by Harlan Coben
“Okay,” Myron said. “Thanks for the warning.”
Myron headed out the door, shook it off. He hit Chang’s Dry Cleaning next door. Maxine Chang was behind the counter. She looked, as always, exhausted and overworked. There were two women about Myron’s age at the counter. They were talking about their kids and colleges. That was all anybody talked about right now. Every April, Livingston became a snow globe of college acceptances. The stakes, if you were to listen to the parents, could not have been higher. These weeks—those thick-or-thin envelopes that arrived in their mailboxes—decided how happy and successful their offspring would be for the rest of their lives.
“Ted is wait-listed at Penn but he made Lehigh,” one said.
“Do you believe Chip Thompson got into Penn?”
“His father.”
“What? Oh wait, he’s an alum, right?”
“He gave them a quarter million dollars.”
“I should have known. Chip had terrible boards.”
“I heard they hired a pro to write his essays.”
“I should have done that for Cole.”
Like that. On and on.
Myron nodded at Maxine. Maxine Chang usually had a big smile for him. Not today. She shouted, “Roger!”
Roger Chang came out of the back. “Hey, Myron.”
“What’s up, Roger?”
“You wanted the shirts boxed this time, right?”
“Right.”
“I’ll be right back.”
“Maxine,” one of the women said, “did Roger hear from schools yet?”
Maxine barely looked up. “He made Rutgers,” she said. “Wait-listed at others.”
“Wow, congratulations.”
“Thank you.” But she didn’t seem thrilled.
“Maxine, won’t he be the first in your family to go to college?” the other woman said. Her tone could only have sounded more patronizing if she’d been petting a dog. “How wonderful for you.”
Maxine wrote up the ticket.
“Where is he wait-listed?”
“Princeton and Duke.”
Hearing his alma mater made Myron think again about Aimee. He flashed back to Larry and his spooky planet talk. Myron wasn’t one for bad omens or any of that, but he didn’t feel like poking the fates in the eye either. He debated trying Aimee’s phone again, but what would be the point? He thought back over last night, replayed it in his head, wondered how he could have done it differently.
Roger—Myron had forgotten that the kid was already a high school senior—came back and handed him the box of shirts. Myron took them, told Roger to put them on his account, headed out the door. He still had time before his flight.
So he drove to Brenda’s grave.
The cemetery still overlooked a schoolyard. That was what he could still not get over. The sun shone hard as it always seemed to when he visited, mocking his gloom. He stood alone. There were no other visitors. A nearby backhoe dug a hole. Myron remained still. He lifted his head and let the sun shine on his face. He could still feel that—the sun on his face. Brenda, of course, could not. Would never again.
A simple thought, but there you go.
Brenda Slaughter had only been twenty-six when she died. Had she survived, she’d have turned thirty-four in two weeks. He wondered where she’d be if Myron had kept his promise. He wondered if she’d be with him.
When she died, Brenda was in the middle of her residency in pediatric medicine. She was six-foot-four, stunning, African-American, a model. She was about to play pro basketball, the face and image that would launch the new women’s league. There had been threats made. So Myron had been hired by the league owner to protect her.
Nice job, All-Star.
He stood and stared down and clenched his fists. He never talked to her when he came here. He didn’t sit and try to meditate or any of that. He didn’t conjure up the good or her laugh or her beauty or her extraordinary presence. Cars whizzed by. The schoolyard was silent. No kids were out playing. Myron did not move.
He did not come here because he still mourned her death. He came because he didn’t.
He barely remembered Brenda’s face anymore. The one kiss they shared . . . when he conjured it up he knew it was more imagination than memory. That was the problem. Brenda Slaughter was slipping away from him. Soon it would be as though she never existed. So Myron didn’t come here for comfort or to pay his respects. He came because he still needed to hurt, needed the wounds to stay fresh. He still wanted to be outraged because moving on—feeling at peace with what happened to her—was too obscene.
Life goes on. That was a good thing, right? The outrage flickers and slowly leaks away. The scars heal. But when you let that happen, your soul goes dead a little too.
So Myron stood there and clenched his fists until they shook. He thought about the sunny day they buried her—and the horrible way he had avenged her. He summoned up the outrage. It came at him like a force. His knees buckled. He tottered, but he stayed upright.
He had messed up with Brenda. He had wanted to protect her. He had pushed too hard—and in doing so he had gotten her killed.
Myron looked down at the grave. The sun was still warm on him, but he felt the shiver travel down his back. He wondered why he chose today of all days to visit, and then he thought about Aimee, about pushing too hard, about wanting to protect, and with one more shiver, he thought—no, he feared—that maybe, somehow, he had let it all happen again.
CHAPTER 11
Claire Biel stood by the kitchen sink and stared at the stranger she called a husband. Erik was eating a sandwich carefully, his tie tucked into his shirt. There was a newspaper perfectly folded into one quarter. He chewed slowly. He wore cuff links. His shirt was starched. He liked starch. He liked everything ironed. In his closet his suits were hung four inches apart from one another. He didn’t measure to achieve this. It just happened. His shoes, always freshly polished, were lined up like something in a military procession.
Who was this man?
Their two youngest daughters, Jane and Lizzie, were both wolfing down PB&J on white bread. They chatted through their sticky mouths. They made noise. Their milk sloshed into small spills. Erik kept reading. Jane asked if they could be excused. Claire said yes. They both darted toward the door.
“Stop,” Claire said.
They did.
“Plates in the sink.”
They sighed and did the eye-roll—though they were only nine and ten, they had learned from the best, their older sister. They trudged back as though through the deep snow of the Adirondacks, lifted plates that must have seemed like boulders, and somehow scaled the mountain toward the sink.
“Thank you,” Claire said.
They took off. The room was quiet now. Erik chewed quietly.
“Is there any more coffee?” he asked.
She poured some. He crossed his legs, careful not to crease his trousers. They had been married for nineteen years, but the passion had slipped out the window in under two. They were treading water now, had been treading for so long that it no longer seemed that difficult. Oldest cliché in the book was about how fast time went by, but it was true. It didn’t seem like the passion had been gone that long. Sometimes, like right now, she could look at him and remember a time when just seeing him would take her breath away.
Still not glancing up, Erik asked, “Have you heard from Aimee?”
“No.”
He straightened his arm to pull back the sleeve, checked his watch, arched an eyebrow. “Two in the afternoon.”
“She’s probably just waking up.”
“We might want to call.”
He didn’t move.
“By we,” Claire said, “do you mean me?”
“I’ll do it if you want.”
She reached for the phone and dialed their daughter’s cell phone. They’d gotten Aimee her own phone last year. Aimee had brought them an advertisement showing them that they could add a third line for ten dollars a
month. Erik was unmoved. But, Aimee whined, all her friends—everyone!—had one, an argument that always always led Erik to remark, “We are not everyone, Aimee.”
But Aimee was ready for that. She quickly changed tracks and plucked on the parental-protection heartstrings: “If I had my own phone, I could always stay in touch. You could find me twenty-four-seven. And if there was ever an emergency . . .”
That had closed the sale. Mothers understood this basic truism: Sex and peer pressure may sell, but nothing sells like fear.
The call went to voice mail. Aimee’s enthusiastic voice—she had taped her message almost immediately after getting the phone—told Claire to, like, leave a message. The sound of her daughter’s voice, familiar as it was, made her ache, though she wasn’t sure for what exactly.
When the beep came, Claire said, “Hey, honey, it’s Mom. Just give me a call, okay?”
She hung up.
Erik still read his paper. “She didn’t answer?”
“Gee, what gave it away? Was it the part where I asked her to give me a call?”
He frowned at the sarcasm. “Her phone probably went dead.”
“Probably.”
“She always forgets to charge it,” he said, with a shake of his head. “Whose house was she sleeping over? Steffi’s, right?”
“Stacy.”
“Right, whatever. Maybe we should call Stacy.”
“Why?”
“I want her home. She has that project due on Thursday.”
“It’s Sunday. She just got into college.”
“So you think she should slack off now?”
Claire handed him the portable. “You call.”
“Fine.”
She gave him the number. He pressed the digits and put the phone to his ear. In the background, Claire heard her younger daughters giggle. Then one shouted, “I do not!” When the phone was picked up, Erik cleared his throat. “Good afternoon, this is Erik Biel. I’m Aimee Biel’s father. I was wondering if she was there right now.”
His face didn’t change. His voice didn’t change. But Claire saw his grip on the phone tighten and she felt something deep in her chest give way.
CHAPTER 12
Myron had two semicontradictory thoughts about Miami. One, the weather was so beautiful he should move down here. Two, sun—there was too much sun down here. Everything was too bright. Even in the airport Myron found himself squinting.
This was not a problem for Myron’s parents, the beloved Ellen and Al Bolitar, who wore those oversize sunglasses that looked suspiciously like welder’s goggles, though without the style. They both waited for him at the airport. Myron had told them not to, that he would get a taxi, but Dad had insisted. “Don’t I always pick you up from the airport? Remember when you came back from Chicago after that big snowstorm?”
“That was eighteen years ago, Dad.”
“So? You think I forgot how to go?”
“And that was Newark Airport.”
“Eighteen minutes, Myron.”
Myron’s eyes closed. “I remember.”
“Exactly eighteen minutes.”
“I remember, Dad.”
“That’s how long it took me to get from the house to Terminal A at Newark Airport. I used to time it, remember?”
“I do, yes.”
So here they were, both of them, at the airport with dark suntans and fresh liver spots. When Myron came down the escalator, Mom ran over and wrapped her arms around her boy as if this were a POW homecoming in 1974. Dad stayed in the background with that satisfied smile. Myron hugged her back. Mom felt smaller. That was how it was down here. Your parents withered and got smaller and darker, like giant shrunken heads.
Mom said, “Let’s get your luggage.”
“I have it here.”
“That’s it? Just that one bag?”
“I’m only down for a night.”
“Still.”
Myron watched her face, checked her hands. When he saw the shake was more pronounced, he felt the thud in his chest.
“What?” she said.
“Nothing.”
Mom shook her head. “You’ve always been the worst liar. Remember that time I walked in on you and Tina Ventura and you said nothing was going on? You think I didn’t know?”
Junior year of high school. Ask Mom and Dad what they did yesterday, they won’t remember. Ask them about anything from his youth, and it’s like they studied replays at night.
He held up his hands in mock surrender. “Got me.”
“Don’t be such a smart guy. And that reminds me.”
They reached Dad. Myron kissed him on the cheek. He always did. You never outgrow that. The skin felt loose. The smell of Old Spice was still there, but it was fainter than usual. There was something else there, some other smell, and Myron thought it was the smell of the old. They started for the car.
“Guess who I ran into?” Mom said.
“Who?”
“Dotte Derrick. Remember her?”
“No.”
“Sure you do. She had that thing, that what-you-call-it, in her yard.”
“Oh, right. Her. With that thing.”
He had no idea what she was talking about, but this was easier.
“So anyway, I saw Dotte the other day and we start talking. She and Bob moved down here four years ago. They have a place in Fort Lauderdale, but Myron, it’s really run-down. I mean, it hasn’t been kept up at all. Al, what’s the name of Dotte’s place? Sunshine Vista, something like that, right?”
“Who cares?” Dad said.
“Thanks, Mr. Helpful. Anyway, that’s where Dotte lives. And this place is awful. So run-down. Al, isn’t Dotte’s place run-down?”
“The point, El,” Dad said. “Get to the point.”
“I’m getting there, I’m getting there. Where was I?”
“Dotte Something,” Myron said.
“Derrick. You remember her, right?”
“Very well,” Myron said.
“Right, good. Anyway, Dotte still has cousins up north. The Levines. Do you remember them? No reason you should, forget it. Anyway, one of the cousins lives in Kasselton. You know Kasselton, right? You used to play them in high school—”
“I know Kasselton.”
“Don’t get snappy.”
Dad spread his arms to the sky. “The point, El. Get to the point.”
“Right, sorry. You’re right. When you’re right, you’re right. So to make a long story short—”
“No, El, you’ve never made a long story short,” Dad said. “Oh, you’ve made plenty of short stories long. But never, ever, have you made a long story short.”
“Can I talk here, Al?”
“Like anyone could stop you. Like a large gun or big army tank—like even that could stop you.”
Myron couldn’t help but smile. Ladies and gents, meet Ellen and Alan Bolitar or, as Mom liked to say, “We’re El Al—you know, like the Israeli airline?”
“So anyway, I was talking to Dotte about this and that. You know, the usual. The Ruskins moved out of town. Gertie Schwartz had gall stones. Antonietta Vitale, such a pretty thing, she married some millionaire from Montclair. That kind of thing. And then Dotte told me—Dotte told me this, by the way, not you—Dotte said you’re dating someone.”
Myron closed his eyes.
“Is it true?”
He said nothing.
“Dotte said you were dating a widow with six children.”
“Two children,” Myron said.
Mom stopped and smiled.
“What?”
“Gotcha.”
“Huh?”
“If I said two children, you might have just denied it.” Mom pointed an aha finger up in the air. “But I knew if I said six, you’d react. So I caught you.”
Myron looked at his father. His father shrugged. “She’s been watching a lot of Matlock lately.”
“Children, Myron? You’re dating a woman with children?”
“
Mom, I’m going to say this as nicely as I can: Butt out.”
“Listen to me, Mr. Funny Guy. When children are involved, you can’t just go on your merry way. You need to think about the repercussions on them. Do you understand what I’m telling you?”
“Do you understand the meaning of ‘butt out’?”
“Fine, do what you want.” Now she did the mock surrender. Like mother, like son. “What do I care?”
They continued walking—Myron in the middle, Dad on his right, Mom on his left. That was how they always walked. The pace was slower now. That didn’t bother him much. He was more than willing to slow down so they could keep up.
They drove to the condo and parked in the designated spot. Mom purposely took the long path past the swimming pool, so she could introduce Myron to a dizzying array of condo owners. Mom kept saying, “You remember meeting my son?” and Myron faked remembering them back. Some of the women, many in their upper seventies, were too-well built. As Dustin Hoffman had been advised in The Graduate, “Plastics.” Just a different kind. Myron had nothing against cosmetic surgery, but past a certain age, discriminatory or not, it creeped him out.
The condo was also too bright. You’d think as you got older you’d want less light, but no. His parents actually kept on the welder sunglasses for the first five minutes. Mom asked if he was hungry. He was smart enough to answer yes. She had already ordered a sloppy joe platter—Mom’s cooking would be deemed inhumane at Guantánamo Bay—from a place called Tony’s, which was “just like the old Eppes Essen’s” at home.
They ate, they talked, Mom kept trying to wipe the small bits of cabbage that got stuck in the corners of Dad’s mouth, but her hand shook too badly. Myron met his father’s eye. Mom’s Parkinson’s was getting worse, but they wouldn’t talk to Myron about it. They were getting old. Dad had a pacemaker. Mom had Parkinson’s. But their first duty was still to shield their son from all that.
“When do you have to leave for your meeting?” Mom asked.
Myron checked his watch. “Now.”
They said good-byes, did the hug-n-kiss thing again. When he pulled away, he felt as if he were abandoning them, as if they were going to hold off the enemy on their own while he drove to safety. Having aging parents sucked; but as Esperanza, who lost both parents young, often pointed out, it was better than the alternative.