The House On Willow Street (16 page)

When he passed Suki her glass, the look of pure lust in his eyes made her feel all the heat and excitement come rushing back.

“Just one,” she mumbled. “I have a thing on tomorrow . . .” She was babbling now, particularly as he slid across the leather seat to get closer to her.

“Cancel it,” he said flatly. “You’ll be in Pittsburgh tomorrow. With me.”

“I can’t cancel it,” she said, suddenly irked, despite the inky liquid pooling inside her groin. How dare he tell her to cancel something!

Jethro drank some of his champagne and then he was right beside her. His face with its hard lines was close to hers, and then his mouth was opening hers, and she could feel the coolness of his champagne coursing into her mouth. She’d heard of liquid kisses but nobody had ever done it to her before, and suddenly she pulled herself away, drained her own glass, then dropped it and pulled his face close to hers with both hands, and spilled a sliver of cold bubbles into his mouth. She could feel his throaty growl rather than hear it because they were so close, chest to chest, and it didn’t matter that she smelled of fresh hot sweat and Shalimar: he was the same, a raw animal smell and something musky and expensive.

He drained the last of his drink, then held the bottle to her lips.

“Who needs glasses?” he said, mouth closing on the soft curve of her neck.

At the airport, she had to wait in line for fifteen minutes to pick up a cab.

“You wanna share one?” said a guy in a business suit in front of her. Suki sized him up; business man out of town for work, expense account dinner in front of him and a bottle of whatever he liked. Probably fancied a little fun on the way.

“No, thank you,” she said in her steeliest voice.

When the cab pulled up in front of her house, Suki got out slowly. The street was quiet, the way suburban streets were in winter, with most of the kids inside, no teams of laughing teens playing softball in someone’s front yard, no drone of a lawnmower or the bark of a small dog being walked by a gaggle of little girls who’d squeal with delight when the dog peed.

Suki shivered at the November cold and let herself into the house. She was cold a lot of the time now, apart from when she had the hot flushes and her core body temperature seemed to reach meltdown levels. She was fed up with this damn hormonal thing but she wouldn’t give in to it. No way, sister. She was going to beat it at its own game with agnus castus and the dong quai she got from the Chinese medical center in town. Taking replacement hormones was like admitting it was all over: welcome to Cronesville. She would not do it. She was still young, still fertile, still beautiful.

The house had the appearance it always had when Mick was home all day. The sports pages of the newspaper had been dumped on the floor beside Mick’s recliner, which in turn, was facing the flat-screen plasma, an item she hadn’t wanted and which Mick couldn’t afford, but he’d got a loan from the bank for it. She could smell takeout from the kitchen and knew, without looking, that he’d left the boxes on the table.

She resisted the impulse to tidy up. First, she needed to get out of her dressy clothes. Lord knew, she didn’t have many elegant clothes left. The designer outfits she’d once worn were all out of date and too small. This messiness with her hormones had thickened her waist, and she hated that.

Upstairs in their bedroom, she stripped off and pulled on her sloppy velour sweatpants and a Gap sweatshirt she’d
once bought for Mick, not realizing that denim was his preferred choice in all clothing.

There was a note on the bed:
Baby, gone for beers with Renaud. Might be late. Xx Mick.

She smiled at the kisses and the term of endearment.
Baby.
No woman who got called “baby” could be turning perimenopausal. He loved her, and she loved him, even if he was the worst housekeeper she’d ever met.

Still smiling, she went downstairs, ignored the cartons on the kitchen table and poured herself a glass of chilled white wine from the fridge. On a hook by the back porch door were a few heavy rugs Suki used when she wanted to sit on the porch swing seat on winter nights. Snagging one, she went outside, wrapping herself up in the rug. It was nicer on the porch when she lit the candles in all the tiny storm lanterns, but it took ages and she was too tired. When Mick sat out with her, he made sure he had music playing, sometimes bluegrass, more often rock. For Suki, music just reminded her of the hurt she felt, so when she was alone, she sat in silence.

Closing her eyes, she let wine and nicotine sink into her. When she was a teenager, she’d sit out in the orchard in the evenings, sneaking a cigarette after dinner. Sometimes their cat, a small black creature called Raven, would join her, weaving around for attention.

Tess had rescued the cat from the woods one day, a tiny scrap of a thing thrown into a sack with the top tied.

Of course, they’d kept her. Nothing in pain was ever sent away from Avalon House.

Tess had saved the cat and named her, yet Raven had chosen Suki to be her beloved mistress. Suki was careless of the cat’s affection and that appeared to suit the cat just fine.

Raven was long gone now, buried with all the Avalon
House animals in the tiny pet graveyard outside the orchard wall.

Suki’s eyes filled with tears. This was ridiculous, she thought, stabbing out her cigarette and then wiping her eyes with the back of her sleeve.

She kept thinking about home, about Tess, about Avalon, and it was stupid. Smart women didn’t look back, they looked forward. Right?

M
ara had thought going to Jack’s wedding was painful: but going into work and seeing him with Tawhnee every day
after
the wedding was far worse.

“I feel as if I’ve disappeared into a black hole,” she told Cici miserably. “I’m there but I’m not there, not in Jack’s eyes, anyway. I’ve just realized that it wasn’t the most thrilling job in the world. Yes, I was lucky to have a job at all, but I loved it because of him. Now it’s torture.”

It was torture to go into work each day, feeling “ordinary” and having the beautiful, long-legged Tawhnee swanning past, with every man’s eyes upon her.

It was torture to feel every woman in the place—except Tawhnee—urging her silently on, giving her thumbs-up signs across the office and silent hugs in the kitchenette.

She was invisible to every man and an object of pity to every woman.

Mara had never felt like a beauty queen, but when she’d been with Jack, she had felt loved for who she was. Once the love had been taken away and paraded so openly in front of her as so obviously false, she was bereft.

“You’re great,” Veronica had said one day at lunch, which had turned into a women-only zone where all the anti-Tawhnee and anti-Jack people congregated and bitched about how short Tawhnee’s skirts were, how tight her blouses were, how ludicrous her false eyelashes were . . .

“Yes, totally OTT,” agreed Sean, who was gay, and therefore allowed into the women-only zone. “
She
wears so much makeup, she’s like a tranny.”

“Whereas
you
, Mara,” went on Veronica, “are classy, individual, clever and . . .” she searched for another word.

“Not a Ferrari,” supplied Mara. “Apparently, Tawhnee is a Ferrari and I am . . . nobody knows, but I assume I’m a clapped-out old banger. A Ford Cortina with two hundred thousand miles on the clock? Something ordinary, anyway.”

Everyone stared at her.

“It’s what the guys were saying the day I found out about Jack and Her. She’s a Ferrari, therefore hotter than hell, and I’m not. They couldn’t come up with anything else for me.”

“Ah.” Everyone got it.

Sean poked her with his fork. “Call yourself ordinary in that getup?” he said, and everyone, including Mara, laughed.

In an attempt to cope with her misery she had made an extraspecial effort with her clothes. That day, she’d chosen an emerald green vintage Dior-ish swirling skirt worn with a black patent belt around her hourglass waist with a beret topping off her red curls.

“Without the clothes, I’m ordinary,” Mara said sadly.

Sean held his hands over his eyes dramatically: “I don’t want to see the
without the clothes
version,” he said. “Tried it once and didn’t like it. Keep the clothes on, dearie.”

But despite all the moral support, Mara’s spirits were low. She came to the conclusion that her job and the daily proximity to Jack were to blame.

“I know it’s mad to give up a decent job these days, but I have to,” she’d said one night to Cici, when they were in the DVD shop, pootling around the shelves as they decided what to rent. “I love Galway, you know I do,” Mara said to her friend. “But everything about this place reminds me of Jack and I need to get away.”

As soon as she said it, Mara felt the rightness of the decision. She’d go away—and not home, either. She’d brought Jack there, she’d brought him proudly into the family home with the hope that he was hers forever. No, she felt too raw to run home to her parents. She’d go to Avalon and Danae; Jack had never been there. It would be clean, virgin territory, untainted by Jack.

“Leave Galway?” The words finally got through to Cici, who was toying over a rack of DVDs featuring men with guns in their hands, chiseled faces and torn T-shirts showing taut six-packs. Cici had no interest in guns, as it happened.

“I’ve got to leave my job,” Mara went on. “It’s hell going in there every day and seeing her looking stunning and thinking that, if I looked like that, I’d be married to Jack.”

“Just shows you he’s a moron,” muttered Cici. “But you can’t leave Galway. What’ll I do?”

“Sublet my room,” said Mara decisively. “Give me six months to wash Jack out of my hair and who knows what I’ll feel like then.”

“But I’ll miss you,” Cici said, beginning to look panicked.

“I’m going to Avalon to my aunt Danae. You can come to visit—you’d love it.”

Cici turned away from the men-with-bared-torso DVDs. “
Beaches
,” she said. “That’s what we need. Or
The Bodyguard.
”

“No,” said Mara. “Let’s rent
Aliens.
I want to watch the bit where Ripley gets to go after Mama Alien with a flamethrower. That’s the way I feel about men right now. The next
man who comes near me is going to get a blast of the flamethrower.”

“Should I phone the local police station in Avalon and warn them you plan to run amok with your flamethrower?” Cici asked.

“No,” laughed Mara. “Don’t bother. I’ll tell them myself. Or I’ll get a sign for the top of the car.”

Mara was on her own that Friday night and she’d planned a glass of wine, chocolate and an evening with the remote control.

Cici and a few of the gang were going to see a film, then have dinner at a new Mexican restaurant.

“You need to get out,” Cici said.

But Mara had no interest in
out.
She could only just bear being
in
if she watched one of the endless crime series on TV, where evil stalked and complete nutters came up with ever more inventive ways to torture people.

Cici thought all the serial-killer shows were weird and believed the people who watched them were even weirder.