Social Lives
SOCIAL
LIVES
_________________________________________________
ALSO BY WENDY WALKER
Four Wives
SOCIAL
LIVES
____________________________________________
WENDY WALKER
ST. MARTIN’S PRESS
NEW YORK
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed
in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
SOCIAL LIVES. Copyright © 2009 by Wendy Walker. All rights reserved. Printed
in the United States of America. For information, address St. Martin’s Press,
175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.
www.stmartins.com
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA
Walker, Wendy, 1967–
Social lives / Wendy Walker.—1st ed.
p. cm.
ISBN 978-0-312-37816-5
1. Rich people—Fiction. 2. Housewives—Fiction. 3. Married women—Fiction. 4. Suburban life—Fiction. 5. Wilshire (Conn. Town)—Fiction. I. Title.
PS3623.A35959 S63 2009
813'.6—dc22
2009016492
First Edition: September 2009
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
As always, for my beautiful boys
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
_____________
WRITING CONTINUES TO BE an incredible journey, and I am thankful for the many people who are filling my tank, fixing my flat tires, and traveling alongside me: agent Matt Bialer; editor Jennifer Weis and the team at St. Martin’s Press; publicist Tolly Moseley at Phenix & Phenix Literary Publicists; and my other employer, Amy Newmark at Chicken Soup for the Soul.
My deep gratitude also goes out to Terri Walker for cheering me on; Estel Kempf and Charlie Biamonte for their wisdom; Grant Walker for being a fabulous uncle; Jennifer Walker for always making me laugh; Becky Mc-Nulty for being my big sister; Sharon Cohen for two decades of friendship; Caroline, Rhys, and Sam Scheibe for being the best cousins in the world; Cheryl Walker for her courage in life; Kris and Steve Pecheone for their open door; my incredible friends who are always there; and the three wonderful boys who inspire me daily.
SOCIAL
LIVES
_________________________
ONE
THE HALSTEADS
JACQUELINE HALSTEAD RUSHED OUT of the bedroom to the study in the adjoining suite. The briefcase was on her husband’s desk, closed, and as had been his practice over the past several weeks, locked. That had been the first piece of hard evidence, this practice of securing his briefcase at home, though it had taken her far too long to see it for what it was. Evidence. The moodiness, the weight loss, the late nights had finally brought the picture into focus.
Her movements were carefully devised and practiced. She positioned herself around the briefcase, then made a note of the numbers on the lock: 70412. He was changing the combination daily now, though she knew from his demeanor that the distrust was not meant for her. She had a finely tuned sense for these things, for detecting the truth within an embrace, a look. No. He trusted her, she was certain. It was not the fear of being discovered that had him twisted in so many knots, but instead the guilt of a caring man. His wife, their children, and all that was at stake were the worries that were eating at him from the inside. And still the lock was changing.
Thinking back over the past months, she realized how tightly she had closed her eyes, not wanting to see, not wanting to believe that the life that had lifted her out of darkness could itself be in peril. She had become complacent over the years, trusting and as close to carefree as her history would allow. She had come to think of her past as something she had shed, like a snail outgrowing its shell and slipping into a new one. Her stupidity was maddening.
There was a saving grace. Her proficiency at seeing into the hidden corners of a life, especially her own, had not completely vanished. Not even with seventeen years of being Mrs. David Halstead. The wires of suspicion were still there inside her head, the ones set in place by a childhood of fear. And now thoughts moved across them freely, the consequences of different scenarios weighed. Plans of escape devised.
She took a long breath and listened for the shower. With her children and nanny at a movie, and their dog, Chester, locked outside, the house was unusually quiet. The shower, with its oversized head and powerful jets, was still pounding against the marble tiles, broken only by the body of her husband as he moved about, unaware that his wife was breaching his trust for the third time in the course of a week. With nothing but a towel wrapped around her slender body, her long dark hair dripping wet on her face, she turned the knobs with shaky hands. One after the other, she entered the digits of the fail-safe code that had come with the briefcase. She finished the code sequence and popped open the lock. Her movements quicker now that she was committed to the treason, she flipped through the papers, sorting out the work documents from those related to the U.S. Attorney’s investigation. The letter was still there, tucked deep within a back compartment. RE: INVESTIGATION OF HALSTEAD, WHITTIER, ET AL. Daniel’s firm. The government had not filed any charges, satisfied at the moment to make inquiries about the location of certain funds. Nothing had made it to the public eye. Not yet. And as far as she could tell, only a handful of the investors in David’s hedge fund suspected that their money might have been mishandled. None of this concerned her as profoundly as the name on that letter. She looked at it again, as though seeing it there in the bold black ink one more time would make her believe it any more or less than she did. DAVID HALSTEAD.
Working quickly, she found what she’d been looking for—a new letter. It was the first one in eight days, and it was not from the government. This one was from a law firm, one she’d heard of because of its reputation for high-profile criminal defense work. Dirty cops. Public corruption. And now her husband. She reached for a pencil, wrote down the name of the lawyer who’d signed the letter. She jotted down the numbers of federal statutes that were being threatened. There would be little time now, so she worked furiously, trying to analyze what she could, writing down the rest. She felt her stomach tighten, but she forced herself to continue as though she were not reading the blueprint for her own life’s destruction.
Finishing the last paragraph, she tucked the letter back where she’d found it, then made a quick study of the briefcase contents. She pulled some papers up, others down, until she was as certain as she could be that they were laid out the way she’d found them moments before. The sound of the shower dying to a drizzle made her stop by reflex, but there was no time. She willed herself to move faster now, to concentrate as she pulled down the lid of the case, clicked the clasps into place, then spun the number dials back to 70412.
Outside the study, she felt it again, the wave of panic as she held the door. Had it been open or closed, the study door? A small detail, but one more detail that would have to be explained. And it was just that very thing, the slow disintegration of explanations, that had given David away and could easily work toward her own exposure.
“Jacks?” He was calling for her. She’d left the bathroom the moment he’d stepped into the shower, and by any accounting, she should now be in her closet dressing for the nursery school benefit.
She didn’t answer—if she could hear him, she would have no excuse for her absence other than being in a place she had no business to be.
Think! But her mind was on the letter, the notes in her hand, and the work that needed to be done. She would scan their bank statements, the weblike array of the family’s personal investments, their 401(k)—their only nest egg after all this family-raising was said and done and t
hey were put out to pasture by a world that favors the young. There was little equity in the house after the loan for the new wing they’d put on last year, and the severe drop in the housing market. Nothing remained in the checking account beyond what was needed to pay the bills. Where could it be, the money that was missing from the fund? And why, good God, why, would David take it?
Closed. She felt the air reach her lungs. The study door had been closed. She turned off the light then pulled the door shut, turning the knob to slide it into place without a sound.
The hallway was quiet again. With light steps, she returned to the bedroom where David was standing inside his closet, dry and partially clothed in boxers and a fresh undershirt. He was visibly distracted, and Jacks knew in that instant that she had not been discovered.
“Aren’t you going to get dressed?” he said to her without turning around. He was so thin now, she could see his ribs protruding through the cotton undershirt.
“I won’t be long.” Sitting on the bed so she could slide the notes under the mattress, she kept her eyes glued to his back. She felt the sickness in her gut, the same restlessness of an insurgent that she’d had for days now. That was what she had become, an insurgent in her own life, a spy embedded within her own family. In every room it followed her—the bright, sun-filled kitchen, the cozy family room, the delicate pink enclaves of her three daughters. The places that had been her haven, that had held her in the embrace of comfort and safety, were now the places where she had to hide what she knew, what she felt. And with every breath her husband took, she waited for him to drop the bomb.
David was humming as he moved about his closet, surely out of nerves. He was a good man, no matter what he’d done. He loved their children as much as she did, and it would be killing him to know that their fate might be sealed by whatever crimes he had committed. Their reliance on him had been the unwritten contract between them, the standard agreement between men and women in places like Wilshire. Husband works. Wife tends to the house, children, and the husband’s needs. And she had done that, produced three children, overseen their care, managed the house. She had cultivated one of the most envied social lives in Wilshire. They were close friends with the most coveted family in this town, the Barlows, and that had been her doing. Hours of lunches, exercise classes, reading groups, and school benefits. From the book fairs to the nail salon, she had done the social research and placed herself wherever she needed to be. Getting to this position had been her job, and she had done it well.
That they would lose all of that was a given, and she didn’t care. Everything she’d done for them socially had been calculated to keep David happy so he could do his job—the one that brought home the money. And it was the money that paid for the rooms, the schools, the happily-ever-after. That was the end goal of the professional’s wife. They had nothing without the job, which was the very thing David had placed in jeopardy. Even if he avoided prison, no one would ever trust him again. And for Jacks, the working world was as far gone as her own childhood. It had been more than seventeen years since she’d earned a paycheck as a waitress. What would she put on her résumé now? Still attractive after bearing three children? What about her perfectly decorated house? Her trendsetting taste? Her honed sense of timing that made it possible for her to get so close to the Barlows? No. None of that would be worth a damned thing. After seventeen years, she would return to the workforce exactly where she’d left it. If they really lost everything, if David went to jail, how could she raise three children on the salary of a middle-aged waitress?
She was in her closet now, moving robotically from section to section as she chose the various items. Undergarments, skirt, blouse, shoes. She could smell David’s cologne drifting in from the bathroom, and it brought back, for the smallest moment, the feeling of him—David the man, beyond the provider, the father. There had been times when he’d held her and she’d felt herself lost in his strength, his certainty, when he’d been able to reach behind the curtains where she kept her true self, the one with the memories and the pain. And in those instances, she had believed that the struggle could finally end, that her life might actually be what it appeared from the outside. Good. Happy. Normal. She inhaled deeper and pulled back the tears that were starting to come. No matter what he meant to her outside all of this, she could not leave her life, and the lives of her girls, in his hands. She would not lay herself down in the arms of faith. That was not the way of a survivor.
She’d been through it in her head and kept coming back to the same conclusion. Seventeen years ago, she’d let go of her raft, the one that had kept her afloat but could never fight the tide, and climbed onto David’s cruise liner. If what she believed now was true—if that ship was about to go down, taking her and the kids along with it—then it was time to find a lifeboat.
TWO
THE BARLOWS
“DO IT, DADDY! DO it!”
Melanie Barlow screamed with excitement, her four-year-old body jumping up and down at the edge of the pool.
“Should I do it?” her father teased. He was standing at the end of the high diving board, dripping wet, and smiling at his audience.
Two more small voices joined in. “Do it, Daddy! Now!”
Seated in a lounge chair a bit farther back from Mellie and her twin brothers, Caitlin Barlow pretended not to care, her ear glued to a cell phone. At fourteen, she was old enough to see all this for what it was, and had recently grown tired of her father’s juvenile efforts to endear himself to his children. Then, of course, there was the deep trouble in which she now found herself, and the way it had trapped her inside a vault constructed from defiance and shame.
“I’m gonna do it!” Ernest Barlow threatened one last time before leaping spread-eagle from the diving board. As he sailed through the air, the shrieks of his children filled his ears until he hit the water with a loud smack and sank beneath its surface.
Nine-year-old Matthew was impressed. “Aw, man, that’s gotta hurt!”
The smaller of the twins, John, had suddenly taken to repeating every word Matthew spoke, and now agreed wholeheartedly. “That’s gotta hurt!”
“Shut up!” Caitlin yelled from the lounge chair, shaking her head at the escalation of her father’s immaturity, and her own annoyance at his attempt to balance the scale against years of absence.
Ignoring their sister, as was common practice, the three young ones gathered near the deep-end ladder, staring into nine feet of dark blue-gray water that, to their eyes, was as mysterious as the depths of the ocean. Mellie moved closer, leaning over to get a better view of the bottom. Her brothers followed, and Matthew grabbed the straps of his sister’s suit to keep her from tumbling in. It was then, and only then, that their champion appeared, popping out with a loud roar from the edge where they were standing, scaring them into hysterical laughter.
They parted as their father climbed out, making room for him to pass through their ranks and find a towel. It was late fall and the air was crisp, sneaking in through the glass walls that enclosed the pool complex.
Barlow (as he liked to be called—partly because the alternative was Ernie, and mostly because he could get away with it) dried his face, then wrapped the towel around his broad shoulders.
“Well?”
Matthew and John offered their hands for high fives. “Awesome!” Matthew said.
His echo followed in short order. “Awesome!” John was smiling, his eyes wide.
“Check out this belly!” Barlow opened the towel to reveal streaks of red against golden flesh from forehead to knees. He tousled Mellie’s hair. “Pretty gruesome, huh?”
Mellie nodded as she took it in, not sure what she thought of their glee at watching their father hurt himself, and his willingness to do it. Then there was the inevitable influence of Caitlin, whose response, though unwelcome, seemed inherently more appropriate.
After a moment, her father’s need, which was innately felt by the four-year-old, rushed in, forcing a smile to gathe
r around her plump cheeks and eventually overwhelming her. She fell into his arms and gave him a hug. “Good, Daddy.”
Barlow kissed her forehead, his eyes glancing first through the glass walls to the stone mansion in the distance, and then to his oldest daughter.
“Want to better that, Cait?” His tone was sarcastic, drawing a carefully perfected look of disgust that was as brief as it was cutting.
Caitlin Barlow rolled her eyes, then looked away as she dialed up the volume of her own voice on the phone call.
“I can’t tonight,” she said into the phone. “I have to help babysit.” Again, the disgust resounded in the early evening air, a silent predator circling around Barlow and the younger three. She couldn’t stop her father from employing his tactics, but she could infiltrate each maneuver, dispensing a subtle sense of doubt that would stand between Barlow and his children’s love like an invisible bullshit shield. And given the suddenness of the change in his daughter’s overall disposition, Barlow was at a loss as to how to dismantle it.
A soft monotone voice seeped from a small post built into the stone tile floor. It was Rosalyn Barlow, the mother, whose interruption of their fun had become a daily occurrence.
“It’s seven o’clock. Time to come up.”
Letting go of little Mellie, Barlow seized the moment. “Darnit! And I was just about to try one on my back.”
Matthew’s eyes were still on the post, as though his mother might somehow appear, catching up to her voice like thunder to a lightning bolt. “You have time! Do it, Daddy!” he said.