Part 27 (1/2)
He didn't blame her.
”Well, I don't want to go back, either,” he told her quietly. ”But I have to.”
”Maybe you don't,” she said.
”Yes,” he said. ”I do. Will you help me write that letter, Charles?” He finally turned to look at her. ”Please?”
”No,” she said, and walked out of the room, shutting the door quietly behind her.
Mary Lou's heart sank as Kelly held open the door for her with a smile and a gla.s.s of beer in her hand. ”Come on in.” She turned toward the kitchen. ”Hey, everyone, Mary Lou is here.”
The friendly smile sure was nice, but oh, Lord, she hadn't even considered the fact that there'd be alcohol at this thing.
Mary Lou clung to her handbag as she followed Kelly into a brightly lit kitchen that opened into a living area on one side and a dining area on the other. Surprisingly, it wasn't all that much bigger than her own house.
The windows were bigger, though.
Sliding gla.s.s doors in both rooms opened onto a deck and framed a view of a neatly kept backyard filled with flower gardens and surrounded on all sides by other neatly kept backyards.
”Hey, Mary Lou,” Lt. John Nilsson's wife, Meg, greeted her with a wave of a corn chip from her perch at the counter that separated the kitchen from the dining area. Her baby girl, Robin, was just a few months older than Haley, yet somehow Meg had managed to slim right down to her pre-pregnancy weight without any trouble at all.
Despite her apparent diet of corn chips and beer.
G.o.d, Mary Lou hated her. She gave Meg a big smile. ”Hey, Meg. How's Robin and Amy?” Meg was also more than ten years older than Mary Lou, with a twelve-year-old daughter from her failed first marriage.
”Let's just say that it's three years, ten months, and fourteen days until Ames learns to drive, and between now and then I'll clock three hundred thousand miles,” Meg said. ”Sailing lessons, dance, theater cla.s.ses, soccer . . .” She laughed. ”I'm not working at all right now, and to be honest, I love every minute of it.”
She exchanged some kind of pointed look with Kellya” obviously there was an unspoken understanding between the two women. Mary Lou felt a yawning, empty hole in her chest.
Why couldn't Meg be her best friend? What was so great about Kelly Ashton, who wasn't even married to Commander Paoletti?
Somewhere outside, a lawn mower started with a roar.
”Everyone, this is Mary Lou,” Kelly announced, crossing to the sliders and pus.h.i.+ng them closed against the noise.
There were five women in the kitchen and the only one Mary Lou knew besides Meg was Teri Wolchonok, beauty to the beast who was the SEAL team's heart-stoppingly scary Senior Chief Stan Wolchonok. Delicately pretty Teri actually flew helicoptersa”helos, as the SEALs called thema”for the Coast Guard.
”You know Meg and Teri,” Kelly said to Mary Lou. She gestured to a slender young woman who looked an awful lot like Gwyneth Paltrow, only with darker hair. ”This is Christy, who's dating Mark Jenkins, and Shondaa””
”Who used to datea”past tense, honeya”Chief Wayne 'the Duke' Jefferson. ”The Duke.' Can you believe that?” Shonda was a very dark-skinned African-American woman with short-cropped hair that she'd dyed blond, and a wide smile that lit her from within. ”What kind of grown man walks around calling himself 'the Duke'? I gave him up last year for Lent and decided to make it permanent. I come to these 'Wheels Up, Whoops, I'm Sleeping Alone Again Tonight' parties to remind myself that my decision to ditch the man was a smart one.”
”Instead you sleep alone every night,” teased a womana”a girl, reallya”who was still dressed in a waitress uniform. She held out her hand to Mary Lou. ”I'm Ellen.”
”What do you know from sleeping alone?” Shonda countered. ”Ellen's spending time with Jay Lopeza”and everyone and their baby sister knows our little Lopez has taken a vow of celibacy.” She turned to Christy. ”Or was that Jenk?”
”No, it definitely wasn't Mark.” Christy laughed as if that were a very funny joke.
”Well, it sure as h.e.l.l wasn't 'the Duke,'” Shonda said. ”And check out that look on Joan's face. She's thinking' What are these lunatics talking about?' ”
”Joan DaCosta's visiting from Was.h.i.+ngton,” Kelly told Mary Lou. ”She works at the White House.”
”So ix-nay on the President Bryant okes-jay,” Shonda said.
”Who's celibate?” Joan asked. ”I definitely missed something here. Slow it down a little. Have mercy on me and explain some of these inside jokes.”
Joan DaCostaa”thank the Lorda”had an even bigger b.u.t.t than Mary Lou. She really hated being the fattest woman in the room.
She moved over to the windows as the women continued their banter, feeling decidedly like an outsider. Even Joan, a visitor from the East Coast, was more comfortable here than she was.
”Jay Lopez is celibate, and Christy had breast implants,” Kelly was explaining.
”Yeah, right,” Christy said with a snort. ”I went to the plastic surgeon and said, 'Gee, Doctor, I long to be a whopping 32B. Can you help me out?'”
The room erupted in laughter.
”Mike Muldoon is gay,” Kelly continued, ”and Cosmo Richter... Say it with me, now!”
”Was recruited to join the SEALs from his cell in the lifers wing of a federal penitentiary.” Nearly all of the women finished in unison before dissolving into more laughter.
”Well, I kind of believe the one about Cosmo,” Joan said. Despite her big b.u.t.t, she was really very pretty when she laughed.
Outside the sliding door, in the next yard over, a man was cutting the gra.s.s. Was that... ? Could it be ... Ihbraham? Mary Lou tried to look closer just as he disappeared behind some shrubbery, and knocked her heada”pretty harda”against the gla.s.s. Which, of course, Kelly and Meg both noticed. They pretended not to, but Mary Lou knew they saw.
G.o.d, she was an idiot. Way to fit in. She moved away from the slider, rubbing her head when no one was looking.
”You wouldn't believe the rumors out there,” Teri was saying to Joan. ”Stan and I have a hot tub in our backyard, where apparently we have orgies every weekend.”
”But you never invite me,” the other women all said in unison.
More laughter. Mary Lou forced a smile.
There were four different bottles of wine out on the kitchen counter, along with gla.s.ses.
”Help yourself, Mary Lou,” Christy said to her with a smile. ”It's a self-serve party. You want it, you get it yourself. Beer's in the fridge.”
Kelly slapped her forehead. ”Oh, shoot!”
”What?”
”Mary Lou, I'm pretty sure there's some soda in here.” Kelly opened the refrigerator. ”Tom actually likes to drink that high octane root beer, or...” She opened the freezer. ”I could mix up a can of lemonade?”
Mary Lou moved into the kitchen area. ”I'll just have water.”
”We have cranberry juice... ?”
”That would be great,” she said. She hated cranberry juice, but Kelly was determined to offer her something.
”I'm really sorry.” Kelly poured the juice into one of the winegla.s.ses.
”It's all right,” Mary Lou said as she took the gla.s.s, even though the sight of those wine bottles on that counter were driving her crazy. G.o.d, she needed some air.