Promise of Safekeeping : A Novel (9781101553954)

by Dale, Lisa

  “True.”

  “Why?”

  He paused for a long moment, then turned to look at her. His eyes were not accusing, not at all mean. But when he spoke, he hurt her—whether he meant to or not. “I’m not sure I want you to know.”

  She kept her face as still as possible. She’d thought, over the last couple of days, that she and Will had been … establishing something, if only because they were spending time together and working toward one common goal: Arlen’s rehabilitation. Last night on the phone with him she’d told him things about herself that she’d been embarrassed to remember in the morning. But now she realized what a fool she’d been—to think that sharing a goal could make them friends. Will was civil to her, but he didn’t like her.

  “How about you tell me something,” he said. “What exactly do you do these days? Because you’re not a lawyer, right?”

  “Yes and no,” she said, and to her surprise her breath was shaky. She wanted to be as honest with him as possible. Any question he asked, she would answer. He deserved that much. “Obviously I tried Arlen’s case. But after that, I got offered a job as a jury consultant. I help other lawyers pick juries and construct arguments.”

  “What do you mean, you pick juries?”

  “I guess it’s not really picking the ones we like so much as rejecting the ones we don’t. I research potential jurors. Then we reject the ones that we think might be biased against our clients.”

  “You research people? Like a private investigator?”

  “It rarely comes to that. Hiring a PI is the hard way of doing things. I like the easy way.”

  “Which is?”

  “The Internet,” she said. “We gather all the information we can from various social networks—you can tell a lot about people by who they follow on Twitter or what groups and organizations they ‘like’ on Facebook. Then I put the pieces together based on the composite profiles. Nine times out of ten, I can predict how a juror will vote even before the trial begins.”

  “That’s why I used to see you on TV every six months, as opposed to some other jury consultant.”

  “Yes. But I don’t really do TV spots anymore. It seemed—I don’t know—gross after a while. I didn’t get into people-reading for the publicity.”

  He leaned against the dresser, crossing his arms. “So why did you get into it?”

  She was quiet.

  “Tell me the biggest reason.”

  “The biggest reason?” She dragged a fingertip along a dusty mirror beside her, leaving a clear swirl. She understood now why Will had been so hesitant to talk to her about his love of antiques. Telling him about the facts of her job was one thing. But telling him why she did it … that opened a door she wasn’t sure she was ready for him to walk through. And yet, after everything she’d done to Arlen, she had no right to hide. “Part of the reason is probably because of my brother.”

  “Go on.”

  “He’s got BPD. Borderline personality disorder. He spent some time in jail before we knew what was going on with him, which—of course—made the whole thing worse. Then when they let him out, my parents insisted he go into a private care facility for a while. But these days he’s doing okay.”

  “Why was he in jail?”

  She toyed with a clothbound book perched on a pile of boxes; it was soft with dust. “My mom got in a car accident with him the year he turned eighteen. I think I was twenty at the time. Anyway, he was fine except for a couple scrapes and stuff, but my mom was in pretty bad shape. My brother beat up a medic when they tried to put her in the ambulance.”

  “Couldn’t they have used an insanity plea?”

  “He hadn’t been diagnosed at that point. Plus, people often think that insanity means being crazy. But that’s not true. A schizophrenic can be declared totally sane. Insanity just means whether or not you can tell the difference between right and wrong.”

  “In that case, I think we all have moments that we’re insane.”

  She smiled bleakly. “They locked my brother up for five years. Five years of his life, gone. Wrong jury, wrong lawyer, wrong crime. It was the perfect legal storm—and my brother took the brunt of it.”

  “And that’s why it hurt you so much to find out Arlen wasn’t guilty. Because of your brother.”

  She rubbed her forehead. She thought of how strange it was to hear Will explain her to herself. And how strange it made her feel to know he wasn’t wrong. “All right, I confessed. Now it’s your turn. Are you going to tell me why you got into picking?”

  He shrugged and smiled—a smile that didn’t entirely reach his eyes. “I’d tell you ‘I do it for the money,’ but you know that’s not true.”

  She smiled. “But the money’s not bad.”

  “It’s helpful,” he said. “When I was in high school, I started picking and trading real hard. I made some lucky finds. I saved up enough to buy my building at a foreclosure sale. And that’s all she wrote.”

  “That’s all?”

  He shrugged. “I like old things.”

  “I can understand that,” she said. He seemed uncomfortable, so she let it go. She felt pleasantly exhausted—refreshed, even—as if she’d just run a few miles. Talking to Will had felt good.

  She walked back to the dresser and touched the smooth wood. “I hope you weren’t planning on buying this.”

  “And why not?”

  “Because I’m going to,” she said.

  “But it’s not real.”

  “I know. But I like it. And besides … ”

  “Besides what?”

  “Abbott needs the money.”

  Will peered at her as if he couldn’t quite make out what was right in front of his face. “You just keep surprising me.”

  She smiled. “What’s eight hundred bucks between friends?”

  Arlen had seen the lawyer from his trial—his first trial—standing outside his building looking like a lost puppy, and since that moment, he’d been wrestling with a kind of surliness that had clenched him like an alligator doing a death roll with his mood between its teeth. Customers came into the store, one by one, and Arlen wasn’t the friendliest to them—the fact of letting them through the door struck him as friendly enough. He thought he must have had on his death-row face, because a few people who wandered in made halfhearted attempts to bargain, then left with empty hands.

  Now Arlen was alone in the shop—thank God. Men in suits were talking about sports on the television that Will had jury-rigged to sit on a platform near the ceiling, but Arlen hardly listened. The antiques store bored him; he preferred to be actively working, doing something or fixing something—as opposed to babysitting a pile of junk. He didn’t like being surrounded by so much stuff—so much of the past—as if the tide of clutter was growing and growing and would one of these days drown him.

  He had to get out of here—he knew that. He needed to pick himself up. To get a job that wasn’t a handout. To start paying some rent. But now his name had been in the paper for last night’s unfortunate incident, and he’d be hard-pressed to find work outside of Will’s antiques store.

  He was half watching a commercial for toilet bowl cleaner when the door opened and who should walk in but a preacher. He didn’t have the white collar or the getup of a minister or priest, but Arlen could tell right away that the guy was a man of God because of the way his eyes didn’t so much as touch any of the junk in the store, but instead landed right on Arlen and then lit up like Christmas morning. Arlen braced himself.

  “What’d you want?” he asked.

  “You must be Arlen. I’m Pastor George Scott.”

  “Do I know you?”

  “No. Well, not yet. Do you have a moment?”

  Arlen sighed. “You don’t need to convert me or save my soul. I already believe in Jesus.”

  “Glad to hear it.” George’s laugh was a little self-conscious. “But I’m not here to save your soul. Actually, I wanted to offer you some assistance. Of the financial variety.”
/>   Arlen picked up the remote control and turned off the television. “I’m listening.”

  The preacher walked up to the counter. He had sandy-colored hair that was thinning, and friendly, hazel eyes. His skin was pale white and had only just started to show its first wrinkles.

  “We’ve got a fund,” George said. “Our parishioners are good people—generous people. And we’ve got a fund that helps convicts get back on their feet after doing their time. It’s wrong the way the system just drops them after all’s said and done.”

  “The whole system’s wrong. What do I gotta do to get this money?”

  “Nothing.”

  “I don’t have to come back to church?”

  George laughed nervously. “I mean, technically you wouldn’t have to. But you’re certainly welcome.”

  “And how much you gonna pay me to go to your church?”

  “It’s not like that,” he said. “But … a hundred bucks a week. For a limited time. Our funds aren’t exactly infinite. But we hope it helps.”

  Arlen scratched an itch on his chest. It was a lot of money that the preacher was offering. He knew he’d be crazy to turn it down. But the idea of owing somebody something … of being in somebody’s debt … It felt like prison all over again. He didn’t let himself think it through any more before he heard himself reply.

  “Well, I thank you for the offer. But I’m afraid it’s not gonna help.”

  George’s face went slack with surprise. “Well … why? What do you need?”

  Arlen couldn’t help but think of his mother, who had encouraged him to go to church with her every Sunday from the time he was a baby to the day they put him away. Some days he’d hated it—the smell of pew wax and old ladies. Everybody always making such a fuss: And how’s little Arlen doing in school? Are you being a good boy?

  But other days, he’d loved it. The choir singing at the top of their lungs and clapping their hands, the wood of the pew vibrating with the sound of the organ—it made him feel like God was never so close to the people who loved Him as when they were singing. In the back of his mind, Arlen could hear his mother’s voice, speaking to him from her years in the grave. And she wasn’t happy. This man will help you, she said. Don’t be a fool.

  “What do I need?” Arlen took in a deep breath. “What I need’s a job.”

  George looked a little surprised, as if Arlen had asked him to procure a hooker instead of a line of work. “I’ll certainly see what I can do. What are you good at?”

  “Not a damn thing,” Arlen said.

  Will parked in front of his house and pulled open the back of his van, where Lauren’s new dresser was tipped on its side and fastened with nylon straps. A sturdy quilt was folded beneath to keep the wood from being scratched. Lifting the boxy piece of furniture into the van had been no problem, in part because Lauren was stronger than she’d looked like she would be. Will was certain that hauling it out wasn’t going to be a problem either. They worked well together, with none of the bickering, doubt, or uneven laboring that sometimes annoyed Will when he brought in a new picker. When Lauren focused on the job at hand, she was patient, thoughtful, and efficient—as long as she wasn’t on her phone.

  “Thanks for letting me store this at your place,” she said. “I’ll pay you to have it shipped up to Albany as soon as I get back.”

  “It’s fine.”

  Will climbed into the back of the van and began to loosen the chest of drawers. He tried to give his full focus to the job, but Lauren was standing just a few feet away, framed by the door of the van, her hand on her hip, her shoulders slouched with fatigue, her clothes spotted with dirt and sweat, and the narrow road behind her trailing like a ribbon. He absorbed all he could of her out of the corner of his eye, taking a snapshot in his mind. He liked her this way, slightly more casual and relaxed. So distant from the corporate-America superlawyer who had walked into his shop a few days ago. He wasn’t so arrogant as to think that being with him had changed her. But she made more sense to him now.

  “Nice house,” she said. “I like the color. What do you call that? Mushroom?”

  “Tan.”

  He worked the straps on the chest.

  “Owned it long?”

  “Six years,” he said.

  His house was a work in progress. It fronted a road so narrow and obscure that cars had to pass one at a time. Holsteins grazed behind a barbed-wire fence across the street. He’d bought the old Victorian fixer-upper for next to nothing about two years after he’d opened the antiques shop and started turning a profit.

  The house had come a long way since he’d first stepped foot inside. The first floor now had refinished hardwood flooring, custom shelving and lighting, a kitchen full of stainless steel and granite, and a few of Will’s favorite and most prized antiques on display in curio cabinets or on the walls. The first-floor bedroom, bathroom, and laundry were all decked out with the best appliances and most interesting collectibles Will could find. But the upper floors, they weren’t ready for public scrutiny. And they sure as hell weren’t ready for Lauren.

  “It’s a big house,” she said. “How many bedrooms?”

  “Four on the second floor. One on the first.”

  “That’s a lot of bedrooms.”

  “I got a good deal. And it’s not too big.”

  He pushed the dresser toward the back bumper. All day, he’d been aware of a tension between them—a slight frustration, a block that kept him from fully relaxing around her. He didn’t like that her phone rang once an hour, and she always dropped whatever she was doing—or whatever she was holding in her hand—to move out of earshot and take the call. Occasionally, he got the feeling that even when she was standing next to him, she was apart from him, not fully present in the place where she was.

  She had him edgy and twisted up—more now than when she’d simply been the face who looked out at him, unseeing, from the television screen. More than once he’d caught himself looking at her breasts, which were small and high, and unmanageably intriguing. In another life, she might have been a gymnast, and at one point Will had actually found himself wondering how flexible she was—a thought that led to other speculations and an immediate need to remove himself temporarily from her company.

  He shimmied the chest into a better position to lower it.

  He told himself: a quick lay was not on the table. Or the bed. Or the kitchen floor. He liked Lauren: he admired her strength, her determination, and even—he had to admit it—her sense of right and wrong. But when he tried to see himself through her eyes, even he had to look down.

  “Ready?” he asked.

  She flexed her arms hero-style. “Bring it on.”

  He pushed the dresser to the edge of the van, then balanced it and tipped it carefully down. She grabbed the bottom lip with both hands, and a moment later, he heard her hissing and saying, “Ow!” under her breath.

  “What happened? Catch a finger?”

  “No.” She let the corner of the dresser down onto the ground. He saw her glance at her hand, then drop it fast. “Nothing. Just a pinch.”

  He hopped out of the van. “Let’s see.” She didn’t move. “Come on.”

  She rolled her eyes and extended her hand, knuckles down and palm open to the sky. He took it and held it closer to his face. A dozen or more little brown splinters peppered her skin like freckles.

  “When did this happen?”

  “When I grabbed that falling board back at Abbott’s.”

  “Doesn’t look good,” he said.

  “No?”

  “I think we’ll need to amputate. It’s the only way.”

  She laughed.

  “No, really,” he said. “I’ve got an old Civil War medic’s kit out back. Long as you don’t mind the rust.”

  “No gangrene for me today, thanks.”

  Will watched her draw her hand to her belly; she stiffened when her palm brushed her shirt. He ran a hand through his hair, looked at the door to his house. He
didn’t want to invite her inside. He was afraid to have her in his home, among his things. He’d taken great, exhaustive pains to make his house inviting for guests—but still. He didn’t want Lauren, who saw everything, poking around.

  But he also didn’t want her to suffer longer than she needed to or get an infection. He steeled himself.

  “Come on,” he said. “I got tweezers inside.”

  “I can do it myself. When I get home.”

  “Aren’t you right-handed?”

  “Damn. I guess so.” She looked at her open right hand. “I can get Maisie to help later tonight. I’m sure I can keep from passing out with pain until then.”

  Will looked her over: Her tight clothes that she probably wore to the gym but which had served her well at the old farm today. Her skin that was tanner now than when they’d met. Her legs that were deceptively long despite her short stature. He shook his head at himself. He was as red-blooded as any man; privacy or not, he actually wanted to invite Lauren inside.

  “Let’s just do it now,” he said.

  Lauren waited in the kitchen while Will bustled about his house to collect the things he needed to operate. And though she knew she shouldn’t, she couldn’t help but look at the African masks, jade tea set, and vintage metal Coke signs on the walls. Will’s taste was impeccable: his counters and appliances were practical with a sleek modern edge, but his love of whim and charm rescued the room from overly modern severity. Will’s house was so neat and tidy and organized, so much the opposite of what she’d seen at the antiques store, that it was almost more like a showroom than a home.

  She wandered through the kitchen door and into the living room. She saw a wooden square the size of two doors nailed directly to the wall with fat iron spikes. It drew her attention—the whole room had been arranged to direct the eye toward it. She stepped closer and understood what she was looking at: dozens of keys, keys of all shapes and sizes, hanging from brass brads in the wooden board.

  “You like it?” Will asked.

  She didn’t turn, but she could feel him approaching her. He stopped just behind her shoulder, looking with her at the collection of keys.

  “They’re beautiful,” she said. She lifted her hand, then hesitated. “May I … ?”