Two down - By Nero Blanc Page 0,11

batted aside the response as if it were a mere ball of fluff.

“You’re a pretty girl. I can’t imagine you’ve been lacking in marriage proposals.”

Whether it was the term “girl” or the actress’s snooty tone, Belle flushed angrily. “I was married,” she answered.

“Ah . . .” Jamaica calmly replied. “So, you tested the waters and found them tepid . . . or possibly too hot?”

In answer, Belle jammed her comb into her purse and snapped it shut. She was not about to discuss romance with a woman for whom the word had no meaning. Jamaica, however, had other ideas.

“And now you’re on the rebound with a private dick—”

“That’s not how I would categorize our relationship,” Belle interrupted hotly, but Jamaica hadn’t finished her performance.

“And this ex-husband you are so loath to discuss . . . I assume he’s the spitting image of your parents?”

Belle’s jaw dropped. She wanted to contradict the statement, but couldn’t. Jamaica was correct. Garet had manifested many traits of the elder Grahams—and not the better ones, either.

“You see, Genie?” Jamaica continued. “There is the psychology of true drama . . . the inner life of the mind . . . That’s what made you a good performer. You were able to enter your characters’ brains and inhabit the murky unconscious. Subliminally, we all want Mummy and Daddy; we want to be carefree babies again.” Then she turned toward Belle, adding a seemingly benevolent: “Following the end of a permanent relationship, you must always beware of ‘transitional’ situations, darling. I’ve had a number of such impermanent types in my life. It’s important to know that some lovers are not intended to linger. Many, in fact.”

“Oh, really, Jamaica,” Genie said with a wry shake of her head. “What a wicked thing to say to this poor woman. To say nothing of presumptuous!” Genie extended her hand. “I’m Tom Pepper’s wife,” she said with a genuine smile. “We haven’t met, although I know you by reputation.”

“Belle Graham.” The look Belle gave Genie was full of gratitude—as well as a core recognition that Jamaica with her clever verbiage and facile innuendo would continue to spin circles around them all.

The actress intruded upon the incipient friendship. “A word to the wise never hurt anyone, Genie darling. ‘Transitional’ doesn’t mean impossible.”

Genie turned away from Belle and studied her friend. “You’re a vicious person, Jamaica,” she said with a bemused chuckle. “And I disagree with your previous statement. Words can do a great deal of harm.”

4

Try as she might, the term “transitional” had stuck in Belle’s brain. Jamaica’s obnoxious warning had nearly ruined the remainder of the dinner dance. Sunday had also seen Belle laboring under its gloomy shadow; she’d had a difficult time thinking about Rosco without the epithet sneakily inserting itself into the picture. He was so very different from Garet, so very different from the aloof and bookwormish people with whom she’d been raised.

Involuntarily, she began questioning her decision, wondering whether Rosco was merely a passing fancy, someone she’d “get over” when she “came to her senses.” It bothered her horribly that she could hear parental disapproval whispering in her ears—especially since her mother was long dead and her father almost incommunicado from his distant home in the Florida Keys. I’m thirty-two years old, Belle reminded herself repeatedly. I don’t have to please anyone but myself. Gentrified Garet was the aberration, not Rosco. It’s normal to have a big, tumultuous family rather than the other way around. But Rosco’s descriptions of the Polycrates clan kept clanking ominously through her thoughts.

For these reasons—and maybe a hundred others—having tea on Monday with Sara Crane Briephs was the last thing Belle wanted to do. But she’d agreed, and she never reneged on her word. If she happened to catch pneumonia or break her leg in a freak fall down the stairs, well, that would be another thing . . .

Disconcertingly whole and healthy, Belle rang the bell at White Caps precisely at four o’clock Monday afternoon. As before, Emma led the way through the austere foyer, conducting her to the house’s mistress as if delivering a sacrificial lamb.

After a few murmured pleasantries, Belle found herself seated with her ankles demurely crossed and her back barely touching the rigid frame of an antique chair. An inquisition conducted by a grade-school headmistress could not have begun more forbiddingly. The great lady poured; Emma proffered the filled cup; Belle sipped and then sipped again; the weather was mentioned, likewise the “journey from Captain’s Walk” (all of