Finally, in the back of the lateral file, behind dozens of hanging folders and under several back issues of Fortune, her fingers hit upon something hard and cold.
A gun.
Amity wasn’t going to take the weapon. That would have been absurd. She had never even actually held a handgun and had no more use for one than a bald man had for a blow dryer. But she surprised herself by bending down and lifting it out of Ralph’s filing cabinet.
It was heavier than she’d imagined. All her life she’d watched actors grab handguns from holsters, spin them around their index fingers, and sling them to compatriots in dusty shoot-outs. She’d assumed they were lightweight, like Frisbees, but this was decidedly dense. Using both hands she held up the gun and looked through the small metal sight at the end of the barrel. It was exactly how she’d looked at Alex on their honeymoon—through the viewfinder on a camera. Whenever he held his hand up in mock irritation or sidled out of the frame she’d told him in a deadpan voice: “Don’t move or I’ll shoot.”
Feeling the rough grip, she passed the gun back and forth between her hands as if handling a hot, unwieldy lead potato. Then she cocked her elbows and posed breathlessly for a moment. A year ago, Amity might have had reason to borrow the gun, to stuff it in her yoga pants and get on with the job. To shoot her husband and his girlfriend as they emerged from the Bohemian Hotel or as they shared crème brûlée at the Mansion. Say your good-byes, suckers. But at the height of her anger she preferred to dwell on more dramatic instruments of revenge than something as simple as a pistol. She’d imagined tying Alex and the Other Woman to hard-backed chairs and torturing them with one of the thoughtful gifts from her wedding registry, gifts she’d hardly had a chance to use, even after ten years of marriage, like the electric turkey carver or handheld blender.
Amity wasn’t all that surprised that Ralph had a gun. This was Georgia, after all. She’d crept in several houses with elaborate gun racks. She’d seen shotguns and BB guns and pistols displayed behind thick glass like dangerous fish in oversize aquariums. Most weapons were locked into metal bars, but Amity knew that like anything else in the world, all you needed to steal something, whether it was a gun or a husband, was a little enthusiasm and a plan.
She wondered if Catherine knew about the gun and decided she didn’t. Amity couldn’t imagine Catherine being comfortable with a weapon in her house, and besides, why would her husband need to keep it hidden in the back of his file cabinet?
She’d been in the house more than an hour and realized Catherine or Ralph might return unexpectedly, so Amity placed the gun back where she’d found it, behind the hanging folders of mortgage papers and tax documents. As she turned to leave she became distracted by all the boxes in Ralph’s office. The round and rectangular shapes were askew, awry, and askance. It hadn’t bothered her earlier, but now she noted all the edges out of alignment. She had an undefined feeling that something would happen if she didn’t straighten things. Not to Ralph, someone she hardly had any feeling toward except disappointment, but to Catherine or herself. And so she started straightening, which gave her the vague feeling of being in control, at least for the moment.
After she placed the boxes at regular intervals along his desk and bookshelves, she grabbed a fistful of pencils from the leather caddy. One by one she rearranged them so all lead points faced up. Next she took Ralph’s reading glasses from his desk, where they’d been lying upside down and splayed with one temple straight, the other bent, like a man with a broken leg. She folded them and placed them in their hard case.
Now Amity understood why Catherine had seemed so intent on creeping with her, getting out of her own life for a bit. Maybe her friend sensed that she was in some sort of danger. Maybe Ralph was even planning to harm his wife. If so, Amity wondered how she would be helpful. She was uncertain if she could ever really use a gun if needed, but promised herself that she’d try.
chapter 30
Fred handed Catherine a glass of tap water as they stood in his kitchen. He would have offered her ice cubes, but he’d forgotten to replace the ones he’d used from his old freezer. That had been Lissa’s department. Make the ice cubes, make the bed, make the reservations. Despite his anticipation of Catherine coming back to his house, he hadn’t worked out the details of her visit. It reminded him of a complicated chess game in which he could plan only one move ahead.
“Have you ever used one of these?” Fred motioned to a shiny Keurig machine on his counter.
“No, never.”
“We won it in a raffle a few years ago but our daughter shamed us out of using it. She’s worried the plastic coffee capsules will go into a landfill and be there for a millennium.” Catherine sipped her water and slowly nodded, so he continued. “Can you imagine?”
“A millennium,” Catherine repeated.
She brought the glass to her lips, and he noticed her long neck. He wondered if she’d ever been a dancer. Maybe she had taken ballet or jazz. He was about to make a point but had lost his way. Something about recycling. “She’s thinking a thousand years down the road. Not even a hundred or ten. I mean, what happened to tomorrow? At my age, I don’t even use long-term parking.” It was an old joke, but Catherine smiled.
To pad the room with something other than his own voice he turned on the old radio that rested next to the coffee machine. It occurred to him that the electrical gadgets, side by side, were sort of like him and Catherine. The plastic-veneered old receiver next to a shapely chrome appliance. She was probably only ten years younger than he was, but he felt the difference. He wondered if her husband was part of the broad-shouldered troop that jogged around Greenleaf Park in the mornings, then stopped to chug kale milkshakes at the Village Café.
He turned the radio dial to bring the deejay’s voice into focus the same way he’d focus a camera. When he was growing up he could find dozens, maybe hundreds, of radio stations to listen to. Today he got exactly one. The station broadcast from somewhere out of South Carolina and the raspy-voiced deejay sounded as if he were chain-smoking in his carport, but at least it was an oldies station. “But I’m being impolite. You must be famished.”
“Just a bit.” She took another sip of water and refolded the kitchen towel he’d left on the counter.
“Let’s see what we can do about that.” He opened the pantry hoping to find a selection of water crackers or a tin of mixed fancy nuts. Maybe, just maybe, there’d be a jar of artichoke tapenade or even some chocolate-covered toffee. He’d read that dark chocolate could be an aphrodisiac.
Then he heard Lissa: An aphrodisiac? Really?
Really.
He knew he was jumping way ahead of himself. They had shared only a few kisses. They’d done less than Audrey Hepburn and George Peppard had on a crowded soundstage, but he couldn’t help it.
Inside the closet he found a six-pack of strawberry-flavored Ensure that Danielle had bought him and three bags of pretzels. “Hidden bachelor treasures.” He emptied the pretzels into a bowl. “Welcome to my world.”
“I think I like your world,” Catherine said rather suddenly.
“So shall we retire to the living room?” He immediately felt regret. Who says retire anymore? It was something his father or, even worse, Hugh Hefner might say.
“Sure,” Catherine answered, and they moved past the mirrored bar to the living room couch. He was glad she had kept smiling at him, so he didn’t feel as much a fool as he might have.
They sat on the couch that faced the fireplace. If it had been winter, perhaps he would have built a fire. He knew a foolproof way of crisscrossing wood so that the flames torched upward and the embers stayed strong. If they’d been in an Aspen snow lodge they might have spent the afternoon huddling together, reading novels.
Cuddling, not huddling. This isn’t football. Haven’t you two been through this before?
This isn’t so easy, you know. I have no idea how to do this. I feel like a fool.
You’re adorable. Just be yourself.
“So what’s our plan?” Catherine asked.
For a moment he thought she meant tonight: What’s our plan? Pizza or pasta? Movie or music? Seafood or Mexican? He could pick up Sequoia at Ida Blue’s house and they could celebrate her return. The four of them, he and Catherine in the front seat, Karma and Sequoia behind them. They could drive downtown and park along Wright Square. He could point out Chief Tomochichi’s granite monument and dazzle her with historic stories. Maybe they could relax on a bench as the sunlight slanted through the spanish moss, then he’d present her with a gift. He didn’t know when her birthday was, but he’d like to buy her a necklace that accented her emerald eyes.
“I’m sorry,” Catherine said, interrupting his reverie. “I shouldn’t be so presumptuous. It’s your plan. I mean, I want to be helpful, but I just throw myself into situations sometimes. Just stop me if I get annoying.”
“Annoying?” He hadn’t felt anything so refreshing in years.
Catherine laughed a little. A tender, girlish laugh, he thought. “I mean, I just want to be supportive. To help bring Sequoia back to you.”
Sequoia. His dog. What was he doing? Had he really not even checked on his dog all morning? When they’d returned from their golf cart ride he could have made a quiet phone call to Ida Blue from his office, could have made sure she’d held down breakfast. “Don’t worry. I’ve got some friends keeping their eyes out. And I just know she’s fine. In fact, I just read about a dog in Florida who returned to his owner after more than six months and a hundred miles. And think of monarch butterflies. Generations can migrate thousands of miles just by the earth’s magnetic signature.” He could hear himself talking, but couldn’t seem to stop the rush of words, a corroded pipe that had come unclogged after years.
Catherine stood as something behind him caught her eye. She moved to the piano to examine the photos displayed on top. “Your daughter?” She held up a faded photo of his once little girl dressed as an astronaut, wearing a white jumpsuit and a diving mask to represent a helmet. They’d just been to a fair.
“Yes. That was taken here. In Forsyth Park. We’d just moved in. Hasn’t changed much.”
“Your daughter or Forsyth Park?”
“My daughter, Danielle.” As he said her name he realized he hadn’t spoken it to anyone besides Hunter for months, maybe since Lissa had died. Perhaps to Ernie in passing at the dog park, but nothing like he used to. Lissa had spent hours obsessing about their daughter and her divorce and their grandson. What do you think Danielle is up to? Is it too early to call Danielle? Do you think Danielle will get Tommy a puppy? “I thought she should have been a princess, but she had to be an astronaut. She’s still a pragmatist, I guess.”
“How so?”
“She keeps telling me to come visit. She’s got ideas about what I should be doing with my life.” He thought of her insistence that he move to Maine. Her idea that he was getting too old to take care of himself. “She’s always had a mind of her own. Nothing’s changed.” But what was he saying? It’d been thirty years since the photo was taken. Everything in the world had changed. His daughter. Savannah. Seven Oaks. The only thing that hadn’t changed, perhaps, was the one thing that doesn’t. The impractical exhilaration of new love.
“And this is your grandson?” Catherine pointed to another photo, a candid shot Lissa had taken of Tommy three summers before. Before Danielle had allotted every moment of his days to music lessons or soccer practice or math club.
“That’s Tommy. I always assumed he was named after Saint Thomas Aquinas. I found out last year that my daughter chose the name because she craved English muffins during her pregnancy.”
“He’s cute.”
“He looks like my wife.”
“Maybe. But he’s cute like you too.”
Fred felt suddenly flustered. Had it been that long since someone besides Lissa had flirted with him? Since before the Carter administration, he guessed. Maybe even before Apollo 11. Lissa was the one who’d done the flirting. The operator, he’d called her. She worked a cocktail party like a pro, twirling her hair, touching strangers’ elbows, sitting down to drinks with Jack Klugman.
Then Fred heard Lissa’s voice: I was just having fun.
I know, he thought sadly. You were always just having fun.
And I wasn’t obsessed with Danielle. I just wanted the best for her. And to make sure you two would be okay together after I was gone.
What are you saying?
You two are exactly alike. Stubborn. That’s the problem.
And then the deejay stopped talking about the weather and a patio furniture sale and baseball results, and a familiar song came on the radio. Fred immediately recognized the instrumental opening and Louis Armstrong’s crooning about a wonderful world. It was a song he and Lissa used to dance to. Maybe it was time to have some fun himself. He went over to Catherine, still at the piano, and spun her around.
She laughed, as if relieved he finally got there.
With that green light he put his right hand on her hip and his left in the air. Without hesitation, she accepted his hand and pressed against him and they started dancing in rhythm. Head to head and toe to toe, they moved through his living room. By the piano and couch. In front of the wide picture window that looked out to the backyard. He was at a gymnasium dance on a Friday night with streamers and balloons and a hand-painted sign that read GO INDIANS!
But his mind was jumbled, as he wasn’t sure what to do next. Was she just humoring him, a lonely old man with a lost dog? Though at this moment, he realized, he was neither.
He hadn’t read many articles in the AARP magazine about seduction. Was that what this was, anyway? A seduction? Maybe it didn’t matter, because he felt young and excited, a boy hosting show-and-tell at his house: Here’s my espresso machine. Here’s my family. Here’s my bedroom.
Your bedroom?
Our bedroom. It was our bedroom.
I’m kidding. It’s your bedroom now. Get on with it.
Catherine was married, of course, but that wasn’t his concern. What did he have to fear? A jealous husband tracking him down? Would anyone feel anything but sorry for an old man wanting a little companionship? Nobody would believe he could seduce a woman like Catherine. People would assume he wanted someone to share soup with or to remind him to take his blood-pressure pills.
And so he bent his head even closer, feeling a pull along his arthritic neck. His chin rested on the top of her head, and he could smell her lemony hair. But when he opened his eyes again a movement surprised him. Across the wooded lot he saw the unmistakable lumbering figure of Ida Blue, with Sequoia on a leash, walking laps around her yard.
Fred had taken her by surprise by offering to dance, but she admired his confidence and graceful movement. Ralph was a terrible dancer. He didn’t know how to lead, and when it came to freestyle, he was always snapping his fingers and cocking his head as if he’d been stung by a bee. Fred gently pulled the small of her back toward him to go forward and pushed her gently as he spun her away.
At one point, Fred pulled her rather urgently away from the expansive window and they sashayed by the leather ottoman and heavy shelves filled with guidebooks. They slid by the coffee table and brick fireplace. For a moment her heart dropped as they moved toward the front door. Was he going to nudge her out? Was this the way he would say good-bye? She felt as if she might cry, as if Fred had realized she was not a princess at all, just a woman from New Jersey with nothing to offer but an obstinate Boston terrier.
But just as quickly he spun her again. The music quickened and their dancing became more urgent. She could feel her heart beating, her palms sweating. Momentarily she felt a pang, a feeling that had been sitting in her gut all morning. Should she be doing this? But then she considered what Ralph would have done had the circumstances been reversed and it had been Audrey Cunningham who’d been choreographing the dance. She knew exactly. So when Fred opened the door t
o his bedroom, her decision was as simple as following Arthur Murray shoe silhouettes directly to his king-size bed.
chapter 31
Once in the bedroom they danced in circles, a whirlpool of excitement. At this distance, Catherine couldn’t hear the song from the kitchen, just the occasional slap of a cymbal, as if meant to bring her back to this moment and not to worry about what was to come. Once they reached the side of his bed, Fred stopped. He dropped her right hand while he kept his arm wrapped around her waist. He looked down into her eyes and smoothed away a tendril of hair from her cheek.
“Dear, dear Catherine,” he said. “I don’t know where you’ve come from but I thank my lucky stars you’ve arrived.” Then he pulled her closer, surprising them both that it was even possible. The only thing that separated their bodies was their light spring clothing. With her head pressed into his shirt she smelled lavender, as if he’d put too much detergent into the washing machine. Then she thought, If I were gone, Ralph would need a docent just to find his way into the laundry room.
Catherine stepped away and, a little light-headed, sat at the edge of his bed.
“Stay right there,” Fred said. “I’ll be back in a minute.” He left the room and she took a deep breath, feeling as if they’d spent the last twenty-four hours in a jitterbug contest.
She took note of her surroundings and of the moment. This sort of thing didn’t happen to her. Sometimes she caught a shoe sale or parking place just right, but she didn’t simply end up sitting on a stranger’s king-size bed. She didn’t meet a man in a dog park one day and feel overwhelming desire the next.
Good Karma Page 18