Goodnight Nobody

by Jennifer Weiner

  "It was something," I managed to say, trying desperately to avoid my own sweaty, sweatpanted reflection in the mirror. Delphine Dolan had the most perfect body I'd ever seen: creamy skin, perky breasts, a slender waist, thighs without a hint of a ripple or pucker, and pubic hair that was still waxed into a tiny landing strip. I had a moment's panic when I didn't see the little heart tattoo I'd noticed on the pages of Eager Beaver, but then I saw that in the place where it had been in the picture was a patch of poreless, shiny skin. She'd probably had it lasered away. Maybe around the time she decided to be French. "Do you have a minute? There's something I wanted to ask you about."

  "What's that?"

  "Kitty Cavanaugh," I said. "It'll only take a few minutes."

  "A few minutes"--Delphine favored me with a kindly smile, perhaps because my face was still the color of an eggplant--"alors, I do not have." She looked pointedly at the clock above the changing room door. "I must meet Kevin for le brunch."

  Le brunch. Okay. There was laying it on thick, and then there was laying it on with a trowel.

  "Maybe some ozzer time?" Delphine said, charming smile still in place.

  "Maybe now," said Janie. "Debbie."

  Delphine's smile wobbled. "Pardon?" she said, tilting her head at what she probably thought was an inquisitive and charming angle. I saw her eyes flick toward the door. She was probably trying to make sure that we were still alone in the locker room and nobody had heard what Janie had just called her.

  "Debbie Farber," Janie recited, snapping the straps of her black and purple scoop-neck shirt that matched her purple and black yoga pants. "Born nineteen seventy-two in Hackensack, New Jersey. Dropped out of high school at fifteen. First arrested at sixteen. Shoplifting, grand theft auto, assault with a deadly weapon, loitering for the purposes of prostitution."

  "It was my mother's car!" Delphine muttered, and there wasn't a trace of Paris in her accent. It was now juiciest New Jersey. "She just reported it missing because her new husband hated my guts! And I wasn't a prostitute!" She lifted her head and glared at us, and when she spoke it was with enormous, if slightly misplaced, dignity. "I was an escort."

  Janie's snort reverberated throughout the locker room. I elbowed her, then said, "We don't care about that. We just want to talk to you about Kitty. You knew her."

  Delphine clasped her hands in front of her breasts as if she'd just realized that she was naked.

  "Come with us," said Janie. "Quick cup of coffee. Won't take a minute."

  Delphine raised her head. Displeasure had twisted her fine features into an ugly mask. "And what if I won't?"

  "Then," Janie said, "we'll tell a few of your clients with little asses and big mouths what your real name is, and what you used to do for a living. Maybe they'll be a little more impressed than we are with the distinction between 'prostitute' and 'escort.' " She handed Delphine her cell phone. "Call your husband and tell him you're going to be late for le brunch."

  "Look," said Delphine twenty minutes later, slender forearms folded on an orange plastic table. She'd refused to go anywhere in Upchurch, had nixed Greenwich and turned Darien down flat, so we were sitting in a booth at a McDonald's in Lakeville, just off I-84. I'd treated myself to a hot apple pie. Janie had ordered a Big Mac and fries. Delphine had declined coffee, tea, bottled water, and a sip of the eggnog-flavored milkshake I'd bought to go with my pie and was sitting with nothing in front of her except for a paper napkin.

  "Kitty got in touch with me regarding one of my clients back in New York," she said.

  "Who?" Janie and I asked at the same time.

  Delphine shook her head. "Doesn't matter. He wasn't who she was looking for, and he had a stroke five years ago. He's not your guy. You know about..." She let her voice trail off.

  I nodded. "Bonnie told me."

  "Bonnie," Delphine said. Her eyes were clear underneath the mascara and her voice without its French accent was pleasant and low. "She was nice. Kitty and I went up there for Thanksgiving once, when we both lived in New York." She wrapped her hands around her elbows. "I used to tell her that I had a father and believe me, he was no picnic. But she couldn't stop looking. For her, it was like"--she pulled two fresh napkins from the dispenser and started shredding them--"a compulsion. Like she couldn't help herself."

  "So how did the two of you wind up here?" I asked.

  "We were friends in the city," Delphine said. "We'd go to the gym together, and we'd go out after for a coffee or a smoothie, and we'd talk. She was nice."

  Delphine's face was drawn as she spun her diamond ring around her finger.

  "I tried to help her," she said, lowering her eyes. "Sometimes in...in my line of work I'd come across the name of a man Kitty was interested in, and I'd set up a meeting. She'd help me out too. She helped me get health insurance, and when I got in"--she toyed with a tendril of glossy hair, then with the strap of her catsuit--"in some trouble once, she helped take care of it. She said girls like us needed to look out for each other."

  "Girls like us?" I repeated.

  Delphine nodded as her slender fingers worked at the napkins, tearing them into confetti. "You know. Girls who were alone in the world."

  "So you met each other in New York," I prompted.

  "And then she met Philip through his father. She had to interview him for some piece she was researching about reforms in insurance law. She and Philip got married, and they introduced me to Kevin." A genuine smile played around her lips for an instant at the thought of her husband. "I went for speech classes and everything so I'd sound--you know. Like I fit in here. But I didn't do so well at them, so..." She shrugged. "Now I'm French!"

  "How nice for you," said Janie.

  I glared at her as Delphine lifted her index finger to her mouth and started nibbling at the nail, looking all of sixteen. "I should have done better by her. I told her she was too good for him, but she didn't want to hear it."

  "Why?" asked Janie. "Why was she too good for him?"

  "Because he cheated on her constantly," said Delphine. "Cheated on her. Lied to her. Slept with anything with a pulse while she supported them. He..." She lowered her eyes, and I took a guess.

  "He hit on you?"

  "On everyone," she said in a flat voice. "And she wouldn't leave. She said her girls deserved two parents who loved them and lived together, and that no matter what happened, she wouldn't leave. I told her he was making a fool of her. I said that instead of wasting her time chasing after some father who obviously didn't want to be found she should have been paying attention to her husband and her girls. After that..." Delphine pressed the pads of her fingertips against the delicate skin beneath her eyes. "Things were never right between us after that." She patted her eyes and looked down at the shredded remains of her napkin. "I pray for her," she said. "Every night. I pray that before she died, she found what she was looking for."

  "Well, that was a whole load of nothing," I complained, as soon as Janie and I had dropped Delphine off at her studio and were alone in the car again.

  "Au contraire, ma soeur," said Janie. "For one thing, it's always interesting to spend time with a working girl. For another, she gave us a major clue." She grinned at me, pulled into the Brookfield Bagels parking lot, and whipped out her cell phone.

  "What?" I demanded. "What clue?"

  " 'Some piece about insurance law,' " Janie quoted. "Please. Even Content, which is Sominex on a page, wouldn't print anything that dull. What was the name of Kitty's husband's business?" When I told her she punched in the number for information. "Yes, in Connecticut a listing for Upchurch Marine Insurance?" She paused as she was connected, then told the receptionist, "Hi, I'm calling for Philip Cavanaugh?" She paused, then spoke once more. "Senior," she said.

  My entire body broke out in goose bumps. "You think maybe Philip's father..."

  Janie held up one finger for silence. "Hello, my name is Janie Segal of the carpet Segals. Do you insure dinghies?

  "Oh Lord," I groaned.

 
; "As soon as possible," Janie said crisply. "Yes, three o'clock will be fine. I'll see you then." She hung up the phone and I stared at her with my mouth hanging open.

  "Do you think that maybe he was her father too? Do you think that she and Philip...oh, my God."

  "It's extremely Flowers in the Attic," Janie said. She applied lipstick, then smacked her lips together and flipped the mirror shut.

  I sank back into the passenger's seat. "Oh...my...God."

  "Buck up, little camper," said Janie, swinging out of the parking lot. "I'm making us an appointment, and we're going in."

  "So!" said Philip Cavanaugh Senior, settling his bulk behind his burled walnut desk three hours later and smiling at us with teeth so white and even that they could only be dentures. His face was a preview of coming attractions, a glimpse at what his son would look like thirty years down the road--the blue eyes rheumy and bloodshot, the hint of a gut blossomed into actuality, and sagging jowls flushed with broken capillaries. His suit was expensive but threadbare; one of the shoelaces on his worn black wingtips had broken and been tied into a knot. "You're having..." He pulled on half-moon spectacles and peered down at the form Janie had filled out. He'd missed a spot shaving that morning; there was a strip of gray stubble on his chin. "A dinghy insurance emergency?"

  While he looked at Janie, I looked around. I'd expected more of a maritime theme in the office--a pirate flag fluttering in front, maybe, or crisp white and navy pillows on the couch, or windows shaped like portholes. At least a few nautical touches. Instead, Philip Senior had gone for rich guy generic: heavy dark wood, paneled walls and leather, with a humidor in the corner. It would have been impressive, save for the fact that business clearly wasn't booming. The secretary's desk out front was empty except for a rotary-style telephone. The waiting room was empty, and the walls were bare except for pale squares where pictures used to hang. The only car in the parking lot was the ten-year-old Jaguar I recognized from Kitty's memorial.

  "Not really," Janie said. "My dinghy's actually insured already."

  He blinked at us. His eyes were set deep into twin pouches of flesh, and threaded with red. "Oh?"

  "We were hoping to speak with you about your daughter-in-law," I said.

  He pulled off his half-moon glasses and polished them on his tie. When he replaced them, his gaze had sharpened. "I recognize you now," he told me. "You're the young lady who spoke at Kitty's service."

  I bit my lip and nodded.

  Janie jumped right in. "Were you Kitty's father? Because, honestly, if you were, and then she married your son, not to judge, but--"

  "Janie!" I hissed.

  Philip Cavanaugh's liverish lips worked for a minute, and his bulky body seemed to deflate inside his suit. "I wasn't," he said.

  "But you could have been," I said.

  He seemed to gather himself, straightening his back and glaring at me. "I knew her, but only briefly. Kitty told me that her mother had had a long-term involvement. Judy and I..." he shook his heavy head. "It wasn't a lengthy thing."

  "Tell me how Kitty found you," I said.

  He shook his head heavily. "The same way you did. The phone book. She came to see me nine or ten years ago, telling me she needed background for an article. We had offices in New York then..." He looked around unhappily, as if he were just then realizing that he didn't have those offices anymore. "She asked intelligent questions. Took notes. At the end of an hour, she slid an envelope across the table. There was a photograph inside."

  "Judith," I said.

  He nodded slowly. "We had been acquainted. Back in New York."

  "So what happened then?" asked Janie.

  "Kitty asked me to take a blood test," Philip Cavanaugh Senior said. "She told me that her intentions were honorable--that she wasn't after money, just information. Medical background and what-not." He looked up at us slyly. "Well, of course I had my suspicions."

  "You thought it was a shakedown," said Janie.

  He nodded unhappily. "I told Kitty I needed time to think. Explained that it would be awkward: I'd already been married to Flora, of course, and we'd had Philip. As soon as she left, I got on the phone with my lawyer. Eric Brannon. Old family friend. I told him the specifics of the situation. He drafted an agreement, sent it overnight."

  "What did it say?"

  "That she promised not to sue me," Philip said. He pulled off his glasses again and looked at me like that should have been self-evident. "That if I was the...er. Uh." He gathered himself, face flushed, jowls wobbling. "Father. If I was, I'd make an effort to...I believe the agreement said 'integrate her into the family unit.' "

  I nodded, wondering how well that would have gone. Hi, Flora! Hi, Phil! Meet my love child from the sixties!

  "The agreement also promised, er, certain financial recompense. She turned me down. She wasn't interested. Not in the money, not in meeting anyone. She just wanted to know the truth."

  He walked over to the cut-glass decanters on a dark oak table beside the humidor and poured himself a slug of Scotch. "It was all moot. The blood test came back negative," he said, with relief still visible on his face. "I told her I was sorry. She took the news well enough, I thought. Didn't cry or get emotional. She shook my hand and thanked me for my time. I should have known..." His voice trailed off again. "I was so relieved, you see, not to be the...that it wasn't me. I should have known I was getting off too easily."

  "What happened?" asked Janie.

  Philip Senior adjusted his bulk. "My son came into the office that day and saw her," he said.

  "Ah." I could imagine how that would have gone--Philip Cavanaugh Jr. walking into his father's office and seeing tall, slender Kitty, with her blue eyes and shining hair. And what would she have seen, looking at him? A man who'd grown up with every luxury, every privilege--a mother and a father; money, and the comforts it could buy. He would have looked at her with longing, with lust. She would have looked at him and thought, He has my place in the world. That's where I belong. "Love at first sight," I said.

  "For my son," Philip Senior said, nodding sadly. "He chased her. Even when he was going with other girls, she was the one he really wanted. And he got her," he said heavily, and shook his head again.

  "And then, it all went wrong," Janie intoned, in the manner of a VH-1 Behind the Music narrator.

  Philip appeared not to notice. Maybe he wasn't a Behind the Music fan. "I don't know how he ever convinced her--what he said that made her think that he was what she wanted, that Upchurch was what she wanted. But one day we were all having brunch at the club--Flora, my wife, and Philip, and some little girlfriend he was with--and in comes Kitty. She walks right up to him like there's nobody else in the room--like there's nobody else in the world--and she says, 'I accept.' I didn't even know he'd proposed." He shook his head, fumbling with his glasses.

  I could imagine that scene too--Kitty in a linen dress, bittersweet brown hair in a flippy ponytail, stepping lightly in high-heeled sandals. She'd look around at the people, at the china and the crystal, the gold watches and diamond rings, the sedans in the parking lot. She would consider the heavy carpets and the chandeliers and the clipped greens of the golf course through the window, and maybe she'd imagine her mother's life and death, the promise someone had made to her, then broken, and how her own life, and her childrens' lives, would never be like that with a man like Philip Cavanaugh by her side.

  "I should have warned him," Philip said bleakly. "I should have told him that there was history. Night after night, I lie awake and think of what I could have done...My poor granddaughters." He glared at us, his mottled cheeks flushed and his heavy hands splayed on his desk. "Did you get what you came for, young ladies?" he asked, in a voice laced with sarcasm and sadness.

  "All we want to know is who killed her," I said.

  He shook his head. "Not me, if that's what you're thinking. And if you want my best guess, it's this: Kitty was looking for her father, and she found him. Or he found her."

  I stare
d at him until he snorted and pushed his blotter across his empty desk. "The police have checked my alibi. And I have no motive. She was my son's wife. My daughter-in-law. The mother of my grandchildren."

  "She was also a threat to your reputation," I pointed out. "Kitty was born in 1969. You were already married to Flora when you were acquainted with Judy Medeiros."

  "It would have been embarrassing," he admitted. "But I would have survived. Men do." He swept one thick pink palm across his leather blotter. True enough, I thought.

  Forty

  That night at the dinner table, Ben poked his fork suspiciously into his pasta, twirling a few strands around its tines. "Was this frozen?" he asked.

  I nodded. He sighed, probably adding another black mark to the growing column underneath my name. Doesn't listen. Isn't thin. Puts children in danger. Serves Trader Joe's heat-and-eat fettuccine Alfredo to me after a hard day at the office.

  I looked at him. His eyes were tired, and he had a strand of pasta stuck to his chin. "It's not bad," he said. He reached across the table, trying to take my hand, but only succeeded in knocking over Sophie's milk.

  "Daddy!" she said, scowling at him. I got up for the paper towels. Janie tossed me a sponge and Ben poured Sophie more milk, then bent down to help me with the cleanup. The boys, giggling, decided that the sight of their parents on their hands and knees swabbing up two percent was the absolute height of hilarity and dumped their glasses out too. "Boys," I said. I straightened up and knocked my head on the edge of the table, sending Janie's Diet Coke tumbling onto my head.

  "Ow! Fuck!" I said, wiping soda out of my eyes.

  "Mommy said the F word," Sophie announced.

  "Kate, are you all right?" asked Janie, bending down with concern on her face and a sponge in her hand.

  "How do people drink this stuff?" I asked, picking up the empty can and picturing the first person I'd interviewed: Laura Lynn, her spindly hand shooting through the door, her emaciated frame and crisped hair, her ice bucket full of the very beverage currently blinding me, and the silver-framed picture front and center on the living room bookshelf. A picture of her father.