Dearly Beloved

by Wendy Corsi Staub

  Until that night she’d assumed—when briefly she’d seen him in passing, and even more briefly given him a passing thought—that he was one of those boring, happily married, hopelessly domesticated guys.

  That night on the fire escape, though, it occurred to her that that might not be the case.

  Now she knows for sure that it isn’t.

  Poor Mack.

  And poor me, Kristina thinks, pacing her apartment, wondering how she’ll manage to accidentally-on-purpose run into Mack tonight. The fire escape is out of the question in this weather.

  Too bad, because it’s the perfect setup. Whenever Kristina spots Mack in the distance, coming down the block, she dashes down the four flights of stairs to the lobby. Then she takes her time checking her mailbox in the small vestibule by the door, waiting for him to come in from the street.

  He always seems pleasantly surprised to see her. If he thinks it’s unusual that she’s often getting her mail at the precise moment he walks in, he hasn’t mentioned it.

  They ride up in the elevator together, and she’s grateful that it takes so long, even though there’s never enough time alone with him. Sometimes she wishes the elevator would just get stuck between floors. She fantasizes about what might happen between them then, trapped in that small space together for hours, even days.

  She wonders who would make the first move. Usually she imagines that it would be he because that’s sexier, but in reality, she probably wants it to be she. Yes, because part of what she loves about him is that he’s a decent guy. A guy who’s willing to make a commitment. A guy who wouldn’t make a pass at another woman.

  Maybe that’s a crazy way to think about it, but Kristina can’t help it.

  Crazy.

  She’s crazy about him.

  Maybe just plain old crazy, Kristina thinks as, aptly, Barbara Cook croons Sondheim’s “Losing My Mind.”

  Kristina lives for those elevator rides with Mack. She’s pretty sure that one of these days, they’re going to wind up in each other’s arms regardless of whether they’re stuck between floors.

  After all, he’s not happy with his wife. He hasn’t come right out and said that, but she can read between the lines; can see the flicker of discontentment in his green eyes whenever he mentions Carrie.

  Is it any wonder? His wife doesn’t exactly have a sparkling personality. Not that she’s unpleasant, but . . . she’s just kind of quiet. Keeps to herself.

  Plus, Carrie used to be in relatively good shape and pretty, but Kristina has noticed an obvious weight gain lately. Even her face looks bloated. In fact, she actually asked Mack—maybe a week or so ago—if Carrie was pregnant.

  She was dreading the answer, because she knew that Mack having kids would change everything. It’s one thing to be in love with a married man. It’s another to be in love with a married man with a child.

  She was secretly elated when he told her that Carrie wasn’t pregnant, and she could swear Mack actually winced when he said it.

  Obviously, his wife is simply letting herself go, and when that happens, the marriage is in trouble.

  Barbara Cook has stopped singing.

  Kristina wants to hear the song again. She should probably figure out how to use the replay setting, but she’s too wrapped up in Mack to figure out anything more complicated than pressing the play button.

  “The sun comes up, I think about you . . .”

  Yeah, tell me about it, Barbara.

  Kristina hasn’t even seen Mack since Friday night, but it’s hardly out of sight, out of mind.

  She spent the better part of Saturday and Sunday afternoons in the building’s basement laundry room, because sometimes she runs into him there over the weekend. This time, all she got for the effort was the knowledge that every stitch of clothing, bedding, and bath linens she owns is clean.

  And now, because she can’t wait outside in the rain and she can’t quite see down the street from the window, she may have to go another whole day without seeing him.

  That can’t happen.

  Maybe she should plant herself downstairs in the vestibule and wait till he shows up.

  There’s really no logical reason for a tenant to linger there, though—and there’s one pretty solid reason not to.

  Jerry.

  You never know when you’re going to run into the building’s part-time maintenance man, who seems to lurk around the hallways even when he’s not fixing something. He works at several other buildings in the neighborhood—Kristina knows that because he once told her, in one of his awkward, stilted, non sequitur attempts at conversation. But lately, he’s been around here a lot more than usual.

  Or maybe it’s just that Kristina herself has been around here a lot more than usual, and she keeps running into him.

  “Doesn’t he give you the creeps?” Kristina asked her neighbor Allison, when they were chatting in the laundry room yesterday afternoon. Jerry had come in and out several times, ostensibly to fix a washing machine that seemed to be working just fine.

  “I don’t know—he’s just kind of simple-minded, I think.”

  “What about the stuff that’s been stolen around the building lately?” Kristina pointed out. A few tenants have reported thefts over the past couple of months. Not major heists—just loose cash, some jewelry, and—oddly—women’s clothing.

  “Including their underwear,” Kristina added with a shudder.

  “How do you know that?”

  “They told me—you know, the people who got robbed. Whoever did it is a pervert, and it seems like he must have had keys, too. I mean, it’s not like the doors were broken down.”

  “Yeah, but the windows were open. Someone could have easily crawled in from the fire escapes. Look, I really doubt it was Jerry. He’s really just a kid—”

  “He’s twenty-four.”

  “That’s how old I am, exactly. He seems younger. How do you know his age?”

  “He told me once. Like I care.”

  “Well, in any case . . .” Allison shrugged. “I can’t imagine him hurting a fly. He seems harmless.”

  “Okay, maybe he’s not a thief. But harmless? The way he was looking at us . . .” Kristina shuddered again.

  “Not us—you.”

  True. For some reason, Jerry didn’t appear to be the least bit interested in Allison, who happens to be a drop-dead-gorgeous blue-eyed blonde.

  No, he seemed fixated on Kristina—continually sneaking glances at her as he crouched in front of the washing machine, then falling all over himself to retrieve a rolling quarter she dropped.

  Yes, he always acts utterly smitten when she sees him around the building—which is much more often than she’d like. It’s almost as if he’s lying in wait for her . . .

  The way you lie in wait for Mack?

  She weighs the risk of running into Jerry if she goes downstairs right now against the risk of not seeing Mack for another twenty-four hours.

  Easy decision.

  Kristina hurries over to the full-length mirror.

  Checking her reflection, she tosses aside the tweed suit jacket she wore to her temp job and unbuttons the second button of the white blouse beneath. After a moment’s hesitation, she also daringly unbuttons the third, for optimum cleavage.

  Hmm—still a little frumpy. She makes a mental note to take her knee-length skirt to a tailor to be shortened after this wearing. The suit is a couple of seasons old, but it’s still decent, and Allison mentioned yesterday that miniskirts are back in style. Kristina has great legs, a dancer’s legs. Why not show them off?

  She does a quick makeup touch-up and dabs perfume behind each ear. Then she spreads her fingers and rakes them from her scalp to the ends of her curly, shoulder-length dark hair, tousling it just enough to look bedroom sexy, but not bed-head messy.

  There. Good to go.

  She slips her feet into a pair of pumps and hurries for the door, glancing at her watch. Perfect timing.

  She hurriedly descends four flights
of steps to the first floor, opens the door from the stairwell . . .

  And literally crashes into the bulky, imposing figure of Jerry.

  Kristina wobbles on her feet. Jerry puts his hands on her upper arms to steady her. Her nostrils twitch at the ripe scent of his sweat.

  “Sorry!” he says.

  “It’s okay.”

  She’s no longer wobbling, but he doesn’t move his hands. She looks pointedly down at them. His fingernails are dirty. His grip is unpleasantly strong.

  She flinches.

  He gets the hint.

  Removing his hands, he shoves them into the pockets of his jeans. A lot of young guys are wearing their pants baggy, ragged, and low lately—a trendy nod to gangsta rap—but Kristina knows Jerry isn’t making a fashion statement.

  No, with him, it’s classic, clueless-handyman butt crack.

  Between that and his breath—which is bad, no surprise there—it’s all she can do to hold back a shudder. Especially when she sees him take in her deliberately displayed décolletage.

  That’s not for you! That’s for Mack!

  Beneath his blond crew cut, Jerry’s plump face is flushed. “Kristina . . .”

  He knows her first name?

  Maybe that shouldn’t be surprising, but somehow, it is. Or at least, the sound of it on his lips. Surprising, and repulsive.

  “Are you busy?”

  “Busy?”

  “Yeah. I thought . . .” His hands push deeper into his pockets, his shoulders hunching toward his jowls. He licks his lips and a strand of saliva stretches between them until he speaks again. “I thought—I mean if you aren’t busy—then maybe I thought—I mean, I did think—that you could . . . that maybe we . . .”

  Dear God, no. No, no, no.

  She’s shaking her head, but he doesn’t seem to get it; he keeps right on fumbling his way through an invitation of some sort.

  “If you like cake, I thought . . . Do you like cake? I do. I love it. And we could . . . I could—”

  “I’m sorry, I can’t,” she blurts. “Sorry.”

  He stares at her, eyes wide, jaw hanging.

  “Look.” She tries to brush past him. “I’m really busy and—”

  “If you’re busy,” he blurts, stepping into her path, “we can—”

  We? This time, she doesn’t even try to hold back the shudder.

  “Thanks, but I can’t. No. No.”

  She waits for him to retreat, perhaps hanging his head in defeat.

  But he stands there in front of her, looking at her, his gray eyes shadowed.

  Kristina shrugs and starts to step around him.

  Jerry holds his ground.

  Unsure whether to be infuriated or frightened, she casts her gaze at the ceiling and says, “Excuse me. I need to get my mail.”

  Still, he doesn’t move.

  How dare he? He’s just standing here, blocking her way.

  “If you don’t move,” she says levelly, “I’m going to call the cops and have you arrested.”

  Without another word, Jerry steps aside.

  Shaken, Kristina walks down the corridor toward the vestibule, eyes focused straight ahead.

  But she can feel him standing there staring after her, and it’s giving her the creeps.

  Just before she enters the vestibule, she impulsively lifts her right arm and raises her middle finger.

  “Jerk,” she mutters, flipping him off without looking back to see if he’s still watching.

  Something tells her that he is.

  An Excerpt from

  SLEEPWALKER

  Chapter 1

  Glenhaven Park, Westchester County, New York

  Sunday, September 11, 2011

  Her husband has suffered from insomnia all his life, but tonight, Allison MacKenna is the one who can’t sleep.

  Lying on her side of the king-sized bed in their master bedroom, she listens to the quiet rhythm of her own breathing, the summery chatter of crickets and night birds beyond the window screen, and the faint hum of the television in the living room downstairs.

  Mack is down there, stretched out on the couch. When she stuck her head in about an hour ago to tell him she was going to bed, he was watching Animal House on cable.

  “What happened to the Jets game?” she asked.

  “They were down fourteen at the half so I turned the channel. Want to watch the movie? It’s just starting.”

  “Seen it,” she said dryly. As in, Who hasn’t?

  “Yeah? Is it any good?” he returned, just as dryly.

  “As a former fraternity boy, you’ll love it, I’m sure.” She hesitated, wondering if she should tell him.

  Might as well: “And you might want to revisit that Jets game.”

  “Really? Why’s that?”

  “They’re in the middle of a historic comeback. I just read about it online. You should watch.”

  “I’m not in the mood. The Giants are my team, not the Jets.”

  Determined to make light of it, she said, “Um, excuse me, aren’t you the man who asked my OB-GYN to preschedule a C-section last winter because you were worried I might go into labor while the Jets were playing?”

  “That was for the AFC Championship!”

  She just shook her head and bent to kiss him in the spot where his dark hair, cut almost buzz-short, has begun the inevitable retreat from his forehead.

  When she met Mack, he was in his mid-thirties and looked a decade younger, her own age. Now he owns his forty-four years, with a sprinkling of gray at his temples and wrinkles that frond the corners of his green eyes. His is the rare Irish complexion that tans, rather than burns, thanks to a rumored splash of Mediterranean blood somewhere in his genetic pool. But this summer, his skin has been white as January, and the pallor adds to the overall aura of world-weariness.

  Tonight, neither of them was willing to discuss why Mack, a die-hard sports fan, preferred an old movie he’d seen a hundred times to an exciting football game on opening day of the NFL season—which also happens to coincide with the milestone tenth anniversary of the September 11 attacks.

  The networks and most of the cable channels have provided a barrage of special programming all weekend. You couldn’t escape it, not even with football.

  Allison had seen her husband abruptly switch off the Giants game this afternoon right before the kickoff, as the National Anthem played and an enormous flag was unfurled on the field by people who had lost loved ones ten years ago today.

  It’s been a long day. It might be a long night, too.

  She opens her eyes abruptly, hearing a car slowing on the street out front. Reflected headlights arc across the ceiling of the master bedroom, filtering in through the sheer curtains. Moments later, the engine turns off, car doors slam, faint voices and laughter float up to the screened windows: the neighbors returning from their weekend house in Vermont.

  Every Friday without fail, the Lewises drive away from the four-thousand-square-foot Colonial next door that has a home gym over the three-car garage, saltwater swimming pool, and sunken patio with a massive outdoor stone fireplace, hot tub, and wet bar. Allison, who takes in their mail and feeds Marnie, the world’s most lovable black cat, while they’re gone, is well aware that the inside of their house is as spectacular as the outside.

  She always assumed that their country home must be pretty grand for them to leave all that behind every weekend, particularly since Bob Lewis spends a few nights every week away on business travel as it is.

  But then a few months ago, when she and Phyllis were having a neighborly chat, Phyllis mentioned that it’s an old lakeside home that’s been in Bob’s family for a hundred years.

  Allison pictured a rambling waterfront mansion. “It sounds beautiful.”

  “Well, I don’t know about beautiful,” Phyllis told her with a laugh. “It’s just a farmhouse, with claw-foot bathtubs instead of showers, holes in the screens, bats in the attic . . .”

  “Really?”

  “
Really. And it’s in the middle of nowhere. That’s why we love it. It’s completely relaxing. Living around here—it’s more and more like a pressure cooker. Sometimes you just need to get away from it all. You know?”

  Yeah. Allison knows.

  Every Fourth of July, the MacKennas spend a week at the Jersey Shore, staying with Mack’s divorced sister, Lynn, and her three kids at their Salt Breeze Pointe beach house.

  This year, Mack drove down with the family for the holiday weekend. Early Tuesday morning, he hastily packed his bag to go—no, to flee—back to the city, claiming something had come up at the office.

  Not necessarily a far-fetched excuse.

  Last January, the same week Allison had given birth to their third child (on a Wednesday, and not by scheduled C-section), Mack was promoted to vice president of television advertising sales. Now he works longer hours than ever before. Even when he’s physically present with Allison and the kids, he’s often attached—reluctantly, even grudgingly, but nevertheless inseparably—to his BlackBerry.

  “I can’t believe I’ve become one of those men,” he told her once in bed, belatedly contrite after he’d rolled over—and off her—to intercept a buzzing message.

  She knew which men he was talking about. And she, in turn, seems to have become one of those women: the well-off suburban housewives whose husbands ride commuter trains in shirtsleeves and ties at dawn and dusk, caught up in city business, squeezing in fleeting family time on weekends and holidays and vacations . . .

  If then.

  So, no, his having to rush back to the city at dawn on July 5 wasn’t necessarily a far-fetched excuse. But it was, Allison was certain—given the circumstances—an excuse.

  After a whirlwind courtship, his sister, Lynn, had recently remarried to Daryl, a widower with three daughters. Like dozens of other people in Middleton, the town where he and Lynn live, Daryl had lost his spouse on September 11.

  “He and Mack have so much in common,” Lynn had told Allison the first morning they all arrived at the beach house. “I’m so glad they’ll finally get to spend some time together. I was hoping they’d have gotten to know each other better by now, but Mack has been so busy lately . . .”