by Joy Fielding
“You look awful,” Rod said.
“Thanks,” Bonnie told him. “Where’s Amanda?”
“Mrs. Gerstein took her to the park.”
“When did you get home?” she asked.
“About half an hour ago.” Rod took Bonnie’s elbow, guiding her to the stairs. “Now, I want you to get into bed and get some sleep.”
“Rod, don’t be silly. I’m fine.”
“Don’t argue with me. You have the flu; you should be in bed. I’ll call Marla and cancel tonight.”
“I’ll be fine by tonight,” Bonnie protested, wondering why. The last thing she wanted to do was have dinner with Marla Brenzelle.
“All right, we’ll see how you’re feeling later. Meanwhile, go upstairs, get undressed, and get into bed. I’ll bring you up some tea.”
“Rod…”
“Don’t argue with me.”
“Apparently, Elsa Langer had another visitor this morning….”
“We’ll talk about Elsa later.”
“But…”
“Later,” he insisted.
“This is silly,” Bonnie muttered, becoming angrier with each step up the stairs. “I’m probably just overtired. I’ll sleep for half an hour, then I’ll be fine.”
When Bonnie opened her eyes, Lauren was standing at the foot of her bed. She looks beautiful, Bonnie thought, pushing herself up on her pillows, thinking she must be in the middle of a dream. Lauren was wearing a bright blue little dress that started in the middle of her breasts and stopped in the middle of her thighs. It made her look very grown up, Bonnie thought, wishing she could have looked like that at fourteen, wishing she could look like that now. “How beautiful you are,” she said, her mouth dry.
“Thank you.” Lauren smiled, self-consciously. “How are you feeling?”
“I’m not sure,” Bonnie said honestly, wetting her lips with her tongue. “What time is it?”
“Almost seven-thirty.”
“Almost seven-thirty?” Bonnie looked over at the clock on the night table for confirmation. Could she really have been asleep all afternoon? “My God, I have to get up. I have to get ready.”
“You’re not going anywhere,” Rod said, coming into the room, wearing a deep green silk shirt and black pants, looking wonderful.
“I don’t understand,” Bonnie said, struggling to get out of bed.
“Lauren’s volunteered to be my date tonight,” Rod told her.
“What?”
“Honey,” Rod began, “you have the flu. Stop being so stubborn and admit it. You feel like shit. There is absolutely no way you’re up for going out tonight. One look at Marla and you’d probably throw up all over her, which would not do a great deal to enhance my career. So please, do us all a favor, and stay in bed.”
“Do you mind?” Lauren asked timidly.
“Mind? Of course not,” Bonnie told her, secretly delighted with the way things were working out.
“I already fed Amanda dinner and got her settled into bed,” Lauren said.
“You did?”
“She’s great with her,” Rod said proudly.
“And Sam’s here, if you need anything.”
“Thank you,” Bonnie said, renewed fatigue settling over her like a heavy blanket. Have a good time, she wanted to tell them, but she was asleep before the words could come out.
She was dreaming of tomatoes, lots of fat red tomatoes in the produce section of a small grocery store. Bonnie picked up one tomato, turned it over in her hand, then squished it between her fingers, watching thin veins of tomato juice trickle down the back of her hand to her arm.
She lifted both arms to the ceiling, tomato juice cascading, as if from a waterfall, across her face, sneaking between her lips, inside her mouth. She opened her mouth wide in order to drink more.
Bonnie woke with a start, a stale taste permeating the inside of her mouth. She needed a glass of water, she thought, climbing out of bed and shuffling toward the bathroom, glancing at the clock. It was almost ten-thirty. Three more hours lost, and she still didn’t feel any better.
She poured herself a glass of water and drank it slowly, praying it would stay down. The stale taste remained, so she squeezed some toothpaste on her toothbrush and vigorously brushed her teeth, the normally cool mint taste curiously dull and ineffective. She swirled some water around in her mouth and spit it out, her spittle laced with traces of blood. “Great,” she said, shuffling back out of the room. “Just what I need.”
The upstairs hall was in almost total darkness, except for the small night light in the shape of a ballerina that shone outside Amanda’s bedroom. Bonnie slowly approached her daughter’s room, the light from the television flickering underneath Sam’s door, muffled electronic voices squeezing toward her bare feet, licking at her toes.
Amanda was sound asleep in her bed, her covers bunched around her knees, her hands thrown back above her head, her head across her left shoulder. Bonnie pulled the covers up, tucked them under Amanda’s chin, kissed her lightly on the forehead. “I love you, sweet thing,” she whispered.
I love you more, she heard the walls echo as she left the room.
Bonnie stopped for an instant in front of Sam’s room, peering at the closed door as if she could see right through it. She heard the noise of the television—a man talking, a car accelerating, a woman screaming—and turned aside, about to return to her room, when she became aware of another sound, a sound so low she almost missed it, a sound so haunting she found herself frozen to the spot.
She stood this way for several minutes, ear pressed against the door, listening to the sound. It was as if the walls were moaning, she thought, as if someone were trapped inside, begging for release. The walls are crying, she thought, pushing open Sam’s door.
On the television, a scantily clad young woman was screaming as she ran from a masked knife-wielding attacker. Bonnie’s eyes traveled from the TV to the top of her once majestic oak desk, on which L’il Abner lay pressed against the glass of his tank, to the sofa on which Sam sat, watching the television with tears streaming down his face, his lips slightly parted, a low hum vibrating from his throat, as if he were lost in the throes of some medieval chant.
“Sam?” Bonnie approached him gingerly. “Sam, are you all right?”
The low moan continued even as he turned toward her, as if it had a life of its own, as if it didn’t depend on Sam for its existence. Bonnie’s arm reached out; her hand touched Sam’s shoulder. She felt him flinch, but she didn’t withdraw and he didn’t pull away. Slowly, she lowered herself into the seat beside him, her arm snaking around his side.
“What is it, Sam? Please, you know you can talk to me.”
The wailing grew louder, more intense. Bonnie fought the urge to bring her hands to her ears. Instead, she drew the boy toward her, pressing his face to her chest, feeling his wet tears through her nightgown, the moan growing louder, as if emanating from an echo chamber.
His arms encircled her, quickly tightening their grip, as if trying to pull her into the center of his grief, as if he were hanging on for dear life. Which perhaps he was, Bonnie thought, allowing him to cling to her, smoothing back his long black hair, her eyes alternating between the woman being butchered on the TV screen and the snake now stretching toward the top of the glass tank. Suddenly, Sam’s body exploded in a series of violent sobs.
Bonnie rocked Sam back and forth in her arms like a baby. “It’ll be all right, Sam,” she told him. “It’ll be all right.”
They sat this way for a long time, Bonnie’s lips pressed against the top of Sam’s head, the smell of his freshly washed hair filling her nose. The movie ended. From the little Bonnie could make out, everyone had died. The snake continued exploring the inside of his tank, his head occasionally prodding its glass top, as if trying to escape.
Eventually, Sam stopped crying. “I’m sorry,” he said, refusing to look at her.
“Don’t be sorry,” Bonnie said, temporarily forgetting her own discom
fort. “And don’t be embarrassed. You have nothing to be sorry for, nothing to be embarrassed about.”
“I’m crying like a stupid little kid.”
“You don’t always have to play the tough guy, Sam,” Bonnie told him. “Talk to me. Tell me what’s going on inside your head.”
There was a long silence. “She didn’t know me,” Sam said finally. “She didn’t know who I was. She knew Lauren, but she didn’t know me.”
“I’m so sorry, Sam,” Bonnie said. “Maybe the next time we go…”
Sam shook his head. “No, I’m not going back there.”
“She’s a sick old woman, Sam,” Bonnie told him. “Who knows what’s going on inside that confused mind of hers?”
“She knew Lauren.”
Bonnie said nothing.
“I just want somebody to love me,” Sam blurted out, the words escaping his mouth in a great anguished sweep.
“Oh God, sweetheart,” Bonnie cried with him. “I’m so sorry for the pain you’re feeling. I wish I could do something to make it all go away. I wish there was something I could say…”
Sam shook his head roughly from side to side. “It doesn’t matter.”
“It does matter,” Bonnie told him. “Because you matter. You’re a person who deserves to be loved, Sam. Do you hear me? You deserve to feel loved.”
Sam said nothing, refusing to look at her.
Bonnie sat watching him for several minutes. It was obvious that he was deeply embarrassed by his outburst, that he would say nothing further. “I better get back to bed,” she told him.
“Can I get you some tea or something?” Sam offered.
Bonnie smiled, tenderly patted Sam’s cheek. “Some tea would be nice,” she said.
19
By the following Wednesday, Bonnie was feeling better and Lauren was starting to complain about feeling nauseous again. “Why don’t you stay home today,” Bonnie told her, laying a delicate hand on the girl’s forehead. Lauren didn’t pull away.
“Do I have a fever?”
“No, you’re nice and cool, but there’s no point pushing it. Stay in bed today. If you’re not any better by tomorrow, I think you should see a doctor.”
“What about you?” Lauren asked, shivering beneath the blankets of her bed.
“I’m fine,” Bonnie insisted. “Just a little tired.” The events of the last few weeks were finally catching up to her: Joan’s murder; the police investigation; the sudden additions to her family; the reemergence of her brother; her fears for herself and Amanda. Immediately, Bonnie thought of Dr. Walter Greenspoon. You seem to be a woman in torment, he’d said. Or words to that effect.
Well, of course he’d say that, Bonnie thought, impatiently. How else would he continue making his two hundred dollars an hour if he didn’t drum up new business?
“You don’t look fine,” Lauren was saying.
“It’s my hair,” Bonnie said quickly, catching her reflection in the mirror over the dresser. It was true—her hair, normally shiny and luxurious, if unruly, had been looking dry and lifeless the last few days. It hung on her head like an old mop, refusing to cooperate with her brush or her blow dryer. Maybe what she needed was a new haircut. “Will you be all right here alone?” Bonnie asked. “Do you want me to see if Mrs. Gerstein is available?”
Lauren shook her head. “I don’t need a baby-sitter, Bonnie.”
“All right, but I’ll call you later to see how you’re making out. And if you start feeling sick to your stomach, remember to take deep breaths.”
Lauren nodded. “I think I’ll try to sleep now.”
Bonnie tucked the covers up under the girl’s chin. “I’ll have Sam bring you some tea,” she said, then left the room.
“I feel perfectly fine. I feel perfectly fine,” Bonnie repeated to her reflection in the teachers rest room at school.
You may feel perfectly fine, her reflection admonished, but you look perfectly awful.
Her reflection was right, Bonnie conceded, noticing that her skin was beyond pale, almost transparent. Wan, Bonnie thought, understanding the full meaning of the word for the first time. Of an unnatural or sickly pallor; showing or suggesting ill health, fatigue, unhappiness; lacking in forcefulness, competence, or effectiveness. Yes, certainly, all of the above, in one little three-letter word. The English language was an amazing thing.
She should never wear olive drab, she decided. Another word that said it all. Drab—dull, cheerless, lacking in spirit, brightness. That was her all right.
Did the color of her dress also explain the queasiness in her gut, the renewed waves of nausea that had been sweeping through her insides all day? Of course, her students hadn’t helped. They were restless, disinterested, uncooperative. Haze had been particularly objectionable—the way he slumped down in his seat at the back of the room, his legs extended full-length into the aisle, his black boots scuffing the gray tiles at his feet, his obscenely tattooed arms raised behind his head, supporting its weight, as if he were reclining in a hammock. He knew nothing, but he had an answer for everything. He never had his homework done, never had his assignments completed, never showed the slightest interest in anything she had to say. “Why do you even bother showing up?” she’d demanded. “Because I want to be with you” had come his immediate response.
The class had laughed and Bonnie’s stomach had turned over. It had been turning over ever since. Staring into the mirror, she wondered whether she and Lauren were doomed to keep reinfecting one another. “I don’t have time to think about that now,” she said, brushing some fresh color onto her cheeks. But the additional color looked forced, as if it had no relationship to the rest of her face. Far from adding life, she looked embalmed, as if she’d come straight from the undertaker’s table. She looked like a corpse, she thought.
No one ever looks good under this kind of lighting, she told herself, glaring at the fluorescent lights overhead, returning the blush to her purse and fishing around for her lipstick, applying it with an unsteady hand, so that she missed part of her lip on one side and went over it on the other. Now I look like a drunk, she thought.
A drunken corpse.
Like Joan.
At least Lauren was feeling a little better, Bonnie thought gratefully. She’d slept most of the day, had slept right through Bonnie’s noon hour phone call, and was still sleeping when Bonnie got home from school. But she woke up just as Bonnie was leaving for the school’s spring open house with the news that she was hungry. Bonnie had left her and Rod sitting at the kitchen table, eating dinner together. Sam had already gone out.
Bonnie took a couple of deep breaths for luck, snapped her purse shut, and tucked her hair behind her ears. Maybe she didn’t look as bad as she thought, she told herself, stepping into the hall, and proceeding up the stairs toward her classroom. She hoped not too many parents would show up. Maybe then she could get home early, get into bed, sleep away her demons, wake up feeling better, like Lauren, her normal color and appetite restored. She reached her classroom, unlocked the door, stepped inside and flipped on the light, taking a quick look around. Everything appeared to be in order.
Bonnie glanced at her watch, then at the clock behind her. Two minutes before seven o’clock. Maybe she’d be really lucky, and nobody would show up at all.
“Mrs. Wheeler?”
Bonnie turned to see the elderly couple standing in the doorway. Both looked well beyond the years one would expect for the parents of teenagers. They were dressed simply, in shades of white and blue. His hair was gray peppered with brown, hers the reverse, brown salted with gray. Neither was smiling. “Yes,” Bonnie answered. “Can I help you?”
“We’re Bob and Lillian Reilly,” the woman said.
Bonnie stared at them blankly. She had no one named Reilly in any of her classes.
“Harold Gleason’s grandparents,” the man explained.
“Oh, of course,” Bonnie said quickly, amazed she could have forgotten she’d specifically requested they att
end. “Haze’s grandparents. I’m sorry. I’m obviously not thinking very clearly. Come in.”
“Your message said you wanted to speak with us tonight,” Lillian Reilly stated.
“You said it was very important,” her husband stressed.
“It is,” Bonnie told them, indicating the rows of desks. “Please, have a seat.”
“I prefer standing, thank you,” Bob Reilly told her, his wife’s eyes darting skittishly around the classroom.
“I’m so glad you came,” Bonnie said. “I don’t think I’ve seen you at the school before.”
“We don’t bother much with school,” Lillian Reilly told her.
“I doubt you’ll have anything to tell us we don’t already know,” her husband said.
Bonnie smiled. At least there’d be no beating around the bush. “I was hoping maybe there were some things you could tell me,” Bonnie said.
“Such as?”
“Tell me about your grandson,” Bonnie began. “What he’s like at home, if he’s happy, if he gives you a hard time, what it’s like to be raising a teenager at your age. Anything you think might help me understand him a bit better.”
“Why would you want to do that?” Bob Reilly asked.
“Your grandson is failing, Mr. Reilly,” Bonnie said, matching his bluntness with her own. “And that’s a shame, because I think he has lots of potential. He’s a very bright boy, and I think that maybe with a little encouragement at home…”
“You think we don’t encourage him?”
“Do you?”
“Mrs. Wheeler,” Bob Reilly said, walking slowly down one aisle and back up again, “you want to know about my grandson? My grandson is just like his mother was, a lazy, good-for-nothing-but-dope-smoking kid who thinks that the world owes him something. And maybe it does, who knows? But that doesn’t make much difference, does it? Things are the way they are, like it or not. His mother finally understood that, and sooner or later, Harold will have to understand it too.”
“And in the meantime?”