Madam of Maple Court (12 page)

Liza was not a knockout. She wasn't much taller than Pam, had short auburn hair and a peaches-and-cream complexion with a scattering of freckles across the bridge of her nose. She was dressed in white jeans and a soft lilac shirt that showed off her ample bosom. Pam looked down. She wasn't badly endowed herself. Why this woman?

Liza crossed the room and slid in beside Marcy. "Pam, this is Liza."

Liza looked at Pam with genuine sadness in her mossy green eyes. "I was so sorry to hear about Vin. Your loss must be quite painful. What can I do to help?"

"I don't know how to begin," Pam said. "You're not what I expected."

"You're exactly what I expected. Vin and I didn't talk much, but on the rare occasions that we did he told me what you looked like and lots more."

"What else did he say?"

"That you were super organized, a great help to him in his business, that you were talented and charming and, I don't know, sort of comfortable."

"I think the word 'comfortable' is damning with faint praise, but I won't go there. He gave you no details about our sex life?"

"I don't kiss and tell, and neither did he. I made it plain that once he and Marcy had talked and decided that he wasn't going to go to you for what he wanted, I didn't want to talk about his sex life with you. He wanted what I gave him and that was that."

"And what did you give him?" Pam watched Liza's shoulders rise and fall.

"I won't give you any details. Let me just tell you this. It was only sex. There was no love or anything close to that. I was a live sex toy and that was all. I want to assure you of that."

"I find that difficult to believe. Vin wouldn't have made love with someone he didn't care about."

The waiter arrived with a glass of wine for Liza and she took a large swallow. "Oh, he cared about me, I think, but I can't even say I was a friend. Maybe I was sort of an acquaintance and a sexual plaything."

Pam was getting annoyed with Liza's coy attitude. Who was she to know things about Vin and not divulge anything? "Come on, Liza. Let's lay it all out here."

Liza looked at Marcy, who nodded. "Tell her what she wants to know."

"He told me that he made decisions all day and that he didn't want to make any in his sex life. He wanted me to be in control, tell him what to do and when to do it."

"That's it?"

"That's it."

Pam considered. Liza was right that Vin was in control of everything at DePalma Advertising, almost to a fault. She could understand his not wanting to make decisions about sex. Had he made them with her? She thought about that. He had always initiated sex and the routine had usually been pretty much the same, his rolling toward her in bed, stroking her until she responded, touching her breasts, sucking at her nipples, then removing her nightgown and his pajama pants and moving on top of her. She had usually been wet enough for him to thrust into her and within a few minutes he'd climax with a moan, roll over, and fall asleep.

God, when she thought about it, it sounded deadly dull. Hadn't she realized that? Seen it? What if she had? Would that have been in time to make a difference?

Pam slumped against the back of the booth. "I don't know what confuses me more, the little bit you've told me about what went on between you two or his feelings about making all the decisions. Why didn't he tell me all of this? Why you?"

"Why me? I can't answer that one," Liza said. "All I know is that he desperately didn't want you to know about the making decisions part. He said you depended on him to be strong and authoritative all the time and he was glad that you leaned on him."

"Actually, I didn't." Pam shook her head slowly, taking in what Liza had said. "I deferred to him, and that's quite different. It was just easier to let him do it all than to argue about anything."

Marcy chimed in, "That's an interesting distinction, one I don't think Vin would have understood."

"I don't think he knew you at all, Pam," Liza said. "I think he thought of you as another person who couldn't survive without his guidance, and from the little I see, you're anything but. It's really sad, when you stop to think of it."

"It is," Pam said. "He didn't know much about me, and I guess I didn't really know him either."

Pam thought about how little she and Vin had really had in common, particularly in the later years of their marriage, and strangely how much she did have in common with both of the women who shared the booth with her. They were bright, insightful, and charming, and she could see why Liza commanded such a high price for her time. "Liza, thank you so very much for being honest with me. This can't have been easy for you."

"I'm glad it turned out this way. I think his being with me and not you was Vin's loss, and I'm sad he never had the opportunity to find out more about you."

"If I were being brutally honest, I'm not sure it would have mattered. I think our marriage would have chugged along until something, or someone, pushed just a little. Then, I think, it might very well have stalled or fallen apart altogether." Pam huffed out a breath. "It doesn't matter now anyway."

"You need to understand one thing, Pam," Liza said. "Vin didn't consider what we did together cheating. True, he didn't tell you about it, but in his mind paying for it was different than having any emotional attachment to some 'other woman.' He told me several times that he had never done what he considered cheating, seeing another woman without money being involved. He liked and respected you."

"Thanks for that," Pam said, understanding things a little better. But still, wasn't cheating cheating? Did it matter that Vin didn't consider it that way?

Liza took a final drink of her wine, then reached under the table and took her pocketbook from beneath her feet. "I've got to run. I've got a dinner date this evening. I mean a real date, with no strings or money changing hands."

"That's great," Marcy said, kissing Liza on both cheeks. "Do I know him?"

"Not at all. I met him at a parents' night at Kim's school. He's got a daughter in her class. He has no idea what I do for a living and for the moment I'll keep it that way." She stood and reached for Pam's hand. "I like you, Pam, and it's been an unexpected pleasure to meet you. I can tell you now that I wasn't looking forward to this encounter."

"Neither was I," Pam said, "but I'm glad we got to know each other." She took Liza's hand warmly and held it for a moment. "In our own ways we both cared about Vin. I'm glad you gave him something he needed." She would examine the small pain and large sense of inferiority later.

"Maybe I'll see you again sometime." And with that Liza hustled off.

"I'm dying of curiosity," Pam said to Marcy when they were again settled in the booth. "Liza's got a daughter?"

"She's got two lovely girls. Tiff is nine and Kim is seven."

"Husband?"

"Not anymore. He decamped with Liza's best friend when Kim was a baby. Left Liza with nothing, and the amount of child support he pays, when he pays any at all, isn't enough for a bird to live on, much less a household with two growing girls. That's when she came to work for me."

"You're blowing all my stereotypes to hell."

With a chuckle, Marcy said, "I can imagine. You thought of us as looking like the women in the old westerns, blousey, overly made up, bosomy."

"What got you into this?" Pam asked, more and more curious about this strange, genuinely friendly woman.

"It's a long story and I'll tell you at some point. Suffice it to say that my sister Jenna and her friend Chloe started Club Fantasy several years ago and I joined the business about a year later. Jenna now lives upstate with her husband and my wonderful nephew and nieces."

"Gary told me that you two are twins. Are you identical?"

"We are and we aren't. If we dressed alike," she winked, "and I lost twenty pounds, we'd be difficult to tell apart. As it is, we're quite different. And contrary to the old wives' tale about skipping a generation, we each have a set of twins." She looked at her watch. "Which reminds me that I've got to be getting home. Zack called me just before you arrived and was on his way home. He works in human resources."

Pam couldn't suppress the chuckle. "I guess both of you do."

Marcy guffawed. "Right you are. Anyway, the sitter will have left by now and he'll be overrun with rug rats." Her smile was slightly wistful. "You'll have to meet Zack. He used to work for the club and he could give you quite a different perspective on what we do."

"I'd love to meet your husband," Pam said. "Maybe we could get together some afternoon and I could meet your children, too."

"No kids of your own?" Marcy asked. "You seem like you'd be a great mom."

It was Pam's turn to become wistful. "No children. It just wasn't possible. We had all the tests and stuff."

"Did you try in vitro and all that?"

"Vin didn't want to go through all the fuss, so we dropped it."

"That's a shame." Marcy looked at Pam's face and said quickly, "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to touch on a sore spot."

"It's okay. I've gotten used to it." Not all the time. "I always wanted children, but I've resigned myself to enjoying other people's kids. Like maybe yours."

"I'd like that." She looked at her watch again. "I'd really love to continue this, but I do have to bail Zack out." Her face brightened. "You could come over right now and meet the crew. We could do take-out for dinner."

Pam pictured Gary's blond curls and found that she was eager to sort out everything she'd heard with his help. And she found she was looking forward to seeing him and exploring the new feelings she had about being with an attractive man. "I'm sorry. I can't. Maybe another time?"

"Absolutely." Marcy rose and grabbed her purse. As she slid out of the booth she handed Pam a business card on which she'd scrawled her home and cell numbers, then leaned over and kissed Pam's cheek. "I like you very much. You're my kind of people, and I don't say that often. Let's not let this founder."

"My sentiments exactly."
How bizarre is the world
? Pam thought. Here she was, making plans to visit with a madam and her family.

Marcy turned back and waved from the doorway, then disappeared while Pam sat for a few minutes trying to digest everything that had transpired. A woman that she thought she could be good friends with ran a brothel. Vin had enjoyed taking orders. Liza was delightful. Pam had been invited to become a madam. Marcy had said that she could get some business types to use Pam's home and organizational talents to create unusual parties. That was the one concrete thing that had come out of this lunch, but the intangibles were just as important to her. She'd call Marcy within the next few days and reinforce the idea of an entertainment enterprise. She grinned inwardly. Her kind of entertainment, not Marcy's.

Gary. She pulled her cell phone from her pocket and dialed his number. "I was afraid you'd forgotten me," he said.

Pam looked at her watch. She'd been sitting with Marcy for almost two hours. "I'm sorry. Marcy just left."

"Great. I'll grab a cab and meet you there in about twenty minutes, depending on traffic."

"I'll be here," Pam said.