15.

Madelyn In the days following my attic epiphany and rush to the library, my dining room table all but disappeared under the detritus of my research, a collage of pens, pencils, Post-its, legal pads, file folders filled with papers filled with notes and calculations, and books-Small Business for Dummies, Business Plans for Dummies, So You Want to Be an Innkeeper, and a half dozen others.

Millicent Fleeber would have been proud.

I was-I am-a high school dropout. I gave up on school in my junior year, after receiving an F in English. My feeling was this: If I couldn't pa.s.s English, which I could actually speak, what hope was there for chemistry?

But after I married Sterling, my ignorance became an embarra.s.sment. The first time I publicly said something that revealed my lack of education, Sterling leaned down, chuckled, and said, "That's all right, Madelyn. You can't be smart and beautiful." Everyone laughed. I blushed and wished that the floor would open up and swallow me. The third time Sterling delivered that line, his smile was forced and I noticed some eye rolls being exchanged with the laughter. He came home the next day and thrust a piece of paper at me.

"What's this?"

"A list of the one hundred books everyone should read. Don't say another word in public until you've read ten of them. Gene is trying to get me a spot on the symphony board. But his efforts will come to naught when people hear I'm married to some bimbo who thinks Madame Defarge is a dress designer!"

That made me cry. Sterling didn't care. "Get the books," he said.

My humiliation led me to the New York Public Library and Millicent Fleeber, a doughy-faced, badly dressed, incredibly knowledgeable librarian. Miss Fleeber introduced me to Charles d.i.c.kens (and, by extension, Madame Defarge), Jane Austen, William Faulkner, Harper Lee, Vladimir Nabokov, John Steinbeck, Edith Wharton, Robert Frost, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Charles Baudelaire, and my favorite poet, Emily d.i.c.kinson. She also taught me that I wasn't too stupid to learn.

It wasn't easy. My reading speed hadn't improved one iota since high school, but Miss Fleeber convinced me that speed didn't matter. "Books are to be savored," she said.

It took me years to finish reading the ten volumes Sterling demanded as payment for lifting my sentence of silence. At the first party we attended after I'd done so, someone wondered aloud if Truman Capote, rather than Harper Lee, was the actual author of To Kill a Mockingbird. I joined in the conversation, cautiously at first, pointing out the differences in their writing styles and ending with what I felt was my trump card. "Besides, if he had-even secretly-written a novel that went on to win the Pulitzer Prize, do you think that Capote could possibly have kept that under wraps? The man had an ego the size of New Jersey."

That line elicited laughter and nods of agreement from my listeners. Beaming, hoping he'd witnessed my moment of triumph, I turned to look for Sterling. He was standing in the doorway with his back to me, leaning down to whisper something in the ear of a woman with teased hair and plunging decolletage.

Reading all those books didn't help me win my husband's love or respect, but it did instill in me a deep appreciation for libraries in general and research librarians in particular. "Ignorance isn't a chronic condition, not unless you permit it to be," was one of Miss Fleeber's favorite maxims. My visit to the research desk of the New Bern Library proved how true it was.

After a week of reading, calculating, planning, and plotting, I concluded that my crazy plan really wasn't all that crazy. New Bern had always been an attractive spot for regional tourism. The librarians helped me find specific figures on tourism, including where our visitors stayed and for how long. Almost none of the town's tourists actually stayed in New Bern, at least in part because the village was short on lodging.

Numbers don't lie. I'd identified the need, the opportunity, and done the math. So far, it all added up. In three or four years, less if the economy turned around, the Beecher Cottage Inn could be a moneymaking enterprise and, hopefully, an attractive investment for a wealthy someone looking to fulfill their secret dream of becoming the proprietor of a charming little inn in a charming village in New England.

A lot of people have that dream. And a lot of people will be willing to pay for it-so long as their dream comes as a turnkey operation with proven positive cash flow.

This house, this town, this life-it isn't my dream, but it's somebody's. My dream is to sell this house at a price that will let me get away from New Bern, the scene of all my failures, and never come back. But there's a lot to be done between this and that, and today was all about writing my business plan, a task that required intense focus. Otherwise, I'd have looked at the caller identification before I answered the phone and let it go into voice mail-as usual.

"Madelyn?" He paused for a moment, waiting for me to say something. "It's Sterling."

"What do you want?"

"To talk to you. I've been trying to get hold of you for days," he said impatiently. "Don't you ever answer the phone?"

Not when you're calling, I don't.

He'd called nearly every day since I arrived in New Bern. I never picked up. Why would I? It was his fault I was in this mess. But that didn't stop him from leaving messages, make that commands, for me to return his calls. I ignored them. All of them.

"I've been busy," I said. "Working."

"Working? You?"

I thought about hanging up on him. I should have. But in spite of the applause that had accompanied my speech and indignant exit from New Bern National, that smug banker's rebuff still stung. People had dismissed and talked down to me all my life. I'd had enough.

Maybe my plan would never come to fruition, but at least I had a plan, and I'd worked it out all on my own. I wanted someone to know that, even if it was only Sterling. Perhaps especially if it was Sterling.

"Madelyn? Are you there? You said you're working. Working on what?" he repeated.

"A business plan."

He laughed. There it was again, the tone I knew so well-the sneer. Some people never change. I should have known.

"You're working on a business plan? Don't tell me you found a job as somebody's secretary, not after all these years."

"Not typing a business plan, Sterling. Writing one. I've decided to renovate Beecher Cottage and turn it into an inn."

"What?" Sterling laughed, not a polite chuckle but an incredulous guffaw. "Are you crazy? You're not equipped to run a business, especially an inn. It's hard work. And the profit margins are terrible even when times are good. n.o.body is traveling right now, Madelyn. Everybody's broke."

"Thanks to you!" I snapped.

"Seriously, Madelyn," he said, the laughter leaving his voice. "You don't know the first thing about business. You weren't even a very good secretary."

"How would you know? You were too busy running your hands up my skirt and down my blouse to find out."

"Don't be ridiculous. You're not smart enough to run a business."

"You're one to talk. You didn't run a business, you ran a Ponzi scheme! You never made an honest dollar in your life. You're a thief, Sterling. Nothing but a thief!"

"Hey!" he shouted before dropping his voice to a half-whisper. "Knock it off, will you? They could be tapping the phones."

I rolled my eyes. "You already pleaded guilty, Sterling. Remember? And even if you hadn't, do you think they don't have the goods on you already?"

There was a pause. I waited for him to come back at me, the way he always did, to shred me with some scathing retort, but he didn't.

"I didn't call to fight."

"Then why did you call, Sterling? Whatever you want, the answer is no."

"Can we stop this? Just for a little while could we call a truce?" His voice was laced with tension. Holding his temper was costing him some effort, I could tell. He did want something.

"You may not realize it, Madelyn, but I'm trying to help you. Let me help you." His voice softened; it was almost gentle. I wasn't fooled.

Sterling could be charming when he wanted to. No one knows that better than me. Before we were married, he wined me and dined me and so thoroughly dazzled me that even if I'd been inclined to resist, and even if I hadn't seen marrying him as my only available path to security and survival, I would have succ.u.mbed to his charm. He was and still is a handsome man. When he gazed at me with that animal hunger in his eyes, I could not help but say yes. Yes to him, yes to everything.

Not anymore.

"Madelyn," he said in a concerned, almost fatherly tone. "Running an inn is real work, not a hobby. I know you must be bored stiff out in the country, but surely you can find something else to do with your time. Take up bridge," he suggested. "Or tennis. Maybe riding. I've heard there are some good stables out there."

"Bridge? Tennis?"

Was he kidding? What kind of fantasy world was he living in? I wasn't a bored socialite looking for ways to fill her time, not anymore. And he wasn't a financial tyc.o.o.n with a private plane and an estate in the Hamptons. After all that had happened, the lifetime of lies and insults and the public humiliation, he still had the gall to treat me like a big-busted, empty-headed bimbo? Maybe I wasn't the sharpest pencil in the box. But at least I was smart enough to face the facts.

"Or you could volunteer somewhere," he continued without a trace of irony. "But an inn? Face facts, Madelyn. You're beautiful. You were beautiful. But you're no Rhodes Scholar. And you don't have a head for business."

"Then I'll d.a.m.ned well grow one! I have to! Sterling, don't you get it? They Took The Money," I said, enunciating each individual word so there would be no possibility of his missing my meaning. "You're penniless and I'm near to it. I've got to do something to take care of myself, and what I've decided to do is open an inn. This isn't some whim of mine, Sterling. I've spent the last week figuring out capital expenditures, operating costs, occupancy rates, and cash flow projections. I know what I'm doing!"

Sort of.

I'd learned a great deal in the last few days. The biggest lesson was that I could learn it. Capital expenditures, cash flow projections, operating costs. These weren't just words I was tossing out to impress Sterling-though I admit that part of me did want him to be impressed-I actually knew what they meant! I wasn't a moron. I never had been and I wanted Sterling to admit it, to show me at least a little bit of respect.

Was that so much to ask? Apparently.

"For G.o.d's sake, Madelyn. If you wanted investment advice, why didn't you pick up the phone and call me? I could have . . ."

"You?" I laughed. "You think I'd take investment tips from you? What planet are you living on?"

He made a choking sound, trying and failing to swallow back his anger. I'd gotten to him. I was glad.

"I spent forty-one years on Wall Street, Madelyn. Forty-one years! I know everybody who's anybody in New York."

"Been getting a lot of calls from them lately, have you?"

Sterling went on as if he hadn't even heard me.

"The wealthiest people in the world came to me for advice. I managed one of the largest investment portfolios in the country. For forty years, my clients had returns of ten percent minimum. Minimum! I helped thousands of people. Back in the eighties-"

"Sterling, are you crazy?" I asked, wondering if it might be true. "You didn't help people. You took their money, raked a pile off the top for yourself, and then paid out that annual ten percent return with the money of the next poor sucker who came through your door. You didn't invest money, Sterling. You stole it. That's why you're in jail. Remember? You're one of the reasons everybody is broke!"

He started to shout at me, spitting out all his favorite insults, names, denials, and epithets. Sterling Baron's Greatest Hits.

Everything was everybody else's fault. Everybody else was inferior, wrong, clueless, and out to get him. It was a familiar playback; I'd heard it all before. But this time was different. This time I didn't have to sit there and take it.

I shouted back, determined to make myself heard over the tirade, telling him I was hanging up and not to call me back-not ever. I stood up, ready to slam the phone down.

Sterling stopped for a moment and then called out, "Wait! Madelyn, wait! Don't hang up!"

He was still shouting, but this time it was different. There was something in his voice that I'd never heard before-fear.

"Madelyn. Please. I'm sorry. Please don't hang up."

An apology? From Sterling? That was a first. I didn't say anything, waiting for him to make the next move.

"I need a favor."

Of course he did. I told myself to hang up. But his voice, the fear in his voice . . . I folded one arm protectively across my chest.

"What?"

"My sentencing hearing . . ."

"I heard they'd put it off again."

"They did. But even Gene will run out of stall tactics eventually. He thinks it would help if you'd come and testify on my behalf."

"You can't be serious."

"I'm going away for a long time. I know that. But if the judge is lenient, I might get as few as ten years. If you spoke at the sentencing, it would make me seem more sympathetic, more human. You know. Thirty happy years of marriage. A family man . . ."

My breath caught in my throat. For a moment, it almost felt like my heart had stopped beating.

"A family man? Our marriage, happy?" I choked. "Oh, Sterling. You really are deluded. No, Sterling. No. Some lies are just too big."

I couldn't bear to listen to any more. I hung up the phone, leaned against the kitchen counter, and covered my eyes with my hand. Twin teardrops slipped out from beneath my palm. Two for Sterling. Two for me. Two for everything we'd done to each other.

16.

Tessa Picking out the fabric took longer than I'd thought, and then there was that whole scene with Candy Waldgren. I should have gone straight home after I finished. Lee was waiting for me and he was making lasagna. He makes great lasagna. Instead, I drove to Oak Leaf Lane. I couldn't help myself.

Even in the dim light of the streetlamp, I could see that Beecher Cottage was badly in need of a paint job. And a new porch. The shutters were in terrible shape too. There was an expensive, cream-colored sedan parked in front of the house. It seemed like I'd seen it somewhere before.

I pulled to the curb a few doors down from Beecher Cottage, turned off the car, and stared at the ramshackle old house. The living room window glowed with the light of a bra.s.s floor lamp that stood near the window. Who had turned it on?

Someone turned on the porch light. The door opened and Abigail Spaulding walked out, looking tight-lipped and angry. She was followed by a woman, barefoot and wearing a baggy sweater, about my age, with beautiful sad eyes and an expression even angrier than Abigail's.

I couldn't hear what she was saying, but the mute workings of her lips and the jagged movement of her right arm as she gestured toward the street and the way Abigail swiftly descended the porch steps and marched down the walkway gave me the general gist of the one-sided conversation. Abigail climbed into the big sedan and drove off. The woman smiled grimly and turned to go inside the house, slamming the door so hard that even inside my car, I could hear the reverberation.

The whole scene couldn't have taken more than a minute to play out. But even with her unkempt hair, her shapeless sweater, and with the evidence of time and troubles etched into her once smooth face, I knew that Candy Waldgren was telling the truth.

Madelyn Beecher had come home to New Bern.

17.