Chapter Twenty-Six
ADELE
Adele couldn’t eat, she felt so nauseated.
She’d opened a bottle of Beaujolais and poured a glass, but she couldn’t drink that either; she just held it in her hand like a prop as she paced.
A knock on the front door almost sent the glass flying.
What if it was Rutherford, with a photographer?
What if they ran a picture of her, startled, wineglass in hand?
They’ll call her a drunk, a recluse, a lunatic.
She raced to the living room and peeled back the curtain just an inch to peek outside.
“Adele, it’s Sylvia and Milly. We know you’re in there. Please open up.”
“We want to speak with you.” It was Milly’s voice now. “We want to help.”
Help? How could they help anything? They’d likely brought this reporter in. It could all be a setup; maybe they’d known who she was all along and had planned the takedown. They’d buttered her up, connived to get her to teach at the club only to rip her to pieces.
“Adele, open the door,” Sylvia said. “We don’t want to cause a scene out here.”
Adele stood behind the front door thinking. She didn’t want to cause a scene either. That was the last thing she wanted. She opened the door a few inches and looked around.
“Adele,” Sylvia said, “may we please come in?”
Adele moved out of their way, and they stepped into the living room.
“Well, congratulations,” Adele said. “You figured it out. You figured out who I am, that I’m the person who ruined Margery Horn’s life.” She clapped her hands sarcastically.
“Rutherford came to us; we had no idea, honestly,” Sylvia said. “But I should not have brought him to you the way I did. I should have asked you first if you wanted to meet him, but I didn’t realize—”
“Well,” Adele interrupted, “it’s too late now.
Because you brought that man to my place of work, I now will not be able to leave my house, I will not be able to work, and my life will become a repetitive, lonely hell all over again.
The last twenty-plus years living under a shell was now all for nothing. ”
“He says he has a lot of respect for you,” Milly said, though she could hear how pathetic that sounded when she said it out loud. “He claims he wants you to tell your side of the story.”
“Of course he’s saying that,” Adele said. “He wants to get me in the chair and expose me for the monster that I am.”
“Don’t say that, Adele,” Sylvia said. “You’re no monster, we know that. You’ve clearly been punishing yourself for way too long.”
“You don’t know the whole story.” Adele shook her head. “You have no idea what was really going on; you only know what the papers told you.”
“It’s true,” Sylvia said. “I don’t know, but I will listen anytime you want to talk. Look at what you’re doing now; look at all these women who are currently taking lessons with you. You’re giving them so much. You’re changing their lives.”
“You really are,” Milly said. “But you don’t have to do this interview. Just because he showed up and requested it doesn’t mean you have to say yes.”
“I don’t need you to tell me what I should or should not say,” Adele said coldly.
“OK,” Milly said. “I know you’re angry, Adele, but I need to tell you something else. And you’re not going to be happy about this either.”
“Great,” Adele said.
“The journalist, Mr. Rutherford, he’s staying in my guest cottage.”
“What?” Adele raised her voice now. “Why would you let that homme terrible stay in your house?”
“Not in my house, in my guest cottage,” Milly said.
“It was so that I could pay for my lessons with you, if you want the truth. But I will send him on his way. I’ll tell him he can’t stay, if that’s what you want me to do.
Please believe me when I tell you, I didn’t know who he was or why he was here. ”
“Well, now you do. And now that you know my big dirty secret, that I’ve been living a lie, then I suppose you can splash it all over town,” Adele said, sneering.
“We would never do that,” Milly said.
“We are your friends, Adele. Friends take care of each other.” Sylvia stepped toward her. “And, besides, you’re not the only one who has a big dirty secret.”
Adele raised her eyebrows and waited for more.
“Can we sit?” Sylvia asked, and Adele begrudgingly gestured for them to sit on the sofa while she sat in the armchair across from them.
“As you both know by now, Walter and I have been having some money trouble.”
Milly nodded. “You don’t have to talk about this if you don’t want to, Sylvia. You don’t have to tell us anything, but if you do, I won’t tell a soul, I promise you that.” She looked to Adele for her agreement.
“Who am I going to tell?” she said.
“To be quite honest, I want to tell you. It affects you both and it’s been eating me up inside, keeping such an enormous secret.” Sylvia paused briefly. “Walter gambled away all of our money. All of it. He’s been involved in these high-stakes poker games for years, but I thought it had stopped.”
“No!” Milly said.
“I’m not exaggerating. Every last penny.
That’s why we sold the house, that’s why we’ve moved in next door.
We can barely afford to put dinner on the table.
He’s ruined us. It’s absurd, really, that we’re even trying to hang on to the club.
We’ve got huge loans out on it, and if we can’t make the payments, the bank will take it from us, foreclose, seizure—whatever it’s called—along with all the money we’ve put into it so far.
And if we lose this, we lose everything.
That little shack we’re staying in, they’ll take that too. ”
“It’s horrible,” Adele said.
“My God, Sylvia, I’m so sorry. I had no idea it was so grave. Can’t you sell the club?” Milly asked. “I know it’s not what you want, and it’s obviously not what we want, but at least you’d have something.”
“I suggested that to Walter. We’re friendly with John Wayne—”
“John Wayne?!” Milly said.
“Yes, you know Walter, he’s friends with everyone.
Apparently, he’s been poking around showing interest in opening some kind of a club around here himself, but Walter says it wouldn’t help.
The club’s too new, we don’t have enough members yet to make it profitable, and it’s not worth what the bank loaned us for it. ”
Adele snorted a laugh.
Sylvia stared. “You find this amusing?”
“Je suis désolé,” Adele said. “I am sorry, I just always thought you were the richest family on this island.”
“I did too,” Sylvia said. “It’s amazing how fast your luck can change.”
Adele nodded. That part she could agree on.
“When I realized who you were, I selfishly thought of my dismal situation and the club and how an article or a documentary or whatever it is Rutherford wants to do might bring attention, and members, to our doors. I thought about how it might save us, get us back on our feet, how I might be able to shield my daughter Judith from this embarrassment and upheaval. But I should have thought of what it would mean to you, and I didn’t. I’m sorry.”
The three sat in silence for a moment. Adele briefly considered offering them a glass of the wine she’d opened before they showed up at her door, but decided against it. She felt bad for Sylvia and could imagine her shame, but she wasn’t sure she wanted them to stay.
“I’ve been lying about the house,” Sylvia continued, “telling you that we were looking at other properties, that staying in our little shack was temporary, that we wanted a change of scenery. I even lied to my own daughter. What a load of baloney. I’m shocked you believed it.”
“I didn’t.” Milly gave Sylvia a kind smile.
“I didn’t either,” Adele said.
“To be honest, we all have our secrets,” Milly said. Adele and Sylvia both turned to her.
“What’s yours?” Adele asked. She’d always sensed that Milly was keeping something to herself. She might as well hear about it; after all, these women knew all her business now.
“Lloyd is leaving me,” Milly said.
“What?” Sylvia gasped.
“I don’t know exactly when or even why, though I suspect he’s having an affair with that gorgeous actress Beverly Douglas.
He’s obsessed with her. He hasn’t been home in almost two weeks, and when he has shown up, he’s made it very clear that it’s just for show, to keep up appearances and to protect the children.
He wants nothing to do with me. He even wanted to sleep in the guest cottage, but I put a stop to that. ”
“Oh, Milly,” Sylvia said. “You’ve been alone so much, but I thought whatever it was would blow over.”
“It’s serious.” Milly felt a weight lifted off her shoulders.
“But the tennis—maybe it’s stupid—but it really made me come alive.
I thought that if I could excel at tennis, really excel, and then show Lloyd what I could do, I thought I might impress him.
” She looked to Adele sheepishly. “I realize that probably sounds ridiculous to you, a tennis champion.”
“It does not,” Adele said.
“He sees me as the mother of his children and the person who delivers a hot meal to the table at night and a clean shirt to his closet. It’s as if he’s lost sight of who I really am, who he fell in love with.
I wanted to do something to show him this new side of me, this fun, athletic, fit, maybe even sexy woman he’s married to. ”
“You are sexy, darling,” Sylvia said. “Any man who fails to see that is a fool, an absolute fool!”
Milly brushed away her comment. “Part of the reason I rented out my guest cottage for Bal Week was so that Lloyd couldn’t move into it!
That would be the final nail in the coffin, and then once I started earning a little money, I used that to pay for my lessons.
It gave me some power back. That’s why I agreed to let Mr. Rutherford stay, so I could keep on with tennis. ”
At this Adele took two wineglasses out of her buffet and poured them each a generous serving. They deserved it.
“To secrets,” Adele said, holding up her glass.
“To secrets,” Milly and Sylvia repeated, clinking their glasses with hers.
Adele spent the next few days alone, gardening in her yard in the morning hours, or staying inside the house, doors locked the rest of the time.
She was grateful for a light drizzle of rain because she had a good excuse to cancel her lessons.
She’d be losing out on her earnings, but that would be over as soon as the news came out about her, anyway.
She’d been making good money during those past few weeks of coaching, double what she’d made at the Fun Zone, and for fewer hours.
More importantly, she’d been enjoying it.
With all this time back on the court she’d even felt the itch to play again, just for fun.
She’d have to find someone who could keep up, of course, and if that coach Robbie hadn’t been such a jerk, she might have asked him, but that was a pipe dream now.
There would be no coaching and no playing.
Not unless she wanted to be watched, photographed, and shamed.
She didn’t know how she was going to return to a life of seclusion, nothingness.
Shockingly, she had begun to enjoy Milly’s and Sylvia’s company; she’d even enjoyed the other women, Joan and Sadie specifically.
She’d looked forward to their lessons together.
She hated to admit it to herself, but she even enjoyed hearing little tidbits about their lives, the funny things their children would say and do, the ridiculous amount of effort they put into making dinner, cleaning house, and looking good for their husbands.
She’d found it humorous and sometimes even charming.
She stretched her body, feeling stiff without the brisk walks or bike rides to and from the club and without her constant movement on the courts.
Adele realized now that she had pegged Sylvia all wrong, assuming she didn’t have a care in the world with all that money.
She’d heard the other women talk on the courts, of course—how could she not?
—and she knew that something must be very wrong if they had to move into that dingy property next door.
That place was only decent enough to hit a tennis ball against, but she just hadn’t believed that something so devastating could happen to Sylvia, who’d always seemed invincible.
She could imagine Sylvia’s pain in trying to protect her daughter from her husband’s mistakes.
Adele’s relationship with her own father had been so fraught, so complicated.
If only he’d protected her instead of throwing her out to the wolves and putting so much pressure on her at such a young age.
And then her mind went to Milly, with two young children and an absent husband, and how she would be treated when he left her for good.
People around here would distance themselves from her.
No one liked a divorcée, especially if children were involved.
It was like an illness that everyone was afraid of contracting.
The fact that Milly was willing to send that reporter on his way and give back the money he’d paid for rent said something about her character.
Maybe she’d underestimated both of these women.
Restless, she sat down on the armchair in her living room and flipped through the pages of American Lawn Tennis, but she’d already read it cover to cover.
It always opened to the image of Althea Gibson.
She stared at her picture. What would Althea do about Jonathan Rutherford if he continued to hang around?
She saw Althea’s smile and that look of determination in her eye, despite all the times she’d had the door slammed in her face, all the times she’d been turned away from a tournament and shunned or ridiculed because of the color of her skin.
The thought of all Althea had fought for, and all that Adele had hidden from, made her cringe.
She picked up her racket, laced up her shoes, and went out into the back alley to do the only thing that helped in situations like this, before remembering that the cottage next door was no longer vacant. She was forced, instead, to think.