Read Jacqueline Susann's Shadow of the Dolls for Free Online Page A
Authors: Rae Lawrence
out to dinner to celebrate, and taken along four friends, and ordered several bottles of expensive wine. Anne could still picture Lyon laying eight crisp new hundred-dollar bills on the black-and-white-checked tablecloth.
“We did, but then something else came up. An incredible opportunity, this little electronics firm I heard about. We just have to sit tight for a few months.”
Anne wanted to know more but was afraid to ask. Years ago she had almost lost him over money. Whenever the subject of money came up, his mouth tightened, and Anne changed the subject.
When she was younger, she believed that love conquered all and that marriages failed only when the love ran out. But their love for each other had run out long ago, and still their marriage hummed along comfortably in second gear.
She couldn’t point to anything in particular. It had happened gradually over the years, with every affair Lyon had, with every long absence. She stopped waiting up for him to come home from the airport. He stopped showing up with flowers.
Sometimes she wondered whether people still whispered about it. It had happened so many years ago, but in New York no one ever forgot where your money came from.
Originally the money had all been Anne’s. She had invested her Gillian earnings in the stock market and had a brilliant run of luck. Lyon was making a decent living as a writer, enough to be comfortable, but not nearly enough to take on a wife and family. Anne desperately wanted to marry him, but she knew he would be too proud to live on his wife’s earnings.
So she had arranged to loan him money in secret. She loaned a large sum of money to a friend, who in turned loaned it to Lyon, and it was with this money that Lyon bought his share in theagency and made himself rich. The angriest she had ever seen Lyon was the day he discovered that his seed money had come from her. By then they were already married and Anne was pregnant with Jenn.
Lyon paid her back, but their marriage was never the same. On some level she had bought him, bought herself a husband the way other women buy a new face or a new car. After he wrote her the last check, they never really talked about money again. Lyon took care of the finances, and once a year she signed their joint tax return. She had credit cards, and a modest savings account that covered the mortgage for the Southampton house, and a checking account into which Lyon deposited three thousand dollars a month.
It wasn’t love that made a marriage go. It was money. Sometimes when they were watching a movie together and the couple on screen declared passionate love for each other, they both had to turn away. Anne would reach for an emery board, Lyon would reach for his drink.
The waiter brought over the check. Lyon folded the guest list into his coat pocket.
“We don’t have to give this party,” Anne said. “We can go to London instead. Or even just to Southampton if you like. A quiet family Christmas would be just fine with me.”
“Nonsense,” Lyon said. “It isn’t anything like that.” He reached for her hand and kissed her on the cheek. “Nothing you need to worry about. Don’t frown, it will give you lines.”
She smiled, though of course that gave you lines, too.
She looked around the restaurant. Friends waved from a far table. Wherever Anne and Lyon went, people knew them, people noticed them. They were a fabulous New York couple. They had a fabulous New York apartment where they gave fabulous New York parties. Maybe there were couples with happier marriages, couples who still loved each other the way they had on their wedding day.
But Anne thought of everyone she knew, she thought of every one of the two hundred people on the piece of paper in Lyon’s pocket, and she couldn’t name a single one.
A nd then came the telephone call that turned everything upside down.
Anne was lingering in the bathtub, even though the water was cooling. Lyon had just left for the office, and the
“We did, but then something else came up. An incredible opportunity, this little electronics firm I heard about. We just have to sit tight for a few months.”
Anne wanted to know more but was afraid to ask. Years ago she had almost lost him over money. Whenever the subject of money came up, his mouth tightened, and Anne changed the subject.
When she was younger, she believed that love conquered all and that marriages failed only when the love ran out. But their love for each other had run out long ago, and still their marriage hummed along comfortably in second gear.
She couldn’t point to anything in particular. It had happened gradually over the years, with every affair Lyon had, with every long absence. She stopped waiting up for him to come home from the airport. He stopped showing up with flowers.
Sometimes she wondered whether people still whispered about it. It had happened so many years ago, but in New York no one ever forgot where your money came from.
Originally the money had all been Anne’s. She had invested her Gillian earnings in the stock market and had a brilliant run of luck. Lyon was making a decent living as a writer, enough to be comfortable, but not nearly enough to take on a wife and family. Anne desperately wanted to marry him, but she knew he would be too proud to live on his wife’s earnings.
So she had arranged to loan him money in secret. She loaned a large sum of money to a friend, who in turned loaned it to Lyon, and it was with this money that Lyon bought his share in theagency and made himself rich. The angriest she had ever seen Lyon was the day he discovered that his seed money had come from her. By then they were already married and Anne was pregnant with Jenn.
Lyon paid her back, but their marriage was never the same. On some level she had bought him, bought herself a husband the way other women buy a new face or a new car. After he wrote her the last check, they never really talked about money again. Lyon took care of the finances, and once a year she signed their joint tax return. She had credit cards, and a modest savings account that covered the mortgage for the Southampton house, and a checking account into which Lyon deposited three thousand dollars a month.
It wasn’t love that made a marriage go. It was money. Sometimes when they were watching a movie together and the couple on screen declared passionate love for each other, they both had to turn away. Anne would reach for an emery board, Lyon would reach for his drink.
The waiter brought over the check. Lyon folded the guest list into his coat pocket.
“We don’t have to give this party,” Anne said. “We can go to London instead. Or even just to Southampton if you like. A quiet family Christmas would be just fine with me.”
“Nonsense,” Lyon said. “It isn’t anything like that.” He reached for her hand and kissed her on the cheek. “Nothing you need to worry about. Don’t frown, it will give you lines.”
She smiled, though of course that gave you lines, too.
She looked around the restaurant. Friends waved from a far table. Wherever Anne and Lyon went, people knew them, people noticed them. They were a fabulous New York couple. They had a fabulous New York apartment where they gave fabulous New York parties. Maybe there were couples with happier marriages, couples who still loved each other the way they had on their wedding day.
But Anne thought of everyone she knew, she thought of every one of the two hundred people on the piece of paper in Lyon’s pocket, and she couldn’t name a single one.
A nd then came the telephone call that turned everything upside down.
Anne was lingering in the bathtub, even though the water was cooling. Lyon had just left for the office, and the