Secrets Read online

  “It’s all in how you handle it,” Althea said. “If it weren’t, there’d be no need for divorce and the hope that the next spouse will be a better one.”

  Althea sent Cassie into Richmond to Saks and instructed her stylist to dress Cassie as though for a corporate meeting. Although Althea organized it all by telling Cassie exactly what to do, she didn’t offer to help with the finances. By the time Cassie got the plane tickets and the clothes, she had less than a hundred dollars in her account and the bank was calling her.

  During the few days she spent at Althea’s house, Cassie stayed hidden. Not even Brent knew she was there. He was outside mowing the lawn, and a couple of times Cassie heard his voice, but she stayed in her room. The only time she came close to giving herself away was when she saw Thomas and Elsbeth walking away from the house. They were holding hands and they both looked downcast.

  Cassie wanted to throw open the window and call out to them. Elsbeth had lost her mother before she knew her, and Thomas had lost a beloved daughter-in-law. They had given Cassie their love, but she too had left them.

  But when she thought of Jeff and how he had known all about her for all those years, Cassie turned away from the window.

  Althea had pointed out that Cassie should have told Jeff when he hired her that she was the girl he’d saved years before. The words made her feel worse. No wonder Jeff had never thought of her as a mature woman.

  On the flight to New York, Cassie had searched her brain for what to tell her mother about why she wanted money. In the end, Cassie told the truth, that something bad had happened in her life and she needed time to recover from it, so she needed some money to live on. Margaret had looked so relieved that her daughter wasn’t asking for something emotional that she’d written a check then and there. “Will that be enough?” she’d asked.

  Cassie gulped at the amount. “More than enough,” she said, then smiled at her.

  “Cassandra,” Margaret began, “I’ve rented a house on Martha’s Vineyard for this summer. Maybe you’d like to visit me there.”

  It took Cassie a moment to recover herself. Her mother had rented a house? For a vacation? For time off? She remembered something Althea said: “The problem with setting goals is, What do you do when you reach them?” Cassie answered that you set new ones and went after them, but Althea had said it didn’t work that way. And Cassie was seeing the truth in that. Since she was twelve, her goal had been to have Jefferson Ames tell her he loved her. He’d done it, but it hadn’t made her feel good. So maybe her mother was feeling some of the same thing. She’d devoted her life to reaching the top and now that she was there, what did she do? She was a naturally frugal woman, so she wasn’t about to go out and pay six grand for a shower curtain, as other CEOs had done. So what did she do with her life now that all her goals had been achieved?

  As for Cassie, in her time with Althea, she’d begun to think about what she’d do with her life other than be at the beck and call of Jefferson Ames.

  “I’d love to visit,” Cassie said, smiling at her mother. “Actually, I’d like to talk to you about a business I’m thinking about starting.”

  Margaret’s eyes lit up. “What kind of business?”

  “Mail order nursery plants of heritage varieties.”

  “I’ve read about that,” Margaret said. “It’s a business that’s generating a lot of interest. I could do some research and look into it for you.”

  Cassie leaned back in her chair and listened to her mother’s ideas. On the plane she’d read an article about the growing interest in old-fashioned varieties of fruits and vegetables. Smiling, she’d thought of Thomas’s purple potatoes, and how he’d said that there were lots of varieties of berries and tree fruits that you could buy in England but couldn’t get in the United States. “Their country is smaller so the fruits can be shipped without a lot of expense. In the United States you have to have hard skins on the fruits so they can travel in a truck across thousands of miles.”

  The memory of Thomas’s words filled her with pain. Her memories of days with Thomas and Elsbeth were vivid and the agony of not seeing them filled her. If she ever did open a business, it wouldn’t be with Thomas.

  But when she was having lunch with her mother, Thomas’s potatoes and the article all came together, and she began to talk about her thoughts. For the first time in their lives, she and her mother talked on an equal level. Margaret didn’t bludgeon her daughter because she hadn’t chosen the same path she had. But instead, she talked of Cassie’s new business with enthusiasm.

  It was later that night, in Margaret’s pristine apartment, that Cassie asked her what was wrong. There was something in her mother’s eyes that Cassie had never seen before. “They want me to retire,” was all Margaret would say, but in that sentence, she said it all. All Margaret had in her life was her work. She had no hobbies, and her only family was Cassie, a daughter who she rarely saw. Without work, Margaret had nothing.

  For the first time, Cassie saw life from her mother’s viewpoint. Smiling, she told her mother that, yes, she’d like her to see what she could find out about opening a mail-order business.

  From New York, Cassie flew to Fort Lauderdale. It’s where Althea recommended she go, and since Cassie had no other ideas, she did as she was told. As she’d said to her mother, she needed time to heal. It was as though her whole life had been geared toward one thing—a life with Jefferson Ames—and in one horrible night, everything had ended, and Cassie didn’t know where she was going.

  Cassie figured that Althea had seen enough life that she knew what she was doing, certainly that she knew what a woman needed when her heart was broken, so she followed her instructions to the letter. The first thing that Althea said Cassie needed was exercise. “You can’t use your mind if your body is in bad shape,” Althea said. “I haven’t stayed thin by the grace of God. I’ve done it through hard, even brutal, work. Your modern movie stars have nothing on us. Did you ever notice Barbara Stanwyck’s arms?”

  “I can’t say that I did.”

  “Rent a movie,” Althea said. “We knew about training. Keep your body strong and your mind will follow.”

  Althea hadn’t left anything to chance. By the time Cassie got to Fort Lauderdale and rented a small apartment with a view of the Intracoastal Waterway and had logged online, an e-mail was waiting for her with the information that Althea had signed Cassie up for six weeks with a personal trainer.

  Over the following weeks, there were e-mails with the name of the best stylist at the local Saks, the name of the best organic grocery store, and even a list of old, classic movies that Cassie needed to see. “For your education,” Althea wrote.

  By the end of four months, Cassie had changed so much that she hardly recognized herself. Her curvy body had been stretched, pummeled, and had resisted so much weight that it was lean and firm. Her hourglass figure was still there, but not so exaggerated.

  And as Althea had said, with a better body, she had a better mind. Of course it hadn’t hurt that Althea had sent four handsome young actors to meet Cassie. At first, she’d been angry. How dare Althea do such a thing! Was she saying that Cassie was too backward to get her own dates?

  Grudgingly, Cassie had gone on the dates, but, to her surprise, she’d had a good time. Neither she nor the actors wanted anything serious to happen between them, so they’d been free to have fun. All four of them were planning to become great stars someday, but in the meantime they were working in bars and surfing during the day. They auditioned at local theaters, and Cassie helped them memorize their lines. She enjoyed playing the part of the girl and acting with them. They complimented her extravagantly, but she was sure they were just being polite.

  By the end of five months, she was close to having a life. She went out; she had things to do. Her mother and she had reached, if not a friendship, at least a relationship. Margaret sent her a six-inch-thick envelope of research about opening an organic nursery. And she’d found one for sale near Seattl