The Mulberry Tree

“Everything okay?” he asked. “I heard the phone.”

“Yeah,” she said, but Phillip had upset her. Lately she’d come close to forgetting that she’d ever been James Manville’s fat wife. It had been days since “what Jimmie said” and “what Jimmie did” had run through her mind. She’d been very worried about Arleen or Carol making a slip, but they were used to keeping secrets. One afternoon Carol had said, “Do you think I want them to know that my husband works for billionaires?” The way she said it made Bailey laugh. She made “billionaire” sound as though it were a contagious disease.

“No,” Bailey said to Matt, but she didn’t look at him. “Just an old friend. Celebrating. It’s his birthday.”

When Matt didn’t move, she knew that he knew she was lying.

“Yeah,” he said coldly. “Or maybe it was a wrong number.” He didn’t give Bailey a chance to say any more before he closed her door, and she heard him turn and go up the stairs to the attic. He wasn’t going back to bed but upstairs to work.

Bailey tried to go back to sleep, but Phillip’s call had upset her too much. Why hadn’t he asked about Carol? she wondered. Or his daughters? Surely he knew that his entire family was in Virginia with Bailey. Or did he?

An hour later Bailey got up, dressed, and went to the kitchen. By the time Alex got up, she’d made a six-inch-tall stack of crepes, with four different sauces. Matt came to the table, but he didn’t eat or say much.

Even when Alex said, “Good thing you’ve lost your appetite, old man. Men your age put on weight real easy,” Matt didn’t respond.

“What’s wrong with him?” Alex asked when Matt left the house to go to work.

“Just . . . adult things,” she said, sounding as though Alex were five.

“Ah, sex,” he said, smiling at her. “You’re right. I have a father like mine, and I have no idea about sex.”

“It isn’t sex,” Bailey said with heavy sarcasm. “Not between Matthew Longacre and me. I can assure you of that.”

“Yeah?” Alex said, rolling up another crepe and filling it with ricotta cheese and orange-infused sauce. “What’s the matter? Old Matt can’t? Because that’s the only reason, if he isn’t.”

“Whatever are you talking about?”

“Lust, Miss B. Old-fashioned lust. The kind that causes wars. That man is so hot for you that he’s about to come apart.”

“You’re crazy, and you’re going to be late. Stop eating and go!”

“If you don’t believe me, you should go up to him and put your hand down—”

“Out! Get out of here! And do try not to become like your father.”

He grabbed his books and ran toward the front door as she heard the school bus stop in front of the house. “I’m too beautiful to ever end up like him,” Alex called, then grinned when Bailey laughed.

Twenty

The commercial was a great success. Everyone gathered at Bailey’s house to watch it, and she had to admit that the men, once they realized the women were going to open a business no matter what they did, had given in graciously.

“I’ve been so excited about all this that Rick and I’ve had the best sex of our lives,” Patsy confided to Bailey. “He wants me to open two businesses. What about you and Matt?”

“Three,” Bailey said quickly, then smiled when Patsy giggled.

Bailey had set up food outside, but they were so nervous that none of the women could eat anything while they waited for the commercial t

o come on. For a moment Bailey stood back and watched everyone. Mother Theresa once said that what hurt people more than poverty or illness was feeling that they weren’t needed. And now, looking at the people gathered under her mulberry tree, she was sure that Mother Theresa was right. All the women there today, herself included, had changed in the last weeks, and it was because they felt that they now had a purpose in life.

The biggest change had been in Arleen. In all the years that she’d hung around Jimmie, Bailey had never been able to stand her. She was a parasite. But Arleen had turned out to be a great asset to them, and in the last weeks she’d put on weight as she’d tasted and retasted Bailey’s recipes. She nixed half the designs that Carla proposed, saying that they looked as though they were intended for “trailer trash.” “Careful,” Bailey had said, “your origins are showing.” In the end, it was thanks to Arleen that they ended up with a simple label that conveyed that the product was classy and elegant, but also affordable.

Carol had been a good influence on Violet; the older woman had dropped twenty pounds, and Bailey hadn’t seen her with a joint in her hands for days.

“It’s time,” Carol said, and everyone halted for a split second before they all ran toward Bailey’s back door. Alex and Patsy’s twin sons became jammed in the doorway—with Carla in the middle.

“Stop that!” Patsy said as she swatted her nearest son with a rolled-up catalog.

Laughing, the boys moved back and let Carla go ahead of them.