Women on the Edge of a Nervous Breakthrough (18 page)

  "Her father built it for her. They got a lot of the furniture from England."

  "It's like a real house. It's beautiful." She picked up the girl-doll, Emily, from her seat at the wooden table in the kitchen and smoothed the yellow hair, straightened her cloth-and-wire legs. "Did you play with this when you were a kid?"

  "Yeah." Vivian picked up the boy from his chair in the elegant chandeliered dining room. "Paradise for a little girl."

  Amber narrowed her eyes. "Wait, is this some stupid you're -still-young lecture waiting to happen? Because if it is, thanks, I get enough of those from Mom."

  Busted. "No, I just thought you'd like it."

  "Right."

  "I think it's cool and I'm adult and sexually active, okay?"

  "Okay, okay." Amber turned back to the dollhouse, touching and exclaiming. The old -fashioned laundry room with tub washer and wringer. The kitchen with the black iron stove and miniature pots of herbs glued to the tiny windowsills.

  "Amber."

  "Yeah." She didn't look around.

  "Why are
you
having to buy the condoms?"

  "Oh. Well . . . Larry doesn't really like them. So he said if I wanted to use them I'd have to buy them myself."

  Vivian grimaced. Why did women everywhere of all ages put up with so much goddamn shit in so many goddamn forms? "Isn't that touchingly supportive."

  "No, I mean, I understand how he feels." She tucked Emily into the dream -come-true white canopy bed. "It's me that wants to use them."

  
And him that wants to use you
. "So the plan is that I buy them for you."

  "Yes." She practically deflated with relief not having to spell it out.

"And who will the cashier think
I'm
having sex with?"

  "Uh . . ." Amber stared as if Vivian had sprouted an extra head. "You don't care what anyone thinks of you."

  "Oh. Right." Of course not. As anyone who'd watched her life on TV could tell you. "So you think you're ready."

  "Uh-huh." Amber ducked her head when Vivian tried to hold her gaze.

  Damn it. How was she going to deal with this? She wasn't a parent, she had zero dealings with kids, she had no idea what to say to this young person. And yet, she could understand the pressures on Amber, remember her own teenage experiences like they happened yesterday. Only her fi rst time hadn't been her idea, and it hadn't been with a boyfriend.

  "How many times has he made you come?"

  Amber started, then tried to act nonchalant by leaning forward and taking inventory of the objects in Emily's lacy bedroom. "Oh. Well. He says that's part of real sex."

  Oh brother. "Are you taking care of yourself in that department? When you're alone?"

  Amber dropped a tiny silver hairbrush and had to pinch it up carefully off the Oriental design rug. "Uh . . . Sometimes."

  Vivian had to be screwing this up to the maximum possible. "So why haven't you explained to him how it works?"

  Amber raised horrifi ed eyes. "I can't just
tell
him."

  "Why not?"

  "Because it's private. And personal."

  "And sex isn't?"

  Amber frowned. "I thought you'd be cool about this."

  "Believe it or not I am being cool about this. How many times have you made
him
come?"

  Amber glowered at the living room.

  "Oh, I'll bet a whole bunch of times." She stuck the male doll back with his head in the toilet and lifted Amber's face. "Repeat after me. I am woman."

  Amber rolled her eyes. "I am woman."

  "I am powerful alone."

  Big sigh of disgust. "I am powerful alone."

  "My boyfriend is a selfish, manipulative bastard and will be lousy in bed."

  "V
ivian
."

  Vivian rubbed her forehead. If she was tired before, she was even more tired now. "Honey, I've screwed them all. I know the type. Trust me. You want your first experience to be good, with a guy who will care as much about what he can do for your body as what yours can do for his."

  "Was your fi rst time like that?"

  "Hell no, it was horrible. I don't want you to go through that."

  Amber pulled her chin out of Vivian's fi ngers. "So you won't buy them for me?"

  Jesus. This was about as bad as it could get. If Vivan didn't buy them, Amber could have unprotected sex and catch God knew what. If Vivian did buy them, she was, in effect, condoning something all her instincts told her was a bad idea. At sixteen Vivian could handle whatever life threw at her, because by that time life had already thrown plenty. But this girl had been raised in fucking Kettle, Wisconsin. By
Sarah
.

  If Amber didn't have a nice pair, Larry wouldn't even

have looked her way. Tits were power. Sometimes too much. Sometimes you were given that power before you were ready to use it.

  "If I don't buy them for you, will you sleep with him without them?"

  "I don't
want
to . . ."

  Her sentence trailed off with the implicit
but I might have to,
and Vivian suppressed a dry chuckle. Sarah must have her hands full.

  "Wait here." She went into the bathroom and grabbed a couple of condoms from her just -in-case supply, which at this rate she probably wouldn't need until the next millennium.

  Back in the bedroom, she grabbed Amer's chin again. "Listen. If I help you, you have to do something for me, too."

  "What." Said with rebellious apprehension.

  Vivian sighed. Please God, let her get through to this kid. If this worked, she'd even keep Jesus up on her wall. "I don't need to meet Larry to know how it will be. First, it will hurt. He'll shove it in because he thinks he needs force to break through, because he's heard and made 'bust her cherry' jokes all his life. Second, it will bleed. Third, it will feel great to him, because he hasn't just had his privates ripped open. So he'll hump away as hard as he can which is what he's seen in porn movies, while you're lying there with a giant this is
it?
exclamation point over your head. Then he'll be done and unable to understand why you're not writhing in ecstasy. Trust me. If he can't make you come now, he can't that way, either."

  She let go of Amber's chin. Immediately Amber crossed her arms over her chest and took a step back, but Vivian knew she was listening. Whether she was hearing was another question.

  "I'm giving these to you." She held up the condoms. "If you get in a situation where you need them, for God's sake use them rather than don't. But if you can say no to this guy, I guarantee you will be doing a favor for every woman on this planet, most of all yourself. Plus I'll give you a certifi cate for a makeover at the Halloween party. All you have to pay me with is these. Unused."

  She put the condoms in Amber's hand and closed her fi ngers over them. "Deal?"

  "Deal." Amber took back her hand, not meeting Vivian's eyes, and opened her fi ngers to peek inside. "I better go."

  "Right." She stepped back, wanting to pin Amber down until she promised to stay away from this Larry creep, feeling helpless to convince her, remembering how little she listened to anyone at that age—hell, at any age. Was this what Sarah went through?

  They went downstairs; Amber retrieved her coat from the living room and shoved the condoms into the pocket. "Thanks, Vivian."

  "Just think about what I said."

  "I will."

  She was solemn enough that Vivian hoped she would. Except all rational feeling would go out the window when she was alone in the dark with the guy and her inherited need to please. "See you Wednesday."

  A smile returned to Amber's pretty face. "You know it. I'll get more girls to come, too. It was awesome."

  "Good." She escorted Amber back to the front door. "Watch out for the creeps with the cameras and mikes. You don't have to say anything."

  "I'll tell them you're handing out free condoms."

  "Out. Out of here." Vivian opened her door and shooed the giggling girl out. Watched while she walked past the reporters, paused for a few sentences, and kept walking.

  God bless her. And keep her hymen safe. Amen.

  The reporters turned back to the house, and Vivian slammed the door shut. Okay. So she'd be under siege for a few days. Eventually they'd get bored and leave.

  She went upstairs to shower in the pink -and-green-tiled master bathroom, pausing to reinspect the dollhouse. Looking pretty dusty. Maybe she'd dust all the little furniture tonight after dinner. Ironic since she didn't give a rat's ass about dusting big furniture. Then at some point she'd like to go through the attic, see if there was anything her grandmother had left that Vivian might want to take when she sold the house.

  Selling the house. Moving again. Having to re -re-reinvent her life. Ouch. A weird, sad pang in her middle.

  Oh for God's sake. She couldn't be turning into that much of a sap. The house represented peace and security and some good memories. That was all. She'd suffocate living here longer than it would take for the trial to fade from public view.

  Male voices outside made her roll her eyes. Damn it. The jerks would hang out there forever. Or at least until they got what they wanted—an interview with Lorelei Taylor.

  Until then, what was she going to do, stay in her house the rest of her life?

  Screw that. She'd face them right now. Go out and buy chamomile tea or crumpets or something. Show them how she'd changed, make sure the stories they heard were dull enough that they wouldn't bother staying. Then she could move on and be deep -down glad about it.

  After her shower, she dressed in the outfit she'd bought for her fi tness instructor exam. A black, below -the-knee, pleated skirt; a red sleeveless sweater; and a black, red, and white plaid bouclé waist-length jacket.

  Hot damn, she looked like somebody's cutie-pie secretary.

  Forgo the matching red Manolo Blahnik spike-heeled sandals and the red Kate Spade purse, and go with a black, lowheeled, Stuart Weitzman mule and a small, black, Ferragamo shoulder bag she'd bought when Ed took her to Italy. She even resisted the red fi shnet stockings.

  Makeup went on with a lighter hand, less mascara, thinner liner, bare smudges of shadow, natural blush. There. She looked mahvelously proper. Vivian reborn. Vivian calmed and simplified. Vivian enriched by her love of small -town living.

  Vivian choking on her own bullshit.

  She sighed and tucked the white quilt more fi rmly around Emily in the canopy bed. Smoothed her already -smooth thread hair and smiled into the painted -on face. Vivian and Erin had played here when they were both girls. She did remember something of it. More an impression, a feeling, than concrete memories.

  Back then she'd been preteen, not yet aware of her father's growing interest, though she'd felt his temper. A model student. A loving daughter in a generally peaceful suburban Chicago home. Was life really simpler back then, or did it just feel that way because she'd forgotten all the shit that really went on? Maybe someday her life now would seem simple.

  God, she hoped not.

  She marched downstairs, mules making double -clacks hitting the stairs and then her heels. At the door, for an uneasy second, her courage failed. She'd gotten lazy about keeping up defenses. In retrospect, that had felt pretty good. Going back into this three -ring circus decidedly didn't.

  Hand firmly on the knob, she flung open the back door and stepped out into her leaf -strewn driveway, into the crisp, bare beginnings of mid -October twilight that even the intruders hadn't been able to turn cheap and stale.

  See? Some things they had no power over. Today that would include her.

  Laurel and Hardy already approached with microphones, the photographer and the other reporter sprinted around from the front. Her stomach churned. Maybe they'd ask a few easy questions and she'd be done?

  Yeah, or maybe they'd respect her privacy and apologize for bothering her and she could get back into her spaceship and return to whatever planet she thought she was from.

  "Ms. Harcourt, how do you like living in Kettle?"

  "Very peaceful." She kept walking. "Nice to be out of the public eye."

  They didn't blink at the dig, not that she expected them to. "You've changed your name to Vivian Harcourt. Is it safe to say Lorelei Taylor is dead?"

  Vivian's throat thickened. "She's behind me, yes."

  "How do you like small -town life?"

  "It's refreshing." Like an arctic breeze.

  "What's it like having to earn your own way with Ed gone?"

  It sucks. "I'm adjusting."

  "How do you think the residents of Kettle feel having an acquitted murderer in their midst?"

  Miserable. "I'm trying to fi t in."

  "Like when you bared your breasts at the local bar?"

  She stopped walking and turned, unable to believe what she'd heard, even realizing she should have expected it. Someone couldn't wait to share that tidbit. Someone couldn't fucking wait. What did anyone know about what had driven her that night?

  The reporters waited, practically quivering in excitement. They knew they had her, vulturish, tiny -dicked creeps.

  "Nothing to say, Ms. Harcourt?"

  "Plenty." The bile rose in her throat. Damn it. Damn it. She was going to say something stupid. Do something stupid, and it would all start over again.

  Deep breath. "Wardrobe malfunction."

  "Not how we heard it."

  "You heard it wrong." She turned back and kept walking to her car, kicking viciously through a clump of leaves.

  "Mike Curtis took you home that night; anything happen between you?"

  God, leave Mike out of it at least. "He followed me home in his car, that was it."

  "Apparently you suggested a hand -job booth for the town Halloween party. You planning to follow through with that?"

She reached her car, barely able to focus on what she was

doing. They knew it all. Was this Sarah's revenge? Would the vibrator be next? Then the condoms she gave Amber? God, what headlines those would make. The bitch. She must have had the time of her life, describing the horror that had visited Kettle.