Southern Belle. Fiona Hood-Stewart

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СКАЧАТЬ at a new gray chair bought last week to replace the sagging green one that had finally collapsed. “You look as if you’ve seen a ghost.”

      Elm stared straight at her and remained standing. “Mer, did you know?”

      “Know what?” Meredith’s brows met in a dark ridge over the bridge of her straight, thin nose.

      “That Harlan was having an affair with Jennifer Ball?” Elm’s voice sounded almost casual, as though the discovery of her husband’s affair with one of Savannah’s most notorious divorcées was an everyday occurrence.

      “Oh, Jesus!” Meredith sank behind her desk and pushed her glasses back into position. The day she’d long been dreading had arrived. The shit had finally hit the fan.

      “Well? Did you?” Elm’s black shades stared blankly at her.

      “I—look…kind of, okay?” She let out a sigh and again gestured for Elm to take a seat.

      “And you never said a word.” Elm gripped the back of the chair.

      “Look, sit down and I’ll explain.” She’d always known that one day Elm would suffer a rude awakening from the daydream she’d been living for more than a decade. Just hadn’t expected it would happen today.

      “Why didn’t you tell me?” Elm asked tightly. She sat on the edge of the gray chair and removed her shades. “Why didn’t you warn me, Mer? And by the way,” she added, her tone bitter, “just who else knows that my husband is fucking Jennifer? Everyone except me, I suppose?”

      “Pretty much,” Meredith muttered, suddenly wary. Elm never used bad language.

      “I repeat, why didn’t you tell me?” Elm pinned her mercilessly, her eyes two huge chestnut pools of pain, anger and crushed pride.

      “Hell, Elm, how could I?” Meredith burst out, cringing inwardly. Should she have told her? Would it have been fairer?

      “You’re my friend,” Elm bit back, “the only friend I trust in this damn cesspool. But you didn’t see fit to warn me. I don’t understand.”

      “Hold it. It’s not quite that simple,” Meredith countered, leaning forward and reverting to the measured tone she used to announce a lost case to a client. “How could I tell you,” she queried deliberately, “what you didn’t want to know?”

      “Of course I would have wanted to know,” Elm countered with a scathing laugh. “That’s ridiculous.”

      “I hate to burst your bubble, hon, but that’s not strictly true.” Meredith leaned farther forward, elbows posed on the desk. “For twelve years—make it thirteen, if you include your engagement—you’ve stuck Harlan so high upon a pedestal that you made sure he was unreachable. Even by you.”

      “That’s absurd,” Elm spluttered.

      “Oh, yeah? Well, why is it, then, that during the entire course of your marriage I have never once heard you criticize him, or even say a single negative word about him?” Meredith asked, eyes narrowed.

      “I don’t approve of criticizing one’s spouse.” She grimaced at her prissy words.

      “Right.” Meredith sucked in her cheeks and nodded. “Very laudable, I’m sure, but at times I have to say I found it hard to swallow. Hell, I love my Tom but I’m always bitching about him.”

      “That’s different.”

      “In what way?” Meredith quirked an interested brow.

      “I don’t know—” Elm gestured nervously “—it just is.”

      “Bullshit. You made up your mind Harlan was going to be Mr. Perfect, then you stuck to that notion through hell and high water, even though I reckon you knew it wasn’t working out right from the start,” she said shrewdly. “Look, I’m sorry it’s happened this way, Elm, but maybe it’s time to wake up and smell a megadose of double espresso?”

      “It would certainly seem so,” Elm murmured dryly, nervously fiddling with the sunglasses on her lap, the bitter truths she’d denied for the better part of her adult life rising in her throat. “I guess I must be plain stupid not to have seen this coming,” she said finally. “I must need fucking bifocals,” she added, her mouth set in a tight line Meredith had never seen before.

      “Don’t beat up on yourself.” She reached across the desk and touched Elm’s icy fingers. “You did it because of the way you are. I’ve never known you to take on a cause and do a half-assed job. Take the garden project you’re working on right now. I’ll bet nobody shovels more damn earth than you do, nobody plants more seedlings. Or your exhibitions.” She shrugged and smiled. “It’s all the same, Elm. You throw yourself into everything you do, give every ounce of your being. Only, sometimes others don’t meet your expectations and you’re bitterly disappointed. Problem is,” she added, picking up a pen and doodling speculatively, “not everyone—and that includes your hubby—has your high standards or is as dedicated and sincere as you.”

      “Gee, thanks! Knowing I’m an obsessive perfectionist who’s blind to the world makes me feel a hell of a lot better.”

      “Rubbish. You know that isn’t so.”

      “Really? Then how do you explain that Harlan’s gotten away with this affair? And I suppose there must have been others. It’s only that Jennifer is the first one who couldn’t resist the temptation of telling me Harlan’s a great fuck! I suppose I should be grateful to her,” she added grimly, knuckles strained and white from gripping the glasses, as though crushing them might relieve some of her bewildered anger.

      “Not so fast,” Meredith countered. “Let’s go back and review the circumstances. Right from the start, long before you married Harlan, you’d convinced yourself that he was Mr. Right.”

      “He was. At least he seemed—right.” Elm bit her lip and glanced at the porcelain ashtray on the desk, wishing she smoked.

      “For whom?” Meredith’s eyes narrowed thoughtfully. “You or Uncle George?”

      Elm’s head flew up, then she hesitated. She’d been about to protest vehemently, but her friend’s words made her stop. She glanced toward the window. Was it true? Had she wanted Harlan to be perfect because her father was so enchanted with the idea of his prospective son-in-law’s glittering political future? She let out a long sigh, then met Meredith’s eyes straight on. “Both, I guess.”

      “Exactly.” Meredith nodded, satisfied. “Harlan had all the prerequisites of the successful politician—handsome, great charisma, old family. Poor as church mice, of course, but hey, who gives a damn since he’s in some way related to Oglethorpe and the founding of Savannah, right?” She enumerated the qualities, ticking them off one by one. “A truly great candidate. Your father’s dream boy. The son he never had.”

      “There was nothing wrong with that,” Elm replied defensively.

      “No, except that somewhere along the line, having Harlan in the family became more important to him than your own happiness.”

      “That’s not true,” Elm lied. “I truly believed I’d be happy with Harlan, and there was never any question of Daddy—”

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