Jacqueline Susann's Shadow of the Dolls by Rae Lawrence

Author:Rae Lawrence
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Romance, Fiction, Literary, Triangles (Interpersonal Relations), Female Friendship, General, Love Stories
ISBN: 9780758202727
Publisher: Kensington Publishing Corporation
Published: 2002-07-01T04:00:00+00:00

1992.

Lyon and Neely were married in a private ceremony two days before New Year’s Eve. The only witnesses were a partner of Lyon’s from the agency and Gordon Stein. Lyon wore a navy-blue suit and a red Ferragamo tie printed in a pattern of little champagne glasses. Neely wore a red silk suit and no jewelry except the pair of cushion-cut sapphire earrings Lyon had bought her for Christmas. She hired a photographer, who was asked to sign a confidentiality agreement and to photograph Neely only from certain angles. She had already gained fifteen pounds. They had told no one about the pregnancy.

Neely had broken off with Dave in a ten-minute telephone call. She had all the jewelry he had given her reappraised, reinsured, and delivered to the safety-deposit box where she kept her birth certificate, various legal documents, and her first two wedding rings.

Lyon told Anne in a slightly longer phone call, the day before Christmas Eve. Neely had poured him a tall glass of bourbon, then snuck downstairs to listen in on an extension. Anne fought against the gathering tears, her voice trembling, the telephone held slightly away as she sniffled into a tissue. No matter what, she would not cry. They argued over who would tell Jenn, Anne insisting she could do a better job of it, Lyon insisting it was best left to him, both of them hoping in the end it would fall to the other.

Anne finally agreed to call Jenn to the phone. Anne sat at the edge of the bed and watched her daughter crumple. This is what divorced fathers do, Anne thought. They ruin Christmas for their children.

“It’s your fault,” Jenn said to Anne afterward. “Everything is your fault.” It seemed impossible that Jenn could still be hoping that her parents would get back together. But there it was. Jenn sulked her way through Christmas, unpleased by her presents, even the buttery leather jacket Lyon had shipped out by overnight courier. Jenn had hinted and begged for months, ripping photographs of black leather jackets out of fashion magazines and mailing them to Lyon; but now the expensive gift, so clearly purchased to soften the blow, was tossed back into the large cardboard box and left under the tree.

Anne and Jenn spent Christmas break tiptoeing around each other’s moods. It was too cold to take walks, and everyone they knew had gone away for the holidays. They spent entire days without getting dressed, eating take-out Chinese food at odd hours. They watched old black-and-white movies on their new VCR. Anne knit a sweater; Jenn changed her nail polish daily, from one dark violet to another, piling the smeared cotton balls in an ashtray on the floor. At night Anne broke a Valium in two and gave half to Jenn, leaving the other half in a tissue on top of the television set. In the morning the tissue and pill would be gone.

On New Year’s Eve, Anne slept late, waking up to find Jenn in the kitchen, two tabloid newspapers spread open on the table.

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