The First Wives Club (3 page)

Elise Elliot had really been something. If the studio system hadn’t broken down, she’d have been a big Hollywood star instead of an interesting footnote.

She’d been an intelligent actress during a period of floozies, but her elegance had contrasted with her sexuality. She’d had both, and when she left Hollywood and went to France to work with unknown directors in tiny-budget foreign films, everyone thought she was crazy. She showed them. She’d made some beautiful movies, classics, and then she’d retired almost two decades ago. She’d just disappeared, gotten married to some big business type. Christ, what was the guy’s name? Atkins or something. A nobody. And she’d worked with Chabrol, Gerard Artaud, all the great ones. Larry had seen every one of her films at least a dozen times, but he’d never seen her in person before. It actually took him a few minutes to recover and start keeping an eye out again.

Hey, who knows who might show up next? he thought.

Two women were walking down Madison toward him. He tried to check them out.

Maybe this was going to be a bonanza of stars of a certain age. One of the women was obese, dressed in an enormous black poncho with some kind of fluffy trim, fringes or something. Hey, some of them let themselves go and had taste in their toes. Look at La Liz. But no, this was no one. Neither was the other, a thin, attractive brunette. Well, that was okay. He was used to waiting. And a picture of a grieving Gil Griffin could possibly bring in something. He could wait. That was his business.

Inside the funeral home, Annie Paradise and Brenda Cushman surrendered their coats and walked down the carpeted gray hall to Salon D.

Chandeliers gleamed above them, but despite the somber colors, the multiple rooms and the announcement boards outside each door created the effect of a catering hall.

“It always reminds me of a great place to have an Episcopal bar mitzvah,” Brenda whispered to Annie. “That is, if there was such a thing.” Her husky voice carried, and Annie told her to be quiet.

Annie felt drained, empty of tears, but still so sad and angry.

“Oh, c’mon. Who’m I gonna upset? Cynthia? That rotten scumbag Gil?

He could give two shits.”

“Brenda, if you don’t behave, I swear, I’m going to sit separately.”

“Okay, okay. But I’m no hypocrite. I never was friends with Cynthia.

She snubbed me, like all the other women up there in Greenwich. Annie, you were the only one who was nice to me. You’re the only thin woman I can stand, and if you were blond, too, you could forget about it.” She paused and raised her eyebrows. “Speaking of thin, rich, blond bitches, look who’s coming.”

Annie turned to see her other good friend, Elise Atchison, striding toward them.

“Annie,” Elise said, bending to kiss the air beside Annie’s cheek.

‘Just dreadful. Isn’t it?” Elise looked paler than usual, her exquisite features blurred, a hint of darkness under her eyes. “I couldn’t reach Bill this morning, so he won’t make it.”

“Hello,” Brenda said loudly, extending her hand. “Brenda Cushman,” she reminded Elise, who nodded in acknowledgment.

”They’re about to start,” Elise told Annie, and the three women moved forward together.

They reached the door of Salon D and Annie opened it. Elise entered first, but Annie stood aside for Brenda to pass through, which she only just managed without scraping her wide hips on the doorjamb. For about the seven thousandth time, Annie wished she could get Brenda into Overeaters Anonymous or therapy of some kind so she could lose the weight. She’d given her a copy of Starving for love, Women and Compulsive Eating Disorders. Brenda had said nothing, then sent her a copy of Fat Is a Feminist Issue in return.

Salon D was not well lit, and it was very nearly empty. “I told you we’d be early,” Brenda hissed, but it was already five after ten.

Annie had brought a bonsai boxtree with her, one she had developed herself and Cynthia had admired, but now she was too uncomfortable to put it anywhere, certainly not the casket. The place was so empty, any noise or movement would attract attention. She and Brenda followed Elise to a row and took seats.

Through her skin, in the way people can sense the presence of someone they love, Annie knew Aaron was already there. She cautiously looked around. Yes, there he was, at the other side of the chapel, near the front. She knew he would come. She felt her heartbeat accelerate. So wasteful. She could spot the back of his neck among a million others, the dark, dark hair that always gleamed, as if it had been brushed a thousand times, the neck, with that healthy pink-brown glow. Aaron, even from the back, looked more vital, more alive, than other people.

It didn’t matter that he had left her. It didn’t even matter that he’d asked to finalize the divorce. Love was not like water in a faucet something you could simply turn off. She could learn—she had learned —to live without him, but she couldn’t stop loving him. She still hoped. It was shameful, her secret, but it was true.

She looked at Brenda on her right and Elise on her left, the first divorced by her husband, the second virtually abandoned by hers. And I, too, am a woman alone, Annie thought. 3just like Cynthia. She sighed.

Several other women sat scattered about the room. Annie recognized one or two.

At the front was a Hispanic woman, crying quietly, the only woman with a man beside her. Other than he and Aaron, there were only females in the room.

Dreadful for Cynthia to end her life without masculine attention. Then an older man entered briskly, followed by a younger one, but Annie recognized the elder as an attorney from Cromwell Reed, the old-money law firm that had represented Cynthia and her family for generations.

Just business.

Altogether, there were perhaps a dozen people scattered about Salon D.

“Where’s the scumbag?” Brenda whispered, and for a moment Annie thought she meant Aaron. She inclined her head toward him.

”Not that one. I meant Cynthia’s scumbag.”’ Annie saw Elise’s eyelids flicker, but Annie was wondering the same thing.

Where was Gil? Well, perhaps he was waiting in the wings to give the eulogy.

The coffin lay on a draped bier at the front of the room. There was only one floral arrangement, red roses. How awful, Annie thought.

Cynthia hated red roses. God, I could at least have seen to that. She laid her bonsai tree on the empty seat beside her. Cynthia’s family should have done better than this.

But then, who was the family? she asked herself. No surviving parents, no surviving children, no surviving marriage. But there was Stuart Swann, Cynthia’s brother. Where was he? Even though he and Cynthia hadn’t been on speaking terms for some time, surely Stuart would want to say good-bye. Annie knew him well enough to believe he would want to do the right thing. And wasn’t there a doddering aunt somewhere? Aunt Esme. But I don’t know if she’s even alive anymore, Annie realized. She remembered Cynthia’s whisper at the hospital, “My mother never loved me.” Perhaps no one had.

Annie’s eyes suddenly filled. It was a tragic, tragic waste.

Once again, Annie felt that wash of loneliness. She missed Cynthia, she missed her two sons, she missed Aaron. And soon she would miss Sylvie. She thought she had gotten over the pain of separation and had begun acceptance, but Cynthia’s death had opened all the wounds.

Annie looked up as a cadaverous white-haired man in a dark clerical robe entered from a side door and stepped onto the platform. He looked like the generic “very reverend” to Annie, and he immediately launched into a generic memorial address. Man’s days are like sand in the hourglass, and God’s salvation and our good works live after us. No mention of Cynthia’s life, of the spectacular garden she had created, of her generosity, of Carla. In fact, he only mentioned Cynthia by name once. The rest of the time she was “the departed.”’ It was as if he might forget, or get it wrong, if he tried to say her name again.

Well, surely Gil would say something personal in his eulogy.

The divorce had been bitter, humiliating, and public, but he would manage something.

It wasn’t until the “very reverend” began the Lord’s Prayer to close the service that Annie realized that Gil wasn’t “in the wings,” wasn’t even making an appearance. It must have been like this for Cynthia, too, she thought, never quite believing Gil was really as cold and insensitive as he obviously was.

Then for a terrible moment Annie wondered whether when she died Aaron would skip her funeral. She was the mother of his children. God, she was becoming morbid. She shook her head, trying to clear it. At least she had her children, and her friends. And Aaron? Annie looked over at the back of her husband’s head. He must still care something for her. He had never been mean, never humiliated her. Poor Cynthia. How could Gil treat her so badly? Such a sad, shabby ending. And Annie had helped. Gil had used her to gather a few people, and then he had washed his hands. Cynthia was disposed of. Refuse.

As the service ended, the director from Campbell’s made an announcement. “The deceased will be taken to City of Angels Cemetery in Greenwich. Those who wish to attend, please see me for transportation.” Elise shook her head. Annie looked over at Brenda.

“No way!” Brenda whispered. Annie crumpled the wet tissues in her hand nervously. She had so much yet to do to finalize Sylvie’s departure. Every moment she had left with her daughter was so precious. Worse, she hated burials, but who would go to see poor Cynthia put in the ground? How lonely, if she was buried without a single witness. Annie, along with everyone else, rose. She wiped her eyes quickly and began to move toward the back of the room, walking slowly, hoping not to be too obvious in wanting to wind up beside Aaron. Elise, with her long strides, glided quickly up the aisle.

Brenda stayed beside Annie, then gave her a nod.

”He’s gone. First out,” she said.

But in the hallway, Aaron stood waiting. “Hello, Annie. It’s terrible news, isn’t it?” He looked white, stricken.

“Terrible.” She wished he’d take her hand, hold her, but he only shook his head. They stood facing each other for a time, wordless. Annie remembered how badly Aaron handled loss.

“She was never really happy,” Aaron said.

For a moment, Annie felt anger wash over her. For God’s sake, why did people feel that lives could be summed up in a sentence, one so trite at that?

“Who is?” she asked tartly, and silently prayed that Aaron wouldn’t next tell her it was “better this way.”

“Well, Alex seems happy. He’s finished his last final.”

”You spoke to him?” Alex, her eldest son, hadn’t called her last weekend. He had asked that Sylvie not come for his graduation, and Annie had been hurt by his decision. Aaron, she knew, had been relieved. Only Chris, her middle boy, understood just how special Sylvie was.

“He called last night. He’s looking forward to tomorrow.”

”So am I.” Annie managed to smile at Aaron. They would be in Boston together for it. Maybe in Boston … If only they could have a few pleasant words now, if only she saw some sign that he still cared.

“When does Sylvie leave?”

“In three more days.”

“You won’t reconsider? Those places,” he said. ‘They’re degrading.

They beat the children. They abuse them. She’ll wind up a complete vegetable.”

“Aaron, please. We’re not talking about a state institution. We’re talking about a private, sheltered community. We’ve been through this before.”

”Look, we’ll get you some more help. Ernesta isn’t enough.”

“That’s not it. I don’t need more help. It’s Sylvie, Aaron. She needs to be with other people like her. She’s too lonely, Aaron.

She’s too isolated.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. She’s with you all the time.” He sounded bitter.

Annie sighed. “That’s the problem. She’s too dependent. She on me.”

And maybe I on her, she thought to herself. How will I fill my days without Sylvie?

“Aaron, please. We’ve been through this a hundred times. Not now.”

“Fine.” He was brusque.

She knew that tone. She had hurt him. Oh, God, this wasn’t what she wanted.

“I’ve got to get back to the office,” he said. Then he turned away.

Turned away and walked out the doors of Campbell’s without a kind word for Cynthia or any comfort for herself. These men! she thought.

Emotional cripples.

Annie looked away from Aaron’s retreating back to see a receiving line of sorts with Gil Griffin standing there, shaking hands and accepting condolences. Annie felt herself begin to tremble. “How could he?”

she asked, meaning both Aaron and Gil. How could they?

She had not directed the question to anyone, but Brenda, who had come up behind her, answered it, “Easy, when you’re a hypocritical reptile.”

Dazed, Annie moved along with the others. God, the last thing she wanted to do was talk to Gil right now. No, the last thing she wanted was to go to the cemetery, seeing Gil now was bad, but not as bad as that. What possible excuse could he have for missing the service? And now, showing up for this farce. It was an insult, no, worse than an insult. Well, surely he’d see Cynthia to her grave.

When Annie reached Gil, she didn’t extend her hand, but Gil took it anyway.

“Thank you, Anne,” he said. Her fingers were cold, his hand surprisingly warm.

She withdrew her hand, Elise, who was beside her, folded her own hands behind her back. ‘Hello, Gil,” she said coolly.

Annie, as always, was embarrassed by the contretemps. “Do you want me to ride with you to the cemetery?” she heard herself ask. Here I go again, the ultimate good girl, she thought. And it was the ultimate sacrifice, but she could stand it.

”Oh, I can’t make it out to Greenwich, now.”

”What?” Brenda asked. Even tough Brenda sounded shocked.

“I can’t make it. I’m double-booked as it is. It was very difficult getting here at all.”

“Obviously,” Annie said coldly. “You didn’t make it in time for the service and now you’re not going to the burial?”

”It’s none of your business, really,” said Gil calmly. He began to turn away from the three of them.

”Gil, please come to the cemetery. It would matter to Cynthia.” il paused and looked down at her, his head tilted, birdlike, quizzical.