Chapter Four
Bartending in a college town had given Ray a lot of experience with drunken females. He put his big hands on their shoulders and half pushed, half pulled them into the kitchen and set them down on the long seat that ran under the window. They were laughing and saying nonsensical things like, “Will he put the two new ones in the frame with my old one?”
“Maybe he’ll have three separate display cases.”
“I have a scrape on my right cheek—and I don’t mean my face.”
“I have a scar on my leg from the first time! That damned wall needs to be sandblasted so future adventurers are protected,” Olivia said.
“Explain that one to a contractor,” Elise said. “Oh. Wait! Carmen’s brother might be able to do it. Think I could get a discount? For services rendered?” They collapsed in laughter.
Ray was shaking his head as every sentence made them go into more laughter. They were nearly hysterical with it.
Opening the oven, he pulled out the big casserole. It had been a long time since he’d cooked anything, but he’d remembered rather easily. Boil the noodles, drain, flake the cans of tuna. Add cheese. It wasn’t difficult.
Behind him, the women were now on people named “Kevin” and “Hildy.” Whatever had happened, he wished he’d been there to enjoy it with them. But then, if he, a male, had been there, he doubted if it would have happened. From their laughter, it sounded like one of those girl things.
He got out some plates and forks, dumped a bag of salad mix into a bowl, pulled a bottle of dressing from the fridge, and put it all on the table.
Elise was now lavishly complimenting Olivia for having hit a wine bottle with a rock. “I was aiming for that big metal planter three feet away.” That made them laugh harder.
Ray poured Coke into three glasses. Maybe the caffeine would sober them up. But as he picked up the bottle he realized that he was jealous of their merriment. There wasn’t anything in his life right now that came close to happiness. His wife was a wonderful woman. She kept a beautiful home. She was his boss’s daughter.
If he went through with what he planned, he was going to lose it all. His wife, who was his best friend, his home, and probably his job would all disappear.
And for what? For love? Was it worth it?
He looked at the two women by the window. All he knew about the girl, Elise, was what Olivia had told him—and that seemed fairly horrifying. As for Olivia, when he’d first seen her, he’d thought her eyes looked haunted. She smiled and was gracious, but there was something else there too, as though a part of her was missing. Not complete.
He looked at the three glasses. “What the hell,” he murmured, then opened a cabinet and pulled out a bottle of rum. Maybe this cottage was magical and he could get drunk enough that he could laugh as hard as they were. Too bad that experience had shown him that alcohol only made him worry more.
“Here you are, ladies.” He set the drinks down. “More booze. I’ll keep them coming all night if you’ll tell me what you did that was so funny.”
“Do you have any tattoos?” Elise asked, then laughed as Olivia shushed her.
“I’ll show them to you if you tell me everything,” he said in a low, sexy growl.
“Ewwww,” Olivia and Elise echoed. Then they looked at each other. “I’m in,” they said together.
Ray quietly smiled as they drank their rum and Cokes and decimated the huge casserole. As he listened to them, most of it told in disjointed phrases, he managed to pick up the story. It seemed that the two of them had stripped off and run across a forest together.
He wished he’d been there—not to see them naked, but to see their happiness. He deeply wished he could share it with them.
After they’d eaten all they could hold, he got up from the table, pulled it out about three feet, then held out his hands to the two women. Olivia took his hand but Elise didn’t move.
Both of them had that unmistakable look of drunkenness in their eyes. “You still have your shirt on,” Elise said.
“And you want it off because...?” His tone was suggestive.
“A shirtless man reminds me of the best part of home.” Elise’s words were a bit slurred and her eyes dreamy.
“Your husband?”
“Heavens no!” Elise said. “Carmen’s brother. He works in the garden and has his shirt off rain or shine. He’s prettier than the delphiniums.” She took a drink. “And he’s my friend.”
Both Olivia and Ray were aware that Elise wasn’t telling everything, but neither of them asked for more. This wasn’t a time for seriousness. They all needed the great cure of laughter.
With a one-sided smile, Ray pulled his expensive knit shirt over his head and tossed it on the window seat. “Will I do?” His words were smug; he knew he looked good. He was thick and muscular, with little body fat. Four hours a week with a personal trainer kept him in very good shape.
“Turn around,” Olivia said, and he obeyed.
On his upper left shoulder was a tattoo of a scorpion and the number 283. Elise put her hand over her mouth to suppress her laughter.
“Were you a member of the Scorpions?” Olivia was trying to hold in her laughter, but it was in her voice.
Turning back, Ray shook his head at them—but he was smiling. “Two snobby little girls. Can I sell you two some diamond-encrusted watches?”
“Ever the salesman,” Olivia said, and she and Elise laughed some more. When Ray held out his hands to them, they took them.
“Can you ride a motorcycle?” Elise asked as she followed him into the living room.
“Like I was born on it. And no, I’ve never participated in a gang war. Sounds like you two have all the same questions Kathy did.”
“Your wife,” Elise said as she and Olivia plopped down on the couch.
Ray went into the kitchen and got a big bag of tortilla chips and a container of freshly made guacamole dip and set them on the coffee table. He was still shirtless and didn’t seem inclined to re-dress. He sat in the big chair to the side. “I suggest that we each tell our favorite sex fantasy.”
Olivia laughed, but Elise nearly choked on a chip.
“Come on now, you two have been teasing me ever since you came back, and this is after a day of running around like a couple of Lady Godivas. Maybe I should break into the caretaker’s house. I’d like to see his trophies.” He narrowed his eyes at Elise. “And yes, Miss Got-Rocks, I have broken into more than one house. And before you start trying to wheedle the rest of my story out of me, I’ll tell you that after my best buddy was killed in one of our burglaries, I quit. Cold turkey. I put myself through school. Clawed my way to the top. Married the boss’s daughter—who I now want to divorce. You have any more questions?”
Elise looked at Olivia. “Not me. You?”
“None. I’ve had a recurring dream.” She looked at Ray. “I’m back to the sex fantasy idea. That is, if you can imagine an old woman like me involved in sex.”
“Olivia,” Ray said slowly, “I can imagine you doing acrobatics naked.”
She gave a little smile. “I am a bit limber.”
“Should I leave the room for you two?” Elise asked, half-serious.
“Naw,” Ray said. “Jeanne told me Livie’s husband had single-handedly brought down governments. I don’t think I’ll risk it.”
“I can tell you that I like flirting better than young men asking me if I need help carrying a bag of groceries.” Olivia took a breath. “Okay, back to fantasies. It’s a very simple dream, but since it’s appeared off and on for about four years now, I sometimes think it’s a premonition. I’m in bed—”
“Great start,” Ray said.
“Be quiet, Mr. Scorpion.” Elise leaned back on a pillow and looked at Olivia. “What did you do in bed?”
“I woke up to several men kissing me.”
“That’s all?” Ray asked.
“They have different colors of skin. Black, brown, red... I’m not sure. Maybe blue. I had some very pleasant thoughts about those blue men from that movie. Anyway, the actual color isn’t important, but there is a contrast.” Leaning back, she said nothing else.
Ray spoke first. “What happens after the kissing?”
“I don’t know. There was never a dream sequel, but I would expect that there is a lot more kissing.” She looked at Elise. “What about you?”
“I hope it’s better than the first one,” Ray muttered.
Elise took so much time in replying that Ray went to the kitchen to get rum, Cokes, and ice, and refilled glasses. Within seconds, the women were again smiling.
“After I was married,” Elise said, “I spent a lot of time thinking about my wedding day. I had so many thoughts about it, that I even, uh... I...”
“Come on,” Ray said, “out with it.”
“I rehearsed my fantasy.”
“So now you must tell us,” Olivia said.
“My wedding dress cost $48,781.82.” She waited until they’d lowered their eyebrows. “It was a ghastly thing. My mother seemed to think I was so bland that if I didn’t have a dress big enough to use for a tent, no one would actually see me. It was heavy and awkward. I could barely walk in the thing. But what I could do was spread my legs under it and no one could see me.”
Olivia and Ray had equally wide eyes.
“No, no, not like that,” Elise said. “My mother never knew it but I wore a pair of white yoga pants underneath that hideous dress. It was just defiance on my part and nothing came of it, but as I stood at the altar, those pants made me feel that a little of myself was there. But anyway, after I was married, I was so...disappointed, I guess, that I became obsessed with the idea of ‘What if it hadn’t happened?’ I thought of awful things, like car wrecks, and tornadoes that took Kent away, and even once I thought ‘What if I had said no?’ That was the scariest idea I could imagine.”
She took a swallow of her drink. “Somewhere in there I began to fantasize about what could have happened. I imagined that just before I was to say ‘I do’ to Kent, a man would ride a black horse down the aisle of the church. Of course, everyone would be stunned into silence—me included. When he got to the altar, he’d put his hand down to me. He wouldn’t say anything, but I’d know what he meant. I’d grab his arm and vault onto the horse behind him and we’d gallop out of the church.”
“Then what?” Ray asked.
“I’d like to think that we’d go somewhere and have sex like I see in the movies. Not what Kent and I did for eleven minutes every other week, but real sex, the kind that raises a sweat.”
“Hear! Hear!” Olivia said.
Ray smiled. “How did you rehearse that part?”
“I didn’t dare practice the sex, if that’s what you mean, but I did say that I wanted to take riding lessons. Kent’s mother had ridden as a girl so that meant it was okay for me to do it. Whatever Mummy did was the height of perfection and therefore allowable for me to do.”
As she took a deep drink of her rum and Coke, Ray and Olivia were silent as they waited for more of her story. It felt as though she was leaving something out.
“So I started riding lessons and it was weeks before I got up the courage to tell my trainer that I wanted to learn how to leap up behind a man. He agreed instantly. I think he was bored teaching rich girls how to stroll through a park on a horse. For weeks we rehearsed.
“He’d ride up to me, then lean down. I’d grab his arm as high up as I could, put my foot in the stirrup, and leap. It was a really hard thing to do but I managed it. Maybe it was silly, but it made me feel, well...prepared.”
“For when a naked woman bent down from atop a tree branch and held out her arm to you?” Ray asked. When the women looked at him in surprise, he said, “I listen. I have to so I can sell things to people.”
At the memory of her day’s adventure, the sad look left Elise’s pretty face and she smiled. “Exactly! If I hadn’t rehearsed I couldn’t have swung up, and that old man might have hit us with a shotgun.”
“You presaved our lives,” Olivia said and the two women started laughing again.
Ray’s groan halted them. “I hope you women are aware that neither of your little daydreams has to do with sex. A sex fantasy involves tongues on flesh and being tied to a bed and orifices and—” He broke off because they were looking at him with great interest. “I think you two want romantic fantasies.”
Olivia and Elise looked at each other, then back at Ray. “No, we’ll take the sex,” Olivia said.
“I agree,” Elise said. “Tell us about the sex. Do bad boys...you know...do things in different ways?”
“No,” Ray said. “We don’t.” He was grinning. “Bad boy. No one’s thought of me like that in a long time. I think all the suits I have to wear rub the edge off a man.”
“True. You look like a stockbroker now.” Elise was smiling at the naked upper half of his body.
“If I didn’t think I’d break a little thing like you in half, I’d demonstrate what I know. I could—”
Olivia cut him off. “I think you have enough problems with two women in your life. Tell us your sex fantasy—unless it involves your wife and your mistress together. That’s too close to home for me to be able to stand.”
“No worries,” Ray said. “Kathy and I don’t... Anyway, as for the sex fantasy, get your mothers to buy you a book. My romantic fantasy is to be myself around a woman. Not an image but the real me. And she still likes me as I am.”
Olivia sighed. “Unfortunately, I know exactly what you mean. My late husband never really liked me.”
“After all you did for him?” Elise said.
“I think maybe it was because of all I did for him.”
Ray refilled their glasses. “Now don’t go getting maudlin on me. Drink more rum and eat more guacamole. There’s ice cream in the freezer. Want some?”
“How did you meet your wife?”
“I guess you’d say it was through my overwhelming ambition.”
“Because her father owned the company where you worked?” Elise’s voice was hard.
“No. Not that. I could learn about the business, but Kathy knew things I didn’t.” He smiled at the looks of interest on the women’s faces. “Three forks on a table, that sort of thing.”
Elise grimaced. “I put on dinner parties with four forks. Kent’s family loves to impress people.”
“Kathy knows all that. She’s really great. She and her mom lived in a big place in Connecticut, but her dad mostly stayed in his apartment in town. Considering Bert Cormac’s temper, we all understood.”
He took a breath. “I knew Kathy had a sort of crush on me—she was always hanging around my office—but I was afraid that underneath that outward sweetness she might be like her father. Bert in a dress? No thanks! So anyway, I didn’t actually think about her as wife material until the annual office party. Black tie, lots of clients.”
“Clients of what?” Olivia asked.
“Advertising. We have some big accounts. Whatever is said about Cormac, he’s one of the best. Anyway, that night I was supposed to be out of town, but Bert wanted me at the party so I flew back—and I had only hours to come up with a date. I had an old girlfriend, Dolores, who I’d known most of my life, so I called her.”
Ray lifted his hand. “Big mistake. She was out of her element. She got drunk, then spilled a drink on Kathy, and said some awful things to her. I tried to get her to shut up, but I wasn’t fast enough. But then, it turned out that Kathy could handle herself.”
“What happened?” Olivia asked.
“As I said, before that night, I’d never paid much attention to her. She has a really pretty face but she’s a bit... What’s that German word? Zaftig, that’s it. Not my taste and besides, she was so overwhelmed by her father that I thought she had the personality of a wet noodle.”
He smiled in memory. “But that night she surprised me. I swear she was about to laugh at the awful things Dolores said. Laugh! Then Kathy put her arm around Dolores and walked out of the room with her. I was truly impressed. Now that’s class, I thought.”
He shrugged. “But later, I saw Kathy crying. Not a lot, but just enough that I knew what Dolores said had hurt her feelings. We talked for hours that night and that’s when I began to think maybe we could help each other.”
“And now you want someone else.” It was easy to see that Elise was thinking of her own marriage.
Olivia was sipping her drink and looking at Ray. “My guess is that you’ve found a woman who is more like you. Or what you grew up with.”
“Dr. Jeanne’s going to lose her job,” he said. “You girls mind if I...?” He waved his hand over his bare chest. He didn’t wait for an answer, but got up and went into the kitchen to get his shirt, put it back on, then poured himself a glass of straight Scotch. He took the bottle into the living room.
Olivia said, “You mentioned a man whose death changed your life. Does your big decision have anything to do with him?”
Ray finished his drink and poured himself another one. “Yes. Everything to do with it. That was Carl. Rita—the woman I fell for—is his little sister.”
“Tell us your whole life story,” Elise said. “Take our minds off our own problems.”
Chuckling, Ray leaned back in his chair. “I grew up in a rough neighborhood in Brooklyn. No dad, a saint of a mother who did the best she could at two jobs, but I was alone a lot. From the second grade, Carl Morales and I were best friends. We were taller and bigger than all the other kids.” He sipped his drink. “When you stand a head taller and twenty pounds heavier than the other kids, you can go either of two ways.”
“Be a bully or...?” Olivia asked.
“A savior. A protector. Carl and I saw ourselves as kings and it was our job to watch over our subjects.”
“With that philosophy, how did you get into a gang?” Elise’s voice was disparaging.
“We were big, not smart,” Ray said. “Actually, that’s not true. I’ve always been smart, just not very wise. And I was ambitious. Carl was my follower. Wherever I led, he went with me. By the time I was twelve, my goal in life was to become the ruler of the Scorpions. I thought that was the highest a person could reach. Carl and I quit school at fifteen and joined the gang. Then we spent three years showing them we were the best.”
“By robbing houses,” Olivia said.
“That and a lot of other crimes. Grand Theft Auto, B and E, all of it. We got to be so good that we became careless. When we were barely eighteen, the owner of a house had a gun and...” He stopped for a moment. “Carl threw himself in front of me and he died for it.”
Ray closed his eyes for a moment. “I’d never imagined my life without him. We were rarely apart, had no secrets. We were...” He took a breath. “He left behind a mother and a little sister. At Carl’s funeral his mother told me her son’s death was my fault, that Carl didn’t have the brains to get into trouble on his own. She said, ‘You had a choice. You could have led him to do something with his life, but you chose to teach him how to be a criminal.’”
Ray put his drink on the coffee table. “She was right. Carl had turned his life over to me and I’d led him the wrong way. The next day I got out. I had to smack a few noses to make my point but I did it. I got a job as a mechanic, earned my GED, college—” He shrugged. “A professor said I was an inch away from being a con man so I should take advantage of my talent and go into sales. I did.”
They were silent for a while, then Olivia said, “And Rita was the little sister.”
Ray grinned. “Yeah. From the day of the funeral, I sent money to Carl’s mother. I sent everything I could afford and the amount increased as I did better. She never thanked me, never even acknowledged me, but the checks were cashed.”
He sighed. “His mom never came close to forgiving me, but Rita grew up and went to a community college. When she got out, you’ll never believe what her mother did.”
“Sent her to you for a job?” Olivia asked.
“Close, but no. She sent Rita to Kathy. I think she knew that I wouldn’t hire the kid. She brought back too many memories and too much guilt. But Kathy didn’t know any of that. She just heard a sad story so she gave Rita the job as my assistant.”
“Your wife hired her?” Elise asked. “I never did anything for Kent’s work.”
Ray shrugged. “Kathy’s a better judge than the employment department. She helped me with a lot of things.”
Both women waited for him to elaborate but he didn’t. “Did she know about you and Carl?” Elise asked.
“No,” Ray said. “I never wanted someone as sweet and innocent as Kathy to know about my sordid past. When she asked me questions about my childhood, I’d play a romantic Bad Boy part. I’d tell her about motorcycles and black leather jackets, that kind of thing. I didn’t tell her about breaking windows and stealing kids’ Xboxes.”
“What happened after Kathy hired Rita?” Olivia asked.
“I hadn’t seen her since she was a child, but I instantly knew who she was. She and Carl had different fathers, but they both had their mother’s eyes, a weird blue-green that could turn to ice. Carl could freeze a person with those eyes.”
“And you fell in love with her,” Olivia said.
“Not at first. I was so angry that she’d been hired that I had it out with Kathy. Every time my assistant would get good, my wife would step in and help her move to another job. It used to make me crazy! I knew Kathy was jealous, but I swore to her there was no reason to be. At one point, I wanted to ban her from the office, but since her dad owned the place, I couldn’t very well do that. And besides, Kathy was my sounding board for every idea I had. When it comes to business, she and I are partners.
“Anyway, I was so angry that at first all Rita and I did was argue. The only thing she shared with her brother was his eyes. She wasn’t a follower like him. Rita was bossy and ambitious and kept telling me I was stupid and wrong.”
Olivia laughed. “True love if I ever heard it.”
“Yeah.” Ray’s voice sounded faraway. “It was. It is. Rita and I share it all. With Kathy, I had to learn everything. Nothing was natural. Meals, clothes, teeth brushing. Everything we did was different from each other and we had to figure out how to mesh. But Rita and I are alike. It’s all easy. I know what she wants for dinner, for her birthday. I know how to please her. Does that make sense? I love Kathy, but I don’t think I’ve ever done anything that genuinely pleased her.”
Olivia spoke up. “You said—and I quote—‘Kathy and I don’t...’ You didn’t finish that sentence, but I assume that meant sex.” She waited for his curt nod. “What about you and Rita?”
Ray hesitated.
“Go on,” Elise urged. “Tell us the truth. No secrets and no judgments.”
“It’s not something I’m proud of, but yeah, there was a lot of sex.”
Elise looked at him with wide eyes. “Walls? Tables?”
Ray’s eyes sparkled. “We used the big oak desk in my office so much that it got wobbly. Is that what you want?”
“Perhaps,” she said cautiously. “It would be—Oh hell. Yes! It’s exactly what I want. Kent treats me so delicately that I want to scream. I’m willing to bet he doesn’t do that to Carmen.”
Olivia was beginning to sober up and she looked at Ray. “Did you ever think that that passion is what Kathy would like to have?”
Ray gave her an intense stare. “Everyone talks about the unfairness between the sexes, but in this area the women win. A woman can fake it, but if a man has no desire, he can’t perform. I truly love my wife, but I have as much sexual desire for her as I did for Carl.”
“Poor woman,” Olivia whispered. “I’ve been her.”
“So have I!” Elise said.
“Look, I can tell you guys are on her side, and you’re right. Kathy is wonderful and she deserves only the best. Her father bullies her mercilessly, and she cowers in front of him. If I left her, she’d be at his mercy. It’s hard for me to think of doing that. The problem is that for the first time in my life, I’m in love with someone. Deeply in love, and I went to Dr. Hightower to help me figure out what to do. Should I leave Kathy and watch her come apart?” He looked at them as though begging them to throw him a life preserver.
But neither Olivia nor Elise knew what to say. Elise stood up. “I don’t know about anyone else, but I need to go to bed. This day has been all that I can handle.”
Hesitating, Olivia looked at Ray. If she stayed up, she knew they’d talk more and she couldn’t deal with that. The dreaded question of “What do you think I should do?” was going to be impossible to answer. Part of her identified with Ray being married to someone he couldn’t love as anything other than a friend. But part of her also went with Kathy. His wife was in a passionless marriage. Is that why she’d dedicated her life to her husband? To try to make him want her as much as he did the hometown Rita?
If that was so, when Kathy found out she’d failed, there was going to be a lot of anger released. If she was anything like her formidable father, that could be very bad.
Olivia stood up beside Elise. “Me too. I’ll see you in the morning.”
“Cowards,” she heard Ray say under his breath.
Olivia gave a little smile, but she didn’t turn back.
* * *
Ray sat alone for a while, sipping his whiskey, then he reached into his pocket for his phone and turned it on. There were eight emails from Kathy. He knew from experience that that many meant something bad. It was either an accident or death—or more likely, Bert Cormac was throwing one of his legendary fits and he was sure that only Ray could fix whatever the problem was.
He skipped the earlier emails and looked at Kathy’s latest one.
I SHOULD BE THERE BY SEVEN A.M. I HAVE EVERYTHING YOU’LL NEED WITH ME, INCLUDING YOUR PLANE TICKET AND PASSPORT. BE PACKED AND READY TO LEAVE. CAL TALKED DAD OUT OF GOING WITH YOU. YOU OWE HIM AN AUSSIE HAT.
“Damn!” Ray muttered. Australia meant the Hanberg account. It was a really big one, and if Cal had talked Bert out of handling it himself, Ray owed the man more than a hat. The older Bert Cormac got, the harder he was to deal with. For the last few years, his bad temper came to the surface within seconds. If he went to Australia, the account was as good as lost.
I’LL BE READY, Ray emailed back.
When he went to his bedroom, he thought about packing his bag, but he didn’t. He knew Kathy would do it for him. As he headed to the shower, he thought how Rita would never pack a suitcase for him. She’d say, “So now I look like your maid? You want me to put on a little uniform? Something short and cute? Hold your breath.”
Just the thought of her smart mouth made him miss her. When he got out of the shower, he called her, and they had a lively bout of phone sex.
For his wife, he didn’t read the rest of her emails, didn’t thank her for making the arrangements, or for all she’d done to save the account. But then, it was the kind of thing Kathy always did for him. He no longer even noticed.