Wellesley Wives (New England Trilogy) (8 page)

BOOK: Wellesley Wives (New England Trilogy)
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The bedside lamp didn’t give off much light, so she threw open her enormous blue silk curtains to let the daylight in. There was an elderly man walking a dog along the street, and he glanced up as if some telepathic male messaging system had told him that there was a naked woman opening her curtains.

Why in heck had he looked up just then? Popsy hid behind the swathe of silk.

Then she returned to the mirror, well away from the window.

She groaned. “I think I preferred the soft light.”

There was no doubt that time was taking its toll. She was still skinny. Popsy had always been slight, but her boobs had drooped—seriously drooped. They were like a couple of balloons that had deflated over time, and now they just hung on her chest. How depressing. She lifted them up, one in each hand, in the hope that they would somehow look a little re-inflated, but they still looked like deflated balloons, only now they were sitting on a shelf of sorts.

Popsy let them flop down again. Maybe Sandra was right. A little boob job might not be a bad thing. Then she looked at her stomach. She turned sideways to look at it from another angle, and she inhaled as much air as she could. The chest looked better with her lungs full of air, and the tummy in a little, but she still looked pretty old and leathery. She breathed in-out, in-out a few times to watch the result. It was slightly comical and mildly amusing.

“Better than getting depressed about it,” she muttered. “Come on, Popsy. It’s not that bad. Your pins were always your best part.”

She studied her legs, making them look as good as she could by standing on her toes. It helped. While they still had reasonable tone, she could see that varicose veins were protruding from her calves and inside her thighs.

“Those are new.” She groaned.

She was definitely going to get them done. That wasn’t even considered plastic surgery anymore. It was just “maintenance.”

Even with reasonable calf muscles, her legs had lost a lot of their definition and firmness, so they were pretty scrawny-looking. She tried to do the lunge thing that her gym instructor once made her do. It was kind of like a genuflection, only frozen in the halfway position. Popsy thought it might give her leg muscles more tone, which it did until she fell over.

Undeterred, she got up and turned around to study her backside by looking over her shoulder. Using the tippy toes technique again, she saw that it looked better. In fact, she thought it didn’t look too bad.

“Okay, I still have one asset in good condition.” She sighed, somewhat relieved. “There’s no doubt. Aging is nasty.” She gave up on the navel gazing and headed into the bathroom to have a soak.

She continued talking to herself. “Well, at least I’m still alive. Looking young isn’t everything. Being happy is.” Popsy thought about her lovely family coming over later for lunch to help her celebrate her fiftieth birthday. “That’s really what it’s all about.”

Unlike the rest of the house, Peter and Popsy chose modern for the bathroom. The bath was not on four claws as one might expect in a house full of antiques. They had opted for a sunken, built-in Jacuzzi. The shower had been changed for the rain forest type only a few months earlier, but Peter insisted on all the side sprayers, too.

The Jacuzzi was Popsy’s favorite. The only disadvantage was that it took a long time to fill. She turned both faucets to full-blast while she brushed her teeth. Then, just as she had with her body, she examined her teeth and gums. Were they aging, too? Probably.

She was used to seeing her face on a regular basis, but what with the birthday and the rest of the assessment, Popsy had a real hard look at herself now. “Oh dear,” she mumbled as she saw the lines under her eyes. In fairness, there weren’t many.

She was holding her own pretty well, but still she thought Sandra had a point. Perhaps it was time to up her game. She worked out with Sandra now and again, but Popsy usually went along for the chat and never particularly exerted herself, while her friend pushed it as hard as she could.

Yes, she decided, it was definitely time for her to spend more energy on looking good. Not so many long, slow walks and more importantly, not so many long, slow lunches.

Popsy added a bath bomb to the water and sat on the side, waiting for it to fill some more and for the fizzing to stop. She thought about Sandra. That girl really was in a bit of a place at the moment. One minute she was talking about walking out on the marriage and the next she was considering getting pregnant. There was quite a chasm there. Popsy felt pretty sure that the road to happiness was somewhere in between the two, but Sandra didn’t appear to be in any mood to take advice just yet.

She dearly hoped she wouldn’t do something she was going to spend a lifetime regretting. Jack would have a fit if he thought Sandra was trying to get pregnant. How long had she been trying? Maybe she was pregnant already. It would certainly explain the tears on the way to the ladies’ lunch and the irritability with Jack the previous night.

She tested the water and was satisfied that it was full enough and just the right temperature. She slipped in. It was heaven. She let her head slide under the surface and massaged her scalp. Then she pushed with her feet until her head came back up and her hair was slicked back.

“There are very few things in life better than a good soak,” she announced to the room. Then she let her mind wander back to the night before.

When the Hoffmans had gone home, Popsy had snuggled up to her husband who was sitting on the sofa. “Have a good night, Peter?” she asked, gently trying to get his attention.

“Mmm.” He seemed to be miles away.

“They were a rather reserved lot, I thought. Your prospective investors.”

The talk relating to his business dealings did the trick, and he tuned in. “Huh? Don’t let their manner fool you. They would eat you for breakfast,” he said, seeming to notice for the first time that she was sitting right next to him.

She stroked his leg absentmindedly. “Funny, I found them quiet—not anywhere near as dynamic as you are, darling.”

Peter yawned and stretched his arms high above his head. “I have a feeling that their guard was up because we didn’t manage to make a deal. You might have seen another side of them if our negotiations had gone well.” He wrapped his arm around her shoulders and played with a loose tendril of her hair.

She smiled as she thought about it now. She’d had her hair done in an up-style for the previous night, but by the end of the evening, after all the “playing” with her husband, it looked like a haystack. She poured a golf-ball-size dollop of shampoo into her hand and lathered her hair.

She would be back in the hair salon in a few days, but she was happy to blow dry it herself today. The long, shaggy look was a bit too casual for every day, but it would be perfect for a Sunday lunch with family. The up-style of the previous night had been for Peter’s benefit. He once told her that the back of her neck was one of the sexiest parts of her body, so she used it often as a weapon of seduction.

Last night, just like most others, it worked like a charm. Within minutes Peter’s mind was very much off business and on Popsy. She found she could seduce him as easily today as she could thirty years ago.

“Watch your back indeed,” she fumed, thinking about Jack Hoffman as she rinsed out the shampoo and lashed in an extra load of conditioner for good measure. Popsy could still attract her husband’s eye with just the slightest manipulation, but she usually made it seem like it was his idea. He sometimes liked it when she took the lead, but he was a “Type A” man. He liked to think he was in control at all times, so she let him believe it, even when it wasn’t the case. The previous evening was no exception.

Gently stroking his leg and most importantly, pretending to not even notice what she was doing, was sufficient to haul her husband’s brain back from his business empire. Pretty soon he was a lot more focused on his assets in hand, so to speak. He’d started with her hair but made it clear that he had other places in mind. Peter didn’t play games. As soon as he wanted sex, he wanted it instantly. He was aroused fast and had to be satisfied just as fast.

Popsy had read romance novels that talked of men who spent hours pleasuring their women. That wasn’t Peter. But what he lacked in technique, he certainly made up for in enthusiasm. He was so passionate and hungry for her that it turned her on, too.

It had been every bit her intention to seduce him after what Jack said. She had no idea what he was talking about, but she planned to find out. The first objective was to reassure herself that she still had all of her husband’s undivided love and attention. The Renoir story had shocked her more than a little.

Lying on the plush Afghan carpet of her drawing room floor the night before, it seemed pretty clear from her perspective that she still had his affection.

“God, you’re so gorgeous,” he’d mumbled into her disheveled hair as he made love to her.

“So are you, Peter. I love you and only you,” she’d whispered, lying under him, welcoming him into her body.

“Me, too,” he agreed, sounding even more muffled. “Only you. God, you’re the best thing that ever happened to me, doll.” 

Thinking back on their romantic interlude now, Popsy was certain there was nothing to worry about in the romance department, so what in the heck was Jack talking about? Why did she need to watch her back if her husband was still so happy pinning it into the ground?

 

Chapter 7 

Sandra’s Surprise

 

Sandra Hoffman’s life was similar to her best friend Popsy’s in so many ways. Both women had charmed lives. Their days consisted of shopping for new clothes and accessories, maintaining their highly polished style, and running the oh-so-smooth lives of their husbands.

    Of course Popsy had the children who—although grown up, and in theory, on their own at this stage—still took up quite a bit of her time. Of this, perhaps Sandra was a little jealous. She tried not to be, but it was so darn difficult.

Popsy and Sandra sometimes met in the gym and after that they might go for lunch together or to a charity do. They often went into town to see what was new in the shops, but all too often, Popsy was rushing off to meet a daughter or spend time with her exquisite granddaughter.

Sandra longed for a little of that family life. A long time ago she’d tried to forge links with Jack’s children from his first marriage. He had three beautiful daughters, but the girls had a strong loyalty to their mother. Their home was in New Jersey, and they had no real interest in acquiring a second mom.

Sandra had a brother who was married with two teenage sons, so in theory she did have family to fuss over. The problem was that she and her sister-in-law didn’t get along, so they’d sort of drifted apart. A few years earlier Ben, her brother, moved from New York out to California, and she hadn’t been to visit them. Ben was a few years older than her, and he kept asking her to visit but she didn’t. It was just unfortunate but Sandra was quite sure that the reason for their estrangement had every bit as much to do with Laura pulling Ben away from her, as with her own reluctance. This was tough because she really did love her big brother. It was just too difficult to stay in touch.

The flipside was they’d never visited Sandra either. She didn’t have enough room to accommodate four guests, but then again, maybe they could have managed somehow.

Her home was the ultimate luxury apartment, but it only had a couple of bedrooms. She had made a strong argument for three when they were designing the internal layout, but Jack had insisted on only two. He bought it just after they’d gotten married. It was the penthouse in Wellesley’s most desirable apartment block.

Since the apartment was connected to Wellesley’s only six-star hotel, The Celtic Crowne Plaza, they had full hotel facilities twenty-four hours a day. This meant that the apartment was cleaned thoroughly daily with sheets changed and laundry collected—exactly as if they were staying in the hotel. Naturally, she had full use of the hotel’s gym, swimming pool, and hair salon, but she could also have the beautician come to her apartment and dinner could be sent up from the restaurant. They could even order a drink from the bar if they didn’t feel like making it themselves. She also had a state-of-the-art kitchen, but it didn’t get much use.

“Far easier to order from the hotel’s kitchen,” Jack had said. And he was right, of course, but Sandra felt he was wrong about the apartment layout.

Three bedrooms would have been more welcoming to his three daughters and her brother’s family. It wasn’t as if it wasn’t big enough, because they had the space. The apartment stretched over five thousand square feet. The truth was, Sandra had a deep suspicion that Jack had railroaded the two bedroom design through so it would be quite clear that there were no babies coming into their life.

“As if,” she harrumphed this morning while getting out of bed.

Her head hurt. She’d drunk too much the night before, but her conversation with Popsy had upset her, and the business dinner had been a crashing bore. Jack gave her nasty looks all night, so she’d taken to the wine with a vengeance. She hadn’t gotten drunk or anything, but three glasses were enough to give her a hangover. Nothing the gym wouldn’t get rid of she decided—only she’d go later.

Sandra fixed herself a slice of toast, a glass of orange juice, and a mug of black coffee. Jack had told her that he would be up and out very early in a last-ditch effort to salvage the deal with the Europeans. But he had been kind enough to drop
The Boston Globe
—essential Sunday reading—onto the kitchen table before he left.

Newspapers were brought to the front door of her apartment every day and left on the mat. He must have seen it on his way out and brought it in for her. That was thoughtful.

With her breakfast tray carefully settled on her bed and the paper on her nightstand, she returned to bed, content. It was a glorious way to start a Sunday. Sandra pushed the button next to her light switch and the curtains rolled back to reveal a very pleasant morning. Whatever storm was in the air the night before had blown itself out. She took a bite of blackened toast smothered in coarse-cut marmalade—just the way she liked it.

BOOK: Wellesley Wives (New England Trilogy)
5.68Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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