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“Then we’ll have to come up with another idea.” Her voice was getting stronger as her temper seemed to rise.
“I’ll keep working on it.”
“When will this nightmare end, Rick?” Marilyn’s voice was barely audible.
The sea breeze worked to cool him off as his wife’s words tore him in two.
“I don’t know.” His throat muscles flexed as he made the admission.
Marilyn sighed. “Will it ever?”
He hesitated. “I don’t know that, either.”
“That’s what I was afraid of.” She ended the call without waiting for a response. It didn’t matter. Warrick didn’t have a response to give her.
11
Marilyn was home at half past ten on a weekday morning. How strange. She locked the front door, took off her shoes, and wandered into the family room. The numbness was wearing off. The house was silent as though it, too, were in shock. She’d been fired. And regardless of what Arthur had said, she knew for him this day was the culmination of a two-year dream.
Marilyn put away thoughts of Arthur’s vendetta. She had to call Janet Crowley and Dionne Sproles, the clinic partners. As much as she wanted to bury her head in the sand, she had to deal with this—the sooner the better. But what should she say?
Did you see the photo in the Horn of my husband and me making love? What did you think? Marilyn shuddered with nausea.
How many people had seen that photo? Coworkers, patients, neighbors, friends?
She wouldn’t think about that right now. She couldn’t. If she did, she’d never make the phone call.
Marilyn crossed the family room. The polished hardwood floor was cool beneath her stocking feet. Her hand hovered above the black cordless telephone. Hopefully, the clinic partners were more reasonable than Arthur.
What if they weren’t?
Arthur had fired her on the spot. Could this photo also cost her the clinic partnership?
What was she going to tell them?
The truth.
She lifted the handset, took a fortifying breath, and entered Janet’s direct phone number. The senior partner answered on the third ring. “Good morning, Mary.”
Marilyn froze. Caller identification. It eliminated social pleasantries and jump-started conversations. At this moment, she deeply resented the telephone feature. She could have used the icebreaker.
“Hello, Janet.” She resisted the urge to clear her throat and adopted a brisk, businesslike tone. “I assume you saw the photo in today’s New York Horn.”
“Indeed I did.” Janet sounded smugly amused. “It looks like you and your husband are getting back together.”
Marilyn smoothed the hairs on the back of her neck. “We were never apart.”
“That’s not what the papers reported.”
Marilyn heard the thin woman’s superior tone and pictured her condescending expression. She gripped the phone to rein in her temper.
Stay focused; don’t allow the other woman to distract you. “I wanted you to know that our kitchen blinds were closed.”
Janet’s hum slid down the phone line. “I’d wondered what caused the shadows on the top and bottom of the photo. Still, your blinds must not have been closed all the way.” More smug amusement.
Marilyn turned away from the telephone’s base to pace the family room. “They were. The Peeping Tom who took that picture snuck onto our property and pressed his camera lens against our window.”
Janet chuckled. “Still, Mary, no one can blame you for wanting to show off your husband. I’m certain all the women in the tristate area are even more jealous of you now. Well, those who aren’t married to professional athletes themselves, that is.”
