by Joy Fielding
“Good girl.”
Jane felt herself panicking. Three pills, for God’s sake. And she had swallowed them. How long before they started to work? At best, she probably had only a few minutes left of clear thought. She had to get out of here. She had to get these pills out of her system before they started to work. “I don’t feel well!” she shouted with an urgency that brought Paula immediately to her side.
“Do you think you’re going to throw up?” Paula asked, helping Jane off the chair and guiding her toward the bathroom.
“Oh, God, what’s happening?” Jane cried. “You have to help me. You have to help me. Please—don’t leave me.”
“I’m right here.”
Jane waited until Paula was leaning over the toilet bowl beside her before suddenly shifting her weight and heaving Paula sideways against the Jacuzzi, watching her lose her balance and tumble backward inside.
“Jesus Christ, not again!” Paula shouted as Jane bounded out of the bathroom, slamming the door after her, and grabbing the straight-backed chair she had secured for exactly this purpose. Carefully she lodged it underneath the door handle, preventing Paula’s escape. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Paula demanded, banging on the door. “This is crazy, Jane. Where do you think you’re going?”
Paula’s protests followed Jane down the hall toward the guest bathroom where Jane hurled herself against the toilet bowl and immediately thrust her fingers down her throat. She retched, feeling her body convulse in a series of mostly dry heaves, her eyes stinging and her throat burning with the acrid taste of freshly squeezed orange juice. Had she managed to throw up the pills? Had she gotten them all out of her system? She couldn’t be sure. She’d have to move fast.
Returning to her room, she pulled a pair of dark green walking shorts over Michael’s pale blue shirt, ignoring Paula’s loud demands to be released, and fled the room, racing down the steps and into the kitchen, looking for Paula’s purse. She finally located it in the front hall closet, and opened it, grabbing the keys to Paula’s car. Then she stuffed the few dollars Paula’s wallet contained inside one of her pockets and ran toward the rusty gray Buick that sat parked in her driveway.
The car was unlocked, and Jane scrambled behind the wheel, hitting her knee against the dashboard as she stuck the key in the ignition. She groaned with a mixture of pain and relief when she heard the engine turn over, then backed expertly out of the driveway onto the street, not sure whether to turn left or right, choosing right, then searching through the glove compartment for a street map when she came to the first stop sign.
Like everything else about the old car, the map was falling apart. It was torn and dirty and missing one of its panels, but Jane was able to scan the list of street names and locate section C3 where Roundwood was supposedly located. The street proved more elusive to find, existing as it did among a plethora of little red and blue lines, black letters, and a variety of strange symbols that the legend at the bottom of the map informed her stood for such things as county lines, city limits, aqueducts, and transportation systems. By the time she found the small curve marked ROUNDWOOD, the letters were beginning to blur and her mouth was becoming dry. She told herself it was only her nerves, and stepped harder on the gas, feeling the car jerk forward, sputter, and die. “No!” she screamed, restarting the engine, once again hearing it turn over. “Thank you,” she whispered, realizing she had to proceed with caution.
Roundwood was in the other direction, in the village of Newton Upper Falls, a few miles away. Following the map, Jane took Columbus Street to Hartford, turned west on Boylston to Hickory Cliff Road, then turned left at the first street. ROUNDWOOD, she read with relief, wishing the street sign would hold still, knowing it wasn’t moving. She proceeded slowly down the street, her eyes peeled for the right number. “There it is!” she shouted, inadvertently slamming on the brakes. The car bounced, made a weird choking noise, then stopped. “Fine,” Jane said, not bothering to restart the engine or bring it closer to the curb, propelling herself out of the car toward the white Victorian-style house that was not unlike her own. Anne Halloren-Gimblet, please be home.
She stumbled up the front walk, tripping over her feet not once, but twice, before reaching the front door, leaning against it, praying silently for strength. She waited for several minutes before realizing she had forgotten to ring the bell, then rang it several times in rapid succession, simultaneously banging her fists against the wood.
“Just a minute,” came a woman’s voice from inside. “Hold your horses.”
The white door opened several inches. Anne Halloren-Gimblet peeked out. “Yes?”
“Anne Halloren-Gimblet?” Jane asked, unable to separate the words, feeling like a police lieutenant.
“Yes.” The woman’s voice was tepid, as if she wasn’t sure.
“It’s Jane Whittaker. We talked the other day on Newbury Street. Our daughters were in the same class?” She stated this as a question, sensing the woman’s reluctance to let her inside. “I wonder if I could come in and talk to you for a few minutes.”
“My God, I didn’t recognize you!” Anne Halloren-Gimblet exclaimed, backing into her front hall and motioning for Jane to enter.
“I was in a hurry to get out this morning,” Jane said, realizing how disheveled she must have looked, trying to tuck Michael’s outsized shirt inside her walking shorts. The cuffs of his sleeves dangled below her fingertips, and Jane realized for the first time that she wasn’t wearing a bra, that her hair was uncombed and her teeth unbrushed. “I must look a sight.”
“Would you like a cup of coffee? I think I still have some brewing.”
“I’d love a cup of coffee.”
Jane followed the woman, who was neatly dressed and fully made up, into the burgundy-and-white kitchen. Anne Halloren-Gimblet was tall and slender and maybe a few years older than herself. Her hair was blond and held in place by a black hair band that spelled out the word PARIS in rhinestone letters. She was trying hard not to stare at Jane, but was obviously puzzled by her surprise visit, and possibly even a little frightened. “How do you take it?”
“Black. Lots of caffeine.”
Anne Halloren-Gimblet smiled, pouring Jane a large mugful of coffee, and motioned for her to sit down. Jane pulled up a chair by the kitchen table, and gulped her coffee, drinking it down and then asking for more.
“I didn’t realize how thirsty I was,” she said as the woman patiently refilled her mug.
“Jane … you don’t mind if I call you Jane, do you?”
“I’d like that … Anne,” she ventured, and the woman smiled. She doesn’t know why I’m here, Jane thought. She doesn’t know what to make of me, and she’s too polite to ask. She’d like me to state my business, drink my coffee, and leave.
“Jane, are you all right? You didn’t look well when I saw you the other day, and—”
“I look worse now, I know.”
“It just doesn’t look like you. Not that I know you very well,” she added.
What do I tell her? Jane wondered, watching the woman’s light-green eyes narrow in concentration. Do I risk telling her the truth? That she probably knows me better than I do, that I have no idea who I am, that my husband has been lying to me, feeding me drugs, is about to have me committed. That I escaped by locking my housekeeper in the bathroom, then stealing her car. That I’m here because of a careless remark she made on the steps of a jewelry store on Newbury Street, that I need to know whether my daughter is alive, and that she, who doesn’t know me very well, is the only person I can trust to tell me the truth. Is that what I tell her?
“Is there any more coffee?” Jane asked sheepishly, and Anne Halloren-Gimblet emptied the remains of the morning pot into Jane’s mug. Jane watched the woman purse, then unpurse, her lips.
“I’m sorry,” Anne said finally. “I hope you won’t think I’m being rude, but do you mind my asking what you’re doing here?”
“I wanted to apologize,” Jane said quic
kly, deciding against revealing the truth, at least for the time being. “For being so rude the other day.”
“You weren’t rude.”
“I was, and I’m sorry. I haven’t been feeling too well lately.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.”
“It’s some sort of weird virus. Nothing contagious,” Jane rushed to assure her.
“There are a lot of weird things in the air these days,” Anne remarked as Jane nodded vigorously. “But you didn’t have to make a special trip over here, especially when you’re not feeling too well.”
“I’m fine now.” Jane looked around the spotless kitchen, trying to look fine, straining to sound casual. “Where’s your daughter?”
“Daughters,” Anne Halloren-Gimblet corrected, emphasizing the final s with a prolonged hiss. “They’re at day camp. The bus just picked them up a few minutes before you arrived. Bayview Glen. Do you know it?”
Jane shook her head, recognizing that it felt only loosely attached to her neck, and praying that three mugfuls of coffee would be enough to keep her awake.
“What about Emily?”
Jane felt automatically unhinged at the sound of her daughter’s name. “She’s at her grandparents’ cottage,” she stammered, wondering if this was true, and trying not to be overwhelmed by the fact that they were referring to her daughter in the present tense.
“We had a cottage when I was a little girl. I loved it. I used to collect tadpoles and garter snakes.”
“Snakes?”
“I was a real little tomboy, though you’d never know it to look at me now.” Anne laughed, and Jane recognized that it was more a nervous laugh than one of mirth. I’m making her nervous, Jane thought. “Yes sir,” Anne continued, “I was out in the muck every day with the guys. My mother couldn’t get me into a frilly dress to save her life. She despaired I’d ever turn out right. Can you imagine, especially looking at it from today’s perspective, having a mother who didn’t want her child to go to university, whose highest ambition for her daughter was that she be a stenographer? Do they even have stenographers anymore?” Anne Halloren-Gimblet shook her head, then carried on, uncomfortable with silence. “When I got married, my mother almost had a fit when I told her I was going to keep my maiden name. She insisted it was as good as living in sin. So, I compromised, went for the hyphen. I was the first woman on my block to hyphenate my last name. Unfortunately, I married a Gimblet.”
Jane laughed, but the sound only seemed to make the woman more fidgety. Anne Halloren-Gimblet rose to her feet. “I’m afraid I’m going to have to cut this visit short. I have an appointment in half an hour,” she stated.
An obvious confabulation, Jane thought. “I realize I should have called first,” she said promptly, “but I found myself in the neighborhood, and thought I’d take a chance you were still home.”
“You were out early.” Anne Halloren-Gimblet checked her watch.
Jane glanced at the clock on the wall oven. It was barely eight-thirty in the morning. No wonder the woman is nervous, she thought. “I needed some fresh air,” Jane told her, standing up, gravitating toward a large piece of Bristol board on the wall opposite the refrigerator. It was covered with snapshots of two very blond little girls, each possessed of the same face though one was taller than the other. “They could be twins,” she remarked.
“Everyone says that, much to Melanie’s dismay. She points out that she’s three years older than Shannon, and at least three inches taller.”
Jane quickly deduced that it would have been the younger of the children who was in Emily’s class. “So, how did Shannon enjoy school this year?”
“Oh, she can take it or leave it. Actually, I think that if I gave her the choice, she’d never go anywhere. She’s a real homebody. How about Emily?”
“She likes school,” Jane said, her heart pounding. Was it possible that Anne Halloren-Gimblet simply hadn’t heard about her daughter’s death? “Have you been on any more field trips lately?”
“I went with them on the tour of the fire department, but everybody was disgustingly well behaved, so it was no fun. I missed you.” Her posture became immediately self-conscious, her shoulders folding in on themselves, the fingers of one hand playing with the fingers of the other. “I really have to start getting ready….”
Jane followed Anne into the front hall, knowing she had yet to discover anything conclusive, wondering what she should say or do next. She had to know for sure that their daughters had been classmates this year, not last, that as recently as six months ago, she had accompanied their class on a field trip to Boston, that her daughter hadn’t been killed in any car accident over a year ago, that Emily was still very much alive.
“Do you think the girls will be in the same class again next year?” she ventured, staring into the living room.
“Well, they’ve been in the same class since kindergarten,” Anne answered, opening the front door. “I’m sure they’ll keep them together.”
Jane ignored the open front door and proceeded into the living room, passing over the family photographs on the mantel to concentrate on the series of familiar classroom pictures that rested on the closed top of the baby grand piano.
“It’s hard to believe how fast they grow, isn’t it?” Anne remarked, coming up behind her and looking over Jane’s shoulder.
Jane’s eyes scanned the classroom photographs, easily singling out her daughter as she moved from junior to senior kindergarten to grade one. And then another picture, one with which she wasn’t familiar, one she hadn’t seen before.
“I think this one’s my favorite,” Anne said, lifting the grade two photograph from the top of the piano. “All those great big smiles and no front teeth.”
Jane grabbed the picture from the woman’s hands, hearing a cry of surprise escape her lips.
“What are you doing?” Anne gasped, fear in her voice.
Jane ignored her, her eyes racing across the children’s faces for her seven-year-old daughter, finding her in the back row, her shoulders now slightly stooped like her father’s, her smile shy and closed-lipped. “Oh, God, oh, God,” Jane cried. “She’s alive. She’s alive!”
“Mrs. Whittaker,” Anne began, instinctively reverting to formalities, “would you like me to call your husband for you?”
“My husband?” Jane’s eyes shot to hers. “No! Whatever you do, please don’t call my husband.”
Anne’s arms reached out to reassure her. “Okay, okay, I won’t call him. It’s just that I’m concerned. I’m not sure I understand what you’re doing here, and something’s obviously very wrong. Can you tell me what it is?”
Jane could barely get the words out, she was crying so hard. “Everything okay now. My baby’s alive. Emily’s alive!”
“Of course she’s alive.”
“She’s alive. I didn’t kill her!”
“Kill her? Mrs. Whittaker, I really think I should call your husband….”
“He told me she’d been killed in a car accident, that I was the one driving, that she died in my arms….”
“What? When? Good God, when did this happen?”
“But she isn’t dead. She’s alive. She’s right here.” Jane’s finger poked at the photograph. “She was in Shannon’s class.”
“Yes, she’s alive,” Anne Halloren-Gimblet told her, and Jane noticed a strange softening of the woman’s voice, as if she had decided there was no sense to be made from any of this and therefore no sense in trying. “She’s alive and she’s beautiful. So tall. I couldn’t believe how tall she’d grown just in the last couple of months. She’ll soon be as tall as Miss Rutherford.”
There was a second of absolute silence.
“What did you say?” Jane asked.
Anne Halloren-Gimblet’s voice was so low that it was barely audible. “I said she’ll soon be as tall as the teacher.”
“Their teacher’s name is Miss Rutherford?”
A note of fear returned to Anne’s voice. “Didn’t you
know that?”
“Pat Rutherford?”
“I think so, yes.”
“I had an appointment with Emily’s teacher!” Jane whispered, her amazement audible.
“Yes, well, we all had our private interviews at the end of the school year.”
“I didn’t have an affair with Pat Rutherford.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“It was Emily’s teacher.”
“Mrs. Whittaker, I’m out of my depth here. I think you need some help.”
“I need to use your phone.” Jane pushed past the woman and ran into the kitchen, grabbing the white phone off the wall. Anne was right beside her, although she maintained a safe distance between them. Jane could read the fear in her eyes and wished she could say something to reassure her, but she knew that whatever she said would only make it worse. “I need to get in touch with Pat Rutherford. Do you have her home number?”
Anne shook her head. “And the school will be closed for summer vacation,” she offered, as if anticipating Jane’s next question.
Jane held the phone firmly against her chest. Pat Rutherford. R 31, 12:30, she saw scribbled before her. Pat Rutherford, she repeated silently. Emily’s teacher. Not some man with whom she’d been having a sordid little affair.
Had she had any affairs at all?
She quickly punched out 411, answering “Boston” before the obligatory question could be asked. “I need the number of Daniel Bishop. Thank you.”
She jotted down Daniel’s home number and his work number on a piece of pink note paper, the bottom of which was covered with drawings of sand castles and star fish, the top of which proclaimed LIFE IS A BEACH. Rechecking the clock on the wall oven, Jane decided to try Daniel at home first. “You don’t mind, do you?” she tossed over her shoulder at Anne, who hovered in the doorway, poised for flight. If Anne offered any objections, Jane didn’t hear them.
Daniel answered the phone on the fourth ring, just as Jane was about to hang up. “Yes?” No hello. Just, yes? As if he had been expecting her, as if they were already halfway into their conversation.