by Jane Heller
I nodded, heavy with sadness that we were at such an impasse. And then I opened the door to his apartment and walked out.
I had always wondered how it was possible for two people to love each other and still not be able to make things work. Now I knew.
Once resettled in my own apartment, I assumed my life would revert back to the old days when Janice and I would spend the occasional Saturday night together. But just because I was alone now didn’t mean she was.
Following the attack, Stan had been incredibly solicitous of her, insisting that she stay with him until she felt safe enough to go home. As a result, she almost never went home. Stan was her last shot, her big chance, her best hope, she said, and she wasn’t about to blow it by admitting that she had no qualms whatsoever about going back to her apartment.
Actually, I could see why she wanted to grab him. He was a nice dentist and he treated her like a queen, especially compared to the barbarians she’d been with. What’s more, they really did share interests, have a lot in common, embody similar personality traits. They finished each other’s sentences and laughed at the same jokes and talking to one was like talking to the other. I was very happy for my friend. She had waited a long time for Stan, just as I had waited a long time for Bill, the difference being that she was at the beginning cycle with Stan, the wash cycle, whereas I was at the ending cycle with Bill, the rinse cycle. Yes, that’s it, I thought. Being in a relationship is like doing laundry; when it’s over you hope that everything comes out clean.
Of course, I wouldn’t be honest if I didn’t admit to feeling just a twinge of disappointment that Janice had chosen my time of need to get cozy with Stan. I missed Bill terribly and wished she were around to let me cry on her shoulder. In the past, she’d always been able to lift my spirits, help me put things in perspective. But now the only time I had her attention was at school and even then she was distracted, the way people are when they’re in the wash cycle.
So I pressed on by myself, sucked up my loss and loneliness. Every night, I would think about calling Bill and then decide there was no point. And every time the phone rang, I would think it was Bill on the line and then realize there was no point in that either.
One night the phone rang and, as usual, I wondered if it might be Bill. But when I picked it up, there was a woman on the other end.
“Is this Nancy Stern?” she asked.
“Yes,” I said.
“Hi. My name is Joan Geisinger.”
Joan Geisinger? The Joan Geisinger? The matchmaker who’d tried to set Bill up with the other Nancy Stern? What on earth did she want with me?
“Hello, Joan,” I said, not knowing what else to.
“I’m an old friend of Bill Harris’s, as he must have told you,” she said.
“Yes, he told me,” I said, feeling a catch in my throat. Even the mention of Bill’s name hurt.
“Bill gave me your phone number. I hope you don’t mind.”
“Not at all.” He’d given her my number, but he couldn’t pick up the phone and call me himself? Things were worse than I thought. “I’m very sorry about the Nancy Stern that lived upstairs, Joan. She was an old friend of yours too.”
“Oh, yes. Poor Nancy. Naturally, I was shocked when I heard she’d been killed. She and I hadn’t been in touch in ages—actually I did write her a letter not that long ago, which she didn’t answer—but when we were first coming up in the magazine business we spent a fair amount of time together. She was such a dynamo, so full of life. It’s hard to believe she’s gone. She seemed to lead such a charmed existence. Charmed but troubled.”
“Troubled? How?”
“I never could quite put my finger on it, but there was an unhappiness there, even with all the beauty and brains. I’m a romantic, I guess, and so I thought that if she and Bill were to hit it off, her unhappiness or emptiness or whatever it was would evaporate. That’s why I attempted to fix them up.”
“And then he ended up with me instead,” I said. “Sorry to have spoiled your plan.”
“Nonsense. I’m delighted you and Bill found each other. But now he tells me you two have had a bust-up. He’s awfully down about it.”
“I’m not ecstatic about it myself.”
“Which brings me to the reason I’m calling you, Nancy. You must be wondering.”
“I am curious.”
“Well, he’s been such a friend to me that I just wanted to help in some way, to take a stab at getting you to patch things up between you. I’m sticking my nose in where it doesn’t belong, but I thought that if I explained about Bill, about how he and I met and became friends, it might shed some light on him, on why he does what he does for a living, for example.”
I didn’t see how her story could affect the situation, but I wasn’t about to hang up on her. “Please, Joan. I’d be grateful for your input.”
“Okay. Let me begin by asking if Bill has ever told you how he and I know each other.”
“No. Actually, he hasn’t.”
“I’m not surprised. It probably depresses him to talk about it. Anyhow, I met him through my husband. Bill and Jack worked together, Nancy, when Bill was on the force down here in Washington.”
“Your husband is a policeman?”
“Used to be.”
“Oh, is he one of those private investigators now, like Bill?”
“No. He’s dead. He was killed several years ago. In the line of duty.”
Good one, Nancy. Way to go. “I’m sorry, Joan. I had no idea, as I said.”
“Of course you didn’t. Bill and my husband were detectives together, as close as brothers, closer than Bill is to his own brothers. They worked a lot of gem thefts, and both of them became experts on the subject, specialists. They took pride in what they did, but they also enjoyed what they did because they had each other. Then all of our lives changed. Jack was killed while he and Bill were investigating a group that was dealing in stolen gems.”
“My God. I’m so sorry,” I said again. I was sorry for Joan, but sorry for Bill too. “What went wrong?”
“They were brought into the case by the private security investigator who was working undercover for a jeweler—the jeweler from whom the pieces were originally stolen. What went wrong was that the P.I. brought them in too early, Nancy. He didn’t have the case nailed down first. He didn’t know what he was up against. He just sent the police in to do his job, essentially, and they were unprepared, didn’t have enough men with them, went in like lambs to the slaughter. Bill made it out alive, obviously. Jack didn’t. Bill was so devastated by Jack’s death that he quit the force.”
“He left the police force because of your husband’s death?”
“Yes. He vowed that he would never let what happened to Jack happen to another cop. So he became a P.I. He hired himself out to jewelry companies. He stayed within his area of expertise. He caught his share of bad guys. And he always waited until he had enough evidence—enough information—before bringing in the police. Just the way he’s doing now with this case that you and he are at odds about, the case that killed Nancy, the other Nancy.”
“So he told you about the Levin case.”
“He did. And there’s no question that it’s a complicated one, between his responsibility to Denham and Villier and your responsibility to your friends and family as well as to that child in your class.”
“It’s been difficult,” I acknowledged.
“Yes, but what I’m telling you, Nancy, why I’m calling you, is that it’s not recklessness or insensitivity that you see in Bill’s behavior. It’s a compulsiveness, a zealousness to ensure that all the i’s are dotted and the t’s are crossed so that he doesn’t make the kind of mistake that killed Jack.”
“That’s very admirable but—”
“He knows what he’s doing,” Joan went on. “It must be hard for you to understand, because investigative work isn’t your field, but he’s a first-rate investigator with first-rate instincts. At the beginning of my marr
iage, I didn’t agree with the rationale behind some of the decisions Jack would make. I was a writer for women’s magazines. I knew about health and beauty, not cops and robbers. It took a while for me to ‘get it.’”
“Joan, I appreciate that Bill is protective of cops, but what about innocent citizens like my parents and my friend, never mind me?”
“Oh, he’s protective of you. Of all of you. Don’t ever doubt that. He’s trying to wind up the case as quickly as possible, for everybody’s sake.”
“Maybe so, but I’ve reached the point where I can’t stand by and wait for someone I love to get killed.”
“What if that someone’s Bill?”
“That’s not fair, Joan. You’re asking me to choose between him and my family, him and my friends. I can’t do that.”
“I’m not asking you to make those kind of choices, Nancy. I’m simply asking you to keep in mind that men like Bill Harris don’t come along every day.”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
The next morning at school, I told Janice about Joan Geisinger’s phone call.
“She did give me new insight into Bill’s behavior,” I conceded, “but she didn’t convince me that I should rush right back to him.”
“You shouldn’t,” Janice agreed. “It’s too dangerous.”
Janice had rebounded well from the attack and, while she didn’t harbor any ill will toward Bill because of his handling of the case, she was glad that I had cut my ties to him for the moment. The situation had become too risky, even for her taste.
“That’s my feeling,” I said. “No matter how well intentioned he is, I have to stay away from him until he brings the police into the case.”
“In the meantime, you can’t just wait around. You’d be wasting your good years.”
“My good years?”
“Your marketable years. You’re in your thirties, Nance. By the time Bill solves the case, you could be in your forties.”
“So?”
“So, once women are in their forties, the only men they attract are in their fifties and up. And men in their fifties and up aren’t looking for a soul mate; they’re looking for someone to take them to the doctor. Their bodies don’t hold up the way ours do, medically speaking.”
“A fascinating viewpoint, Janice.” She really had rebounded. She was her old pontificating self.
“And then there’s the problem with having children. Men in their fifties and up either don’t want to have children anymore, because they’ve already had them with the first wife, or they can’t have them anymore, because their sperm counts have dwindled to nothing. Of course, some men in their fifties and up do want to have children, but they don’t live long enough to see the kid graduate from high school and, therefore, aren’t any help when it comes to the college tuition.”
“Where are you going with all this, Janice?”
“Where I’m going is that you should let me fix you up now, before you’re stuck with men in their fifties and up.”
“Fix me up? Please.”
“Why not? Stan has nice friends.”
“I’m in love with Bill, that’s why.”
“But you’re not with Bill, remember?”
“I’m not ready to date other men.”
“Just one date.”
“No.”
“Come on. You can’t sit home by yourself every night.”
“I’ve done it before. I can do it again.”
“Stan has one friend in particular I think you’d like. His name is Dan, which is easy to remember because it rhymes with Stan. Dan. Stan. Isn’t that cute?”
“I’m not interested, Janice. Really.”
“Dan’s an opthamologist,” she said, continuing either to ignore or misinterpret my responses. “He’s very bright, very knowledgeable.”
“Great,” I said. “When I feel a case of macular degeneration coming on, I’ll call him.”
“I’ll have him call you,” said Janice. “You can get acquainted over the phone and then the four of us will go out this weekend, okay?”
I looked at her and sighed. “Should I even bother to answer you?”
“I wouldn’t.”
Before long, the children began arriving. After our morning routine, we got right to work on our Middle Ages end-of-school project by reading a story about the period and discussing what it was like to live during that time. Next, we decorated the classroom’s play area. We had about a month to make it look like the great hall of a medieval castle, and step one was having each child draw his own coat of arms and hang it on the wall. Later that morning, we held our first rehearsal for the song the children would sing at the celebration—the song that would be followed by the handing out of their diplomas, always an emotion-packed moment for the parents.
“Okay, everybody,” I said, as Janice and I joined the children on the rug, rounding out the circle. “Miss Mason and I are going to sing you the special Middle Ages song and then explain what all the words mean, so it will be easier for you to learn it over the weeks ahead. On the day of the performance, you’ll all be stars.”
“What about our costumes?” asked Lindsay Greenblatt.
“We’ll talk about that tomorrow,” I said.
“Will my mommy come and see me?” asked Todd Delafield.
“Of course she will,” I said. “All of your parents will come for the last-day-of-school celebration. That’s why you have to learn the words to the song, so they’ll say, ‘Oh, my. Look how smart my child is. He or she is definitely ready for kindergarten.’”
“I don’t want to go to kindergarten,” wailed Fischer Levin. “I want to stay with you, Miss Stern.”
“I’m going to miss you too, honey,” I said. “Miss Mason and I are going to miss every single one of you, but kindergarten will be a wonderful adventure and you’ll make lots of new friends there and learn lots of new things.” Anxiety about moving up to kindergarten always reared its head a month or so before graduation, when the children realized that everything that was familiar to them about their school experience was about to disappear. It was scary for them to contemplate leaving Small Blessings for parts unknown, but it was going to be even scarier for poor Fischer, whose future would be truly uncertain once his father was arrested. “Now, are we all set for our special Middle Ages song?” I said, getting back to the lesson plan.
“Yeah, but Todd farted,” said Fischer. “Tell him not to.”
Janice asked Todd if he had to use the bathroom. He said he didn’t because it was Fischer who had farted and tried to cover it up by blaming him.
After mediating this latest spat, Janice and I did a dry-run of the song, which we wrote to the tune of “I’ve Been Working on the Railroad.” It went like this:
Way back in the Middle Ages,
Being a kid was great.
Serfs and peasants had to work hard
And they’d better not be late.
Kings and queens lived in castles.
They had knights to hunt and fight.
Girls were not allowed to do that
And it really wasn’t right.
But!
(chorus)
That was long ago.
We’ll tell you what we know.
Armors, shield, and coats of arms.
That was long ago.
We’ll tell you what we know.
Feasts and colors bright.
No bathrooms. No stores.
No heat. No electric eyes…
No TVs. No VCRs.
And there weren’t any cars.
But!
(chorus)
That was long ago.
We’ll tell you what we know.
Armors, shields, and coats of arms.
That was long ago.
We’ll tell you what we know.
Feasts and colors bright.
Hooray!
The children clapped when Janice and I finished singing. As I scanned their faces, faces I had come to know almost as well as my ow
n, I felt a pang of sadness just as I always did as I neared the end of the school year. I had been with these kids since September, had been their teacher, their protector, their surrogate mother for several hours each day. Now they would go off to kindergarten and I would welcome a new crop of students and life would go on. It was the natural order of things, but even the natural order of things can make you a little melancholy, especially if you’ve just broken up with the man you love and your best friend wants to fix you up with an opthamologist.
Dan did call me. He was very nice on the phone, very chatty. Yes, chatty is the perfect adjective to describe how he communicated. He spoke quickly, manically, barely took a second to catch his breath between sentences. He was zipping along about cataracts and how having them renders one’s vision cloudy, as if a film has been placed directly over the eye, when my mind wandered and I remembered my first phone conversation with Bill. Unlike Dan, who had taken my question: “Tell me about your work” literally and gone into great detail about glaucoma and detached retinas and ocular nerve damage, Bill had been self-deprecating about being a jeweler, shy about it. He had wondered why someone who was on a first-name basis with Kevin Costner would go out with someone like him. Of course, he wasn’t a jeweler at all, as it turned out, and I wasn’t on a first-name basis with Kevin Costner, but our conversation had struck me as having a certain appealingly teenage quality to it.
Don’t, I told myself. Don’t start thinking longingly about Bill. He’s in a dangerous profession, a crazy profession. That’s why you’re not with him. Dan, on the other hand, dilates people’s pupils for a living. The only crooks he deals with are the folks from the HMOs. Go out with him.
He suggested that we join Janice and Stan for dinner on Saturday night. I said I’d be delighted, but what I really was was beaten down by Janice. I couldn’t face another lecture about men in their fifties and up. Dan, by the way, was thirty-nine. He had never been married, he told me, and was eager to settle down, start a family. “I want the wife, the kids, the house, the dog, the whole enchilada,” he said in his rapid-fire way of talking.