by Joy Fielding
“I don’t hang around with drug dealers, Charley.”
“I wasn’t suggesting you did.”
“Weren’t you?”
“No. Of course not. Hey, I let you take my son to Lion Country Safari, remember? I wouldn’t have done that if I didn’t think you were a decent guy.”
“You barely knew me,” he reminded her.
“Yeah, but my instincts told me I could trust you.”
He raised his cup to hers. “Let’s hear it for instincts.” He finished off the rest of his coffee. “So, how’s Bandit? He didn’t give you too much trouble, I hope.”
“No. No trouble at all.”
“Yeah, he’s a good little guy, isn’t he?”
“You can’t have him back,” Charley said, more forcefully than she’d intended. Several heads turned toward them.
“What?”
“I can’t do it. I just can’t do it,” Charley continued. “Talk about presumptuous, but I just can’t give him back. Remember when you first brought him over, and he put his head on my shoulder, and you said that meant he would bond with me for life….”
“Charley…”
“Well, what you forgot to mention was what would happen to me—that I would bond with him, too. And that’s what’s happened. I am so attached to that little dog, it would break my heart to lose him. And I know it’s not fair, that an old girlfriend gave him to you and everything, but I can tell you were never that crazy about her anyway, and you’re so busy, and I’ll take such good care of him. You can visit him whenever you want….”
“Charley….”
“Please don’t make me give him back.” Charley’s eyes filled with tears.
There was a moment’s pause. “I can visit him whenever I want?”
Charley flew from her chair into Glen’s arms. “Oh, thank you, thank you.”
“How does Saturday night sound?” he asked as she quickly resumed her seat. “To visit Bandit, I mean. We can order pizza and…”
“I’m taking the kids to Disney World for the weekend.”
“Disney World. I like Disney World. Feel like company?”
“I’m also taking my mother.”
“I like mothers.”
“And my boyfriend,” Charley added.
“Not so fond of boyfriends,” Glen said with a sad smile. “Sorry. I didn’t realize you were seeing anybody.”
“It’s pretty new.”
“And pretty serious?”
“I’m not sure. I think it could be.”
“Well, that sucks,” Glen said, and laughed.
“Can I still keep Bandit?” Charley asked, only half-jokingly.
“He’s all yours.” Glen pushed himself to his feet. “I think it’s time for me to get out of your hair.”
“You don’t have to go yet.”
“Yeah, I do.” He reached over, cupped her chin in his hand. “Take care of yourself, Charley.”
“You, too.”
Charley sat very still in her chair, the imprint of Glen’s fingers lingering on her skin, as Glen walked out the door without looking back.
“You’re very quiet today.” Jill leaned back in her chair and smiled across the table at Charley.
“I’m supposed to be listening,” Charley reminded her. Jill had been talking for the better part of two hours, mostly mundane recollections of her high school years. As a result, Charley’s thoughts kept drifting back to Glen, and the surprisingly gentle touch of his fingers on her skin.
Jill glanced at the tape recorder in the middle of the table. “How many hours of tape have you got so far?”
I think it’s time for me to get out of your hair, she heard Glen say. “Sorry. What?”
“I asked how many hours of tape you have.”
“I’m not sure. A lot.”
“Have you listened to any of them yet?”
“No.”
“How come?”
Because I can’t bear to, Charley thought. What she said was: “I thought I’d get all my research done first. Then I’ll start putting everything together.”
“That’ll be fun,” Jill remarked, the dreamy quality in her voice matching the faraway look in her eyes. “You’ll get to relive it all again.”
Charley felt her stomach turn over. “Like you did with the tapes they found under your bed?” She tried to make the question as casual and offhand as possible. She looked away, brushed some invisible lint from her gray pants.
“You shouldn’t do that,” Jill said.
“Do what?”
“Look at the floor, pretend to be uninterested. It’s a dead giveaway.”
“A giveaway?”
“In cards, they call it a ‘tell.’”
“I’m not following.”
Jill released a deep sigh, as if her star pupil was being insufferably obtuse. “You ever play poker?”
“No.”
“Okay. Let me see if I can explain it. A ‘tell’ is like, every time you get a good hand, you touch your nose, or every time you’re bluffing, you scratch your neck. You don’t even know you’re doing it. But anybody watching you can figure it out pretty quick.”
“You’re saying I do this?”
“All the time. Whenever you don’t want to look too interested in something I’ve said, you look at the floor or study your nails. And you’re forever dusting off your clothes.” Jill laughed. “You’re as easy to read as one of your sister’s books.”
Charley bristled, although she tried to disguise her annoyance with a smile.
“Now you’re angry. You get this tight little smile on your face whenever you don’t want me to know how you really feel.”
“You think you understand me pretty well,” Charley said.
You think you know me.
“Am I wrong?”
“Why would I pretend to be uninterested in anything you’ve said?”
“You’re probably afraid I’ll clam up if you sound too eager. Like before, when we were talking about the tapes, and I said ‘you’ll get to relive it all again.’ We both know that’s a pretty provocative thing to say. It promises all sorts of juicy revelations. So you pretend to be all nonchalant, thinking stupid me doesn’t have a clue, and will just keep blabbing away, spilling my guts out, trying to impress you.”
“Is that what you’re doing—trying to impress me?”
Jill shrugged, rolled her head along the top of her spine from one shoulder to the other. “I have a bit of a crick in my neck. Must have slept on it funny.”
“Why did you keep those tapes under your bed?” Charley was growing impatient with being psychoanalyzed by a psychopath. Was she really as easy to read as one of her sister’s books?
“Pretty obvious, isn’t it?” Jill asked.
“Apparently not.”
Jill rubbed the base of her neck. “I didn’t want anybody to find them.”
“Did you ever listen to them?”
“Why would I do that?”
“To relive them,” Charley said, echoing Jill’s words.
“Why would I want to relive them?”
“Why make them in the first place?”
“That was Jack’s idea.”
“And yet you’re the one who kept them.”
Jill shrugged, raised her eyebrows in a silent dare.
“Is it possible you got a kick out of listening to those tapes?” Charley probed.
“A kick?”
“A sexual charge.”
“A person would have to be pretty sick to get sexually aroused by that kind of thing.”
Charley refrained from stating the obvious: that a person would have to be pretty sick to have done such things in the first place. She lowered her voice, tried to muster as much sympathy as she could. “We can’t necessarily control what turns us on.”
“That’s very generous of you, Charley.” Jill raised both arms above her head, stretched out her back. “What impulses can’t you control, I wonder?”
“We’re ta
lking about you.”
“Aw, come on, Charley. Humor me. Tell me what gets you hot.”
“I don’t have time for this, Jill.”
“Does fucking my attorney make you hot?”
“Okay, I’m out of here.” Charley jumped to her feet.
“Oh, sit down, for Pete’s sake. Enough with the histrionics. Do you want to know who Jack is or don’t you?”
Charley remained standing. “To tell you the truth, I’m not sure there really is a Jack.”
Jill looked genuinely shocked. “You don’t believe me?”
“I’d like to. I’d really like to think I haven’t been wasting my time driving down here every week, that everything you’ve been telling me isn’t total bullshit. But I’m not sure anymore.”
“Jack would be very hurt to hear that you doubt him.”
Charley sat back down, stared directly into Jill’s eyes. “Then tell me who he is.”
“Very good, Charley,” Jill exclaimed. “That was really good. No ‘tell’ there at all. It was really intense.”
“Who is he, Jill?”
“You’ll find out.”
“When?”
“Soon enough.”
“I’m running out of patience, Jill.”
“Next week. How’s that? It’ll be my birthday present to you.” Jill smiled. “What? You’re surprised I know it’s your birthday? You don’t remember that column you wrote about how you never got to celebrate your birthday after your mother left, and how you make a really big deal out of birthdays now that you have kids of your own? I could relate because we never celebrated birthdays around our house either, and I always thought, if I ever have kids…” She broke off, her eyes losing their mischievous sparkle. “Doesn’t look like that’s going to happen any time soon.”
“You’re saying you’d like to have children?”
“Isn’t that every girl’s dream?”
“You’re not exactly every girl.”
The sparkle suddenly returned to Jill’s eyes. “That’s true. So, what’ve you got planned for lucky number thirty-one?”
“We’re going to Disney World,” Charley said quietly, remembering Jill’s horrifying visit to the Magic Kingdom, and wondering how she’d react.
“Oh, that’s great,” Jill said with unabashed enthusiasm. “The kids will love it. Have you been before?”
A moment to process Jill’s reaction. “No. This will be my first time.”
“I absolutely loved the teacup ride,” Jill said. “I mean, I know most people love Space Mountain and Pirates of the Caribbean the best, but my favorites were the teacup ride and It’s a Small World. It’s a small world after all,” she began singing. “You want to know what happened to us inside Small World? It was the funniest thing ever. You have to hear this.” She squirmed in her seat, leaning forward, and speaking directly into the recorder. “Here we all were in these little boats that supposedly sail around the world, and all these dolls are singing that stupid song over and over again for like, twenty minutes, and I’m singing along, of course. I think it’s the greatest thing ever. My father looks like he’s about to start ripping the heads off everything in sight, and Ethan is threatening to jump ship. Finally the ride is almost over. We can literally see the light at the end of the tunnel. We have, like, thirty seconds left to go. And suddenly, the whole thing stops dead. The lights go out and nothing is moving. Except the dolls. They’re still singing. And we sit there for, like, another twenty minutes, listening to those stupid dolls sing that stupid song over and over again, until even I’m getting sick of it, and then suddenly, just when everybody’s about to start screaming, the lights go on and the boats start moving again. Except instead of moving forward, they’re going backward. Another twenty minutes to get back where we started! And all the while, the dolls are singing. It’s a small world after all.” Jill was laughing now. “It’s a small world after all. It was so funny.” She wiped a few happy tears from her eyes. “Talk about reliving it all.” She sat back, released a deep sigh. “Wish I could go with you.”
With those words ricocheting in her head, Charley turned off the recorder, stuffed it in her purse, and stood up, almost knocking over her chair. “How about I tell you all about it when I see you next week?”
“I’ll look forward to it.”
Charley walked to the door and knocked for the guard.
“Charley?”
Charley turned around.
Jill was on her feet, a crooked little half-smile playing with her lips. She lowered her eyes coquettishly. “Happy birthday,” she said.
CHAPTER 32
She first heard the noise as part of a dream. She was looking for a pair of shoes to match the black-and-white dress she was planning to wear to dinner at Renato’s, only all she could find were ugly old pumps in purple and green. In frustration she began tossing the shoes to the floor. One bounced back and hit her in the middle of her forehead. She felt the wetness of the blood as it dripped between her eyes. Which was when she woke up.
Charley opened her eyes to find Bandit licking her face. “What are you doing up so early?” she asked the dog, sitting up in bed and checking the clock on the bedside table. It was 6:35 A.M. “We have another twenty-five minutes before we have to get up.” She sighed, lay back down. Which was when she heard the noise again.
Bandit jumped off the bed and ran to the bedroom door, then turned back toward Charley, as if exhorting her to join him. Reluctantly, Charley climbed out of bed and threw a pink cotton robe over her white T-shirt and boxer shorts. Probably just one of the kids, too excited about today’s trip to sleep, she was thinking as she crossed the hall to their room and opened the door. But both kids were still asleep, their overnight bags packed and waiting beside their beds.
She heard Bandit barking with excitement, and quickly exited her children’s room, closing their door behind her. Someone was in her kitchen, she realized, trying to make sense of what was happening. Was it a burglar? But what kind of burglar breaks into a house at almost seven o’clock in the morning? she thought, deciding she was probably still dreaming. Which was when she heard the voice.
“Ssh!” it cautioned. “Not so loud. You’ll wake everybody up.”
Charley pushed herself toward the kitchen. The man was wearing jeans and a green-and-white Hawaiian print shirt. He was standing beside the counter, every cupboard door in the room wide open. “Bram!”
Bram spun around. “Happy birthday, Charley.”
“What are you doing here?”
“Did I wake you up?”
“It’s six-thirty in the morning. What do you think?”
“I think I woke you up. You were always really grouchy in the morning.”
“What are you doing here?” Charley asked again.
“Making blueberry pancakes. Or trying to,” Bram said in exasperation. “I bought the pancake mix, I bought the blueberries. I relied on you for a Mixmaster. Which seems to have been a colossal error on my part.”
“You’re making pancakes?”
“Trying to.”
“Are you drunk?”
“Are you?” he countered.
“Of course not.”
“Neither am I. Now where’s your Mixmaster?”
Charley pointed to the Cuisinart on the counter beside the coffee maker.
“Shit,” Bram said. “Couldn’t see it for looking.”
“What are you doing here, Bram?” she asked a third time.
“Making you blueberry pancakes for your birthday,” he answered, taking her in his arms and kissing her on the cheek. “I wanted to make sure I got here before you took off. I’m coming with you, by the way.”
“You’re coming to Disney World?”
“Is that a problem?”
“Mom’s coming,” Charley reminded him, convinced now this was all a dream.
There was a moment’s silence. “I know that.”
“And you’re okay with it?”
Another pause, longer t
han the first. “I guess we’ll find out.”
“Oh, Bram.” Charley surrounded her brother with her arms. If this was a dream, she definitely didn’t want to wake up. “Thank you. This is the best birthday present ever.”
“Glad you like it, ’cause you can’t take it back. What time are we leaving?”
“Mom and Alex should be here before eight.”
“Oh, I forgot about Alex.”
“Is that a problem?”
“Just means we’ll have to take two cars. Which isn’t a problem because…” Bram led Charley toward the front door and opened it. “Ta dum! They found mine.” He pointed to his freshly washed sports car at the curb in front of the house. “By the way, we probably should send Katarina flowers and a thank-you note,” he said as Bandit ran outside and peed, then raced back in again
“The occasion being…?”
“If it hadn’t been for her, my car wouldn’t have been stolen, and I wouldn’t have had a message from the police waiting for me when I got home from your place last week telling me they’d found it. In one piece, no less. So how could I get plastered when I had to go reclaim my car? And more good news—whoever stole it also stole the stash of weed and other assorted goodies I had in the glove compartment, along with my cell phone, so not only couldn’t I get stoned, I couldn’t call my dealer. And by the time I got back to my apartment, I was so exhausted, I couldn’t be bothered doing anything but crawl into bed. So here I am a week later. Clean, sober, and ready for the Magic Kingdom.”
Charley didn’t know whether to laugh or cry, so she did both.
“Oh, please don’t cry. I’m useless when a woman cries.”
“I’m just so happy. I was so afraid when I couldn’t reach you…”
“I just needed some time to be alone and think things through.”
“And what conclusions did you reach?”
“I concluded that it’s time for you to get dressed and let me get started on birthday pancakes for six.”
“You promise you won’t change your mind, that you’ll be here when I get back?”
“I’ll be here when you get back.”
By the time Charley returned, freshly showered and dressed in a crisp white blouse and khaki-colored capris, the kids were up and helping Bram set the table. “Happy birthday,” Franny sang out in greeting. She was wearing a pink T-shirt and matching pants, and her hair was brushed and secured at the sides by two pink barrettes in the shape of cupids.