When Jane Lovejoy's husband telephoned to tell her that he had been passed over for the promotion he had been hoping for, and also that he had been denied the raise he was expecting, she knew she would have to do something special to raise his spirits, and that there was some heavy lifting ahead.
Richard was more fragile and temperamental than their four-year-old son, and he would need something sweet to soothe his bruised ego; Jane figured a trip over to Lake Street and an evening of sinful-fun would be just the thing to keep him calm...she would enjoy it too. More importantly it would distract him from his worries and his shame, keep him from turning his resentment and anger against her...or their son.
She sent the boy to her mother's in Linden Hills, she had the servants prepare a platter of food they could eat at room temperature, including a roast beef and a chicken that would keep well for hours in the ice box.
Her maid helped her with her hair and dress, after-witch Jane sent everyone home so that she could be alone with her husband when he arrived; then she fixed herself a martini about a half an hour before Richard came home.
It was raining hard by the time he arrived and Jane's timing was perfect.
He had parked the car under the port cochere so that he was barely damp when he came through the side door into the parlor. She went to greet him there with a lit cigarette in one hand and a brandy Manhattan, made just the way he liked it, in the other.
Jane loved her husband and she was sad to see him come through the door with his shoulders sagging and the air of defeat hanging about him.
His face was set in a mean-grimace, but when he saw his wife standing in the light of the Tiffany chandelier, slender and blonde and wearing a slinky dress, his mood began to change.
Jane wore her make-up done in her signature sultry-style, I married a movie-star, Richard thought. As kind as Dorris Day and as daring as Mae West, the perfect woman.
Richard only paused for a second, as he felt his sense of failure magnifying for the span of a heartbeat, then his troubles simply vanished as he gazed at Jane's glossy red lips. He let those feelings go and allowed his imagination to fill the hole in his heart with expectations of what the night promised to become.
The way jane had greeted him gave Richard the understanding that his loving-wife was going to spend her money pampering him once again, not to celebrate his success, but to compensate him for his poor performance at the Lumber Exchange where he sat in her father's chair.
Jane walked toward him with her pale thighs barely rubbing together, allowing him to see the hem of her stockings and catch a glimpse of her garter belt below the fringe of her too-short, emerald gown.
She handed him his drink and the lit Pall Mall; then kissed him lightly on the lips, brushing them languidly with the tip of her tongue as Richard moaned with delight. With one sip of his Manhattan and a puff from the Pall Mall, the scent of his wife's perfume and the luxuriousness of her kiss, the sting of shame he had been nursing since the morning meeting with the board melted away.
The house was quiet.
Richard knew they were alone, and soon they would be headed to the strip; his wife would dope him up and let him smother his woes between the breasts of an anonymous immigrant girl, then she would call her father in the morning to tell him that he was too sick to come in.