Riverside Park. Laura Wormer Van

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СКАЧАТЬ to hand him off. (At this stage of her pregnancy Cassy didn’t blame her.)

      “William,” Cassy said sharply as she plopped him down in her lap. Her grandson stopped screaming to look up at her in a kind of awe. She handed him a dinner roll and picked up her fork, managing to take a few bites before she caught Maria’s bewildered expression. “At this age they’re better with anyone but their parents.”

      “He gets mad because he can’t bounce on Maria’s lap anymore,” Henry explained.

      If you think he’s mad now, wait until the new baby comes, Cassy thought. She used her napkin to catch drool dripping from William’s mouth as he gnawed on the roll, which killed her appetite.

      Lydia reappeared and made her way to her seat smiling defiantly down the table at Cassy as Kevin came back in, as well. They were both high on something. Probably cocaine.

      Jackson simply did not want to see it. Cassy supposed he was not unlike other fathers, figuring that by their late twenties it was none of his business what his kids did.

      William fell asleep in Cassy’s arms, the remains of the roll clutched in his fist. When she kissed the top of his head and stood up, everyone took it as a signal that Thanksgiving was officially over and they were excused. Lydia was out the door first. Henry, Maria and William were next to leave in a car for JFK, Cassy fighting back tears. Then she hurried to help her Southern relatives organize their bags. Everyone except Cassy would board a limousine bus to take them to the Darenbrook Communications plane in Newark. They would drop Jackson and her stepson off in Savannah and then conclude their flight in their home city of Atlanta.

      “I don’t know how you do it, darlin’,” Jack said under his breath to Cassy as he gave her a hug and kiss, “but we almost resembled a family today.”

      Kevin kissed Cassy on the cheek. “Thanks, Cass, it was great.”

      She smiled, taking Kevin’s arm and pulling him back a step. She leaned close to his ear. “If you ever bring drugs into this house again, I promise you, Kevin, you will never cross the threshold again. Have I made myself clear?”

      Startled, Kevin stepped back.

      “Oh, Cassy,” Cordelia Darenbrook Payne said, swooping in, “it was vunderbar, vunderbar as always. And the black-eyed peas were so good we’re taking them to eat on the airplane during the ride home.”

      “Okay, guys, we gotta move,”Jack called to the group, tapping his watch.

      “Mrs. Darenbrook?” The caterer appeared from the doorway. “We’re almost finished in the kitchen. I want to make sure everything is the way you want it before we leave.”

      “Bye, darlin’!” Jack shouted over the crowd, waving to her.

      “Safe journey, everyone!” Cassy called before closing the front door.

      The kitchen looked better than it had when the caterer arrived and Cassy told him so. She gave everybody a small envelope (containing tips), and thanked them for such a lovely dinner.

      “You made almost all of the food, Mrs. Darenbrook,” the caterer pointed out.

      “I hope you young people are taking the leftovers home,” she said, addressing the group.

      The workers held up bags of disposable food containers and thanked her.

      Cassy saw the crew out the service entrance and walked down the long back hall toward the master suite, peering in at the state of the guest bedrooms, but not worrying about them since housekeeping would be back in full force in the morning. There was no trick to running any of the Darenbrook households, really. All it took was money.

      The burden of Thanksgiving had been lifted and she felt her energy and spirits rising already. She vigorously brushed out her hair and then put it back up. She went into the bathroom to wash up a little and brush her teeth, then came back out to sit at the vanity to put on a little fresh makeup. She also exchanged the pearl earrings she had been wearing for two large diamond ones and took off her wedding rings. She threw a couple of things into a shoulder bag and hastily ran a lint brush over her dress. She went out to the front hall closet to retrieve a coat and suitcase and took the elevator down to the subterranean garage.

      “I could have brought those down for you, Mrs. Darenbrook,” the attendant said, rushing over to take the shoulder bag and suitcase.

      “No worry,” she said. She watched him put the suitcase in the trunk of her silver Jaguar. “I’m sorry you have to work today.”

      “I’m not. I get double time.” He closed the trunk and hurried around to open the driver’s-side door for her. “I’m through here at eight and then we’ll have our big family dinner.”

      “Oh, I’m glad.” She slipped down behind the wheel.

      “So your house is finally quiet again, huh? That was a lot of people staying with you and Mr. Darenbrook.”

      “Indeed,” she said, smiling.

      “Mr. Darenbrook said he’s racing his boat in the Caribbean this weekend.”

      “Yes, he is. With his son.”

      “Think he’ll win? Oh, why do I even ask? Even when Mr. Darenbrook loses he still always seems to win somehow. Do you know what I mean?”

      Cassy nodded, starting the engine. “Oh, yes, I know what you mean,” she assured him.

      2

      What Happened to the Darenbrook Marriage

      AFTER THE HUMILIATING defeat of her first marriage, falling in love with Jackson Darenbrook had seemed close to a miracle. Cassy remembered the day Jack realized he was in love with her very well. They’d been arguing (they had always been arguing in the early days of the fledgling network), and suddenly Jackson stopped talking and stared at Cassy with a sense of dawning revelation. Cassy knew then how he felt about her. And in that moment she knew that she had been falling for him, as well.

      She was forty-four when they married and Jackson forty-nine. His family and friends were astounded by the changes in him by the time he stood at the altar. “He’s a happy man, again,” Cordelia told her. “Thank God he’s a happy man again.”

      Cassy took her vows as sacred. She felt blessed and reborn to have such a commitment come to her at that point in her life, and she was determined to appreciate every nuance of it. With the exception of ongoing problems with Lydia, those first couple of years were blissful. When not traveling on business—which both did rather extensively—they were together at West End (the corporate headquarters of Darenbrook Communications on the Hudson River at Sixty-fifth Street), here at home on Riverside Drive, or at the house in Litchfield. They sailed and skied and traveled continents; they worked out together and often spent downtime just lazying around, reading newspapers, watching TV or movies, eating good food and making love.

      Cassy felt loved, respected and redeemed.

      She never tried to compete with the memory of Barbara, Jackson’s first wife, because she knew she could never win in comparison to a saint who had died in her thirties.

      Henry came home for brief periods while in college and he got on very well with СКАЧАТЬ