Getting It Right

by Karen E. Osborne

  Now, she sat in the teacher's lounge, crammed with four computer workstations and swivel chairs, long folding tables, and all the makings of a kitchenette. The room felt chilly. Kara pulled her sweater tighter around her shoulders. Her cell phone rang.

  "Baby, what happened this morning? Sam said you didn't show up."

  "I called you, Zach. Twice."

  Joyce, the receptionist, stuck her head through the door. "Want some company?"

  Kara gestured to her phone.

  Joyce, gold earrings swinging, mouthed, Is it him?

  Kara nodded yes. Kara and Joyce were friends. Not to the point of sharing secrets, of course, but enough to let Joyce know she was seeing someone special.

  "When did you call?" Zach asked.

  His surprise sounded genuine—the secretary hadn't told him. With only a slight quaver in her voice, Kara managed to tell him about her morning.

  "Oh, princess, I'm so sorry; you must have been terrified. But this is all crazy. Why would anyone follow you? Are you sure?"

  "I am. Too many coincidences, don't you think?"

  "Listen, baby, let's have dinner tonight and talk about this. I'll send a car for you just to be safe."

  "I'm exhausted."

  "We'll have the dinner we missed last night. I should have stayed with you all evening. I kept thinking I should be with you, gazing into those golden eyes of yours, instead of sitting in meetings."

  "Maybe."

  "It's decided. We're not taking any chances. The car will pick you up from school at five, that'll give us plenty of time. And Kara, bring the envelope, okay?"

  Joyce, still in the doorway, peered over her sandwich. Not eavesdropping exactly, but watching Kara.

  "Okay."

  "I love you."

  "I love you too."

  The minute Kara hung up, Joyce said, "Well, Miss Popular, Danny called you at the front desk. That's what I came in to tell you."

  "Danny?"

  "He wanted to know if you were doing all right. I told him you were fine." She handed Kara a pink message slip. "Why wouldn't you be okay?"

  "It's nothing."

  "Doesn't sound like nothing."

  "I had a scare this morning, that's all."

  "Two men worried about you. Sounds like a good day to me."

  * * *

  Zach and Kara sat across from each other holding hands. The restaurant thrummed with the conversations of the after-work crowd, interrupted by occasional bursts of laughter. Kara rubbed her thumb across the hairs on the back of Zach's hand. He slipped out of her grasp, brought her left hand to his lips, and kissed each fingertip.

  "Was your salmon good?" he teased, his plate still half-full.

  Kara ate fast—a leftover habit from foster care. She used to have to eat with her shoulders hunched, arms practically wrapped around the plate, to protect the contents from the bigger kids. She'd had to work hard at slowing down. "Guess so," she replied, matching his light tone.

  "I tried to make it special for you."

  "Everything was excellent, and the Fumé Blanc superb."

  Their waiter refilled their water glasses. Live piano music floated over the chatter, lavender orchids and votive candles decorated the table.

  "Are you feeling better?" He held her hand again, his blue eyes intense, roaming across her face as if searching for clues.

  "Much."

  Zach always made her feel good. Well, most times. Kara took another sip of wine.

  "Do you want to tell me about the man you think is following you? Are you up for that?"

  She stalled. "I'm easily spooked these days." How could she ask him about the envelope and his friend Sam without sounding suspicious, as if she didn't trust him—which she did, but maybe she was too trusting. Maybe Sam was a bad person.

  "I noticed." He cocked his head to one side. "But just in case there is something to all this, tell me about him. Can you describe him?"

  She bit her lower lip.

  "Humor me." He sat back and crossed his arms.

  "Last night, right before you arrived, I saw him at the bar, mean eyes staring at me from the entrance. He didn't bother me or anything," she said quickly, in response to his expression.

  "I should have stayed."

  "It's okay, really."

  "What happened next?"

  "He was on the street; tall, narrow face, buzz cut."

  She'd gone over this so many times now, first in her own mind and then for Danny. "He was on the subway, and then near my house. Finally, this morning, he was in the doorway of Sam's building. That's when I called you."

  Zach appeared to listen intently.

  "Danny came and got me."

  "How did your cop friend get into the picture?"

  "I called him after I couldn't reach you."

  His tone changed. "Poor baby," he stroked her cheek, "it sounds like a string of coincidences to me."

  "That many?"

  "Well, if you'd taken a taxi, like you promised—"

  "I should have."

  "Anyway, it all sounds harmless."

  She stayed quiet. Why dismiss it? It probably was harmless, but he didn't know that. She could feel herself getting angry and hurt.

  The waiter dropped off the check, and Zach quickly paid in cash. "Let's get out of here. Can we go someplace, spend a little private time?"

  "Sure," she said, after an almost imperceptible hesitation. This was Zach's way of asking her to make love.

  He stared at her. "Don't do me any favors."

  Her voice brightened. "I'm just tired. Sure, absolutely."

  * * *

  Huddled closely together, they walked uptown. Zach kept an apartment on the Upper East Side for entertaining out-of-town guests, and he took Kara there whenever he could get away from home for a few hours. The streets—filled with clusters of people on their way to and from dinner, the movies, shopping, work, home—seemed to buzz, or maybe the buzzing was in her head from all the wine. Kara bit her lower lip hard enough to hurt.

  Although the precipitation had stopped, the atmosphere was still raw. Clouds from their breath rose in front of them. They walked east on 82nd Street until they reached the building. Zach scanned the lobby, then steered Kara toward the bank of elevators. The security guard gave them a perfunctory, "Good evening." Within a few seconds, Zach punched the up button four, then five times. He kept his head low and faced away from the others entering the lobby. Kara's lip swelled; she tasted blood, swallowed.

  The apartment was New York small, but nice. A living and dining area led into a bedroom with a king-sized bed and not much else. The closet held two terry-cloth robes, some of Zach's clothes, and an iron and ironing board—like in a hotel. The bathroom had a glass jar filled with Q-tips, and there was an unopened bar of glycerin soap on the counter. Zach's toiletry bag rested on the sink next to it.

  Kara took off her coat and shoes.

  Zach pulled the drapes closed. "How about some music?" Quiet Storm, a smooth jazz program, was a favorite of both of theirs. "Want something to drink?" He walked into the kitchenette. "I've got diet and regular Pepsi, spring water, there's also chardonnay and Merlot." He grabbed the corkscrew and jabbed it into the Merlot.

  "No thanks." Her anxiety level had reached a feverish high and she'd already had several glasses of wine in the restaurant.

  Zach walked to her. "Come here, my sweet princess." He pulled her close. Large hands stroked her shoulders, slid down her back, and landed on her buttocks with a squeeze.

  She let him unbutton her blouse and slip it off her shoulders. He kissed her cheek, her neck, and then her shoulder. With practiced expertise, he unsnapped her bra.

  "Mmm, you taste so good." He licked under the swell of each breast and sucked her nipples.

  The strong tugs brought arousal, and then the familiar unwanted fear.

  Kara admonished herself: Just breathe; this is what adults do. Zach is not Big Jim. Zach would never hurt you. She ran her fingers through Zach's hai
r and took a cleansing breath. You love him. It's going to be okay—better than okay: good. Pain stabbed behind her eyes and in her groin.

  Zach slid her skirt and panties over her hips and ran his tongue across her stomach. "So good," he said, his voice muffled. He nuzzled her pubic hairs.

  With eyes clamped shut, Kara held her breath. The image of Big Jim's swollen penis loomed large in her mind: its purple head towered over her like a giant steel probe. She forced images of a sandy beach, the sun on her face, waves lapping against her toes. With concentration and years of practice, she could keep the beach images strong and the menacing penis would fade. Nothing, however, kept the pain away.

  His tongue danced across the curls of her pubic hair. "I love the way you smell," he moaned, burying his face in her bush.

  With practiced sensuality, Kara pulled his face back up to hers. She knew how to make it work. Between kisses on his nose and lips, she asked softly, "What would you like, Zach?" She wanted to please him, to be normal—but mostly she wanted to get this part, the hardest part, over with as soon as possible. It was always easier once she took control.

  He pushed her down on the bed, rubbing her breasts and squeezing her nipples. Still standing over her, he removed his shirt and tugged off his slacks and boxers, his penis bobbing free.

  Kara shut her eyes as tightly as possible as he sank down next to her. He rolled onto his back and pulled her on top, his breathing fast and loud, his penis glistening with droplets of semen. She knew it was going to hurt something awful. It always did, but that wasn't his fault—it was Kara's flawed life sentence, thanks to Jim Smyth.

  How come they never noticed—not Zach, not Winston, not loser Frank, her first boyfriend? She knew the answer: she never told them, never showed them. Pretending was something Kara knew how to do well. Once, she'd brought it up to Tuesday. They had an unspoken pact about not discussing their torture, but she'd felt crippled and trapped.

  "Fake it. That's what I do, and so do 90 percent of American women," Tuesday had said, sagely nodding her head. "It's all overrated anyway."

  So, that's what Kara did. There were many ways to make it bearable.

  "Let me take care of you," she said in a husky voice.

  Zach moaned, closed his eyes, and let her.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Although it was only four p.m., the sky outside Alex's office window was as dark as midnight. She flexed her cramped fingers, closed her eyes, and rotated her neck—trying to ease the tension. She still had another five or six hours of work to do.

  The phone rang. Gracie had long since left for the weekend so Sean must have picked it up. Half a minute later, Alex could hear him making concerned sounds into the mouthpiece. It was probably Jonas checking up on her progress.

  Sean walked into her office, the phone against his chest. "It's your Dad."

  "On the phone?"

  "He's had another heart attack. Your aunt needs you and Vanessa to get there as soon as you can."

  Alex sagged. Dear God, please don't let my daddy die. She'd been speaking with God—the God she wasn't sure she believed in—quite a bit lately.

  Sean squatted beside her. "It'll be okay, Alex. I'll drive you there."

  She let him hold her, let the weight of the past two days soak into his sweatered shoulder. It felt good to let go and let someone else be responsible, even for just a few minutes.

  The moment passed. "I'm fine now. I can drive myself, but thanks. I need to find Vanessa." She snatched a tissue from the box on her desk and blew her nose. "Call Jonas. I know he'll be disappointed but you can check out what I've completed so far—it's all here on my desk."

  Without waiting for a reply, she waved a low fluttering goodbye, and left.

  * * *

  It had been four hours since they'd taken Worth into the operating room. Four hours and no word. Alex shredded a cigarette in her pocket.

  "Do these doctors even know what they're doing?" Her mother had repeated this question with ever-increasing volume for the past two hours. "It's not like this is New York. We're in the boonies up here at the mercy of doctors who barely speak English."

  Alex glanced around to see who might have heard. A brown-skinned man in blue scrubs with shiny black hair walked past. She hoped he hadn't heard her mother.

  Judy plowed on, her voice loud enough for him to turn around: "If I had been with him when this happened, I would have gotten him to Mount Sinai or Columbia Presbyterian. But this is what he gets."

  "Mom."

  Vanessa put down her cell phone and walked over to their mother. "Dr. Minter is one of the best cardiologists in the country, Judy."

  "Then what is he doing at this hospital?"

  "I checked him out," Vanessa said in the stern tone she'd inherited from Judy, "and lower your voice. You're embarrassing all of us."

  "What do you know, Miss Never-been-sick-a-day-in-your-life?"

  Vanessa threw up her hands.

  "You stay downtown, barely finding time for your parents—those same parents, I might add, who paid for twelve years at Brearley and four years at Vassar."

  Alex tried to remember a time when there were no arguments or drama, but she couldn't think of a single day. When she got married, if she ever did, there would be no fighting or yelling. Probably, she'd never marry. None of her sisters would either—why would they want to?

  "I'm getting some coffee. Do you want something, Judy?"

  The part that always puzzled Alex was how unperturbed both her mother and Vanessa were after a spat. There her sister was, dressed in a cream-colored suede suit that probably cost two thousand dollars, unruffled and pulled together, offering to get her mother a cup of coffee. Alex knew her mother would respond in kind.

  "No thank you, dear. I'll just sit and rest here awhile."

  The storm was over for the next ten minutes, fifteen if Alex was lucky.

  She often wondered why the three sisters had turned out so differently. In many ways, she was the classic firstborn: dutiful, needing to please parents who hadn't gotten the hang of parenting yet. By the time Vanessa arrived, they had settled in. Vanessa was disdainful of them, not needing their approval the way Alex did. On the other hand, although she fought with their mother constantly, Vanessa stayed close and went along in the end. Pigeon was the real rebel—she rejected everything their parents wanted, including college. Now she was off to California with some musician. Alex held her head in her hands.

  "Don't be so dramatic, Alex. Nothing is that bad."

  They sat together quietly for several minutes.

  "Mom, can I ask you something . . . sensitive?" Alex eventually said.

  "You can ask me anything, you know that."

  Alex must have made a face.

  "Didn't I always tell you that no topics were off limits?"

  Alex remembered asking many "off limits" questions and receiving unsatisfactory answers. When she was seven or eight years old she had asked, Mom, who do you love best: Daddy, Nessie, Pigeon, or me? The answer came swiftly: None of you best, what a silly question. Or the time Vanessa had walked in on their parents having sex one Sunday morning and Judy fainted. When the undeterred Vanessa had asked about it later, their mother's response was, Busybodies get ignored. The most typical reply to an unwanted question was, Wild girls with no manners end up unmarried, alone, and poor.

  Nevertheless, Alex felt compelled to try: "Daddy told me about the child he put up for adoption."

  Judy blinked several times. "There are things cultured people do not discuss; this is one of them."

  "I need to know about her," Alex ventured. Finding out more had become increasingly important for reasons she herself didn't fully understand. The urgency was for her father's sake, but the interest and importance had become personal. "I'm not trying to hurt you. It was a long time ago. Why can't we talk about it?"

  Her mother sat motionless. When she faced her daughter, she was frowning. "Today may be your father's last day on earth. We are not going to
discuss the whores in his life, the bastard child he fathered, or the way he neglected and mistreated his family."

  Why would Alex think this conversation could go any other way?

  "We are going to remember all of the good things, and she, my dear, is not among them."

  Dr. Minter approached them. "Mrs. Lawrence."

  All of the clichés turned out to be real. Alex could feel her heart in her throat; she could barely swallow.

  "He's resting comfortably. We just have to wait and see."

  The doctor's eyes were bloodshot, his scrubs soiled. A surgical mask dangled from his ears and chin. In manner and tone, questions were not invited.

  "You may look in on him in the recovery room. The rest of the family can see him once he returns to his room."

  Dr. Minter shook Judy's hand and left.

  Her mother cried, at first tiny sniffles, and then body-wracking sobs. Alex put her arms around Judy and let tears of relief flow.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  The next day a taxi brought Kara to the First Avenue address. It was late morning, still cloudy but with slivers of sun, less chilly than the night before. Although it was Saturday, people packed the stores and streets. Kara paid the cab driver from the fifty dollars Zach had pressed on her the night before—a rare occurrence. It still felt wrong to take the money, especially since he gave it to her soon after they'd made love. But the scare from yesterday left her feeling vulnerable, so she'd accepted.

  She paid the driver and asked him to wait.

  The brightly lit lobby appeared deserted. Kara cleared her throat. Somewhere, behind closed doors, machines hummed.

  A security guard dressed in a pressed navy uniform approached her. "May I help you?"

  "Sam Westin, please. He's expecting me."

  The guard went behind a stand near the bank of elevators and punched several numbers into his phone. "Your name?" He sounded bored.

  "Kara Lawrence." She belatedly wondered if she should have asked Zach to give Westin a false name. Or she should have worn a hat to cover her distinctive curls, and maybe sunglasses. People always remembered her eyes. This line of thought made her feel guilty. There was nothing illegal or immoral going on beacause Zach would never ask her to do something that could hurt her.