V is for Vengeance

10

Wednesday morning, Nora stopped at the downtown branch of Wells Fargo Bank, where she kept a safe-deposit box. She signed in and showed her identification, then waited while the teller compared her signature to the one kept on file. She followed the woman into the vault. She and the teller each used their keys to unlock the compartment. The teller removed the box and placed it on the table. As soon as the teller stepped out, Nora opened the box. In addition to her passport, vital documents, gold coins, and the jewelry she’d inherited from her mother, she kept five thousand dollars in cash.

She spread it all out on the table. In her handbag, she had the check for seven thousand dollars Maurice Berman had given her for the earrings and bracelet he’d bought. In the past, she’d sold minor pieces of jewelry in order to have money to play the market. She’d opened a Schwab account and in the previous three years she’d made close to sixty thousand dollars in profit, ten of which she kept for emergency purposes, five at home and the other five at the bank. The rest of the money she reinvested. It was not a sum most traders would brag about, but she took a secret satisfaction knowing the proceeds were the result of her acumen. She tucked her passport in her handbag and returned the rest of the items to the box.

Her portfolio was solid and diverse, weighted toward mutual funds. She had a few income-producing stocks and a handful of options she toyed with according to her mood. She’d avoided anything too risky, but maybe it was time to venture outside of her comfort zone. She wasn’t a financial whiz, by any means, but she was a devoted reader of the Wall Street Journal and an avid student of the ups and downs of the New York Stock Exchange. Since both she and Channing had been married before, they’d elected to keep their finances separate. Their pre-nup was straightforward: what was his was his, what was hers was hers. She used the same accounting firm, the same tax attorney, and the same financial planner she’d brought on board when her first marriage ended.

Channing was aware she had investments, but the particulars were none of his business as far as she was concerned. She’d been foolish to approach him for the eight thousand, but she’d spotted an opportunity at a time when she didn’t have access to sufficient cash. While she’d been furious at Thelma’s interference, in hindsight she knew the woman had saved her from a hideous mistake. Nora regarded her capital as her sole and separate property. The courts might disagree. That was an issue for another day and one she might never have to face. Legal niceties aside, comingling funds could be disastrous.

She left the bank and walked over to the Schwab offices, where she deposited the seven thousand dollars into her account.

Money matters carried a sexual charge that lifted her spirits and gave her a jolt of self-confidence. She thought about the heft and feel of the seventy-five thousand that had fallen into her hands and out again in a matter of minutes on Monday. She’d given Dante the impression she was morally scrupulous when she was really afraid. Withholding information from Channing was fine in small doses. Playing the market made her feel secure, especially when it came to the cash she was stashing away. If she had to, she’d sell everything and add that money to the money she had on hand. Seventy-five thousand was too tempting a sum, as damning in its own way as her husband’s affair. When it came to keeping secrets, what was the difference between his taking a mistress and her hiding substantial assets? In truth, she was putting together funds in case she decided to leave. Seventy-five thousand in cash represented a door that had opened a crack. What she saw frightened her and she’d backed away.

Home again, she changed into her sweats and went for a four-mile walk. She’d been walking four miles a day, five days a week for the past seventeen years. Over time, the consistent low-key exercise had changed the shape of her body and reduced her weight by a pound a year where other women her age were picking up three annually. Ordinarily, she set out at 6:00 A.M. but she’d wakened to just enough early morning drizzle to make the outdoors look grim. She’d postponed the walk and now the sun was out.

Twice that week, she’d had occasion to run errands downtown. Crossing State, she couldn’t help glancing up at the three circular second-floor windows that marked Dante’s office, wondering if he was looking down at her. She still blushed when she thought about the man Maurice had referred her to. Dante looked respectable at first, but he was clearly accustomed to bending the rules-if he recognized the rules at all. And what was it he’d said to her? “Your husband’s a fool if he’s giving you grief.” There was something sweet about that. He’d been protective of her, a gallantry that brought tears to her eyes when she thought of it. Once upon a time, Channing had protected her from pain. Now he was the source.

The walk dispelled some of the free-floating anxiety she’d flirted with over the past few days. Turning to Maurice Berman had helped. At least, she felt she was doing something for herself. Her conversation with Dante was disturbing in ways she couldn’t identify. Staying busy was her only hope of diminishing her uneasiness. She showered and washed her hair, then wrapped herself in a robe while she considered what to wear. She was having a late lunch at the club with a woman she’d met through the friend of a friend. They’d talked about tennis afterward, but that was still up in the air. Late afternoon she had an appointment at a local spa where she was scheduled for a complimentary beauty package, whatever that consisted of. Probably not much. The masseuse in Beverly Hills had raised her rates, and Nora had lost interest in the round-trip drive through heavy traffic for something that was meant to soothe and relax. That evening, of course, she and Belinda and Belinda’s younger sister had tickets for the symphony. Sorting through the hangers in her closet, she decided on a pair of close-fitting wool slacks and a cropped wool jacket-not a suit, but separates that worked well together.

Mrs. Stumbo had put the issue of Los Angeles Magazine on her bed table. Nora thought she’d thrown it in the trash but perhaps she had not. She picked it up and carried it to the bench in front of her dressing table. Perversely, she turned to the back of the magazine and worked her way forward, page by page, until she found the two-inch-square photograph that had changed so many things. There was Thelma with her red hair and doting smile, smug in her role as Channing’s consort for the evening. The term zaftig came to mind, meaning the sort of blowzy female sexuality men lusted after: big breasts, narrow waist, flaring hips. The tops of Thelma’s breasts bulged upward, threatening to flop out of the strapless white evening gown. The bodice was so tight that when she’d zipped it up the back, two mounds of underarm fat were forced over the edge of the dress in puffy white rolls.

Nora squinted and looked more closely at the photo. The dress had to be a Gucci. She knew the care he took with every stitch, the tucks and darts, the beading.

Shit.

She got up, took the magazine to the window, and peered again. Details came into sharper focus as the sunlight streamed in. Was that her gown or was she seeing things? Thelma’s diamond earrings looked like duplicates of hers as well. She’d noticed the similarities when she first saw the photo, but she’d been so taken aback by Thelma’s transformation she hadn’t registered the fine points. For a moment, she stood stock still, immobilized by indecision.

She tossed the magazine aside and crossed the hall to the study. Her day planner was open at today’s date. In the square for each appointment, she’d written the telephone number of the individual she was scheduled to see. The lunch date and the spa visit were simply dealt with. She picked up the phone and in two calls cleared her afternoon. It was as though the real Nora had stepped aside and someone else had taken her place. She was clear-headed and single-minded. The symphony tickets would be trickier to finesse. She was on the verge of dialing Belinda’s number when she stopped. The symphony was at 8:00. If she left now, she’d be back in plenty of time. She checked the clock. 12:15. The chances were good she’d catch Channing at his desk.

By habit, he was in his office by 7:00 A.M. and worked through until 1:00, when he went out for lunch. His driver would ferry him into Beverly Hills or over Benedict Canyon and into the Valley where he’d meet a client at any one of a number of restaurants. La Serre was his current favorite, with its soft pink walls, pink linens, and white trellising. Most of Channing’s practice was what he described as “transaction based”: intellectual-property disputes, copyright and trademark infringements, contract negotiations, and talent agreements. Lunches out provided the opportunity to socialize, to see and be seen, cementing the relationships that were at the core of his success. He’d be back at his desk by 3:00 and put in another four hours before he called it a day.

She tried his number and when Thelma picked up the call, Nora used her cheeriest tone of voice. “Hello, Thelma. This is Nora. Could you put me through to my husband?”

She could almost feel the chill when Thelma realized who she was. “One moment please. I’ll see if he’s available,” Thelma said and put her on hold.

“You fucking do that,” Nora said to the empty phone line.

When Channing picked up, he’d turned on the charm. Obviously, Thelma had alerted him she was on the line. “This is a rare pleasure,” he said. “I can’t think when you last called in the middle of the day.”

“Don’t be sweet to me, Channing, or I’ll never get this out. I owe you an apology. I honestly don’t remember your mentioning the dinner dance. I’m not saying you didn’t tell me. I’m sure you did, but the subject must have gone in one ear and out the other. I shouldn’t have been so adamant.”

The brief tic of silence was one she might not have noticed if she hadn’t anticipated his surprise. “I appreciate that. You were probably caught up in something else and didn’t register the date. I take part of the blame myself. I should have verified that the lines of communication were open. Enough said?”

“Not quite. I’ve been thinking about it all week and I realize how far out of line I was. I shouldn’t have ambushed you like that when you were heading out the door. You had enough on your mind.”

“I was anxious to hit the road,” he said, “and I didn’t take the time to hear you out. I know these charity events can be tedious.”

“True, but I was exaggerating a tiny bit to make my case. That said, you can’t use my confession as ammunition.”

He laughed. “Fair enough. I promise I won’t beat you over the head with it the next time we get into an argument.”

“You’re a love,” she said. “So how goes the quest to fill the empty seat?”

“I’ve put out feelers, but so far no luck.”

“Good. I’m glad. Because the real reason I was calling was to offer a change of plans. I can be down there by three with no problem at all. Truly, I don’t mind. It’s the least I can do after being such a bitch.”

Without missing a beat, he said, “No need for that. You go about your day. Sounds like you’re busy enough as it is. If I can’t find a tablemate, I’ll do as you suggested and go on my own. It’s no big deal.”

Nora smiled to herself. What a liar he was. Thelma had probably been tapped as his date since the invitation crossed her desk. No telling how many social engagements she’d redirected to her own personal use. Nora knew perfectly well Channing hadn’t warned her in advance because he wanted to catch her flat-footed. He made a point of putting her in a bind so her refusal to go would be her fault instead of his.

“I don’t want you to have to go by yourself,” she said. “You poor dear. I thought I’d put a call through to Meredith and see if she and Abner want to meet for drinks ahead of time. That way, we could all go in one car.”

Channing’s response was smooth, but she knew him well enough to sense his desperation. By capitulating, she’d gained the upper hand and put the burden back on him. He was committed by now. Thelma fully expected to go as his date and he could hardly turn around and tell her he’d be attending with his wife. “I appreciate the offer. Really, it’s more than generous, but why don’t we take a rain check. Next time our schedules conflict, I’ll call in my marker.”

“You promise?”

“Promise.”

“Good. Then we have a deal. Next time I swear I’ll go without making a fuss.”

“Perfect. I’d like that.”

“Meanwhile, enjoy yourself.”

“I’ll do my best. Full report afterward.”

“Love you.”

“You too,” he said. “I’ve got another call coming in.”

As soon as she was off the phone, Nora picked up her handbag and car keys. She stuck her head in the kitchen, where Mrs. Stumbo was down on her hands and knees scrubbing the floor.

“I have some appointments this afternoon, but I should be back by five. As soon as you finish, why don’t you take the rest of the day off. You’ve been working way too hard.”

“Thank you. I could use the time.”

“Just be sure to lock up. We’ll see you tomorrow.”

Within minutes, she was heading south on the 101. She took pleasure in the drive because it gave her an opportunity to conduct an emotional self-examination. She needed to assess the situation with all the calm she could muster. She knew she was right about Thelma, but so far she had no proof. It didn’t have to be evidence that would stand up in court. The situation would probably never come to that, but she wanted the satisfaction of knowing she was right. Poor substitute for having her marriage intact. Channing made a point of keeping his credit card statements at the office so there was no way to determine when he and Thelma had first hopped in the sack. Looking back, she could probably pinpoint the business trip where it all began.

Repeat encounters wouldn’t have been conducted at the office because privacy there was in short supply. Half the partners worked late, showing up at all hours to finish business that couldn’t be squeezed into the typical ten-hour day. Channing and his beloved Thelma, the whore, would have cavorted at the house in Malibu, thus saving the expense of a hotel room. Nora would have to boil the sheets before she slept in her own bed again.

She spotted a CHP black-and-white lurking at an overpass, invisible to northbound traffic. She glanced down at the speedometer needle, which wavered between eighty-seven and ninety miles an hour. She took her foot off the accelerator and put her racing thoughts in neutral. Maybe she was more stressed out about Thelma than she knew. In her mind, once she’d recovered from her initial humiliation, she’d felt curiously detached. The fact that her husband was involved with someone so common left her more insulted than devastated. From a practical standpoint, she could see how convenience and proximity made Thelma the logical choice. Channing’s moral sensibilities were finely tuned. He would never screw around with another attorney in the firm and certainly not with one of his partners’ wives. He was much too pragmatic to risk a breach of that magnitude. A violation of professional ethics could well blow up in his face. There were certainly countless Hollywood actresses, clients of his, who’d have jumped at the chance to seduce and be seduced, but that was another line he wouldn’t cross. Thelma was a hireling, one down by definition. If the affair turned sour and he ended up firing her, she might sue for sexual harassment, but that was probably the worst she could do. Knowing Channing, he’d already set up safeguards against the day.

What puzzled her was that aside from her injured pride and innate snobbery where Thelma was concerned, she felt no sense of betrayal. There was no question Channing had deceived her. After the surprise wore off, she’d expected to feel outrage or anguish or loss, some fierce emotional response. In that first flash, she’d pictured a furious confrontation, accusations, recriminations, bitter tears, and remonstrances. Instead, the revelation simply allowed her to step away from her life and take another look. She had no doubt the affair would have an impact, but for the moment she couldn’t anticipate the form it would take. She was operating on autopilot, going about her business as though nothing had changed.

An hour and a half later, she turned left off Pacific Coast Highway onto the steep, twisting road that led to their primary residence. Channing had purchased the last buildable half acre along the ridge. The lot was dominated by the sprawling glass-and-steel structure he’d commissioned. She experienced a strange form of agoraphobia each time she returned. There were no trees and therefore no shade. The views were stunning, but the air was dry and the sunlight was unrelenting. During the rainy season, the road would wash out and the occasional mud slide would make passage impossible. A brush fire of the most inconsequential sort could easily sweep up the hill, gaining momentum, sucking in fuel until it engulfed everything in its path.

Behind the house, mountains rose implacably, shaggy with chaparral and low-growing scrub. Paddle cactus had taken over the steep clay slopes, which were laced with old animal paths and fire roads. Most of the year, the surrounding hills were a dry brown, and the fire danger was constant. Channing’s solution to the endless months without rain was to have a Japanese landscape architect create monochromatic gardens composed of gravel and stone. Boulders, chosen for their shape and size, were set in sand beds in asymmetrical arrangements that seemed studied and artificial. Lines were carefully raked from stone to stone, sometimes in straight rows, sometimes in circles meant to simulate water. Flat limestone slabs had been laid in the sand to serve as stepping stones, but they were too widely spaced for Nora’s stride, which forced her to adopt a mincing gait, as though her feet had been bound.

The landscape architect had spoken to them at length about simplicity and functionality, concepts that appealed to Channing, who was no doubt congratulating himself for the reduction in his water bill. For Nora, the carefully composed patterns generated an almost overpowering desire to scuffle her feet, making a proper mess out of everything. Nora was a Pisces, a water baby, and she complained to Channing about how out of her element she felt in the arid environment. He was gone all day, happily ensconced in his air-conditioned offices in Century City. The house was also air-conditioned, but the sun pounding on the wide expanses of glass left the interior smelling stuffy. She was the one stuck on a mountaintop where the house was totally exposed. His concession was the addition of a shallow reflecting pool at the front of the house. Nora took an absurd pleasure in the stillness of the surface, like a mirror on which the cloudless blue sky shimmered with the faintest breeze.

She turned into the drive and left her car on the parking pad beside the gardener’s battered pickup truck. She glanced over at the wide gravel circle where the full-time Japanese gardener, Mr. Ishiguro, squatted on his heels, removing pine needles. He’d worked for the Vogelsangs since the gardens went in. He’d come highly recommended by the landscape architect, but Nora would have been hard-pressed to describe what he did all day, fussing about with his wheelbarrow and his bamboo rake. He had to be in his late seventies, wiry and energetic. He wore a gray tunic over baggy dark blue farmer pants. A wide canvas hat shielded his face from the sun.

The next-door neighbor had trucked in a row of knobcone pine trees that he’d planted on his side of the wall that divided the two properties. The pines were meant to serve as an additional windbreak. Channing had taken a dim view of the plan because the pines shed quantities of dead brown needles that blew onto their side. Mr. Ishiguro was perpetually exasperated at having to remove the debris, which he plucked up by hand. If he managed to catch her eye, he’d shake his head and mutter darkly as though she were to blame.

She unlocked the back door and entered the house by way of the kitchen. The alarm system was off. They’d both become careless about arming the house. To Nora, it was a blessing to enter the air-conditioned space, though she knew within minutes she’d feel like she was suffocating. She put her handbag on the counter and made a quick circuit of the downstairs rooms to assure herself she was alone. The house, built twenty years before, was Channing’s when she married him. She’d never cared for the place. The scale of the rooms was out of proportion to the occupants. There were no window coverings, which created the illusion of living on a stage. He’d resisted her few suggestions about making the place more comfortable. Curiously, the style of the house looked dated though there was nothing she could pinpoint that contributed to the effect. This was one reason the house in Montebello was such a welcome relief. The ceilings there were twelve feet tall instead of twenty, and the views from the mullioned windows revealed trees and shrubs of a dense, lush green.

She heard a loud banging at the back door, so ferocious and unexpected that she jumped. She returned to the kitchen, where she saw Mr. Ishiguro’s face pressed against the glass. She opened the door, awaiting an explanation. He was angry and his agitated English was gibberish to her. The more she shrugged and shook her head, the more infuriated he became. Finally he turned abruptly and motioned for her to follow. He set off down the path, walking so rapidly she had to trot to keep up with him. Turning a corner, she slipped and caught herself, but not before her foot skidded off the stepping stone and onto the countless parallel rake marks meant to quiet the mind. Nora laughed. She couldn’t help herself. It always struck her as funny when other people fell. There was something comical about the complete loss of dignity, the flailing attempt to recover one’s balance. Even animals suffered embarrassment when they slipped and fell. She’d seen cats and dogs stumble and then shoot a quick look around to see if anyone had noticed.

At the sound of her laughter, Mr. Ishiguro turned and lashed out at her, yelling and shaking a fist. She babbled an apology, trying to compose herself, but a part of her had disconnected again. Why should she put up with the incoherent ravings of a yard man, for god’s sake, whose only purpose was to maintain a stone gray landscape created to prevent the house from burning down. Laughter bubbled up once more and she faked a coughing fit to cover the sound. If he caught her laughing again, there was no telling what he would do.

Another ten feet along the path, Mr. Ishiguro stopped and pointed repeatedly, expressing his disapproval in a rapid series of what she took to be insults. On the ground there was a pile of animal feces. The compact deposit of excrement sat in the center of a composition of white pebbles he’d labored over the week before. It was coyote scat. She’d seen the pair for the past month, a big gray-and-yellow male with a smaller rust-colored female, picking their way along one of the trails, their bushy tails held down. They’d apparently established a den close by and regarded the neighborhood as one big cafeteria. The two coyotes were thin and wraithlike, and their posture suggested stealth and shame, though Nora thought they must be deeply satisfied with life. Coyotes weren’t fussy about what they ate. Squirrels, rabbits, carrion, insects, even fruit in a pinch. A number of neighborhood cats had vanished, most noticeably on nights when the howling and yipping of the pair suggested a hunting free-for-all. The male wasn’t above scaling the wall to drink from her reflecting pool, and Nora wished him well. Channing, on the other hand, had twice gone out with his handgun, shouting and waving his arms, threatening to shoot. The coyote, unimpressed, had loped across the patio, leaped the wall, and disappeared into the scrub. The female had been conspicuously absent for the past few weeks, and Nora suspected she had a litter of pups tucked away. Having watched Mr. Ishiguro obsess over the placement of every stone in the garden, she could see how a coyote taking an unceremonious dump on his path was the equivalent of an interspecies declaration of war.

“Get a hose and squirt it down,” she said when he paused for breath.

He couldn’t have understood a word of this, but something in her irrepressibly jocular tone set him off again, and she was treated to yet another tirade. She held up a hand. “Would you stop?”

Mr. Ishiguro wasn’t finished with his complaint, but before he launched in again, she cut him off. “HEY, you fuck! I wasn’t the one who crapped on your fucking rocks so get out of my face.”

To her astonishment, he laughed, repeating the expletive several times as though committing it to memory. “You fok, you fok…”

“Oh, forget it,” she said. She turned on her heel, went back into the house, and banged the door shut behind her. Within minutes her head was pounding. She hadn’t driven ninety miles to take abuse. She climbed the stairs and went into her bathroom. She opened the medicine cabinet in search of Advil, which was sitting on the bottom shelf. She shook two into her palm and swallowed them with water. She studied herself in the mirror, marveling that recent revelations hadn’t altered her outward appearance. She looked the same as she always did. Her gaze shifted to the wall behind her and she turned with a fleeting sense of disbelief. Thelma had left a monstrous brassiere hanging over the towel warmer just outside Nora’s shower door. Good god, was Thelma staying here? She’d apparently hand-laundered the garment, which featured stiff, oversize lace cones sufficiently reinforced and buttressed to support the weight of two torpedoes. Nora was appalled at the casual appropriation of her space, though why she bothered to react at all was a question worth examining.

Carefully, she surveyed the room. There were signs of Thelma everywhere. If Nora had hoped for evidence, here it was. She looked down at the silver tray that rested on her countertop, feeling her lips purse as she picked up her hairbrush now threaded with Thelma’s dye-coarsened red hair. She opened one drawer after another. Thelma had helped herself to a little bit of everything. Cold creams, Q-tips, cotton balls, expensive colognes. Nora made a point of keeping track of what she used in this house and what she needed to replace. She could have recited, item by item, the exact status and placement of her toiletries.

She checked the cabinet under the sink. Thelma must not have expected anyone else to examine the contents of the wastebasket, where she’d tossed the paper wrapper and lollipop stick from a tampon she’d inserted. Cheery news, that. At least the sow wasn’t pregnant. The cleaning ladies came on Monday. Thelma must have intended to remove all traces of her stay by then.

Nora went straight to her walk-in closet and flung open the double doors. To the left, there was a climate-controlled closet-within-a-closet where she kept her cocktail dresses and her full-length gowns. The room was intended for fur coats, but since Nora owned none, she used the space for her wardrobe of designer creations, elegant classics by Jean Dessès, John Cavanagh, Givenchy, and Balenciaga. She’d put together her collection by patiently scouring estate sales and vintage clothing stores. The dresses had been bargains when she bought them, picked over and ignored in favor of what was trendy at the time. Now the interest in early Christian Dior and Coco Chanel had created a secondary market where prices were through the roof. A few of the gowns were too large for her now-the size 6’s, 8’s, and 10’s she’d worn before the weight came off. She’d considered having them altered but felt that resizing would affect the integrity of the design.

She slid dress after dress aside, working her way down the line. When she found the white strapless Gucci, she removed it, still on its hanger, and inspected it carefully. Some of the beading had come loose, crystals and sequins missing, and there was now a tiny split in the seam where Thelma’s fat ass had stressed the threads until they popped. She held the fabric to her nose, picking up the lingering musk of Thelma’s perspiration. Of course, she’d been nervous. She’d co-opted Nora’s husband. She’d helped herself to Nora’s clothes, her jewelry, and anything else she fancied. Thelma was impersonating a woman of class, and she’d gone through a major bout of flop sweat because she knew what a fake she was. For the first time, Nora felt rage and she leveled it at Channing. How had he tolerated this trollop, this corpulent interloper, stepping into her shoes?

She returned the Gucci to the hanging rod. She could see now that Thelma had been trying on a number of her cocktail dresses, perhaps debating which of them to wear that night. Two she’d rejected, tossing them over the back of the velvet slipper chair. She must have realized she had no prayer of squeezing into the 4’s. Instead, she pulled out Nora’s three Hararis, one of which she hadn’t yet had occasion to wear. Nora could picture the scene. While Thelma pondered her choices, she’d hung them on the retractable caddy Nora used for clothes when they first came back from the dry cleaners. The Hararis were more forgiving than the more form-fitting of Nora’s clothes, diaphanous layers of silk, in pale smoky blues and coffee tones, overlaid with gray. Each ensemble consisted of multiple pieces: a body slip, a vest that flowed from the shoulder to an irregular hem below. The separates were interchangeable, meant to be worn in varied combinations. There was something sensuous about the way the fabric settled against the skin, transparent in places so that the body was both disguised and revealed. Maybe Thelma thought her sagging, cellulite-ridden arm flaps would look especially fetching in such a getup.

Nora removed six hangers from the rod and folded the dresses across her left arm. She removed another handful and laid them on top of the first. She carried them downstairs and out to the car, loading first the trunk and then the backseat. The gowns were surprisingly heavy, well constructed, many of them so densely embellished with crystals and beads that the weight of them was palpable. It took her six trips before she’d successfully stripped her closet of all her evening wear: full-length gowns, cocktail dresses, the entire collection of haute couture fashions in every shape and size. The provenance didn’t matter. Nora removed every garment that might have been at all suitable for the dinner dance that night.

It cheered her enormously to imagine the sequence of events. Thelma and Channing would leave the office early, maybe 5:00 instead of the usual 7:00 P.M. The drive home would take an hour or more at the height of the rush hour traffic, which would be particularly heavy along Pacific Coast Highway. By the time they arrived at the house, it would be 6:00 or 6:30, and all the nearby dress shops would be closed. Maybe they’d have a drink before getting dressed. Maybe they’d make love and then take a shower together. Eventually Thelma would turn her porcine attention to what she’d be wearing that night. Buoyed at the prospects, she’d fling open the double doors to the closet. Right away, she’d realize something was wrong. Baffled, she’d open the climate-controlled closet-within-a-closet, which was virtually empty. Thelma, the buxom, lumbering, pot-bellied slob, would find herself with nothing to wear. Not a stitch. She’d shriek and Channing would come running, but what could either of them do? He’d be as horrified as she was. Someone had entered the house and walked off with thousands and thousands of dollars’ worth of formal wear. What would he tell Nora? And how would he appease the wailing Thelma, whose evening was ruined? Her crappy little condominium was in Inglewood, thirty miles southeast, not far from the Los Angeles International Airport, so even if (by some miracle) she had something adequate at home, she’d never make it in time. The dinner dance was being held at the Millennium Bilt-more in downtown L.A., forty-nine miles away, distances it would be hopeless to navigate at that hour.

Nora would have given anything to see the look on Thelma’s face. Neither she nor Channing could lay the issue at Nora’s feet even if they figured it out. What would they chide her for? Removing her own clothes from the premises to prevent Thelma from squeezing her way into them the way she’d squeezed her way into the rest of Nora’s life?

Nora locked the house and went out to the car. She looked at the clock on the dashboard, noting that it was only 3:56. The traffic north to Montebello might be slow, but she’d be home by 7:00 at the very latest. Plenty of time to dress and meet Belinda and her sister at the concert hall. How perfect was that?