47
My mother wasn’t home with Robbie yet when I walked in, so I washed my face and reapplied my makeup.
I greeted them when they came in, pushing off my mother’s questions to ask Robbie all about his first day of school. Apparently there was a boy named Billy who was going to be an issue, but otherwise he had a good time and wasn’t particularly unhappy about returning the next day.
To celebrate, we baked a cake together, the kids on either side of me standing on kitchen chairs as we measured, stirred, and poured.
But at four, I removed my apron and asked if my mother would mind frosting the cake with them.
“Why?”
“And I need to borrow your car,” I said.
“Beverly, where are you going?”
“I’ll explain tonight,” I said. “I’ve got one more loose end to tie up today.”
I drove down Connecticut Avenue into the District and made my way down to Larry’s office, where I parked in view of the main entrance and waited.
My quarry came out at three minutes past five, walking purposefully in her pumps toward the bus stop at the end of the block.
I slipped out of the car and moved into her path. She stopped when she saw me and froze like a trapped animal.
Then her posture straightened. “I told you, I have nothing to say.”
“I know,” I said. “But I do have one more question.”
Linda didn’t reply.
“Did you ever go to the Colonial Manor motel with Larry?”
Her brows came together in confusion. “No. Why?”
I was gambling. She could go running back inside and tell Larry I was asking about that. But as a fellow wronged woman, I was willing to bet on her reaction.
“Because I talked to the desk clerk there today. And Larry has been coming in for a long time with two or three different women. I figured you might have been one of them.”
I watched as her expression crumpled. And somehow, I felt bad for her. She was young, and Larry was probably feeding her all kinds of lines about how unhappy he was with me and how he loved her.
“Are you telling the truth?” she asked quietly.
“I am. I can show you the pages tomorrow if you want. One of my colleagues is making copies of the book.”
She shook her head. “I’m really stupid, aren’t I?” A tear formed in her left eye and spilled out of the center as if poured from a pitcher, leaving a black mascara track as it ran down her cheek. Another followed on the other side, and I reached for a Kleenex, only to realize I had left my purse in the car.
“Come on,” I said. “I’ve got tissues in the car. I’ll drive you home.” Crying harder now, she let me lead her to my mother’s car, where I handed her a ball of tissues from my purse.
I asked where she lived, she told me, and we pulled away from the curb.
“What do I do now?” she asked as we drove north toward the Maryland border.
“My offer stands,” I said, especially since Fran had turned us down. “You can come work for us.”
“And then what?” she asked. “If your man loses, I’m out of a job. I’m better off finding something completely new.”
“Linda,” I said. “Look at me.” She turned her head. “He’s not going to lose. But if he does, we’ll help you find something else. Michael will likely go back to law if he loses. Legal secretaries make a lot more than you did working for Larry.” I had no idea if that was true. “Would Sam do the same if he loses?”
She ignored the question. “I don’t have any formal training,” she said. “I can’t be a legal secretary.”
“We can help with that too,” I said gently, though I was mentally cursing Larry. He really hired her because she was attractive. I wondered if the affair started before or after she started working for him. But it didn’t matter.
“Why are you being so nice to me?”
My original reason was because I still wanted her to testify. I wanted to win in court without any doubts about my character or his. But even though I had no kind feelings left toward Larry, I could still empathize with this girl and the position she was now in.
“Because Larry lied to both of us,” I said after a long pause. “And it wasn’t either of our faults.”
She looked at me skeptically. “It is my fault.”
I sighed. “A small part. But you weren’t the one who took marriage vows and then broke them. And certainly not with multiple people. And honestly, Linda, you’re not the first to fall for a married man and believe he loved you, and you won’t be the last. Larry loves Larry. That’s it. Period. And we didn’t see that because we thought we loved him too.”
She nodded and then sniffled, and we sat in silence other than her telling me where to turn until we reached a neighborhood full of small, somewhat run-down houses in Silver Spring. “This is it,” she said, pointing to a driveway.
I looked up at the peeling paint of the front porch and wondered if Michael had grown up in a house like this, just a few miles on the map from mine, but a million miles socially.
“Thank you for the ride,” she said.
“I meant what I said. If you need a job, you just come to the office.”
She looked at me through the open car door for a long time. “I’ll think about it,” she said.
“And if you do decide to testify—you know where to find me.”
She nodded again, then shut the door and walked up the steps to the house. I watched her go inside. I didn’t think she would testify or come to us for a job. But even if it didn’t help me against Larry, she deserved to know the truth about what he was.
And that motel book would have to be enough.