape? Back then, she’d threatened Ross with it, but to this day she couldn’t say yes or no with certainty. Back then she’d been a wild, incorrigible teenager, without a mother, whose father was away from home so much, she’d had all the latitude and freedom she wanted.

How badly she’d needed a mother; but her mother died giving birth to a baby brother, who also died—one year later, when she was seven. Since then, it seemed, she’d gotten into one scrape after another.

As a teenager she’d been a tease and a flirt. But she’d only gone all the way with one other boy, and only once, before she’d done it with Ross Landers, a dozen times. She would never forget the look on Ross’s face when she told him she was pregnant. He’d said something so hateful, so vitriolic, she’d run from him, wanting to hide her shame. Afterward, Woo, Ross’s best friend, had tried to console her, saying she should be patient, that Ross would do the right thing.

For three months she waited for Ross to do the right thing. She’d called Woo again, but he’d gone back to Lancaster; so instead she showed up on Ross’s doorstep and told him she intended to have the baby, and if anyone asked why she wasn’t married, she’d say he’d raped her. She’d gone back to her father’s house then, and sat on the swing on the front porch, freezing. Ross arrived an hour later and, without emotion, told her to get in the car. They drove to Maryland and were married by a justice of the peace at eleven o’clock at night.

The following months, when she and Ross lived in a small house, were the most miserable of Jory’s life. One night in particular stood out. She’d been three months pregnant, and feeling sick and out of sorts all day. She hadn’t gone down to dinner, and at ten o’clock, when she was almost asleep, Ross came to her room and tried to make love to her. She’d done her best to help him, but he was incapable of sustaining an erection. He’d stared down at her, said she repulsed him, that she was nothing but a slut he’d had the misfortune to marry. He stormed from the room, and returned only after she’d miscarried.

Sick with humiliation, Jory packed her bags in the sixth month of her marriage and left. She hadn’t said good-bye to Ross, and saw him only three times afterward. The last time was at her father’s funeral, eighteen months ago. He’d been among the city employees who turned out to pay their final respects. He hadn’t tried to speak to her then, nor had she tried to speak to him. Jory couldn’t help but wonder what people thought about her and Ross. Did they think they were divorced, separated, strangers? She came to the conclusion they simply didn’t care. She didn’t care either.

Driver, I changed my mind, Jory said now. Turn around. I want to go to Chestnut Hill. Gravers Lane, number sixteen. Going back to the house she’d grown up in couldn’t be any more traumatic than what she’d just gone through with Ross.

Forty minutes later Jory paid the driver and got out of the taxi. The house was a Tudor, the yard overgrown, the trim on the windows in need of paint. She’d painted the front door a bright red as an act of defiance when she was sixteen, but she couldn’t remember why now. She did recall her father telling her to strip off the paint and varnish the door. She told him to do it himself, and took his slap high on her cheekbone. She still carried the scar his college ring made with the fierce blow. Her hand moved to her cheek to touch the thin line her skillfully applied makeup covered.

Maybe it wasn’t an act of defiance after all. Maybe she’d painted the door to bring some color into her life. At Christmastime the red door always seemed particularly festive. Now it was simply a red door with peeling paint. She felt like crying as she fit her old house key into the lock.

It was cool inside, the blinds drawn, the furniture covered with dusty white sheets. The rugs were rolled up against the wall, the floors gritty and dusty.

Tears rolled down Jory’s cheeks as she walked from room to room, peeking under the dust covers. If there had just been one person in the whole world to love her, to care about her, she wouldn’t be here right now.

She should sell the house, she thought, take the money and invest it in something that would give her a small income. The ten thousand dollars she’d received from her father’s insurance was still sitting in the Mellon Bank, along with the three thousand he had always kept in his checking account. The same perverse streak that wouldn’t allow her to spend Ross’s money wouldn’t allow her to spend her father’s money either. She knew her father’s car was in the garage. When she sold the house, she’d sell the car too.

She could live here if she wanted to, Jory thought. The two hundred dollars rent she was paying in Florida could go toward the taxes on this house. She could ask her boss to help her get a job at the Philadelphia Democrat. If she wanted to, that is. She could do a lot of things if she wanted to. But did she want to risk running into Ross and his family? She might have guts, but did she have enough to put herself through more heartache?

Jory was in her old room now, staring at the four-poster with the draped sheets. She thought of harems, jewels, and silk veils. This room should have been a sanctuary, but it wasn’t. She’d really only slept and changed her clothes here. She couldn’t remember what she did in this room when she was little. Did she play with blocks, have a rocking horse, dolls? She couldn’t remember. She lifted the dust sheet on the bed. The mattress was pale blue and quilted, the tag at the bottom wilted and wrinkled. She smiled at the slight dip in the middle. She still slept in the middle of the bed. She let the sheet fall back. It was just a bed she used to sleep in.

Tears burned Jory’s eyes when she opened dresser drawers, looked in the two closets. There should be treasures here, things she left behind. But there had been no treasures—except one. Damn, where was it? She yanked and pulled at the drawers, distinctly remembered thumb-tacking it to the back of one of them. God, let it be here, she prayed. Please, let it be here. And it was, a length of satin tied in knots, the binding from her childhood blanket. She literally swooned with feeling when she brought it up to her cheek. The one and only thing in the world that had ever given her comfort. So many times it had been drenched with tears. She couldn’t count the times she woke up in the morning with the treasure pressed into her cheek. Now, her fingers worked the knots the way a nun would her rosary. How good it felt, how wonderfully comforting. She remembered each knot, big and small. She thought of each knot as a milestone in her life. Her eyes dry, her mouth grim, Jory added a last knot to the end of the satin.

For my pending divorce, she said sadly.

Jory removed the dust cover from an oak rocking chair with a faded orange cushion and sat down.

If she did come back, she thought, and lived here in Chestnut Hill, she might be able to avoid Ross. Financially the move made sense. She would have a car, once she replaced the tires and got it tuned up. She could make the house into the home she never really had. She could probably take off from now till the end of the year and get the place cleaned up. She could take a sewing class and make new covers for the furniture; there was a night class for everything. There was an old treadle sewing machine somewhere in the house. She could make bright cushions, valances instead of drapes—those poofy kind she’d seen in magazines, which allowed for a lot of sunlight. She could shampoo the carpets herself, wax the floors, clean the windows. And if she decided to leave Florida, she would get severance pay, and maybe she could even collect unemployment insurance. She had eight hundred dollars in a savings account, and would get back her rental deposit and the deposits on her utilities. A thousand dollars might see her through the worst of things. And if she absolutely had to, she could dip into her father’s insurance money.

Outside in the afternoon sunshine, Jory looked around. I’m coming back, she said aloud, saluting the bright red door before she started down the hill to Germantown Avenue to catch a cab.

Three weeks later she moved into the house in Chestnut Hill.

CHAPTER TWO

"There is no way in hell I will allow you to turn this magazine into a sewer publication. I absolutely forbid it, Justine!"

Justine Landers’s lips curled into a sneer, and when she replied, her voice was as contemptuous as her gaze. "Do I need to remind you that I am the publisher of this magazine? I even have a contract to prove it. It was my wedding present. Remember, Jasper dear?"

You might be the publisher, but I own this magazine, just as my father and his father before him owned it. One day Ross will own it. Until this moment it has been a publication to be proud of. The answer is no, Justine, an unequivocal no!

Ross Landers, watching his parents argue about TIF, appeared impassive, as if he were a spectator at a tennis match.

We’ve lost money six years in a row, Justine said. We are in the red up to our necks, Jasper. We publish a magazine no one wants to buy or read. People train their dogs or line their trash cans with our expensive magazine. Even I don’t read it, and I publish it. When was the last time you read it? When was the last time you even bothered to come down here to see how things were going? I can tell you—three years ago. Three years, Jasper. The employees of this magazine are almost as old as God. None of them has had an original idea in the last twenty years. Even this building is archaic. Everything looks like it came over on the ark. To make her point, Justine grabbed a glass paperweight from a desk and threw it onto the cushion of a Morris chair. Dust spiraled upward. Her facial muscles stretched into a grimace.

The answer, Justine, is still no.

His wife threw her elegantly manicured hands in the air. "What do you think I’m going to do to this magazine, Jasper? TIF, Truth in Fiction . . . People will believe what we print, but it has to be interesting. I can make it interesting. Then, I thought I’d do a feature story on Judge Halvorsen, for instance. I’m sure all of Philadelphia will rush to buy next month’s issue if they can read about ‘Hizhonor’ and his charming wife Helen.

I can have this magazine in the black inside of six months, Justine said. "In the black, Jasper. Give me a year, that’s all I ask. Ross will head the legal department. You trust your own son, don’t you?"

Worms of fear skittered around inside Jasper’s stomach.

Ross was Justine’s big gun; Justine knew it, and so did Ross. Should he hold out? Jasper wondered. He knew his wife was right, because she never dealt from anything but a position of strength. He also knew that TIF was the laughingstock of the publishing industry, but he hated change of any kind. He wondered, then, as he did every day, why he’d ever married Justine. And the answer was always the same: Justine had opened her legs for him three times a day. Until the day she found out she was pregnant with Ross and closed them.

Justine’s eyes narrowed. She had him, she could feel it. She pressed again, saying, "Deed TIF over to me. Ross will draw up the necessary papers. Surely you have no objection to that."

He had a thousand objections, but he said, Eight months with eight hundred thousand in the black, then we’ll talk about ownership. Take it or leave it, Justine. The expression on his son’s face changed then. To admiration? Jasper wondered. For him?

That’s blackmail! Justine shrieked. You’re blackmailing me, your own wife? Ross, do something.

Not on your life, Ross said quietly. This is between you and Father.

My wife? Jasper’s laugh was so bitter, Ross cringed. Do you want me to recite chapter and verse here in front of our son? Don’t ever refer to yourself as my wife again. You live in my house, live off my generosity, and you feed off your son. You’re a disgrace to this family, Justine.

How dare you speak to me like that! Justine sputtered.

The look of approval was still on his son’s face. Jasper felt giddy. He didn’t ever want that look to go away. I just did, Justine. Don’t even think about pushing me one inch further. His voice turned thoughtful: I see you sitting on an orange plastic chair. I can actually see it. Obviously Ross could see it too, because he was grinning.

What does that mean? Justine demanded.

What that means, Justine, is you’re no lady. You wear a lady’s clothes, you wear makeup like a lady, and at times you can converse like a lady, but don’t ever forget for a minute where I found you. You belong on an orange plastic chair. You’re a mongrel.

Abruptly, Jasper turned away from her and toward his son. Ross, it was nice to see you. Perhaps we can have dinner at the club one of these days.

I’d like that, Ross said quietly.

Good. I’ll call you.

Justine watched her husband leave the room. She bit down on her lower lip. She’d just been put in her place by a master. Who would have thought such a thing could come out of Jasper’s mouth? Certainly not Ross, whose mouth was hanging open. Her heart was pumping furiously and she knew her face was a mask of shame.

She pulled herself together before turning to face her son. Don’t take any of this to heart, Ross, she said. Your father has never paid any attention to finances. It’s nice to have unlimited resources, she added sardonically. He just clips coupons and cashes checks. That’s your father’s life. Besides playing golf and dining at the club. But this magazine is losing money.

Ross stared at his mother. She was dressed to the nines, her heavy makeup garish. His father had to clip at least three coupons to pay for the designer outfit she was wearing. Crocodile shoes were expensive. He should know, he had a pair.

She wasn’t pretty or even attractive, this woman he called Mother. More than once he’d heard his father call her a mongrel, and at times it showed, like today. Justine was cold, callous, and manipulative, and he didn’t like her at all. However, he did respect her keen business sense. The opposite was true of his father. He liked Jasper, but didn’t respect him.

Eight months and eight hundred thousand in the black is pretty stiff, Mother, he said. Are you sure you want to go ahead with this?

I’m damn well sure, Ross. Draw up the papers. I’ll make your father eat those words. I have a few little . . . insertions I want you to add.

"Just a minute, Mother. What kind of little insertions? This has to be a cut and dried professional contract. I won’t be a party to trying to put something over on Father."

Get off it, Ross. Don’t get sanctimonious on me. You’ll do as I say or you’ll be disinherited. Let’s not forget all those little scrapes I got you out of, all the strings I pulled. To be blunt, son, you’d be in jail if it wasn’t for me. The first rule of business is, you fuck them before they fuck you. Now, I suggest you go to your office and get to work on that contract, she said coldly.

Anger, hot and scorching, flared in Ross’s eyes. Standing, he towered over his mother. He wanted to tell her how much he disliked her, how his earlier rebellion was because of her; wanted to tell her she wasn’t and never had been parent material, and yes, she bailed him out of scrapes because he had no role model growing up. He also wanted to tell her to go home and wash the heavy pancake off her face, and to take off the artificial eyelashes that made her small eyes feral-looking. The urge to yank at her upswept hairdo was so strong, he clenched his fists. What the hell would she look like without all the trappings? Like a real mother?

Don’t threaten me, Mother, he said coolly. I’m a good attorney, I can get a job anywhere. In fact, I was asked last week if I had any interest in going back to work in the prosecutor’s office. What that means is I have other options.

My, we’re uppity today, aren’t we?

Is this where you give me that tired old line about changing my shitty diapers when I was born? Forget it, Mother, and don’t ever dismiss me again.

Ross, you are an ungrateful snot. I will not tolerate such talk from my son. Not now, not ever.

Ross threw his hands in the air. Are you firing me? Jesus, how hopeful his voice sounded.

Justine heard it too. Of course not. One doesn’t fire one’s son. We are merely having a business discussion. Clearing the air, so to speak. I will not apologize for my drive, for my business sense. Remember this, Ross, you do what you have to do. Business comes first.

Well, I can certainly relate to that, Ross said bitterly. Firsthand of course.

Why don’t we have dinner this evening? Justine said.

Ross’s stomach heaved. Dinner with either one of his parents was, in his opinion, like dining out with vipers, each of the vipers trying to find ways to do the other in, with him always in the middle. I have other plans, Mother. Didn’t we just have dinner, let’s see, wasn’t it three years, two months, and sixteen days ago?

"That will be enough, Ross. Enough!"

The moment the door closed behind Ross, Justine clapped her hands. She’d won both rounds. So what if Jasper held her down with restrictions? She could keep him in line by simply mentioning Judge Halvorsen and his wife Helen, who was cuckolding the judge with Jasper.

Justine sat back in her swivel chair, long legs stretched out in front of her. She had nice legs. Nice high breasts too. All in all, she was perfectly proportioned. Back then—meaning back when she’d married Jasper thirty years ago—she’d been good in bed. Jasper had said so.

Orange plastic chairs. She winced. She would have ordered them too. For the reception area. Her thoughts whirled as she tried to come up with suitable justification. Mongrels versus pedigrees. She wasn’t actually going to sit on them herself. They were for other people to sit on. She would never, under any circumstance, sit on any kind of plastic chair. Never.

Jasper Landers settled his pudgy body in one of the three club chairs in his office. It was his office by right of succession. His leg twitched and then his entire body started to tremble. He hated confrontations of any kind. In the past he would go out of his way, lie, evade, disappear, anything to avoid a face-to-face meeting with his wife. He didn’t know how it was possible for Justine to intimidate him, but she did.

A drink. A stiff shot of Irish whiskey would help get his emotions under control. Somewhere in this office there was a liquor cabinet complete with liquor, unless Justine had tossed it out. He looked around, his eyes vague and slightly disoriented. How could Justine do this to him? Why did he allow her to reduce him to this . . . old fart? And he wasn’t an old fart. He was a decent, caring human being, who loved Helen Halvorsen.

He hadn’t meant it to happen. In fact he’d had months of sleepless nights over his attraction for Helen. And he probably would never have acted on that attraction if Ross hadn’t been rushed to the hospital with a ruptured appendix. He’d been only four at the time. Helen had been a volunteer in the pediatric ward that day; Justine hadn’t been around. Helen had held Ross’s hand, smoothed back his dark curls, crooned soft words of comfort to his son, and then to him. She’d stayed on after her shift was over, to sit with him, and when the doctor assured them both that Ross would sleep through the night, they left to have coffee in an all-night diner. God, he could still taste that wonderful coffee and smell the sticky Danish neither of them had eaten. He could still smell Helen’s perfume, a scent she still used.

Once, they’d had a long discussion about Justine and the judge, and Helen told him that Matthew married her for her position and background. He refused to have children, saying they would clutter up their lives.

Today, their affair was in its twenty-seventh year.

What they were doing wasn’t right, but Helen was a Catholic, and said divorce was out of the question. Jasper didn’t understand how adultery could be better than divorce. His own reasons for not divorcing Justine were far less noble. The stipulations of his father’s will, as they applied to him—though, oddly, not to his descendants—forbade divorce. For him, divorce would mean giving up everything, which he wasn’t prepared to do, his love for Helen notwithstanding.

Jasper gulped at the fiery liquid in his glass. That wasn’t quite true. He would have given it up if a guardian could have been appointed to monitor the Landers holdings, but his attorneys had said Justine, as the boy’s mother, would control everything.

Life wasn’t all that bad for Jasper. Helen made it all bearable. Right now he wanted to call her, to run to her, to wrap her in his arms and tell her what had just transpired. It was late now, though, and he couldn’t call her house because Matthew would be home. Matthew answered the phone after four o’clock. Unless . . . unless he called and invited both Helen and the judge to dinner at the club. No, tomorrow would be soon enough.

Jasper sighed wearily. All he wanted was to be happy, and for Ross to be happy. He wished he was stronger, more forceful. He gazed then at the pictures of his ancestors lining the walls of his office. Once they’d hung in the reception room, but Justine had moved them in here. He should have paid more attention, demanded they be returned to the entry walls.

His father, his grandfather, and his great-grandfather were tall men, imposing figures; hale and hearty, whereas he was short, pudgy, and simple-looking, with his horn-rimmed glasses. He didn’t have their strength, their business acumen. I can, however, cut straight lines when I clip coupons, and I sign my name legibly when I cash my checks, he muttered. It was a hell of a thing to be good at nothing. I love, I’m human, I care. I care about everything and everyone. I love my son as much as I love Helen, he whispered to the pictures on the wall.

He did have one bit of spunk though. He’d put his foot down and insisted this office remain the way it was the day his father died. It had the same old furniture, dusty now, the same carpet, which was even dustier, the same lamps, the same drapes. The only thing different was the recent addition of Justine’s picture on the wall. As publisher, she was entitled to be here with the three past publishers of TIF.

God, how he hated Justine. She was going to wreak havoc on TIF, and they both knew he was powerless to stop her. Maybe Ross could keep her in line. I’m sorry, he apologized to his ancestors, but I can’t let her destroy Matthew and Helen.

It was the easy way out. Don’t fight it. Accept the situation and move on.

Die, Justine, just goddamn die already, Jasper said. I’ll dance at your funeral. I swear to God I’ll strip naked and dance on your coffin.

He whimpered then, the way Helen did when things got out of control.

When Jasper left the office a long time later, he was carrying the empty liquor bottle in one hand and Justine’s portrait in the other. He tossed both in the Dumpster in the parking lot.

He stood for a moment looking at the Landers Building. He would never come back here, because he’d failed. He had no one to blame but himself. Hopefully, Ross would do what he hadn’t been able to do all these years—take control. He realized what a stupid thought it was. No one controlled Justine.

Just die, Justine.

CHAPTER THREE

It was early, not yet dawn, but Justine Landers was made-up, dressed, and ready for breakfast. Her own private motto was, early to rise, be ready for a prize. The prize was almost in her grasp. Being publisher, turning the Landers magazine TIF around, was only half the prize. Ownership was the prize. Ross would handle the details.

Justine rang the breakfast bell. Rosa the cook appeared at her elbow with a huge silver coffeepot. Two eggs, three slices of bacon, toast, strawberry jelly, orange juice, and five small pancakes, Justine said as she poured cream from a cut-glass pitcher into her cup. Remember what I told you, Rosa, don’t turn your back to me.

Yes, ma’am, Rosa said respectfully. How would you like your eggs this morning, Mrs. Landers?

Three and three-quarter minutes, not a second longer.

Three and three-quarter minutes, not a second longer. Will there be anything else, ma’am?

As a matter of fact there is something else. Why is my food bill two dollars higher this week? Have you been feeding that fool gardener again?

Mr. Landers asked for fresh melon. He was leaving the house on Thursday morning when the produce man arrived. He picked out the melon himself, ma’am.

From now on serve Mr. Landers canned peaches. You do not buy anything that is not on my list. If Mr. Landers wants something that is not on my list, have him give you money.

The moment the dining room door closed, Justine withdrew the last issue of Confidential from her briefcase. Her greedy eyes devoured the sleazy headlines, the cheap paper, the large print. She could do this and do it better. She could hardly wait to find out which starlet cavorted in which pool with which star in his skivvies.

Justine closed the magazine and sipped at her coffee. For the past year she’d read every single sleazy published tabloid. In her room, in her cedar chest, she had every copy of Confidential, with notes on how to publish it better than Robert Harrison did. If anyone could give him a run for his money, Justine thought, she could. With the new, young, and greedy reporters she was hiring, she would pull it off. She knew it. Her only regret was that she hadn’t done it earlier.

Today was a bright new day. The sun would shine just for her. Even if it rained, it wouldn’t dampen her spirits. She finally had what she wanted. Today was going to be the best day of her life, the day when she fired everyone in the office and started new. The day the payback started.

Today people would start to take her seriously; she would begin her reign as publisher of the new TIF. After today, she wouldn’t be Jasper Landers’s wrong-side-of-the-tracks wife who had never been really accepted by the old Main Line Philadelphia families. One by one the old pompous farts would come to her when she started to dig into the skeletons in their closets. They’d beg her not to print their sordid little secrets, and she would damn well turn a deaf ear. All the slights, all the slurs, all the raised eyebrows, would be a thing of the past.

Power was the name of the game.

Justine attacked her breakfast the way she did everything: with force. She ate every single thing and could have eaten more. She debated asking for another stack of pancakes, but negated the idea almost immediately. Women ate daintily at the club and usually left half their meals on their plates. She did too, when she dined out, but when she was home she ate like a stevedore.

Living on the wrong side of the tracks, with a drunken father and a mother who took in wash, didn’t allow for a lot of food on the table. Growing up, she’d always been hungry. The oldest of seven children, she’d had to give up her portions to the little ones more times than she could remember. The day she walked out of the mean little shanty, she’d vowed she would never go back and never be hungry again.

She was seventeen years old when she left to work in the dime store. She’d lived in a boardinghouse until she met Jasper Landers. Her first thought when she met him: meal ticket. And all Jasper wanted in return was sex. But then she found herself falling in love with him. So she decided to marry him.

She talked to the girls at the dime store, who gladly shared their bedroom secrets, before she gave in to his desires. She, in turn, embroidered and improvised, until Jasper howled at the moon, at which point she cut him off completely, demanding marriage. He hadn’t balked at all. In fact he’d slipped the ring on her finger so fast he made her head spin. She’d looked him straight in the eye and, meaning every word, said, I will be Mrs. Jasper Landers for the rest of my life.

At that point she didn’t know much about the old family and how worried they were about scandal. Nor did she know about the stipulation in Jasper’s father’s will, that his son, if married, could not divorce and still retain the family fortune. She knew now, of course, and relished the position in which it placed her.

She hadn’t known a thing about Main Line living. She made all the classical mistakes, dressed wrong, said the wrong things, wore too much makeup, used the wrong fork, messed up the food on her plate, and of course her speech was all wrong. Jasper hadn’t helped her either, preferring to spend his time on the golf course, when he wasn’t fucking her brains out three times a day. She’d tried to teach herself, and often the results were totally disastrous. Eventually she’d conquered most of her more outrageous social faults, but it had taken her fifteen years. She constantly read the dictionary, not that it did her any good. It made her feel better, though.

Once, after Jasper officially made her the publisher of TIF, she’d been in one of the bathroom stalls at the club and overheard several women talking about her. What they said was so cruel, so hateful, she’d stayed in the stall for an hour, her face burning with shame. When she finally got up the nerve to leave, she’d had to slink from the club like a beaten, weary alley cat. She cried to Jasper afterward and tried to explain how she felt. His response was to tell her it was her imagination, to take long walks and drink plenty of water.

And all good things come to those who wait, Justine murmured as she patted her lips.

It was a lovely room, a far cry from the three-room shanty she’d grown up in. Here everything was old and real. Not necessarily beautiful. She’d learned the hard way that expensive didn’t mean beautiful. During the second year of her marriage, she insisted on redecorating the entire first floor. All the antiques, all the rare carpets, were put in storage. When she thought of the results, she cringed, for in the end all the rooms looked like Sears Roebuck pictures. Jasper had gasped and then turned purple. For the first time in her life she experienced fear. She’d run upstairs and cried for hours. When she came downstairs for dinner, all the furniture was gone. It took a week before the Landerses’ furniture could be taken out of storage and the rooms restored to their former appearance. That story had gotten around the club too.

She blamed Jasper for everything, and he accepted the blame, which only convinced Justine she was right.

Everyone knew about Jasper and Helen except Matthew Halvorsen. But then, Matthew was stupid and didn’t know night from day. She’d been tempted to send him an anonymous letter informing him of his wife’s infidelity, but was deathly afraid it would be traced back to her somehow. She did hate to be shamed, and of late it was getting harder for her to hold her head up in public. All that was going to change now. Now her head would be higher and the others would slink around. And you all deserve it, she muttered.

Rosa!

Yes, ma’am.

Replace this tablecloth for dinner. Order fresh flowers, and is that dust I see on the sideboard? If it is, it better be gone when I get home this evening. And this coffeepot needs to be polished.

Today, ma’am?

Yesterday is gone, tomorrow isn’t here yet, so that leaves today. Yes, Rosa, today, Justine said coldly.

Justine took a last look around the dining room. Wainscotting was so depressing. So was the wallpaper. She remembered her devastating decorating endeavor. I like it, I like it, she muttered.

What the hell was he doing here? He didn’t want to be here, had no intention of ever working here, but here he was, with no desk. What the hell kind of lawyer was he if he didn’t have a damn desk? He felt like bellowing, until he remembered that Nigel Sandor, TIF’s attorney, would be unemployed by noon, at which point he would take over the battered old desk that was so dusty he couldn’t see what kind of wood it was. He couldn’t help but wonder when the last time any legal business was conducted in this office.

Ross shook his head in disgust. Damn, what was he doing here? Why was he here? He hated to think he was so shallow he would compromise his ideals to work here. Was there anything wrong with getting hands-on experience in ye olde family business? A matter of opinion, he decided.

Office hours were eight to five. It was already nine o’clock, and Nigel was conspicuously absent. It didn’t surprise him. The other employees weren’t in their offices either, with the exception of his mother, who always arrived by 6:45 to do God only knew what behind closed doors.

Ross’s eyes fell on a memo slip clipped to a worn-out lampshade. Contractors will arrive at noon. Business will be conducted on the first floor in the conference room. It was his mother’s handwriting.

The big meeting was scheduled for ten o’clock. At eleven o’clock a second meeting was scheduled with the new employees. Ross grimaced. Out with the old, in with the new, and don’t give the bodies a chance to cool off.

Because he couldn’t yet take possession of Nigel’s chair and desk, Ross had no choice but to go downstairs to the conference room and work on the publicity release his mother wanted sent to the Philadelphia Democrat for tomorrow morning’s edition. Plus, he had to compile a severance-pay list. The list was his own idea, one his mother would have a hairy conniption over. One week’s severance pay for every year’s employment. It was fair and just. His father would approve, and he had to make sure it was done before Jasper signed over TIF in its entirety to his mother.

Careful not to touch anything, Ross left the office to take the back stairs to the first floor. He winced when the door to the conference room creaked open. The room was long, narrow, and dismal-looking. He opened the venetian blinds, and in an instant his navy-blue jacket was covered with gray dust. He shook himself like a dog, cursing at the same time. Jesus, how had things gotten to this point? His mother had taken an active role in the magazine only fifteen years ago, even though his father had appointed her publisher as a wedding gift. If Hillary Blumgarten hadn’t died at the age of ninety-two, Justine would never have taken an active role. Ross remembered his father’s words to his mother on her first day at the magazine: Don’t do anything, just sit there and let the magazine run itself. Hillary has a well-oiled machine that works. Ross snorted. How had his mother lasted all these years? Why was his father so damn stubborn?

God, how he dreaded this meeting. How did you fire fifteen people who worked for you for thirty years? That was 450 years between them all. It was a shitful thing his mother was doing. He upped the severance pay in his head to two weeks for every year of employment.

Smack in the middle of the long oak table was a stack of magazines. The last twelve issues of TIF. The only other thing in the room aside from the conference table were twelve cane chairs and a Tiffany lamp minus a lightbulb. Let someone else raise the venetian blinds, he thought; he’d opened them.

Ross scanned the magazines, yawning as he did so. It was hard to believe anyone bought the damn things. He slammed the issue he was holding back on the table. Dirt and grit moved around. He’d be better off going out to the parking lot and working in his car. His watch said he had almost twenty minutes. Time to go around the corner for a bagel and some coffee. The hell with the lists, the hell with this conference room. The fucking hell with his parents.

On the short walk to the corner deli, Ross thought about his parents, wished he could love them, wished they were a close family, wished for kind words he could return.

He saw her then, the prettiest girl he’d ever seen. She looked familiar. God, where had he seen her? The theater, the movies, on the street? He forgot his intention to buy coffee and a bagel. When he’d seen her before, she’d also been wearing blue. How could he not remember her? Every hair was in place, the blue-checkered sundress crisply ironed, her leather sandals polished. Bare legs, he liked that. No ring on her fingers, no jewelry.

Villanova! he blurted.

She smiled, her blue eyes dancing. Are you speaking to me?

Yes, yes I am. I’ve seen you before, but I can’t remember where. Was it Villanova? I went to law school there.

The girl studied him. He crossed his fingers that she would remember him. He bit down on his lower lip when she apologized and said, I’m sorry, I don’t remember meeting you.

Oh, we never met. What I mean is, we weren’t introduced or anything like that. I saw you. I remember seeing you. You were wearing something blue, maybe it was this same dress. Do you have two blue dresses? Jesus, he didn’t just say that, did he? His neck grew warm.

As a matter of fact I do have two blue dresses, this one and another one. I went to Villanova for two years but had to drop out to save money. I’ll go back when I can afford it. Perhaps you saw me in the library.

Yes, that’s probably it. I spent a lot of time there. Listen, would you like some coffee, a bagel, some Danish?

The girl held up her muffin and then pointed to her coffee. Do you want to share?

Did he want to share? Did he want to keep on breathing? Absolutely. That’s yes. One bite though, okay? He leaned down to take a bite and looked into the clearest, warmest eyes he’d ever seen. Your eyes kind of have a purplish tinge to them, he blurted.

I know. Not much I can do about it, though, she said, finishing off the muffin. You have to live with what you’re given.

I didn’t mean that in a negative way, Ross said quickly.

1 know you didn’t. I was just teasing. It isn’t every day a handsome man tells me he remembers me. Thank you for the compliment. Lena Davis, she said, holding out her hand.

He was about to introduce himself when a voice behind him roared, I’ve been looking for you all over. Come on, get a move on, Lena, or we’ll be late. First impressions are important.

I lost track of time. She laughed. To Ross, she smiled and said, I really didn’t touch the coffee, so if you want it, it’s yours. A moment later she was gone, with a giant of a man whose voice was a mixture of gravel and molasses.

Ross ran then, around the corner, cutting through the alley to the parking lot in back of the Landers Building. He took the back stairs two steps at a time, until he realized he was supposed to be in the conference room on the first floor. He ran back down, winded. He took a moment to smooth his hair and adjust his tie. Lena Davis. Nice name. Pretty as its owner. He closed his eyes for a moment to remember her warm smile. Her curls looked soft and feathery, and fit just right around her head. She was wearing little pearl earrings. Everything about her was pretty, her eyes, her smile, her hair, even her white teeth. He’d almost asked her if she used Pepsodent or Ipana. Jesus. One hundred ten pounds, maybe 108. Perfectly proportioned. Her toenails were painted. He’d noticed that too. Shit! The story of his thirty-one-year-old life. He always was the last one out of the gate.

His breathing under control, he opened the door. Maybe she was in the phone book. A sea of white heads greeted him. He felt laughter bubble in his throat when he noticed his mother standing at the head of the conference table. For the first time in her life, she looked frazzled.