This Enemy Town

by Marcia Talley

  “I’m Hannah Ives.”

  At the mention of my name, Jennifer said nothing. She didn’t nod. She didn’t even blink. She simply laid her newspaper aside.

  “Perhaps you remember my husband, then.” I clamped my teeth together, trying to keep a lid on my fury.

  “Oh yes.” A slow smile crept across her face and she relaxed into the cushions. “I remember Paul.”

  I wanted to smack that supercilious smile clean off her face, but I dug my fingernails—such as they were—into my palms. I didn’t trust what might come out of my mouth next, so I stood there, staring at her like a dummy.

  “I see him around,” she continued with a maddening I-know-something-you-don’t-know expression. “He hasn’t changed a bit.”

  That smile again. She looked me up and down, taking in my paint-splattered jeans and T-shirt with a look of such distaste that I imagined her thinking: What does a hunk like Paul see in a hag like you?

  Until Jennifer Goodall turned up to complicate my life, there had been times that I could go for days without thinking about her and the damage she had caused. I realized I’d been carrying this woman around like an albatross, and I needed to rid myself of her once and for all.

  “Tell me, Jennifer,” I said at last. “Was it true?”

  “A midshipman doesn’t lie, cheat, or steal,” she quoted.

  “Neither does my husband, Lieutenant Goodall, so one of you has to be lying through their teeth.”

  Her smile didn’t waver, but at least I made her blink.

  “I’m just too tired to play games with you, Lieutenant. After all these years, the least you can do is tell me the truth.” I drew a deep, steadying breath. “Did you have an affair with my husband?”

  Jennifer Goodall fished a necklace up from her cleavage, hooked it with an index finger and ran her finger around the inside of the chain, back and forth, back and forth, idly toying with it and, it seemed, with me. “You really want to know?”

  “Of course I want to know!” I shouted. “I wanted to know then, and I certainly want to know now! The truth, Miss Goodall! Did you sleep with Paul?” I spat it out, punching every word.

  Jennifer studied me with cool, unblinking eyes, a technique she probably learned in terrorist boot camp.

  “Oh, he was one of a kind, your Paul.” She crossed one leg casually over the other and draped an arm languidly over the back of the sofa. “A real tiger in bed.”

  That wasn’t the answer I expected, and I must have gasped. It took every ounce of control I could muster not to launch myself across the room, wrap both hands around her pudgy neck and squeeze and squeeze until her eyes rolled back and those fat, pink lips turned blue and she stopped breathing altogether.

  “Paul likes it kinky. Did you know?” She tilted her head. “No, I can see that you don’t. That time at Army-Navy? He just about wore me out, and that takes some doing.” She smiled, as if remembering.

  I swallowed hard, biting back the bile that was rising in my throat. Paul had attended that Army-Navy game alone when I’d been too sick to go along. Jennifer had testified that it happened in a Meadowlands hotel. That they’d met in the bar for a drink. That one thing had led to another.

  Could it possibly be true? Had Paul been lying all along, to protect our marriage and his career?

  I didn’t want to hear it. Like Emily as a child, I wanted to press my palms hard against my ears and chant at the top of my lungs: I’m not listening to you!

  Jennifer was studying me with morbid fascination, taking cruel pleasure at seeing my marriage and the trust I put in my husband erode, buried in an instant, like a home in the path of a California mudslide. One hot tear ran down my cheek, and I hated myself for it. This wasn’t the time to show any weakness.

  I could imagine why Jennifer would hate my husband enough to want to hurt him—she had been failing his course, and Paul refused to give in to her blackmail in exchange for a passing grade. But what did this young naval officer have against me?

  “He said he was lonely,” she elaborated. “He invited me up to his suite.”

  Suite! The word alone was a knife in my heart. Last time we’d stayed in a hotel it was the $69 special.

  “Such an appetite!” she continued, twisting the knife for all she was worth. “He came for me on all fours, and he threw back his head and roared! Does he roar for you, Mrs. Ives?”

  “What did you say?” I sputtered.

  She opened her mouth to speak again, but I flapped my hand, waving her lies away. The last thing I needed was corroborative detail, particularly details on a jungle theme. Because now I knew, like a refreshing wave of water washing over me:

  Jennifer Goodall was lying!

  When he was seventeen, Paul had injured his back in a tractor accident on the family farm. As a result, several disks in his spine had been fused. He could no more crawl on his hands and knees, throw his head back and roar than he could fly from BWI to Heathrow without benefit of an airplane. Our lovemaking had always been special, but no acrobatics were involved. It’s a good thing I didn’t carry a gun, because I would have shot Jennifer then and there, square between her lying eyes.

  And yet, I had to be sure. Not 99 and 44/100th percent sure, but 100 percent sure.

  Fight fire with fire, to coin a phrase. If Jennifer could make up a pack of lies, so could I.

  “You make me sick!” I screamed, so loudly that it made my throat ache. “You both make me sick!” I fell against the wall, sobbing. “We got matching tattoos, special, just for us. That’s why Paul got it on his … his …” I choked, as if unable to continue.

  “Paul is such a generous man,” she said. “Would you like to see my tattoo?” She tugged at the corner of her shirt, which was tucked carefully into the waistband of her khakis, but I knew she was bluffing.

  Why is there never a tape recorder around when you need it? I wanted our encounter on tape so I could play it back for Paul, so he could hear Jennifer Goodall damn herself in her own words. I couldn’t imagine what Paul had done to her that would engender such hate, a hate that burned just as hotly now as it had half a decade earlier. I could only assume she was mentally ill.

  I confronted her, my eyes like slits. “Paul doesn’t have any tattoos, you lying bitch! I don’t know why you’re doing this, but I swear to God, I’ll get even with you, even if it takes the rest of my life. I’m contacting my lawyer, you’re going to retract everything, and if you ever make up baseless lies about my husband again, I’ll … I’ll …”

  “Everything all right, Mrs. Ives?”

  I spun around, both flustered and annoyed by the interruption. It was Midshipman Small, sweet, serious Gadget, standing on the stairway behind me.

  The silence was heavy with unspoken words.

  The auditorium above me was silent, too. No talking, no singing. No happy scrape of bow on string, no friendly trumpet blare. Rehearsal must be over.

  “I heard shouting,” Gadget said, moving closer. “Is there anything I can do?”

  My hand dug into the handrail as I struggled for control. “No, thank you, Gadget. I was just leaving. Lieutenant Goodall and I were having a friendly disagreement, is all.”

  Jennifer stared at me placidly, still wearing that maddening smile.

  “You sure?”

  “I’m sure. Thanks.”

  Midshipman Small made way. I laid a light hand on his arm, then fled up the stairs, past Alice swimming up the wall, past the Dormouse, bursting out onto a stage filled with midshipmen.

  Was everybody there? The whole blessed cast? Had everyone heard my argument with Lieutenant Goodall as it drifted upward from the Jabberwocky room?

  I didn’t give a damn.

  Because Paul had been faithful!

  I felt light-headed, my feet barely touching the ground as I found my coat where I had dumped it on a chair, waved good-night to the startled cast, and stepped out into the snowy night. I felt like shouting from the cupola on top of the chapel dome, loud enough fo
r everyone in Anne Arundel County to hear. No, to the whole United States of America: Paul had been faithful.

  And I ran the last block home, into his surprised but waiting arms.

  The sun was pushing against the shutters, striping the duvet with light, when I came to the next morning. Paul lay beside me, already awake, his head propped up on the palm of his hand, smiling at me, his fingers playing idly with my hair.

  “You roared,” I said.

  “Hmmmm,” he replied, brushing his lips softly against mine.

  “That was spectacular,” I whispered, referring to the sex, not the roar.

  Paul drew back, touched my cheek. “Only for you, sweetheart.” He kissed my shoulder, my neck, my mouth.

  Only later did I think to wonder: Who had Jennifer been waiting for?

  CHAPTER 9

  Two days before opening night, and panic set in. The cast had been banished to a rehearsal room in Alumni Hall so that the tech crew—working dangerously close to the deadline as usual—could finally hang the backdrop and wait for a last minute coat of paint to dry.

  Opening night, minus one. Dorothy and I scrutinized the set and pronounced it as good as it gets. My fingers itched to touch up the red on the antique barber pole, but it was too late even for that; the cast was already straggling in. A few midshipmen at first, followed by a violinist, two flutes, and a drummer, then the Pair-o-Docs strolling side by side, conferring, shooing everyone along like mother hens.

  Not much to do but find a seat and enjoy the show. We’d seen it, of course, but in pieces and bits, fits and starts, but this was dress rehearsal, the first complete run-through. We prayed it would come together—the costumes, the music, the dialogue, the sound effects, and the sets—like a jigsaw puzzle, complete at last.

  Act One was a triumph. Sweeney’s dark “Epiphany” and Mrs. Lovett’s brilliant take on “A Little Priest” would bring the opening night audience to their feet.

  Around six everyone broke for dinner, served buffet style on long tables set up in the lobby. Dorothy and I parked ourselves on a marble step, balanced our plates on our knees and worked our way through a passable beef stew served over egg noodles. Between the noodles and the carrot cake, I brought Dorothy up to date on my daughter and her family, fishing recent photos out of my bag of Chloe, now five, on her first day of kindergarten, and Jake, age two, posing with his stuffed chick, their top-knots standing in identical (and adorable!) spikes.

  “I’m crazy about my daughter,” I told my friend as she handed the photos back to me, “but my grandchildren? I’m certifiably nuts over them.” I shrugged. “How do you explain that?”

  Dorothy thought for a moment. “Maybe because you can play with them for a while, then give them back. Let the parents deal with the dirty diapers, the runny noses, the bad report cards.”

  I had to laugh. “I guess it’s a grandparent’s prerogative to spoil them. It’s part of the job description.” Dorothy hadn’t told me much about her home life, so I was curious. “Is Kevin your only child?”

  She nodded. “I would have liked to have more kids, Hannah, but it wasn’t in the cards.”

  I tried to draw her out about that, but she squirmed a bit uncomfortably and changed the subject. We ended up in safer territory, chatting about the latest installment of Harry Potter until the food went away and Act Two began.

  “Fingers crossed,” said Dorothy as we returned to our seats. I knew she was referring to Sweeney’s chair. Would it work as we had planned?

  The opening number, “God, That’s Good,” went off without a hitch, and I began to relax and enjoy the show. Several scenes later, while Mrs. Lovett distracted Tobias with one of her delectable pies, Perelli, upstairs, confronted Sweeney. Perelli swaggered to the washstand and picked up one of Sweeney’s razors. “But I remember these … and you, Benjamin Barker,” he sneered, blowing Sweeney’s cover. In a carefully rehearsed move, Sweeney knocked the razor from his rival’s hand.

  “Ooooh, well done,” said Dorothy.

  The two men struggled. Advantage to Sweeney as he grabbed Pirelli by the throat and began to squeeze.

  Suddenly, Tobias appeared on the stairs. Afraid of discovery, Sweeney dragged Pirelli—foot-dragging, arm-flopping limp—across the shop, tumbled him into the trunk and slammed the lid.

  I held my breath. The next bit of shtick was my favorite.

  Tobias rushed upstairs, adjusting his wig, looking for his boss. He’s supposed to say, “Ow, he ain’t here!” and sit down on the trunk with Pirelli’s hand still dangling from it, but before Tobias could move, the trunk lid flew open, Perelli crawled out and sprawled on the floor.

  I gasped, and looked at Dorothy. “That’s not part of the script!”

  “Maybe Sweeney got a little carried away with the strangling?”

  On stage, the actor playing Perelli rose unsteadily to his feet and backed away from the trunk, wiping the palms of his hands on the trousers of his costume. We watched in silence as the lid of the trunk bounced back against the wall—once, twice—teetered, then slammed shut.

  Perelli was wearing a body mike, so everyone heard what he said next. “Oh, Jesus. Jesus. Shit!”

  “What’s gotten into him?” I wondered aloud.

  The music, which had been building steadily from allegretto to poco accelerando suddenly quit—fermata—as Professor Tracey cut the orchestra off with an impatient wave of his hand. He slapped both hands flat on top of the piano; the first violinist started, fumbled, and nearly dropped her bow. “What’s going on, folks?” Professor Tracey yelled. “Have we got a train wreck up there?”

  Mrs. Lovett, too, was aghast. She stood in her pie shop, hands on hips, gazing up.

  Tobias and Sweeney exchanged glances and shrugged.

  Medwin Black shot out of his seat, clapping his hands and bellowing, the glasses on his forehead like a second pair of eyes. “You’re half dead, Perelli! You’re supposed to stay in the trunk, not leap out of it like some demented jack-in-the-box!”

  The midshipman playing Perelli didn’t appear to be listening. He bowed, resting his hands on his knees, as exhausted as if he had just run a marathon. His panting came to us in ragged gasps, amplified a thousand times by the speakers.

  Tobias stood to one side, whipped off his wig. He approached Perelli and laid a hand on his back. “You all right, man?”

  Perelli waved at the trunk with a long index finger. “There’s something in there! Jesus Christ, there’s something already in there!”

  Sweeney crossed to the trunk and threw back the lid. He bent, bobbled, then staggered backward. “Tim!” he shouted. “Give me a hand here!”

  Tim/Tobias hurried over, his ridiculous wig forgotten. Together they reached into the trunk and pulled something out—it looked like a bundle of laundry—and laid it on the floor.

  Medwin Black was already huffing his way up the steps to the stage, followed closely by John Tracey. I started to get up, but Dorothy grabbed my arm. “What is it?” she whispered, her breath hot against my cheek.

  I pressed a hand to my chest, as if that would do anything to quiet my racing heart. “I think it’s a who,” I said, noticing that the bundle wore a blue and gold track suit and white Nikes.

  “Cell phone! Who’s got a cell phone?” someone yelled, nearly bursting our eardrums as his request blasted out over the speakers.

  There wasn’t a midshipman at the Academy who didn’t own a cell phone—Sprint cut them a sweetheart deal—but after a mid took a call during rehearsal in the middle of “City on Fire,” they’d been summarily banished from the set. The rule didn’t apply to me, so I rushed to the stage, hauling my phone from its holster as I ran.

  I held out the phone, then felt like an idiot when Professor Tracey just waved a hand and yelled, “Call 911, for heaven’s sake.”

  I did as I was told.

  While we waited for the paramedics, Tobias and Sweeney began CPR, Tobias doing compressions and Sweeney breathing into the victim’s mouth. From the
edge of the stage I could see only the victim’s head, and it made my stomach churn. Blood covered the forehead and cheeks, and the eyes stared up, unblinking, into the spotlights in the fly gallery.

  Sweeney checked for a pulse, shook his head, and the two began again, keeping up the rhythm until the paramedics clattered onto the stage and took over. It took less than five minutes for them to arrive, but I’m sure that to everyone—especially to Sweeney and Tobias—it must have seemed like hours.

  It was, as I had suspected, too late. Their body language said it all. While one paramedic packed up their gear, two others lifted the body and laid it gently on the stretcher they’d brought with them. As the paramedics straightened the limbs, a twist of hair separated from the bloody mess that had once been a forehead and hung darkly down over one ear. Blond, I thought. The victim was a blonde. A blanket appeared from somewhere, and in the instant before the blanket covered the face, something clicked in my brain and I knew. The victim wasn’t a midshipman at all.

  It was Jennifer Goodall.

  CHAPTER 10

  Nothing—not my husband’s embrace, nor a stiff shot of brandy, nor a half-dozen Paxil left over in the medicine cabinet from 1994—was going to take this misery away, not anytime soon.

  When the investigators finally let us go, I trudged home alone through the deepening snow with the bitter wind tearing at my scarf, its icy fingers plucking at every seam in the fabric of my coat.

  I’m glad she’s dead.

  There, I’d said it.

  Just ahead of me, a man walked his beagle. When he stopped suddenly and turned, I feared I’d spoken out loud, but something in Dawson’s Gallery had caught the man’s attention. He paused for a moment, admiring, his nose pressed to the window while his dog stretched its leash to the limit and lifted its leg against a trash can. The pair moved on.

  I’m glad she’s dead. And if wishes had been arrows, Jennifer Goodall would have been dead years ago, an arrow from my bow shot straight through her callous heart.