Goodnight Nobody

by Jennifer Weiner

  He shook his head. "She played her cards close to her vest." He leaned back in his chair, folded his hands across his belly, stared at the ceiling, then rocked forward. "I knew her ever since she married Phil--but now, with all that's come out, I wonder if I ever knew her at all."

  "You and Phil were friends for a long time?"

  "Since high school," he said, nodding. "We're local boys. We both grew up here, and after school, we came back to stay."

  I nodded and I wrote it down, and snuck another peek at Kevin. His brown eyes were bright and interested behind a pair of horn-rimmed glasses, and his chins lapped gently over his collar. Such a nice guy, the girls had probably said about him in high school. Of Phil Cavanaugh they would have said, He's dreamy.

  "So how did she meet Philip? Was it in New York?" I was hoping he'd throw me a bone, some scrap of information about Kitty's pre-baby, pre-Upchurch life, something that would give me a sense of who she really was besides a perfect mother with perfect hair and a perfect house.

  "No. Here. He ran into her at the office, right after he'd started working with his dad."

  "And how about before she met Philip?" I asked. "Do you know anything about her life before she came to Upchurch?"

  "I know she was writing, and living in New York," he said. "Trying to get her career off the ground. I think she did freelance pieces, edited a hospital's newsletter." I asked which one. He shrugged, then shook his head and apologized.

  "Do you remember where she lived? What neighborhood?" I asked. "I used to live in the Village."

  "She never talked much about it," he said. He shifted in his seat, crossed and uncrossed his legs.

  I gave him a variation of Phil's question to me. "Was she happy there? Or was she happier here? Was this--you know, kids, house, playground, carpools--was this what she wanted?"

  He gave me a smile and rocked back in his chair again with his hands cradling his belly. "I don't know if she loved New York," he said. "I think it was kind of the usual thing. Bad boyfriends, bad bosses. Aren't there a whole bunch of books with pink covers about stuff like that?"

  "So nothing out of the ordinary."

  He smiled. "Not that I know about. She never did time in a Thai prison for drug smuggling or anything like that. As for Connecticut..." He rocked back and forth, looking sad, I decided. No--nostalgic. Wistful.

  "I don't know," he finally said. His voice thickened. "I think--I'd like to believe--that she was happy here."

  The wheels of his desk chair squeaked against the sheet of hard plastic underneath them. "She was one of my favorite people," he blurted in a voice that sounded completely different from his initial how-can-I-help-you bonhomie. "I just can't believe something like this would happen. In the city, maybe, you'd expect it. But out here?"

  A flush crept from the gaping neck of his shirt up to the soft line of his jaw. She was one of my favorite people. Aha! I could imagine how this had played out--handsome Philip and his plain, pudgy sidekick, handsome Philip with his beautiful wife, and Kevin nursing a secret, unrequited crush on her for all those years. Had Kitty encouraged him? Had they exchanged passionate glances over the years, his soft brown eyes meeting her astonishing blue ones across the Fourth of July barbecue, the Halloween candy bowl, the Christmas eggnog? Had they consummated their love? Was it Kitty's revenge for Phil's sticking his tongue down the neighbor ladies' throats underneath the mistletoe for all those years? Had Kevin begged her to leave Philip, saying her husband wasn't good enough to kiss the ground she walked on? Had Kitty refused, knowing that a divorce would tarnish her perfect-mother glow? And had Kevin shown up at her house one crisp October morning to try to convince her one last time...then grabbed a butcher knife off Kitty's kitchen counter, saying, If I can't have you, no one will?

  Kevin blinked, rocked forward, and looked at the grandfather clock in the corner. "I don't mean to rush you," he said, bounding to his feet.

  I stood up, scrambling for my coat. As I bent forward to scoop my bag off the floor, I saw the photograph on his desk and felt the breath freeze in my throat. There was a petite, dark-haired woman standing on a beach, wearing a sleek black maillot cut high on the hip. Her bare feet were planted in sand as fine as sugar, and turquoise waves foamed in the background, but I wasn't as interested in the scenery as I was in her smile, her heart-shaped face, a slightly crooked left incisor. She was the same woman from the photograph hidden in the back of Kitty's drawer. K and D, Summer '92, Montauk.

  "Is this your wife?" I asked, striving to sound casual. "She looks so familiar. I must have met her somewhere. Diana?"

  "Delphine," said Kevin. "She teaches Pilates. She's got a studio downtown."

  "Did she maybe do a demonstration at the Red Wheel Barrow?" I babbled. "I just know I've seen her from somewhere."

  "I'm not sure," he said, looking past me, up at the clock.

  "Were she and Kitty friends?" I blurted as I heard the sounds I'd been dreading--a scream, and then a crash, and Sophie's cry of "Stupid baby!"

  I thought I saw him flinch the tiniest bit, but his voice was steady when he spoke. "We were all friends," he said. I took my cue, shook his hand, thanked him for his time, and promised to keep in touch.

  Sixteen

  "Maybe I'm overthinking," I told Janie after I'd finally gotten her on the phone an hour later. The kids and I were back home in our kitchen. After the debacle in Kevin Dolan's waiting room, I'd picked up the glass and the Kisses, written a check for the bowl, fed the kids a late lunch, then settled them at the table with a bowlful of blueberries and the Candy Land board.

  "You?" Janie said, from her desk at New York Night. I could hear her fingers rattling over the keyboard. "Never. I won't hear it."

  "But I think," I said, flicking the spinner and moving my piece three squares, "that maybe she was having an a-f-f-a-i-r with this lawyer who was her husband's best friend."

  Janie had the courtesy to sound interested. "Do tell. Only no more spelling. Takes too long. Do you know pig Latin?"

  I took the phone into the bathroom instead and gave Janie a whispered recounting of my conversation with Kevin, whose gaze had gotten all misty when he'd talked about Kitty's happiness, and whose wife had apparently known the deceased back in 1992. "He said that Kitty was one of his favorite people."

  "Well, you're one of my favorite people," Janie said. "Doesn't mean I want to sleep with you, then kill you."

  "Still, it's something. More than what the police have." I ticked off the suspects on my fingers as I talked. "Could've been the sitter, because she was sleeping with Phil."

  "Or Phil could have hired someone to do it, so he could be free to pursue a life of happiness with the sitter," said Janie.

  "Laura Lynn Baird had a motive. The book advance money," I said. "Or maybe it was Kevin Dolan, because he was in love with her and couldn't have her."

  "You know this just from talking to him?"

  "Well, it's a guess," I said. "And it could've just been some random Internet crazy who was stalking her online."

  "Keep digging," said Janie. "Don't get frustrated. Gotta bounce," she said, hanging up as her other line rang.

  "Mommy," Sophie asked as I returned to the game, "who made Mrs. Cavanaugh dead?"

  Oh, dear. "Were the kids talking about that on the playground?"

  She squinted at me. "No, Mommy, you were talking about it on the phone with Aunt Janie the Fabulous."

  I smiled in spite of myself. "Did Aunt Janie tell you to call her that?"

  "She says it's her name," said Sophie.

  "Tristan talked about it," Jack said in his husky voice that always sounded a little raspy from disuse.

  I tried to pull Sophie onto my lap, in the manner of comforting mothers from Norman Rockwell pictures. Sophie shot me a you've-got-to-be-kidding-me look and wriggled away. I cleared my throat. "Yes, well, Mrs. Cavanaugh did...um...well, she's dead, and the police are looking very hard to find the person who did it."

  "Somebody made her dead," said
Sam, his voice indistinguishable from his brother's.

  "Why?" asked Jack, flicking the Candy Land spinner.

  "Well..." I took another deep breath and felt my eyes prickle with tears. Was she happy? Philip Cavanaugh asked. "Nobody knows yet." I brushed hastily at my eyes, hoping the kids wouldn't notice.

  "Why are you crying?" Sophie asked.

  "Because what happened is very sad."

  Sam handed me his napkin, then stared at me with his big brown eyes. "Why?"

  "Well..." My voice trailed off as the three of them stared up at me. "She was somebody's mother," I finally said. My lips trembled as more tears came to my eyes. Whatever I'd thought of Kitty--her politics, her marriage, the choices she'd made--that much had been true.

  Seventeen

  On that New Year's Eve night, after we'd made our escape from the Lo Kee Inn, I maneuvered Evan down the stairs to the subway, onto the train, up the stairs, into our building, and onto the elevator. The whole trip was a blur of delicious kisses and declarations delivered in fragments. You feel so...I can't believe...I want...I need...He slid his hands under my sweater. I brushed my lips against the pale strip of skin at the back of his neck that I'd noticed the first time I'd seen him. He plunged his hands into my hair, pulling until it tumbled over my shoulders. We couldn't get enough of each other. Every time I'd seen that phrase in a book, I'd rolled my eyes, but now I knew exactly what it meant.

  "Do you know how long I've thought about touching you?" he whispered, kissing my neck in the elevator. I felt like I would swoon--another cliche. I felt my heart open like a flower. He had thought about touching me. If the world ended that very night, I'd go happily, knowing that.

  We'd staggered down the hallway, his arm over my shoulder, as I'd fumbled for my keys. "I b'lieve you're trying to seduce me," he said as we stumbled through the door. Then his coat was gone, my shoes were off, and we were making our way to my bedroom, slipping, almost falling, banging into the walls, knowing we'd have bruises in the morning and not caring a bit.

  Yes, I thought as he flopped down on top of my bed and buried his face in my pillow. I lay down beside him, waiting for him to roll over and say my name, to look at me with his laughing eyes, to kiss me again and say, It's you, you're the one. Instead, for the longest time, I didn't hear anything at all...and when the prone figure next to me did start making noises, they were not whispered words of love. They were snores.

  "Evan?" I nudged him gently. Nothing happened. I shook his shoulder. His snores got more emphatic. I leaned down and kissed his cheek. Then I bit his earlobe lightly. Then I bit it harder. He didn't wake up.

  I lay down beside him, unbuttoned the top two buttons of his starched, pleated shirt, closed my own eyes, and tried to sleep. Every few minutes Evan would thrash in the bed, rolling fitfully from side to side, almost dislodging me. I eased myself upright and sat beside him, cross-legged, watching his chest rise and fall and his eyes roll underneath his eyelids. "I love you," I whispered into the darkness.

  At three in the morning, a full bladder won out over my romantic plans to stay beside him all night long, daydreaming about our future happiness and watching him sleep. I tiptoed out of the room and down the hall, and almost screamed when I felt a hand on my shoulder.

  "What's going on?" Janie whispered. Her Tina Turner wig was crooked, and her leopard-print sleep mask was shoved high on her forehead.

  "He's sleeping," I whispered back.

  "He's passed out," Janie said. "Which is generally what happens when you try to drink New Jersey. Meanwhile, I've been up half the night, sick with worry!"

  The door to her bedroom opened, and an Asian guy in a baseball cap slunk out, giving Janie a shamefaced wave before sidling past us. I raised my eyebrows.

  "Sick with worry?"

  "I was sick with worry," she said. "Where is it written that you have to be sick with worry by yourself? And you ditched me, and the audience wanted an encore. What was I supposed to do?"

  "You sang with that guy?"

  "Um." Janie bit her lip as her bedroom door opened again and two other guys gave her brief, embarrassed nods and slipped out the door.

  "Jesus, Janie. Your bedroom's like a clown car." I made a show of looking, wide-eyed, at her door. "Do you have a midget in there?"

  "Never you mind," she said. "I needed Ikettes. You really can't do 'Nutbush' without them. And that's not even the point!"

  I walked past her to the bathroom. When I emerged, Janie beckoned to me from the couch. I sighed, knowing she wouldn't take no for an answer. She tossed me a blanket--a little something in shahtoosh Sy had sent as a housewarming gift--and I pulled it over my legs.

  "So?"

  I took a deep breath and couldn't keep myself from smiling. "He likes me."

  "Of course he likes you, Kate. That was never the question. The question is, does he plan to break things off with Michelle?"

  My smile faded. We hadn't talked about Michelle. Come to think of it, we hadn't talked about much of anything. We'd been too busy kissing. But didn't actions speak louder than words?

  "I should go back in there."

  Janie shook her head in disapproval. "Roll him on his side," she said, and gave me a hug. "That way he won't choke on his own vomit."

  I eased my bedroom door open. Evan was sitting hunched on my pink and cream comforter, looking miserable and haggard in the shaft of the street light that slipped in underneath the blind.

  "Kate," he croaked, giving me an apologetic wave.

  I swallowed hard, suddenly dizzy, and took a desperate stab at our formerly easy banter. "Well," I said. "This is awkward." I sat down beside him, reached out tentatively, and touched the tender spot on the back of his neck. He shivered. No, I thought. That wasn't a shiver. That was a flinch.

  He rubbed his hands over his face, then scrubbed at his hair, all without meeting my eyes. I heard him take a deep breath. Time seemed to slow down, in order to give me a chance to permanently engrave every detail of the scene in my mind, so I'd be able to have it at my fingertips and replay it, over and over for the rest of my life. I saw the shadows my little lamp cast on the wall, and the way the streetlight turned the stubble on his cheeks to silver. I saw that his cummerbund had gotten twisted, and how his gaze stayed on his hands as he started to talk.

  "Kate," he said again. I pushed myself off the bed. I thought of my mother, how she'd lectured me about my posture: Shoulders back, Kate! Chest up! Don't slouch! It doesn't make you look any smaller! So I threw my shoulders back. I stuck my chest out. I squeezed the muscles in my midsection I'd worked on so hard when I'd been singing, stabilizing myself from my core, and I braced myself, knowing before he opened his mouth what he was going to tell me, and how badly it was going to hurt.

  "I'm sorry," he said, sounding wretched--almost as wretched as I felt. "I didn't mean for this to happen. You're my friend, and I..." I heard his throat click as he swallowed. He rubbed his hands over his face again. "I'm not the kind of guy who does things like this."

  I looked at him, knowing I could have made it easy--Oh, it's okay, no big deal, it was New Year's, we'd been drinking, no harm, no foul, go back to your fiancee and let us never speak of this again. I held myself perfectly still, refusing to let him see me tremble, but I couldn't stop the tears from sliding out of my eyes.

  "I thought..." My voice broke, and I sounded like a sad little girl. "I thought you..."

  He looked up at me miserably. "Oh, Katie. You're terrific. But Michelle and I...well, you know. If I were single...if I'd met you first..."

  She cheats on you! I wanted to shout. She cheats on you with a shampoo model and I've got proof! She'll never love you like I do! The words froze in my throat.

  "I never meant to hurt you," he said. He shifted on the bed, raised one hand to his forehead, and rubbed it slowly. "You deserve someone wonderful..." He licked his lips.

  "You're wonderful," I said. My lips felt numb, my tongue felt thick. We're wonderful together. But I knew if I said t
hat, then I'd start begging, and if I wasn't going to leave this bedroom with Evan as my boyfriend, I was at least going to leave it with my pride.

  "Katie," he said. "Are you going to be okay?"

  "Oh, sure." I forced myself to say the words, and give them a light-hearted spin.

  He rubbed his forehead. "I should go. Maybe Michelle left a message at home..."

  Or maybe you should start calling shampoo models, I thought but did not say. Instead I held the door open for him, letting light from the hallway pour into the room. He got up off the bed slowly, and I followed him down the hall. At the front door he turned to me and started to say something. I busied myself at the kitchen sink so I wouldn't have to look at him, and turned both taps on full blast so I wouldn't have to hear.

  For the next three hours, I cleaned out my closet, shoving all the clothes that didn't fit into garbage bags, performing the act as if it were penance for having asked the universe for too much.

  At six o'clock, I showered, got dressed, and threw handfuls of clothing and clean underwear into a duffel bag. I pulled my coat out of the closet, my hat and scarf and mittens. I made sure I had my wallet and my cell phone, and I pulled my passport out of the shoebox in the closet where I kept it hidden.

  I walked out of the apartment, down the hall, and stood in front of Evan's door, balled my trembling hands into fists, and counted to ten, giving him one last chance to come to me, to tell me that he was wrong, he was sorry, he loved me more than he could ever love her, that we were supposed to be together, and that I was the one. The door stayed shut. I made myself keep walking to the elevator, made myself press the button, made myself walk out onto the cold, dark street.