Mortal Friends (16 page)

“No, actually, Senator…You remember at the British Embassy, you asked me how Cynthia Rinehart paid me?”

“Yup.”

“Well, she just fired me.”

“Thought you were decorating that castle of hers.”

“I was, but no more. It’s a long story, but I wanted you to know that my assistant Rosina says that she always paid by wire transfer from the Potomac Bank. I’m sitting here with the only check she’s ever given me—the kiss-off check that she handed me today. It’s a personal check. Her name’s on it. It supposedly covers my expenses to date. All except twenty thousand dollars.”

“What happened to the twenty thousand?”

“You’ll have to ask her.”

Grider paused. “You’re saying she stiffed you for twenty thousand dollars?” he asked.

“Well, I hate to tell tales out of school, but that’s what it looks like. It may even be more. Rosina’s checking her account as we speak.”

“Awful sorry about that.”

“Not nearly as sorry as I am.”

“You might want to sue her, though I don’t recommend it. More trouble than worth, lawsuits.”

“The fact is, I can’t afford to sue her, and she knows that. I’m afraid there’s a lot of personal animosity here. She ran off with my best friend’s husband, and who knows, this may be a kind of indirect revenge. This is more than you want to know, of course. But you did ask me about her method of payment, and it was wire transfers.”

“’Cept for that personal check.”

“That’s right.”

“Thank you for that information.”

“You’re very welcome.

“Good-bye for now.”

He hung up so abruptly I was surprised. I thought Grider sort of liked me. Guess not. I guess he really was only interested in Cynthia after all.

I went downstairs, handed Rosina the check, and went straight to Violet’s house to inform her that our little plan wasn’t going to work.

It was an unseasonably mild day. Violet was in the garden, repotting some plants. She looked like a real hausfrau in a heavy sweater, a utility apron, and a bandana. When I came outside, she said, “I should probably just let them die, dontcha think?”

“Cynthia fired me.”

“You’re kidding.”

She clapped the dirt off her hands, took off her apron, and led me inside to the sunporch. She got us ice waters, and we settled in so I could tell her the whole story. I told her nearly everything, including how Cynthia had stiffed me for twenty thousand dollars and how I’d told Senator Grider. When I mentioned that Grant was there, she just snickered, but I knew she felt real anguish. She looked like she’d aged about ten years in the space of days. I figured I’d spare her the worst of it—namely, Grant’s insane accusation that she and I were more than friends.

“So I guess it’s curtains for Operation Mary Lou. No chance of finding the metaphorical bottle of gin in Cynthia’s locker now,” I said.

Violet was staring at me in an odd way. “Reven? Can I tell you something?”

“Sure.”

“If I tell you, will you promise not to think less of me?”

“Come on. What?”

She pulled off her bandana and kneaded it in her hands while she spoke. She was obviously very nervous.

“It’s something I’ve wanted to tell you for a long time. And I’ve just never had the guts.”

“What? Spill it.”

“That bottle of gin you found in Mary Lou’s locker…? I planted it.”

She said this very softly, no doubt to try and lessen the impact. I was stunned. Truly stunned. Finding that bottle of gin and getting Mary Lou expelled was one of the defining moments of my youth. At the time, I’d really agonized about it, and throughout the years, I’d often wondered if I’d made the right decision.

Back then, expulsion from school was a very serious thing. It went on your record and had dire implications for your future, instead of being the bad-girl badge of honor it is today. There were certain offenses that meant immediate expulsion from Wheelock: smoking anywhere except the common room, having an alcoholic beverage on campus, sneaking a boy into your room, going off-campus without permission, and cheating. I was fully aware of the consequences Mary Lou would suffer because of my actions. But I hated the shitty way she treated Violet, so after considerable soul-searching, I informed the dean.

I can still see me and Mary Lou standing side by side in Dean Trowbridge’s office that cold February morning. Our housemother, Miss Moore, along with three other grim-faced faculty members, including the stern school physician, Dr. Woodcock (who Violet famously nicknamed “Dr. Timberprick”), were present. First, the dean asked me to tell him how I discovered the bottle. I told him the truth: Mary Lou was changing for gym class. I saw the bottle peeking out of a pile of clothes at the bottom of her locker. I confronted her. She denied the bottle was hers. I said I had no choice but to report her.

Then Mary Lou was asked to explain herself. She swore up and down she was innocent and that someone had planted that bottle in her locker. No one believed her, and no one was surprised she was a secret drinker. In fact, there seemed to be a tacit agreement among the adults present that it explained a lot about her erratic behavior. She cried and carried on like it was the end of the world. I’d never seen this über-bully even close to tears before, and there she was, all hundred and fifty pounds of her, standing in the middle of the floor bawling her eyes out. I couldn’t help feeling sorry for her, and maybe even a little ashamed of myself for having nailed her on a first offense.

Then that Salem witch trial thing happened where the dean told her if she admitted her guilt, she would not get expelled because an admission was a step toward repentance. However, if she continued to maintain her innocence, she’d be out on her ear come Sunday. Mary Lou held firm until Dean Trowbridge picked up the phone and started dialing her mother. At which point she hung her head and said, “Okay…I’m guilty. The bottle was mine.”

Dean Trowbridge gave her a benevolent nod—his benediction for her honesty. The faculty all breathed a sigh of relief and exchanged little smiles of satisfaction, having had their suspicions confirmed by the horse’s mouth herself. This was the Wheelock version of waterboarding—confess or die. Then Dean Trowbridge excused us both and told Mary Lou he’d inform her of his decision “in due course.”

On our way out the door, she whispered to me: “You know damn well who set me up.”

Well, I
didn’t
know. And besides, I’d heard her confess!

That Sunday morning when we all came back from church, Mary Lou was trudging down the hall with two suitcases. She’d been expelled. I remember she looked at me and Violet with her scary, smoky
eyes and said, “You’ll pay for this.” Violet and I just turned away, but I felt bad for her even then.

Over the years, I’d often wondered what ever became of Mary Lou. She never wrote into the alumnae bulletin. For that matter, neither did I. Perhaps she wondered whatever became of me. It all happened a long time ago, but somehow one doesn’t forget the dramas of school days, perhaps because they are the first indications of character in oneself and in others. Violet’s terrible admission that she had planted that bottle made me reevaluate my decision to report Mary Lou. It also made me think about how cavalierly Violet and I had wrecked a girl’s life back then, and how the whole course of Mary Lou’s existence may have changed because of what we, two idiot schoolgirls, did to her. I justified my decision by telling myself I was acting in the best interests of a person I cared for—Violet.

Back then, I considered myself a pretty good judge of people. Given recent developments, however, I had to admit there had been times when I’d been misled. I hated the fact that Violet had manipulated me so egregiously.

“How could you have done that to me?” I asked her.

“I didn’t do it to
you
,” she replied. “I did it to that bitch, Mary Lou. I’m sorry if I hurt you, Rev, I really am. But you know how horrible she was to me. You know she made my life a living hell. I had to do something to protect myself. I had to get rid of her.”

“Yes, but you should have told me.”

“Maybe,” she said, pausing. “And maybe you should have told
me
about Grant.”

Touché.

T
he Reliable Source column, along with the local magazines—
Washington Life
,
Capitol File
, and the
Washingtonian
—all covered Bob and Melody’s splashy reception at the Hay Adams. I still hadn’t heard a word from Bob—not that I expected to. But it was galling to see him looking so relaxed and happy in those pictures. Everyone was there, including Grant and Cynthia, who were photographed standing with Nouria Sahala in her leopard-print Dior dress. Marge Horner, wearing a fixed pumpkin smile, popped up in several photos and was quoted as saying she was going to give the couple “an exclusive little dinner” at her house. Even Peggy and Rolly Myers were there, much to my dismay, along with the Jed Jimsons, Kyle Michaels, the artistic director of the Kennedy Center, Leonid Slobovkin and his wife, and many other prominent Washingtonians. Rosina finally confiscated all the magazines because she couldn’t stand to see me poring over them and torturing myself.

“People who are attracted to the thing they hate are the most miserable,” she said. Wise words.

Cynthia moved into her house—well, Gay’s house, as I preferred to think of it. I heard through the grapevine that she got some schlocky decorator from out of town to finish it for her. A blurb in the Style section deemed her “a worthy successor” to Mrs. Harding, saying that Gay would have undoubtedly approved of Cynthia’s “ongoing munificence and enrichment of the community.”

Poor Violet was now more obsessed with Cynthia than she was with the Beltway Basher—which was really saying something. She
stopped clipping articles about the stalled progress of that investigation and focused on coverage of Cynthia instead. She even stopped asking me about Gunner, which was fine with me; I couldn’t stop thinking about my last conversation with him, the deep sadness in his eyes. Violet tracked Cynthia like a bloodhound, which wasn’t hard—the scent of Cynthia’s money had left a trail all over town.

Cynthia was like a philanthropic Lady Bountiful, tripping through Washington, handing out millions to various charities and institutions like golden apples from a bottomless basket. Everyone wanted to meet her, to court her, to impress her in order to benefit from her unparalleled largesse. Not only was she giving lavish amounts of money to charity, she was giving lavish gifts to important people around town—Chanel bags to congressional wives, cashmere mufflers and designer ties to senators and cabinet members. The list of recipients was long and prestigious.

Cynthia referred to herself and Grant as the “It” couple because the two of them were invited everywhere, including the White House. She seemed to be at the center of everything, hawking philanthropy as if it were a new miracle cure. Indeed, philanthropy was a worthy calling as well as a redemptive force. So powerful was its intrinsic goodness, it could restore the luster to even the most sullied reputations in short order. When in doubt, give. When in trouble, give. When indicted, give more.

Though Cynthia was justly proud of the work she was doing, there was an undeniable arrogance in her manner. Carmen Appleton and Peggy Myers privately objected to the way Cynthia was throwing her weight around the Kennedy Center. Carmen, in particular, was fed up with Cynthia’s high-handedness. She complained about it to me and Violet over lunch at Café Milano.

“Honey, we all know that the people who give the most money get the best seats. But guess what? I am sick of hearing about it! What about all of us grunt envelope lickers and floor sweepers? Don’t
we
deserve any credit?”

What bugged Violet more than anything was that so many people were willing to overlook the fact that, great philanthropist or not, this woman had stolen her husband.

“She’s generous to a fault all right,” Violet said. “And trust me, I’m gonna find out what that fault is.”

It was then that Violet confided to me that she’d hired a private detective firm to check Cynthia out.

“How do we know this woman is really who she says she is?” Violet said.

Trust Violet to think of something vaguely shady like that. Her penchant for true crime shows had a practical application at last. Waiting for the report gave her a modicum of hope.

Constance Morely came into the shop on a rainy Tuesday. I hadn’t seen Lady Morely in months, not since that famous evening at the British Embassy when I imagined Bob was being stalked by Melody, though I now suspected it had been the other way around. Constance said she wanted to buy one of my signature herb-scented candles, and we got to chatting. Naturally, I wanted to avoid the big topics like Bob’s marriage and Violet’s breakup, so I asked her how her lupus foundation was coming along. She informed me that they’d run into “a bit of a cock-up,” as she put it.

“I don’t like to talk about it,” she said, sniffing a candle. “Thyme?”

“Verbena.”

I hardly knew Constance Morely, but she seemed like an elegant, mild-mannered sort of woman, the perfect wife for an ambassador. Those girls had to be at least as diplomatic and discreet as their husbands—though many of them certainly were not. I sensed there was a story there.

The trick in getting more information out of someone is to confide something very personal about oneself first. Nine out of ten times they will reciprocate, or even top you. So I threw a little chum in the water to get her going. I broke my taboo about not mentioning Violet and Grant’s breakup. Not only that, I told her how Cynthia had fired me and stiffed me out of twenty thousand dollars, claiming I’d made mistakes I’d never made.

“It you want my honest opinion, the only reason she hired me to begin with was so she could get closer to Grant. Once she snagged him, she didn’t need me anymore. That’s the real reason she fired me.”

Just as I figured, the minute I said this, Constance lowered her voice to a whisper. When those diplomatic girls get going, they can
dish with the pros, let me tell you. She told me—in strictest confidence, of course—that right after that dinner at the embassy, Cynthia asked if Constance would introduce her to the prime minister.

“Naturally, I was extremely grateful to her for the generous gift she pledged to my little foundation. So I put her at his table when he came to town,” Constance said. “I’m told she’s going to present him with one of those Golden Keys next year. And I understand she asked him to participate in one of her retreats.”

Constance said soon after that introduction, Cynthia wrote her a letter saying she’d been “overzealous” in her commitment to childhood lupus.

“She apparently met a doctor who doesn’t agree with the research Dr. Singh is doing. She did give us fifty thousand dollars, which is a great deal of money, of course. It’s just that when you’re expecting a million, well…We’re such a small foundation, and we’d made commitments based on her pledge.”

“Can she do that? Just renege on a pledge like that?”

“She didn’t sign a formal contract. But even if she had, I’m hardly in a position to sue her. I’m sure you understand.”

I certainly did understand. The wife of the British ambassador was not about to get involved in a lawsuit.

“Have you told anyone else about this?” I asked her.

“No. Just James, of course. One has to be so careful in whom one confides in Washington.”

“Believe me, I know.”

I walked her to the door, past Rosina, who had her nose in the accounts, pretending to mind her own business—a sure sign she’d been eavesdropping. I stood at the window and watched Lady Morely’s car drive off, wondering how I could use this latest intelligence to my advantage. I certainly planned to tell Violet. Rosina sidled up next to me.

“I assume you heard everything,” I said. “Wasn’t I brilliant to get that out of her?”

Rosina shrugged and said slyly, “She didn’t buy a candle, did she?”

“You think she
wants
me to repeat that story?”

“Why else would she come here?”

“Are you insinuating I spread gossip?”

“No. I am telling you directly. You should have a blog and call it an
tiquesandgossip-dot-com. This shop is like a beehive. There is always a buzz here. Not just you. I hear the customers talking. They think I’m not listening, and I’m not supposed to be. But I am.”

As Rosina and I were staring out the window, debating the lesser points of my discretion, I suddenly caught sight of Bob Poll’s hunter green Rolls gliding past the shop. My heart did a cartwheel. I gripped Rosina’s arm.

“Oh, my God! Look!”

“I never got to ride in that car!” She sighed.

The Rolls stopped in front of Bambino, a fancy children’s clothing boutique two doors up the block. Maxwell got out and walked around the car. He stood at attention, obviously waiting for someone. I held my breath, expecting to see Bob. But pretty soon, Melody walked out of the boutique carrying a red shopping bag.

Much as I hated to admit it, she looked great. The polished chrome sexpot was history. She was a rich matron in crocodile shoes and a designer suit. She had a soft gleam about her, like burnished gold. She casually handed the shopping bag to Maxwell, who took it with a rigid arm. As she lifted her well-turned ankle and stepped into the car, I was hit by a bolt of envy. Maxwell closed the door behind her and glanced in the direction of my shop. I pulled Rosina back from the window so he wouldn’t catch us staring at them.

“You think she is pregnant?” Rosina asked.

“If she is, it’s
The Omen
, part three.”

Rosina looked at me sympathetically and said: “He will cheat on her. You will see.”

As I walked upstairs to call Violet, I thought of my whirlwind courtship by Bob as the dating version of a science fiction movie where the heroine is drawn into an alternate universe with disastrous consequences. Either he was crazy, or I was, or both of us were. In any case, it was over and I hated him, and although I really didn’t think he was a serial killer, I liked to refer to him as such.

When I told Violet about Constance Morely’s visit and the fact that Cynthia had reneged on her pledge to the lupus foundation, Violet said, “Funny you should mention it, because I just got off the phone with Douglas Reed’s wife, who told me that the Folger may have to sue her because she’s threatening to renege on her pledge
to them.”

“Wow…. What’s going on, I wonder?”

“Maybe she really doesn’t have the money,” Violet said. “Wouldn’t it be delicious if this turned out to be some sort of scam?”