Night Whispers by Judith McNaught
The brief film clip was so realistic that Sloan’s students were silent and shaken after she turned off the VCR.
“Lesson number one—” Sloan said firmly, but with a smile to ease the tension in the room. “Do not stay in a disabled vehicle. If you do, you’re turning yourself into a potential victim and advertising your plight to every criminal and creep who drives by.”
“Then what should we do?” a pharmacist’s wife asked.
“You have several choices, depending upon how far away you are from the nearest house or business. None of your alternatives are convenient, but they’re not as ‘inconvenient’ as being robbed or worse. If you’re within walking distance of a house or business, even if it’s several miles away, start walking. If you can’t go cross-country, then you’ll have to walk along the highway, but be prepared to duck behind a bush or crouch in a ditch if you see car lights coming your way. If it’s too far to walk, or if the climate would endanger your health, then you’ll have to stay in the car, but be prepared to get out of it and hide somewhere as soon as you see headlights coming your way. If someone stops to check out the car, stay hidden.”
Sloan paused to let all that sink in; then she said, “If there’s some reason why you absolutely must remain in your vehicle until morning, then wait until you see headlights coming, get out of the car and go to your hiding place. From there, you can watch and see what he does and how he acts. If he tries to break into your vehicle, or vandalize it, or steal your hubcaps—or if he has a couple drunken buddies with him—then at least you’ll know you’re safer where you are.”
Sloan reached behind her and picked up a small black object on the table. Smiling, she said, “If you really don’t like hiking down highways and across fields in the dark— if you’d rather not spend a terrifying night jumping in and out of your car, hiding and fearing for your life—then I’m happy to recommend an alternative.” Lifting her arm, she held up the cellular telephone she’d taken from the table, and her smile vanished. “Please get one of these,” Sloan implored. “Please,” she said again for emphasis. “You can buy one for under one hundred dollars, and if you only use it for emergencies, the monthly cost for airtime isn’t much. I realize that for some of you the cost of a cheap cell phone and monthly service may put a strain on your budget, but you can’t put a dollar value on your life, and it’s your life you’re risking without one. If you have one of these when you’re stranded at night in a car, you don’t have to spend the night hiking or hiding. You can phone a tow truck, or the police department, or your husband or boyfriend and tell them you’ll be waiting near the car. After that, all you have to do is stay out of sight until the help you’re expecting arrives.
“Oh, one more thing,” she added as Jess walked into the room. “If you’ve phoned the police, stress that you’ll be near the car, not in it. Don’t just leap out from behind a bush when we get there.”
“Why not?” Sara challenged, smiling directly at Jess.
“Because,” Jess said dryly, “it scares the hell out of us when that happens.”
Everyone laughed, but Sloan had a much different impression of that ostensibly innocent exchange between Sara and Jess. Sara, who was always nice to everyone, had actually meant to force Jess into admitting to fear in front of a roomful of women. Sloan knew that as surely as she knew that Jess, who never took any gibe—or any woman— seriously, had truly resented Sara’s “joke.” They were two of the most attractive, most personable people in all of Bell Harbor. And they couldn’t stand each other. They were Sloan’s closest friends, and the undercurrent of animosity between them had finally risen to the surface and was bursting out into the open.
• • •
Sloan finished her lecture with a reminder that the next session would include some physical self-defense moves and reminded them to wear suitable clothing; then she turned off the television set and removed the video cartridge from the VCR. She’d completely forgotten that Carter Reynolds had reared up out of the dark highway of her own past.
Unfortunately, her respite lasted only until Sara got her alone.
6
“I can’t believe Carter Reynolds is your father!” Sara burst out excitedly the moment the heavy doors of city hall swung closed behind them. “I can not believe it,” she repeated, thinking of the articles she’d seen about him in the “Palm Beach Social Section” of Bell Harbor’s Sunday newspaper.
“I’ve never been able to believe it myself,” Sloan said wryly. “Actually, I’ve never had any reason to believe it,” she added as they walked across the parking lot toward her car.
Sara scarcely heard that; her thoughts were racing down another track. “When we were little kids, you told me your parents got divorced when you were a baby, but you forgot to mention your father is . . . is . . . Carter Reynolds!” she said, lifting her arms to the sky, palms up, as if addressing heaven. “My God, just his name makes me think of yachts and Rolls-Royces and banks and . . . money. Mountains and mountains of glorious money! How could you keep a secret like that from me all these years?”
Sloan hadn’t had a private moment to think about his call, but Sara’s awed exuberance only hardened her own determination to remain unaffected by Carter Reynolds’s illness, his tardy attempt to get to know her, and especially his money. “He isn’t my father, except in the biological sense. In all these years, I’ve never received so much as a birthday card or a Christmas card, or even a phone call from him.”
“But he called you today, didn’t he? What did he want?”
“He wanted me to come to Palm Beach for a visit so we could get to know each other. I told him no. Absolutely no,” Sloan said, hoping to eliminate any debate from Sara. “It’s too late for him to try to play father,” she said as she slid her key into the lock on the door of her car.
Sara was intensely loyal to Sloan, and under ordinary circumstances she would readily have empathized with Sloan’s decision to reject a parent who had rejected Sloan since babyhood. However, from Sara’s point of view, there was nothing “ordinary” about being the daughter of a man who could make Sloan into an heiress. “I don’t think you should be so hasty,” she said, thinking madly for some sort of excuse she could offer for the inexcusable. She voiced the first lame possibility that came to mind.
“I don’t think men need to be close to their children the way women do,” Sara reasoned. “It’s as if they lack some sort of parental chromosome, or something.”
“Sorry,” Sloan said lightly, “but you can’t attribute his utter disinterest in me to defective genetics. From everything I’ve read, he positively dotes on my sister. They play tennis together; they ski together; they play golf together. They’re a team, and a winning one. I’ve lost count of how many trophies I’ve seen the two of them holding on to.”
“Your sister! That’s right! My God, you have a sister, too!” Sara exclaimed, sounding amazed. “I can’t believe it . . . you and I made mud pies together, we did homework together, we even got chicken pox together, and now I discover that you not only have a rich socialite for a father, but you also have a sister you’ve never told me about.”
“I just told you nearly everything I know about her— which is only what I’ve seen in the newspapers. Beyond that, all I know is that her name is Paris and she’s a year older than I am. I’ve never heard from her, either.”
“But how did all this happen?”
Sloan glanced at her watch. “I’ve only got an hour to eat and change clothes, then I’m on duty until nine. If you really want to talk about this, could we do it at my place?”
Sara was almost as flexible as she was fascinated. “I really want to talk about this,” she said, already starting toward her red Toyota two parking spaces away. “I’ll meet you at your place.”
• • •
The stucco house Sloan had bought years ago was on a corner directly across from the beach—a tiny two-bedroom place on a narrow lot in a ten-block neighborhood of tiny, forty-year-old
Sloan had invested all her savings and all her spare time in her own house and had turned it into a picturesque stucco cottage with white window boxes and sparkling white trim that flattered the slate gray color of the stucco. When she first bought her house, the stretch of beach across from it had belonged almost exclusively to the residents of Sloan’s quiet neighborhood. Back then, the street had been quiet, the residents lulled by an undulating silence that deepened and withdrew as each new breaker flung itself onto the beach and receded into the sea.
Bell Harbor’s population explosion had put an end to all that as families with young children looked for a beach without the noise and antics of the college crowd, and they discovered Sloan’s beach. Now, when Sloan turned onto her narrow street at four P.M. on Sunday, it was lined with vehicles parked bumper-to-bumper, some of them directly in front of No Parking signs and others partially blocking residents’ driveways. And although she knew the surf was still rising and falling, she couldn’t hear it above the delighted squeals of the children and the music from their parents’ portable radios.
Sara grabbed the only parking space in sight, and Sloan bit back a smile as she watched Sara force a dark blue Ford sedan to back up so that she could claim the space for herself. The driver let her bluff him out.
“You really have to do something about all those cars,” Sara decreed as she hurried over to Sloan, brushing a smudge off her pants leg. “They’re packed in so tight that I had to squeeze between my car and the one in front of it, and I got dirt on my leg.”
“I count myself lucky when they’re not blocking my driveway,” Sloan joked, unlocking her front door. Inside, the house was cheerful and bright, furnished in casual rattan furniture with pillows covered in a print of palm leaves and yellow hibiscus on a white background.
“I’d count myself lucky if you’d tell me about Carter Reynolds. How did he know where to phone you today?”
“He said he called my mother.”
“So the two of them have stayed in touch over the years?”
“Nope.”
“Wow,” Sara breathed. “I wonder what she thought of his sudden interest in you.”
Sloan could have bet serious money on her mother’s probable reaction, but instead of replying, she tipped her head toward the answering machine, where the red message light was flashing frantically and the call counter indicated that three new messages were waiting. Suppressing a weary smile, she walked over and pressed the message playback button. Her mother’s voice burst out with exactly the tone of youthful delight Sloan had expected to hear. “Sloan, honey, it’s Mom. You’re going to get a wonderful surprise today, but I don’t want to spoil it because I want you to be as surprised as I was. But here’s a hint: Sometime today, you’re going to get a phone call from a man who’s very important to you. Call me at home this afternoon before you go on duty tonight.”
The second message was recorded two minutes after the first one, and it was also from Kimberly Reynolds. “Honey, I was so excited when I left you the last message that I wasn’t thinking straight. I won’t be home until nine tonight, because we’re having a sale on Escada and we’re very busy at the shop, so I told Lydia I’d stay and help until we close. And you can’t call me here at the shop, because it upsets Lydia so much when employees use the shop’s phone, and you know how bad her ulcers are. I don’t want to give her another attack. I can’t stand the suspense, so please leave me a message on my answering machine. Don’t forget. . . .”
Sara looked understandably stunned. “She’s completely thrilled about his phone call.”
“Of course,” Sloan said, shaking her head in amused disbelief at her mother’s typically naïve optimism. According to Sloan’s birth certificate, Kimberly Janssen Reynolds was her mother, but the reality was that Sloan had raised Kimberly and not the reverse. “Why are you surprised?”
“I don’t know. I guess I thought Kim would be carrying some sort of grudge.”
Sloan rolled her eyes at that. “Are we talking about my mom—the same sweet woman who can’t refuse anyone anything because she’s worried she’ll seem rude or hurt their feelings? The same woman who just let Lydia bully her into working an extra six hours, but who dares not use Lydia’s telephone because she’s worried that the overbearing witch will have an ulcer attack if she does? The same underpaid, overworked woman who has run Lydia’s shop for her for fifteen years and who brings in more customers than all the rest of Lydia’s clerks combined?”
Sara, who loved Kimberly almost as much as Sloan did, started to laugh as Sloan finished her comic diatribe. “I can’t believe you actually thought the same woman who practically raised you could carry a grudge against Carter Reynolds, merely because he walked out of her life thirty years ago, broke her heart, and never looked back or contacted her again.”
Grinning, Sara held up her hand. “You’re absolutely right. I must have had a moment of temporary insanity to even suggest such a thing.”
Satisfied with that, Sloan pressed the playback button again. Message number three was also from Kimberly and had been recorded only fifteen minutes before Sloan and Sara walked into the house. “Honey, it’s Mom. I’m at a pay phone in the drugstore on my break. I called the police station, and Jess told me you’d already gotten a long distance phone call from your father, so I’m not ruining your surprise by leaving this message. I’ve been thinking about what you should take with you to Palm Beach. I know you’ve been spending every cent you can spare on your house, but we’ll have to start shopping for a complete new wardrobe for you. Don’t worry honey, by the time you leave for Palm Beach, you’ll have loads of beautiful clothes.”
Sara suppressed a chuckle while Sloan erased the messages and reset the answering machine.
Sloan picked up the phone, dialed her mother’s number, and left a message on her answering machine as Kim had asked her to do. “Hi, Mom, it’s Sloan. I spoke to Carter Reynolds, but I am not going to Palm Beach. I have no desire to get to know that side of the family, and I told him that. Love you. Bye.” With that, she hung up the phone and turned to Sara. “I’m starved,” she announced as if the subject of Carter Reynolds were already buried and forgotten. “I think I’ll fix a tuna sandwich. Would you like one?”
Silently, Sara turned and watched Sloan walk into the kitchen and begin opening cupboards. Now that the shock of the discovery was wearing off, Sara was as hurt as she was baffled by the realization that Sloan and Kim had kept this enormous secret from her. They were her family, closer to her than any family that she’d ever known.
Sara’s own mother had been an abusive alcoholic who didn’t care or even notice when her four-year-old daughter began spending most of her time next door with Kimberly and Sloan Reynolds. Seated beside Sloan at an old kitchen table with a white Formica laminate top and stainless steel legs, Sara had learned to draw with fat crayons in the coloring book Sloan was always willing to share with her, and it was Kim who lavished praise on Sara’s efforts. The following year, when both girls went off to the first day of kindergarten, they were holding hands for courage and wearing identical Snoopy backpacks that Kim had gotten both of them.
When they came home, they were both proudly clutching drawings with big stars put there by their teacher. Kimberly promptly taped Sloan’s drawing onto the refrigerator, but when the girls ran next door to present Sara’s mother with her drawing, Mrs. Gibbon had tossed it onto a cluttered table, where it landed on one of the round wet spots left by her whiskey glass. When Sloan tried to explain about Sara’s star, Mrs. Gibbon screa
Sara held her breath, fearful that Mrs. Reynolds might not want to waste such treasured display space on drawings Sara’s own mother didn’t want, but Kimberly hugged both little girls and said that was a very good idea. The memory was etched forever in Sara’s mind, because she never again felt completely and utterly alone. It was not the last time Sara’s mother caused misery, nor the last time that Sloan interceded for Sara or someone else while she fought back tears and terror. It was not the last time that Kimberly hugged them or consoled them or bought them expensive matching items for school that she couldn’t afford. But it was the last time that Sara felt like a helpless outsider in a cruel, bewildering world where everyone except her had someone to turn to and trust.
In the years that followed, their childish drawings were replaced by their report cards and school pictures and newspaper clippings with their names underlined in red. Coloring books and crayons that had littered the kitchen table gave way to algebra books and term papers; conversational topics changed from teachers who were mean, to boys who were hunks, to money, of which there was never enough. By the time they were teenagers, Sloan and Sara realized that Kim simply could not manage money, and it was Sloan who took over budgeting; some of their other roles were reversed as well. But one thing remained constant, even as it deepened and grew: Sara knew she was a valued, essential part of a family.