“Oh, that’s good,” Primrose said. “Very good indeed.” Abruptly, she stood. “Now, dear, you must excuse me, as I have work to do.”
“Yes, of course,” Ellie said, putting down her teacup, then standing. “It was very nice to meet you, and I hope—”
But Primrose was hurrying toward the front door as though she couldn’t wait to get rid of Ellie, and seconds later, Ellie was standing outside on the porch, the door closed behind her.
“That was abrupt,” she said, then walked to the street. Digging into her bag, she pulled out her cell phone and called the hotel in Bangor. “I’m on my way home,” she said when Jessie answered.
“Good. Nate and I’ve missed you,” he said.
“I’ve missed you too,” Ellie answered as she turned the phone off and headed for where she’d parked her rental car. She was smiling all the way.
As soon as Ellie was out of sight, Primrose dropped the curtain back into place, then walked down the long corridor toward the back of the house. There was a small room with rose-patterned wallpaper on it. The furnishings were sparse, just three fat chairs and a rug on the oak floor. Walking across the room, Primrose pushed on a rose that looked like every other rose on the wall, and a door opened.
Behind the door was a tiny room, hardly bigger than a closet, but inside there was a little table against the far wall, and on it was a large glass globe, what some people would call a crystal ball. On hooks on the left wall were velvet clothes and a bright orange wig.
On the right wall, from floor to ceiling, were photographs of people.
Primrose went to the little table and picked up three brochures and a pair of scissors. Slowly, she began to cut out photos from the brochures.
One picture was of Ellie, clipped from a sales announcement about one of her forthcoming books. Another photo was of Leslie, cut from a program about a showing of her paintings, and one was of Madison, cut out of a brochure of “distinguished graduates” from her Montana high school.
On the wall were the Polaroid pictures that were taken of the three women years ago, and, now, beside each one, Primrose pinned the new photos; then she stepped back and looked at the differences in the pictures. In the original pictures there was a sadness about each woman that showed clearly in her eyes. But in the new photos the sadness was gone.
Smiling in satisfaction, Primrose stepped further back from the wall and looked at all the photographs. There were over a hundred men’s and women’s photos on the wall, and beside each one was a new picture. In some, the first photos were better than the second one. But in most, the second photo showed amazing differences in the way they looked out at the world. For a moment, Primrose gazed at the picture of a man wearing dark glasses. He had been blinded in an accident when he was fourteen. Beside the photo of him in dark glasses was a picture of a man who was looking into the camera and smiling.
With a self-satisfied little sigh, Primrose opened the drawer, withdrew three business cards and slipped them into her pocket. She left the little room, closing the door behind her, then made her way through the house to the front door. Once she was outside, she paused a moment to stand on the porch and smile; then she went down the stairs toward the street.
The Mulberry Tree
JUDE DEVERAUX
Turn the page for a preview of
The Mulberry Tree . . . .
Chapter 1
He needed me.
Whenever anyone—usually a reporter—asked me how I coped with a man like Jimmie, I smiled and said nothing. I’d learned that whatever I said would be misquoted, so I simply kept quiet. Once, I made the mistake of telling the truth to a female reporter. She’d looked so young and so in need herself that for a moment I let my guard down. I said, “He needs me.” That’s all. Just those three words.
Who would have thought that a second of unguarded honesty could cause so much turmoil? The girl—she had certainly not attained the maturity of womanhood—parlayed my small sentence into international turmoil.
I was right in thinking she herself was needy. Oh yes, very needy. She needed a story so she fabricated one. Never mind that she had nothing on which to base her fable.
I must say that she was good at research. She couldn’t have slept during the two weeks between my remark and the publication of her story. She consulted psychiatrists, self-help gurus, and clergy. She interviewed hordes of rampant feminists. Every famous woman who had ever hinted that she hated men was interviewed and quoted.
In the end Jimmie and I were portrayed as one sick couple. He was the domineering tyrant in public, but a whimpering child at home. And I was shown to be a cross between steel and an ever-flowing breast.
When the article came out and caused a sensation, I wanted to hide from the world. I wanted to retreat to the most remote of Jimmie’s twelve houses and never leave. But Jimmie was afraid of nothing—which was the true secret of his success—and he met the ques
tions, the derisive laughter and, worse, the pseudo-therapists who felt it was our “duty” to expose every private thought and feeling to the world head-on.
Jimmie just put his arm around me, smiled into the cameras, and laughed in answer to all of their questions. Whatever they asked, he had a joke for a reply.
“Is it true, Mr. Manville, that your wife is the power behind the throne?” The reporter asking this was smiling at me in a nasty way. Jimmie was six-foot-two and built like the bull some people said he was, and I am five-foot-two and round. I’ve never looked like the power behind anyone.
“She makes all the decisions. I’m just her front man,” Jimmie said, his smile showing his famous teeth. But those of us who knew him saw the coldness in his eyes. Jimmie didn’t like any disparagement of what he considered his. “I couldn’t have done it without her,” he said in that teasing way of his. Few people knew him well enough to know whether or not he was joking.