Public Secrets

tonight.”
“Mine’s done.” Teresa smiled her pert smile. “If you do my ears, I’ll give you my notes.”
Marianne moved her shoulders as if debating. “Well, okay then.”
“Great. Wow, I almost forgot why I came over.” She dug into the deep pocket of her frilly pink robe and pulled out a magazine article. “My sister sent this to me because she knows I go to school with you, Emma. She cut it out of People . Have you ever seen that magazine? It’s just great. It has pictures of everybody. They have like Robert Redford on the cover and Burt Reynolds. All the hunks.”
“I’ve seen it,” Emma said, because she knew it was the only way to shut Teresa up.

“Sure you have, because your dad’s been in there lots of times. Anyway, I knew you’d just be dying to see it, so I brought it over.”
Because her stomach had settled, Emma propped herself up, then took the article. The nausea came back with a vengeance.
E TERNAL T RIANGLE
There was Bev rolling on the floor with another woman. And Da, with a look of stunned fury on his face, reaching down for her. Bev’s dress was ripped, and there was a kind of wild anger in her eyes. The same kind, Emma remembered, as had been there the last time she’d seen her.
“I knew you’d want it,” Teresa was saying cheerfully. “So I brought it over. That’s your mother, isn’t it?”
“My mother,” Emma murmured, staring at Bev’s picture.
“The blond lady in the glittery dress. Wow, I’d just die to have a dress like that. Jane Palmer. She’s your mother, right?”
“Jane.” She focused on the other woman now. The old fear came back, just as real, just as ripe as it had been ten years before. Just as stunning as it had been when another girl had shown her a smuggled-in copy of Devastated with Jane’s picture on the back cover.
It was Jane. Bev was fighting with her, and Da was there. What could they have been fighting about? Hope flashed through the fear. Perhaps Da and Bev were together. Perhaps they would all be together again.
She shook her head to clear it and focused on the text.
Those of the British upper crust who paid two hundred pounds a head for salmon mousse and champagne at a charity dinner at the Mayfair in London got more than their money’s worth. Beverly Wilson, successful decorator and estranged wife of Brian McAvoy of Devastation, went head to head with Jane Palmer, McAvoy’s former lover and author of the best-selling roman à clef, Devastated .

What prompted the hair-pulling match is up for speculation, but sources say the old rivalry has never cooled down. Jane Palmer is the mother of McAvoy’s daughter, Emma, age thirteen. Emma McAvoy, who inherited her father’s poetic looks, attends a private school somewhere in the States.
Beverly Wilson, who has been estranged from McAvoy for several years, was the mother of McAvoy’s only son, Darren. The child was tragically murdered seven years ago in a case that still baffles police.
McAvoy did not attend the function with either Miss Palmer or Miss Wilson, but with his current flame, singer Dory Cates. Though McAvoy separated the wrestlers personally, few words were exchanged between Wilson and McAvoy before she left with date P. M. Ferguson, drummer for the veteran rock group. Neither McAvoy nor Wilson were available for comment on the incident, but Palmer claims she will include the scene in her new book.
To borrow McAvoy’s own lyrics, it seems “old fires run hot and run long.”
There was more, talk about others who had attended and the comments they made about the incident. There was a description of the clothes and a tongue-in-cheek remark about, what both Jane and Bev had worn, and torn off each other. But she didn’t read any further. Didn’t need to.
“It’s neat, isn’t it, the way they were ripping each other’s dresses, right out in public?” Teresa’s eyes shone with excitement. “Do you think they were fighting over your father? He’s so dreamy, I bet they were. It’s just like in the movies.”
“Yeah.” Since strangling Teresa would only get her suspended, Marianne vetoed it. There were other, subtler ways to deal with idiots. She picked up the needle. She’d pierce Teresa’s flappy ears all right. And if she forgot the ice, it was an honest mistake. “You’d better get going, Teresa. Sister Immaculata’s going to be coming through any minute.”
With a little squeal, Teresa sprang up. She didn’t want to spoil her perfect record with a