Bleeding Hearts Read Free Page B

remembered with perfect clarity the day Jacqueline had moved into the town house on Society Hill. This tall woman with the heavy perfume and the immense fur coat. This cawing female with her Miss Porter’s School accent and her field-hockey legs. This—stranger, really—whom she was now supposed to love. Hadn’t they realized that love couldn’t be commanded like that? Hadn’t they considered the effect it might all have on her? If it had been only one incident in an otherwise adequate life, it would have been different. Caroline’s life had not been otherwise adequate. Caroline’s life had been an epic of emotional neglect and dysfunctional conditioning. That was why, now, at the age of forty-two—
    Now, at the age of forty-two, Caroline was sitting at her desk in her office off the back hall of WPBP, trying to remember just what equipment she needed to bring home with her so she could take it to Westchester tomorrow to give her demonstration. She had written the list out last night and put it in her bag so she would have it when she needed it, but somehow it had gotten lost. She had reminded herself during coffee break this morning to come down to the office to check it all out as soon as she got a chance, but she never did get a chance. Coffee break had been difficult and lunch had been impossible. She had called her Overeaters Anonymous buddy, but she hadn’t been able to get through. Then the day had gone on getting worse and worse, and here she was.
    Seven-fifteen. Sitting in the office. Trying to remember what to bring. What Caroline Hazzard did for a living was to produce a local public television show on home improvement for women. Once or twice a week, she gave lectures on home improvement for women to women’s groups. The lectures were always project-specific. How to design an addition. How to build a staircase. How to replace a floor that had rotted from mildew and humidity with one that wouldn’t rot anytime soon. Caroline liked solid, practical projects that women could go home and start work on immediately. She liked specific step-by-step information that could be followed to inevitable success. She liked to see women empowered. She wanted to help women build their self-esteem. It was just that there was something wrong in her, that was all. It was just her programming that was off. That was why she couldn’t ever seem to feel empowered or full of self-esteem herself.
    There was a spray of crumbs across the corner of her desk—her sister Alyssa’s crumbs, from the Peak Freans Alyssa had been eating when she’d dropped in to visit half an hour before. It was Alyssa who had made Caroline think of Jacqueline Isherwood. Alyssa always did things like that. Alyssa was a saboteur.
    They were all saboteurs.
    Caroline leaned forward and pressed the intercom buzzer. A moment later the speaker crackled and Sandy’s voice said, “Yes? Miss Hazzard? Can I do something for you?”
    Caroline felt momentarily guilty. Sandy must have a life of her own outside the office. It couldn’t be right for Caroline to make her stay late just because Caroline couldn’t make up her mind what to do next. What was Sandy doing down there, at her desk in the typing pool, with no work to do and nobody to talk to?
    If there was something Sandy wanted, it was Sandy’s responsibility to ask for it. That was what they taught you in Group. It was a symptom of codependency to think you had an obligation to read other people’s minds.
    “Sandy,” Caroline said. “Yes. I need some help. Could you come in here for a minute?”
    “I’d be glad to.”
    “Bring your copy of the Westchester itinerary with you if you have it. I seem to have misplaced mine for the moment.”
    “I have it, Miss Hazzard. I’ll be right in.”
    Was that a tongue-click of annoyance Caroline heard, coming at the end of Sandy’s sentence? Caroline didn’t like Sandy much. She didn’t think Sandy liked her either. If it had been up to Caroline, Sandy