Strange Bedpersons Read online

  Kids. A boy and a girl because Nick liked symmetry. No redheads. Two neat little brunettes, like Nick. She’d have to keep them away from the pool— unless they took swimming lessons at the country club. Of course they’d take swimming lessons at the country club. They were Nick’s kids. And the suede couches would definitely have to go— unless she raised them to be incredibly tidy, like Nick. And incredibly well behaved, like Nick. And of course, they’d have to go to the right schools and wear the right clothes and probably play the Moby Dick game, and as Tess visualized them in school uniforms, she suddenly didn’t like them much.

  Boring little twits, she thought. And then she thought, Stop it. It wouldn’t be like that. Nick would change once he got the partnership.

  Maybe.

  It was too much to think about and she’d been thinking all night, anyway, so she went back upstairs and fell asleep and dreamed of dark-haired children who kept looking at her with contempt and saying, “Oh, mother,” and Nick coming home and announcing he was running for president so she’d have to get new clothes. She didn’t wake up again until three, when Gina called her, hysterical, because she’d just read in the paper about Park’s engagement.

  “How could he be engaged?” Gina said through her tears when Tess reached her apartment. “He’s been with me every night. How could he have gotten engaged to somebody else?”

  “Oh, Gina,” Tess said, sinking onto Gina’s moth-eaten couch and pulling her friend down with her. “Listen, honey, Park just...” She tried to think of a good way to put it, but the truth was that Park had been two-timing Gina all along and Tess hadn’t done anything about it. “Park’s a jerk,” she finished. “So am I. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you.”

  Gina pulled away. “You knew?”

  “Nick told me not to get involved,” Tess said miserably. “And I thought it might work out. You were so happy and... Oh, hell, I screwed up. I’m sorry. If you never forgive me, I understand.”

  “How long has he been seeing her?” Gina’s eyes blazed at Tess. “How long?”

  “I don’t know,” Tess said. “From the way his father talked, they’ve known each other since birth.”

  “He knew her before me?” Gina said. “So what was I? A fling? He knew all along that...” She stopped and swallowed. “And he didn’t even tell me. He let me read it in the paper. Did he think I wouldn’t care?”

  “I don’t know,” Tess said. “I don’t know what either one of them thinks. Sometimes I think they don’t see us at all. They just see what they want to. Maybe Park thinks you’re only looking for a good time. Maybe Nick thinks I enjoy being the new Nancy Reagan. I don’t know. I just want to kill both of them right now.”

  Gina slumped back against the couch and picked up a pillow. It was a Cats T-shirt, plump with stuffing and sewn shut at the neck, sleeves and hem, and it looked oddly like a dismembered corpse as she hugged it. That’s what Park’s going to look like when I get through with him, Tess vowed, and then she concentrated on Gina. “Are you all right? Talk to me. What are you going to do?”

  “I don’t know,” Gina said into the neck of her stuffed T-shirt. “I don’t know. I love him.”

  Tess felt her whole body grow cold. “You are not going to see him again. Tell me you’re not going to see him again. You wouldn’t.”

  Gina’s lower lip trembled. “I don’t know.”

  “What do you mean, you don’t know?” Tess stopped and tried to keep from shrieking. “He’s getting married. What are you going to do? Be his understanding mistress? I know you’re heavily into adapting your life to suit Park, but don’t you think that’s a little much?”

  “Stop it, Tess,” Gina said tiredly. “No, of course I’m not going to be his mistress. I just have to think about this. I’ll have to give back all the stuff he gave me, and then...I don’t know. I guess I don’t want to see him.”

  “I guess you don’t,” Tess said. “My God, I guess you don’t.”

  “Do you suppose Nick would pick the stuff up after I’ve packed it?” Gina asked. “Would he give it to him?”

  “Of course he would,” Tess said. “Whether he wants to or not. You don’t ever have to see that rat again.”

  “He’s not really a rat,” Gina said. Then she sniffed. “Well, maybe he is.”

  “I’m going to kill him,” Tess said, standing up. “I’m going to go get us ice cream and mashed potatoes and gravy and enough chocolate to coat Riverbend, and when we’re done sedating ourselves with food, I’m going to tear that bastard apart with my bare hands.”

  “No, you’re not,” Gina said, her voice exhausted. “Just let him be. It’s not your problem. It’s my fault. I should have known better. What did I think he was doing with somebody like me, anyway?” She looked up at Tess. “I really thought he loved me. I really did. Isn’t that dumb? No wonder I never graduated from high school. No brains.”

  Tess sat down again and wrapped her arms around Gina, holding her tight. “Stop it,” she said. “Just stop it. This is his fault, not yours.”

  Gina buried her head in Tess’s shoulder. “Don’t worry about it,” she said, her voice muffled. Then she pulled her head back and looked at Tess. “It’s okay. I told you. It’s not your problem.”

  Tess swallowed the lump in her throat that formed every time she looked at Gina’s tear-ravaged face. It might not be her problem, but it was going to be her pleasure when she found Park, the son of a bitch. “What kind of Haagen-Dazs do you want?” she said, and went to work dragging Gina back to mental health.

  Two hours later, Tess stormed into the outer reception area of Patterson and Patterson looking for blood. Park’s blood. Splattered all over the walls if possible. Just the thought of Gina’s devastated expression made her shake all over again. She was going to find Park, and when she did, the next notice the paper ran about him would be his obituary.

  “Excuse me, miss, but—”

  Tess ignored the receptionist and stomped through the doors into the law offices themselves.

  Several startled secretaries looked up, and one, a medium-size guy with glasses, actually tried to head her off, but when Park emerged unknowing from his office, she bore down on him with a murderous single-mindedness that quelled everything in her path.

  She grabbed Park’s lapel as he spoke to his secretary and pulled him around, his startled face only inches from hers. “I want to see you now, you rotten bastard,” she hissed. “You want this in public or in private?”

  “I, uh, have a client in my office...” Park began, babbling in shock.

  “Here.” A calm brunette in her thirties opened an office door across the way. “Use Nick’s office.”

  “I don’t think so, Christine—” Park said, but Tess said, “Great,” and when Park said, “Really, I can’t—” she grabbed his tie and yanked him across the floor into the office, slamming the door behind them.

  “You rotten, lousy, lying scum of a cheating creep,” Tess spat at him, backing him up against the wall. “You had to hurt her, didn’t you? It was too much trouble to break it off, too tough for you to tell her you couldn’t see her anymore, so you just let it go on and on and on and then you let her find out from a damn newspaper article!”

  “What are you talking about?” Park asked.

  That stopped her. Park looked terrified, but he also looked clueless. There was no guilt on his face at all. God, he was dumb. He didn’t even realize what he’d done to Gina with that announcement. “Gina,” she spat at him. “I’m talking about what you did to Gina.”

  Park grabbed her shoulders. “What happened to Gina? Is she hurt? What—”

  “Of course, she’s hurt, you jackass,” Tess said, shrugging out of his grip. “She just read about your engagement in the paper. She thought you loved her, she really thought—”

  “What engagement?” Park said. “I’m not engaged. Gina thinks I’m engaged?”

  “The paper says you’re engaged,” Tess said, but her voice went down an octave as she