“I know enough to know that killers are very dangerous people!” she said, but he didn’t open his eyes. In fact, he smiled a bit more.
And it was in that moment that something clicked in Ellie’s mind. Maybe it was the crying in a man’s strong arms. Maybe it was once again feeling that she was desirable and not just a money-producing machine that Martin had reduced her to.
Whatever it was, in that second, Ellie gave up her quest for revenge. For three years of her life she had been immobilized by the trauma of what had been done to her and by her ceaseless, never-ending desire for justice.
But now, she was getting what she wanted: a chance to do it all over again. And now she knew that she wasn’t going to do what she’d planned during those long years of misery. She wasn’t going to return to their home near Los Angeles and spend her every waking minute doing to Martin what he’d done to her. No, she wasn’t going to lower herself to his level.
The truth was, that the worst had happened to her and she’d lived through it. Back then, everyone involved had agreed that they’d never seen a nastier divorce than hers, and they’d never seen a judge so personally vindictive as hers had been. But, still, Ellie had survived all that had been dumped on her.
But now she saw that later it hadn’t been the events that had disabled her but her reaction to them. It hadn’t been the loss of the money that she still had to pay to her lazy, lying, philandering ex-husband. It had been Ellie’s self-esteem that had been damaged. Martin had accused her of caring only about herself—and the judge had agreed with him.
While she’d been thinking, Jessie had remained quiet, and when she turned to look at him, she saw that he’d been watching her.
“You have some heavy things going on inside you, don’t you?” he asked softly.
“Yes,” she answered. “I do. But, you know something? I don’t care anymore.” With that, she smiled. She really, really smiled. And she looked about her at the beauty of their surroundings, and she took a deep breath. Maybe the divorce court system in this state was a travesty, but the air was heavenly.
“I don’t want to go home,” she said. “There’s nothing there for me. And when do you want me to have Lew’s wife over for lunch?”
When Jessie didn’t answer, she looked down at him. He was looking up at her with those male eyes again. But this time Ellie didn’t run away. And she certainly didn’t start crying. No, instead, she bent down to kiss him, and in the next moment she had his shirt unbuttoned.
Twenty-four
1980
OHIO
One second Leslie was in the Victorian house of a woman named Madame Zoya and the next she was standing in the dormitory room of her university.
She stood there blinking, disoriented, not sure of what she was seeing. There were two beds in the room, hers, neat and tidy, with its often-washed spread that she’d had since she was a freshman, and the other, her roommate’s bed. It was a jumble of covers that looked as though they’d never been washed.
Leslie’s first thought was that she was going to have to get after Rebecca to make up her bed. And straighten up her desk and—
It was then that the realization of what she was seeing hit Leslie. And when she had the thought, she didn’t believe it. She took a step backward.
And that’s when the realization of her body hit her. She was at least fifteen pounds lighter than she had been ten minutes earlier.
Her mind was clearing now, and even though she didn’t believe what she was seeing and feeling, it seemed to be real.
“Mirror,” she said aloud, then tried to remember back to her college days. Where was the—Ah, back of the closet door.
Opening the door, she was hit with the sight of herself at twenty years old.
Staring back at her was a Leslie Aimes that she hadn’t seen in a long, long time. It wasn’t just the twenty-year-old body that had had a lifetime of twisting and twirling that had made it into this beautiful machine. No, Leslie remembered that body. Every morning when she awoke, she remembered that body—and missed it. She missed being able to bend and stretch and turn with ease and grace.
No, that wasn’t what surprised her as she looked in the mirror. What astonished her was the look of hope on the face of the girl in the mirror.
“When did I lose that?” she asked aloud. “When did I change?”
The Leslie looking back at her had sparkling green eyes that seemed to be on the verge of laughing. This was a girl who believed in herself, was sure that she was going to go far in the world.
This was not a girl who thought she was going to end up a housewife who served on one committee after another. This wasn’t a woman who was terrified that her husband was going to leave her for a girl half her age.
Leaning toward the mirror, Leslie turned her face this way and that. No lines, no wrinkles, just pure, smooth skin. Gone were twenty years of damage caused by playing tennis in the sun and sitting by the club pool with the children. Maybe this time around she’d have sense enough to slather on sunscreen.
“And this girl isn’t afraid of anyone,” she said as she looked at herself. And that thought was a shock to her. When had she become frightened? Had it been when she’d found out that she wasn’t going to be a Great Dancer, in capital letters? Had she become frightened when she’d gone crawling back to Alan, feeling that she was a failure? What had happened to Leslie to change the look that was sparkling in this girl’s eyes?
When the telephone rang, Leslie jumped and looked about for someone to answer it. But then she remembered that it was her phone and she should answer it.