An Inconvenient Woman

by An Inconvenient Woman (retail) (epub)

  “Okay,” Destiny said breezily. “No problem.”

  When I added nothing, she said, “You want to, like, give me your card or something?”

  “What for?”

  “So I can call you after this meet-up with Claire. I mean, we should keep each other posted, right?”

  “Don’t worry, I’ll keep in touch.”

  She seemed to think that we were now on an equal footing. Two professionals sin eaters.

  “Maybe I could work for you,” she said. “It seems like fun.”

  I let her believe this.

  “And I’d be good at it,” Destiny added enthusiastically.

  It struck me that the world inside Destiny’s head was entirely unreal. One in which procuring an underage girl led quite naturally to an upward career move.

  I kept these thoughts to myself, of course.

  “Let’s see how well you do with Claire,” I told her.

  She seemed almost to melt in the warm glow of a new career possibility. “This could be great.”

  I smiled.

  “Yes,” I said. “It could.”

  Claire

  DESTINY OPENS THE door, then steps back to let me in.

  Her apartment looks more like a place hastily abandoned than where someone actually lives. Clothes are strewn about, as well as take-out boxes from 24/7. The sofa bed is pulled out, the bedding wadded up, with part of a blanket pouring over the side, where it gathers in a ratty pool on the floor.

  “Just a second,” Destiny says as she clears a space on one of the studio’s two chairs. When she finishes, she shrugs. “Okay, I’m not a neatnik.”

  She seems to feel that the untidiness of her apartment reflects the disarray in her life. Which it may. But I’m not here to judge. I sit down and wait for Destiny to speak. She has brought me here to listen. That’s what I intend to do.

  “I eat takeout,” she says. “Otherwise I’d offer you something.”

  “That’s okay.”

  Destiny pauses briefly, then begins. “Everything sucks.”

  She reaches for a pack of cigarettes, thumps one out, and offers it to me.

  “No, thanks.”

  She takes the cigarette and lights it.

  “I know I have to shake off this mood. Because it’ll only get worse if I don’t, right? And I do want to tell you everything, Claire. I really do. But maybe not just now. I’m sick of talking about my screwed-up life.”

  Her gaze darts about the room as if she’s looking for a subject among the clutter. Finally she settles it on me.

  “How about you?” she asks. “Let’s talk about your life instead of mine.”

  She sucks violently at the cigarette, then fires a line of smoke into the smelly air.

  “Christ, this place is a dump,” she says contemptuously. “I live in a dump.”

  She shifts edgily in her chair.

  “What a wreck I am.”

  She looks at me plaintively.

  “I bet your daughter wasn’t like me. A mess like I am. I bet she was great. You never told me much about her.”

  “What do you want to know?”

  “Well, like, how old was she?”

  “Fifteen.”

  “I’m sorry about what happened to her, Claire.”

  Silence is my only response.

  “I wish I’d had a mother like you. I remember the last time I saw my mom. She was yelling at me, ‘I wish you’d never been born.’ ”

  She lowers her head and starts to cry.

  I let her weep.

  When she regains control of herself, she looks up at me, and through her tears she says, “Talk to me about Melody. About you and her.”

  “We had some issues,” I tell her. “We argued. That’s what hurts the most. The fact that our last conversation was an argument.”

  “About what?”

  For the first time since I’ve known her, Destiny appears truly interested in something other than herself.

  “About what, Claire?”

  Sloan

  IT WAS JUST after eight in the evening when Destiny called me. She’d had her meeting with Claire. She had things to tell me.

  “Go ahead.”

  “Not over the phone.”

  “Why not?”

  “Somebody might hear.”

  I couldn’t tell if she actually suspected that my phone was bugged or if she was merely into the drama of the situation.

  “I’ll meet you at our usual spot,” she said.

  I didn’t feel like arguing the point. We settled on a time, and I headed back to 24/7.

  Destiny was standing in the shadows at the far end of the lot, smoking. When she saw me, she tossed away her cigarette and came toward my car briskly, with a bouncy step.

  “Hey,” she said breezily when she got in.

  “How did it go?”

  “Good,” Destiny said happily. She looked like an agent who’d just returned from a successful mission. She was obviously eager to give me her favorable report.

  She’d spent nearly two hours with Claire. During that time she’d done her poor-little-runaway routine. It had worked like a charm, she told me. Claire had been totally sympathetic. All ears to whatever story popped into Destiny’s mind. In the end, however, she’d managed to direct the conversation to Claire’s life.

  “She got real sad at that point,” she said in the confident tone of a seasoned informer. “She told me that she and Melody had been having some trouble. Melody was moody. She started staying in her room. Claire figured it was just puberty. Like girls get. Quiet. Withdrawn. That’s the way it was with Melody.”

  Destiny was in full swing now, stringing out small details in a dramatically conspiratorial tone. She might have been revealing the secrets to the A-bomb.

  At last we arrived at the boat.

  “That’s why they went on that sailing vacation. They could all be together. Relax. All of them on her husband’s boat.”

  Her eyes shimmered with pleasure. She was reveling in her new role as spy and informer.

  “Something happened on that boat,” she said darkly, like a character in a melodrama. “Between Claire and Melody. And it must have been bad, because that’s when Melody decided to leave. Even in that stormy weather.”

  “Did Claire tell you what happened between them?”

  “No. That’s where she went quiet. Like it hurt too much. Or maybe she couldn’t deal with it. Anyway, I got the feeling things came to a head between them that night on the boat. Claire didn’t say what the deal was, but I got to thinking, and something came to me.”

  She smiled confidently, with an air of pride that she’d gotten the goods. “Melody was fifteen, right? Looking more . . . grown-up. I know what it’s like to have this . . . power. You can drive a guy crazy flashing it around. Especially an old guy.”

  “An old guy?”

  “Yeah. Like Claire’s husband.”

  “What are you getting at?”

  “That maybe Claire felt threatened.”

  “By Melody?”

  “Yes.”

  Destiny could hardly contain how clever she thought she was.

  “It would be scary, right?” she asked excitedly. “Having this hot young girl traipsing around while you’re getting old.”

  She watched me closely, making sure that I was getting the full implications of her story.

  “What I’m saying is that maybe Claire resented Melody. Thought she was stealing her husband, showing off the goods like that.”

  She paused before revealing a theory she considered pure genius.

  “It could even be a motive.”

  “A motive for what?”

  “For Claire to kill her.”

  I gave Destiny no hint that I didn’t find her theory remotely plausible. I let her believe that I might actually see Claire and Melody’s last conversation as she did.

  With Claire seized by jealousy. Resentful of Melody. Harsh, angry words.

  Then, at some point, Clair
e murders Melody. It was a ridiculous B-movie scenario that didn’t fit with the facts of Melody’s death, but I allowed Destiny to entertain the illusion that she’d actually solved the case.

  “I found it, didn’t I?” she asked excitedly. “The truth about Claire.”

  She thinks we’re partners, I told myself.

  Which I suppose we were, since she would be my way into Claire, the hammer I could use to crush her.

  Though the cop in me, that small spot where the badge still faintly glowed, insisted, against all evidence, that we were not.

  Claire

  I GET HOME just after eight. Unlighted, the house seems lonelier, and there is a faintly frightening aspect to the darkness that surrounds it.

  I feel a spike of fear as I get out of my car and head toward the front door. To control it, I repeat the usual assurances.

  No one is crouched behind a bush.

  No hired thug is waiting in the shadowy foyer.

  There are no footsteps rushing at me from behind.

  Once inside, I turn on the lights. The house is just as I left it.

  Nothing has moved. Nothing is out of place.

  And yet I can’t tamp down my anxiety that my most private space has been invaded.

  I sit down on the sofa and work to calm my vibrating nerves. I close my eyes and try to think of something good.

  Ray comes to mind. Our last meeting. How lovely it was. I try to let that memory drive back my darker thoughts. I close my eyes and let the warmth of that evening settle over me.

  I see his face and hear his voice, and they seem so real that when the doorbell rings, I hope that it’s Ray, walk to the door, and open it.

  “Claire,” he says when I open the door.

  I am startled. “Mehdi.”

  “I have been waiting for you.”

  He is holding a small blue box.

  “For you, Claire. Because I forgive you.”

  “Forgive me for what?”

  “For him. For the one who comes here all the time.”

  A chill passes over me. The notion of Mehdi parked near my house, watching it from behind the wheel, is unnerving.

  “I have a gift for you.”

  He presses the blue Tiffany box toward me.

  “Please. It is for you. Very expensive, Claire.”

  I shake my head, refusing it.

  “I don’t take presents from clients, Mehdi,” I tell him firmly. “I think you should leave now.”

  To my astonishment, he says, “No, I come in. We talk. You know I love you.”

  When I start to close the door, he reaches up and presses his hand against it.

  “You lied to me, Claire.”

  He pockets the box.

  “Maybe you don’t deserve my gift.”

  “I want you to leave, Mehdi.”

  “Just a little time, Claire.”

  He looks at me hungrily.

  “Thirty minutes.”

  He draws in a trembling breath.

  “With your body.”

  I glare at him, stricken, speechless.

  “Give me thirty minutes. Only thirty minutes, Claire. I will forgive you, and you take my gift, eh?”

  His demand is utterly repulsive.

  “We kiss first, okay? Then I start the clock, yes? After kiss.”

  I try again to close the door, but his hand forces it back.

  Then Mehdi lunges forward, and I am abruptly crushed in his arms. He presses his mouth against my tightly closed lips, moving his head in a sideways sawing motion as if he is trying to fuse our mouths together. I try to pull back, but he yanks me toward him more forcefully. I can feel the flick of his insistent tongue, like the head of a snake burrowing between my lips.

  I jerk my head back violently.

  “Stop it!”

  He steps back.

  “Okay, I stop.”

  He peers at me as if he has just been crowned the prince of Persia. There is a smirk on his lips.

  “I got what I needed from you.”

  He waves the box in my face.

  “I can return it.”

  He regards me almost dismissively.

  I am a piece of meat he has chewed as much as he likes and can now spit out.

  “I don’t need Claire,” he says. “I’m over her.”

  He turns and walks away with a triumphant little prance.

  I stand at the door, shaking with rage.

  I want to run after him, tackle him, beat him to death. But I only stand and scowl at him as he strides toward his car.

  When he reaches it, he turns back toward me, raises his arm victoriously, and pumps the air, as if signaling his triumph to a city he has conquered.

  I turn back toward my door, but I can’t go in.

  A foul air has entered it, the smell of Mehdi’s cologne.

  I need a cleansing sea breeze.

  I get in my car, roll down the windows, and head toward the ocean.

  I want the rushing wind in the car to blow away every trace of Mehdi.

  Not just his smell, but also the foul taste of his mouth, his lips, his reptilian tongue.

  I hardly know how far I’ve gone when I realize that I am on Melrose.

  Ray’s gallery.

  He may be there.

  I want to see him.

  I press the accelerator and speed ahead, moving toward him as fast as I can.

  The lights are on in the gallery, and as I go up the stairs I see Ray standing toward the back. He isn’t facing me, but I know it’s him, and a huge relief washes over me.

  I open the door and head toward the back of the gallery.

  Ray is talking to someone I cannot see.

  I hear his voice distantly at first, then more clearly as I come nearer.

  A few feet away, I stop and listen.

  A teenage girl stares at him adoringly, no doubt impressed by his command of the subject.

  He is talking to her about a painting, locating its stylistic touches in the history of art.

  His tone is thoughtful, persuasive.

  He is speaking with great authority and charm.

  In perfect French.

  PART V

  Claire

  MY CELL RINGS.

  It’s Ava.

  “Just got some good news,” she says cheerfully.

  She has made a big sale and is in a jubilant mood.

  I congratulate her.

  “Thanks. What’s new with you, Claire?”

  I decide not to bring her down by telling her about my surprise visit to Ray’s gallery. Nor the dark revelation I experienced there. She wouldn’t approve of the way I’ve let Ray’s fluent French ignite my suspicion.

  “Nothing new,” I tell her.

  “Really? Nothing at all? Even with Ray Patrick?”

  “No.”

  “Or Simon?” Ava asks cautiously.

  When I don’t answer, Ava gets the message.

  “What did you do this time?” she demands.

  There is no point in evading her question.

  “I tried to speak with Charlotte,” I inform her. “To tell her about Simon. She wouldn’t listen to me.”

  She is clearly aghast.

  “Good God, Claire! You have to stop this. You have to wash your hands of him.”

  “If I do, he’ll get what he wants.”

  “You don’t know what he wants.”

  “Of course I know what he wants. Emma.”

  Ava offers no further argument. She’s done her best to talk sense into me, and she’s failed. In her view, I’m still the same old Claire. My own worst enemy. Tossing away any chance for happiness.

  For the next few minutes we talk about other things. Ava avoids any further mention of Simon.

  “I’d better go,” I tell her finally. “I have a client.”

  “Yeah, okay,” Ava says. I can hear the weariness in her voice. She’s given up on trying to help me rid myself of what she considers a dangerous obsession.

  It’s
a long drive to my next client. I make it through streets crowded with cars, past shops and strip malls filled with customers.

  The city swarms around me.

  But I have never felt more alone.

  •

  Chloé is my favorite client. She’s thirteen years old. Her family is soon moving to France. Her house is on Elm Drive in Beverly Hills and is built in the style of a Tuscan country home, with a graceful colonnade at the front and large, arched windows. The yard is beautifully tended, with patches of flowers along the walkway.

  Her mother greets me at the door. Her name is Summer. She is always dressed in the colors of that season.

  “My daughter is waiting for you in the courtyard,” she tells me. “She really looks forward to these lessons, Claire.”

  Chloé is seated at a white wrought-iron table beneath a burgundy umbrella. She has long dark hair and blue eyes that shine with a lovely inner light.

  “Bonjour,” she says politely.

  “Bonjour,” I say, emphasizing a bit the explosive nature of the bon over the somewhat retiring jour.

  Chloé hears the difference instantly. Then she repeats “Bonjour” correctly.

  “Très bien,” I tell her.

  She beams. “Merci beaucoup.”

  There is an energy in this young girl, an eagerness to learn, that makes it a joy to teach her.

  During the class I sometimes hear her mother moving about the house. Occasionally there is a male voice as well. The exchanges between Chloé’s mother and father are casual and lighthearted. They often laugh.

  A comforting playfulness reflects the mood of this home. It reminds me of the family I once had. Max and Melody. The simple things we enjoyed together. A day at the beach. A trip to the San Diego Zoo. We were happy. Melody was like Chloé, vibrant and hungry to learn. When Max and I spoke to each other, it was always with humor and affection, as Chloé’s parents do.

  The time goes by rapidly, and an hour of French becomes ninety minutes of peace and pleasure.

  Chloé walks me to the door. There is a small package on the table in the hallway. She hands it to me. “C’est un cadeau pour vous,” she says. She has a gift for me.

  It’s a beautifully wrapped box of chocolates.

  “Oh, merci,” I tell Chloé. “Comme c’est gentil.”

  I walk to my car and slide in behind the wheel. Chloé is still standing at the front door. She smiles brightly, waves, then steps inside.

  I picture her returning to the courtyard, gathering up her notes or sitting down to study them, and it is a scene of such simple contentment, a teenage girl confident that she will never be betrayed, never disbelieved, never have reason to doubt her own mother.