I then went to my mother’s closet to gaze at what she had left behind. There was nothing on any shelf. I really didn’t think he’d hide it there. He probably had trouble looking at her clothes. Like me, I was sure he envisioned her in one of these dresses or outfits, recalling occasions when she wore this or that. The scent of her perfume lingered with such redolence I couldn’t help but imagine she had been here recently, perhaps to fetch something she had decided she didn’t want to leave behind after all.
Was that possible? It was a stunning, even hopeful idea.
She had come, and then . . . then she saw the envelope out and she took it with her. Why couldn’t that have happened? Maybe she was still close by. Maybe she was changing her mind. Perhaps she had been watching my father and me all this time and saw . . . saw what? She didn’t see me crying out there. She saw me walking and looking sadder when I got off the school bus, perhaps, but she knew my father and I had gone to dinner. She knew he was still active at work. She even knew he was at a dinner meeting right now. We were surviving. Would that make her angrier or make her regretful?
Maybe she had come to her senses. Why not?
I went to the window and stared down at the street. Was she out there? I didn’t see her car, but there were other cars. Perhaps one was her lover’s car or she had parked on another street and walked to ours. I studied every shadow and thought I saw something, but that turned out to be just the movement of a cloud through the moonlight, shifting silhouettes.
I returned to my room, still envisioning the possibility. She could return. I lay on my bed and stared at the ceiling, imagining her turning to me and saying, “I’m sorry, Scarletta. I realized very quickly that I couldn’t live without you after all. You’re too precious to me. We’ll be more of a mother and daughter than ever.”
The fantasy was so strong that I actually cried. I let the tears trickle down my cheeks, and then, when I heard the sound of the garage door going up, I flicked them off, wiped my eyes, and got ready to greet my father.
“Hey,” he said, seeing me at the top of the stairs. He paused. “Everything all right? Something happen?”
“Did you come home today and take the envelope with Mommy’s note off your dresser and hide it or destroy it?” I demanded.
“What?”
“Before I went to school, I looked into your bedroom and saw it. I read it, Daddy.”
“Oh. I wish you hadn’t.”
“Well, I did, but I put it back in the envelope and left it there. I looked for it a while ago, but it was gone. So?” I asked, the hope filling my eyes.
He stared at me for a moment. Was he dreading destroying that hope?
“Daddy?”
“I didn’t return and hide it while you were at school,” he said. “But I do remember leaving it out.”
I smiled.
He shook his head. “Why does that make you happy?”
“She’s not gone,” I told him.
“She’s gone,” he insisted.
“NO!” I screamed. “She’s still here.”
Pru
I PACKED MY weekender duffel bag and left it on the table in the living room so Chandler would see it immediately on entering and not, I hoped, look at and think about the damn answering machine. If he asked, I was confident I could convince him I had not received any new messages from Scarletta. Despite his belief that he could read my thoughts, I didn’t anticipate his noticing any dishonesty in my face. Maybe, as my father once suggested, I could have become a good actor. A good liar (I hated the word and would rather be known as a good fabricator) had to have the ability to erase the listener’s skepticism immediately.
Any good fabricator lies to himself or herself first. If you can persuade yourself something is true, just for a short time, even only a moment, you will be credible. Before Chandler arrived, I went about chanting to myself: “She hasn’t called. She’s gone. She’s given up. There was no message to erase.”
But even the best actors, the most experienced performers, are nervous before they step onto that stage. The high school drama coach who had wanted me in his new production told me that if an actor wasn’t nervous, he or she was probably a mediocre artist. He was so determined to get me to play the lead female role, Emily Webb in Our Town, that he piled on his compliments.
“You have natural poise, a confident air, and a pleasing speaking voice. I like the look in your eyes, your maturity, Pru. I don’t confuse being thoughtful with being shy. I’ve seen that look on your face when you want to be competitive. There’s no hesitation. You’d be dynamite onstage.”
I thought he was going to say I was beautiful or attractive, too, but with all the fear teachers had of being accused of sexual indiscretion with students, he hesitated to do so. Nevertheless, it was in his eyes. Any other girl would have smothered her resistance, but despite all that flattery, I refused him. He was right about one thing. I wasn’t shy. I cleverly used the facade of it to hide fear.
Nevertheless, it wasn’t by accident that my father told me I’d be a good nurse because I was a good actress. I hadn’t missed his underlying point. He was really telling me I was a good fabricator. In an instant, my face could dissolve into whatever mask was necessary to be convincing. I was comfortable with putting on false faces whenever necessary. It was necessary now.
When I heard Chandler arrive, I quickly emerged from my bedroom wearing my sheer purple lace chemise nightie, something I had not yet worn for him. It was meant to be a little extra distraction. I really preferred that he didn’t have a chance to wonder whether Scarletta had called. With him, I’d rather not fabricate whenever it was possible to avoid it.
From the happy, lusty expression on Chandler’s face, I knew I was quite successful controlling his attention. If he had been anticipating more trouble, he had forgotten. He looked speechless, mesmerized. I recalled my mother once saying, “Most women don’t realize the power they possess or merely don’t know how to use it.”
“Goes well with the ring, don’t you think?” I said, holding up my hand so the ring caught the light.
“I have a feeling that an early honeymoon in Palm Springs might not match tonight,” he said, putting down his briefcase. He loosened his tie and started across the room toward me. “But really, why would we wait anyway?” he asked, smiled, and kissed me. “Have to celebrate the moment, right?”
“Who’s arguing?”
He laughed and then surprised me by swooping me up into his arms and carrying me to the bedroom. The memory of Scarletta’s voice was drifting back like the puffs of a sports car’s exhaust as we sped away. He lowered me to the bed I had already prepared, a spider’s web with my perfumed silk sheets and pillowcases.
He laughed. I had a condom wrapped in a ribbon on his pillow.
He hurried to get out of his suit, tie, shirt, and pants, rushing as if he thought he might miss the sex train. I lay back, my legs spread, my smile hopefully like cake frosting.
“Just promise,” he said, “that you’ll greet me like this forever.”
“And the day after that.”
Naked, he lay beside me, kissed me, and then almost in one graceful motion, when he was ready, turned and slipped into me. Looking down at me, he said, “Oh, sorry. Did I say hello?”
“You’re saying it now,” I whispered, and he began his erotic thrusts and strokes, his eyes open and fixed on mine.
This was what lovers really meant when they claimed, “We were like one,” I thought. Both of us were moving to each other’s rhythm, synced into each other’s heartbeats, drumming our way toward a moment of real ecstasy like two Buddhists climbing up the four levels to our personal nirvana. Everything around us was disappearing. We were really leaving this world or entering a place rarely visited in it. Neither of us had to speak; no vows were necessary. Yet I heard him repeating, “Pru, Pru.” Vaguely, I thought, he was holding on to me as if he was afraid that not only was the world around us disappearing, but I was, too.
Of
course, like any man, he wanted to be sure it was him I was making love with and not some past lover or fantasy. Women have that fear, too, for sure, but men want to be the best their woman ever had . . . Macho, Macho Man. Even my father admitted that to me once. “For a man,” he said, “it never stops being opening night. We’re always afraid of the reviews.”
Chandler kissed the curve between my neck and my shoulder and then moved his lips up to my cheek and onto my lips. We drew our life forces out of each other like two vampires as our bodies kept perfecting our movements, a continual work in progress, a touch here, a kiss there, all of it building toward a great climax. Yes, this was an early honeymoon, I thought. How could it ever be better? Really, it didn’t have to; it just couldn’t be much less.
I was moaning with pleasure, and he was licking at my nipples and breasts as if they were two mounds of rich ice cream. I knew he was whispering his love, but I was falling back, drifting to a place where the only sound was the thumping of our hearts, some prehistoric drumbeat, the one that had driven our ancestors toward ensuring the survival of our species. It was raw yet tender, violent but graceful. The taste of his lips on mine, the feel of his stomach against my stomach, and the scent of his very sex filled my nostrils and stirred places in my brain too often asleep, places so surprising that it was as if I had stolen them from someone else.
Although I tried to stop it, I had that too often strange sensation of rising out of my body to stand aside and observe. Maybe I was hungry for every view of him, the way his tight rear end lifted and fell, the tautness of his legs, and the firmness of his back as he arched. His thrusts were suddenly being done almost in a frenzy, more like someone terrified he would not reach orgasm in time. Was it because he sensed I had mine and was afraid I’d be satiated too soon?
Don’t be afraid, I wanted to say. You can never satisfy me too soon and cause me to become indifferent to what remained of our lovemaking. But that insecurity is as it should be. Otherwise, we won’t have new discoveries about ourselves. And isn’t that what keeps two people together, new revelations? Love must grow, change, turn, and open doors to the wonder of each other. Too romantic? Am I thinking too much at a time when there should be nothing but feeling and pleasure? Tell me to stop.
His hands moved to my shoulders. He gripped me tightly and lifted his head. It was as if every nerve in his body was exploding, bursting with messages rushing to his heart. For a moment, I really was beyond it. I really was no longer participating. I was now just watching him reaching for the ultimate pleasure. He opened his eyes and saw the smile on my face, but it seemed to confuse him. I knew what he was thinking. How could I be so objective at the most subjective moment our bodies would find in this life?
“Pru?” he said, as if he wasn’t sure he was making love to me. Perhaps my face had become unrecognizable.
Before I could speak and reassure him, I heard it, and he stopped because he heard it, too. We were frozen in the act of love, sculpted in passion too hot to touch and yet too cold to melt.
The phone was ringing. He wanted to wait so we could hear what followed when it stopped and my simple message played: I’m not in right now. Please leave a message. Was she about to leave another? I was holding my breath.
There was nothing.
That’s not like her, I thought. She’d leave something, another warning, another revelation. It was someone or something else.
I relaxed again, expecting he would realize that, too, and return to me, but instead, he asked, “Do you think that was her? Was it her?”
Before I could reply, his mobile buzzed.
“You’re not going to answer that, are you?” I asked. I hadn’t realized that he had taken it out and left it on the bed. He looked at it.
“Something’s up,” he said. I groaned when he dismounted and sat up to answer the phone. “Hey,” he said. That was almost always his hello when he knew who was calling. He listened. “When? What are they doing now?”
I sat up, too. “Who is it?” I asked.
“Give me ten minutes,” he told whoever was on the phone. “Then have them ring again.”
He put the phone down, thought a moment, and then turned to me.
“Have who ring again, Chandler?”
“Ben Mallory is parked outside your apartment building’s front entrance.”
“And he is?”
“My private detective.”
“Has he been following me all day since I left the hospital?” I asked. “Was he at the hospital asking questions? I told you—”
“No. He was here when you arrived, though.”
“Well, why is he calling now? You’re here. What does he want?”
“That ring we heard . . .”
“Yes?”
“He saw two Los Angeles detectives he knows at the front door. They rang to be buzzed in.”
“Why? What do they want?”
“I don’t know, but we should find out right away. Perhaps it has something to do with her. Mallory says they’re homicide detectives.”
He slipped on his underwear and pants.
“What are we doing?”
“He’s going to tell them to ring again to be let in, Pru, before they go away. Throw something on.”
“In the middle of our early honeymoon?”
He smiled. “The night is young.” He put on his shirt and slipped his feet sockless into his shoes.
I sat up and reached for my robe.
“What are you thinking?” I asked. “Why have they come here?”
“Maybe they know her and have come to warn you about her. Perhaps she’s already wanted for something serious. She might have been harassing another woman and eventually done something violent to her.”
“But how would they know she’s doing it to me? Did you report it, Chandler? I asked you not to do that. You did, didn’t you?”
“No, I swear,” he said, raising his hands. “But they could have found something on her, in her possession, that tracked to you. Let’s see, but if it is that, I think you’ll have to tell them everything, Pru.”
I slipped on my slippers and brushed back my hair. A small fire was spiraling in my stomach. This was exactly what I didn’t want, a spotlight on me.
“Let’s hope this gets us closer to an end to it all. Right?” he said. “Right, Pru?”
“Right, right,” I said.
The phone rang again. Chandler looked at me. I lifted the receiver. “Yes?” I snapped. I didn’t have to sound overjoyed, did I?
“This is Lieutenant Julio, LAPD, and Detective Gabriel. We would like to speak with you, Miss Dunning.”
I looked at Chandler, who was nodding. Then, without replying, I pressed nine, which buzzed open the door.
“They’re coming up,” I said, and went into the bathroom to look at my face. I saw I was still quite flushed from our lovemaking, and since I was naked in a robe to greet the police, I was a little embarrassed about what they would have to be dull or stupid not to realize they had interrupted. I splashed cold water over my cheeks and forehead and patted my face dry just as I heard the door buzzer.
“I’ll get it,” Chandler called.
He was obviously quite anxious to get them involved with my situation and happy something had brought them. In fact, he had seemed too willing to interrupt our great lovemaking. I was a little annoyed at that, but it wasn’t really his fault. Damn her, I thought. One way or another, she is tormenting me and ruining my life.
I stepped into the living room as they entered. Lieutenant Julio was as tall as Chandler. His licorice-black hair was balding, with patches of gray. Like someone who was in retreat when it came to his features, he had the remaining strands cut military-short, very close to his scalp. I didn’t think he was as old as the deep lines in his face were advertising. I could see it in his eyes. What he had was the look of someone who had been aged by the terrible things he had witnessed.
Detective Irene Gabriel looked twenty years younger. She was only
an inch or so taller than I was, but she had manly shoulders and was one of those women who would have wide hips no matter how severely she dieted. She had remarkably green eyes, though, and a soft, feminine mouth. She looked too innocent and pleasant to be a homicide detective. Whenever I met someone new, I always wondered what made them who they were, maybe because I was always wondering that about myself, despite the good answers I had given Chandler that day we met.
They both turned immediately away from Chandler to look at me. I saw from the way Detective Gabriel was looking over Chandler and me that she had quickly surmised what they had disturbed with their insistence. Perhaps I was imagining it or hoping, but she looked sorry. Or maybe it was just envy.
Lieutenant Julio was all business and couldn’t have cared less if he had interrupted a lifesaving heart procedure.
“You’re Pru Dunning, a cardiac nurse at Cedars?” he asked.
I started to think that was a dumb question and then realized I could be a friend who was using the apartment. Establishing identities had to be step one. It was just like us, asking name and date of birth whenever we first met a patient. Forget when you were born, and you were doomed in this new security-conscious world.
“I am. What’s this about?” I asked as sharply as I could. Chandler was hoping it was about ending my ordeal, but I wouldn’t surrender my right to my privacy so willingly, even if someone was ostensibly here to help me.
“It’s about a patient of yours,” he said. He looked longingly at the sofa, but I wasn’t yet ready to be civil.
“What patient?”
“Douglas Thomas,” he said.
I thought I could hear the phone ringing and my answering machine going on. She wasn’t leaving a message; she was laughing.
“What about him?” Chandler asked before I could. He stepped forward so as to be between me and them.
“He was murdered today,” Lieutenant Julio said.
I gasped. The bitch, I thought. What now?
Lieutenant Julio looked sharply at Chandler. “And you are?”
The Silhouette Girl Page 19