Chapter 1 #4
Roxanne laughed at the jibe. “I’ve been on my best behavior, honestly.
I’m wearing my wedding band and everything.
Let me tell you about it.” She ordered her friend a drink and made sure Laura laughed as she told her of her conversation with Brian.
It was some time later that Roxanne noticed his tall figure leaving the party.
She watched him go with a smile on her lips as she half listened to the conversation around her.
Now that was a very interesting man. She hadn’t thought that about a man in a very long time.
Shaking her head at her silly decision, she slipped the ridiculous diamond and wedding band from her finger.
She’d have to trust herself to not make the same mistake twice about a man without the help of the wedding band.
No matter how desperate she got, she would never again marry a man because he swept her off her feet. She should have known it was all a romantic illusion. In fact, she would never marry again, period. She shuddered.
Later on that week, even after putting in long hours on fund-raising projects, Roxanne awoke in the middle of the night.
She couldn’t sleep. Again. Or maybe it was that she didn’t want to sleep for fear of having that dream.
She hadn’t told anyone about it yet. Maybe she should tell Bonnie.
The old woman had been her caretaker for too many years.
Maybe she should get a psychiatrist. On second thought, that would cost too much money.
She laughed at herself out loud as she threw on her robe and walked over to the window.
It worried her that she was still dreaming about Don’s death and his mother’s accusations.
She tried to push it all from her mind, but the thoughts kept returning like wave after wave of the ocean crashing on the rocks below.
She supposed her insomnia was to be expected.
If it wasn’t the guilt that kept her up at night, her financial problems certainly would. She’d been contemplating how to get her job back with the TV station all week. She sensed Hank had fired her more on impulse than a deep conviction that she needed to go. She’d think of something. Eventually.
As usual, she was going overboard with her charity work because she needed the distraction.
There was another fund-raising party coming up on Friday night.
This one would kick off the pro-am golf tournament to benefit the hospital.
It would be just the thing for a diversion.
She would have to be there anyway; she may as well throw herself into having a really good time and forget about everything else. Especially the dream.
Roxanne returned to bed and refused to think about anything else but the golf benefit.
She needed sleep. She would think of a solution to her problem of dwindling cash tomorrow.
And of course, the thought of Penelope hiring a private investigator to prove that Roxanne murdered Don was too ridiculous to entertain at all.
The police determined his death was accidental.
At the edge of her mind, Roxanne couldn’t keep out the niggling thought that it may have been suicide, but she needed to put it behind her.
She only wished Don’s mother could do the same.
Sitting in a cubicle at the hospital’s development office the next day, the phone rang again.
She yawned. She couldn’t concentrate at all; not with the phone constantly ringing—something that didn’t usually bother her.
Roxanne thought she’d never finish her report and shoved her chair back from the desk and got up.
Laura had given her this space to work so she could get out of her house more.
She walked to the window and decided to take a walk.
It was time to do something besides think about the looming real estate tax bill that had arrived that morning.
When she got to the street, in Boston’s medical district on Brookline Avenue, she had no idea where she was going, but her steps were quick and she found herself in the corner convenience store staring blankly at the magazine rack.
She looked around. The man behind the counter gave her an odd kind of look and when she met his gaze he looked away.
He probably thought she was a mental patient and she decided she should at least buy something.
Gazing around again, a magazine cover caught her eye and she smiled.
“I’ll take a Sports Illustrated.” Brian Dennis’s face was on the cover and Roxanne chewed her lip thinking about the man as she paid for the magazine.
She’d seen his name on the guest list for the cocktail party that coming Friday.
He was playing in the pro-am golf tournament to benefit the hospital that weekend.
Roxanne pulled her phone from her bag and placed a call to her producer “Hank? This is Roxanne. Don’t hang up. Would you still like to do the Brian Dennis interview? Yes? I can get him for you. If I get my job back.”
Much later that night, with her stockinged feet up on a kitchen chair and her skirt bunched up in an unladylike manner around her thighs, she sat back and relaxed for the first time in a long while.
Bonnie sat, as she did every evening after keeping the house in order by day, in the same old chair she’d had since Roxanne could remember as a child.
They both watched the flat screen TV mounted on the wall.
“I’m definitely going to have to get another comfortable chair for the kitchen.” Roxanne rubbed her back as she squirmed on the hard wooden seat.
“Don’t start talking about buying furniture. We’ll probably have to burn this kitchen set for firewood just to keep warm this winter. I can see it now,” Bonnie said.
Roxanne chuckled, knowing she was being baited by the older woman. How long had she been keeping house and keeping Roxanne out of trouble? Since before her mother died, Roxanne thought. So long ago. She shook her head.
“I was going to wait to tell you the good news. I got my job back with Channel 7 today—or I will have it by Monday if all goes well Friday night.” Roxanne smiled.
“Yeah, sure. What's Friday night? It’s just another charity cocktail thing isn’t it?” Bonnie leaned forward and stopped rocking her chair, eying Roxanne suspiciously.
“Brian Dennis will be there. If I can get him to agree to do an interview with me, the Channel 7 job is mine again.”
“They made it too easy for you.” Bonnie shook her head.
“I’m not so sure it will be easy.” Roxanne recalled her last meeting with Brian. He might never want to speak to her again. She chewed her lip.
Spinning around in front of Bonnie, Roxanne was ready to leave for the cocktail party.
She wore a not-so-simple black silk dress that clung to her shapely form.
The straps were made of linked rhinestones.
But the eye-catching feature that sold her on the dress was the mink-trimmed hemline just above her knees.
She didn’t have any choice in jewelry to wear with it—most of it was gone now.
But that didn’t bother her. She wouldn’t even bother replacing it.
The diamond-studded Rolex was all that was left, but it was more than enough.
“You look beautiful, even though I hate to admit it. You be careful tonight. Don’t drink too much. And especially don’t flirt too much,” Bonnie said, sipping her nightly scotch. Roxanne laughed.
“I’ll have a great time.” Roxanne flashed one last smile before turning to go.
Tonight she was going to have fun. Thoughts of Don’s death and his mother still haunted her, but at least she had a plan to deal with her immediate financial crisis.
She could manage to put aside the rest of it for one evening.
She was determined to place the image of Donald’s broken body lying on that stretcher in the furthest recesses of her mind.
Roxanne shivered involuntarily. She had to concentrate on Brian Dennis tonight.
She strode out the door, buoyed at the prospect of getting her well-paying TV job back. She tried not to think of how, exactly, she was going to talk Brian Dennis into doing an interview. She would have to think on the fly.