by Jack Ketchum
As she walked in she saw them seated outside on the patio overlooking Ventura Boulevard. She’d been lucky. You had to pass through the patio to the left as you walked in. He and the other man were far over on the right. She sat down at the bar and ordered a dirty martini. The restaurant was nouveau Italian with both indoor and outdoor dining and she watched them having lunch outside while she glanced through the menu. There was no way she could eat. They were laughing again, clearly friends, sharing a bottle of wine. She watched him finish his salad and push back his chair and then he was headed right toward her again for the second time in half an hour and she felt frozen and trapped and emboldened all at once as he passed.
“Jim,” she said.
He stopped and she could see his mind working. Jim trying to place her.
“Dora!”
She put out her hand and he took it. His touch was not what you would call electric but it wasn’t unremarkable either.
“I saw you outside. I thought it was you. But I couldn’t be sure.”
“I’ve…gotten older!”
“You look fine.”
“So do you. My god. How’ve you been, Dora?”
“I’m fine. It’s great to see you.”
“You too. This is amazing. I’m really looking at you, right? Dora Welles?”
“It’s me.”
“Is it still Welles?”
“Still Welles. Or actually Welles again.”
“What are you doing here? Are you still in New York? No, wait. Wait a minute. Have you got a minute?”
“Sure.”
“Good. Okay, let me go…do what I was about to do and I’ll be back. Can you have a drink with me? With us?”
“Be glad to.”
“Okay. Great. I’ll be right back. Don’t…don’t go anywhere!”
The man’s name was Matthew and they were associates at his law office. He and Jim finished off the bottle of wine while she nursed her second martini and looked through the photos in his wallet with more than the usual obligatory curiosity. She’s beautiful she said and it was true. Karen was lovely—in a kind of suburban homey way. No makeup but then she didn’t need any.
Want to see my springer spaniel? said Matthew.
She smiled. Attractive but too aware of it. School clown, she thought. Still at it.
On the insert opposite was a photo of the two kids grinning together poolside. Jimmy a wide-eyed skinny nine-year-old and Linda filling her bathing suit quite nicely at sixteen, her arm around her brother’s shoulders. Dora was taken aback slightly. These people were real now. These people were a family.
“They’re all beautiful,” she said.
“I know,” he said. “I’m the ugly gimp of the bunch.”
He was far from ugly.
“How did you…?”
“You know how a raccoon in a trap will try to gnaw his leg off?” said Matthew. “That office can get mean sometimes.”
“Actually I blew off half my left foot with a twelve-gauge like a damn fool. My first year out here. A hunting party. One and only time I’ve ever been on one. You know how many bones there are in the human foot? Well I’ve got about half of them. None in the toes at all.”
“My god.”
“Trouble is, now he can only count to fifteen. Hard on a tax attorney.”
Jim laughed. She managed a smile. She handed back the wallet.
“Listen, I want you to meet them. When can you come over for dinner?”
“Dinner? I don’t know…”
“She’s a hell of a cook.”
“I guess anytime. Whenever’s good for you. Apart from a few dealers I don’t really know anybody in this town.”
That was a lie of course. She’d been out here any number of times and had made quite a few friends. And none of them were dealers. She had a cousin Cassie in Westwood who liked to take her to country-western and biker bars for god sakes. She remembered a night she’d gotten so damn close to a bar fight suddenly right in front of her that she’d switched her Heineken from her left hand to her right in the event she had to hit.
“Hadn’t you better check with her, though? With Karen?”
“Karen will insist. She’s been hearing about you for what? Twenty years now?”
“She has?”
“Of course she has.”
Now that, she thought, was interesting.
The last time she’d seen Jim Weybourne had been her sophomore year in college. Christmas vacation. It had all seemed fine between them then. They exchanged gifts. They made love on his bed the afternoon before she was to return to Boston. His parents were out visiting relatives and they only managed to throw themselves back together again fifteen minutes before they returned. The sense of trespass and transgression was delicious.
She’d assumed they’d be together over spring break. There was no reason to think otherwise. But they’d both been busy with exams and hadn’t confirmed much of anything. So she drove to his house the day after she arrived home and his mother met her at the door. His mother seemed confused. Embarrassed. Hadn’t he told her? He and some friends had flown to West Palm this year.
For his mother’s sake she tried to laugh it off. Signals crossed she said.
She’d never felt so furious and humiliated in her life.
He tried calling after that dozens of times wanting to explain. Contrite messages on her phone. Spur-of-the-moment stupidity he said. They’d gotten drunk. It would never happen again, he promised. He offered to fly up for the weekend. Any weekend. She never answered and eventually the calls stopped coming.
She had wondered at the time if she would ever forgive him.
Lying in her hotel bedroom she wondered who the hell that girl was who’d been so badly hurt by him back then. If that girl still existed Dora wasn’t aware of it.
She was a whole new woman now.
NINE
Dora
She’d dressed with care so as not to overstate. The early evening was turning cool. So she was not going to wilt along the way. She parked in front of the house and walked up to the porch and rang the bell.
The Karen Weybourne who greeted her at the door was a bit taller than she imagined, an inch or so over her own height and dressed in an oversized white shirt and jeans. A bit plainer and with a stronger cast to the jaw than evinced in the photo. She’d have known this was somebody’s mom anywhere. A little harried, maybe, but a handsome woman radiating energy. She had a good open smile. If there was any sizing-up going on Dora wasn’t detecting it yet. She thought that surprising.
“Dora! Hi.”
The hand she extended was rougher than her own but the fingers were long and slim and elegant.
“Come on in. They always say pardon the mess but god! pardon the mess.”
Karen led her into the living room past a staircase and into a large open kitchen, both rooms tastefully middle class, with some good pieces of Southwest furniture. Framed prints on the wall mixed with originals. She recognized a Tom Lea and a Charles M. Russell. At a quick scan, all nicely rendered. Very little evidence so far that not only a teenage girl but a nine-year-old boy were living here. She wondered where and what the mess was. What we may have here is a perfectionist, she thought.
“Jim should be home any minute now. Would you like a drink? Get a leg up on him? I could certainly use one. Long day, you know?”
“Thanks. Vodka if you have it.”
“Tonic?”
“Tonic would be fine.”
She took two tumblers out of the cabinet and put ice in the tumblers and took a bottle of Absolut out of the freezer and a bottle of tonic from the refrigerator and set them down on the low butcher-block table and poured. She was moving fast. Definitely a little wired, Dora thought.
“I love your kitchen. You could put three of mine in here.”
“Apartment living, huh?”
“In New York? Yeah. Space. The final frontier.”
Karen laughed. “Sit down. Make yourself at home.”
>
She pulled out a country-style blond wooden chair and sat and Karen did the same.
“I’m sorry. I’ve been running a little late. Do plumbers come when you call them in New York? They sure don’t here. I waited half the morning for this guy. Then Jimmy had Little League practice and I let myself get talked into a playdate with two of his friends who thoroughly trashed his room while I was oblivious down here vacuuming, running the dishwasher, whatever, so I go up and play cop for a while, and then I find out that their mother can’t come to pick them up so I’ve got to drive them home and…why am I telling you this? You don’t care about any of this stuff.”
“That’s all right. Vent away.”
“Anyway, I’m beat.”
She took a long sip of the drink.
“We could do this another time if you…”
“No, don’t be silly. I sent Jim out for Mexican. I was going to cook but…is that okay? Mexican?”
“That’s fine.”
“Good. Great. I’ll cook another time, I promise. Cheers.”
“Cheers. Good to meet you.”
They touched glasses and looked at one another for a moment that was almost but not quite awkward.
“It’s good to meet you too, Dora, finally. What in the world are you doing out here, anyway? Jim said you deal in antiques, that you’ve got a shop. I would’ve thought you’d be prowling the East Coast for that. Or France. Or England.”
“There are some excellent pieces here, actually. Spanish mostly.”
“You sell Spanish in Manhattan?”
She didn’t sound distrustful. Though she had reason to be. There wasn’t much call for Spanish in the City. But she seemed to be simply curious.
“Some,” she said. “In this case I have an interested buyer.”
“Listen. I’ve got an idea. Want to freshen these a little and take them out to the pool? Sit in what’s left of the sun till Jim gets back? You can fill me in on the business. Jim and I buy some paintings now and then but not much in the way of antiques. I hardly know anything about them.”
“Good idea.”
“We’ll need some more ice. Give me your glass.”
She went back to the refrigerator.
“You swim?” she said.
“Sure. Pretty much once a week, at the gym.”
“Come over for a swim some afternoon, why don’t you. No crowds, no swim lanes. And I promise to keep the kids away.”
“I’d like that. Thanks.”
“You remember Sessions? Bill Sessions?”
“Vaguely.”
They were seated over coffee. Ice cream for Linda and Jimmy. Karen had finally relaxed and the kids were nothing if not polite. Maybe a bit distant—Linda especially. But what did she know about kids these days? Especially teenage girls. Probably they were just bored.
“Sure you do. Think way back. Sophomore year science fair? Compared the water in all these fast-food restaurants’ toilets to their melted ice and found that the ice had more bacteria in it than the water did?”
“Yecchh,” said Jimmy.
“I remember now.”
“I see him every now and then. Lives down in the Valley. He and Matthew—you met Matthew—went to law school together. Surprised the hell out of me. I thought for sure he’d be a microbiologist or something. But no, corporate law. Go figure. Oh, and Randy Fitch?”
“Him I remember.”
“Right. He’s in jail. Or was last I heard. Grand theft auto down in San Diego. Took a car at gunpoint and then found out it was a stick shift. And he couldn’t drive a stick shift.”
They laughed. They all did. But she had the feeling that Karen and the kids had heard that one before and that for this particular night at least they were running out of PG-rated stories and small talk. She knew she was. And Karen was plainly tired.
“It’s getting late,” she said. “I’d better be going.”
“Not yet,” he said.
“You’ve got work tomorrow, right? And Karen’s got to be exhausted. Another time.”
She stood up. They walked her to the door. Even Linda and Jimmy. Good god these kids were polite. Not like the kids she was used to seeing on the streets of New York, who were all whoop and holler and would knock you over on your ass if you weren’t careful.
“Thanks, Karen,” she said.
“My plea sure.”
“When do you leave, Jimmy?”
He was off to camp in Colorado for the summer. Fishing and hiking and even white-water rafting. Karen said the gear was costing them a fortune.
“Three days.” He grinned.
“Well you have a real good time. Nice to meet you.”
“You too,” said Jimmy.
“And you, Linda.”
“Nice to meet you too, Dora,” she said.
She shook their hands. Linda’s seemed oddly warm and wet she thought, as though she’d been clenching them. Teenage nerves maybe.
“If you want that swim tomorrow,” Karen said, “I’m free. After two I am anyway. I usually try to get in an hour or so around then every day if I can.”
“That’d be great. I could use the exercise. Should I call…?”
“Not necessary. Just come on up.”
“Thanks. About two thirty maybe?”
“Sounds good.”
She shook her hand and Dora was aware of those fingers again. Her own were peasant’s hands by comparison. Jim took her arm and kissed her cheek.
“ ’Night, Dora.”
“ ’Night, Jim.”
In her own estimation the kiss lasted a little bit longer than it might have for a pair of old friends if only by a fraction and not at all displeased at this she glanced at Karen to gauge her but there was no reaction and only a smile.
“See you,” she said.
It was a simple thing, such a small thing but late that night lying smoking in the dark that single kiss decided her or perhaps it was the memory that matched that of another kiss very much like it when they’d first met their sophomore year in high school at the Kiwanis Karnival and she and Gail on line waiting patiently for a candy apple were being harassed in their stupid schoolboy way by three older fat boys behind them, comments between them about her ass and tits in a kind of pseudo sotto voce just begging to be heard, when this fourth boy standing in front of them who she knew vaguely from algebra class turned and said that’s about enough, assholes.
The boys were taken aback by this because here was this kid smaller than any of them giving them lip, calling them assholes—yet there was real threat and confidence in this boy’s voice while theirs was all fatkid bravado like oh, big man, gonna take down the three of us, huh? big man! tumbling from their lips like overripe fruit. The boy turned to her and Gail and said what would you like, ladies? it’s on me and proceeded to buy Cokes and candy apples for all three of them.
When they moved away from the stand the boys were still talking their jive and Dora turned to him and smiled and said thank you and gave him a kiss on the cheek which he returned and held just a moment longer than expected much as he had tonight. Gail giggled and gave him a peck too which was not nearly the same and Dora was his and he hers from then on.
In the morning over coffee her idea solidified into something like a plan which she knew to be a little crazy but she dialed her cousin Cassie who nevertheless was glad to hear from her and asked her an unaccustomed favor.
TEN
Karen
“She’s pretty,” Linda had said. “But I’m not all that crazy about her.”
Karen closed the dishwasher and turned it on.
“Hand me the wineglasses, will you? And here, you can do the table.”
She tossed her a sponge. “Why not?” she said.
“Why not what?”
“Why aren’t you all that crazy about her?”
She was in the habit of taking her daughter seriously unless otherwise indicated.
“I dunno. Maybe she doesn’t talk to kids the same way she
talks to you guys.”
“She doesn’t have kids. She probably doesn’t know many.”
“I guess. But how’d all this happen, anyway? Like all of a sudden. I mean, I know she met him in a bar. What’s she doing in a bar?”
“People go to bars, Lin.”
“A woman all by herself?”
Like most teenage girls out here Linda traveled in packs.
“It happens.” She shrugged. “She’s a New Yorker.”
As if that explained anything.
“So they were lovers, right?”
“Yup. Through most of high school and the first couple years of college.”
“That means they slept together, right?”
“Right. They did.”
“Doesn’t that bother you?”
So that was it.
She placed the last wineglass carefully down on the drainer and wiped her hands on a dish towel and turned to her.
“Okay. Here’s how it went. Your father used to care about Dora very much. They even talked about marriage when they were kids but they were way too young for that. So they went off to different colleges and your father started…you know…seeing other girls. He’s in college, right? Nothing serious. But then he did something that was not very nice and that he later regretted. He stood her up during spring break their sophomore year. Instead of going home like they’d planned he went off to Lauderdale or West Palm Beach or wherever with some of his drinking buddies. He realized right off that he’d made a mistake. But Dora wouldn’t talk to him after that.”
“Dad did that? God, I don’t blame her.”
“Hey, she could have confronted him, talked about it, but basically no, I guess neither do I. But he was just a kid, Lin. They both were. And he felt a terrible amount of guilt over it for a very long time. First loves, y’know? They’re rough on everybody.”
Lin grunted. “Tell me about it.”
“So if you ask me, does it bother me, I guess it does a little because I know how hurtful this kind of thing can be. You have to feel bad for her back then. For both of them really. Because your dad paid for what he did. It was a very long time ago, though. It’s not as though she’s still hurting or he’s still hurting. But if you mean, am I jealous that they had sex together twenty-five years ago, before your dad even met me, the answer’s no. Our story—your dad’s and mine—has a whole lot happier ending, right?”