by Linda Barnes
“Please.” He lowered his voice and his eyes darted around the small room as though checking under the bed for spies. “Wilson has no desire to cheat Harvard or to leave Harvard. He isn’t planning to defraud the university or anyone else, with the possible exception of his wife and her lawyers.” He dropped his voice on the last phrase, as though he didn’t want anyone, not even the unconscious Wilson Chaney, to hear.
“I don’t understand.”
“Wilson may have delayed. He did delay. I tell you this in confidence and I hope that confidence will be respected. He intends to file the patent application. Yes, he certainly does. But only after he divorces his wife. You’ve seen what she’s like. You can understand that, can’t you?”
Wilson Chaney slept, a tan blanket stretched taut across his chest, an IV line trickling liquid into his veins. He looked younger asleep, his forehead unwrinkled, his expression placid. If he were awake, how would I frame the question? Why keep the discovery secret, Wilson? Fording had his view: Wilson had never intended to run off with his dream girl. He’d delayed, but only until he could see his way clear to make a break from his wife. I could understand that, the man-woman tension, the man-woman problem. Of course I could understand that.
Could I believe it?
The machines tracked Chaney’s vital signs, but no collection of silicon chips and circuitry could track his thoughts. Fording believed he was planning to leave his wife. Denali/Dorothy may have thought so, too, might have assumed he’d cooperate eagerly, blinded by lust, help her steal the drug from Improvisational. He might have gone along. Or he might never have known her plans. As long as he stayed unconscious, his heartbeat skittering across the screen, a pulsing blue line, it was anyone’s guess. Asleep, Chaney was a blank canvas. Fording painted him in noble colors, believed him innocent, and I suppose I did, too, both of us shading him with our own beliefs about his character, just as he’d embellished his own picture of beautiful Denali Brinkman, just as we all see people through the lens of our own vision, through a dirty window or a shiny pane of glass.
I didn’t shake Fording’s hand when I left. I told him to keep his lawyers away from me and I’d keep quiet. Slap me with a restraining order and I’d find a way to break it.
My shoes made their own tap-tap down the tiled corridor. I felt light-headed and sleepy and unable to walk a straight line, but I made it to the front door. It was dusk. Trees shaded Mount Auburn Street, and I thought it wasn’t more than a mile home, too short a distance for a cab.
The Porsche drove up beside me, silver paint glinting. The tinted window gave an electric whine and descended. Paolina, crammed sideways into the tiny backseat, stuck her head out of the gap.
“North End,” she said eagerly. “Spaghetti with clam sauce.”
Her hair was back to normal, dark and glossy, hanging loose. I couldn’t see what she was wearing, but she had a grin on her face. I swallowed a sudden thickness in my throat and thought, Sure, “happily ever after” land, here we come. Not my daughter in the backseat, not my husband behind the steering wheel. No future in that, no long-term plan for this relationship. Hell, it wasn’t even my car. I didn’t have a car.
I said, “I owe you some perfume, sweetie. Who’d you fight with at the party?”
Sam said, “Are you going to get in?”
In the distance, a dog barked. A trio of pigeons darted suddenly across the dusty street.
I got in.
I damn well did. I sank into the leather seat and kicked off my shoes. I’ll take my happily ever after in small doses, thank you. I’ll take it when I can get it. No guarantees, no promises, day to day.
Denali Brinkman died in surgery.
I think she did.