by Joy Fielding
“They were fine,” Caroline said angrily. Was he implying otherwise?
“I don’t know what you want me to say.” Hunter stared up at the bleached wooden beams that stretched across the high ceiling, as if he half expected an answer might be buried in their grain.
“I want you to tell me why you kept this a secret for fifteen years, why you didn’t say anything when the police asked you…”
“What was I going to tell them, Caroline? That I hadn’t actually checked on my kids because I was busy screwing my friend’s wife?”
“Yes,” Caroline said. “That’s exactly what you should have told them.”
“How would that have helped? Think about it. Our baby was gone. You were hysterical. The last thing you needed to hear was that I was being unfaithful. I couldn’t tell you. I couldn’t hurt you that way…”
“Don’t you dare try to pull that kind of crap with me. Not now. I’m not buying it anymore. You weren’t thinking about my feelings or what I needed. What I needed was the truth. This wasn’t about me. It was about you. All about you.”
“Okay. Have it your way. It was all about me. I just don’t understand what difference rehashing this makes now. It doesn’t change what happened then.”
“It might not have happened at all,” Caroline said, “if you’d been where you were supposed to be. Samantha might still be with us.”
“You don’t think I know that? You don’t think I’ve been living with that guilt for fifteen years?” Hunter buried his face in his hands. “You don’t think I hold myself responsible for what happened? That I don’t regret my choices, my actions, everything I did, everything I didn’t do, every minute of every day? I shouldn’t have insisted we go out that night. I shouldn’t have been carrying on with Rain. I shouldn’t have lied to you or the police. And I’m so sorry, Caroline. Sorrier than you’ll ever know.”
Caroline fought the impulse to feel sympathy for him. His feelings of guilt, his apologies, however heartfelt, were immaterial and irrelevant. All that mattered were the facts. “I checked the kids at nine o’clock,” she stated without inflection. “You told the police you checked them again at nine-thirty. We got back to the room a little after ten, so the police, all of us, we naturally assumed that whoever took Samantha had taken her during that thirty-to-forty-minute time frame, but in fact it could have happened earlier. Whoever took her had since nine o’clock, not nine-thirty, to grab her and get away.”
“Even so…”
“It changes the entire time frame. Thirty minutes, Hunter. Thirty minutes the police didn’t bother looking into, thirty minutes of not checking into the whereabouts of hotel employees and guests, thirty minutes that were ignored by officials at the Mexican border, thirty extra minutes for whoever took her to get away without a trace.”
“We don’t know that for a fact.”
“No,” Caroline conceded, pushing herself to her feet. “And thanks to you, we never will. Too much time has passed. It’s too damn late.” She walked out of the living room into the large circular foyer.
Diana was standing at the foot of the stairs, her baby in her arms, her two-year-old son clinging to her side.
“Daddy,” the boy squealed, running toward his father and crashing against the side of his legs.
Hunter reached down and scooped his son into his arms. The boy stared shyly at Caroline, and she watched Samantha materialize behind the smile that slowly spread across his face.
“Oh, God,” she cried.
“I’m so sorry,” Hunter said.
“You have a beautiful family,” Caroline whispered, throwing open the door and fleeing the house.
“You never told me your last name,” Arthur Wainwright remarked over coffee at Starbucks.
“It’s Tillman,” Caroline said, her maiden name slipping off the tip of her tongue before she even realized it was there. She thought of correcting herself, then decided against it. He obviously didn’t know who she was, and she’d likely never see him again. So why spoil a pleasant encounter by revealing her true identity? “Caroline Tillman.”
“Caroline’s a nice name,” he said. “Unlike Arthur. God only knows what my mother was thinking.”
“You don’t like Arthur?”
“It’s okay. Just so old-fashioned.”
“You definitely don’t run into many Arthurs these days,” Caroline agreed, wondering what she was doing here with this man, this Arthur Wainwright. “But it’s a strong name. It must have meant something to her.”
“The only thing that meant anything to my mother was where her next drink was coming from.”
“She was an alcoholic?”
“A mean-spirited one at that.”
Caroline almost laughed. “Mine is a mean-spirited narcissist.”
“To mothers,” Arthur said, clicking his paper cup against hers.
Caroline realized she was having a good time. It had been a long time since she’d enjoyed the company of a man, a long time since she’d allowed herself that kind of indulgence. “What do you do?” she asked.
“Banking consultant.”
Caroline nodded. It was the kind of job that Caroline had never fully understood.
“What about you?” he asked before she could think of a follow-up. “What occupies your time when you’re not squeezing melons?”
“High school teacher. Mathematics.”
“Mathematics? Really? I find that fascinating.”
“You do? Why?”
“Because there aren’t that many women who teach math. At least not in my experience. Women teach languages and history, not algebra and geometry.”
Caroline thought back to her own math teachers in high school. He was right. None of them had been women. “My father was a math teacher. Maybe that’s part of it.”
“Maybe. But I suspect there’s more.”
“Like what?”
“I don’t know. You strike me as someone with very deep thoughts, so maybe it has something to do with a desire to make sense of the world.”
“You think I have deep thoughts?” Caroline couldn’t help feeling flattered.
“Don’t you?”
“I try not to,” she said, grateful when he laughed.
“There’s just something so wonderfully definitive about mathematics,” he continued. “It’s so clear. So true. What was it Keats said? Truth is beauty. Beauty truth. That is all ye know on earth and all ye need to know.” He shrugged self-consciously. “Something like that anyway.”
“A banking consultant who quotes the Romantic poets,” Caroline said. “Interesting.”
“My wife was an English major.”
Caroline lowered her cup of coffee to the small round table between them. “You’re married?”
He hesitated. “Widower.” He cleared his throat. “Five years and I still have difficulty saying that word.”
“I’m sorry. Had she been sick?”
“Not a day in her life. Healthy as a horse until the moment some drunken asshole plowed into her when she was walking our six-year-old daughter to school.”
“Your daughter…”
“Killed instantly.”
“My God. How awful.”
“Eight o’clock in the morning and the guy’s already drunk out of his mind. Didn’t even realize he’d hit anyone until the police showed up to arrest him. God, I hate alcoholics. Anyway,” he said, snapping back to the present, “this isn’t exactly the kind of first date repartee I had in mind.”
“Is this a first date?”
“I was kind of hoping.”
“It’s been a long time since I’ve been on a date,” Caroline conceded, returning her coffee cup to her lips. “I’m divorced,” she offered. “About eight years now.”
“Kids?”
“A daughter. Michelle. She’s a teenager. Not a particularly easy one.” Caroline felt a twang of guilt. Arthur’s daughter was dead, mowed down by a drunk driver on her way to grade school, along with his wife. Who was she t
o complain about a difficult teenager? She fought the urge to tell him about Samantha.
“You and your ex get along?” he asked, stopping her just in time.
“Not really. Well, sort of, I guess,” she amended. “We’re not enemies or anything like that.”
“That’s good.”
“Not really friends either.”
“Guess you wouldn’t be divorced if you got along great.”
“He’s getting married again in June,” Caroline confided. “Big wedding. All the trimmings.”
Arthur lowered his chin and raised his eyes, clearly relieved he was no longer the center of the conversation. “And how do you feel about that?”
“I don’t really have feelings about it, one way or the other. No, that’s not true,” she said in the same breath. “To be honest, I’m a little pissed.”
“Because you still love him?”
“Because his fiancée is considerably younger than I am.”
He laughed.
“Still think I have deep thoughts?”
“I think your ex is a jackass for letting you go.”
Caroline shook her head. “Yeah, well, you don’t know me very well.”
“I’d like to.”
She leaned forward, rested her elbows on the table. “Why?”
“Why?” he repeated. “Well, for starters, you’re beautiful, smart, and more than a little mysterious. Always an intriguing combination.”
“You think I’m mysterious?”
“Lady, I think there’s all sorts of stuff going on inside that lovely head.”
Her turn to laugh. “What if it turns out to be empty?”
“Not a chance,” he said.
“You’re not from California, are you?” she asked, feeling slightly flushed and taking refuge in the traces of an East Coast accent she heard lurking inside his vowels.
“Utica, New York,” he said. “I moved here after…Been here four years now.”
“I take it you like it here.”
“What’s not to like? Sunshine almost every day, a temperature that rarely strays more than ten degrees from moderate, the Pacific Ocean, Mexico on my doorstep.”
Caroline felt the coffee cup slip between her fingers at the mention of Mexico. Arthur’s hand shot out to catch it before it fell to the floor.
“Well, that was close,” he said, wiping the sudden spray of dark liquid from his muscular forearm.
“Sorry about that.”
“Something I said?”
“No. Although you do have quite a way with words.”
“I do?”
“A temperature that rarely strays more than ten degrees from moderate; Mexico on my doorstep,” she quoted, forcing the word “Mexico” from her mouth, feeling it wobble as it left her tongue.
“I said that?”
“You did.”
“Well, it’s the truth. In my humble opinion, Southern California is as close to paradise as anywhere on earth.”
“I guess.”
“So, tell me more about Caroline Tillman,” he said. “Does she like sports, movies, traveling?”
“She likes baseball. I know a lot of people think it’s kind of boring, and I guess it can be. But I love it—all the statistics and stuff. Keeping track of the hits and runs and errors, how many strikeouts, all that. It’s kind of…I don’t know…”
“Poetic in a mathematical kind of way?” he offered.
Caroline laughed again, finding Arthur Wainwright more appealing by the minute.
“What about traveling?”
“I haven’t really done much since my divorce.”
“Guess it’s hard when you’re a single parent.”
Caroline shrugged. “Maybe I’m just not very adventurous. What about you?” she asked before he could contradict her.
“I’m partial to all of the above. Sports, movies, traveling.”
“What’s your favorite place you’ve ever been to?”
“Barcelona,” he said immediately. “It’s a gorgeous city. And I’m a sucker for all things Spanish. Which is probably why I like Mexico so much. You like Mexican food?”
“Not really. Sorry.”
“No need to be sorry. What kind of food do you like?”
“I like pasta.”
“I like pasta,” he echoed. “And I just happen to know this great little Italian restaurant over on Harbor Drive. We could go there for lunch. Are you hungry?”
“I’m starving,” Caroline said.
He jumped to his feet. “Shall we go?”
Once again, Caroline followed Arthur Wainwright wordlessly onto the street.
—
“What do you mean, you’re not coming home for lunch?” Michelle demanded over the phone half an hour later. “What am I supposed to do?”
Caroline stared at her reflection in the mirror of the restaurant’s tiny ladies’ room, pushing her hair behind one ear while holding her cell phone to the other. “I don’t know. Make yourself an omelet.”
“I don’t eat eggs.”
“So have a sandwich.”
“I don’t eat bread.”
“Since when don’t you eat eggs or bread?”
“Since at least a year ago. When are you coming home?”
“I don’t know. Later.” Caroline fished inside her purse for her lipstick.
“When later?”
“I don’t know.”
“Where are you?”
“At this little Italian restaurant on Harbor Drive.”
“What little Italian restaurant?”
“What difference does it make?”
“Who are you with?”
“A friend I ran into.”
“You don’t have any friends.”
“Yes, I do.” No, I don’t, Caroline thought. Except for Peggy. All her other friends had vanished with Samantha’s disappearance. And what would Peggy make of what she was doing, not only having coffee with some man she’d met over a stack of fruit and vegetables, but now lunch as well? Would she say that Caroline was merely reacting to the news about Hunter’s marriage plans, or to her growing concerns about Michelle, or to the fact that she hadn’t gotten laid since the last time she and Hunter had made love, which was, coincidentally, the night he told her he was leaving? Maybe a combination of all three? And while Arthur Wainwright wasn’t the first man she’d found attractive since Hunter’s departure, he was the first one who seemed to “get” her. Of course, it probably helped that he didn’t have a clue who she really was. He thinks I’m mysterious, she thought. “I have to go, sweetheart.”
“Wait…”
“I’ll be home later.”
—
“What do you mean, you’re not coming home for dinner?” Michelle whined. “And where have you been all afternoon? I’ve been calling and calling. What’s the point of having a cell phone if you’re not going to have it on?”
“I’m sorry, sweetheart. It’s just that I ran into some friends I haven’t seen in a long time…”
“More friends?” Michelle asked. “Who are all these friends, all of a sudden?”
“You wouldn’t know them.” Caroline leaned into the small mirror over the white porcelain sink in the bathroom of Arthur Wainwright’s studio apartment and checked to see if having sex for the first time in eight years had made any noticeable difference to her appearance. “Look, I won’t be late. Just order a pizza or something.”
“I don’t eat pizza.”
Caroline ran her hands through her hair and down her cheeks, letting them slide toward her bare breasts, mimicking the path Arthur’s hands had traced earlier. “How about Chinese?”
“Why don’t you just tell me to swallow a gallon of lard?”
“For God’s sake, Michelle. Order whatever you want. Sorry,” she apologized immediately, trying not to lose the wonderful calm she’d felt before leaving Arthur’s bed to call her daughter. “Why don’t you phone Grandma Mary? I’m sure she’d be thrilled to have dinner with you.�
��
“You want me to phone Grandma Mary? Now I know something’s going on.”
“There’s nothing going on. I’m just going out with some old friends.”
“Fine. Leave your phone on.”
“Why?”
“In case I need to contact you.”
“You won’t need to contact me.”
“How do you know? Something could happen…”
“I’ll leave my phone on,” Caroline said, experiencing an all-too-familiar spasm of guilt in her gut. She took another look in the mirror and tried to recapture her earlier elation, the feel of Arthur’s fingers gently caressing her flesh, the wetness of his tongue as it glided across her bare skin before disappearing between her legs, the expert way he’d brought her to climax even before he entered her.
“Everything all right at home?” he asked when she returned to the bedroom. He was lying naked in the king-size bed, the once crisp white sheets bunched around his torso.
Caroline turned off her phone, tossed it on top of the puddle of clothes on the floor, and slid in beside him. “Everything’s fine,” she said.
“What’s the matter?” Peggy asked, opening the door to her sprawling bungalow in the quiet, somewhere-between-artsy-and-rundown district of Hillcrest.
“Can I come in?” Caroline asked from the doorstep.
Peggy stood back to allow her entry.
“Who is it?” Fletcher called from somewhere inside the house.
“It’s Caroline,” Peggy called back. “What happened? You look terrible. Are you sick?”
“It’s been quite a day.” Caroline followed Peggy into the living room, sitting down on the comfortable brown sofa across from a couple of mismatched chairs, one a grayish tweed, the other a pink and blue floral print. The walls were yellow, the carpet navy, the coffee table some sort of distressed wood. Nothing belonged together, yet curiously, everything worked. Much like the marriage of Peggy and Fletcher, the only couple from that ill-fated trip to Rosarito whose relationship was still intact.
“What’s going on?”
“I saw Jerrod Bolton this morning.”
“Jerrod Bolton? As in Jerrod and Rain?”
“He called me, asked me to meet him. Did you know Rain and Hunter were having an affair?”
“What? When?”