Don't Cry Now

by Joy Fielding

  “In the meantime, we try and keep out of each other’s way as much as we can. We told Harold that he can keep living with us as long as he keeps passing in school. Now you tell us he’s failing….”

  “It’s not that he doesn’t have the brains to pass….” Bonnie said quickly.

  “He just doesn’t do any work, he doesn’t hand in his assignments, he disrupts the class,” Bob Reilly said. “Is that what you were going to tell us?”

  “I thought that maybe together we might be able to figure out some way to help him….”

  “And just what is it that you expect us to do, Mrs. Wheeler?” Lillian Reilly asked. “We can’t force him to do the work, and we certainly aren’t prepared to do it for him.”

  “Of course you aren’t, but maybe if you took more of an interest….”

  “Do you have teenagers, Mrs. Wheeler?” Bob Reilly interrupted.

  “I have two stepchildren who are teenagers,” Bonnie answered.

  “And how much do they appreciate your interest?”

  “Well, they might not always show it, but…”

  “Thank you, I believe you’ve answered the question.” Bob Reilly put a hand on his wife’s elbow. “Come on, Lillian. I told you this was going to be a waste of time.”

  “Are you afraid of your grandson, Mr. Reilly?” Bonnie asked suddenly. “Mrs. Reilly?”

  Bob Reilly stiffened, his wife’s eyes lifting nervously to his.

  “Your grandson has a lot of anger inside him. I’d like to help him before it’s too late.”

  “Is that why you sent the police out to question him?” Bob Reilly asked, catching Bonnie by surprise. “Is that your idea of helping him?”

  “Do you think your grandson is capable of hurting anyone, Mr. Reilly?” Bonnie asked over the loud pounding of her heart.

  “We’re all capable of hurting someone,” Bob Reilly answered evenly, and led his wife from the room.

  “How’d it go?” Maureen Templeton called after her as Bonnie headed down the corridor toward the parking lot at almost a quarter after nine.

  “Okay, I guess,” Bonnie said. “Lots of people.”

  “You don’t look so hot. Are you feeling okay?”

  “I’m fine. Maybe a little tired,” Bonnie lied, pushing open the side door of the school, breathing in the warm night air. “Can I give you a lift home?”

  “No, thanks. I have my car.” Maureen pointed to the dark-colored Chrysler on the far side of the parking lot, then walked briskly toward it. There were only a few cars left in the lot, Bonnie noticed, eager to get home.

  Bonnie unlocked her car door and climbed inside, waving good-bye to Maureen as she pulled out of the lot onto the street. Bonnie put her key in the ignition and turned on the car’s engine.

  Nothing happened.

  Bonnie twisted the key back and forth, pulled it out, shoved it back in, once, then twice, her foot pressing down hard on the gas. The car didn’t even threaten to turn over. “This is not what I need right now,” Bonnie muttered, feeling a row of perspiration break out across her forehead. “Come on, don’t do this to me.” Again, she pushed the key inside the ignition, furiously turning it to the right, then the left, pumping the gas pedal. “Please, this is not what I need tonight.”

  Bonnie looked out the car’s windows into the growing darkness. Except for two other cars in the lot, she was alone. She tried the ignition one last time, understanding that her car was absolutely dead. “Great,” she said, fighting back angry tears as she climbed out of the car and returned to the school. Her footsteps echoed down the now-empty corridor as she headed for the staff room. There was something spooky about a school at night, she thought, its emptiness unnatural. She wondered whether the staff room would be locked, was grateful when the door opened easily.

  Bonnie flipped on the light, thinking about the two cars still in the parking lot. Maybe they couldn’t start either, she thought, sitting beside the phone in the corner of the room, dialing her home number. Maybe there was a flu for cars going around. “I’m not a well woman,” she said into the receiver, hearing it ring. Rod would have to come pick her up. It would only take him a few minutes to get here. They’d send someone to look at her car in the morning.

  The phone was answered on its fourth ring. “Hello?” Lauren said, as if she’d just been roused from a deep sleep.

  “I’m sorry, Lauren, did I wake you up?”

  “Who is this?” the girl asked.

  “It’s Bonnie,” Bonnie told her, and would have laughed had she felt better. “Can I speak to Rod?”

  “He’s not here.”

  “What?”

  “He had to go out.”

  “He did? When?”

  “About an hour ago.”

  “Where did he go?”

  “He didn’t say. Why? Is there a problem?”

  “My car won’t start. Who’s there with you?”

  “Amanda. She’s asleep.”

  “Rod left you alone with Amanda when you aren’t feeling well?”

  “I’m fine now,” the girl insisted. “I told him we’d be okay. He said he wouldn’t be long.”

  “Where’s Sam?”

  “Out.”

  Bonnie lowered her head. Clearly this conversation would get her nowhere. “Okay, well, I guess I’ll take a cab. I shouldn’t be too long.”

  “No problem.”

  “See you soon.” Bonnie replaced the receiver, trying to remember the phone number of the local cab company, her eyes scanning the room for a phone book. How could Rod go out and leave his two daughters alone, especially when one hadn’t been feeling well? And where had he gone?

  She finally located the phone book on the floor by the water cooler next to several large blue bottles, two empty, one full. Bonnie pushed herself out of her chair toward it and bent down, hearing her knees snap, like dry twigs. Suddenly the room was spinning. For one terrifying second, Bonnie couldn’t differentiate between the ceiling and the floor. “God, help me,” she whispered, her fingers grabbing for something to hold on to as she closed her eyes, tried desperately to maintain her delicate balance. “Stay calm. Don’t panic. This will pass.” Bonnie counted to ten, then slowly opened her eyes.

  The room had stopped dancing, although, like lovers not ready to part, it was still swaying. Bonnie waited, the fingers of her right hand digging into the thin phone book, twisting and tearing its edges. She wondered whether her eyes would be able to focus, whether she would be able to read the tiny print. She had to get out of here. She had to get home and into the comfort of her own bed. Damn Rod anyway. Where was he?

  Bonnie pushed herself up, the phone book in her hand serving as an anchor, steadying her in place. Slowly, she returned to the phone, reaching for it with one hand as she flipped to the yellow pages with the other. The loud buzz of the receiver vibrated against her ear like a pesky insect, as she located the listing for the cab company and punched in the first few numbers.

  It was then that she became aware of other sounds—a door shutting in the distance, footsteps in the hall. Slow and deliberate, the footsteps were coming this way. You’re in danger, Joan shouted through the phone wires. Bonnie dropped the phone, heard it crash at her feet. You’re in danger, Joan cried again from the floor. You’re in danger.

  “And you’re an idiot,” Bonnie said angrily, not sure if she was addressing Joan or herself, her heart pounding, her head spinning. “You’re making yourself crazy, that’s what you’re doing.”

  The footsteps drew closer, hovering just outside the staff room door. Bonnie held her breath, unable to move. It’s just the custodian, she told herself, come to lock up. Maybe he’d noticed her car was still in the parking lot and was checking up on her, making sure she was all right.

  Was it just a coincidence that her car had failed to start?

  Or had someone tampered with it?

  “Oh God,” Bonnie said out loud. Much too loud, she realized, as the staff room door pushed open. “No!” Bon
nie screamed as a man appeared in the doorway.

  The man jumped three feet in the air. “Jesus Christ,” he gasped, spinning around, head jerking warily over his shoulder, as if afraid someone was behind him. “What’s the matter? What’s going on?”

  “Mr. Freeman?” Bonnie asked, steadying herself long enough to allow his features to sink into her conscious mind.

  “Mrs. Wheeler,” he acknowledged, as if he should have known. “What’s the matter? Why did you scream?”

  “You scared me,” Bonnie admitted, after a pause. “I didn’t know who it was.”

  “Who’d you think it was, for Pete’s sake? The bogeyman?”

  “Maybe.” Bonnie collapsed into the chair behind her. Josh Freeman stared at her with puzzled eyes.

  “Are you all right?”

  “I’m feeling a little dizzy.”

  Josh moved directly to the water cooler, poured her a cup of water, brought it to her side. “Have some of this.”

  Bonnie took the paper cup from his hand, brought it to her lips, finished the contents in one gulp. “Thank you.” He had a kind face, she thought, surprised, as she’d been at Joan’s funeral, by the wondrous clarity of his eyes.

  “Feel better?”

  “Hopefully. Sorry if I frightened you.”

  “No harm done,” he said.

  “I didn’t realize you were still here.”

  “I guess we’re the last ones.”

  “My car won’t start. I was just about to call a cab.”

  He hesitated. “Do you live far from here?”

  “No. Just over on Winter Street. A couple of miles.”

  Another hesitation. “I could give you a lift.”

  “Really?”

  “Is the idea so shocking?”

  “It’s just that you’ve been avoiding me for some time now,” Bonnie said.

  “I guess I have,” he admitted. “Have the police made any arrests yet?”

  Bonnie shook her head, trying not to appear too startled by his abrupt change in thought.

  “Why don’t we talk on the way home?” he suggested.

  Bonnie nodded, rising unsteadily to her feet and following him out of the staff room into the long hallway. So, they were finally going to talk, and on his initiative, no less. She couldn’t have planned it any better herself, she thought, a sudden twinge poking her in the ribs, like a finger. Maybe it had been planned, the twinge warned her. Only not by her. Maybe Josh Freeman had deliberately tampered with her car. Was it just a coincidence that he was here waiting for her just when her car wouldn’t start?

  Except why would he do that? Bonnie wondered impatiently, forcing herself to keep up with his pace. Why would he tamper with her car? Unless he’d had something to do with Joan’s death, unless he was the danger Joan had been trying to warn her against. But what kind of danger could Josh Freeman possibly be to her? And why should she have reason to fear him?

  If anything were to happen to her, she realized as they neared the end of the corridor, no one would know where she was. No one would know where she had disappeared. No one had seen her with Josh Freeman. No one had seen them leaving the school together. No one would know who was responsible should anything happen to her. She should run from his side immediately, scream for the police. At the very least, she should return to the staff room and call for a taxi. Common sense dictated that she go nowhere with this man.

  “Coming?” he asked, opening the door to the outside, waiting for her to catch up.

  Bonnie took a deep breath, then followed him outside.

  20

  “So, what made you want to be a teacher?” he asked unexpectedly as he turned his car onto Wellesley Street.

  Bonnie was pressed against the passenger door of the small foreign car, her right hand gripping the door handle, in case she had to make a sudden, unscheduled exit. “It’s just something I always wanted to do,” she answered, trying to be reassured by his awkward attempt at conversation. “From the time I was a little girl, I just always knew I wanted to teach. I’d get all my dolls together and arrange them in rows, teach them to read and write.” What was she jabbering about? Was she afraid that if she stopped talking, he might pounce? “Of course, I was a better teacher back then,” she said.

  “Something tells me that you’re a very good teacher right now.”

  She forced a smile. “I like to think I am. Of course you can’t reach everybody.”

  “You sound like you have someone particular in mind.”

  Bonnie thought of Haze, of her frustrating encounter with his grandparents. No wonder he was so angry all the time, she thought.

  “How did it go tonight?” Josh asked, as if able to read her thoughts. “Were you very busy?”

  “Pretty much,” she answered. “What about you?”

  “Full house,” he said, an engaging smile appearing unexpectedly on his face. She’d never seen him smile before, she realized. He looked nice when he smiled. “A far cry from the school I used to teach at,” he was saying.

  “In New York,” she stated. Were they actually making small talk? Was he really confiding in her something about himself?

  He nodded, the wavy half smile vanishing into a thin straight line, like the line on a heart monitor after the patient has died.

  “What made you come to Boston?” she asked.

  “I needed a change,” he said. “Boston seemed as good a place as any.”

  “Do you like it here?”

  “Very much.”

  “And your family?” She suddenly recalled that his wife had been killed in some kind of horrible accident. At least that was the rumor, she remembered, a feeling of dread seeping into her veins like an intravenous drip. Maybe it hadn’t been an accident at all. Maybe he’d murdered his wife, just like he’d murdered Joan, just like he was about to murder her. Maybe all this small talk was simply a way of relaxing her before the kill.

  “I’m alone” was all he said.

  “It must be hard to start over in a new city when you don’t know anyone,” she ventured, her voice quiet, strained. It was hard to carry on two conversations at once, even if one conversation was all inside her head.

  “I didn’t expect it to be easy.”

  “Have you made any friends?”

  “Some.”

  “Did you consider Joan a friend?” She’d meant the question to sound casual, but her voice stuck on Joan’s name, underlining it and dislodging it from the rest of the sentence, sending it bouncing off the car windows.

  “Yes, I did,” he said, eyes resolutely on the road ahead.

  “Were you having an affair?” Bonnie asked, throwing caution to the proverbial wind. What the hell, she reasoned. If he’d killed Joan, if he was planning to kill her, she might as well die knowing something.

  “No,” he said, after a pause. “We weren’t having an affair.”

  “Would you tell me if you were?”

  “Probably not,” he said, the wavy little half smile temporarily reappearing.

  “What exactly was your relationship?” Bonnie asked, knowing she’d asked the question before, wondering if, once again, he’d tell her it was none of her business.

  “We were friends,” he said instead. “Kindred souls, you might say.”

  “In what way?”

  He thought for several long seconds. “We shared an inner emptiness, if you will,” he said finally, a trifle self-consciously. “We’d both known great tragedy. It drew us together, gave us some common ground.”

  Bonnie phrased her next statement carefully. “I understand that your wife died in an accident—”

  “A car accident, yes,” Josh said quickly. “She and my son.”

  “Your son?”

  “He was two years old.”

  “My God. I’m so sorry.”

  Josh nodded, gripped the steering wheel tighter, his knuckles growing white with the strain. “It was winter. The roads were bad. Her car hit some black ice and skidded into oncoming traffic
. It wasn’t anyone’s fault. It’s a miracle really that more people weren’t killed.”

  “That’s so awful.”

  “Yes, it was.” There was a long pause. “So, you see, I understood something of the grief Joan carried around inside her all the time. I knew what it was like to lose a child. I knew what she was going through.”

  “When you were together, what did you talk about?” Bonnie asked.

  “What do friends talk about?” he mused. “I don’t know. Whatever was uppermost in our minds at the time, I guess. The real estate business, teaching, her kids, her mother….”

  “Her mother?”

  “That surprises you?”

  “What did she tell you about her mother?”

  “Not much. That she had a drinking problem, that she was in a nursing home.”

  “You knew Joan’s mother was in a nursing home?”

  “Was it a secret?”

  “Have you ever visited her?”

  “No. Why would I?”

  Bonnie stared out the front window, consciously trying to slow things down. The conversation was moving too rapidly, was in danger of getting away from her. She needed time to digest everything he had told her, time to organize her thoughts. He was giving her too much information too fast. Why, she wondered, when he’d been so unwilling to talk to her before?

  “What about Sam?” she asked.

  “Sam? What about him?”

  Hadn’t she just asked that? “I understand he’s in your art class.”

  Josh Freeman nodded. “He is.”

  “Is he a good student?”

  “Very good. He’s quiet, works hard, keeps mostly to himself.”

  “Has he talked to you at all since Joan was killed?”

  “No. I tried to approach him once, but he made it pretty clear he wasn’t interested.”

  Bonnie’s eyes traveled across the dark road, expecting to see the familiar side streets—DeBenedetto Drive, Forest Lane. Instead she saw Ash Street and Still Meadow Road. “Where are you going?” she asked, bracing herself in her seat.

  “What?”

  “I said, where are you going? Where are you taking me?”

  “I’m taking you home. Where do you think I’m taking you?”