Sighing, Parker leaned back in his chair and reluctantly told her of something she hadn't known. "Meredith, Sally Mansfield saw—and probably heard—the whole confrontation. We'll be lucky if everyone doesn't read about it in her column tomorrow."
"I hope she prints it," Philip said.
"I don't," Parker countered, ignoring Philip's glower with his usual unruffled calm. "I don't want people asking questions about why Meredith snubbed him."
Leaning her head back, Meredith let out a ragged sigh and closed her eyes. "If I'd had time to think, I wouldn't have done it—not so openly, anyway."
"Several of our friends were asking about it already tonight," Parker said. "We'll have to think of some explanation," he began, but Meredith interrupted him.
"Please," she said wearily, "not tonight. I for one would like to go to bed."
"You're right," Parker said, and stood up, giving Philip little choice except to leave with him.
Chapter 18
It was nearly noon by the time Meredith got out of the shower. Clad in burgundy wool slacks and a sweater, with her hair pulled up into a ponytail, she wandered into the living room and looked with renewed dismay at the Sunday Tribune she'd flung onto the sofa after seeing Sally Mansfield's column. The very first item Sally had written was about last night's fiasco: Women all over the world seem to be falling prey to Matthew Farrell's legendary charm, but our own Meredith Bancroft is certainly immune to him. At the opera benefit ball Saturday night, she gave him what would have been called in olden days the "cut direct." Our lovely Meredith, who is reputedly gracious to one and all, refused to shake Matthew Farrell's hand. One wonders why.
Too tense to work and too weary to go out, Meredith stood in the center of the lovely room, looking at the antique tables and chairs as if they were as unfamiliar to her as her own inner turmoil. The Persian carpet beneath her feet was patterned in pale green and rose on a cream background. Everything was exactly as she'd wanted it, from the chintz draperies pulled back from the wide windows to the ornate French desk she'd found at an auction in New York. This apartment, with its view of the city, had been her only real extravagance—this and the BMW she'd bought five years earlier. Today the room seemed jumbled and unfamiliar, exactly as her thoughts were.
Abandoning the notion of working for a while, she walked into the kitchen and poured a cup of coffee. With her back against the counter, she sipped her coffee, waiting for the feeling of unreality to vanish, avoiding thinking about last night until her head cleared. With a fingernail she idly traced the vines that wound through the ceramic tiles on the countertop. Plants hung from the ceiling over the breakfast nook, basking in the sunlight coming through the windows. Today the sky was overcast. So was she. The hot, fresh coffee was doing more to erase the numbness in her mind than the shower had, and as full awareness returned, she could hardly bear the angry shame she felt for her behavior last night. Unlike Parker and her father, Meredith didn't regret what she had done because of a fear about the repercussions of Sally Mansfield's column. What hammered at her was the fact that she had lost control—no, that she had lost her mind! Years ago she had forced herself to stop blaming Matthew Farrell, not so much for his sake but for her own, because the fury and pain she'd felt at his betrayal had been more than she could endure. A year after her miscarriage, she had made herself think over, objectively, all that had happened between them; she had struggled and worked for that objectivity, and when she'd found it, she'd clung to it until it was a part of her.
Objectivity—and a psychologist she'd talked to in college—had enabled her to understand that what had happened to them had been inevitable. They'd been forced to marry each other, and except for the child they'd conceived together, they did not have one single other reason to stay married. They'd had nothing in common, nor would they ever have had. Matt had been callous in the way he'd ignored her plea to come home from South America when she miscarried, and more callous in his immediate demand for a divorce. But beneath his surface charm, he'd always been invulnerable and uncompromising. How could he be otherwise, given his background? He'd had to fight his way through life, coping with a drunken father, a young sister, a job in the steel mills, and all the rest. If he weren't tough, and hard, and consumed with self-purpose, he'd never have made it out of there. When he treated Meredith with such painful indifference eleven years ago, he was simply being what he was: hard and cold and tough. He'd done bis duty and married her, prompted perhaps partially by greed. He'd soon realized Meredith had no money of her own and, when she lost the baby, he had no further reason to remain married to her. He had none of her values, and if they'd stayed married, he'd have broken her heart. She'd come to understand all that—or at least she'd thought she had. And yet, last night, for one horrible, turbulent moment she'd lost her objectivity and her composure. That should never have happened, wouldn't have happened if she'd had just a few minutes warning before she had to confront him—or if he hadn't smiled at her in that warm, familiar, intimate way! Her hand had actually itched to slap that phony smile off his face.
What she'd said to Stanton had been what she felt; what dismayed her most were the uncontrollable, wrenching feelings that had made her say it. And what she feared was that it might happen again. But even as the thought occurred to her, she realized there was no possibility of that. Except for resenting the fact that Matt had become more handsome, and had acquired more superficial charm than any man with his utter lack of scruples had a right to, she felt nothing now. Evidently, the explosion of emotions she'd felt last night had been the last feeble eruption from a dead volcano.
Now that she'd reasoned her way through it, Meredith felt considerably better. Pouring another cup of coffee, she carried it into the living room and sat down at her desk to work. Her beautiful apartment once again felt orderly and familiar and serene—just like her mind. She glanced at the telephone on her desk, and for one absurd instant she felt an impulse to call Matt Farrell and do what good breeding dictated: apologize for making a scene. She dismissed that nonsensical impulse with a light shrug as she opened her briefcase and took out the financial data for the Houston store. Matthew Farrell hadn't given a damn about what she thought or what she did when they were married. Therefore, he certainly wouldn't care what she did last night. Besides, he was so egotistical and so inured, nothing could hurt or offend him.
Chapter 19