Born To Be Wild

“The Board of County Commissioners certainly think she’s a strong candidate. They’re saying she could be a state senator by the time she’s thirty-five. I’m glad to see you’re over your snit with her, Mary Lisa.”

Mary Lisa cocked her head slightly to one side and put on her best poker face. “What snit would that be, Mother?”

“Your resentment of your sister ever since she married Mark Bridges. It’s time you got over it and moved on.”

What was she to say to that? Of course there was some truth to it. She remembered what an infatuated twit she’d been, ready to leave L.A. and her brand-new role as Sunday Cavendish on Born to Be Wild, forget all about an acting career for the dubious privilege of becoming Mark Bridges’s wife, move back to Goddard Bay and-what? Thank the good Lord that noodle-brained, rudderless Mary Lisa Beverly no longer existed. She seemed like a stranger from another lifetime. Mark Bridges was as handsome as Brad Pitt playing Achilles but without the rough edges. No, he was as smooth as a rock in a creek bed, and, unfortunately, faithless as a French ally. Had she really been that stupid, that recently? Yes, she had, but that was before she became a bonafide grown-up, even if she did have some goo left in her otherwise solid center. Mary Lisa smiled, a joyous, full-bodied smile, and sat forward a little. “Between us, Mother, let me tell you that I send endless thanks heavenward that Monica took Mark away from me. Imagine if I’d married him before he betrayed me.” She actually shuddered.

Her mother’s voice was sharp. “You make it sound inevitable, his betrayal.”

“I think he’s that kind of man.”

“That’s your bitterness talking, Mary Lisa, your envy. Mark would never betray Monica. He worships her. Nor was it really betrayal. After all, you weren’t married, and that was the whole point. There were no vows to break. He married Monica; he would never look at another woman now.”

Mary Lisa gri

Red stained her mother’s cheeks. “Is that the way you talk down in Los Angeles?”

“Well, it seems to be the way everyone speaks most everywhere unless they’re with their mothers and then they catch themselves. As I did.”

Her mother swiftly got to her feet, smoothed down her lovely cream linen slacks. “We eat di

THIRTEEN

“He’s a bastard.”

You said that already, Mary Lisa thought, but she nodded dutifully. She was begi

“Hmm.”

“I can’t believe I ever saw anything in him.”

“He sounds pretty bad, all right. Mother said he was crude and controlling, didn’t like you being independent.”

“Sure. That goes without saying. He works with lowlifes all day, naturally he’d become crude.”

“You mean other lawyers?”

“Ha ha. Yes, His Highness expected me to be at his beck and call, as if he thought I’d stay in my apartment until he a

“What apartment? I thought you were living here.”

“Jared and I moved to an apartment. Then I kicked him out. I kept the apartment, but after I broke it off with John two days ago, I decided I’d stay here for a while.”

“So tell me about Jared.”

“Jared He

“You were married to this guy? I mean, he was your husband?”

“Yeah, for all of two weeks, then poof, it was over.”

And no one bothered to tell me, Mary Lisa thought, not even Kelly.

“He works out too much, Mary Lisa. I’d want to go to a movie or a restaurant, but no, he wanted to work out, or run, claimed it de-stressed him. He thought only about himself.”

“Jared He

“No, John Goddard.”

“Okay. Well, it’s too bad you didn’t notice all this bad stuff-about John Goddard-until after you’d slept with him.”

To her surprise, Kelly looked down at her Ferragamo-clad feet, then shoved her hands into the pockets of her black slacks. “Yeah, well, I didn’t get pregnant, no thanks to him.”

Now this was serious. “You mean he refused to wear a condom?”

Kelly jumped to her feet. “I’m hungry. You sure are ski

Oh joy. Mary Lisa shook her head. “Nope. I left all my scenes in L.A.” She shoved her sister out of her bedroom and shut the door.

Kelly had been very busy. But why had she moved back home? To lick her wounds? But wouldn’t their mother be all over her? Well, maybe not. She’d see about that at di

She hadn’t brought any dress-up clothes with her. Her mother would notice. Did she care?

If Mary Lisa had harbored the notion she could make it unscathed through a meal with her entire family plus her ex-fiancé, Mark Bridges, she knew now she’d been as bright as a Russian lightbulb. Three years was a long time, but since it appeared that no one and nothing ever changed, it ended up being like yesterday. The pot was still bubbling gaily under the lid.

MARY Lisa chewed slowly and lovingly on a blackened shrimp so deliciously hot and spicy it set her mouth to smoking. Mrs. Abrams had studied Creole cooking under Paul Prudhomme himself. Mary Lisa couldn’t imagine the great man preparing the shrimp any better.

She sipped a crisp dry Chardo

“She can charm lemon juice out of an onion,” Mark said. He toasted his wife, taking her hand and kissing her palm.

You obnoxious snake, Mary Lisa thought, you shed your skin so well, I’ll bet no one ever notices all the rot you leave lying in your wake.

She caught herself, surprised her feelings were still so strong. She’d perhaps expected some lingering rage, perhaps a dollop of remembered humiliation, but no, this was bone-deep disgust. How nice. She gave all her attention to her father, George Beverly. Ah, but he was handsome, tall, lean, auburn haired, with eyes so blue that some people who met him for the first time thought they might be colored contacts. She watched her father continue the conversation with his eldest daughter. “What do you think your opponent will do? Might he retire?”