The last secret_ a novel - Mary McGarry Morris [62]
He looks at his watch. “Nine thirty at night, what kind of meeting's that?” he says so snidely that she has to take a deep breath.
“I don't know, Stephen. Do you?”
“I thought it was over. Isn't it? What the hell's he thinking?” he asks when she doesn't answer right away.
“He's trying. We both are. It's … it's hard.”
“Just so you know, I talked to him. I did. I told him he was an ass, an absolute fool, putting everything on the line like that. And for what? She's a disaster. Everything she touches turns to shit. And that's from someone who likes her, you know that. But you don't—”
Along with everyone else in the waiting room, they both look up as Annette rushes through the swinging double doors. Even with the profusion of tears running down her smooth brown cheeks, she looks stunning, regal in her flowing red caftan.
“Oh my God,” Stephen gasps, and Nora throws her arms around him. To protect him from the news they both fear.
“He's going to be all right. They just told me.” Annette drags a chair closer to face them. Nora hands her a tissue. “I'm sorry,” she says, blowing her nose. “I was fine and then they told me, and then I just lost it. I'm so relieved. He's talking. Still a little funny but at least some things you can understand.” She needs to get right back to him.
Hugging her, they assure her they'll continue waiting, but the minute she's out of sight Stephen erupts.
“How about that little walk-on? The bitch.”
“Stephen! She's relieved. Imagine what she's just been through.”
“Goddamn drama queen. If she loves him so damn much, then why not marry him? That's what I'd like to know.”
“It's Oliver. He's just … he's perfectly content, he's never going to change anything in his life.”
“Is that what you think?” His head draws back and his eyes narrow with caustic amusement. “Do you really?”
It is Annette who is perfectly content with her life, Stephen declares. She enjoys the prestige of being Oliver Hammond's social companion without having to endure him as a husband. She's got a boyfriend in Boston. “Her young stud,” Stephen sputters. “Oh, I know, she's just, quote, mentoring him, but in Jamaica for two weeks? I mean, come on, what's that all about?”
“Maybe it was some kind of, you know, artist colony thing.”
“Yeah, right. Well, Delia Lord stayed in the same hotel and nobody was doing any painting that she could see.”
“Delia Lord! She's vicious, you know that,” Nora whispers, relieved for the moment to be caught in one of Stephen's acid riffs.
“Big boobs and tons of money, though. And she likes you,” he whispers back, making her laugh. He has more female friends than anyone she knows, man or woman, or even Ken. That any of them confide in Stephen always amazes her. His sustenance is the folly of others. Only his cousins escape his gossip, except when he discusses them with Nora. And she's no fool; she knows how swiftly eviscerated she would be if Ken were to leave her. From time to time even Donald suffers the sting of Stephen's venom. His weight is a problem between them. They used to play racquetball, tennis, and ski together until surgery following an almost fatal automobile accident left Donald with chronic back pain.
“Nora!”
They jump up guiltily. Giddy with relief, neither one had seen Ken enter. The beauty of Stephen has always been, as Kay once so perfectly observed, his very contagious streak of “junior-highness.”
The three of them join Annette at Oliver's bedside. Gray-faced and propped against pillows, every time he tries to speak the wrong words come out. He has just asked Ken for his “fender.”
“Sure,” Ken says, looking around with a pained smile. “Let's see. Fender. Where's the fender? I don't see it.”
Annette searches through the toiletry items in the drawer of the raised tray table. She holds up a disposable razor and Oliver turns away. Then, she opens the narrow locker door next to the bathroom. Stephen raises his eyebrows at Nora. A man of limited patience in the best of circumstances, Oliver is becoming more agitated.
“Fender,” he repeats. “There.