silk cigarette pants and a sleeveless black turtleneck. Very chic and severe, as befits an interior designer to the quasi rich and famous of Bakersfield, California. But it was lousy rock-climbing garb, and by the time I tumbled into a bed of pothos and aluminum plants, the whole outfit was ruined. “Hells bells. I think I broke something.”
“No you didn’t. Open the gate,” Bitsey demanded. So much for being motherly.
We hurried over to M.J.; for once Bitsey moved faster than me.
“Please, God,” Bitsey pleaded. “Don’t let her be dead.”
“Don’t say that. She’s not dead,” I muttered. “Dead drunk, but not dead.”
I was right, but barely. The last bit of margarita in the pitcher next to M.J. would definitely have finished her off. She was breathing but not responsive beyond a few indecipherable mutters.
“We should take her to the hospital,” Bitsey said as we wheeled her inside on the chaise longue.
“She’s just drunk. Look how big that pitcher is. She drank almost all of it.”
“What if she took something else?”
“Like what?”
“I don’t know. Sleeping pills. Painkillers. And look how sunburned she is. She must have been out there all afternoon.”
M.J. woke up when we turned a cold shower on her. “Stop. Stop!” She covered her face with her hands and curled on her side in the group-size shower stall.
“Mary Jo Hollander, what did you take today?” Bitsey exclaimed in her sternest I-am-the-mother-around-here voice.
“Tequila. Leave me alone.”
“What else?” I turned the cold up to full blast.
“Nothing!” She squealed in protest. “Nothing else.”
“No pills?” Bitsey demanded, her blond hair beginning to droop in the spray from the five-point water delivery system. “Mary Jo! No pills?”
“Nooo!”
Bitsey and I shared a look. As one we decided to believe her. So I turned off the water, Bitsey found some towels, and together we got M.J. dry and changed and into bed. This was beginning to be a bad habit. After that, completely done in, we threw ourselves onto the twin couches in the living room.
Bitsey kicked off her shoes. “She shouldn’t be living alone.”
“We both live alone.”
“I don’t live alone.”
I massaged my left ankle, which still hurt from my adventures with the iron fence. “Your kids are gone. Jack’s never around. Face it, Bitsey, you’re just as alone as me and M.J.” I knew I was being mean for no reason, but I was in a pissy mood.
“On the rag are you?” Bitsey was a sweetheart, but she wasn’t totally defenseless.
She was no match for me, though. “At least I’m not too old to still have a period.”
She glared at me. Bitsey was very sensitive about the impending death of her forties. She’d gone through the same tortures when she was thirty-nine and her first daughter went off to college. Forty was old! Four years later her middle girl went off without too much trauma. But the baby had left last August, she’d turned forty-eight the next month, and according to her gynecologist, she was officially in menopause. She hadn’t yet recovered from any of it.
I knew she’d be okay once she actually turned fifty. But we had another year and a half till then. Despite my nasty mood, I probably shouldn’t have made that last crack.
“At least I won’t die alone,” she finally said, but without any real venom in her voice.
I hugged a silk-tasseled pillow to my chest. “Sorry.”
She nodded. “Me, too.”
We sat in silence, surrounded by the self-conscious splendor of M.J.’s home. Pure California posh. By day it was bright and elegant: white everything—floors, walls, carpets, furniture; art in every shade of red; and the bright green of potted palms and ferns. By night the lighting turned everything amber, dark emerald and the color of blood. Dramatic.
You’d think as M.J.’s best friend I would have been consulted on the decor. But Frank Hollander used a big interior design firm from L.A. for everything: home, restaurants and his latest venture, a boutique hotel in San Diego. Despite my professional jealousy I could appreciate the house’s artistic merit. But it didn’t suit M.J. She’s a big softy at heart, so that slick, polished look didn’t come naturally to her. She had to work at it.
“I’ll stay with her tonight.”
“Good idea,” Bitsey said. She sighed. “She needs to get out of here.”
“You mean a vacation?”
She shrugged. “Something like that.”
“The trouble is, if she leaves—even for a week—Wendy and Frank Jr. would be in here with the locks changed. Possession is nine-tenths of the law and all that.”
Prophetic words. Hours later, after we forced two cups of strong coffee into her, M.J. spilled all. “He left me with nothing. Well, practically nothing,” she wailed, sitting cross-legged on the bed.
It was a garbled tale, interrupted by a bout of vomiting and lots of tears. By the time we had the gist of it, M.J.’s head was beginning to clear. “All those years,” she muttered. “Seventeen years of marriage and he betrays me, not only with that…that freak of nature woman-wannabe, but he lied about taking care of me. The kids inherited the corporation, and everything belongs to it—the restaurants, the hotel, even my house. And my car, too!”
“Wreck it,” Bitsey muttered.
I swiveled my head to stare at her. “Wreck it? You mean the car?” M.J.’s Jaguar sedan is the most gorgeous hunk of metal and leather you’ve ever seen.
Scowling, yet also looking like she wanted to cry, Bitsey nodded. “Wreck the car, wreck the house, wreck his reputation.”
M.J. sat up against the leather upholstered headboard of her Ponderosa-size bed. Vindictiveness in Bitsey was enough to sober anyone. “Wreck my car?”
“Wreck the house?” I said. “What do you mean?”
Bitsey got up, turned her back on us and stared out at the pool and the cunningly lit courtyard that surrounded it. “He deserves to be punished.”
“He’s dead,” I pointed out. “That’s pretty significant punishment, don’t you think?”
She shook her head. “It’s not like we have to lie about him. The truth will do just fine.” She turned around. “Maybe a little public humiliation will teach those horrible kids of his to mend their ways while they still can.”
Personally I didn’t think Frank Jr., Celeste and Roger would learn anything from
