Baby Please Don't Go: A Novel

by Frank Freudberg

  15

  That Sunday, Lock spent lunch on a park bench under lightly falling snow, watching a man try to help a few animated kids launch a kite in the November breeze. The kids wore identical coats with furry hoods and were all about the same height. Lock wondered if they were triplets. Despite the frigid weather, they appeared to be having fun, more interested in bowling one another over on the hill than in actually getting their kite in the air.

  Lock waved to get the man’s attention and signaled for them to move to a nearby slope where he knew they’d find it easier to launch. He’d flown kites at this park years ago with a former girlfriend and remembered the slope. What had ever happened to her? He remembered she once told him she never wanted to have children, and that had turned him right off. He’d kept going out with her, but he’d known it would be a casual-only affair. He didn’t even remember the details of the break-up, except that it was his idea.

  He watched the man and kids move in the direction he’d indicated. A moment later, they got the kite aloft. The kids jumped up and down and shouted with delight at the kite as it fluttered wildly on the string one of the kids held. The man tipped Lock a salute. He waved back, and he felt like he was waving goodbye to his own family.

  On Monday, Lock went to the office and settled into his cubicle. He called Natalie on the burner phone. He said, “I have to meet, now.” He gave her the directions to the park.

  Twenty minutes later, Lock arrived at the same park he’d been to the day before. It was snowing again, and the flakes came down more heavily than yesterday, the sky darkened by heavy gray clouds.

  Natalie pulled up fast in her Mercedes SUV and parked next to Lock’s county car. She got out, and after a quick embrace, Lock took a step back.

  “I can’t do it, Natalie.”

  He watched for her reaction. There was nothing. She looked at him, waiting for him to say more.

  “It feels like I’m about to jump off a bridge,” he continued. “I can’t think, I can’t eat, I can’t sleep. The truth is, I’m too scared. I don’t think it’s the right thing to do.”

  She’s listened, motionlessly, arms folded.

  “Okay, Lock, okay,” she said. “I get it. I understand.”

  “No, you don’t,” he said. “There’s been a waking nightmare going on in my head for the past three days. I can’t take it and I can’t do it. I’m getting out before it’s too late. I’m sorry to let you down, but that’s the way it has to be.”

  Natalie drew a circle in the snow with the tip of her sandal. Her bejeweled toes glimmered.

  “This doesn’t have anything to do with that lie Witt told about me and the yoga instructor, does it?” said Natalie.

  “No. Nothing at all. You said it wasn’t true.”

  “That’s right, it’s a lie. He’s envious and suspicious of everything.”

  “I’m not worried about that,” he said. “I’m worried about how you’re taking it—that I changed my mind.”

  “It’s okay, baby,” she said. “It was crazy anyway, to think we could have made it happen.”

  “Oh, we could make it happen all right. But we won’t. I won’t.”

  She hugged him tightly.

  “Okay,” she said. “I don’t care. As long as we have each other. Don’t worry. Come here.”

  She reached out, grasped his hand, and pulled him to her. They kissed long and deep. Soon, he pushed away, remembering they were in public.

  “I have to go now,” she said.

  “Don’t,” he said.

  She moved close and looked steadily into his eyes. “This changes nothing between us,” she said.

  “Wouldn’t that be pretty.”

  “It is pretty. We’ll figure out a way to make us work.”

  Snow fell on them. He shivered.

  Without warning, Natalie leaped over a low parking lot rail. Lock watched her sprint to the woods. When she didn’t return, Lock circled wide, a snowball in his hand.

  “Huge mistake!” Lock shouted from behind a nearby oak he had crept up to. His snowball sailed through the air and beaned her, not too hard, above her ear. Snow covered the side of her face, melting and dripping down her cheek like icy tears.

  She laughed. “You little prick.”

  Natalie wiped the wet from her hair and face and gave Lock a quick hug.

  She walked to her car, got in, and started the engine. She rolled down the window and turned toward him.

  “Don’t worry about a thing, Lock,” she said. “All’s well. You shouldn’t do something you’re not uncomfortable with. I’ll figure something out.”

  Natalie put her car in reverse, pulled out of the spot, and drove off. She beeped her horn a few times and Lock saw her hand dart out of the window, giving him a jaunty wave goodbye.

  As he watched her drive away, he wondered what had just happened. He hadn’t known what to expect—it could be difficult to predict her behavior—but having her take it so genially was not something he’d considered.

  16

  Natalie had prepared two excuses so that her plan to be away from home all day and night would seem logical to Candice.

  “Candice!” Natalie called from the living room. “Come in here, please.”

  “Yes, Mrs. Mannheim. Be right there, Mrs. Mannheim,” Candice shouted from upstairs.

  A minute later, Candice appeared, eyes half open and looking resentful at being disturbed.

  Natalie checked the dates of the home-decorating magazines on the coffee table. She removed a couple of the older ones and held them in her hand. “I have a really busy day tomorrow. I’ll need you in early and you’ll have to stay overnight,” Natalie told her.

  “I was going to go out with Carlo for Japanese,” Candice said, shaking her head. “A little warning would be nice, you know.”

  “I’m sorry, Candice. I couldn’t predict emergency dental work far enough in advance to suit you.”

  “Oh,” she said. “Sorry. What’s wrong? Didn’t know something was wrong.”

  “Well, there is. And worse, I’m going to my sister’s in Princeton right after the dentist, and Witt’s in Sacramento, so you’ll be on duty all day, all night, and tomorrow morning. I’ll be home by eleven a.m. Then you can have the rest of the day off.”

  “That’s like twenty-four hours straight.”

  “Yes. But since you’re helping me out, how about if I okay it for Carlo to spend some time here? You can have him in for dinner. Just this time. And no sleepover.”

  Candice’s eyes opened wide. “Really? Carlo can actually come in? He doesn’t have to wait at the door like a delivery man?”

  “No. He can come in. This time. Why do you look so surprised?”

  “Uh…because you hate him?”

  “I don’t dislike Carlo,” Natalie said. “It’s just that you can do so much better.”

  “You don’t know him. You judge him. And anyway, he has so many great qualities, I overlook his flaws.”

  “That’s a lot of overlooking. Anyway, if anything urgent comes up tomorrow or tomorrow night, don’t call my sister’s number. Reach me on my cell.”

  The next morning, Natalie drove down the gravel driveway to Lock’s carriage house. During the ensuing twenty-four hours, she and Lock were inseparable.

  Despite Lock’s request that Natalie bring warm clothes—he had told her he had a surprise for her—she arrived at his carriage house in her usual state of being under-dressed regardless of the occasion, regardless of the weather—jeans and a lightweight top. At least she was wearing boots—leather boots that reached up over her knees. When he asked her about her lack of layers, she picked up a large overnight bag and informed him it contained a sweatshirt, down jacket, gloves, and earmuffs.

  “What’s the surprise? I usually don’t like surprises,” she said before they left for
town. “They usually aren’t good things.”

  “Okay,” he said, “I’ll tell you. I know you’re skipping yoga to spend the day with me—”

  “And you took a vacation day, so we’re even,” she said.

  “—so I thought we’d spend the day walking. We’ll have a self-guided tour of the city.”

  “Oh! I want to see Independence Mall. I’ve lived near Philadelphia for two decades and I’ve never been there. Witt promised to take Edwina and me, but that was just a Witt promise. Written on the wind.”

  They walked down the stairs and out into the chilly autumn air. Natalie carried her overnight bag.

  “Here’s the route,” he said, “and we can change it any way you want. I was thinking we start at Delaware Avenue, walk up Walnut Street to Rittenhouse Square. Go into Barnes & Noble to get coffee and then sit in the park and drink it. That’s about two miles.”

  “But Independence Mall is down on Fifth Street, right? You have us walking right past it.”

  “We’ll catch the Liberty Bell and the historical stuff on the way back. Hear me out.”

  “Okay,” she said. “I love that you’ve got this planned.”

  “Then, we walk across the bridge to the Penn campus. There’s a bench there on Locust Walk with a life-size bronze sculpture of Ben Franklin sitting on it, reading a bronze newspaper. There’s enough room on the bench for people to sit and get their picture taken.”

  “Pictures of us, together?” said Natalie. “That doesn’t sound like the super-cautious Lock Gilkenney I know.”

  “We won’t be taking any pictures, I was just telling you that’s what people do.

  “It’s not supposed to get warmer than thirty today,” she said. “I’m used to it from skiing. I can take it all day long. Can you?”

  “I went to school in western Massachusetts, so I can take it. And you brought cold-weather gear, so we’ll be fine.”

  They waited at Lock’s carriage house apartment until 9:30 a.m. and then drove in her Mercedes from Red Cedar Woods up 95 into Philadelphia, finally parking in a lot at Penn’s Landing along the Delaware River.

  Somehow, aborting the mission to frame Witt, as far as Lock could tell, had brought Natalie and him closer than ever. Natalie appeared to be more relaxed, and he was unquestionably calmer.

  Once they arrived in Philadelphia and began their walk from Penn’s Landing toward Old City and Center City, Natalie lost no time in talking Lock into going to Independence Mall first, rather than on their return walk.

  “This way,” she said once he agreed, “if we run out of time, I’ll at least have gotten to finally see some actual history.”

  The air was chilly and the sky was gray, but there was no breeze and neither of them felt the cold.

  They walked across an expanse of worn red bricks to the enclosure that held the Liberty Bell. There wasn’t so much a long line as there was a large throng of people, mostly families, standing between Lock and Natalie and the entrance to the Liberty Bell.

  “A lot of happy families down here,” Natalie said, interlacing her arm in his and squeezing. “Look at those three.”

  Natalie pointed with her chin at a man and a woman who walked next to each other with a little girl between them. They held her a few inches off the ground and swung her by her arms. She giggled, and her legs pumped the air as if she were riding a tricycle. Lock watched them before they disappeared into the crowd.

  As they walked along, Natalie’s cell phone rang. “It might be Candice,” she said, “I have to take it.”

  “Go ahead.”

  Natalie said hello, and smirked. “It’s Witt,” she mouthed to Lock. She continued to listen for another half minute, and then without saying a word, hung up and slipped the phone back into her rear pocket. She looked ahead.

  “What was that all about?” Lock asked.

  “Witt just called me a mother-fucking bitch-hole.”

  Lock scowled at hearing that. “Verbal abuse. Does he say things like that in front of the girls? There’s something you can use in court. What’s got him so upset?”

  “He doesn’t need to be so upset to curse at me. And who knows what’s under his skin this time.”

  “I see that,” Lock said. “When things were better between you and Witt, you must have had good days, though, right?”

  “Never had days like that,” she said. “Some of the days weren’t horrible, but once we were married, he became a thoroughly different man. Mostly surly and always sarcastic. I think I’ve picked up some of that trait.”

  “No, Natalie, you’re not that way at all. You’re funny. One of the many things I like about you.”

  “It was Witt’s idea to have kids right away. I wanted to wait, in part because I wasn’t so sure about him. He must have been harboring the same concerns, but his way of dealing with it was to complicate things by having children.”

  “You were opposed?”

  “No, I was all for it,” she said. “We just differed on when would be the best time.”

  “He won.”

  “He usually does.”

  Natalie took a quick peek at a tour map she’d picked up at the information desk and nudged Lock toward Congress Hall across the street from the Liberty Bell.

  They walked arm-in-arm. Lock asked, “How’s it going with your lawyer? Is he any good?”

  “Jerome?” she said. “He’s been great. He cut me a break on his fees since Witt cut me off. He says Witt will be hanging himself by using all his money and influence for lawyers and private eyes while letting all my credit cards and bank accounts go dry so I can’t even pay a retainer.”

  “Or buy clothes for the girls?”

  “Yes. Right. That’s going to look bad for Witt.”

  Natalie turned and, still arm-in-arm, walked Lock toward the street. “Let’s change the subject,” she said. “This is too beautiful of a day to contaminate it with Wittley Mannheim.”

  “Okay, but one last thing. You need to have another talk with your lawyer friend. You can’t give your husband a long leash to build a case against you while you sit back and watch. You’ve got to protect yourself.”

  “I don’t know, Lock. I trust the universe. Everything will work out.”

  “Yeah, sure. Don’t forget the combat soldier’s creed—’Praise the Lord, but pass the ammunition.’”

  “You have to have faith, Lock. You’re the one who didn’t want to help me do it my way.”

  “Your way was a terrible way.”

  “I know, and yours is better. But here we are. I get that you don’t want to risk anything you could get in trouble for, but that means you have to trust me, and trust Jerome. I get a good vibe from him.”

  “How many custody cases has he done?”

  “I don’t know,” Natalie said. “Mostly he’s done fraud cases, I think.”

  Jesus, Lock thought. “You couldn’t find anyone else?”

  “With what money? Jerome’s a friend’s friend, and he’s helping me out. What else am I supposed to do?”

  “It’s just that divorce and custody…it’s complicated, Natalie. You wouldn’t get a divorce attorney to defend you at a murder trial, would you?”

  Instead of getting mad, she kissed him. “Change of subject, okay? We’re going to do the best we can. It’s all we can do.”

  Lock felt like an ass. If he’d had the money, he would have given it to her, but he didn’t. He had promised to help her and then backed out, and now she had some strip-mall lawyer going up against a team of whatever pro divorce attorneys Witt’s lawyer could put together. Jesus. He had set her up to be massacred.

  It started to get dark a little before five p.m., and Lock and Natalie made their way back to the car. By then, they were both thoroughly chilled.

  “Let’s check in to the Four Seasons,” Natalie said, rubbing
her hands together as Lock started the engine. “We’ll get a room with a Jacuzzi and we’ll warm up fast.”

  Even that made Lock feel guilty. Soon enough, she wouldn’t be able to afford the Four Seasons. He said, “Let’s go back to my place and get an inferno going in the woodstove.”

  When they got to the carriage house, Natalie immediately went into the shower and adjusted the water to the hottest temperature. “Lock!” she said, “Come on in. It’s hot and steamy in here.”

  Lock popped his head into the bathroom. Her few clothes were all over the floor. “Don’t take too long in there. The hot water lasts ten minutes, tops.”

  While Natalie hummed in the shower, Lock paced the living room in front of the fire.

  What if Witt wins and Natalie gets visitation and next to nothing in child support? Shit, there’s no ‘what if’—that’s what’s going to happen. Lock tugged at his earlobe as he traversed the room, back and forth. What if I do help her and things go wrong? Would she be worse off? Should I just stay out of this? But how can I? I have to protect her. And the girls.

  Then Lock remembered the page he’d ripped from a magazine years ago that described Ben Franklin’s method of making decisions. Where was that article? He thought for a moment and then went to his bookcase, opened a scrapbook, and found the torn page. His eyes scanned it as he read it for the hundredth time. It had helped him deal with the urge to drink, and also when faced with tough decisions at work. It read:

  My way is to divide half a sheet of paper by a line into two columns; writing over the one Pro and over the other Con. Then during three or four days’ consideration, I put down under the different heads short hints of the different motives, that at different times occur to me, for or against the measure. When I have thus got them altogether in one view, I endeavor to estimate their respective weights; and where I find two, one on each side, that seem equal, I strike them both out. If I judge some two reasons con equal to some three reasons pro, I strike out five; and thus proceeding, I find where the balance lies; and if after a day or two of further consideration, nothing new that is of importance occurs on either side, I come to a determination accordingly.