By Invitation Only Read online

  “Exactly. And Alejandro became the consummate liar. We’re getting divorced.”

  “Oh, no! Oh, Susan, I am so sorry.”

  “Don’t be sorry. He is likely to get a hundred years or more, but he’s also been sleeping with his secretary for years. She’s the one who turned him in.”

  “Oh, dear. What’s the matter with some men? How stupid. I am so sorry.”

  “You know, in the last forty-eight hours I’ve been relieved of my duties as cochair of the Lyric gala, which raises money for our opera company. After twenty years of sitting on their board, I’m supposed to understand that my name was removed from all the printed materials associated with the event and the institution. If that’s not bad enough, I’ve been asked to resign from the symphony board and the board of the Art Institute.”

  “Oh, how terrible. Aren’t people just awful?”

  “My best friend asked me not to call her anymore.”

  “Floyd didn’t like her. I wasn’t crazy about her either.”

  “And I’m being thrown out of my co-op! I’m going to be homeless!”

  “How can they do that? Don’t you own it?”

  “Yes, but I’ve been informed by Ed Rabin, Alejandro’s lawyer, that any minute, the federal government will be taking all of Alejandro’s assets to pay back the people he robbed. That includes this co-op.”

  “Can’t you or his lawyers do something about it?” I said, thinking why should she suffer for what he did? She didn’t do anything. At least I assumed she hadn’t broken any laws. “They can’t just throw you out into the streets. They just can’t.”

  “Diane? Let me just tell you how bad this is . . .”

  She told me a story about how her manicurist asked her to leave her salon, saying that she made other customers nervous, and believe it or not, we laughed and laughed.

  “That’s just about the worst thing I’ve ever heard!” I said. “Hey, do you think the kids know?”

  “There’s actually no cell reception where they are. I could reach them through the tour company, but I keep thinking I don’t want to ruin their honeymoon. They’ll find out everything soon enough.”

  “That’s true. Gosh, I know I’d do anything to protect Fred from heartbreak. I know you must feel the same way.”

  “I sure do. When someone tells you they’ve had a bad day, tell them about me. I didn’t do anything except love and honor my husband for thirty years, and look what happened. I just hope this doesn’t cause the kids to lose their jobs too.”

  “I had not even thought about that. Let’s say a little prayer for them.”

  She was quiet then, and that’s when I realized she probably didn’t pray.

  “I haven’t been in a church since I was a little girl,” she said.

  “Well,” I said, extremely careful not to sound like I was proselytizing, “prayer is a funny thing. I figure it can’t hurt and it might do some good. Right?”

  “Maybe,” she said. “Oh, Diane, thanks for listening to me.”

  “Anytime,” I said and meant it. “I’ll call you tomorrow. By the way, Mom and Floyd send their best. And my friend Kathy too.”

  “God.” I could hear her voice catch. “That is so nice. Please tell them I said thanks.”

  “I surely will,” I said and pressed the End button.

  I heard Alden’s car door close and I looked at my phone. It was seven on the nose. I went to the front door and here he came bounding up the front steps with flowers in one hand and a bottle of wine in the other. It was as if he knew this was not going to be any old night around Virnell’s table.

  “Hey, gorgeous!” he said.

  “Hey, yourself,” I said with an irrepressible grin. “Come on in!”

  “I brought you something. Actually, I brought the wine for us. The flowers are for you.”

  “Alden! You are so sweet! I think this is the first time you’ve ever brought me flowers.”

  “It is,” he said. “It’s also the first time you’ve asked me to come over for dinner.”

  “No, that can’t be,” I said. “But we’ve known each other for years!”

  He followed me to the kitchen. The evening was off to an excellent start.

  “It’s sad but true. Anyway, I stopped at Whole Foods because they have the best flowers and a nice selection of wine. This is a pretty decent Barolo.”

  “That they do. I love red wine,” I said and handed him a corkscrew. “Will you? I’ll get some glasses.”

  I put two wineglasses on the kitchen table and took a vase from the cabinet to arrange the flowers.

  “Happy to,” he said, slicing away the foil on the neck of the bottle. “So how was your day?”

  “Great, actually,” I said, thinking, If all my days ended in a kitchen with you, it wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world. “Mom and I cornered the market on the soup and corn bread we’re having tonight.”

  “The awesome soup, you mean,” he said.

  “Ha-ha! Well, you’ll be the judge.”

  “Where is she, anyway?”

  “Floyd took her out to eat,” I said. “They’ll be back by nine thirty.”

  Why in the world did I have to tell him that?

  Alden arched an eyebrow, poured a glass for us, and handed me mine.

  “A toast?” he said.

  “Sure! What are we toasting?” I said and raised my glass.

  “Slowing down time,” he said, adding, “Cheers!”

  “Cheers,” I said, taking a sip. “This is delicious. Thank you. Why, I’m almost afraid to ask, do we want to slow down time?”

  He took my glass of wine from me and put it down on the table next to his.

  “Because . . .”

  I could see that look in his eyes. He wasn’t kidding either. He pulled me into his arms.

  “Wait a minute! Wait a minute!” I said.

  “Nope, I’m kissing you right now. It’s easier to ask for forgiveness than permission.”

  “No! Wait! What about Betsy?”

  “She’s my cousin,” he said.

  “What?” I said. His cousin?

  “My mother’s side. Her first cousin’s son’s ex-wife or something.”

  “So, that would make her your ex-cousin-in-law. No blood.”

  “No, wait. I know there’s blood. Maybe I explained it wrong. Now, where were we?”

  Twenty rather intense minutes later I said, “What about dinner?”

  I knew then there was a high probability of my pants hitting the floor. And if I’d known he could kiss like that, I would’ve been at this a long time ago.

  “Right,” he said. “The awesome soup.”

  “This is some awesome kissing,” I said. “How come I didn’t know you could kiss like this?”

  “Me either. I’m inspired. God, you smell good. What are you wearing? I’ll buy you a gallon of it.”

  “Free sample,” I said.

  And then we started to laugh.

  “Diane? You are so funny and you don’t even know it.”

  We went back to the very pleasant business of examining each other’s lips.

  “We’ve got to stop this or I don’t know what will happen!”

  “Yes you do.”

  “But, Alden, we can’t do this here.”

  “Why not?”

  “I don’t know! It’s our first date, isn’t it?”

  “The first real one, I think,” he said. Then we stopped. “Okay, I understand. If Floyd walked in and caught us . . . well, you know, caught us, we’d be very embarrassed.”

  “Virnell would take a switch to our behinds!” I said, laughing at the thought of that.

  “I guess it’s time to eat, right?”

  “Okay,” I said and stood back a bit. “Do you swear Betsy’s your cousin?”

  “On my honor as a Boy Scout of America,” he said.

  “Then why did you let me think there was something going on between the two of you?” I took the corn bread out of the oven. It was st
eaming hot.

  “To see if you’d get jealous. Sure took you long enough.”

  “I should’ve gone to your niece’s wedding,” I said and filled our bowls with soup.

  “You should’ve invited me to Fred’s!”

  “I thought you were, you know, all involved with Betsy! You know that.”

  “Whatever. So tell me all about Chicago and the wedding and what the hell happened to Alejandro and Susan.”

  I put the flowers on the table and we began to eat. I told him all about the snowstorm, Molly our chicken’s debut as a party animal, the wedding, and all that happened to Susan and Alejandro.

  “He’s going to be in jail for the rest of his life.”

  “Rightfully so,” he said.

  “Agreed. She’s the one I’m worried about. She could crack, I’m not kidding. What she’s going through shouldn’t happen to anyone.”

  “Sounds like it. Hey, Diane?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Soup’s awesome.”

  Chapter 27

  Susan’s Reflection

  “Okay, I’m searching my soul and I think I need a GPS,” Susan said.

  “You have to eat something,” Michael Dean said to me, putting the bags of groceries on the kitchen counter in Shelby and Frederick’s apartment.

  “I have no appetite,” I said. “The kids are coming home today.”

  “Do they know?”

  “No. And thank God they’ve been gone for a month. At least Alejandro’s off the front page of the papers. I told them to call me the minute they landed.”

  “Do you want me to be here to help explain the situation to them?”

  “No. It’s probably best if I do this on my own,” I said. “But thank you. You’ve done so much.”

  Michael and his wife, Patty, were my lifeline to the outside world. And Michael was giving me five hundred dollars a week, swearing to me that he’d get it back when I settled with the court, promising me that no judge in the world would leave me completely destitute.

  “I understand that it’s better if you explain it to them without an audience, but you still have to eat. You’re already too thin, Susan.”

  “You can’t be too thin or too rich. Ask Alejandro. By the way, have you seen him?”

  “Yes, he signed the divorce papers yesterday.”

  “I can’t imagine he was surprised to be served,” I said.

  “Not at all. In fact, he understands and wants you to distance yourself from him so you can have a life.”

  “Well, having a life after Alejandro is proving to be almost impossible. He really left me in the middle of a minefield.”

  “He sure did. But listen, there was a day when he sent so much business my way, I owe him forever. Taking care of you until we get everything settled is my pleasure. I want you to know that. Patty and I love you, and we’d be helping you even if you didn’t want us to.”

  At least I still had two friends in Chicago.

  “You and Patty are all I have, you know.”

  He shook his head and said, “Call me if you need anything, okay? We’ll be home all weekend. And don’t answer the door unless you know who it is. Use the peephole!”

  “Don’t worry! I will.”

  I closed the door behind him and bolted it. He’d installed a peephole for me to protect me from the ruthless opportunists. Case in point: The pizza delivery guy sold that lovely picture of my mascara-smeared face, with me swinging a bottle of champagne, to the Chicago Tribune. My drunk ass was on the front page three days later. People can be so cold.

  I was staying at Shelby and Frederick’s apartment, sleeping on their pullout sofa. Federal marshals showed up two days after Alejandro’s arraignment and took possession of our apartment, evicting me. Ed Rabin told me they were coming and to prepare myself. Michael was there with me. I had to answer questions and open our vault. There was no point in their taking a crowbar to a thirty-thousand-dollar custom Traum safe.

  I was horrified to see one of the marshals throw my three fur coats over his arm.

  “Please! My fur coats are twenty years old. It’s zero degrees outside. They’re not worth anything to anyone except me.”

  “Sorry, ma’am,” he said. “The court order says to confiscate all luxury items. If they decide they have no value, they’ll be returned.”

  Yeah, right, I thought. Bastard! Your fat little girlfriend will be squeezing herself into one before dark.

  So far, no one from the press knew I was staying at my daughter’s, and as each day went by, they were less interested. Still, my life had become madness. When I got the phone call from Ed that I was going to be evicted, I had packed some clothes for ten days, but nothing that would draw attention to me, and left. All my jewelry was left at home in the vault except for my wristwatch, my engagement ring, and an amethyst ring I’d had since college. But the day I went to the co-op, I left those things at Shelby’s. Even though I had a legal opinion from Ed and Michael that those items were mine, I didn’t feel like getting hassled.

  My emotions were all over the place. One minute I was in tears, missing Alejandro and the love we used to share. Then I’d remember Nadia and my temperature would soar until I broke a sweat. A minute later I wanted to kill him for the mess he’d made, the pain he’d caused so many people, the disgrace he’d brought to our family, including the loss of everything we owned. I needed a shrink desperately, but since I no longer had medical insurance, it was out of the question. At least I had Michael and Patty, but their empathy was rooted in obligation. Diane was the only real friend I had, and if she really knew me, she probably wouldn’t like me either.

  My phone vibrated and rang, flashing a light as well. I really needed Frederick to adjust my settings. It was Shelby.

  “We landed!”

  “Wonderful! I’m at your apartment with food. I can’t wait to see you both. Was it incredible?”

  “Yes! We took a million pictures. We’ll see you very soon.”

  The last few weeks had given me a lot of time for introspection, something I usually liked to avoid. But now there was no choice except to examine my conscience and figure out how I might resurrect myself and how my new life might look. For one thing, I had to stop being such a bitch. I knew my soul was a little bit black with tarnish. I had quietly but absolutely flaunted my wealth at every opportunity and written people off if they served no purpose in my stratospheric climb. I didn’t know it at the time, but the only place I was climbing was into my own grave. Just like Alejandro ran out of time to refund his funds, I was on a similar downhill slide. How was I ever going to leave a legacy that my daughter could be proud of?

  I could write a tell-all and travel around talking about the importance of truth and integrity, but who would believe I knew anything about truth and integrity? And the idea of writing made my head hurt. One thing was certain. If I wanted a judge to make a generous settlement on my behalf, I had better watch myself. That was why I’d left all my jewelry behind. And our art collection. And my silver and anything of value, really. Even my furs—although they were pretty old, I wasn’t taking any chances. I never dreamed they’d take those old coats.

  But was I only trying to behave out of fear of further punishment, or did I have any real interest in atonement? Well, the concept of atonement and rehabilitation of character was interesting, but I didn’t want to live under a bridge in a cardboard box either. And while we’re being so darned refreshingly honest, it had dawned on me that talking to Diane made me behave differently. She was so good, I mean, really and truly good, that I was sort of wondering what it would be like to see the world through her eyes. But how would I accomplish that? Pay her a visit and milk the cow?

  I was confused. And I was still a bitch, unaware of how cynical I’d become through the years.

  I’d spent the last thirty years trying to stay on top of a heap of superficial social nitwits, and for what? To have our names carved into a wall in a lobby? Even if our names weren’t going to be
chiseled out because of Alejandro’s crimes, they would be chiseled out eventually to make room for new donors a few generations from now. There was only so much wall space to be had. What was the point? Recognition, or, as Andrew Carnegie said, doing good.

  What was I going to do with the rest of my life? So far one door had closed but the other had yet to open. I had a lot of thinking to do. I could not live out my days on my daughter and son-in-law’s sofa in their one-bedroom apartment in an emerging millennial neighborhood. I know, I needed to get over the emerging part. I was probably lucky that I wasn’t in jail with Alejandro, so I should be grateful to have a roof over my head. Maybe that was one thing I could learn to do—count my blessings.

  Speaking of blessings, I found it so interesting that Diane referenced prayer as a way to deal with crisis. Maybe I’d try talking to God and see if that helped. It couldn’t hurt, as she pointed out.

  I’d had a meeting with Paul, or I should say, Mr. Keenan, our co-op board president, the day after I got tossed out of my home on my ear. I wanted to tell him he could find me at my daughter’s and to give him my cell phone number. He had taken some time to wrestle with my reduced circumstances, meaning he probably combed every nasty thing said about my husband in print and on the Internet, and decided Alejandro had done me dirty as well. He was sympathetic.

  “I was thinking about you when you called,” he said. On that afternoon, his velvet jacket was gray paisley and his ascot was lavender. Please. “This has to be a terrible ordeal for you!”

  “It’s unbelievable,” I said. “I’m living a nightmare all day, every day.”

  “And you obviously had no idea what he was doing, did you?”

  “Not one hint of anything. He should’ve been a poker player,” I said.

  “The scoundrel,” he said. “I’m so sorry. Is it true you’re getting divorced?”

  He wasn’t sorry.

  “Yes. I mean, what’s the point of staying married?” I said. I said nothing about Nadia because I knew he was only engaging in this chitchat to have something to discuss over cocktails.

  “Quite,” he said. “So the plan is?”