Catching Genius

by Kristy Kiernan

  He took a deep breath. “Okay. I had a lunch date—” He paused. I knew this was big news and that I should be happy, but I couldn’t think about it right then. I took another swallow of wine and waited.

  “Anyway, we went to Bruccia’s, you know, with the fountain?”

  I nodded. I knew the place. It was sensual, with jeweled silk pillows in the private booths and a massive stone water fountain in the middle of the room providing cover, privacy. “When?” I asked.

  “Friday,” he said, watching me carefully. “I was sitting by the far wall, in a booth, and I saw them walking up the sidewalk and through the door.”

  “What did she look like?” I asked again.

  “Long black hair, thin, tall . . . and young. Sort of, oh, I don’t know, hippie looking.”

  Deanna. The barista. It shouldn’t have hurt as much as it did. Thin hurt, though I was still damn trim myself; young hurt worse, but the real twist of the knife was that it was Deanna, that it was—what? A relapse? To my knowledge, Luke had never seen any of the other women again after breaking it off. Deanna was now a compound fracture.

  I considered the Cadillac. Was it the end-of-the-affair apology I’d thought it was and he simply couldn’t stay away? Or had it merely been an expensive decoy, taking our unspoken agreement to a new level to see how I might cope? A thought suddenly occurred to me and I slowly lowered the wineglass to the counter. Was he in love with her?

  “Connie?” Alexander said.

  “Did he see you?”

  He shook his head and poured more wine. The neck of the bottle chattered lightly on the rim, making me wince. “No. No way.”

  “How did you know they were together? I mean, that they weren’t just friends?”

  He looked down into his glass, swirling the wine, pretending to inhale its fumes while he decided what to tell me. “It was obvious, Con. He had his hand on her waist when they came in, he put his arm around her shoulders when they talked to the host, they sat on the same side of the booth.” He stopped and looked up at me. “There was more.”

  I nodded. I believed him. How could I not? My mother’s old advice, given years ago, to maintain a stiff upper lip as long as Luke was discreet, ran through my mind. I wondered who else had seen him. I was as scared as I was angry, and I wasn’t sure which emotion I wanted to win.

  “Connie, tell me I’ve done the right thing,” Alexander said. His eyes were sad, and in a moment his lip was going to start trembling out of control. I leaned forward and put my hands on his shoulders.

  “Of course you did. Yes, you did. Thank you,” I said, feeling not the least bit ridiculous for thanking him. He moved quickly to enfold me in his arms and I let him comfort me, but by the time I left, red-eyed and slack-faced, I still didn’t have any idea of what I was going to do. I drove around for almost an hour before I headed to Mother’s.

  But it was Bob McNarey who opened the door when I knocked. “Connie,” he said, “how nice to see you. I was just asking June about you and the boys.”

  He was the last person I felt like seeing. I leaned in to accept his pursed lips on my cheek and then walked past him. Mother took one look at me and tilted her head toward her office. “Bob, we’ll be a moment. Perhaps you could find a glass for Connie?”

  Bob hustled toward the kitchen and my mother followed me into the office, shutting the door behind her.

  “What is it?”

  “Luke,” I said quietly.

  “A woman?”

  I nodded, and then I was crying again. She stayed where she was, backed up against the office door. “There are tissues in the top drawer,” she said, and I fumbled for a minute until I found them. “Is it serious?” she asked.

  I shrugged. “Looks like it,” I said, and blew my nose. Mother watched me clean myself up and then crossed the room to sit in the chair beside the desk. She laid one hand on the desk and tapped a manicured nail on the blotter in front of me.

  “And what are you doing about it?” she asked.

  I looked up at her and told the truth: “I don’t have any idea. I just can’t do this anymore, Mother. I can’t. It’s just one after another. It’s never going to end. I think I want—”

  “What?”

  “I want out.” It was almost a whisper.

  She was quiet for several moments. “I suggest you make sure that’s what you want before you talk to Luke,” she finally said.

  “Could you be on my side for once?” I snapped at her. “Just once?”

  Her face softened. “I am always on your side, Constance. Always. Sometimes women don’t know what divorce will do to them. You’re not a young woman anymore.”

  I snorted. “When I was a young woman you talked me out of it too. When exactly is the right time?”

  She was silent again, and then said, “When you’ve lost yourself.”

  “Well.” I thought about that for a moment, but just a moment. “Then it’s time.”

  My mother nodded once, decisively. “Do you know how to go about this?”

  I stared at her. How to go about it? How else? “I guess I’ll have to talk to Luke,” I said.

  The look of horror on her face might have been comical if it weren’t for the subject matter. “Do no such thing,” she said. “You need to know where you stand first.”

  “What are you talking about? I think I know by now where I stand.”

  She shook her head. “Not with him, Connie. Financially, where do you stand?”

  I sat back in the desk chair and stared at her, stunned. The fact was, I had no idea. I had become everything my friends and I swore we never would. I had allowed Luke to control everything financially. It was his business, it was what he did, and did well. I knew how much was in the household account, and that was about it. I paid the bills out of it every month, I bought clothes for the family, food. But there was never more than a few thousand in the account at one time.

  I allowed Luke to handle all the investments. In fact, I had even, years ago, waved my hand at him when he’d been explaining our status. I had done it to myself. I had created and then embraced the role I now found myself in. I felt sick.

  “What do I do?” I whispered.

  She pushed a legal pad and pen in front of me. “Are you sure you want to do this?”

  I picked up the pen. I wasn’t sure what she wanted. An affidavit declaring my intentions? “Yes,” I said, “yes, I’m sure. I can’t do it anymore.”

  “List everything. Luke and the kids’ full names and Social Security numbers. All account numbers you can remember. Every creditor. Everything you can get your hands on. Do not, under any circumstance, tell Luke what you’re doing. Get started. I need to talk to Bob.”

  I stared up at her. “How—how do you know to do all this?” I asked.

  She stopped as she was reaching out for the doorknob and stood with her back to me for a moment, then slowly lowered her arm and turned around. “Just because I never did it doesn’t mean I wasn’t ever prepared to do it, Connie. Even if you don’t wind up going through with it, at least you’ll be prepared.” She nodded at the pad in front of me and then left the room, closing the door on my shocked face.

  When Mother returned to the room she had Bob in tow. He sat down in the chair she’d vacated while she stood by his shoulder.

  “I’m sorry to hear about your troubles, Connie,” Bob said. He held his hand out for the pathetically short list I’d made, and I ripped it off the pad and handed it to him. He looked it over and gave me a pained smile. “Is this it?”

  I nodded. “I don’t know account numbers off the top of my head. It’s not like I’ve been planning this.”

  “Planning is exactly what you need to do,” he said, leaning forward in the chair. “Have you considered counseling?”

  I looked at my mother and could tell that she was remembering the visit I’d made to her seven years earlier. I’d left Luke, showing up at her house with a packed car, a baby on one hip, a sullen eight-year-old trailing be
hind me, and a startling case of chlamydia.

  Luke had already called her and she was ready for me. She allowed me to stay for two weeks to clear my head. Then she gave me her theory: The wealthier the man, the more affairs he had, and if I were to be married to such a man then I could appreciate all the fine things that came with it, or I could raise two children alone.

  Her advice had seemed hopelessly outdated, and though I listened patiently to her over the dinner table, in her guest room at night, with my fist stuffed against my mouth and tears running from my eyes, I rejected every bit of it. But the chlamydia cleared up quickly with medication, and Luke and I saw a marriage counselor.

  Luke made promises, the counselor proclaimed us healed, and I moved back into our home. In the end, we could have saved the money. My mother knew more about marriage and men than I’d given her credit for.

  “We’ve tried counseling before,” I answered.

  “Same reason?”

  I nodded.

  “Try to find all the paperwork related to those sessions—receipts, canceled checks. Is he a serial cheater?”

  I gnawed on my lip and nodded again.

  “Any proof?”

  “Not unless chlamydia—”

  Bob grinned. “He gave you an STD? That’s great.”

  I flinched. “It’s gone now,” I stammered, suddenly horrified at what this man knew about me now.

  “Doctor receipts for that too,” he said. “Now listen, don’t you breathe a word of this to anyone. You’re vulnerable right now. If he gets to your assets before we know what’s going on it’s going to get ugly. You have to think self-defense right now. How many years have you been married?”

  “Seventeen.”

  “Excellent. Still just the two boys?”

  “Yes. Gib just turned sixteen, and Carson is eight now.”

  “Good, good. Keep them completely out of it, not a word.”

  “Of course not,” I said, offended that he’d even mentioned it. But he either didn’t notice my offense or didn’t care.

  “This week get everything you can, but be careful. Rent a PO box and get me the address in case we need paperwork to come through the mail. Get a safe-deposit box at a separate bank and put all your jewelry, all your legal documents in it. Don’t call attention to yourself. He can’t know you’re removing your jewelry from the house, it’s a sure tip-off.”

  My mother sat in the chair next to him and reached out to take the legal pad and pen from my numb fingers. “Give me a list of what she should look for, Bob,” she said quietly. I remained speechless, taken aback at the amount of work suddenly thrust before me, the sleaziness of it all.

  “Tax returns, credit card statements, insurance policies, business records, any itemized phone records you can find. Marital assets, family cash flow, credit lines. Look, if it’s got dollar signs or tits attached, I want to see it.”

  “Jesus, Bob,” Mother said, shooting him a pained look.

  Bob took one look at my face and stammered an apology. “Hey, sorry, sorry. Look, just keep your normal schedule and mention nothing to Luke. Get together everything you can, and call me Monday.”

  “Keep my normal schedule? How—well, I can’t go to Big Dune now,” I protested.

  My mother started to speak but Bob raised his hand. “You should definitely go. Tracking all this stuff down is going to take time, and the farther away from your husband you are during it the better. You’ll have less opportunity to slip up and say something. Some say it’s a risk, leaving the home, but from what your mother tells me you bought that home with your trust fund?”

  “Yes,” I said, surprised by the fact that my heart didn’t leap when I thought about losing the house the way it had when I found out Mother was selling the beach house.

  “Then the law is on our side. When are you going?”

  Mother raised her eyebrows at me.

  “I guess I can go after Carson leaves for camp,” I said. “As long as I can get Luke to agree.”

  “Agree to what?” Mother asked. “Agree to have three weeks to himself? I don’t think you’ll have a problem, Connie.”

  I realized she was right. “Okay,” I said. “We’ll leave next Saturday.”

  Bob made notes on the paper, and then met my eyes. “Have you ever been unfaithful?” he asked. “Anything I need to know about? Surprises can really screw things up.”

  “Absolutely not,” I said, infuriated by the question.

  “Hey, the questions will get more personal than this, so get used to it. Divorce is ugly. I should know, I’ve done it twice, and frankly, I advise against it. But if you’re determined, then I’ll get the ball rolling. I’m not a divorce attorney of course, but I have plenty of them working for me. I’ll be close by during the whole process, looking out for you.”

  I nodded wordlessly, suddenly aware of the enormous step I’d just taken by giving this man, a man I’d always vaguely distrusted, my family’s personal information. He stood, pecked my mother on the cheek, and then he was gone.

  I sat back in the chair and accepted the glass of wine my mother proffered.

  “You can stop this at any time,” she said. “And you can trust Bob. He knows where all the bodies are buried in this town.”

  “My God, Mother,” I said, my hand at my throat. “It’s like he’s your—your—”

  “My what?” she asked coolly, raising her eyebrows.

  “Your henchman or something,” I finished.

  “I owe more to that man than you know, Connie. He’ll take good care of you. Now, what will you do tonight?”

  I shook my head. “I don’t know. I guess I’ll go home. The kids are probably starving.”

  “Okay, then. Go home. Act normally, not a word to him, do you hear? You’ve got almost two weeks to get the rest of the information for Bob. You can come over Monday and we’ll go through this together. And you can always change your mind.” She looked at me, her eyes more focused on me than I’d seen them in years. “You’re going to be fine, Connie.”

  I agreed with a nod, but on the drive home I knew that she was wrong. I couldn’t do this. And I wasn’t going to be fine.

  Estella

  A date. Connie has finally set a date. It’s close to my appointment and I find myself hesitating, thinking of lying to Mother on the phone.

  “I don’t know,” I say, looking at my calendar as though she were in the room, watching me. “I’ve got some appointments—”

  “Connie said she’s looking forward to seeing you,” she interrupts, and my heart pounds in my chest, responding to the comment, as though it can take over the conversation for me.

  “She said that?” I ask. I don’t believe her. My mother lies easily and convincingly.

  “She did,” she says.

  My heart still pounds, and its beats turn into words: “Well, as long as I’m back home by the thirtieth.”

  “Then it’s settled,” Mother says, and as I hang up the phone Paul comes in. His hair is filled with sawdust, and old, dried varnish streaks his shirt. He smells amazing, and I inhale deeply as his arms encircle me from behind. I pull a red pen from my desk drawer and circle the day they will come for me, draw a line through the next three weeks, and circle the day they will return me to my home, three days before my appointment.

  “It’s going to be fine,” Paul whispers in my ear, and I nod.

  I don’t know which it he’s talking about, but I know the odds of both better than he does. And I don’t know which I’m more afraid of. Those red-circled and -lined dates, or the one penciled in, silvery and glinting in the light. The numbers on the calendar fight for space in my head.

  I breathe Paul in again.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  I avoided Luke, and even the kids, as much as I could that week. But I often caught myself staring at one of them as they spoke, watching their lips move, forgetting to answer. I continued to get Carson ready for camp and agreed to a parent-teacher conference with his music teacher for
the following Wednesday, though I’d never have remembered it if I hadn’t attached a note to the refrigerator.

  The things I forgot that week could have easily filled a psychiatrist’s hour: lunch with a friend, overdue library books, dry cleaning, Luke’s favorite beer, Gib’s favorite cheese crackers, Carson’s favorite everything. I was scattered and short with everyone, but as soon as I was alone in the house the silence snapped me out of my haze, and I hurried to gather information.

  I stealthily riffled through the papers on Luke’s desk while he was gone, feeling like an intruder in my own home. I went through my jewelry, through our insurance papers, through Luke’s drawers. The distance I managed to put between myself and my family in such a short period was frightening. I felt like an island, with my family eddying and flowing around me, unaware that I had become immovable. They did not change, and did not notice that I had.

  Gib remained aloof and out of the house and Luke was “working hard” at the office. I purposely did not follow up on his whereabouts, and he was not home when Gib’s PSAT scores came that Saturday.

  I’d spent the morning fitting my fingers to Haydn, trying to lose myself in it. The sunroom where I practiced, filled with my orchids and flooded with light, was next to the kitchen, but I hadn’t heard anyone come in and felt a certain satisfaction that the music had engrossed me enough to cut the rest of the world off.

  Carson was playing in the pool and Gib was nowhere to be found, but when I broke from practice the mail was already on the kitchen counter, the long, nearly transparent envelope peeking out from between bills. I hadn’t heard Gib leave, but I also didn’t hear any bass from his stereo, which usually meant that he wasn’t home. Perhaps he’d seen the envelope and was making himself scarce. I tore it open.

  His reading scores, good. Writing, good, both in the slightly-better-than-average-but-not-so-much-as-to-attract-attention land that Gib had perfected. But math. How could a child with the genes this child had score so abysmally on math?

  Luke’s theory had been wrong. This wasn’t a teacher who didn’t like Gib, it was something else altogether. Could he have done it on purpose? That would be typical Gib, the same way the circumstances surrounding the test had been typical Gib.