Random Hearts

by Warren Adler

  "I'll make all the arrangements, Viv," Dale assured her after he had brought her home from the Medical Examiner's office. Her husband's partner had barely been in her field of vision in the old life. She was already referring to all events before the crash as the old life. Perhaps they had happened to someone else.

  With lawyerly tenacity he had persisted in probing her. He was not a fool. Certainly he surmised why the policeman had called them both into his office at the same time. The point was that he did not know for certain. But she had declined to press charges, as he suggested, which surely titillated his already keen curiosity. Also, even if the implication was clear, he would resist, in every way possible, exposing the law firm and its clients to scandal. Even without the stigma of infidelity, it was enough to contemplate how his ordered universe would react to a partner who had gone off secretly without telling either his office or his wife of his destination.

  It was not for nothing that Dale Martin had been made managing partner; he was the perfect Ivy League prig down to his old-fashioned garters, which he proudly exhibited on occasion to prove that he was a devotee of the tried and true ways of old money and class, and, therefore, not subject to contemporary fads. In deference to her husband, Vivien had always resisted detesting him.

  "He's high Episcopalian," Orson had said once.

  "That explains it?"

  Now he reminded her of Orson, the Orson she had just learned about, the Orson who had lived behind his facade of lies. The cheating Orson. The real Orson.

  "I'm executor of your husband's estate," Dale told her, settling into a chair in her living room. He had poured himself a drink and sat cross-legged, exhibiting preppy navy socks and their striped garters. "I've forgotten the details of the will, but I'll know tomorrow when I look at it again. I wrote it. I'm sure you'll have no immediate financial problems."

  She let him go on without comment. It was an area of complete ignorance for her. What did she know about death and its details? Even Orson's body, pink and remarkably healthy looking, hadn't looked dead. Often she had seen him sleeping like that, in just that position, on his back.

  "I suspect you'll want to bury him up in Boston. I'm sure there's cemetery space up there. New Englanders usually make provisions. Unless he's made arrangements here. Would you know about that, Viv?"

  She shrugged indifferently, although it reminded her that she had to call his sister. She had never been really close with her, a bloodless woman who had always thought of Vivien as beneath her brother in both forebears and intellect. A picture of the woman sprang into her mind. Like Orson, she possessed the same sharp-edged features—handsome in a man, cronish in a woman. The idea, of seeing her again made her feel nauseated. Was it at that moment the idea of cremation was confirmed in her mind?

  "Would you like us to keep Ben for the night?" Dale asked.

  "No," she replied after a moment's thought. She'd call Alice. Her reaction to Orson's sister frightened her now. It had never occurred to her before to actually hate the woman; in fact, she had never really allowed herself to hate anyone. Not until now.

  "We never hate," her father had lectured. "We always try to understand." Well, that was one lesson that would need some relearning. She wondered suddenly if she would grow to hate Ben as well because he was a part of Orson. She shrank from the horror of that possibility.

  "I think I'd like to be alone now, Dale," she told him, ashamed of her thoughts about her son. It was all right to hate Dale and Orson's sister because they reminded her of Orson, but surely not Ben, not little Ben.

  A tiny scratching noise intruded suddenly. Hamster scratching at the door. She had put him out this morning.

  "What is that?" Dale asked.

  "The dog. He wants to come in."

  But she remained seated. Hamster was another reminder of Orson, his gift. Let him stay out, she decided, conscious of this new sense of malicious assertiveness.

  Before Dale left he pecked her on the cheek. Her skin twitched where he touched it.

  When he had gone, she called her parents. Her mother answered, and she poured out an altered version of the tragedy, exhibiting proper grief.

  "I'm so sorry, Viv. Oh, how awful." The woman dissolved in tears.

  Her father got on the phone. "Are you all right, darling?" he asked firmly. "And Ben?"

  "We'll make it, Dad."

  "Poor Orson."

  "Yes, Dad. Poor Orson." She gritted her teeth in anger. She felt total indifference, and when her father began to probe further, even in his gentle understanding way, she cut him off.

  "When you get here, we'll talk about it." She vowed then never to tell them the real story. They would, of course, be appalled. Such things happened only to other people.

  Telling Orson's sister was the worst of it.

  "I don't believe it," his sister said.

  "He was in the wreck all week," Vivien explained. "I just found out this morning."

  "How horrible." Control was a Simpson trait, his sister had once told her. "Poor Orson. Oh, how ghastly."

  She let his sister gather her wits. She had always been proud and worshipful when it came to Orson.

  "I suppose you've made arrangements to bury him near Father in the Simpson plot in Boston. Perhaps we can have a service there as well. I'll notify our cousins—"

  "I'm having him cremated," Vivien said abruptly.

  "Cremated?" His sister cleared her throat. "The Simpsons don't cremate," she said.

  "It's my choice."

  "Was it Orson's?"

  "He's dead."

  She heard her draw in a deep breath.

  "I won't come then."

  "Suit yourself."

  "You can't do this."

  "Yes, I can."

  His sister began to speak, but Vivien hung up, cutting her off. I'll send you the beloved ashes, she vowed.

  16

  Orson was cremated the next day. A respectable crowd of colleagues attended, as well as her friend Margo Teeters and her husband, her parents, and others they had met along the way. The service was brief. At her request, very brief. Even Dale was urged by her to keep his remarks short. "It's my wish," she told him, unwilling to explain further. There was a small story in the papers, recounting only that the last survivors of the air crash had been brought up. Names were given. Nothing more.

  Wearing a black veil and trying to play the role of the aggrieved widow, she sat appropriately in the front row with her parents. She held a bunched handkerchief in her hand, but it was not moist. The minister's abbreviated eulogy was glowing but inane. Dale offered his own condensed testimonial of Orson's achievements, which seemed utterly ludicrous. Be a good soldier, she begged herself, suffering through the charade, her thoughts running in a different direction. Must she passively accept this violation of her self-respect? She felt degraded, abused. By dying, Orson had escaped her scrutiny. Burning his corpse, while symbolically dramatic, brought little satisfaction. He had no right to leave her without explanation, with all his secrets intact. The Davis fellow had hit upon something. Putting things in perspective, he had called it. Why? How? Where? These had become important questions. She had been violated, betrayed, her illusions shattered. How would she be able to confront the future without knowing these answers? The rest of her life was at stake.

  "I must know," she whispered while Dale was speaking.

  "What is it, dear?" her mother asked.

  "Nothing."

  No, she thought, she would not let them have their perfect crime. Everyone left clues.

  "What about the ashes?" her father asked as they made their way to the parking lot after the service.

  "They'll be along," she lied. Actually, she had made arrangements to have them sent directly to Orson's sister.

  Before she got in the car, she tossed her black veil into a trash can.

  "I hope I never need this again," she said, placating her parents who had looked at her strangely.

  "What a positive attitude," her mo
ther exclaimed, offering a thin smile of reluctant approval.

  "Life must go on," her father said.

  "Yes," she agreed. Not quite yet, she thought.

  Her parents consented to take Ben to Vermont. She did not set any time limits. If only the child were not the living image of his father. To be conscious of such an idea seemed wrong. Her own child! Yet when she had looked at him that morning, Orson's eyes had looked back at her, Orson's once innocent eyes. Now they glared at her with imagined cunning and ridicule. And she had turned away in anger from her own flesh and blood. And Orson's. Her insides seemed to flare up in revolt.

  "There are so many details to attend to. I appreciate this, Mom."

  "Nonsense. But will you be all right?"

  "I'll be fine."

  Her parents watched her, unsure, assessing her state of mind. She knew that they suspected something was not quite as it should be. The balance of their relationship was slightly awry. They had probed her in oblique ways. Yet she could not bring herself to lie to them outright. Her explanation had been selective but truthful. No, she had not known he was on that plane. To avoid further probing, she told them that she was simply not ready to talk about it. That, they were willing to accept.

  "When you finish those details, will you come up to Vermont?" her mother asked.

  "It would be good therapy," her father encouraged.

  "We'll see," she answered. But first she had other things to do.

  She said good-bye to Ben with fervent kisses and promises that seemed hollow and weak, as if they came from someone other than herself.

  "Mommy will come up soon. You just listen to Grandma and Grandpa."

  "And will we make another snowman?"

  "Of course we will."

  She felt her son's beating heart next to her own. A wrenching sob made her tremble, but no tears came. Something inside her was hardening. In her arms, in the living creature that was her child, she again felt Orson's presence. Her grip tightened as she crushed him against her.

  "You're hurting me, Mommy," Ben grunted.

  She unlocked her elbows and held him at arm's length.

  "I would never hurt my baby. Never."

  She was protesting to herself, and it frightened her. This is my child, she thought, determined to ward off the horror of this aberrant feeling.

  "I love you very much," she said. The words were expelled rather than spoken.

  "And I love you, Mommy."

  Was hate more powerful than love? She had kneeled to embrace Ben. Now she stood up. Her knees felt weak.

  "Come on, Hamster," Ben called. The little dog barked at hearing his name and nuzzled up to Ben.

  "You can't bring Hamster, Ben." Her words seemed shockingly stern.

  "It's perfectly all right," her mother said.

  "I'm sorry. I simply will not add to your burdens."

  "But it's no—"

  "Please, Mother."

  Her mother nodded and turned to Ben. "Your mother is right," she said.

  Ben brushed away a tear with the edge of his jacket. She felt like someone had cut her into two distinct parts, each warring with the other.

  "He'll keep me company," one part of her said. The other part detested the idea and had other plans for Hamster.

  "Now you're sure you're all right, darling?" her father whispered, lingering behind as her mother and Ben got into the car. She let him hug her and kiss her cheek, but she did not answer the question. Sure? she wondered. Would she ever be sure of anything again?

  When they had gone she felt an enormous sense of relief, a pleasurable sense of forbidden freedom. She could now search the house in peace, probe the last vestiges of Orson Oscar Simpson, without the strictures of showing a false face to others.

  Beginning with the closets, she removed every article of his clothing, carefully going through the pockets for stray notes, signs, clues, anything that might lead her to what, in her mind, had become her prey. She felt the full lust of the predator as she worked with single-minded dedication. Soon there was a giant pile of discarded clothing on the floor of the bedroom. Pickings had been slim as far as pocket contents were concerned. She found nothing to lead her in any direction. He had, obviously, been very cautious.

  By late afternoon she had gone through every stitch of Orson's clothing, which she packed into large plastic garbage bags and placed outside the door. After she inspected and discarded every article that could be designated as "his," she would call the Salvation Army and rid herself of them, get them out of her life once and for all. Testing her resolve, she was satisfied that she felt neither a single tremor of conscience nor a bit of remorse.

  Working late into the evening, she went through papers, books, checkbooks, packets of cancelled checks, piles of old law briefs. Nowhere, as far as she could ascertain, did she find a single clue to his other fife. She pored over old telephone bills and whatever she could find of credit card receipts. When she became satisfied that it had nothing to do with his other life, she flung the paper or article into a plastic bag. She wanted no part of them.

  What she was seeking was something tangible, although it was not identified in her mind as anything specific. She believed only that she would know when she found it. When something familiar recalled a feeling of sentiment, she threw it aside, earmarking it for the rubbish heap. With these sentimental objects she was flinging away the old life—the life of hypocrisy, the life in which she was cast as victim. Never again, she vowed.

  Somewhere there had to be a clue. At times she clung briefly to the idea that what Orson had done could not possibly be real or true. When such an idea struck, there was an interlude of memory that was difficult to control. Hadn't there been good moments between them? But the sentiment would dissipate quickly.

  At the coffee shop Edward Davis had said: "It's like we're in it together. Like conspirators." It seemed to be an indisputable truth. All relationships now seemed conspiratorial. Orson and the Davis woman. Perhaps Dale and Mrs. Sparks. McCarthy and the man from the airlines. Margo conspiring against her husband. She conspiring against her parents. Against Ben. My God! Guilt rose inside her, burning her insides.

  Confronting her frustration, she recalled the Davis man again. His image was etched sharply in her mind, his voice was imprinted in her memory. "What lies! What horrible lies!" he had shouted in the coffee shop, another perfect reflection of her anguish. Reflection. He was her mirror now. In him she could see herself, the twisted, tortured image of her abandoned and betrayed self. She needed to confront it again, needed it now.

  She rummaged in her pocketbook and found his card, noting for the first time that he was an administrative assistant to a congressman. Also on the card was his home number, which she called. As it rang persistently, she remembered him saying that he was going to bury his wife in Baltimore. When he answered, she was surprised.

  "I thought you would be gone," she said without identifying herself. There was not the slightest hesitation in his voice. He had recognized her instantly.

  "Tomorrow," he said. "I had her shipped. I couldn't bear to sit around with them. I'll show up at the church at the last possible moment," he explained. "I'm the outsider. Just a gesture. Why not?"

  "It's over for me," she said. "He was cremated today."

  "So it's behind you," he said with an air of sympathy.

  "You think so?"

  "Not really. It'll never be behind us."

  "Can we talk?" she asked, not bothering to hide her urgency.

  "Of course. Same place?"

  "No."

  "Then where?"

  "Someplace not public. But not here." She looked around the house. "Your place?"

  There was a brief pause. "It's an absolute horror. I'm a terrible housekeeper."

  "You should see mine." She looked about her, surveying the wreckage from her search.

  She wrote down the directions to his place, then brushed back her hair and washed her face. Earlier she had let Hamster out again. Vagu
ely, she remembered, he had scratched on the door. She put out his dog food. Orson's gift. Even her relationship with Hamster would never be the same again. She tried to chuckle away the idea but failed to savor the humor of it.

  She drove quickly over the Key Bridge. At that hour there was hardly any traffic, and she arrived in a surprisingly short time.

  He opened the door, tired and disheveled, more ravaged than he had looked at their meeting in the coffee shop. She could see that he had made a halfhearted effort to tidy up but had not been completely successful.

  "I told you, it's a shithouse. Lily was as neat as a pin."

  Towels, articles of clothing, empty pizza boxes were strewn about. Pictures were awry, pillows mashed. Crumbs were everywhere. A hint of pine-scented deodorizer seemed incongruous in the disjointed atmosphere. In his haste he had probably oversprayed the room.

  He was wearing jeans, a torn sweater, down-at-the-heel loafers, and no socks. On his haggard face was a day's growth of beard. Her inspection lingered a trifle too long, making him uncomfortable.

  "I just sat here all day," he said, stroking his face, clearing a place on a chair thick with cast-off shirts and socks. "Tomorrow I'll drive up to Baltimore. It's going to be awful."

  She removed her coat and sat down. "Mine was surprisingly routine. A crackling fire. Over and done with." She patted her knee. Then, standing abruptly, she walked to the window, parted the curtains with her fingers, and looked out over the darkened city. She felt him watching her. To tell him why she had come she had to turn and face him. He looked forlorn.

  "I want to know what really went on between them."

  "You do? Isn't that masochistic?" His change in attitude surprised her.

  "Why give it a name? I just have to know."

  He locked his fingers together and rubbed the palm of one with the thumb of the other.

  "I've spent the day trying to reject the idea. But it's all I could think about." His eyes swept the room. "As you can see, I'm not coping very well."

  "I think that if we really found more—the truth—it would help us cope with the future. Maybe find out what went wrong with both of us. Why they did it." Was it herself talking?