by Joy Fielding
“This isn’t the way to my house,” she told him, her earlier panic surfacing. She debated whether to open the car door, whether to throw herself out of the moving vehicle.
“You said to turn west on South Street.”
“This isn’t west,” she told him. “It’s east.”
“Then I guess I turned the wrong way,” he said easily. “I’ve always had a lousy sense of direction.” He slowed the car, but instead of turning it around, he pulled it over to the side of the road.
Bonnie’s hand tightened on the door handle, her eyes frantically scanning the road for other cars, other people. There was no one. If she tried to run, he’d chase after her. How long before his hands were across her mouth, muffling her screams?
“Do you want to tell me what you’re so afraid of,” he said.
Bonnie’s eyes continued searching the side of the road. “Who said I’m afraid?”
“Do you always react so violently when someone turns the wrong way?”
Bonnie swiveled around in her seat to face him. “Did you kill Joan?” she asked directly, deciding she had nothing to lose.
“What?”
“You heard me.”
“Are you serious?”
“Of course I’m serious.”
“Of course I didn’t kill her. Did you?”
“What?”
“You heard me.”
“Are you serious?”
“Of course I’m serious.”
“Of course I didn’t kill her.”
And suddenly they were laughing. It started as an impromptu burst of giggles and ended with great whoops of glee. Tears streamed down Bonnie’s face.
“I think that was probably the most ridiculous conversation I’ve ever had,” he said.
“I wish I could say the same thing,” Bonnie told him, thinking that she’d had her fair share of ridiculous conversations of late.
“You honestly think I might have killed Joan?”
“I don’t know what I think anymore,” Bonnie admitted. “Your name was in her address book, I saw you at her funeral, you wouldn’t talk to me, you deliberately ignored me. Why? Why wouldn’t you talk to me?”
“I was scared,” he said flatly, his turn to stare out the front window. “I move to a new city to try and put my life together, and the first real friend I make gets murdered. Not only that, but I find myself being questioned by the police. Pretty scary stuff, even for a native of New York.”
“What sort of questions did the police ask you?”
“Their questions were mostly about you, actually.”
“Me?”
“What my impressions of you were, if I thought you were mentally stable, if Joan had ever said anything to me about being afraid of you.”
“If Joan was afraid of me?”
“They made it quite clear you were their prime suspect.”
Bonnie laughed. “No wonder you didn’t want to talk to me.”
“It was a bit unnerving.”
“What changed your mind?”
“You,” he said, the soft wave of his smile growing bolder, threatening to linger. “The more I thought about it, the more ridiculous the notion of you shooting anybody seemed. And then when I saw you in the staff room tonight, looking so scared and vulnerable, I decided I was being silly, and that Joan would have been quite angry with me.”
“Joan? What do you mean?”
“She liked you. She once said that if the circumstances had been different, she thought the two of you could have been great friends.”
“I doubt that,” Bonnie said, uncomfortable with the notion.
“You’re not that dissimilar, you know.”
“Joan and I were nothing alike,” Bonnie insisted, her good spirits quickly evaporating, her nausea hovering.
“Physically, no, but in other more important ways…”
“I’ve never had a problem with alcohol, Mr. Freeman.”
“I wasn’t alluding to Joan’s drinking,” he said, as Bonnie squirmed in her seat. “I was thinking more of her honesty, her persistence, her sense of humor.”
“Did Joan ever say anything to you about my daughter?” Bonnie asked, changing the subject.
“Just that she was a beautiful little girl.”
“Anything else?”
“Not that I can remember.”
“What about my brother?”
“Your brother?”
“Nick Lonergan.”
He looked puzzled. “The name doesn’t ring any bells.” He paused, his head tilting toward her, forcing her eyes to his, like a slow magnet. “What are all these questions about, Bonnie? What are you afraid of?”
Bonnie took a deep breath, releasing it slowly, watching it form a thin patch of film on the car’s front window. “I’m afraid that whoever killed Joan might be after me and my little girl. I’m afraid that nobody believes we’re in any danger, and that they won’t believe it until it’s too late.” She started to cry.
In the next second, his arms reached out for her, drawing her toward him, hugging her tightly to his chest while she sobbed. “It’s okay,” he was saying, soothing her as if she were a child. “Let it out. It’s okay. It’s okay.”
“I’m so scared that somebody is going to hurt my baby,” she sobbed, “and there’s nothing I can do to stop them. And I’m so tired and I feel so sick, and I never get sick, goddamn it. I never get sick.”
“Nobody’s going to hurt your little girl,” Josh Freeman told her, smoothing her hair with repeated strokes of his hand.
She looked up at him. “Do you promise?” she asked, feeling foolish, but needing to hear the words.
“I promise,” he said.
By the time he pulled into her driveway, Bonnie’s tears were dry. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I had no right to lay that on you.”
“Don’t be sorry,” he told her. “Are you all right?”
Bonnie nodded. Rod’s car was in the driveway, although Sam was still out in Joan’s red Mercedes. “I think I’ll make myself a cup of tea and get right into bed.”
“Sounds like a good idea.”
Bonnie pushed open the car door. “Thanks for being there,” she told him sincerely, climbing out of the car as the front door to her house opened and Rod appeared in the doorway.
“Anytime.”
Bonnie closed the car door and Josh backed out of the driveway. In the next second, Rod was at her side. “Who was that?” he asked, folding her inside his arms, kissing her cheek. “Where’s your car?”
“In the school parking lot,” she told him. “It wouldn’t start. Josh gave me a lift home.”
“Josh?”
“Josh Freeman, Sam’s art teacher.”
“That was nice of him.”
“He’s a nice man,” she said.
“Wasn’t he at Joan’s funeral?”
“They were friends,” Bonnie said, about to say more when Rod interrupted.
“Bonnie, you’re not sticking your nose in where it doesn’t belong, are you?”
“What do you mean?”
“You know what I mean. Let the police deal with Joan’s murder, Bonnie. You’re an amateur. You could get hurt.” He led her inside the house.
“Josh wouldn’t hurt me,” Bonnie said, more to herself than to her husband, amazed at her change of heart. Less than half an hour ago, she was afraid the man was about to kill her. Now she was convinced he’d never hurt her. “Where were you tonight?” she asked, as they entered the kitchen. “I called to see if you could pick me up, and Lauren said you’d gone out.”
“I left some work at the studio that I needed to do for tomorrow, and I had to drive back and get it. Made me so damn mad. It was the last thing I needed.”
“Tough day?”
“Are there any other kind?” Rod brushed some stray hairs away from Bonnie’s forehead. “How about you? How are you feeling?”
“Not great.”
“Feel like a cup of tea?”
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nbsp; “You read my mind.”
“That’s what I’m here for.” He moved directly to the kettle, filled it with water, put it on the stove. “Why don’t you go upstairs and get into bed. I can bring this up when it’s ready.”
Bonnie smiled gratefully, walking slowly to the stairs, fatigue pulling on her legs, like heavy weights. She reached the top of the stairs, automatically turning toward Amanda’s room.
“My sweet angel,” she whispered over her daughter’s bed, staring down at the child’s sleeping face, once again struck by how much she resembled her older half sister. She wondered if Lauren had ever gone to bed tightly clutching a Big Bird doll, if she’d refused to give up her favorite blanket to be washed in case the “good smell” got washed out, if she’d ever fallen off her tricycle and cut her cheek. Bonnie bent over and planted a delicate kiss along Amanda’s tiny scar, careful not to wake her. “I love you,” she whispered.
I love you more, she heard Amanda call after her silently as she crossed the hall. The door to Lauren’s room was closed, although the light was still on. Bonnie knocked gently.
“Who is it?” Lauren called from the other side.
“It’s Bonnie,” Bonnie told her, hesitating to open the door without permission. “Can I come in?”
“Okay,” Lauren said, and Bonnie pushed open the door. Lauren was sitting up in bed, her schoolbooks spread out around her.
“How are you feeling?” Bonnie asked.
“Okay, I think. I hope. I’m sick of feeling sick.”
“I know what you mean. How’d the dinner party go on Saturday night? We never got a chance to talk about it.”
“It was great,” Lauren said, her face filling with animation. “You should have seen Marla. She was wearing this black dress cut down to her toes. She looked spectacular. She said to tell you she was sorry you couldn’t be there.”
“I’ll bet.”
“I think she has a crush on Dad,” Lauren said.
“Really?”
“She was hanging around him all night. Every time he said anything, she’d giggle, even when it wasn’t funny. It was pretty gross.”
Bonnie chuckled, although the image of a giggling Marla in a dress cut down to her toes and hanging all over her husband was not one she wished to keep in the fore-front of her mind. “But you had a good time?”
“The best.”
“I’m glad.” She turned to leave.
“Bonnie…”
“Yes?”
“Can I talk to you a minute?”
Bonnie steadied herself at the side of Lauren’s bed. “Sure.”
“I wanted to ask you something.”
“Okay.”
“It’s personal.”
“Okay,” Bonnie repeated. Did she really want to hear this?
“It’s about you and my dad.”
“What about us?”
There was a long pause. “I saw you last week.”
“You saw us…?”
“In bed.”
Oh God, Bonnie moaned silently.
“I didn’t mean to. It was when—”
“I know when it was,” Bonnie said quickly, pushing several of Lauren’s books out of the way and sitting down on the edge of the bed. “What exactly is it that you want to ask about?”
“Your hands were tied,” Lauren said after another long pause, her words suspended in the heaviness of the air between them. She shook her head, obviously unable to corral the thoughts circling in her brain.
“That confused you,” Bonnie stated.
Lauren nodded.
Me too, Bonnie thought. “We were making love,” she said instead. “We just thought it might be fun to try something new.” What else could she say?
“Was it?” Lauren asked.
“It was interesting,” Bonnie replied honestly, trying to imagine herself having this conversation with her own mother. It was impossible. Her mother had never so much as mentioned the word sex. She’d learned most of the gory details from her younger brother.
“Thank you,” Lauren said quietly.
“For what?”
“For being honest. I could never talk about these things with my mother,” she said, as if privy to Bonnie’s most secret thoughts.
“No?”
“Don’t get me wrong,” Lauren said immediately, already on the defensive. “She was great. My mother was great. It was just that there were certain things she was uncomfortable talking about.”
“I hope you know that you can talk to me about anything,” Bonnie told her. “I may not always have all the answers, but I’m willing to listen to the questions.”
Lauren lowered her eyes to the bed, as if scanning one of the texts. “I have a geography test on Friday,” she said.
“Can’t help you there, I’m afraid,” Bonnie told her with a laugh. “I was absolutely useless in geography. Failed every test.”
Lauren laughed. “So there’s hope for me.”
“There’s definitely hope for you,” Bonnie told her, patting her hand. And for us, she added silently, hearing Rod’s footsteps on the stairs. Everything was going to work out fine.
“Aren’t you coming to bed?” Bonnie asked as Rod lifted the now-empty cup of tea out of her hands.
“I have some more work to get finished,” he told her. “I’ll be up as soon as I can.” He kissed her forehead, left the room.
Bonnie sat in her bed, staring absently at the Salvador Dalí lithograph on the wall, with its faceless bald woman sketched in blue. “She looks good compared to me,” Bonnie said, climbing out of bed and making her way to the bathroom, where she washed her face and brushed her teeth, swishing the water around in her mouth for several seconds, then spitting it into the sink.
The sink was full of blood.
Bonnie pulled back. “Jesus.” She took another gulp of water, swirled it around inside her mouth, spit into the sink. More blood. As soon as she felt better, she’d have to get a new toothbrush. The bristles on this one were way too hard.
And while she was out buying that toothbrush, she just might stop in and have her hair done. She definitely needed something. Her hair had never looked so dry and lifeless before. She looked positively god-awful, she thought, staring at her reflection.
The woman in the mirror stared back silently, a thin trickle of blood dripping from the side of her mouth toward her chin.
21
The next morning, Bonnie called a mechanic to look at her car. The young man, whose white name tag on his gray shirt identified him as Gerry, spent a few minutes looking underneath the car’s hood, turning various knobs, and examining assorted wires and valves. “Everything looks okay to me,” he told her, his dark brown hair pulled back into a ponytail that ran halfway down his back. “You say it wouldn’t start?”
Bonnie nodded, dropping the car keys into Gerry’s open palm as he climbed into the driver’s seat. She watched him stick the keys in the ignition, then twist them slightly to the right. The car started immediately.
Bonnie shook her head in amazement, careful not to shake too long or too hard. She was still feeling nauseated, had spent most of the night tossing and turning, unable to find a comfortable position. It hurt even to turn over in bed. As a result, she’d spent most of the night lying on her back, waiting for morning. Sam had given her a lift to school this morning. When she asked him where he’d been last night, he said, simply, “Out.”
“I don’t get it,” Bonnie told the mechanic. “I tried it half a dozen times last night. It wouldn’t start.”
“Maybe you flooded the engine.”
“It never even turned over. It was absolutely dead.”
“Well, it’s alive and purring now,” Gerry told her, turning off the ignition, then restarting it again immediately, as proof. “You might want to take the car in though, get it checked out. But it seems to be working fine now.” Once again, he turned off the engine, then climbed out of the car. “How do you want to pay for this?” he asked.
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sp; After Gerry left, Bonnie stood looking at her white Caprice, trying to remember exactly what had happened last night. She’d said good-bye to Maureen Templeton, gotten into her car, tried repeatedly to start it, and nothing had happened. She remembered frantically pressing on the gas. Could she have flooded the engine?
“Car trouble?” a familiar voice asked, coming up behind her.
Bonnie didn’t have to turn around to know who it was. Even if he hadn’t spoken, his scent would have given him away. Did the boy never change or wash his clothes, or had he already been smoking dope this early in the morning? Coffee and a hand-rolled cigarette—a little something to start the day.
“It seems to be all right now,” Bonnie told him, turning around, squinting into the sun. The boy’s handsome face was half hidden by his uncombed hair. Even still, the mottled, purplish bruise at the side of his chin was clearly visible. “What happened to your face?” she asked, her hand reaching out reflexively.
He flinched, pulled away. “Walked into a wall,” he said, then laughed, a hollow sound.
“It looks more like you walked into somebody’s fist.”
Haze lifted one tattooed arm, brought his hand to his chin. “Yeah, the old man still packs a wallop.”
Bonnie’s mouth opened in stunned surprise. “Your grandfather hit you?”
“Do me a favor, Mrs. Wheeler,” Haze said. “Don’t bother my grandparents anymore. They don’t appreciate getting calls from the school.”
“I can’t believe—”
“It’s a tough world out there, Mrs. Wheeler,” Haze said, balancing on the heels of his black boots. “You never know when someone might be waiting to punch your face in…or disconnect the battery of your car so it won’t start—”
“What?”
“—or throw blood on a cute little kid—”
“My God.” Bonnie felt her legs about to give way. “Are you saying—”
“—or even shoot you straight through the heart,” he concluded, nonchalantly. “The police paid us a visit about that, you know.” He rubbed his jaw. “My grandfather didn’t appreciate that visit very much either.” He laughed. “They asked a whole lot of questions about whether I knew anything about what happened to Sam’s mom or to your little girl. What’s her name? Amanda? Yeah, real cute kid. It’d be a shame if something happened to her. I’d keep a real close eye on her, if I were you. Well, I gotta go. Don’t want to be late for my first class.”