Cocktail Hour (59 page)

"Oh? Yes, okay," Grant said, letting himself be led.

Inside the large room with its sweeping views of the Sound, the vivid blue waters now mirror-like silver at dusk, Bianca pointed to the bed which she'd had Lintang make up with fresh sheets that day. "Why don't you sit down on the bed? I'll be just a minute."

Grant wove a little, trying to look around, and then spotted the bed and made for it. "Good idea," he said. "I'm dizzy." Once seated on the edge of the bed, he slumped, his head down.

Bianca picked up a pack of matches from her vanity table and went around lighting the white pillar candles she had placed around the room. Once all the candles were lit, she went to Grant and touched his shoulder, feeling the electricity course between them and arouse her even more. "Now don't fall asleep," she warned gently. "I'll be right back."

She went into her huge walk-in closet, peeled off her dress and put on the silky red-lace negligee she had purchased just for tonight. She checked her reflection in the three way mirror that stood on one wall of the closet, fluffing her hair. The woman staring back at her was gorgeous, at the height of her beauty and power over men. It was delicious.

Bianca smiled at herself, turned and sauntered into the bedroom. Grant had fallen back on the bed, his chin to the ceiling. "Damn!" she muttered, striding across to where he lay. He was supposed to turn and see her in that moment and finally gaze at her with lust. Instead it looked as if he'd passed out.

She sat down next to him. "Grant? Grant!"

He only mumbled, turning his head away.

She stared. No! Not after all her hard work! She climbed on top of him, pressing her body against his and running her tongue up his neck.

Grant groaned a little.

Bianca laughed. Now that was more like it. She cupped his face in her hands and looked into his half-closed eyes. They flew open.

"Wha?" Grant said, jerking a little.

"Grant, I want you. I know you want me. I just heard you want me," Bianca said and kissed him. But his mouth resisted her probing tongue, clamping shut and he made a growling sound. Bianca laughed again and said, "So you're going to play hard to get, huh? My, you love this game. Let's see how long you last when I do this." She reached down between his legs and rubbed his crotch. She was surprised to find no hardness there. Was he impotent?

At that moment, Grant jerked upward, trying to push her away. "Stop it," he slurred.

"You don't want me to stop. Not at all. You just need a little help." She reached down and unbuttoned and then unzipped his khakis, reaching inside to find-

He convulsed more forcefully and pushed her off of him, sitting up. "What are...you...stop..."

Standing in front of him, she grabbed his limp hand and put on her breast, but he pulled it away as if burned.

"What are you doing?" Grant said, trying to focus his eyes on Bianca and failing.

"Helping you," Bianca said, and pushed him down before kneeling beside the bed. She yanked his pants wide open, reached in, and pulled him out, gratified to see how much he would please her. "Now...here we are," she remarked softly and leaning down to take him in her mouth.

There was a little screeching sound and Bianca startled, looking up. Kate stood in the bedroom's doorway staring at them, her once-rosy face now a pale moon that floated in the shadows.

Corona

Kate rinsed her face in the bathroom sink, grateful not to be wearing any makeup other than some waterproof mascara, and then scooped handfuls of cool water into her mouth and spat, trying to remove the terrible taste that lingered there. Finally, her mouth reasonably clean and feeling fresher, she sighed, dried her face on a towel, and looked in the mirror. The high color of her earlier excitement and enthusiasm had drained away. Instead she was wan and thin looking, her freshly highlighted hair clinging in dark moist pieces to her face and neck.

She smiled ruefully at her reflection. She had never been a beauty queen and that wasn't about to change now. And she was okay with it. All she really wanted she already had: her own family, her darling Grant and a baby on the way. And she would get over missing Vermont, she was sure of it, especially now that she had friends in the area. Well, the one who mattered most was Bianca, her very best dearest friend who was at this moment trying to help as usual, having taken Grant away to presumably consult him about whatever anti-nausea medications were in her medicine cabinet.

Turning away from the mirror, Kate left the bathroom and headed down the hall searching for them. She didn't need the medicine anymore and the nausea could just be pregnancy-related. But no...what about the others? Everyone seemed to run away from the table in pairs, jumping up so quickly they startled Kate, who began feeling sick halfway through her duck and was trying to fight the feeling, not wanting to spoil Bianca's party or disappoint Lucie. But then it had happened anyway, everything spoiled, even Edie and Stuart leaving before dessert was served. After that, when Kate was hit with an even bigger wave of nausea, making bile rise dangerously into her mouth, she gave in and ran.

Walking down the hallway and peering into rooms as she passed, Kate wondered what
had
happened. Could it possibly be food poisoning? But no, Lucie seemed like such a careful person, so precise. It was hard to imagine. There had to be another explanation.

The last doorway in the hall was Bianca and John's bedroom, a sumptuous room where Kate had been coached by Bianca about how to style her hair and apply makeup, sitting at an ornate dressing table while Bianca hovered over her. That's where they had to be, in the enormous attached bathroom discussing the advantages of Pepto-Bismol over Emetrol.

Walking into the bedroom and seeing them, Kate stumbled to a stop, unable to believe her eyes.

Grant sat on the side of the bed, Bianca standing in front of him wearing a red lacy nightie. Kate shook her head, trying to clear her vision.  That wasn't what Bianca had been wearing earlier? At that moment, Bianca leaned down, picked up Grant's hand and placed it on her breast. Kate jerked back with surprise. Grant apparently was surprised too, snatching his hand away. 

"What are you doing?" Grant said in a blurry voice, squinting at Bianca. He looked half-asleep.

Kate nodded in agreement. What was Bianca doing? What was going on? And why was Grant sleepy? He'd been acting strange sitting next to her in the bathroom, speaking so slowly she couldn't understand what he was trying to say. At the time she'd felt so ill it was hard to focus on anything other than getting whatever it was out of her stomach, but she had registered Grant's behavior peripherally, out of the corner of her mind. She tried to remember how many drinks he'd had, but she could only remember the vodka cocktail and the one glass of wine. He must have had more, much more, and somehow she hadn't noticed.

"Helping you," Bianca said in a soft voice. Then she pushed Grant down, knelt between his knees, and yanked his pants violently open.

Kate's eyes grew wide. Bianca wasn't about to...but she was reaching into Grant's open fly, right into his boxers, and Kate heard her say, "Now...here we are," in a flirtatious voice. Then Bianca started to lower her head and Kate let out a high-pitched screech of shock.

Bianca turned and looked at her, her mouth still soft and open. Then it snapped shut.

Kate goggled at Bianca. She couldn't believe it. It wasn't possible. But she'd just seen it: Bianca about to go down on Grant, who had been struggling to get up on his elbows. She saw then that something was wrong with Grant, off, not just alcohol. Something was even more wrong with her so-called friend. How could she?

Kate found her breath in that moment and said it, "How could you?"

Bianca was shaking her head, getting to her feet. "It's not what it looks like. I was concerned...about..." She paused, apparently flummoxed.

Grant pulled himself upright and looked up at Bianca, narrowing his eyes at her. "What? Concerned?" he said and gave his head a little shake, blinking and looking with surprise at his wide open pants and what they exposed before fumbling awkwardly to tuck himself back in, close his fly, and zip it up.

Kate felt something steel-like go through her, cold and hard and completely foreign. "No," Kate said, straightening. "No, you're right. It's not what it looks like. Nothing is with you, is it? You pretend to be a friend, but you're not, are you?"

"No, I
am
your friend. You're wrong," Bianca said and stepped towards her, her beautiful face open and innocent, hands held out to Kate. If it wasn't for the red negligee she was wearing, if Kate hadn't seen it all with her own eyes, Bianca's act would be completely believable.

Kate heard an unfamiliar mirthless chuckle rise up out of her own throat. "You fooled me. I've been fooled the whole time. What a country bumpkin I was for you, ripe for the picking. And you picked. And you pushed, too, didn't you? That warm feeling on my back that night?"

Bianca's eyes grew wide. "Oh, no! Kate? No!"

Looking at Bianca, Kate felt the pressure again on her back from that night. It had fingers. "And now, with my husband. Going after him like this. Well, he doesn't want you, Bianca. Can't you see that? I would think that someone as smart as you could see that."

"Oh," Bianca said, her face morphing, becoming cruel. "No. Grant wants me. Badly. Always has. He's just a good boy. Does the 'right' thing. He just needed an excuse. I gave him one. He couldn't
wait
to sleep with me."

Grant got to his feet, and though he was unsteady on them, he managed to stay upright, shaking his head. "No. I don't want you," he said, his tongue sounding like it was too large for his mouth. "You disgust me."

Bianca turned to him and straightened, thrusting her breasts up. "No, I heard you groan. Don't lie."

Grant looked at her with a derisive look of condemnation. "I was groaning because you were making me want to throw up."

Bianca's head pulled back sharply, as if he'd reached out and slapped her.

Hearing the unshielded honesty in Grant's voice, Kate felt a piercing joy and bone-deep love for her husband. She reached out her hand and said, "Come on, honey. We're going home. Oh, and Bianca?"

Bianca turned to her, her typically sleepy and content face looking suddenly older and pinched, her eyes darting to Grant as he walked away and then back again at Kate. Bianca snapped, "What? What do you want?"

"Nothing. Not a thing. Never a word, not the sight of you, not even a hint. You don't exist. Understand?"

"You're making a big mistake. I'll ruin you. I've got connections. You'd be surprised," Bianca said, her voice calm but her eyes hard and bright, burning with that frightening energy Kate had always felt in her presence.

The steel within Kate grew harder, impermeable. Grant reached her side and reached for her hand. She took it. "Do you understand, Bianca? You don't exist," Kate said.

They didn't wait for a reply, only turned and made their way out of the house, their hands locked and as solid as they were.

Vodka Martini

Sharon paced next to her parked car, stopping occasionally to start dialing Dean's number and then hitting the end button. She muttered to herself, arguing the pros and cons of calling him, wishing they hadn't had their argument in the first place. But if they hadn't argued, she wouldn't have gotten on the Internet, wouldn't have been sitting quietly in her house where she could be tuned in enough to pick up on the subtle danger signals coming from her friends, signals that now wailed like sirens in her head.

Pacing helped. She hadn't been able to stay seated any longer, the thrumming anxious energy too intense to sit passively in her car waiting for a call-back. She had swung by the community's security booth one more time hoping that, although she hadn't heard back, perhaps the guard had received a call. He hadn't.