in the vacant lot next to the apartment house. You were forever trying to get in there, and they were forever stopping you. So, one day you decided to climb up the tree next to it, shimmy along a branch that reached over to where you wanted to go, and get in the treehouse that way. Trouble was, the branch broke and down you came. You ended up with a broke arm.”
“It seems like I would remember something like a broken arm.” Marnie rubbed first one arm, then the other, as if that would bring back a memory.
“Anyway, you always did like to be where the boys were. When you was a little thing, it was funny, but when you got to be a teenager, it was a problem. You liked the boys, and the boys liked you—too much, if you get my meaning.
“When you graduated from high school, your mother promised you a new car if you’d go to business school in Centerview and graduate with good grades. She thought you needed good training so’s you could always find work. She said she was living proof a woman needed to be able to support herself.”
“It sounds like she had a hard life and wanted me to be able to take care of myself.”
“Yes, she did, but Pamela always did spoil you rotten—bought you new clothes and whatever you wanted. But she didn’t have enough money to give you everything the rich kids had, and that’s what you wanted—to be rich and go dancing at the country club and swimming in the club pool in the summer.”
Marnie got to her feet and walked to the other side of the room. “It sounds like I was more interested in the things money could buy, rather than being sure I had a way to earn my own living. Did I go to business school?”
“You finished business school, all right, and got your car—a red convertible you drove all over town. Your mother was set on you doing something you could make a living at. She said she didn’t get enough alimony and child support to get by, but she had a good job. You got a job right off, at an architect’s office, but you didn’t like it. You said it was ‘boring as all get out’ and you wanted to work where the action was. When you turned twenty-one, you quit and went to work at the Roadhouse. You said you could make more in tips than you could being a secretary. But that’s an awful rough place to work.”
“Is that where I met David?”
“You might have met him there. I don’t know. But that’s not where you were when you started dating. You were working at Barrett Enterprises.”
“Where my mother worked?”
“Well, see, she had a heart attack and died, all of a sudden. I don’t think she even knew she had any heart problems. And about the same time, you got fired at the Roadhouse.”
“Why did I get fired?”
“Sam’s wife—Sam Whiteville is the owner—Sam’s wife said you were carrying on with Sam and threatened to leave him if he didn’t fire you, so he did.”
“Was I? Carrying on with Sam?”
“I don’t know for sure. You were young and pretty, and Sam was middle-aged and fat. You could have had anyone you wanted. I don’t know why you’d want Sam. But maybe there was some advantage to it. You were always looking out for what or who could give you something.”
Marnie shook her head in denial. The more she heard, the less she liked herself.
“So there you was, your mother dead and you with no job. So Mr. Robert offered you a job at the plant.”
“I got my mother’s job?”
Alice chuckled. “Land’s no, child. She had years of experience, and you didn’t. He got you a job in one of the offices—I don’t know which one. I think you set your sights on Mr. David at that point. You’d see him in the plant and come home saying how handsome he was. He’d finished college by then and was being trained by his father and his Uncle John about how everything at the plant worked.”
“David said he was engaged to Celeste when we got married. How did that happen?”
“Yes, he was engaged to Miss Celeste. Then everything changed.”
“How? Why?”
“What changed everything was the plane crash.”
Chapter 14
“A plane crash?”
“Yes, Mr. Robert and Mr. John were flying to meet with some government people about some contract for Barrett Enterprises to make something. They