Don't Cry Now

by Joy Fielding

  Bonnie watched him walk away, too stunned to speak. She wanted to chase after him, wrestle him to the ground, pin him down, pummel his face with her fists if necessary, in order to get the answers from him that she needed. Except that his grandfather had already done that.

  Was it any wonder the boy was the way he was? Was she really surprised he needed a narcotic to get him through the day? And could she really be feeling sorry for him after all he’d just implied? My God, the boy had been in her home less than a week ago; he’d sat at her dining room table with her family and eaten her food. Was he telling her now that he’d tampered with her car, that he’d emptied a pail of blood over her daughter’s head, that he was a cold-blooded killer?

  Bonnie looked toward the school, watching as a steady stream of students filed through the doors, hurrying to get inside before the bell. Haze would be waiting for her at the back of her class, his feet stretched insolently out in front of him, she realized, falling back against her car door. In the next instant, she was inside the car, pulling out of the parking lot, and heading for Newton.

  “What did he say to you about my daughter?” Bonnie demanded, barely giving Captain Mahoney time to get out of his chair.

  “Hold on here a minute, Mrs. Wheeler,” the captain said, tucking his white shirt inside his brown trousers and straightening his brown-and-gold-striped tie as he stepped out in front of his desk. “I can see you’re upset—”

  “Tell me what Harold Gleason said to you about my daughter,” Bonnie repeated, trying to calm herself down by taking deep breaths.

  “He said he didn’t know what we were talking about,” Captain Mahoney told her.

  “Did he have an alibi for the time my daughter was attacked?”

  “He claimed he was on his way home from school.”

  “Can he prove that?”

  “We can’t prove he wasn’t,” Captain Mahoney said.

  “So, that’s it? He says he didn’t do it, and you say okay?”

  “We have no proof he did anything wrong, Mrs. Wheeler. Your daughter couldn’t give us a description—”

  “My daughter is three years old.”

  “—and we just can’t arrest someone for behaving provocatively,” Captain Mahoney said. “You should know that.”

  Bonnie ignored the inference. Did he really still consider her the prime suspect in Joan’s murder? “What about Joan?” she asked. “Did he have an alibi for the time of Joan’s death? Was he on his way home from school that day too?”

  “It was a P.D. day,” Captain Mahoney reminded her, pointedly. “He said he was with your stepson.”

  The air buzzed painfully around Bonnie’s ears, like a dentist’s drill.

  “Your stepson also claims they were together. They say they were just hanging out, not doing anything in particular, that they don’t know if anybody saw them together or not. Do you think they might be lying?”

  “I think Haze might be lying, yes.”

  “And your stepson?”

  “I’m sure my stepson had nothing to do with his mother’s death,” Bonnie said, one hand reaching toward the back of a nearby chair for support.

  “Are you?”

  Silence. More buzzing, the drill moving closer, digging deeper.

  “Could I trouble you for a glass of water?” Bonnie asked.

  Captain Mahoney left the room and returned seconds later with a paper cup filled with cold water. “Are you feeling all right?” he asked, as Bonnie sipped slowly at the contents of the cup. “You’re looking a little green around the gills.”

  “It’s my hair,” Bonnie said impatiently, although she wasn’t sure if her impatience was directed more at Captain Mahoney or herself. “Maybe if you stopped concentrating on my family and started looking in other directions, you’d have more luck finding Joan’s killer,” she told him. “I should go. Sorry if I wasted your time.”

  “Always interesting talking to you,” he called after her. “We’ll be in touch.”

  “What can we do for you today?” the young woman was asking, scissors in hand.

  Bonnie was sitting in a barber’s chair, staring at her reflection in the long mirror that ran the full length of the downtown beauty salon. Behind her stood a tall young woman wearing a large green felt hat that completely hid the fact she had any hair. Not a good sign in a hairdresser, Bonnie thought, then remembered that Diana claimed Rosie was the best hairdresser in Boston. Certainly she always did a great job on Diana’s hair, Bonnie thought, deciding that she couldn’t look much worse. “I need something new.” Bonnie pulled at the ends of her hair.

  “It’s very dry,” Rosie said, crinkling a fistful of Bonnie’s hair in her palm. Bonnie thought it might break off in her hand. “We should probably give it a treatment. Are you in a hurry?”

  “I have all day,” Bonnie told her, wondering what on earth had possessed her to come here. She’d called the school, told them she wasn’t feeling up to par and didn’t think she should risk infecting the students, and now here she was in downtown Boston, sitting in the window of Rosie’s Hair Emporium, about to have her dry hair treated and trimmed. What if somebody were to see her?

  “I think it could use a treatment, and a good cut,” Rosie said. “What do you think?”

  “I’m in your hands,” Bonnie told her. “Do whatever you think is best.”

  “I love it when you talk that way,” Rosie said.

  “I was wondering if I could see Dr. Greenspoon,” Bonnie said, addressing the wall above the well-coiffed heads of Erica McBain and Hyacinth Johnson. “I know I don’t have an appointment, but it’s really very important.”

  “I’m sorry,” Hyacinth Johnson said, managing to sound as if she meant it. “The doctor isn’t in today.”

  “Damn,” Bonnie muttered, louder than she had intended. “I really need to see him.” Look at me, she wanted to shout. Look at what I’ve done to my hair. Can’t you see that I’m a sick woman, that I need to see the doctor as soon as possible?

  “We’ve had a cancellation for next Wednesday at ten o’clock, if you’d like that.”

  “No, that’s too late.”

  “I’m afraid I have nothing before that at all.”

  “That’s all right,” Bonnie told her. “I really don’t need to see the doctor. It was just an impulse thing.”

  Impulse? she wondered. She’d been sitting outside the doctor’s office for almost two hours, debating whether or not to come inside. Could that be considered an impulse? And how could she say she didn’t need to see the doctor? She was crazy, for God’s sake. Certifiable. Look at what she’d done today, for example. She’d bolted from the school parking lot without a thought, stormed into police headquarters in Newton to further antagonize Captain Mahoney, and then driven into Boston to have her hair butchered by Rosie the Riveter. How could she have given that crazy woman in a hat permission to do whatever she wanted with her hair? She looked worse than before, for God’s sake. At least when her hair was longer, she’d been able to pull it back or push it forward. How could she do anything with two inches of hair? Hadn’t anyone told Rosie that the waif look was dead? Didn’t she know that thirty-five was too old to be a pixie? What would Rod say when he saw her?

  He’d tell her she was crazy, she decided. And he’d be right. She was crazy. That’s why she’d driven directly here from the hairdresser’s, why she’d parked outside and sat there for two hours trying to work up the courage to come inside. She was nuttier than a fruitcake, as Rod would say. Weren’t those the exact words he’d used to describe his ex-wife to the police? Well, now he could say it about the two of them. Both his wives were nuttier than fruitcakes. Something else they apparently had in common.

  She was nuts, and she was making herself sick, Bonnie told herself. It was as simple as that. She couldn’t cope with all the changes in her life, and this was her body’s way of telling her she needed help. The psychosomatic flu. And the remedy was only two hundred dollars an hour.

  “I thi
nk I will take that appointment, if that’s okay,” Bonnie said.

  Hyacinth Johnson calmly wrote the information down on a small card, as if she was well used to patients changing their minds, and handed the card across the desk to Bonnie. “Ten o’clock next Wednesday morning,” she repeated. “We’ll see you then.”

  “I don’t see your name on the guest list, Mrs. Wheeler,” the elderly security guard was saying, tired brown eyes scanning his clipboard for her name.

  “My husband doesn’t know I’m coming,” Bonnie said. “I thought I’d surprise him.” Surprise was right, she thought, hands picking at whatever hair she had left, trying to fluff it up, give it more volume.

  “I’ll have to call down, I’m afraid.”

  “That’s fine.”

  “I hate to have to do that to you,” the old man apologized. “But they’re very strict about regulations.”

  “I understand.”

  “I could lose my job if I just let you walk in.”

  “I’ll tell my husband what a fine job you do.”

  The security guard smiled and picked up the phone resting on the high counter just inside the entrance to studio WHDH. “I almost didn’t recognize you,” he said. “You’ve done something different to your hair.”

  “You like it?” Bonnie asked hopefully, not sure how long she could maintain an upright position.

  “It’s different.”

  “I thought short hair might be a nice change.”

  “It’s short.”

  Oh God, Bonnie thought. It must be truly awful if even the elderly security guard couldn’t think of something nice to say to her. Don’t be silly, she told herself in her next breath. He’s hardly an arbiter of high fashion. Even if he doesn’t like your hair, others might find it appealing. Besides, it’s only hair. It’ll grow back.

  It’ll take two years for this to grow back, she realized, leaning against the counter for support, watching as the security guard hung up the phone.

  “They’re sending someone right up for you,” he told her.

  “Thank you.” Bonnie looked around the black marble foyer of the downtown high rise, just blocks from fashionable Newbury Street. Maybe after she was finished here, she’d go shopping, buy a new outfit to go with her new haircut. Maybe she’d even ask Diana to join her. Diana’s office was somewhere close by. They could go shopping, have coffee, gossip, all the things that girls were traditionally supposed to do. Sugar and spice and everything nice. That’s what little girls are made of.

  What was she doing here? Why had she decided to interrupt her husband in the middle of the afternoon when he was frantically trying to prepare for Miami? If she were smart, she’d leave now, just turn on her heels and exit the premises, tell the guard she’d made a mistake, that she was sorry she’d bothered anyone, my best to the wife and kids….

  “Bonnie, Bonnie, is that you?” Marla’s voice cut through the black marble, like an electric saw through glass, splinters everywhere. She strode toward Bonnie, her svelte body encased in a bright purple dress, her corn-blond hair a series of cascading ripples falling to her shoulders.

  Bonnie’s hand was instantly at her hair, self-consciously pulling at a few wisps around her ear. “You didn’t have to come out….” she began.

  “I heard you were here, and we’re on a break in the taping….”

  “My God, you’re taping. I’d forgotten.”

  “That’s all right.” Marla’s hand was on her elbow, pulling Bonnie toward the corridor to the right. “It’s always a pleasure to see you. Did you do something new to your hair?”

  “I felt like a change,” Bonnie said.

  “You got it,” Marla told her, pulling open the door marked STUDIO. They continued down the narrow, dimly lit corridor.

  “I’m really sorry to be bothering you….”

  “Nonsense. You’re no bother. I don’t think you’ve been down since we changed the set.”

  “No, it’s been a while.”

  Several attractive young women in short skirts passed them in the hall, half bowing in Marla’s direction. “The new set is such an improvement,” Marla was saying. “Rod’s idea, of course. He got rid of all those grays and greens and replaced them with peach and blush, which, of course, is much more flattering, and much more feminine, don’t you think?”

  Bonnie said nothing, understanding that no response was required.

  “I can’t tell you what a pleasure it is working with your husband. I’ve had directors before, let me tell you, and there are directors and directors, let me tell you. Anyone can point a camera in the right direction and tell people where to sit, but it takes a good director to understand what makes people tick, and how to make sure everything runs smoothly. And your husband is the best. Just the best,” she said, almost wistfully, leading Bonnie past a door marked MAKEUP and another one labeled GREEN ROOM, although the walls were pink. “Our guests wait in there,” Marla confided, her voice low. “It’s really cute how nervous they get. Don’t you have school today?” she continued in one breath.

  “We finished early,” Bonnie told her, thinking this was true. She had finished early. Very early.

  “The studio’s in here.” Marla guided Bonnie through yet another heavy gray door. And suddenly they were in a darkened world of cameras and monitors, where thick cable lines ran like creeping vines along the floor and hung from the ceiling like exotic plants. The audience, some three hundred people, most of them women, sat in tiers of comfortable chairs, eyes glued to the peach-colored sofa and blush-tinted swivel chair on the lit podium at one end of the studio. There were silk potted palms and vases filled with fresh-cut flowers at strategic intervals around the ersatz living room. On the back wall hung a large modern tapestry in shades of pink, mauve, and beige. Marla was right—it was a vast improvement over the old set. Rod had always had a good eye. “Why don’t you sit over there?” Marla said, acknowledging an adoring woman fan in the front row with a wide smile. “That way, if you have any questions you want to ask one of our guests, I can get to you easily.”

  “I don’t want to ask any questions,” Bonnie said.

  “You never know,” Marla told her. “You might relate. We have a very interesting show today.”

  “I’m sure you do, but I just wanted to see Rod for a few minutes. I really don’t have time to watch the whole taping.”

  “There’s only half an hour left. Besides, he can’t see you till after the taping anyway. He’s in the control room.” Marla pointed to a glass-enclosed room high above their heads at the back of the studio. “So, why don’t you just sit down and make yourself at home, and sit back and enjoy the show.” She all but pushed Bonnie into the empty seat in the second row. “I’ll tell the cameraman to make sure he gets a shot of you.”

  “Please don’t do that.” Immediately, Bonnie’s hand shot to her hair.

  “Don’t be silly, and don’t be shy.” Marla was already moving away from her. “And remember to speak up if you want to challenge any of our guests.”

  “I don’t even know what the show’s about,” Bonnie protested, weakly, grateful to be sitting down.

  “Oh, didn’t I tell you? It’s all about extramarital affairs.” She smiled, displaying all her perfectly capped teeth. “We’re calling it ‘Wives Who Hang On Too Long.’ See you later. Enjoy.”

  “She’s having an affair with my husband,” Bonnie was saying, pacing back and forth in front of Diana’s desk, like a lion in a cage.

  “Bonnie, calm down.”

  “Don’t try to tell me I’m imagining this.”

  “I’m not trying to tell you anything,” Diana said. “I’m just trying to understand what happened.”

  Bonnie walked to the floor-to-ceiling window of the modern office tower and looked down at the street some twenty floors below. It made her feel dizzy, and she immediately pulled back, bumping into the sharp corner of Diana’s green marble desk top.

  “Why don’t you sit down?” Diana offered, indicating
the two green-striped wing chairs across from her desk.

  “I don’t want to sit down,” Bonnie snapped. “I’m tired of sitting down. I’ve been sitting down all day.” She pictured first her car seat, then the barber chair at Rosie’s salon, then the soft wine-colored armchair in the darkened studio. “‘Wives Who Hang On Too Long,’ she called it,” Bonnie spat into the air. “Can you imagine? She actually had the gall to say that to me.”

  “Bonnie,” Diana reminded her, “that was the name of the show. What else could she say it was called? She didn’t make it up for your benefit. She had no way of knowing you were going to drop by.”

  “It was the way she said it,” Bonnie told her. “The insinuation was too blatant to miss. She was implying that I’m one of those wives. You weren’t there. You didn’t hear her.”

  Diana pushed herself out of her high-backed black leather chair and walked around, leaning against the front of her desk. “Okay, so let me see if I have this straight,” she began in proper lawyerly fashion, tugging at the jacket of her wheat-colored suit. “You had a run-in with one of your students so you decided to skip school and get your hair done….”

  “I know it’s awful….”

  “It’s not the most flattering cut you could have selected,” Diana agreed, “but that’s not the point.”

  “I’m not sure I know what the point is,” Bonnie said.

  “Which is exactly the point,” Diana said, pouncing on Bonnie’s words. “You always know what the point is. You never do anything without thinking it through well-out in advance. Suddenly, you’re skipping school and cutting your hair off and dropping in unannounced to the studio. Why? What’s going on?”

  “My husband is having an affair,” Bonnie insisted. “That’s what’s going on.”

  “With Marla Brenzelle? I can’t believe it. Even Rod has more sense than that.”

  “I know it sounds ridiculous at first, but it all makes sense.”