Mirror Image

button on the remote control to switch channels. Geraldo Rivera was refereeing a shouting match between a fundamentalist preacher and a cross-dresser. On another station a group of housewives was sniffing open jars of peanut butter. She went back to the soap opera.
    She loved Eddy passionately, but admitted that part of his appeal was his remoteness. She’d known guys who screwed their brains out, literally. The building could fall down around them and they wouldn’t know it until after they climaxed.
    Not Eddy. His physical performance was excellent, but his mind remained detached from his body. Even the most intimate acts never required emotional involvement from him. His participation was almost that of an observer.
    That steely control excited her. It was different, intriguing.
    But sometimes she wished Eddy would gaze at her with dopey adoration like the hunky male soap star was gazing into the face of the gorgeous ingenue. His eyes spoke volumes of unqualified love while his lips nibbled her fingertips.
    Capturing Eddy Paschal’s heart would be a real coup. She would delight in knowing that he couldn’t take his eyes off her, that they would hungrily follow her as she moved about a room.
    She would love for Eddy to be totally absorbed with her like that.
    She would love for him to be absorbed with her the way Uncle Tate was with Aunt Carole.
    *��* *
    Dorothy Rae launched her attack while they were sitting in the limousine waiting for the men to rejoin them. One second she was staring docilely out the window at the red, white, and blue bunting flapping in the wind, the next she was hissing at Avery like a she-cat.
    “You loved it, didn’t you?”
    Mandy’s head was resting in Avery’s lap. The child had become tired and restless at the outdoor rally, so she had returned to the car with her before the program was over. Mandy was asleep now. Dorothy Rae, who had accompanied them back to the car, had been so quiet that Avery had almost forgotten she was there.
    “I’m sorry, what?” she asked vaguely.
    “I said you loved it.”
    Her meaning escaped Avery completely. She shook her head in confusion. “Loved what?”
    “Loved making Jack look like a fool this morning.”
    Was she drunk? Avery took a closer look at her. On the contrary, she seemed in desperate need of a drink. Her eyes were clear but had the blazing wildness of someone gone mad. She was wringing a damp Kleenex between her hands.
    “How did I make Jack look like a fool?” Avery asked.
    “By taking Tate’s side.”
    “Tate is my husband.”
    “And Jack’s mine!”
    Mandy was roused, but after opening her eyes once, she fell back asleep instantly. Dorothy Rae lowered her voice. “That hasn’t stopped you from trying to steal him away from me.”
    “I haven’t tried to steal him.”
    “Not lately, maybe,” she said, taking a swipe at her leaky eyes with the Kleenex, “but before the crash you did.”
    Avery said nothing.
    “The thing that makes it so despicable,” Dorothy Rae continued, “is that you really didn’t want him. As soon as he became interested, you spurned him. You didn’t care that your rejection crushed his ego. You only wanted to get at Tate by flirting with his brother.”
    Avery couldn’t deny the ugly allegations because they were probably true. Carole wouldn’t have had any scruples against having an affair with her husband’s brother, or, just short of that, making out like she was open to one. Most of her pleasure would be derived from the disharmony and devastation it would cause within the family. Perhaps that was all part of Carole’s scheme to destroy Tate.
    “I have no designs on Jack, Dorothy Rae.”
    “Because he’s not the one in the limelight.” Her hand clenched Avery’s arm like a claw. “He never is. Never was. You knew that. Why didn’t you just leave him alone? How dare you play with people’s lives like that?”
    Avery wrenched her arm from the other woman’s grip. “Did you fight me for him?”
    Dorothy Rae wasn’t prepared for a counterattack. She stared at Avery with stupefaction. “Huh?”
    “Did you ever fight me for Jack’s attention, or did you just drink yourself into a stupor every day and let it happen?”
    Dorothy Rae’s face began to work convulsively. Her red-rimmed eyes got redder, wetter. “That’s not a very kind thing to say.”
    “People have been kind to you for too long. Everybody in the family turns a blind eye to your disease.”
    “I