The Loved Ones

by Mary-Beth Hughes

  Nothing is happening. I’m a trainee.

  And a liar, and a con. You think no one reads the paper around here. Is this a joke.

  Nick gave a sideways hand gesture canceling his drink. I don’t know about you, but I’m done. I’m gonna grab some z’s. Sticking around?

  Sure. Sticking around. That’s it.

  Okay, Sheldon. Nick didn’t pat the raised shoulders, just perused the empty dining room behind the half wall. Suede banquettes. He leaned across the bar for a light, then signed the chit from the bartender. Whatever he wants, said Nick, then left without saying good-bye. Already forgotten, he knew that, Sheldon would be sheepish and curious in the morning. Besides, Sheldon wasn’t saying anything that Irving Slater didn’t repeat daily.

  Ignore the idiots. That was Lionel’s advice. But what would Lionel know about that.

  He liked this walk. Dead of the night, no one on the streets, the wild quiet of the place still surprised him. Middle of London and you could hear the treetops shiver in a breeze and breathe in the damp sour scent of those branches in the dark. At three in the morning his footsteps were the only ones on the square. He approached the fanning marble steps to his door and felt for the key, enormous thing.

  He should have brought Sheldon home and let him sleep it off. Such an honorable guy, Nick thought. What the hell was he doing here?

  He’d finally asked him tonight, and Sheldon just laughed. Tell me this, Sheldon said. Did he do the three-part knock?

  Is this a joke? Don’t know it.

  You know it. Sheldon took a deep long sip of his drink, something lingering and unguarded.

  We should go, said Nick.

  Not done. But it was the old three. They can’t help themselves. Like a fairy tale. Billy meets you by chance, or maybe it’s Irving and whoever it is says he has an instinct. Right?

  Nick smiled; actually it was Lionel who’d talked about instinct.

  They make an offer, pro forma. You turn it down. Back it comes, not doubled but close. You’re flattered, but what the fuck, you don’t return the call. Is this all sounding like a song you know? Time goes by. Some messages, invitations, tickets, you feel good because you’ve checked them out and you’ve learned, because it is such common knowledge the busboys at Schraffts know, these guys are running a revolving door, that Billy spits out talent like a bad nut. So you’re settled. It’s just weather. But then comes the third: Clifford shows up with the car at your door and he’s taking you to Billy’s house. You’ve heard about this place and just for the story you go. Instead of the big drawing room or the library you’re taken to a third-floor kitchen. Something Billy and Bunny use to heat up warm milk in the night, just the two of them. You’re in a very private place. You see Bunny’s headband on the counter, and some knitting she’s left behind. And Billy is fucking with the coffee basket. Some cheap normal electric thing, nothing like the equipment you know is downstairs, and he’s nearly having a heart attack getting the plug in the wall. You show him and he’s awash with gratitude. You’ve never seen the guy so vulnerable and it shocks you a little. Have I got this right?

  Nick looked in the mirror at the room behind them, all the banquettes long empty now. The copper shaded lamps still flickering. He had it completely right. Down to the coffee basket.

  Got it, don’t I. He tells you his wife usually makes the coffee. They’ve got three live-in help, but this is their sanctuary; this is where she poaches his egg every morning. You sit at the round table where his son, the race-car driver, learned to play Scrabble. He tells you what a shambles everything is, a total mare’s nest. He gives you a few particulars, no names. And you sip the shitty coffee you’ve just helped make and you give him an idea. You watch the lines on his face reassemble themselves. You’ve transformed him. Your insight has changed if not everything, then certainly enough. He starts talking about the ground up. He wants you selling lipstick in Macy’s on an executive salary. He drinks the whole cup down and pours another. So happy. He’s never met anyone like you. All he can do is sit back and wonder. You’re a natural—a natural wonder. He’s going to name something after you; just give him a minute.

  Okay, okay. Nick pulled out a handkerchief and blew his nose.

  And then Billy’s got a cramp in his leg, and though he’d love to talk all night, he hasn’t met a brain like yours in this lifetime. Clifford shows up in the little kitchen like the leg cramp deployed a buzzer. Yeah, yeah, Clifford, Billy says. It’s nothing. But he’s rubbing that skinny leg like it’s broken and you say you’ll talk to him later and put your cup down. Look around for the sink. No, no, smart and compassionate, what a combination.

  Sheldon’s lips are shiny. He stares at the back of his hand.

  And I have street smarts, Nick says.

  Street smarts! My fucking god. Street smarts? You are the messiah. Sheldon’s cough sticks in his throat. He lights a Dunhill to calm it down.

  Just so you know, he says, puffing his lips on the exhale, the good-bye has a pattern, too. That’s all I’m saying. The game speeds up like you wouldn’t believe. I won’t see it coming, because no one does, but you will. That’s how it works. So I’m just saying, give me the nod. Can you do that?

  Yup.

  We’ll see.

  Nick took a cigarette for himself. No, if you’re right, I’ll do it. I’ll tell you.

  See? His faith is justified. Billy’s right about you, a decent guy. Who gives a hoot what Irving says.

  Hoot? Nick laughs. You sound like my grandmother.

  Irving wouldn’t know a scam if his grandmother was on the inside.

  4

  Her father would tell her this was nothing. Just take your time, Jeanie. Take your time. She let her breathing calm down. He’d never understood her terror of driving in snow, as if it were all some nonsense she needed to get over. Maybe he was right. The snow landed in fat splotches on the glass and the wipers swept it aside easily. She labored up the last hill before the bridge just in time to see the Clury bus come to a stop at the turn ahead.

  Everyone knew the Clury School bus, shorter than most and robin’s-egg blue. The Clury School in Fair Haven was famous for slipping kids in trouble—academically, behaviorally—back into the mainstream. It boasted students who went on to Dartmouth and Brown, but only a handful of successes. When a friend sent a child there, everyone felt a ping of relief it wasn’t a child of one’s own. Nick had argued very, very briefly that Lily might benefit from a year at Clury. Two at the most. But Jean had held firm. Oh, no, she said. Absolutely not. She’ll be stigmatized for life. We might as well paint something on her forehead.

  Don’t be ridiculous, he’d said. It will be a badge of honor. Are you kidding? When she runs out of stories about what monsters we are, she’ll have something to fall back on.

  What are you talking about? You make no sense. Why would she ever say anything about us at all. What a sickening idea. And Jean was right of course; Lily was very loyal. But then Doris had chimed in, Oh, yes, the Clury School. Why didn’t I think of it?

  Because, Jean had almost said, it’s none of your business. And she was right about that, too, but she pretended to listen to Doris’s argument that Lily needed a little extra attention.

  Really, Doris, Jean said, when we all stop wringing our hands over her feelings, everything will be fine. She is a child. None of this really concerns her.

  What can you possibly mean?

  Jeanie knows what’s best, her father finally said. An argument so definitive that Nick and Doris fell silent. Now they were moving to London.

  Everything sounded too loud in her ears, the blinker and outside the grind and hiss of the Clury bus as it made a wide turn onto the bridge over the Navesink River. Just like a little steam engine plodding through the snow making a path for Jean to follow.

  She kept her distance. She kept the requisite one hundred feet and then let herself slow some more. Felt the swath of snowy wind deepen between them. Only the two vehicles, no one behind her and i
t was so beautiful on the slow rise. The Navesink bridge curled into the widest views from this end, a panorama of the river channels and islands and beyond to the ocean. The cotton sky and gray lines of sea grass and punks and cattails poking out of the cracked shoreline, all the swirling tides frozen. Beautiful most of all on the quietest days, like this one, and she allowed herself a brief glance, hands tight on the wheel, just a blink of a glance toward the ocean, when she heard the screech. The school bus spun sideways in slow motion, as though drawing a wide arc in the snow with its headlights until it bumped gently into the parapet and stopped just the hundred-plus feet ahead of her. She would smash right into it and then she remembered to pump her brakes, release the accelerator and pump her brakes, like a short panting breath. Her car went into its own small spiral and she felt a wash of hatred in her throat as she came closer to the parapet, hatred for the bus driver who was endangering her.

  The car slid to a stop, caught in the rugged tracks of the school bus, exactly reversed, facing the way she’d come. Her foot slipped from the brake pedal; her eyes were open but not seeing and burning with some chemical released into the air. She couldn’t hear a thing. She closed her eyes to stop the sting and felt for the gearshift and pushed the car into park.

  It was very quiet. The wind had died suddenly and when she opened her eyes the snow fell before her in straight thick fast lines. Like Christmas light strings unlit. The school bus, more a van really, was probably empty. The children already in school. Besides, most who were forced to go to Clury were driven by their parents. A trust issue. The bus driver cut the engine. Now the only sound was the whine of her windshield wipers. Jean was shaking so much she couldn’t turn around. She watched the bus in her rearview mirror and thought she saw the hand of the driver wiping at the windows on the inside. He couldn’t be hurt; the impact had been less than that of a bumpy car on the boardwalk. The bus looked completely fine, as far as she could tell, though now her back window was obscured. She was the one who could have been killed, if she hadn’t been able to stop, if she’d collided right into him. Her hands were shaking; she was shivering all over now. But her car was fine she was fairly sure.

  She started to press the door handle; she’d get out and talk to the driver, get his name. Though her legs felt so weak she might have trouble standing, she tried to push open her door but it felt frozen shut. She pushed harder and no difference. At least she thought she pushed harder. Her arm moved, but maybe there was no power behind it, an empty movement.

  She rolled down her side window and stuck her head out for a look. She called out to the driver, Hey! But he didn’t seem to see her. She tried once more to open her door, but couldn’t so she cranked her window shut and tested the acceleration. It was working just fine. She could do this she found, if she thought of the car as a needle and she would stitch the road. She’d be that secure and that small, going back down the slope they’d just climbed. The car—she didn’t once think about reversing—stitched forward until finally she was creeping along the curve to the yield sign. She was on land, and behind her—she only remembered this later—the lights were flashing on the bus, yellow bursts in the white cloud behind her. The driver had pushed on the flashers. The driver was fine. She would get as far as the Crabtrees’ barn and raise the alarm and urgent Mimi Crabtree would fly into action.

  That was the very best idea. Mimi, and Dr. Crabtree, a veteran. They would know what was needed. That was what she’d do. And she would have done it, she felt certain, if the police car, with all lights revolving and sirens blasting hadn’t rushed past her onto the bridge; didn’t even see her, she thought. Though she half waited all day for the phone call or even a knock on the door.

  The other calls came around noon. Mimi Crabtree to say that Perry was all set, that Jean could stop worrying. Then a few minutes later Doris, in tears, saying Lily was safe, she was safe. She was dry and warm and Doris would keep her for the night if that was still all right. Let her stay with me, Doris pleaded. Let me keep her close. I was so frightened. I’ve aged ten years in a day!

  But she is staying with you, Jean broke in at last. That was our plan, remember? What in the world was Doris talking about?

  It seemed Lily had walked from school to her grandmother’s house all alone in the blizzard. Jean sighed. Well, I’m sure you’ll keep her good company.

  Then, no surprise, Nick’s new secretary called from London to say that his flight had been canceled. When Jean asked to speak to him, the childish singsong voice said Mr. Devlin wasn’t in the office yet, but she’d be sure to give a message as soon as he arrived. Tania, that was her name. Thank you, Tania, Jean said into the fizz of the phone line, then stood staring out the bay window in the kitchen: the river and trees were invisible now.

  Doris put down the black receiver and settled her necklace along the thin white line that curved at the base of her throat. All of her necklaces, good and trash, had been adjusted once she’d healed. All of her dresses taken in and then discarded altogether. She was a different woman since the surgery; everyone said so.

  Even Clyde thought she was different. She crept up on him now; he couldn’t hear her footsteps anymore. She gave him the creeps he said, sneaking around that way. Then he’d turn his face away and take a long sip of bourbon from a tumbler and he’d hold it in his mouth as long as he could. His mouth made a little bowl and the aroma snuck up through his sinuses and pleasantly stewed his brain with thoughts of success, all that had been his, that still was, that he’d grabbed from misfortune and worse. Everything he’d done and made and was, and a smile whispered across his black-brown eyes, a wisp of joy, until there she was standing right in front of him. He’d swallow and say, What the hell? I thought you’d gone.

  Clyde was away now on one of his trips, though he planned to be back for Christmas. That just might not work out Doris thought, watching the heavy snowfall pile up through the sidelights framing the front door. She startled to hear Ruby’s laugh, and then Lily’s too, a deep guffaw, the two of them huddled in the kitchen. Ruby’s hot milk on the stove, fragrant with cardamom and vanilla. Even from here Lily’s bright red snow-burned knees looked raw where the blanket had slipped away. Doris rushed toward her, crying out, Bundle up, darling, please. Now, sweetheart, please. Then gently moved the blankets herself.

  Summer 1970

  5

  What Clyde Boll missed most about work was his driver, Huey. He’d intended to take Huey with him into retirement, had selected the car—a white, deep-seated convertible. He’d ordered the caps, the uniforms, something lightweight for summer, good navy wool with silver-plated buttons for winter. Clyde was all set when Huey suffered a cardiac arrest in an underground garage in Newark. What the hell was he doing in Newark? Clyde wanted to know. Honey, he lives there, said Doris, with a look of surprise on her face. Now Huey had decided to retire, too, and Clyde could scarcely forgive him. The man has a heart problem, said Doris. But he corrected her thinking. No, Huey would not be welcome, even if he had a change of mind. Even if he came to his senses. Clyde would learn to drive himself. Briefly, he’d entertained the thought of letting Doris drive him. They could be companions of the road. An idea expressed to Jean that made them both laugh.

  By the time of his retirement party on an early June Saturday, with all the plaques and testimonials, Clyde could drive anywhere he pleased. Anytime. He’d driven half the guests himself back to the train station in the evening. Pile in, he shouted and some did just for the novelty, and for the tale. The president (Not anymore, bud!) was opening the doors for them. You’ve got a second career here, chief, said Bart Canfield, from the backseat, clasping what was left of his hair.

  Stupid son of a bitch was always the stick in the eye, could never let well enough alone. Always said the wrong thing. If it was possible to destroy, no, demolish a great idea, he was desperate, panting to do it. Should have fired him when I had the chance. Oh, Daddy, said Jean. And didn’t she look pretty this morning. She really hadn’t changed
; he didn’t know what Doris went on about. But what did you think of the cake! Sent via helicopter by Sterling, sorry not to deliver it in person.

  I’ve got some, brought it home last night. For luck! Let me get you a slice. And she was up and running into the house, and he shouted something in through the porch door about hiding it from Lily, something to make Jean smile, though he couldn’t see her for the moment. He watched the sparkle of the morning light shift and shiver on the water. He’d have a half cup of coffee more, then get on with it. He had Shea to deal with down at the marina, the only one with a slip worth having from here to Barnegat Bay. Then he’d stop in at Gunco’s for chum and a pound of pastrami, then down to the tip of Sandy Hook to see what the boys were finding today. Plenty of chop, plenty of breeze, the air still cool enough to keep the fish coming up to the surface. He kept a rod and gear in storage at McKinney’s garage; he’d stop in and pick it up on the way. He was doing just fine without Huey.

  Where’s my angel? he shouted through the screen door. No time for her old Poppa?

  No time for any of us, Daddy, smiled Jean, coming back out onto the porch, handing him the plate. A popular girl.

  Clyde took the cake and nodded. They both knew this was untrue. But Clyde agreed with the principle: just say the best version of a situation and chances were better it would turn out that way.

  Getting hotter, she said.

  It made him smile. That Huey, he said.

  Yes, Huey didn’t like the heat. Those awful suits he had to wear! Like being boiled alive.

  I’d have done better for him.

  I know that. But you’re fine, better than fine.

  Learning to drive, this had been his first destination, though he’d never admit it. A good routine, no one went to Mass anymore except Doris, and Lily because she had to. Jean put in an appearance on Saturday evenings, stood in the back vestibule, smoked on the front steps under the eaves during the sermon, then left as soon as the tabernacle closed. Clyde thought she’d taken this up for him, this practice, so they could have Sunday mornings just like this for a while. Who knew how long she’d be in London really. Since when was Nick a man to be trusted.