...And Never Let HerGo

Louie Capano—a job Tom had obviously arranged—made it seem like she would be a prisoner.
    Jill had said so many times over the last few months, “I think Tom’s in love with you.” And Anne Marie had always shaken her head and smiled. Now Jill figured love had nothing to do with it. Annie was always doing things that other people wanted her to do, giving up little pieces of herself to make other people happy. But there was something almost scary about Tom Capano.
    After their drink, they split up so they could go home and change for a dressy affair that was part of the continuing bike race festivities. Jill was supposed to pick Anne Marie up, but when she called to say she was on her way, Anne Marie didn’t answer thephone. “I kept calling,” Jill said, “and it got to the point where I was angry—like, we had plans—but I was concerned, too, and I called every fifteen minutes.”
    And then, despite Anne Marie’s protestations that she would not let Tom Capano run her life, Jill knew what had happened. She knew that Annie was with him. She didn’t return any of her calls that night.
    Deliberately playing detective, Jill called Tom the next morning on some pretext of campaign business, and then casually asked if he had seen Anne Marie that morning. He said, “She left for the beach very early this morning.”
    Well, that was clear enough. Jill had been right. And she didn’t want to be right.

Chapter Thirteen
    D ESPITE HER CHAFING AT the invisible bonds that went with seeing Tom, Anne Marie stayed with him. In her view, she was the only thing that kept him from falling into a pit of despair, and she couldn’t desert him. If he was sometimes possessive and unreasonable, she blamed it on the burdens he carried. She had made a pledge to be there for him, and she honored it. While the world saw Tom as powerful and capable,
she
knew that he was a lonely man full of pain. He conveyed that to her often enough, whenever she did something he disapproved of.
    There were many things that Tom didn’t like. He hated her stuffy little apartment and reminded her often that she could have had a lovely apartment for free in north Wilmington if she had only accepted Louie’s job offer. He told her how to dress. Tom didn’t like to have her wear clothing that was too red, too bright, too tight, too short.
    “You look like a whore when you dress like that,” he said frequently. As if a woman whose face was like a blossoming rose with a thick, clean-smelling halo of hair could look like a prostitute. If he hadn’t said it with such venom, it might have been funny. But Tom was never funny when he criticized Anne Marie.
    Too late, she realized she had told him too much about herself. He knew she thought her legs were too big, and that she hated having large breasts. He knew she starved herself when she was frightened,and he knew all about her brother Mark, her searing memories of her childhood, her work at the governor’s office, and all the secret things she worried about. He could use them against her if he wanted.
    Tom particularly disapproved of Anne Marie’s friends and failed to see why she felt it necessary to spend so much time with them. Didn’t he take her to wonderful places that made evenings out with the girls pale by comparison? And of course, he did; they went to Philadelphia for meals at Le Bec-fin, Victor’s, the Saloon, Pamploma, and Panorama. As always, he selected the wine and the entrée. Claiming he was hopeless at figuring percentages (an odd deficiency in a bond lawyer), he routinely slid the check across the table to Anne Marie so that she could calculate the tip. He let her sign his name to the credit card slip.
    Anne Marie’s overwhelming concern about her weight continued; it was impossible for her to enjoy food, no matter how much it cost. Going out to eat was stressful for her, but Tom enjoyed dining out in fine restaurants, so, of course, that was what they did.
    T HE summer of 1995 was almost upon them, and Kim Horstman and Anne Marie were planning to rent a communal house once again. There had never been any question that they would. But it would take at least a half dozen partners to swing a place at the shore; rents were going up. Anne Marie talked with a man in the governor’s office who had located a house to rent, and he figured they would need five other men and maybe three or four women besides Kim and Anne Marie.
    That was fine with Kim; it was a big place, and not