The Other Woman Page 5

  Sensuous, caring professional man desires to meet beautiful, shapely sylph with warmth and rhythm.

  Rhythm this one wanted, not friendship. What motivated these people? She wondered. Who were the faces behind the often bizarre requests? More to the point, did they really get everything they seemed to want? Do any of us? She wondered skeptically, flipping over the page to the Birth and Death Notices. All she needed was one really gross announcement to make her day. She found it.

  Frey, Joel and Joan (nee Sampson) are thrilled to announce that Joel wasn't just shooting blanks all those cold winter nights! Twins Gordon and Marsha greeted the new day at a very respectable 6 lbs. and 5 lbs. 10 oz. respectively, shrieking their approval of the pains to which their parents had gone. (Especially Mom!) We thank Dr. Pearlman and the entire staff of Women's College Hospital.

  Jill closed the paper, hearing her coffee beginning to perk in the kitchen.

  The phone rang just as she finished pouring herself a cup. Jill glanced automatically at the clock. It was barely 7 A.M. Even Elaine wouldn't have the nerve to call this early. Unless it was an emergency. Jill reached anxiously for the phone.

  "Hello?"

  "Is David there, please?"

  The voice was dark and husky and definitely not Elaine's. Jill recognized it immediately. "Who is this?" she asked anyway.

  "It's Nicole Clark," came the reply. "I hope I'm not disturbing you."

  I'm sure, Jill said silently. "Is something wrong?" Jill asked.

  "No," the voice replied quietly. "I just wanted to make sure I talked to David before he left. I know he leaves very early in the mornings."

  "Well, he's in the bathroom," Jill said in distinctly businesslike tones, trying not to sound too territorial. "He can't come to the phone right now." Your fiancé is taking a shit, she wanted to yell. Instead she said, “Can I take a message?"

  There was a moment's hesitation. Then Nicole's soft tones floated gently to Jill's ears. Each word struck against her scalp like a pin on a paper donkey's tail. "It's kind of a complicated message. Maybe he better call me back."

  I'm not exactly an idiot, Jill told the other woman wordlessly. I know how to take a message. Aloud she said, ''As you like. What's your number?"

  Nicole Clark began to recite her phone number as Jill looked frantically by the phone for a pencil. ''Just a minute," she interrupted. "I can't find a pencil."

  "Who is it?" David shouted from the bathroom.

  Jill paused. "Nicole Clark," she called in his direction, wishing she could see the look on his face.

  It was David's turn to pause. "What does she want?"

  "She wants you to call her back."

  "Okay. Get her number."

  Good idea, Jill decided, rummaging through a drawer and finally locating a pencil that wasn't broken.

  "All right, I have one," she said into the phone. "531—?"

  "1-7-4-1," Nicole completed.

  "He'll call you," Jill said.

  "Thank you," the other woman purred.

  Jill replaced the receiver and growled at the telephone. "Keep your legal little fingers away from my husband," she whispered, picturing Nicole's long purple nails and comparing them to her own short, chewed and tattered ones. Her embarrassed fingers, the obvious loser in any contest, encircled her coffee cup, and she quickly lifted it to her mouth.

  Why had Nicole called? Did she really need some early-morning information or was it all a ploy, a simple part of her master plan to capture her husband and ferret him away? Keep the little wifey nice and edgy, she thought.

  Jill took a long, slow sip of her coffee and opened the pantry door, coming face to face with at least half a dozen stale donuts. She reached up and grabbed two of them. Just what I need, she thought, trying to figure out exactly what it was that Nicole was doing. "Enough of this," she said aloud, then finished the rest of the thought in silence. If Tm going to worry about every little number who looks lustingly after my husband, I'm going to drive myself nuts. Probably exactly what she has in mind, Jill decided, taking a big bite out of one of the donuts, thinking at the same time that Nicole Clark—Nicki to her intimates—had done more than just look. She had brazenly announced her intentions. Jill swallowed the rest of the donut. The hell with it, she thought. That's her problem, not mine. She took a bite out of the second donut. She'd definitely have to phone Beth later about that exercise class.

  She heard the bathroom door open and once again looked up at the clock. David couldn't be finished in there already— it was too early. He appeared in the doorway draped in a towel.

  "She wouldn't say what she wanted?" David asked, carefully avoiding the mention of her name.

  "Apparently she doesn't trust me to take a message," Jill answered, automatically pouring David a cup of coffee and adjusting it to his specifications. "There's the number," she said, pointing to a piece of scrap paper. "You're finished early today," she noted.

  "She probably wants to know what courtroom," he said, almost absently. "She asked yesterday if she could sit in this morning, you know, to observe."

  "Of course," Jill said, finishing off her donut and walking toward the den. "I'll leave you two alone."

  David laughed and picked up the phone. Jill heard him dialing as she walked into the den and sat back down in the leather chair. The morning paper was where she had left it. She retrieved it and began perusing the real estate section. From the kitchen, she heard David's voice. "Hello, Nicki. It's David Plumley." Both names, she noted. He's keeping it formal. "What can I do for you?" I’ll tell you what you can do for me, Jill said silently, and then shook her head to free herself of the thought. The towel that had been wrapped around her hair fell to the floor. "Great," she said, bending over to pick it up, and dropping the newspaper in the process. "This is starting to feel like a bad comedy," she muttered, grabbing the newspaper and watching it come apart in her hands, loose pages all over the floor. She got down on her hands and knees and began noisily piecing the pages together again, folding one inside the other. She realized as she was doing this that she couldn't hear anything that David was saying, and decided that was probably why she was doing it, so she wouldn't have to.

  "What is all the rustling going on in here?" David asked from the doorway.

  "I dropped the paper."

  "So I see."

  "What did Snow White want?" Jill asked, getting awkwardly to her feet.

  "What I thought. She wanted to know what courtroom to meet me in."

  "And you told her, of course.''

  David smiled indulgently. "What choice did I have?" He moved toward Jill. "If you had told me yesterday what she'd said to you at the picnic, I could have thought of some excuse to tell her not to come. But it's too late today." He kissed her. "That'll teach you to keep things from me." He started toward the bedroom and then stopped. "Do you want me to say anything to her?" he asked.

  Jill shook her head. "What can you say? No, just ignore it." She smiled. "Besides, she'll be gone at the end of the summer anyway." David said nothing. "Won't she? I mean, Beth told me that she's just there for the summer."

  David lowered his head. "There's a good chance she'll be joining the firm after she's called to the bar in September," he said. "A few of the partners have talked about asking her."

  Jill nodded. "I understand Al Weatherby thinks she's pretty terrific."

  "She is," he said. "Legally speaking."

  "I always speak legal," Jill joked, stepping into David's outstretched arms.

  "I love you."

  "I know you do."

  "Do you want me to say something to her?" he asked again. "I will, if you want."

  "Actions speak louder than words," she told him.

  He smiled. "Right you are." He kissed her nose, signaling the end of the discussion, and Jill watched him move down the hall before she went quickly into the bathroom to dry her hair and brush her teeth. She had just closed the bathroom door when she was aware David was speaking.

  "Wha
t did you say?" she called, opening the door.

  "I said why don't you come down to court this morning and watch me too?"

  "I have a class."

  "Only at nine o'clock. Then you're free till two. Isn't that Thursday's schedule?"

  "Yeah," she said, mulling over his suggestion.

  "So, come after ten and watch me, then we'll go to Winston's for lunch. How does that sound?"

  "Sounds fantastic. You got yourself a deal." She retreated into the bathroom and plugged in the hair dryer, immediately feeling the hot air as it blew against her skin. What would Nicole think of her suddenly showing up at the courtroom? Would she interpret it as a sign of insecurity, a show of weakness? The mother hen protecting her chick, making sure he didn't stray too far from the fold?

  The hell with what Nicole thinks, she told herself, watching her hair curl stubbornly away from the style she was intending. She can think whatever she wants to think. Nicole Clark was simply not one of her concerns.

  Jill looked down at what she was wearing. Just the same, she thought, maybe she'd change her dress.

  Chapter 5

  "Just when was it you discovered your ex-wife had a lover?"

  "Six—eight months ago, maybe."

  "Maybe? You're not sure?"

  The witness—a good-looking man approximately the same age as David Plumley, who was conducting the cross-examination—squirmed uneasily in his seat.

  "I’m sure she has a lover," the man said evenly. "If you want, I'm sure I can pinpoint the exact time of my discovering this fact."

  "That would be nice," David remarked obligingly, moving back from the witness stand and closer to the table and chairs he occupied when not questioning a witness. From her seat in the courtroom, Jill watched her husband as he moved, conscious, as the witness was not, that by seeming to back away, David was, in fact, only playing with his prey, the deadly panther seeking merely to improve his position before rushing in for the final, killing stroke.

  The witness paused for several seconds, his eyes obviously retracing time, finally locating the date he sought. "October 17," he said, not without a touch of smugness. "I remember the exact date because it was a surprise birthday party for a friend of mine."

  David paused for precisely the same length of time as 57 had the witness. Then he spoke. "October 17? That's nine months ago, almost ten."

  "Yes," the witness agreed. Then he smiled. "I guess it's been going on even longer than I realized."

  David returned the man's smile. "You don't feel your ex-wife is entitled to have a lover?"

  "Not that I have to support," the man shot back sharply.

  "Tell me, just as a matter of interest," David asked almost lazily, "did you have a date for this surprise party?"

  "Yes," the man answered. "Aren't I entitled?"

  "Is it fair to say that in the five years you and Patty Arnold have been divorced you have had a substantial number of ^dates'?" David asked, ignoring the man's question and putting a noticeable stress on his final word.

  "As you already noted," the man replied, "I've been divorced for five years. I thought that gave me the legal right to 'date' anyone I wanted to."

  "Exactly so," David said, brushing up against the table, where Nicole Clark sat beside his empty chair, observing him intently. "You don't feel your wife is entitled to the same privileges?" Jill watched as David moved away from the table. She could feel Nicole's eyes riveted on his back. He must feel like he's back in high school, Jill thought, trying to impress the girl in the last row. Was that why he was coming down so hard on this man, this man who on more than just a superficial level so closely resembled himself? And which girl was he trying so hard to impress?

  "My Ex-wife," the witness spat back defiantly, the words suddenly pouring out of his mouth like spilt milk from a pitcher, "and she's entitled to do any goddamn thing she wants as long as I don't have to support her!" The judge banged his gavel, reminding the witness that such language would not be tolerated in a court of law and cautioning him to refrain from further outbursts. From her seat several rows behind the rectangular table, Jill Plumley knew the man had already lost, for as good as such histrionic outbursts looked in the movies, as bad did they appear in front of a judge? A good lawyer, David had once told her, always impressed upon his witness the importance of staying calm. On the other hand, if you could provoke the other side to anger, it greatly improved your own chances of success.

  The man on the witness stand looked helplessly around the room and finally brought his eyes to rest on Nicole, speaking his next words as if directly, and only, to her. ''Look, Tm not saying that she's not entitled to have any friends or lovers. Tm not saying that for the past five years I've been busting my— working very hard to try and live a reasonably decent life and still keep up with all my alimony payments. She got the house, the furniture, the car, the kids, everything. I walked out with the suit on my back and my briefcase. For the past five years I've been paying her a thousand dollars a month in alimony and a thousand in child support. Now, I have no objection to the child support—I'll support my kids for a long as they need me—but why should I have to pay for my wife to set up house with some other guy and give this jerk my hard-earned money so that he can start a new business?"

  Again David ignored the man's questions. "How long were you married, Mr. Arnold?"

  "Twelve years."

  "Two children?"

  "Two boys."

  "So, what you've just told me is that after twelve years of marriage and two sons you just walked out!" He paused. "With the suit on your back and your briefcase, of course."

  The man wasn't sure he liked the way the facts had been restated but he answered in the affirmative.

  "What was in the briefcase?" David asked suddenly. Jill found herself smiling. "Stocks, as I recall," David continued, answering for him. "A few mortgages, wasn't it? The deed to some property up in Canada?" The man said nothing. “So, you weren't quite as empty-handed as you'd have this court believe."

  "That was five years ago," the man said, resuming his squirming. "I'm talking about today."

  David nodded. "And today you say your ex-wife is living with another man and has been for the last ten months—"

  "Well, I heard about their affair ten months ago at this party—"

  "October 17—"

  "Yes—October 17." He stopped. "I’m not sure exactly when they started living together."

  David returned to his table. "What makes you so sure your ex-wife is living with this man?"

  "I followed them on numerous occasions. His car was parked there day and night."

  Jill listened as intently as she knew Nicole was listening, as the witness parried with the lawyer, exchanging thrusts along with information, hearing as David produced evidence that the lover in question continued to pay rent on his own apartment—indeed to visit it daily—to explain that Mrs. Arnold was entitled to spend her money in any way she saw fit and that if she chose to invest in her lover's business as a way of potentially increasing her own capital, she was as entitled as the witness himself with regard to his own investments. Then she stopped listening, knowing David had won his case, that the man squirming uncomfortably on the chair would get no reduction in the amount of his monthly alimony payments and that it was unlikely Patty Arnold would be threatened in this manner again. The world was once again safe for ex-wives and lovers.

  He was a brilliant lawyer, she thought, always knowing just how far he could go, when he had to stop and pull back, when he could plunge full-scale ahead. She'd forgotten how impressive he was in a court of law, not just the way he looked which was glorious, but how he moved, the way he spoke, his choice of words. In the early days of their affair, she'd come often to watch him work. He obviously loved what he was doing, his eyes sparkling with the excitement of the challenge and the ultimate certainty of conquest. Her schedule, erratic as it had been, had filled certain of her weeks to overflowing, and left her at other times with virtually
hours to spare. She had spent as many as she could watching this man. Any chance at all to be with him.

  David walked past the rectangular table where Nicole sat watching, and winked—his victory wink, he had once told her. Except that this time, the wink had been for Nicole. Jill wondered if David even remembered at this moment that she was there, feeling suddenly very much the outsider, knowing that as close as she usually felt to him, as close as he professed to be to her, she could never completely understand the sense of victory he must be feeling at this time, she could never fully share in moments like this one. The way Nicole undoubtedly could.

  Jill watched as her husband crossed back in front of the table, his deep voice dismissing the man on the stand, his body lean and striking in his dark navy suit. He suddenly caught her stare and smiled widely before returning to his table and sitting down beside Nicole. The other woman leaned toward him and whispered something in his ear. Congratulations, no doubt, on a job well done. You were wonderful, David. Really wonderful. David smiled guardedly, undoubtedly realizing Jill was watching him.

  She couldn't blame David if he did find himself attracted to Nicole, Jill realized, feeling the same sudden intrusion of objectivity she had felt at the firm picnic just last weekend. Aside from the younger woman's obvious physical beauty, she was bright—no, bright , David had stressed the night before—and she was glamorous and held down a challenging job, or would very soon anyway. And they had the law in common. They could probably sit for hours and discuss their various cases. Her own job at the university rarely provided anything worth talking about anymore. They'd given up the pretense.

  It had been interesting at first, something new, something different. She had told herself it would be challenging to try and train new minds. She pictured herself as Miss Jean Brodie in her prime. Or more precisely, Maggie Smith as Miss Jean Brodie in her prime. "Give me a girl at an impressionable age and she's mine for life," she whispered. Something like that. Except that her students turned out to be long past impressing, and she'd discovered all too quickly that she hated teaching. Beth Weatherby had been right— she missed television, its excitement, its deadlines, and its danger.