A Charmed Place (72 page)

Too bad
she was separated from it by a
chain-link fence
and barbed wire.

Liz reached up and plucked a strand of the rusty wire as if it were a harp string.
"
This has been here a
long
time,
"
she said.

"
If I were you,
"
said
Victoria
,
"
I
'
d think about getting a tetanus shot.
"
She frowned in disapproval.
"
Barbed wire. Who do they think they are, anyway?
"

"
You mean, who do they think
we
are,
"
Liz corrected.
"
Obviously they don
'
t trust my side of the neighborhood.
"
She
took in
her tiny cottage, the smallest house on a street of small houses.
"
And let
'
s face it, why should they? We don
'
t exactly radiate wealth and prosperity.
"

"
Never mind,
"
said
Victoria
with an airy wave of her hand.
"
That will come. It
'
s your karma. I had a vision.
"

Liz laughed and said,
"
You and your crystal ball just might be right. After all, yesterday
—
the very day I moved in!
—
there I was, talking through this fence to their housekeeper. I suppose they sent her over here to make sure I wasn
'
t in some prison-release program, but I liked her, even if she
was
a spy. Her name is Netta something, and she was as chatty as could be. Apparently
her boss
is some workaholic bachelor
—
"

"
Uh-oh. No business there,
"
said
Victoria
, sipping her wine.

"
That
'
s what I thought, too, at first.
"
Liz raked her hair away from her face and cocked her head appraisingly at the Queen Anne
-
style mansion.

"
But then I found out that his parents stay at the estate
— East Gate, it
'
s called
—
every summer. It
'
s been in the family since it was built, a hundred years ago. Besides the parents, there are a couple of semi-permanent guests staying there now as well. They must do
some
entertaining.
"
Liz smiled and said,
"
Naturally I found a way to let it drop that I was an events planner.
"

"
Did the housekeeper even know what that was?
"
asked
Victoria
.

"
I made sure of it. I told her I design weddings, dinners, birthdays, dances, receptions, fund-raisers, charity events
— the works.
"

"
In other words
—
"

"
I lied.
"
Liz
'
s deep brown eyes flashed with good humor.
"
Hey
,
if I told her I arranged kids
'
birthday parties at Chuck E. Cheese, you think she
'
d have been impressed?
"

"
You did what you had to do, Liz Coppersmith,
"
agreed
Victoria
.
"
You planted the seed.
"

"
Yeah. That was the easy part. The hard part will be to provide references who
'
re old enough to read and write.
"

Victoria
said,
"
If you need references, don
'
t worry. I
'
ll come up with references.
"

And she would, too, because
—
unlike Liz
—
Victoria
had money to buy anything she wanted.

It wasn
'
t always that way. Less than six years earlier, Victoria
—Judy Maroney then
—
had crossed the Rhode Island border with her husband, two children, and not much more than high hopes that her husband
'
s new job at the Newport Tourist and Convention Center would give her family more stability than he had at his old job in the defense industry. The family was eastbound on Route
95,
just a few miles behind their moving van, when they were sideswiped by a drunk driver and ended up broadside to two lanes of eastbound traffic.

Judy
'
s husband, Paul, and their four-year-old son were killed instantly. Their daughter, Jessica, who would
'
ve been two in a week, had lived another forty-eight hours. Judy Maroney, behind the wheel, was
saved, just barely,
by the driver
'
s-side airbag.

And she could not forgive herself, both for being at the wheel and for
surviving
. That, at least, became Liz
'
s theory. How else to explain the post-trauma amnesia that had no medical basis?

Judy
'
s mother-in-law, to whom Liz had once spoken, had a different theory. She believed that Judy, rejecting the unspeakable horror of her loss, had invented a new identity to get around having to face that abyss. Hence the single
—
and now legal
—
name
"
Victoria
.
"

Whatever the reason, Judy Maroney had for all practical purposes died in that crash. And the woman who replaced her
—
Victoria
—
had never once, to Liz or to anyone else, alluded to the accident. Tori was pleasant, she was friendly
— by far the most cheerful member in the grief group
—
and she was totally amnesiac.

The accident had resulted in a huge settlement for her. Money hadn
'
t given Judy back her memory
—
it certainly hadn
'
t given her back her family
—
but it
had
given the woman named
Victoria
lots of people willing to call themselves friends. Or references. Or whatever she wanted.

"
Hey, you,
"
said
Victoria
behind her.
"
Have you heard a word I said?
"

Victoria
had an almost spooky knack for knowing when Liz was focusing on her amnesia. Liz was forced to back up mentally, searching her brain for the last of her friend
'
s lighthearted babble.
"
Of course I heard. You think I should give my house a name.
"

"
I really do. Houses sound more important when they have names. How about
'
West Gate
'
? Or
'
Harborview
'
? Or
—
I
'
m quoting you, now
—
'
Bigenuf
'
?
"

"
I was talking about the mortgage, not the house,
"
Liz said, laughing.
She set her wineglass on a nearby stepstone and turned her attention
yet again
to the imposing mansion to the east. Since yesterday, it had held her in its thrall.

Privilege. Tradition. Wealth. Elegance. Lineage. It was all there, on the other side of the barbed wire. Everything about it was the opposite of her own life. Liz had been born and raised in Newport
'
s Fifth Ward, a working-class neighborhood of
mostly Irish
families that
—
until the yuppies began moving in recently
—
had changed little over the past century. Privilege in the Fifth Ward meant getting a parking place in front of your own house; tradition meant meeting with the same people every Friday night for a game of
cards
.

"
Do you think I
'
m being too ambitious?
"
she suddenly asked
Victoria
.
"
Do you think I should work my way up through the Point and the Hill before I go after East Gate and the rest of the
Bellevue Avenue
crowd?
"

"
Heck, no,
"
Victoria
said cheerfully.
"
This is
Newport
! The town has a long tradition of society-crashing. Where would the Vanderbilts be if they
'
d taken some slow-but-sure route?
"

Liz turned to her friend with a wry look.
"
I
'
m not trying to break
into
society, Tori. I just want to be able to make a little money
off
it once in a while.
"

Victoria
came up to Liz and put her arm around her.
"
And
so
you
shall
. You
'
ll make tons of money. And you and your
little girl will live happily ever after in a big house of your own. If that
'
s what you want.
"

Together they gazed at the shingled and stuccoed Queen Anne
style mansion, sun-washed and golden in the evening light. After a moment
Victoria
said,
"
Where
is
Susy, by the way? With your folks?
"

Liz nodded.
"
She
'
s been feeling ignored, what
with the flurr
y of moving an
d all. My parents have her overn
ight.
"

"
Lucky for you they live in town.
"

"
Isn
'
t it, though?
"

Liz was very aware that her friend
'
s own parents were dead. Even if they
'
d still been alive,
Victoria
wouldn
'
t know them. The amnesia was so bizarre, so sad, so complete. When Liz met
Victoria
in the grief group, she herself was on the ropes emotionally. For a while she
convinced herself
that as she pulled out of her numb state,
Victoria
would, too. Then she realized that being left by a husband
—
even learning there
'
d be no more children—
didn
'
t come close to losing one
'
s whole family in a car crash.

"
You
'
re doing it again,
"
said
Victoria
.
"
Drifting.
"

"
Sorry. Did I tell you that someone in the mansion has two kids?
"
asked Liz.
"
I saw them playing outside. There
'
s a little blond girl who
'
s my Susy
'
s age; I think her name is Caroline. And there
'
s a two-year-old boy that the housekeeper has to chase after every minute.
"

"
You
'
re thinking they
'
ll be playmates for Susy?
"

Liz
'
s
reaction
was the dry laugh of a working-class townie with no illusions.
"
Not unless
I attack this fence with cable-
cutters.
"
She turned and began walking back to her new little home, a cozy twenty feet away from where they stood.