by Joy Fielding
I’m sorry. There’s no one here by that name.
“It’s normally three twenty-nine. Two eighty-nine on special.”
“What’s so special about that?”
“I don’t know. I don’t use it.”
“Check again. I’m sure you’ve got it wrong,” the woman insisted.
I’m afraid you have the wrong number.
The young man pulled a colorful flyer out from behind the counter and opened it to the second page. “I don’t have it wrong. See. It’s right here.” He pointed to the appropriate picture. “Special price: two eighty-nine. Now, you want it or don’t you?”
“What choice do I have?” the woman muttered, shaking her head as she slowly counted out the exact change, then grabbed the plastic bag containing her several purchases from the young man’s hands.
What do we do now?
You have to leave him.
“Pack of Marlboros,” the next customer said before the woman had vacated her place in line. In response the woman gave him a dirty look and shuffled from the store. “Pack of Marlboros,” the man said again, pushing a ten-dollar bill across the counter.
It’s probably better if I wait till morning, too.
Listen to me, Suzy. You have to leave right now.
“Can I help you?”
Who are you talking to, Suzy?
“Can I help you? Excuse me, sir. Can I help you?” the cashier was asking.
“Sorry,” Jeff said, snapping back into the present and realizing he was next in line.
“Twenty-three dollars and eighteen cents,” the young man said as he finished ringing up the various items, his shoulders stiffening as if bracing for an argument.
Jeff handed him thirty dollars and waited as he bagged the assorted sundries and counted out the change. “Thank you.”
“Have a good night.”
Jeff stepped outside, glancing up and down the street. On the corner, the Marlboro man had stopped under a streetlamp to light up. In the distance, the old woman with the disputed deodorant was proceeding at a snail’s pace, the plastic bag in her hand slapping against her side as she walked, her shoulders slumped forward as if she were fighting a strong wind. He thought of running to catch up to her, offering to give her a hand, but she’d probably think he was trying to steal from her and start screaming.
An old memory suddenly sprinted across his line of vision: he and Tom coming home one night from a party, both having drunk far too much, a middle-aged woman approaching, clutching her purse to her chest as she crossed the street to avoid them. “She thinks we’re after her money,” Jeff had said, and laughed.
“Or her body,” Tom had said, laughing louder.
And suddenly Tom was racing across the street and pushing the woman to the ground as he wrenched the bag from her hands, and what choice had Jeff had but to chase after him? He couldn’t very well stop to help the bleeding woman to her feet. She’d only have started screaming, accused him of being an accomplice. And so he’d fled the scene, not looking back. “Should have raped her,” Tom had said, almost wistfully. “Bet she would have enjoyed it.” He’d offered to split the forty-two dollars he’d found in the woman’s wallet but Jeff had refused, watching as Tom tossed the purse into the nearest trash can. He’d spent the next few days scanning the papers for any mention of the robbery, even checking the obituaries to see if a woman had died after being accosted, but there’d been nothing.
It’s a wonder Tom and I didn’t get our asses tossed in jail on any number of occasions, Jeff was thinking as he headed back to the motel. Except instead of turning left, he suddenly turned right, then crossed the street and continued purposefully down the block, turning left at the first intersection, and then making another left two blocks after that, as if being pulled along by a magnet. He didn’t have to check the street signs. He’d have known the way blindfolded.
FIFTEEN MINUTES LATER, tired and perspiring heavily, he found himself on Huron Street, standing in front of a gray two-story house with white shutters and a blood-red front door. His father’s house. Two doors away, in the white house with the black front door, had lived his stepmother’s closest friend, Kathy, the one who had seduced him when he was barely fourteen years old. “You’re a very bad boy,” he could hear her coo in his ear. “Your stepmother is right about you.” And then, when they were lying naked in her queen-size bed and she was directing him where to put his hands and how to use his tongue, listening to the strange noises she made and the husky sound of her voice as she whispered, “Tell me you love me,” and clawed at his back with her long fingernails. And he’d complied, telling her he loved her over and over again, maybe even meaning it, he thought now, who knows? And then one day, two years after the start of their affair, he’d come home from school to find a large FOR SALE sign in the middle of her front lawn, and several months later, that sign had been replaced by another one that said SOLD , and the following month the moving van had arrived and she was gone, moved to Ann Arbor with her husband and two young daughters for her husband’s new job.
Jeff never saw her again.
And he’d never said “I love you” to any woman again.
Until tonight.
What’s the matter with you? he thought now, feeling Kathy’s wicked laugh trembling through his body as his eyes left the upstairs bedroom window of her former house to flit up the narrow, flower-lined concrete walkway of his father’s home. What was he doing here? Was he really thinking of proceeding up that walkway, of climbing the steps to the small front porch, of knocking on that red front door? Had he lost his mind altogether? What was the matter with him?
Well, well. The prodigal son returns, he could almost hear his father say as Jeff forced one foot in front of the other. Hell, he thought. It had cost him a lot of money to come to Buffalo, money he could ill afford now that he was out of a job. He’d made the trip at his sister’s behest, come to see the mother who’d abandoned him as a small boy. Why not pay a visit to the father who’d abandoned him emotionally at around the same time?
Two for the price of one; kill two birds with one stone, Jeff thought ruefully, looking toward the living room window. He pictured his father and stepmother inside, his father buried behind a book, his stepmother immersed in her sewing. How will they react when they see me? he wondered as he lifted his hand and knocked on the door.
The noise echoed down the quiet tree-lined street, conjuring up years of indifference and neglect. Jeff felt the years swirl like leaves around his head.
No one answered his knock, although Jeff thought he heard someone moving around inside. Just turn around and go back to the motel, he told himself, even as he was lifting his hand to knock again, the knocking assuming greater urgency as his fist slammed repeatedly against the heavy wooden door.
Reluctant footsteps approached. “What’s the matter?” a woman’s voice snarled from inside. “You forget your keys at your girlfriend’s?” The door opened. His stepmother stood on the other side, her expression modulating from anger to surprise to dismay and then to outright horror. “Oh, my God,” she said, collapsing against the side of the door as if Jeff had surprised her with a sucker punch. “My son . . . ,” she cried out.
Jeff was about to reach for her, to take her in his grateful arms, hug her to his chest, tell her all was forgiven, that there was still time to make things right between them.
“Oh, God. What’s happened?” his stepmother demanded. “Was there an accident? Is he all right?”
It took Jeff a few seconds to digest that the son she was referring to was not him but Will. Of course, he thought, his arms withdrawing, his body stiffening as it turned to ice. “There’s nothing wrong with Will,” he told her, his voice flat. “He’s fine, having the time of his life, in fact.”
His stepmother pulled herself up to her full height, cool blue eyes narrowing. She was almost five feet ten inches tall, even in the ratty pink slippers she was wearing. An imposing presence no matter how casually she was d
ressed, Jeff thought, noting that her raven hair was streaked with gray at the temples, giving her a vaguely skunk-like appearance, not helped by her narrow face and almost nonexistent upper lip. Not the most generous of assessments, Jeff knew, aware she’d been considered something of a beauty in her prime, but then, what the hell? His moment of generosity had passed. “I don’t understand. Why are you here?” she asked, tugging the sides of her pale green terry-cloth housecoat tight around her.
“My mother’s dying,” Jeff said simply. “Ellie says she only has a few days left.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” his stepmother said, managing to sound as if she meant it. “Did you want to come in? I’m afraid your father’s not here. . . .”
Jeff’s lips curled into a smile as he recalled her greeting from the other side of the door. What’s the matter? You forget your keys at your girlfriend’s? “Nice to see some things never change.”
“You look just like him, you know. It’s really quite uncanny.”
“So I’ve been told.” Jeff bristled and turned away. “You ever hear from Kathy?” he heard himself ask, his eyes returning to the house two doors down.
“Kathy? You mean Kathy Chapin? Why on earth would you ask about her?”
“Just curious.”
“We lost touch years ago. Why?” she asked again.
“No reason.”
They stared at each other in silence for several seconds. “Why don’t you come inside?” she suggested again. “I could put on a pot of coffee. Who knows—your father might just surprise us and come home early.”
“Not much chance of that.” Jeff retreated down the front steps, wondering if his stepmother’s newfound compassion was the result of genuine concern or if she was simply tired of being alone.
“Tell Will to phone his mother every now and then,” she called after him.
“I’ll do that,” Jeff said without looking back.
TWENTY-SIX
WHAT A STRANGE DAY this has turned out to be, Kristin was thinking as she stripped off the last of her clothes and pulled the covers from her bed. It had started with one phone call and ended with another, a series of lies uneasily filling the space in between. Was Jeff really in Buffalo, as he’d claimed, or was this yet another falsehood? He’d been so adamant about not going home to see his mother. What had happened to change his mind?
Kristin crawled between the cool white sheets, quickly flipping from her right side to her left, replaying their earlier conversation in her head. “I’ll explain everything as soon as I get back,” he’d said.
Explain what exactly?
And that cryptic message regarding Suzy. If Suzy shows up at the bar, just get Will to take her to the apartment, and don’t tell anyone where she is. What was that all about? Had Suzy contacted him yet again? Had something happened to make Jeff fear for her immediate safety? Whatever it was, Kristin decided, settling onto her back and staring up at the ceiling, Suzy hadn’t come by the bar. Nor had she called. So what was really going on? And should she call Suzy, demand to know exactly what was happening? She didn’t like being kept in the dark. She didn’t like not knowing where things stood.
One thing she knew for sure: Jeff had won his bet. He and Suzy were now lovers; of that she was certain. She’d known it was a done deal the moment *69 had informed her it was Suzy who’d called their apartment at six thirty yesterday morning.
Something else she knew: Jeff might have won his bet, but he’d lost his heart.
More like his mind, Kristin decided with a laugh, thinking it was unlike her to be so melodramatic. She flipped back onto her right side, brought her knees to her chest, unable to find a comfortable position.
So how did she really feel about this latest development? Was she upset or hurt? Was she afraid of being abandoned? She sighed, long and deep. The truth was that she’d known almost from the minute she and Jeff had said hello that it was only a matter of time before he said good-bye. Even as she was moving in, she’d felt him starting to mentally move out, and she’d been okay with that. She understood the instinct for self-preservation that made him keep her—keep all women—at an emotional arm’s length, just as she understood instinctively that no matter how good she was to him or how much freedom she allowed him, eventually he’d grow restless and seek out new challenges, and that sooner or later, he’d find someone to replace her. Especially if that someone played her cards right, if she was vaguely mysterious, made him work hard to get her attention while simultaneously appealing to his masculine ego by making him feel needed.
Kristin had never been especially mysterious or challenging. She’d certainly never been very good at making men feel needed.
Amazing the power of the damsel in distress, she thought now, knowing intuitively that it was the men with the most tarnished self-images who made the best knights in shining armor. But smart as she was, she’d never considered the possibility Jeff might actually fall in love.
Or that his feelings might be reciprocated.
This was something she hadn’t considered.
Is it possible? Kristin wondered, her eyes opening wide, penetrating the surrounding darkness.
Where exactly would that leave her?
She heard footsteps in the hall outside her door, the creak of the bathroom door as Will opened and closed it after him. Seconds later, she heard the flush of the toilet and the sound of water running in the sink. She imagined Will, his hair falling into the half-closed eyes of his tired, puzzled face, as he washed his hands and brushed his teeth. When she’d told him of Jeff’s phone call—the fact that he’d gone to Buffalo, his instructions regarding Suzy—he’d simply shrugged and ordered another beer. He’d said nothing, although she’d noted his eyes were glued to the bar’s front door all night, as if he was waiting for Suzy to walk through. She wondered how he really felt about his brother and Suzy. Kristin suspected he was as confused by what was happening as she was.
Whatever was going on inside him, he wasn’t sharing any of those feelings with her. Will had feigned sleep in the car on the drive back from the bar and collapsed on the sofa bed fully clothed as soon as they’d entered the apartment. When she’d asked him if he felt like some hot chocolate or a piece of the apple pie she’d picked up at Publix that afternoon, he hadn’t even bothered to grunt out a reply, although she could tell by the stiff arc of his shoulders that he wasn’t asleep.
She doubted that either of them would get much sleep tonight.
Seconds later, Kristin heard the bathroom door open, and she lay there, waiting for the sound of Will’s retreating footsteps. But it never came. She sat up in bed. “Will?” she called through the closed bedroom door.
Nothing.
“Will,” she called again, gathering her sheets around her as the bedroom door slowly opened.
“Did I wake you?” he asked from the hallway.
“No.”
“Having trouble sleeping?”
“Having trouble falling asleep,” she corrected him.
“Me, too.”
“Do you want some hot chocolate?” she asked, as she’d asked earlier.
“No.”
“Are you okay?”
“Yeah. You?”
“Yeah. Just can’t sleep. Too many thoughts.”
“What kind of thoughts?”
“I don’t know. They’re all pretty vague,” she lied.
“Maybe you’re just not used to sleeping alone,” Will said.
“Maybe.”
A moment’s silence, then, “Can I come in a minute?”
“Sure. Just give me a second to put something on.” Kristin reached for the pink silk robe that lay at the foot of the bed and quickly wrapped it around her. “Okay. You can come in now.”
Will pushed open the bedroom door and took several tentative steps inside the room. “It’s freezing in here,” he remarked, hugging his arms to his sides.
“Jeff likes it pretty cold when he sleeps.” Kristin noted that Will was still wear
ing the blue button-down shirt and khaki slacks he’d had on earlier, although his feet were bare.
“What about what you like?” he asked.
“I guess I’ve gotten used to it.”
Will moved cautiously into the room, his eyes still not adjusted to the dark. “Uh-oh. I just stepped on something.” He bent down, scooped up several items of discarded clothing. Kristin’s black push-up bra dangled limply from his right hand. “Sorry. I think I may have killed it.”
Kristin laughed. “That’s all right. I don’t need it anyway. One of the benefits of having plastic breasts.” She patted the space beside her on the bed. “Come sit down.”
“Should I turn on a light?”
“If you want.”
“I don’t, really.”
“Good. I washed my face. Definitely not a pretty sight.”
“You’re crazy. I already told you I think you look better without makeup.” He perched at the edge of the bed.
Kristin felt the bed sag to accommodate him. She saw his eyes reach through the darkness toward hers. “Thank you. You’re very sweet.”
“It’s the truth. And I’m not sweet.”
“I think you are.”
“Maybe in comparison to Jeff. . . .”
They were silent for several seconds.
“You want to talk about it?” Kristin asked.
“About what?”
“About what’s happening with Jeff and Suzy.”
“What’s happening with Jeff and Suzy?” Will repeated, turning the statement into a question.
“I’m not sure.”
“Yes, you are.”
“Yes, I am,” Kristin agreed.
“You think they’re sleeping together,” Will stated.
“Yes.”
“You weren’t sure this afternoon.”
“I’m sure now,” she told him.
“Why? What’s changed?”
“Jeff.”
“I don’t understand. Did he tell you they were sleeping together?”
“No.”
“So, how—”
“I just know.”
“Female intuition?”