Retreat (7 page)

    
Clara tried to remember if any of
Marguerite’s paintings were scheduled to be in the new display, which David had
summarily destroyed.

    
“We had an angry patron,” Terry said,
trying to cover for Clara.

    
“Thank you, Terry,” Clara said, stepping
forward, “but no. That’s not what happened. Marguerite, you might as well hear
it from me. I broke off my engagement. This mess is proof that David didn’t
take it well.”

    
“You broke off your engagement with David
Carpenter?” Marguerite asked, suddenly oblivious to the broken artwork. “You
must be ill. Take a few days off until you’re well again, darling.”

    
“He lied to me,” Clara said. “A few days
off won’t change that.”

    
“Oh, honey, they all lie,” Marguerite said
dismissively. “If you like the lifestyle you learn to live with it.”

    
“He has a wife and two children,” Clara
said.

    
Marguerite lowered her eyes at Clara. For a
moment Clara wondered if they might close all the way from the sheer weight of
her dark chestnut eye shadow and mascara. “And just how did you find out about
them?” the old woman accused more than asked.

    
“I …” Clara stopped, a sickening
realization washing over her. “You knew?”

    
“Oh for goodness sakes Clara, everyone
knew. I can’t believe you didn’t.”

    
Clara stood there speechless amid the
broken glass and cracked artwork strewn across the gallery floor.

    
“If you’re smart you’ll go after him,”
Marguerite advised.

    
“I beg your pardon?” Clara asked. “I’ll do
no such thing. He’s a deadbeat. He doesn’t even pay child support.”

    
“He is certainly no deadbeat,” Marguerite
retorted, obviously appalled that Clara would even dare to suggest something so
scandalous. “He and Sally have an arrangement. From what I understand she’s
well taken care of and no longer David’s concern.”

    
“But the children …”

    
“Grow up, Clara. You just let a good one
walk away.”

    
Clara realized that arguing with a woman
like Marguerite would be fruitless. “Let me get this cleaned up,” she said evenly.
“If you need help over the next few days you can talk to Terry. I need to take
a little time to sort things out.”

    
“Good,” Marguerite said, bobbing her head
confidently.
 
“I’m glad to hear you’re
coming to your senses.”

    
“Oh, I’m sorry. I wasn’t clear, was I?”
Clara said as she bent down to pick up some of the larger pieces of glass. “I
meant to say I need a few days to move out of David’s house and find an
apartment. I’ll also need to find a job, which will cut into my volunteer hours
here. I’ll finish out the fundraising campaign but you’ll have to find someone
else to cover these studio hours.”

    
“In that case, you’d do well to remove your
personal items from the gallery today. We can find someone with more
qualifications than you to finish the campaign,” Marguerite said, staring at
Clara as if she were no better than the rats they’d had to exterminate when
they converted the decaying building into an arts center. It took an effort not
to squirm under that gaze.

    
“You were given this assignment as a favor
to Mr. Carpenter, who wanted to help ease your transition to the city. Since
that no longer applies you have no more business here. These positions require
a certain amount of discretion and we cannot have the patrons more concerned
about your distasteful affairs than with the art.”

    
“You’re serious?” Clara asked, incredulous.
“I raised more money for this place in the past six months than any fundraiser
you’ve had in the past five years!”

    
“Of course I’m serious,” Marguerite
sneered. “Terry, take care of this mess, will you? Be sure to document it. If
anyone asks what happened tell them we were moving an old exhibit from storage
and the idiotic movers broke some pieces. It wouldn’t be the first time.”

    
Terry jumped at the order, pulling a large
wooden trash can from behind the registration and information desk. Clara just
stood there and watched Marguerite stroll back to the elevator and step in.

    
“What just happened?” she asked, still
staring after Marguerite.

    
“You were fired,” Terry said.

    
“That’s what I thought. Can she do that?
I’m a volunteer.”

    
“Who’s going to stop her?” Terry asked.

    
“I wasn’t expecting this.”

    
“You’re playing with the big girls now,
Clara. Which means you’d better play by their rules. These women know their
husbands are a bunch of philanderers but they don’t care. And they definitely
don’t talk about it. It goes with the territory.”

    
“I really don’t belong here, do I?” Clara
said, turning to look at Terry, who’d pulled the digital camera from the
information desk drawer.

    
“Honey, you never really did.”

    
“Is that why you set me up with Jon last
night?” Clara asked, suddenly realizing there were more forces at work than
she’d suspected. “Were you hoping someone would see us?”

    
Terry didn’t say anything. She focused the camera
and took a shot of the glass-pocked floor.

    
“Terry, why?” Clara asked.

    
“Better you get out now than after years of
banging your head against the wall,” she said, carefully lining up another
shot.

    
“I didn’t realize what I stepped into when
I came to live with him,” Clara said.

    
“You’re not the first, and you won’t be the
last,” Terry said.

    
Clara’s head was spinning. “What is this
1950?”

    
“Yes. And if I were you I’d get as far back
to the 21
^st
century as possible as soon as I could.”

    
“Why?” Clara asked.

    
“It’s going to get ugly here if you stay,”
Terry said, nodding knowingly. “They protect their own.”

    
Clara stared at Terry. It dawned on her
that she was completely alone in this. No one would take her side. None of the
ladies from the Junior League or Aesthetics. Not Terry, who really did get paid
for the work she did and couldn’t afford to lose her job. Clara had given up
her friends, hell, even her gym membership when she moved here, so it wasn’t
like she had a hidden group of people to come out and fight for her.

    
Except Jon. He’d come to warn her. Thank
God.

    
She grabbed her purse and walked out of the
gallery without saying goodbye.

CHAPTER
4

    
Shit, Clara thought, as the garage door slid
up to reveal David’s long black Caddy parked inside. He hadn’t gone on his
trip. He must be working from home. But why? He had to know she was coming to
get her things. But maybe not so soon. He probably figured she’d come after she
was done with her shift at Aesthetics.

    
She allowed her blue coupe to idle on the
concrete driveway for a moment, as she considered whether to turn around and
come back later, when she was sure he wasn’t home, or get it over with. She
dreaded another scene like the one at Aesthetics, where David had proved more
unpredictable than she’d imagined. The fact that he thought she was cheating on
him didn’t help matters.
 

    
She slowly pulled into the garage next to
his car. He’d already know she was there anyway, she reasoned, from the
rattling of the garage door mechanism. She damned well wasn’t going to let him
think she was intimidated by him. She hadn’t done anything wrong.

    
As Clara entered the silent house, so still
in the late-morning air, her eyes lit on him standing in the kitchen, leaning
against the white marble counter with an empty glass in his hand. An open
bottle of bourbon sat on the island in front of him. She noted that he still
hadn’t showered and his face had grown increasingly scruffy with his
light-colored beard.

    
She cleared her throat to prepare to speak.
He glowered at her, as if willing her to say something to set him off. She
swallowed a wave of uncertainty, purposefully staying calm.

    
“I’ll need about an hour to gather my
things and then I’ll be out of here,” she said guardedly, as she set her purse
and jacket on the chair next to the door.

    
“Take your time,” David said, waving her in
and drilling into her with that hateful gaze. “Be my fucking guest.”

    
She glared back at him and noticed that his
eyes were glassy. She wondered how much of that bottle he’d already put away.
“Come on, David,” she said slowly, her voice steady and in control. “I won’t be
here long. I didn’t think you’d be home or I’d have come later. You can at
least be civil.”

    
“Oh, I’m being civil,” he said. “You have
no idea how fucking civil I’m being to you.”

    
She ignored him and headed down to the
basement where her luggage was stored. She pulled two large red suitcases out
from under the steps and lugged them up to their second-floor bedroom, making a
racket as she dragged them behind her. She desperately wished she’d taken more
of her things last night when he was blissfully unaware she was there.
 
It was a tactical error she hadn’t
considered.

    
She didn’t bother folding her clothes. As she
rolled her favorite things up and stuffed them into the suitcases, it didn’t
take long to determine that the large red cases wouldn’t hold everything she
hoped to take along. She’d increased the bulk of her wardrobe considerably
thanks to David’s endless offers to take her shopping. She’d have to leave most
of it behind.

    
She tried to gather her thoughts and
determine what was most important to her. She jerked her journal and pen from
the top drawer of the nightstand next to their bed and stuffed them into the
largest suitcase. Then she opened the nightstand’s bottom drawer, which held a
few pieces of lingerie she’d bought on her last trip to the mall. The tags
still hung from two of the negligees. She slammed the drawer closed.

    
Leave them for the next fool, she thought.
It’s not like I got any use out of them anyway.

    
She stood and thought for a moment,
contemplating the open suitcases lying on the bed.
 
She’d have to leave her textbooks, most of
which were on bookcases down in the office. She didn’t need them anymore
anyway.
 
She rummaged through the closet,
making sure she packed enough clothing to get started somewhere new. She left
the negligee she’d bought for their wedding night, hanging wrapped in the cream-colored
plastic wrapping from the intimates store. She’d need work clothes and shoes
for sure. She grabbed a pair of black pumps, a pair of brown pumps and her
favorite red boots. Then she shoved her old running shoes and a workout outfit
into the suitcase on top of her journal.

    
What else? There was nothing in the
bathroom that couldn’t be replaced. All of her most important papers were
tucked in a safety deposit box back home. The only thing left was her laptop,
which held the data she’d been collecting on Aesthetics donors. It was down on the
coffee table in the formal living room.

    
She zipped up the suitcases and lugged them
one by one down the hallway toward the stairs. She gazed around at the stunning
home, which looked as if it were picked straight out of a magazine.

    
Or a museum, she thought, her eye catching
on a watercolor they bought at a charity auction earlier that year. David could
keep the artwork. He paid for most of it anyway. She wondered what Sally would
think about him taking down the artwork she’d so tastefully chosen and replacing
it with these local paintings that didn’t coordinate nearly as well. Clara bet
she’d be pissed. But probably not as pissed as she was when she found out I
moved in, Clara thought.

    
She set her mind back to the task at hand.
Get her shit and get out.

    
“Clara,” David called from downstairs.
“Time’s up.”