Newton Neighbors (New England Trilogy) (42 page)

 
“No!” Jessie shouted. “No, he wasn’t . . . we weren’t . . . that is . . . I mean Rick was here, with Michael all this time.”

An enormous explosion went off outside the house, making all the windows and even the walls shake.

“Christ, that was a bit close,” Bruce said, coming into the laundry room to grab another bottle of champagne.

Cathi was on his heels. “Have the fireworks begun?”

You could say that
, Jessie thought, but she didn’t dare speak.
 

“Is it you or him?” Maria was shouting now. “Which of you is doing this? Because every time I see the two of you together, I feel it. I know there’s something going on. Tell me!”

Jessie squirmed, but Cathi looked horrified. “What’s wrong?” she said.

“Nothing to concern yourself about,” Maria said a little too sharply. “It’s between Ricky and me.” She glared at her husband, and Jessie could see he was squaring up for a fight, too.

“Jeez, Maria. Are we going to do this here? Now?”

There was another dangerously loud explosion from outside.

“Those fireworks are too near the house,” Bruce said.
 

Cathi Grant was more concerned about the action inside, however. “You two,” she said. “Can you take your dirty laundry somewhere else? I don’t want you fighting here.”

Maria glared at her. “God forbid we tarnish your fabulous new life, Cathi. What’s the matter? We not good enough for you now?”

Cathi shook her head and closed her eyes. Jessie stayed silent, terrified she would make the situation worse if she spoke. Michael walked back in at this point.

“Cathi, you ordered fireworks?” He looked perplexed.

Another massive explosion shook the house.

“I think you should leave,” Cathi said to Maria. There was a scream from the kitchen. Bruce ran out to see what happened, but everybody else ignored it.

“Honey, what’s going on? You can’t get stressed in your state.”

“You still haven’t told him?”

“Get out.”

“Get real.”

“Told me what?”

Maria looked at Michael. “Cathi’s not pregnant.”
 

Jessie was confused.

Michael tilted his head. “What? Yes she is.”

“No, she’s not,” Maria said. Then she stormed out of the laundry room and out of the house.

That was when they heard the sirens. “Cops are here,” somebody said, but Michael didn’t move.

Bruce came back into the laundry room. “Michael, a firework just came in through the kitchen window. I think you need to get in here. It’s fizzled out, but the whole room is filling up with smoke.”

“I deactivated the smoke alarms. The pyro guy told me to earlier,” Cathi said, looking proud of herself.

Michael didn’t respond. He was frozen solid—his face a combination of confusion and hurt.

Jessie watched the saga unravel when Fifi came yelping into the laundry room, dragging her back left leg behind her. Hugo was chasing after her, as fast as the old guy could. “She sat on a syringe. Fifi got a Botoxed backside!”
 

Hugo was the only one laughing, so he scooped up the dog and they escaped to the kitchen. The sirens were growing louder now, and there was banging on the front door.
 

“Maybe I should get that,” Bruce said, glancing to where Michael and Cathi were standing motionless—he looking at her and she looking at her festive fiasco.

Jessie tried to get out of the room unnoticed, but at that moment, the automated sprinkler system swished into life. Jessie, like everyone else, screamed at the sudden soaking. She had seen sprinklers in the ceilings of hotels but never in a private house.

Noreen appeared, her face shiny and a little puffy. “This reminds me of Woodstock. Hugo, it’s raining inside!” She laughed, but her eyebrows didn’t move.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

After the Party

Cathi didn’t even know the house had been fitted with sprinklers. Thankfully, they were smoke sensitive and so only sprang to life in the hall and kitchen. The rest of the house was spared and they stopped pretty quickly, but it was still enough to put an end to her glorious party.
 

The police moved in and the guests moved out, but Cathi didn’t go anywhere because she didn’t know where to go. She stood on the slippery floor in her lovely new hall bidding guests good night. Her furniture there was ruined. Even worse, many of her guests had been in the wrong place when the sprinklers attacked, so thousands of dollars of damage had been done to couture cocktail dresses.
 

Cathi had stored the coats upstairs, so they were all still dry when her daughters handed them out, but the party was a complete disaster. All her wonderful new friends were slipping away faster than she could say country club candidate. How was she going to fix this?

“Cathi, is it true?” Michael was touching her arm now. The guests were all gone, and she had sent her daughters to bed. “Cathi? Can you hear me?” His voice was quavering with emotion. “What Maria said, is it true? You’re not pregnant?”

She looked at him—poor confused Michael. He looked wretched with sprinkler water dripping down his hair. In a way, this was all his fault, she realized. If he hadn’t dropped his suspicions on her like that at Thanksgiving . . .

“Yes, it’s true Michael. I’m not pregnant. I never was, at least not this decade. You sprang it on me so fast and in front of Rick. I was stunned, I was confused. I didn’t know how to say I wasn’t. You seemed so excited and happy when you thought I was.”

He covered his ears and backed away. “I don’t believe this. What the hell were you thinking? Why didn’t you just say no?”

“Mr. Grant?” A police officer was calling him out to the backyard. Cathi watched her husband pretend to be sober. It was the fireworks that had caused the trouble. One of her neighbors must have called the cops, which was odd because all of the residents from Crystal Lake Lane were at the party.
 

Cathi wandered into her flooded kitchen. Jessie and Bruce were busy mopping, clearing away glasses, and trying to salvage what food was left.

“Shall I just put all of this in the fridge?” Jessie asked, but Cathi had lost interest. What did any of it matter now? She had made herself the laughing stock of Newton. The police, she could have handled. It was her friend—no, her ex-friend, Maria. Too many people would have heard her saying Cathi wasn’t pregnant.
 

She wandered aimlessly back into the sodden hall and noticed that even the walls were drenched.

“I will go now, Mrs. Grant?” Svetlana was standing there in her sterile white coat and stilettos holding the silver, metallic case. She was perfectly dry.

“Oh, yes. Thanks, Svetlana. You’ll send me a bill?”

“I have it here. Better to settle now, please.”
 

Cathi took the little invoice and glanced at the bottom line. “This is enormous. It can’t be real? Is this a joke?”

Svetlana looked like she might have been expecting such a reaction. “You did say to give them whatever they wanted. I have breakdown of the bill here with a list of all medications used.”

“Oh God.” Cathi checked to see if her husband was within earshot just as there was another pounding on the door.

“Fire department.” A man lumbered into her front hall with big heavy boots. Cathi winced. If the water hadn’t wrecked her bleached hardwoods, those boots sure would.
 

She pointed through the hall and out through the kitchen. “There’s no fire. It was just a few fireworks. My husband’s out there with the police and the pyrotechnics man.” She looked at her aesthetician. “You come with me.”

They went into the study where Cathi pulled out a check book from her personal drawer in the desk. “Please don’t cash this for a few days. I’d expected your bill to be a quarter of that.”

Svetlana raised her still functioning eyebrows with a look of utter indifference. “Quality work costs.”

“But what a lovely job you do.” Noreen Palmer was sitting on the sofa in the semidarkness with Hugo Hendrix. Fifi was on her lap.
 

“Hugo, Noreen, I didn’t see you there.”

“No, we were enjoying the privacy,” he said, sounding annoyed.

“Oh my.” Cathi understood. They’d been making out—too gross. “What happened to Fifi?”

“She was acting very strange. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say she was drunk,” Noreen said. “She was walking in reverse and backed onto a needle.”

Hugo stroked the little mutt. “I’d say it’s raised her rump by a good half inch, but she’s none too pleased.”
 

Cathi looked accusingly at Svetlana. “Did you charge me for that shot?”

“The syringe was almost empty. No charge for dog. Fifi will have no problem.”

“Yes, well, I think we should go.” Noreen got to her feet.

“Let me drive you home,” Hugo said. “My driver is just outside.”
 

Noreen laughed. “A driver? Oh, this is just like the old days. Hugo, you know I live about thirty yards up the lane?”

“I’m sure we’ll think of something we can do to pass the time.” He winked at Svetlana. “Night, Cathi. Thanks for a great party.” Hugo walked out with his arm around Noreen Palmer’s waist.
 

Svetlana left after them, and Cathi was alone for the first time all night. She glanced at her watch. It was after three a.m. Maybe the night hadn’t been a total disaster. She wanted a reputation for throwing wild and crazy parties, and surely this one was wet and wild enough for anyone. She was starting to see the angle already.
 

Her only real issue now was Michael and the bogus baby.
How to play that?
she wondered. She could either get mad and blame him, or she could do the weak, confused woman routine. Which would work better?

“Dan!” Jessie saw him before he saw her. It was a bit difficult to miss a big burly firefighter clomping through the kitchen.

“Jessie.” He stopped and looked at her. “It’s good to see you.”

Jessie was standing at the sink but had turned around to face him. She followed his gaze and looked down at her chest.
 

“Shit,” she mumbled, realizing the water sprinklers had given her a good splash and her white blouse was now semitransparent.

Jessie crossed her arms over her chest and sent up a silent prayer for Bruce to reappear. “Yes, well, I’m not so thrilled to see you. Perhaps it’s better if we just ignore each other.”

He didn’t move for a moment, and she matched his gaze, refusing to drop eye contact. Then Bruce walked into the kitchen and the spell was broken. Dan sized him up, nodded, and moved out into the garden. As soon as he was gone, Jessie turned back to the soapy water, grabbing the side of the sink for support. Dan was in the house,
this very house
. How could she think straight? Dan the Pan? He had just walked through the room like he’d walked into her life before. He had slept with her while his wife was pregnant!

Bruce came over to her. “Are you okay?”
 

She didn’t look up but nodded. “Just a ghost from the past.”

“Muhahahaha.” Bruce did a Count Dracula impersonation, which made her smile.

“Thanks.” His humor helped her calm down.

“Hey, we all have skeletons in the closet. Some are just larger than others.” Bruce glanced out the window to where Michael looked like he was listening with interest to what the police and firemen had to say. There was a lot of pointing and gesturing around the garden.

“Do you think Michael Grant is in trouble?” Bruce asked.

“Hey, you’re the lawyer. How would I know? But I do feel sorry for him. Did you hear all that madness with his wife?”

Bruce shook his head and picked up a hand towel to start drying Jessie’s plates.

She continued. “I heard him talking to Rick earlier about her being pregnant, and this evening Maria announced that Cathi wasn’t. So it sounds like she was faking a pregnancy. How weird is that?”

“Maybe she miscarried?”

Jessie shrugged. “It didn’t sound like that. All very strange.”