Tunnel of Love

by Hilma Wolitzer

  Mr. Albano was very angry with her—“pissed off” was the way he put it—and the elation Linda had sustained all the way back to the office was severely threatened. Her rejection of his advances the other night was something he clearly wasn’t going to accept with grace. She had hoped he would pretend the whole thing hadn’t happened, so that everyone’s pride could be discreetly restored. But when she saw him at work the next day, he was hostile and sarcastic. He criticized her typing in front of Mr. Murphy’s snooty secretary, saying that if she paid as much attention to her work as she did to her makeup, she might remember that “sincerely” was spelled with two “e’s.” It was not only cruel, it was completely unfair. Linda had given up a while ago on those cosmetics from The Essential Me, because they were, essentially, not her, and had gone back to just using lip gloss. She worked up the nerve to knock on Mr. Albano’s office door later that day, to complain about the way he’d embarrassed her.

  “And what did you do to me?” he rejoined. To her bewilderment, he blamed her for turning him on, for being “so damn sexy” all the time he couldn’t think straight. The way she walked, the way she smiled.

  What was he talking about? She walked with a limp and she wore braces. “I didn’t. I’m not,” Linda protested. “I thought we were going to just be friends. What happened to all four hands on the table?”

  “Oh, come on, sweetkins, be serious,” he said. He began walking toward her with that lustful look in his eye, and she fled his office. Since then she’d been trying to do her job properly and stay out of his way—no small endeavor.

  She was over an hour late getting back to work after the Clinton rally. As soon as she walked in the door, carrying her shopping bag of panty hose and a cup of half-eaten frozen yogurt, Mr. Albano strode out of his office and said, “Read my lips, Linda! I am really pissed off this time!”

  “I’m sorry—” she began, automatically.

  “Sorry doesn’t cut it,” he said, interrupting her. “This is your wake-up call, doll. You’d better start toeing the line, because I’m not gonna alibi you anymore.”

  “You don’t have to alibi me. You can just dock my pay,” she said, and took a spoonful of the yogurt to cool her burning mouth. He looked at her in astonishment. Linda was pretty astonished herself; she had never spoken to him this way before, or to anyone else in authority. Her telephone rang, and without dropping her defiant gaze she reached for it and sang out, “Good afternoon! Albano and Murphy, attorneys-at-law. May I help you?” Mr. Albano stared at her for another moment before he slunk back to his office.

  Linda retained that surprising new sense of confidence and purpose all day. By five o’clock, other urgent thoughts had bullied and shoved their way to the front of her consciousness. Their main theme was that it was time to resume responsibility for her own life. She had to get another car soon, even if it meant making payments on it for years to come. Dr. Marcuvitz had said she could start driving again, but she’d put it off, out of fear of driving and because it was easy to put off. He’d also said she should try becoming less dependent on the cane, something she’d really been intending to do. She had to think about getting another job, too, although she hadn’t logged much experience at this one, and she certainly couldn’t count on getting a reference from either of her bosses. Then there was the matter of the baby. Linda had taken her to visit her old friends at Kiddie Kare last Saturday, and Phoebe had literally leaped from Linda’s arms into Rose Petrillo’s. There was no reason in the world she couldn’t stay there again while Linda was at work, even if it made things tighter financially. And even if Cynthia objected. Linda had been relocated, she realized, to the outskirts of Cynthia’s world. There were no more cozy lunches, no more intimate conversations. Linda hadn’t seen her for almost two weeks, and they spoke only briefly on the phone, mostly about some delay on Mitchell’s part in delivering Phoebe.

  “This is your wake-up call,” Mr. Albano had said, and it was as if a warning bell had gone off inside Linda’s head. She thought of Governor Clinton urging courageous change, and she heard Nathan’s voice again, offering to kiss her awake from her enchantment, and Robin asking if she was hypnotized or stoned. Linda was wide awake and buzzing with plans as she covered her typewriter and gathered up her purse and cane. It wasn’t until she was ready to leave the office that she noticed the two pink telephone messages, almost hidden under a stack of letters on her desk. “Call Cynthia Sterling at studio,” the first one said, and the second one said, “Call Cynthia at home.” They had both come in during her squandered lunch hour and they were both marked “Urgent.”

  28

  St. Francis of L.A.

  ROBIN WAS NAPPING ON the living-room sofa with a pillow clutched to her belly when the doorbell rang. Shit. She had cut out of school right before lunch and come straight home to sleep off her monthly attack of cramps. She’d made herself a peanut-butter-and-raisin sandwich and turned on the TV, to help her relax, but every single channel had this speech what’s-his-face, Clinton, was making at the Beverly Center mall. There wasn’t even a game show on. Politics bored Robin almost as much as social studies, so she killed the TV. After she ate her sandwich, she closed the blinds, turned off the telephone, and curled up on the sofa. She couldn’t have been asleep for more than a few minutes when the stupid doorbell rang.

  Still clutching the pillow, she tiptoed to the door and looked through the peephole, which Linda was always reminding her to do, in case a serial killer decided to pick their bell to ring. Robin wasn’t afraid of opening the door to some schizo stranger, though. She was more worried about letting an attendance officer in, or someone she knew and didn’t want to see. Right then, that included just about everybody. But there was only a young, good-looking guy she’d never seen before standing out there. “Who is it?” Robin asked, and the guy said, “Is Linda Reismann home?” What was this, another boyfriend?

  “Who wants to know?” Robin said.

  “Mercury Messenger Service. I have a delivery for her.” Robin undid the locks and opened the door.

  “Are you Linda Reismann?” the messenger asked, looking at her skeptically. He held up a manila envelope. “I’m supposed to deliver this directly to her.”

  “Yeah, that’s me,” Robin said, yawning. He hesitated and then handed the envelope over, and when he extended a clipboard with a pen attached to it by a string, she scribbled Linda’s name in perfect forgery. She’d had enough practice, signing cut slips she was supposed to bring home from school.

  This was no cut slip; the envelope was way too thick. As Robin carried it inside, she saw the words “Personal” and “Confidential” stamped all over it. She looked at the name in the upper left-hand corner—William Sterling—followed by a Hollywood address. Who was he? The only Sterling Robin knew was the Rich Bitch. She yanked off the stubborn, sticky mailing tape, using a pair of scissors and her teeth, and pulled out a bunch of papers held together by a big clip. There was a handwritten letter on top. Robin plopped herself back down on the sofa to read it.

  Dear Linda,

  We met briefly (but memorably) at my ex-wife’s house a couple of months ago. I’m going out on a limb here because I was favorably struck by you, by your rather touching ingenuousness, and because I believe you’re about to be in deep trouble. My own post-marital experiences with Cyn (hell hath no fury, etc.) have sharpened my suspicions, and the enclosed papers only confirm them. Kobrin’s specialty is child custody and he’s a killer.

  If you need a lawyer yourself, as I imagine you will, you might contact John Freed of Freed, Westman, Upshaw, and Gofstein in Beverly Hills. And use my name; he owes me a favor. Good luck—you’re probably going to need it.

  Sincerely, William Sterling

  Robin read the letter twice, and she still wasn’t perfectly sure what it meant. She pulled out the next sheet of paper. It was another letter, typed this time, and addressed to Cynthia, from somebody named Arthur Kobrin, Esq. Robin’s own name popped out at her from the middle of t
he page. “Surveillance of her stepdaughter, Robin Reismann, has also proved fruitful.” Surveillance. That was a word Robin knew, from school or television, or maybe just by instinct. She glanced at the first page of the bundle under the second letter. The heading said: Paragon Private Investigators, 50 Years of Efficiency and Discretion, Edmund J. Riley, Director. Somebody, a private detective, had been following her, spying on her! Hadn’t she felt a spooky presence nearby lately, something that made her scalp prickle and her skin crawl? She tried to think. The substitute Spanish teacher they’d had last week, who threw chalk and erasers at all the kids who didn’t pay attention. The guy with the twitch playing Super Mario at the machine next to Robin’s at the video arcade the other day. That jerk batting the wind chimes at Happy Hands. Anybody, or everybody.

  Robin turned to the report itself. It was too long and complicated to read word for word, so she just skimmed it, searching for key phrases. There were plenty of those. Linda’s name, for instance, and Nathan’s … and Manny’s! “Sexually active,” she read. “Widowed white female.” Further down, Robin found her own name again, followed by paragraphs including phrases like “frequent truancy,” “serious vehicular accident,” and “apprehended while shoplifting.” There was even something about Phoebe! Her age and how long she’d been at Cynthia’s house. Did they follow her, too, when she was out in her stroller? Robin went back to the second letter and read the whole thing.

  Dear Cyn,

  As we’ve discussed, this is a long shot; birth mothers almost always have the edge in these cases. But you’ll be happy to know that our investigation has proved to be very productive. Ms. Reismann has demonstrated an unsavory lifestyle, and there are serious incidents of negligence in re her minor children. Most crucial are her promiscuous sexual behavior, erratic work patterns, and casual assignment of child care.

  Surveillance of her stepdaughter, Robin Reismann, has also proved fruitful. I believe we have some strong evidence to support a charge of unfit motherhood against Ms. Reismann, and to help boost your own custodial suit. I can’t make any promises, of course, but we’ll give it the old college try. Lunch sometime next week for further discussion? I’ll phone on Monday.

  Aff’ly yrs,

  Arthur

  The letter was dated September 16. That was about two weeks ago, when Linda was still living at Cynthia’s! Robin sat there for several moments, as if the physical weight of the papers on her lap was pinning her down. She’d been right all along. All the things she’d accused Cynthia of, that Linda had called Robin’s “paranoid delusions,” and that she herself had only half meant—had said mostly to get a rise out of Linda—were true. Her first instinct was to grab the phone and call Linda at work, to scream the news at her. But when she’d told her about the nursery, Linda only accused her of being ungrateful and of using bad language. There was no guarantee she’d get this either.

  Robin flung the papers aside and searched under the sofa for her sneakers. She shoved her feet into them, ran into Linda’s room, and rifled through the stuff in her drawers and her closet. She didn’t know yet exactly what she was going to do, but whatever it was, she was positive she’d need some money to do it. “Shit, shit, shit,” she said, as she dumped the contents of two of Linda’s purses onto the bed, scattering loose pennies, used Kleenex, and supermarket coupons. That stupid glitter was everywhere, and all she got for her trouble was about six dollars in change. Then she remembered Linda saying she had to get to the bank on Saturday to cash a check from the Christmas card company for last week’s work. Where was it? Did she have it with her? Robin went into the kitchen and looked in the most obvious place first, the place robbers probably learn about in robbery school—the sugar bowl—and hit the jackpot. In addition to the check, which was for thirty-three bucks, there was a five-dollar bill and three singles. She stuffed the money and the check in her knapsack, then filled two of Phoebe’s baby bottles with milk and another one with apple juice. She tied the bottles together, around a frozen cool-pack, using a big rubber band, the way Linda always did before a trip to the mall. That all went into the knapsack, too, along with a couple of jars of baby food. As an afterthought, she threw in some cookies and an orange for herself. Before she left the house, she dialed Cynthia’s home number, to make sure she wasn’t there. When Lupe answered, Robin asked, in a kind of German accent, to speak to Ms. Sterling. “Not home,” Lupe said. “Who is calling, please?” And Robin hung up.

  The bank Linda used was only about five blocks away from their apartment. Robin ran all the way there, but she found herself at the end of a long line. She danced impatiently in place; anything could be happening to Feeb while that old lady deposited chicken feed in her Christmas Club and the Chinese guy pushed roll after roll of coins through the slot at one of the other tellers’ stations. “C’mon, c’mon, let’s go,” Robin muttered, until it was finally her turn. The teller—his lapel pin said Mr. Boncourt—looked at the check and then at Robin. “Is this yours?” he asked.

  “Yes,” she said. What did he think she’d say, that she had found it in the street? Written it herself? Stolen it from her stepmother’s sugar bowl?

  “You forgot to endorse it,” he told her, passing the check and a ballpoint pen to her through the slot under his window.

  Robin flourished Linda’s signature for the second time that day and passed the check back. Without thinking, she pocketed the ballpoint pen.

  “Do you have any photo ID with you, Ms. Reismann?” the jerkoff asked.

  “No,” Robin said, “I left it in my car.” What she wanted to say was, “No, but you’d better give me the thirty-three bucks or I’ll have to kill you.”

  “Do you have a signature card on file with us?” he asked.

  What the hell was that, and how should she know? “Of course,” she said, tapping her fingers on the marble counter.

  The teller left the cage and went to a file cabinet, where he flipped through a gang of cards until he found what he was looking for. She watched him compare her imitation of Linda’s signature with the real thing for what seemed like hours. Then he walked slowly back to the cage, still examining the check, and said, “How would you like it?”

  Robin exhaled. “Whatever you have,” she said, and watched as he counted out two tens, two fives, and three singles, each bill snapping between his fingers like a small firecracker.

  As soon as she stepped to the curb outside and held up her thumb, a BMW pulled over with a squeal. Robin barely had time to cram the money into her jeans pocket. The driver, a woman about Linda’s age, said, “Where you heading?” Robin told her the name of a street near Cynthia’s, the street that fancy deli was on, and was invited to get in.

  The car stank of pot. “So, what did you do, pull a stickup?” the woman asked.

  “Yeah,” Robin said, and was surprised by the major laugh that got.

  It was the easiest ride she’d ever hitched. No other questions asked, no conversation at all after that, and they sped through the streets with Megadeth screaming away on the tape deck. Why couldn’t she have gotten a stepmother like her?

  Robin got out right in front of the deli. “Thanks!” she called, and the woman yelled back, “Hey, it was mythical!”

  As Robin began walking swiftly in the direction of Cynthia’s house, she remembered the dogs. Fuck! They wouldn’t be locked up today, when she wasn’t expected. She stopped under the nearest palm tree and leaned against its bristly trunk. She had only worked things out loosely in her head on the way here: somehow, she was going to sneak up to the house, get inside without anyone seeing her, grab the baby, and leave. She intended to handle any problems of interference—from Lupe or Maria or Mitchell—as they came up. There were plenty of excuses she could make if she was caught in the act, and at least everybody in the house knew her, knew she was Phoebe’s sister. The dogs were another matter; there was no talking her way around them. Robin tried to blot out their gruesomeness, the way they had leaped at the car that first time, as
if they wanted to eat her alive. If she had thought things out more carefully, she might have been prepared. There were those sleeping pills she’d swiped from Cynthia’s bedroom. She had swallowed one of them a few weeks ago, before she went to bed, just to see what would happen. Mrs. Thompson had to shake her awake for school the next morning, and she kept dozing off all day during classes. She might have wrapped the rest of the pills in hamburger and thrown them to the dogs as soon as they approached her. It was something she’d seen in a movie once and it worked great; the dogs, a couple of really mean Dobermans, keeled over in about a second. But she had nothing with her at all to divert or calm Cynthia’s vicious dogs.

  Robin walked back to The Sensual Gourmet and peered through the window. Maybe they had some dog biscuits she could toss around to keep those beasts busy. She went inside and the same snotty clerk who was there the last time gave her the same snotty look. “Do you have any dog biscuits?” Robin asked.

  “Hardly,” the clerk said with a nasty little snort, as if he thought she wanted them for herself. “Would you care for anything else?”

  Robin scanned the counter for some other possible dog bait, and then just grabbed a bag of those vegetable chips she’d bought the last time. It killed her to shell out eight bucks for something she wasn’t even sure would do the trick, but those damn dogs looked like they’d eat anything they could get their jaws on, even overpriced people snacks.

  The most important thing, she reminded herself as she hurried toward Cynthia’s, was not to let the dogs smell the fear on her. She sniffed one of her armpits, wishing she had that deodorant stick Linda was always trying to make her use; she would have rubbed it over her whole body.