“Celina and Reede had a falling out the spring of our junior year. As soon as school was out for the summer, she went to visit cousins in El Paso.”
“That’s where she met my father.” Alex knew this much of the story from her grandmother. “He was going through boot camp at Fort Bliss. Soon after they were married, he got shipped to Vietnam.”
Stacey sneered, “And after he died, she wanted to take back up with Reede, but he wouldn’t have her. That’s when she kindled Junior’s hopes. She knew he’d always wanted her, but he never would have pursued it, on account of Reede. It was disgraceful how she played up to Junior, involving him with her pregnancy. She might have toyed with the idea of marrying him, but it never would have happened as long as Reede Lambert drew breath.
“Your mother kept Junior dangling by a thread of hope. She made his life miserable. She would have gone on making him miserable if she had lived.” The former Mrs. Minton drew a choppy breath that caused her shapeless chest to stagger as it rose and fell. “I was glad when Celina died.”
A spark of suspicion leaped into Alex’s eyes. “Where were you that night?”
“At home unpacking. I’d just returned from a week’s vacation in Galveston.”
Would she lie over something so easily checked? “You married Junior right away.”
“That’s right. He needed me. I knew that I was only a panacea for his grief, just like I’d always known when he made love to me that it was Celina he really wanted. But I didn’t care if he used me. I wanted to be used. I cooked his meals, took care of his clothes, nurtured him in bed and out.”
Her expression changed as she lapsed into a private reverie. “I overlooked the first time he was unfaithful to me. I was crushed, naturally, but I could understand how easily it had happened. Whenever we went out, women flocked to him. What man could resist such a strong temptation? The affair didn’t last long before he lost interest.” She clasped her hands and studied them as she spoke softly. “Then there was another. And another. I would have tolerated all his lovers if only he’d stayed married to me.
“But he asked me for a divorce. At first I refused. He kept on and on, telling me that he hated hurting me with his affairs. When I was left no option, I granted the divorce. It broke my heart, but I gave him what he wanted, knowing, knowing,” she repeated with emphasis, “that no other woman would ever be as right for him as I was. I thought I’d die with the pain of loving him too well.”
She shook herself out of the reflective mood and beaded on Alex. “And I still have to stand by and watch him move from woman to woman, all the time searching for what I can and want to give him. I had to watch him dance and flirt with you tonight. You! My God,” she sobbed, tilting her face toward the ceiling and pressing her fist to her forehead, eyes squeezed shut. “You want to ruin him, and he still can’t see beyond your pretty face and body.”
She lowered her hand and glared at Alex. “You are poison, Miss Gaither. I feel the same way about you tonight as I did twenty-five years ago.” Closing the distance between them and putting her narrow, angular face close to Alex’s she hissed, “I wish you’d never been born.”
Alex’s attempts to compose herself after Stacey’s departure had been in vain. Her face was pale and she was trembling as she walked out of the powder room.
“I was about to come in and get you.” Junior was waiting for Alex in the hallway. At first he didn’t notice her troubled expression. When he did, he was instantly concerned. “Alex? What’s the matter?”
“I’d like to leave now.”
“Are you sick? What’s—”
“Please. We’ll talk on the way.”
Without further argument, Junior took her arm and steered her toward the cloakroom, where he asked the attendant for their coats. “Wait here.” Alex watched him reenter the club, skirt the dance floor, and move to the table where they had eaten dinner. After a brief exchange with Angus and Sarah Jo, he returned in time to claim their coats.
He hustled her outside and into the red Jaguar. He waited until they were a good distance from the club and the car’s heater was pumping warm air before he addressed her across the plush interior. “All right, what gives?”
“Why didn’t you tell me that you were married to Stacey Wallace?”
He stared at her until it became a driving hazard, then turned his head and fixed his eyes on the road ahead. “You didn’t ask.”
“How glib.”
She laid her head against the cold passenger window, feeling like she’d just sustained a beating with a chain and was due to enter the ring for round two. Just when she thought she had finished sorting through all the pieces of the various liaisons of Purcell, another intricate twist emerged.
“Is it important?” Junior asked.
“I don’t know.” She turned her shoulders toward him and rested the back of her head on the window. “You tell me. Is it?”
“No. The marriage lasted less than a year. We parted friends.”
“You parted friends. She’s still in love with you.”
He winced. “That was one of our problems. Stacey’s love is obsessive and possessive. She shackled me. I couldn’t breathe. We—”
“Junior, you screwed around,” she interrupted impatiently. “Spare me the banal explanations. I really don’t care.”
“Then why’d you bring it up?”