The Sisterhood - Michael Palmer [36]
Carole called her over. “Hey, Chrissy, you’re the only one with any sense around here. Come and arbitrate this. Is or is not Z-O-T-L the noun for a decorative arrangement of dead salamanders?”
“Absolutely,” Christine said, giving her a hug from behind. None of the women sharing the house smoked marijuana regularly, but from time to time parties simply materialized, and as often as not, pot was a part of them. Despite the relative inactivity around the room, there was a sense of vitality that Christine felt every time she was around her roommates. She decided that their company might be just the tonic for her trying day. Even if it meant dealing with Jerry Crosswaite.
“By the way,” Carole said. “You had a call a little while ago. Some woman. Said she’d call back. No other message.”
“Old woman? Young?” Christine asked anxiously.
“Yes.” Carole nodded definitively, polished off the rest of her wine, and wrote down her thirteen points.
Crosswaite had negotiated his way across the room and come up behind Christine, putting his hands on her shoulders. She whirled around as if struck with meat hooks.
“Hey, easy does it, Christine, it’s only me,” he said. He had discarded the jacket of his Brooks Brothers suit and had unbuttoned his vest—a move that for him was tantamount to total relaxation. Only the fine, red road maps in his eyes detracted from the Playboy image he liked to project.
“Hi, Jerry,” she said. “Sorry I missed the party.”
His gesture swept the room. “Missed it, hell. It’s been waiting for you. Lisa said you like the necklace. I’m glad.”
Christine glanced around for Lisa so that she could glare at her. “Jerry, I really wish you would stop sending me things. I … I just don’t feel right accepting them.”
“But Lisa told me …”
She cut him off, trying at the same time to keep her voice calm. “Jerry, I know what Lisa told you, and Carole, too. But neither of them is me. Look, you’re a really nice man. They think a lot of you, so do I, but I’m getting very uncomfortable with some of the gifts you’ve been sending and with a lot of the assumptions you’ve been making.”
“Such as what?” Crosswaite said, an edge of hostility appearing in his voice.
She bit at her lower lip and decided that she was simply not up to a confrontation. “Look, just forget it,” she said. “We can work the whole thing through another time when we have a little more privacy and a little less wine.”
“No, Chris, I want to discuss it now.” Crosswaite’s control disappeared completely. “I don’t know what your game is, but you’ve led me along to the point where this relationship is really important to me. Now, all of a sudden, you’ve gone frigid.” His tone was loud enough to break through to even the most somnolent in the room. Embarrassed looks began to flash from one to another as Carole and Lisa rose to intervene. The banker continued. “I mean you were never any tiger in bed to begin with, but at least you were there. Now, all of a sudden, you’re a fucking glacier around me. I want an explanation!” The room froze.
Christine took a step backward and brought her hands, fists clenched, tightly in against her sides.
The ring of the telephone shattered the silence.
Carole rushed to the kitchen. “Chrissy, it’s for you,” she called out after a few seconds. “It’s the woman who called before.”
Christine loosened her fists and lowered her arms before breaking her gaze away from Crosswaite.
There were three people in the kitchen. With a single look Christine sent them scurrying to the living room. Then she picked up the receiver.
“This is Christine Beall,” she said, sharpness still in her voice.
“Christine, this is Evelyn, from the Regional Screening Committee. Are you in a position where you can talk uninterrupted?”
“I am.” Christine settled onto