A Widow in Paradise & Suburban Secrets Read online

  “A new water heater.”

  “That’s boring. I would pray for a Moon Bounce. And Emma and Erin are awake.”

  “Okay. I’ll get them.”

  Betsy stood in the doorway, twisting her hair around her finger. It was a habit she’d picked up from Dannie.

  “Was there something else?” Dannie said.

  Betsy pointed past her.

  Dannie turned around. Quincy had his big head in the trash can, scarfing down frozen hot dogs.

  “Hey, save some room for the caviar we’re gonna be having tomorrow, Quince.”

  He looked at her and burped.

  “Gross,” Betsy said. Then she ran off, her bare bottom the last thing to disappear around the corner.

  Dannie pulled the hundred-dollar bill out of her bra and stared at it, still unable to believe she had three hundred and fifteen more just like it in her freezer.

  The answer to their prayers.

  BY THREE O’CLOCK, Erin had thrown up in the car, Emma had drawn a mural in permanent marker on the bathroom wall and Quincy had knocked over the potted palm in the sunroom.

  Betsy was still naked.

  By three-thirty, Richard had stuffed a tennis ball into the garbage disposal, ripped seventeen pages out of the phone book and melted a plastic army guy in the microwave.

  Betsy was still naked.

  By three forty-five, Quincy had eaten the melted army guy, Emma and Erin were fighting and Richard had attempted to climb the living room drapes while dressed in his Spider-Man Halloween costume.

  Betsy was still naked.

  By four o’clock, Dannie knew exactly what she was going to do with the money in her bra…

  Spend it on margaritas.

  She picked up the phone and called her friend Roseanna at work. “Rosie, it’s Dannie. We’re going out tomorrow night.”

  Chapter Two

  ROSEANNA PULLED INTO the parking lot of Caligula, a club in center city Philadelphia, just after Dannie did. They smiled at each other through the windows of their cars—Dannie’s beat-up minivan, Roseanna’s beat-up Mustang convertible.

  “Hey,” Dannie said as they climbed out of their cars.

  “Hey, yourself,” Roseanna said in her husky Greta Garbo voice. “How did you come up with this place?”

  Dannie laughed. “One of the girls I work with had her birthday party here a couple of months ago.”

  “Eighties night is supposed to be awesome. You ready to party?”

  “Sure. But if I fall asleep at the table, wake me up, okay?”

  Roseanna gave her a sympathetic look. “How’s everything going?”

  “It’s okay. Some days are harder than others. But when you’ve got four kids under six, it’s never easy.”

  “Where are the little monsters tonight?”

  “My in-laws are keeping them until after lunch tomorrow, so I’m a free woman for the next fifteen hours or so.”

  Roseanna flung her arm over Dannie’s shoulder. “Did I ever tell you you’re my hero?”

  Dannie grinned. “Are you going to start singing Bette Midler songs to me now?”

  “You know I don’t sing. I just write about the people who do.”

  “You’re a great singer, Rosie. At least, you were in high school.”

  Roseanna shook her head. “That boat sailed. I’m just a hack now.”

  “You’re a hack who gets paid to write about something you love. I’ve got a master’s degree in fine arts and I’m teaching toddlers how to paint.”

  “Hey, you’re doing what you have to do right now,” Roseanna said. “It’ll get easier.”

  “Oh, yeah? When?”

  Roseanna was silent for a minute, and then they both burst out laughing.

  “Don’t listen to me,” Roseanna said. “My kid is almost thirteen, and I still don’t have a clue.”

  They got in line behind a group of twentysomething girls in tiny T-shirts who were having a heated discussion about who was the hottest guy on some new reality show.

  “Did you call Cecilia?” Roseanna said.

  “Yeah. She sounded pretty desperate for a night out, too.”

  At the door, Roseanna flashed her ID from the music magazine she worked for and the bouncer let them in without paying the cover charge. A moment later they stepped out of a twenty-first-century parking lot and into ancient Rome. That is, if ancient Romans played eighties music.

  Hard-bodied waiters and waitresses crisscrossed the room in togas and leafy headpieces, serving drinks to kids who looked as if they might still play with Barbie dolls and baseballs on occasion.

  Rick James’s “Super Freak” blared over the sound system. Dannie spied Cecilia at a table, smoking a cigarette and ogling an achingly hot waiter whose biceps looked harder than the marble columns littering the room.

  Roseanna grabbed Dannie’s arm and dragged her toward the table. “We’re going to have a good time tonight if it kills you.”

  A few minutes later a waiter with a gorgeous butt, wearing a tiny toga, brought the first round of drinks. Luscious-looking pink concoctions called Gladiators.

  Cecilia removed the pineapple wedge and took a sip. “Why do they call this a Gladiator?”

  Dannie gave her an evil grin. “Because it’s gonna kick your ass.”

  After two rounds the women were on the dance floor, shaking it down to The Escape Club, the Go-Go’s and Wang Chung. In the middle of a Madonna song, Roseanna pointed to someone who’d just come in the door.

  “Look.”

  A tall woman in a red silk jacket scanned the crowd. She looked familiar.

  “Oh. My. God. It’s Grace Poleiski,” Dannie said.

  “I saw her at Beruglia’s when I went there for lunch today,” Roseanna said, grinning. “I didn’t think you guys would mind if I invited her.”

  “Are you kidding!” Cecilia laughed. “It’s gonna be just like old times.”

  TURNED OUT TO BE MORE LIKE old times than any of them had imagined it would be.

  After a couple more drinks, a few rounds of shots and a nostalgic game of Truth or Dare, Roseanna was passed out, her head resting on a pile of napkins on the table.

  Dannie sucked on an ice cube. She needed to cool down after Cecilia’s dare, in which she’d talked their waiter, whom they’d lovingly dubbed “Spartacus,” into giving her a lap dance. Dannie had been treated to the full frontal view, and she couldn’t help noticing Spartacus had more in his toga than starch.

  “Tonight’s going to go down in history as the best Truth or Dare game ever,” she said.

  “It is, isn’t it?” Cecilia puffed on a cigarette, making tiny smoke rings by tapping on her cheek. She glanced over her shoulder at Grace, who was sucking face at the bar with a scorching-hot stranger. A much, much younger stranger.

  They’d dared her to give him the undies she was wearing. And by the looks of things, he was hoping to get more.

  “I don’t believe it,” Dannie said. “Look at her. She actually did it.”

  “She always had guts,” Cecilia said, a twinge of envy in her voice.

  “She sure did.” Dannie wished she had half the guts Grace had, a quarter of Cecilia’s self-assurance and a pinch of Roseanna’s full-out craziness.

  If she had, maybe she could have stood up to Roger better. All the times she wondered where he was, and what he was doing.

  And maybe she could stand up to Lyle now. Tell him she just wanted to be friends, nothing more. But it wasn’t in her nature. She’d always been a people pleaser. In second grade, when Timmy Burke’s dog had died, she’d shown him her underpants just to cheer him up.

  “Okay, we’ve lost Grace,” Dannie said. “And Roseanna’s no good anymore.”

  “Doesn’t matter,” Cecilia said. “You’re the only one who hasn’t had a turn, and I can handle it. Truth or Dare?”

  Dannie slid down in her chair and sucked on the straw of her drink. “I dunno. You pick for me.”

  Cecilia crushed out her cigarette. “Okay.
Truth. I want to know what’s going on with you.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Cecilia leaned in. “I know you, Dannie. Something’s wrong. Are you missing Roger?”

  Dannie snorted. “Yeah. I don’t know what I miss more, the lying or the cheating.” She stopped herself and shook her head. “Oh, God. I’m sorry. I know I shouldn’t speak ill of the dead, but he could be such a shit.” She began to cry.

  Cecilia pulled a cocktail napkin out from beneath Roseanna’s head and handed it to Dannie. “He cheated on you?”

  Dannie nodded. “At least twice that I know of. But probably more than that.” She sighed. “He was a good father, though.”

  And he was. He took the kids to the park almost every weekend. He read to them at night. He changed diapers and wiped noses. She knew from talking to other women that was no small thing, and it gave her something to focus on during the rough times.

  She’d always figured they’d get back on track someday. She’d loved him so much when they’d first met, it seemed impossible that they would ever grow apart. But they had, and now it was too late to fix things.

  Dannie shrugged. “He just made me feel…small.”

  “I’m so sorry,” Cecilia said. “But you know you could have talked to me about it. Anytime.”

  “I guess I was embarrassed, which is just silly. Life would be so much better if we could all just share our secrets and get them off our chests. Don’t you think?”

  “Hmm.” Cecilia chewed on an ice cube. “As a matter of fact…”

  Dannie dabbed her eyes with the now-soggy napkin. “What? You have a secret, too?”

  Cecilia pushed her shot away. “I have to sober up.”

  Dannie squeezed her hand. “Come on. I’m your friend. Maybe I can help.”

  “Well, the thing is, I’m…” Cecilia sighed. “Well, I’m flat broke.”

  “Broke?”

  Cecilia, with the eighty-thousand-dollar SUV? Cecilia with the five-thousand-square-foot house on the golf course? Cecilia with the closet full of designer clothes and three-hundred-dollar shoes?

  Before Roger’s death, Dannie had lived comfortably. But Cecilia was rich. For her to confess something like this, she must really be hurting.

  Dannie considered offering Cecilia some of the cash she’d found, but thought better of it. She was still uncomfortable about not knowing where it had come from.

  Face it—she was punking out on the Truth. She wasn’t going to tell anyone what was really bothering her. Not the money, or her rocky relationship with Roger, or even her desperation for a new water heater. What was the point? No one could help her. She had to get through this on her own.

  So she was going to violate the conditions of the game. Conditions they’d set long ago, when they’d all sworn on their posters of Jon Bon Jovi that they would never lie in a game of Truth or Dare, under severe penalty.

  Damn. Now she was going to have to hand over all her Duran Duran albums.

  The lap-dancing waiter reappeared, and Dannie motioned him over. “Can we take care of our tab?”

  He pulled a leather billfold out of the folds of his toga and handed it to her. She opened the billfold and examined the sales slip inside, completely unable to focus on anything except the waiter’s cute butt as he cleared the empty glasses from the table.

  Oh, screw it.

  She reached into her bra and fished out the hundred-dollar bill, unrolling it before she gave it to him. “Keep the change, Spartacus.”

  Cecilia raised her eyebrows.

  Dannie shrugged. “Mad money.”

  The two of them danced and sang until they’d sobered up. Then Cecilia went to check on Grace, who was still sucking face with the hot guy.

  Behind the bar, Spartacus powwowed with a bartender. He pointed at Dannie, and she gave a little wave.

  “Grace is okay,” Cecilia said, returning to the table. “She’s going to get a cab.”

  Dannie and Cecilia slung their arms around Roseanna and dragged her through the crowd toward the door.

  “Come on, gorgeous,” Cecilia said. “Let’s try to get you home before you lose your cookies.”

  They’d just about made it to the door when a man in a dark suit and slicked hair grabbed Dannie’s arm.

  “Miss, can I speak to you for a minute?”

  “I’m not interested,” Dannie said, shaking off his grip.

  “That’s good, because I’m not hitting on you. I’m the club’s manager.” He leaned close, speaking directly into her ear. “It’s about that hundred-dollar bill you gave the waiter.”

  Chapter Three

  DANNIE’S STOMACH DID a little flip. Cecilia gave her a questioning look.

  “It’s okay. I forgot something at the table,” Dannie said. “Can you get Roseanna home?”

  “We’ll have someone help your friends to their car,” said the manager, waving a bouncer over.

  Dannie gave Cecilia a quick peck on the cheek. “I’ll call you soon, okay?”

  The club manager took Dannie’s arm, gently but firmly escorting her to the rear of the club, where they ducked behind one of the marble columns. Like magic, they were back in the twenty-first century.

  The manager guided her down a long, narrow hallway to a small room she could only assume was his office. It was little more than a converted broom closet—polar opposite to the lavish decor of the club.

  Two beat-up filing cabinets on one wall leaned against each other for support, sagging beneath the weight of their contents. A torn desk chair was pushed beneath a scarred wooden table that served as a desk. An old Playboy calendar from 2003 hung on the wall above a copy machine.

  Spartacus and the bartender he’d been talking to earlier stood beside the desk.

  “My name is Patrick, by the way. Patrick Baldwin,” the manager said. “No relation to the Baldwin brothers.”

  He said this seriously, as if he thought he might actually be mistaken for one of “the” Baldwins.

  Slim chance of that. This guy resembled a Baldwin brother the way Elvis on velvet resembled a Renoir.

  “Mr. Baldwin, may I ask what’s going on? I really need to get home.”

  Baldwin snapped his fingers and held out a hand.

  The bartender handed Baldwin a bill, which he smoothed out on the surface of his desk.

  “Drew, is this the bill the lady gave you to settle her tab?” Baldwin asked the waiter.

  Spartacus nodded.

  “Kenny, is this the bill Drew gave you?” Kenny was, apparently, the bartender.

  “Yeah,” Kenny said.

  Baldwin tapped the bill with a manicured finger. “Our procedures require we test all bills of fifty-dollar denominations and greater. We tested this one, and it failed.”

  “Failed?” Dannie’s voice cracked.

  “It’s counterfeit. You see, we have this pen, and we draw on the bills. If the paper turns brown—”

  “It fails.”

  Baldwin nodded. “We’re supposed to call the police and the FBI when something like this happens.”

  “The police? The FBI? Really?” The blood pounded in Dannie’s eardrums.

  “They’d probably want to question you.”

  “But how could I help them? I have no idea where that bill came from.” Dannie swallowed, but her throat was as dry as her mother-in-law’s Thanksgiving turkey.

  “You got a hundred-dollar bill and you don’t know where it came from?” Drew asked.

  “Do you keep track of where all your money comes from?” Dannie said.

  “But this is a hundred-dollar bill,” Baldwin said. “There aren’t many places you get a hundred-dollar bill, am I right? That’s not chump change.”

  Dannie twisted the strap on her handbag, trying to think. What would she tell the authorities? I found it in a golf bag in my garage, and I have three hundred and fifteen more just like it?

  It couldn’t go that far. It just couldn’t.

  “Listen,” she said. “I probably g
ot it from my boss. I get paid under the table for watching her kids. I can’t tell the cops it’s from her, though. I’ll get fired if I bring her into it, and I really need that job, you know?”

  Baldwin shrugged. “Not my problem.”

  “Can you just…” Dannie took a deep breath. “Can’t you forget about it? I can pay for the drinks on my credit card, and we can just tear that money up.”

  “Sorry. No can do.”

  He seemed amused, as if he was enjoying making her squirm. Dannie gave Drew and Kenny a pleading look.

  Drew took pity on her. Or maybe he was bucking for a better tip. “What’s the big deal, Mr. Baldwin? Why can’t we just let this slide?”

  Baldwin sucked something out of his teeth, and glared at Drew. “We’re supposed to fill out an incident report.”

  “You hate filling out reports,” Kenny said, clearly irritated.

  Dannie was beginning to think this wasn’t so much about her as it was about Baldwin’s management skills. Or lack of them.

  His employees obviously couldn’t stand him.

  “Now that I think about it,” Drew said, “I can’t really be sure this lady’s the one who gave me that bill.”

  “Yeah,” Kenny said. “And I’m not positive Drew’s the one who gave it to me.”

  Baldwin’s face turned red. “That’s bull. You just told me it was her ten minutes ago.” His thick neck bulged over the collar of his shirt.

  “I think I made a mistake,” Drew said. “Sorry.”

  “It’s really dark in the club, man,” said Kenny. “Honest mistake.”

  Dannie sensed Baldwin weakening. Confusion setting in. She went for the kill.

  “Mr. Baldwin, do you really want to call the police? Some of those people drinking out there seem awfully young. Are you sure they all have ID?”

  Baldwin looked stricken. “I guess the police have better things to do on a Friday night than waste their time on something like this.”

  Dannie held her breath.

  The room was silent except for the beat of the music they could hear through the walls—Billy Idol’s “Dancing with Myself.”

  Dannie had a feeling a guy like Baldwin could relate intimately to that song.