Pied Piper

CHAPTER 38

Daphne hurriedly changed her outfit for the third time, studying herself in the full-length mirror that attached to the back of her houseboat’s bathroom door, and decided she looked too contrived: Annie Hall on a Sunday stroll. She hadn’t been this clothes-conscious since her dinner a month earlier with Owen Adler, her former fiance, perhaps her future fiance as well.

She undressed to her bikini underwear, shedding the underwire bra in the process and leaving it in a pile with the rest of her failures. Her body was winter pale, but her stomach flat and firm, her hips wide and her thighs lean. Her breasts were high on her chest, her nipples angling up and out to the sides. Men found her breasts attractive because of that; why, she wasn’t sure. She worked hard at preservation, chased her youth like a dog after a moving car-four miles a day, weight training-these weren’t God-given assets, she earned them through a daily regime. She ran through the houseboat all but naked hoping to death no one was happening down the dock, for one of the front blinds was open. She scrambled up the narrow ladder to the tiny loft bedroom where she kept her underwear, socks and bras separate from her other clothing-for reasons she had never fully understood. The rest of her wardrobe was divided between two closets, a trunk and a chest of drawers, all located down by the bathroom. She stuffed herself into a constricting jog bra, feeling much better. Hide the chest. Baggy is best.

Bailing out of any attempt to invent herself otherwise, she returned to a pair of gardening blue jeans that were a little too big in the back and a pink cotton sweater that revealed nothing of what it contained.

She brushed her dark hair back and shook her head, reconsidered and tried a hair band and settled finally with it pulled back sharply into a “squishy,” as she called the elastic fabric bands. She liked the results: plain, confident, but boyish and even a bit severe.

She drove the Honda at warp speeds, picking out a route that allowed a lot of turns on red.

Liz Boldt had never invited her to anything.

She approached the front door aware of her stride. She had a sexy, athletic gait that came naturally, and she dismantled it as best she could in the event Liz Boldt might be watching her. She walked stiffly.

The closer she drew to the house, the closer to an internal honesty. There had been several years of her life when she would have willingly exchanged places with this woman, when her need of Lou Boldt had built to an obsession that had driven her to prove herself not only professionally but as a woman. When her moment with Boldt finally occurred-a passionate and tumultuous tumble under a dining room table-it only drove her further over the edge. For months she had thought of nothing but possessing him, consuming him so that he would abandon his wife for her. She loved his kids and the way he was with them-she wanted her own with him; Liz be damned.

And now Liz was damned, and Daphne lived with the guilt of her former hopes and ambitions. She had broken off an engagement because of her inability to settle for less than Boldt, and now she felt ready to renew that commitment to Owen Adler, with none of her former passion for Boldt, but strangely with a form of love for him still intact. How this transition had occurred would puzzle the psychologist part of her for the rest of her days, but she no longer had to own Boldt, did not want to. Knowing him, working with him, was enjoyable, but her heart no longer fluttered when he entered the room. Her greatest fear was that this ability in her to let go might have coincided with the discovery of Liz’s illness-that only by facing the possibility of getting what she wanted did she discover she did not want it. She didn’t know if this were true or not, but even the possibility terrified her. If Liz died, if Boldt made advances, would she reject him? She caught herself standing at the door unable to lift her arm to knock. She wanted to turn around and run.

The door came open.

“You look great,” Daphne said, nervous and lacking the composure that was her trademark.

“I look awful.” Liz smiled and tugged on the wig, making a point of it. “Bald as an eagle under this thing.” Another smile.

The poor woman was all bones and cosmetics-there wasn’t a hair on her body.

“It takes a generous person to say otherwise. Thank you.” Showing her into the living room, Liz offered Daphne a cup of tea, the pot steaming on the coffee table.

Passing her a cup, Liz said, “You’re puzzled by the invitation.”

“I’m honored, actually. Your first day home, isn’t it? I didn’t think-”

“It’s probably not what the doctors would call for, but neither is attending church, and I did that this morning, so why not break all the rules?” She placed her own tea back on the table. “I’ll tell you something about cancer: It changes you. It changes everything about you.” She paused and Daphne could see the woman searching for the right words, the way an athlete concentrates just before competition. “You and I share a mutual interest. For the last couple of years, I’ve allowed that to threaten me. You’re quite beautiful, extremely smart-if Lou’s opinion is to be trusted-and you have clearly captivated a part of Lou’s heart. He cares for you deeply-”

“Liz-”

She cut her off with a raised hand. “He does. What of it? Why shouldn’t he? You’ve got a hell of a lot going for you.”

Was she intending to tell her that her husband was fair game after she died? Was she going to get morbid and coach her competition on the raising of the children? Daphne wondered why she’d come. She should have seen clear of the trap. Liz Boldt intended to punish Daphne for her brief love affair. She wanted out of there.

“My point is, he trusts you. He believes in you.” Her eyes teared up. “That’s extremely important right now.”

“He believes in your recovery, too,” Daphne said. “We all do.”

“Oh no, is that what you think? That this is about me? That I called you because-Oh, no. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry! A dying woman’s maudlin attempts to-” She laughed and looked around the room as if suddenly seeing it for the first time. “I’m not dying. I’m healed.” She said freshly, “Miles is coming home tomorrow.”

“I’m glad.”

“You drove him to Kathy’s. Lou told me. Drove him without ever asking why. You see the kind of person you are? You know what that means to us, that kind of trust?”

She couldn’t stand the tension. She blurted out, “Why exactly did you ask me over?”

“It’s Lou,” she said, tears flooding her eyes. But she would not give in to them. This woman who looked so frail had the strength of ten. She reached down and took Daphne’s warm hands in hers, as cold as tile. “I’m trusting in you as I’ve never trusted in anyone. In part because of Lou’s high opinion of you-we don’t really know each other, do we? In part because your profession requires a great deal of confidentiality, and I trust, I assume, that that is a skill one acquires, that that is something once learned can be applied to so many relationships.”

Relationships? Confidentiality? Was she going to bring up the affair? Had Lou told her? She looked down at their hands entwined together. Guilt and fear rose in her chest to a knot of pain-she couldn’t breathe. The damn bra was too tight!

Would she lie outright to this woman if asked?

Liz Boldt squeezed her hands tightly and said, “Something terrible has happened. We desperately need your help.”