Crossroads (21 page)

I wonder what she’s thinking. She’s been smiling and staring at
Mother and me as hard as we’ve been staring at her.

*                           *                           *

Cassandra looks the way she always has,
Jewel thought,
and dear
dull Gwen is still a mess! That dress must be at least two years old!
And she never has figured out what to do with her hair. I bet it never
has looked as good as it did when I fixed it for her. She probably
doesn’t even remember that.

But as she gazed at the mother and daughter sitting side by side, Jewel felt something like a lump in her throat which totally surprised her. Gwen and Cassie looked so . . . together. And sure of themselves. They knew who they were and where they belonged.
I wonder if I’ll ever feel like that,
Jewel thought.
I wonder
if Gwen will ever realize how unbelievably lucky she is. And I wonder
what Cassandra is thinking right this second. Whatever it is, it has
something to do with me, I know, because she’s looking right at me.

*                           *                           *

It isn’t fair that Jewel never ages or puts on weight or looks anything
other than gorgeous!
Cassie thought indignantly.
She has the kind
of bone structure that will look marveous when she’s in her nineties.
She’s standing there in that dress that is completely inappropriate,
but it had to cost a fortune—from the looks of those packages, she’s
probably spent another fortune today—and in another minute I
know she’s going to start trying to lord it over Gwen because she has
more money now than Gwen does. She’ll find a sneaky way to do it;
it’ll come out of nowhere, and then Gwen will start cringing. There
are times when I hate women. Give me a man’s world any day. But
I’m not in a man’s world. I’m here with two other women and we’re
all staring at each other and the silence is getting ridiculous.

“Hello, Jewel,” Cassie said, hoping her voice didn’t sound as chilly to everyone else as it did to her.

Gwen followed her lead with a polite, “How are you, Jewel?”

“Fine, couldn’t be better,” Jewel said heartily. She looked down at their paper plates. “Oh, my! You’re having pizza! I don’t dare eat it, goes straight to you know where!” She smoothed one hand over a slim hip. “May I sit with you?” She drew out a chair at the table. “I’m simply exhausted. I must’ve walked ten miles in this mall today.”

There was nothing to do but ask her to join them before she did so without being invited. “I’ve finished my errands for the day,” she went on. “I just stopped at the jeweler’s to have my bracelets cleaned. They do it so much more thoroughly than anyone else does.”

It is an automatic reflex to look at an article, be it a hat, a book, or anything, that someone has just mentioned. Cassie and Gwen both did so. It is also automatic to make some comment about that article and Cassie was the one who did the honors.

“Very pretty, Jewel,” she said, as she was expected to say.

“Jeff gave them to me for our anniversary.”

“Lovely.” Gwen spoke this time.

“Jeff spoils me rotten. And of course he’s doing so well, I just can’t believe it. He’s into so many different businesses. Why, just the other day I heard him talking to someone on the phone about water rights in Brazil—can you imagine?”

Something cold prickled down Cassie’s back. She glanced at Gwen to see if she had picked up on Jewel’s remark, but Gwen hadn’t. Gwen didn’t understand business, so there were no tiny alarm bells going off for her. And it was more than possible that there was no reason for them to be going off for Cassie—or so she tried to tell herself. Still, she couldn’t help trying to get a little more information.

“I certainly appreciate the need for any company to diversify,” she said to Jewel. “But it was my understanding that JeffSon is in the business of distributing energy. What could that possibly have to do with water rights?”

Out of the corner of her eye she saw Gwen stiffen. Clearly, her daughter thought she was being too much of a stickler. Cassie wondered once again why Gwen had taken on the role of Jeff Henry’s defender.

And Jewel is looking at me as if she’d like to tell me to go to hell,
Cassie thought.

Instead, Jewel gave her a little chuckle and dismissive wave of her hand. “I’m really not worried about what’s going on at JeffSon. That’s my husband’s department and believe me, he can take care of himself.” Then she turned to Gwen and changed the subject. “Do you still go back behind your house and sit on that stump the way you used to? I’ll never forget when that old gardener told me you did that—Oh, but wait, you live in the city now, don’t you? That must be very hard on you, the way you used to love all those rabbits and things. Not a lot of those on First Street.”

And there it is, the sneak attack,
thought Cassandra. But for once, Gwen wasn’t cringing.

“The apartment is what Stan and I can afford right now,” she said. “We’re saving up for a house.”

For a second Jewel looked defeated. Then her face brightened. “I have an idea,” she said. “Jeff is out of town, and I’m at loose ends; why don’t you come out to my place? You can follow me in my car and I’ll show you around. We’ve just finished the house and I’d love for you to see it. I’ve never forgotten the first time I saw your home, Cassandra.”

“I’m afraid that’s not possible—” Cassie started to say, but then, inexplicably, Gwen interrupted.

“It sounds like fun, Mother!” she cried. “We have the time, don’t we?”

“I do work,” Cassandra said frostily.

“Yes, but didn’t you tell me they weren’t expecting you back in the office until late this afternoon?”

“It’ll only take an hour, I promise,” Jewel chimed in.

There really wasn’t a graceful way for Cassie to back out.

Chapter Twenty-seven

G
wen waited for her mother’s protest to begin. Sure enough, it came as soon as they were in Gwen’s car.

“What were you thinking?” Cassie demanded.

That I won’t let Jewel intimidate me,
Gwen thought.
And besides,
I want to see this mansion she’s built. According to Jeff she’s
been at it for the better part of a year.

“There is absolutely no reason for you to be traipsing off on this fool’s errand,” Cassie went on protesting. “And still less reason for me to go with you.”

Gwen flicked on the turn signal as, ahead of them, Jewel—predictably behind the wheel of a car that was new and looked very expensive—turned left. “Do you know if that’s a BMW?” she asked her mother. “The car Jewel’s driving?”

“It’s a Jaguar,” came the testy reply. “Why do you care?”

“I don’t. Not really.” She looked at her mother. “Oh, come on, Jewel just wants to show off her house. Let’s give her the satisfaction.”

“I do not want to give Jewel Fairchild . . . Jewel Henry . . . satisfaction for anything.”

“You see? I knew it. You are still angry at her after all these years!”

“Are you trying to annoy me, Gwendolyn?”

Gwen took a beat. “No,” she said thoughtfully. “I guess I’m just trying to put an old ghost to rest.” She looked at the scenery that was passing by them. “It is a lovely ride, isn’t it?”

“Charming,” Cassie admitted grudgingly. “It’s old America out here, all these colonial houses—” Then she stopped short. “And some new ones,” she added grimly as Jewel’s car led them through the wrought-iron front gate of an enormous house that sprawled at the head of a long, sloping driveway. Architecturally speaking, the thing was a hodgepodge of styles and periods. A few of them seemed to work together; most did not.

“Is that a pond?” Cassie asked.

“Where?”

“There, at the top of the driveway.”

“You mean where that fountain is spurting? Yes, I think it is a pond. Or possibly a moat.”

“Ah.”

They ascended the drive. Above them, Jewel got out of her car and waved them onward. Meanwhile Cassie sat forward in her seat. She seemed to be scanning the house.

“Are you looking for something?” Gwen asked.

“Hold on just a minute, I know there has to be one . . . yes, there it is!” she said triumphantly. “It was hidden under that little balcony.”

“What was?”

“The Palladian window. In a house like this there had to be at least one fake Palladian window.”

They got out of the car and Jewel bustled up to them.
Jeff
must be crazy about her to put up with living in a place like this,
Gwen thought.
It’s like those showy bracelets he gave her. I know
there’s no way he’d ever have bought them if he wasn’t trying to
please her.

“I can’t wait to give you the tour,” Jewel burbled as she ushered them through the massive front door of her home.

The inside of the house wasn’t any better than the outside. From the great circle of the entrance hall, there radiated corridors—the floor of each had been done in a different kind of exotic wood, Jewel proudly pointed out—and they all led to the varied luxuries of the house—the card room, the billiard room, the bowling alley, the media theater, and the spa with a connected gym. There was no library, but in a rather grand chamber that Jewel announced was Jeff ’s study, there were books bound in handsome, wine-colored leather that matched the leather chairs and sofas. Gwen tried to imagine the man she knew sitting in there and comfortably reading one of those color-coordinated, pristine tomes while sliding around on the slick overstuffed furniture.

The tour wound up in the foyer, where the windows looked out upon the lawns, the guest cottage, and the pool, which was backed by what looked like a slab of some kind of rock. A touch of a button on a huge electrical panel on the foyer wall turned the slab into a violently rushing waterfall worthy of Niagara. Jewel frantically adjusted levers and switches until the flood was under control. “I’m still not used to working this thing,” she said with her wide smile. The nearby tennis courts were soaked. Gwen didn’t dare look at her mother for fear that they would both start laughing.

“The designer kept trying to convince me to put a fire pit behind the pool, but I said, no, no, I wanted a water feature,” Jewel said.

“Well, you certainly got one,” said Cassandra and Gwen had to look away some more.

*                           *                           *

They’re laughing at me,
Jewel thought.
They think I don’t know it,
but I’m not dumb. What kind of good manners is that? And what
have they got to laugh about anyway? My house is bigger than that
musty old place that Cassie owns—I used to think it was so grand
but I’ve learned a whole lot since then—and as for Gwen, living in
her little city apartment, she doesn’t have the right to turn up her
nose at me or anyone else.

But even as she was thinking these things, Jewel was remembering the way Jeff had reacted when the house was finally finished. At first he’d seemed stunned, which hadn’t bothered Jewel at all because she and the architect had been trying for what the architect referred to as the Pow! factor. But then that funny little look that was halfway between pity and disgust had come into her husband’s eyes—it was the same look she was seeing now with Gwen and Cassie—and he had muttered under his breath, “Thank God, Dad doesn’t drive much anymore.”

She had pretended she hadn’t heard him—she was always very careful not to get into a quarrel with him—and she had dismissed the incident from her mind. But it had seemed to her that since they’d moved into her dream home, Jeff had spent even more time at work than he had when they were living in the hotel. And when he was home he seemed distracted. He told her he didn’t like her perfume, but when she changed it, he didn’t notice. He was irritable, too, and sometimes it felt as if he was always correcting her. “We have a
cook,
Jewel,” he said one night. “The woman is not a chef and it’s pretentious to call her that.” And another time when they were about to go out for an evening, he’d looked at her and shaken his head. “Do you have to wear all of your jewelry at once?” he’d demanded. Once when they were dining with friends she’d overheard him say to his end of the table, “Of course, when it comes to a news item, if it doesn’t show up in a gossip magazine, my wife will never read it.”

For a while she had put the unkindness down to business pressures. She knew that he was under a lot of stress, even though, as she’d told Cassie, she never tried to find out what was happening at JeffSon. But lately she’d begun to wonder what else might be going on. To be blunt, he had cooled toward her in the bedroom. When they were first married and he couldn’t get enough of her, she would have welcomed the nights when he moved to his side of the bed to read a book. But now she was finding it bothered her. Jewel wasn’t naïve; she’d always accepted the idea that men being men, he would have a fling or two. But she hadn’t thought it would happen so early in their marriage while she was still so beautiful. And she wondered if there was a bevy of women, or just one. There was safety in numbers. If there was only one woman . . . But she wasn’t going to think about that. Not with Cassie and Gwen standing there, watching her.

“That husband of mine is so generous,” she said loudly—maybe a little too loudly? “He’s a Santa Claus! He gives me anything I want, even if it costs a fortune!”

Now Cassie and Gwen didn’t look like they wanted to laugh. Now they looked embarrassed for her, as if she’d done something awful like eat with her mouth open or scratch herself when she thought no one was looking! People like Gwen Girard and Cassie Wright felt superior to the rest of the human race because they had money, but when someone like Jewel brought the subject up, she was crass and crude. It wasn’t fair!

For the first time in years, Jewel wanted to cry. Because in one of those flashes in which we see ourselves with total clarity, she realized that she hadn’t just brought Gwen and Cassie to her house to make them jealous or show them that the worm had turned; she’d wanted them to . . . accept her. She’d wanted them to say that she had overcome the sawdust Pop brought home on his clothes every night, and the little house packed with too many kids that had finally killed her mother. She had wanted Cassie and Gwen to admit that, at long last, Jewel Fairchild belonged to the exclusive club they’d been members of forever. But now they were letting her know that she’d never belong. No matter what she did she would always be the outsider at Gwen’s birthday party who’d been given an invitation as an afterthought, and came wearing a borrowed gown.
How I hate
them,
she thought as she blinked back tears.

*                           *                           *

Is Jewel going to cry?
Gwen wondered.
What does she have to cry
about?
Her home was a travesty, of course, but if you looked past the pool and the ridiculous water feature and the silly Tyrolean guest cottage, you could see beautiful land with trees and wildflowers that Jewel and her landscape designer had not managed to destroy.

More important than that, Jewel’s husband, who was brilliant and funny and far too good for her, had given all of it to her. Even if it was not his taste, he loved her enough to want to make her happy, to “spoil her rotten.” Gwen’s husband loved her too, but he expected her to be patient and wait for the house she needed and wanted so desperately. Suddenly, Gwen wanted to get away from Jewel and her mansion, and the vision of Jeff Henry living in it for Jewel’s sake. It was obvious that Cassie wanted to leave, too, because she was looking at her watch. “I think . . .” she was starting to say, when a man’s voice in the hallway startled all of them.

“I’ll take my bags up to my room, George,” said the voice.

And George, whoever he was, answered, “Of course, Mr. Henry. Mrs. Henry is in the living room with guests, sir.”

Before the three women could take a breath, Jeff was entering the room with his swaggering stride. He seemed a little put out that his wife was entertaining visitors, but Gwen thought she saw his eyes light up when he spotted her. But there was every possibility that she had imagined it. The moment passed in an instant, and Jeff was greeting Cassandra, and then giving Jewel a kiss on the cheek and explaining that he’d come home early because one of the guys from Texas had fallen and broken his arm and the whole bunch would be flying up the next day in somebody’s private jet. And Jewel flashed a gloating look at Gwen because her husband and the men with whom he did business all had their own airplanes.

*                           *                           *

Jewel couldn’t help shooting a glance at Gwen, then she slipped her hand possessively through Jeff ’s arm. For a second when he’d first walked in the door she’d thought she’d seen something in the look he gave Gwen—a warmth and a tenderness that he never displayed—and Jewel had wanted to demand an explanation on the spot. But then she realized it had been her imagination. That was what happened when you let people like Gwen and Cassie make you feel inferior. If you didn’t watch it, you found yourself imagining that dull, shy Gwen could actually be attractive to your husband. Jeff went for women who were beautiful and charming—well, look at the one he’d married for Pete’s sake. It was ridiculous to think that Gwen Girard could ever compete with Jewel Fairchild Henry.