The woman looked up from her book of poems and locked eyes with her. My God, those were Eve’s eyes, brown-green with a sunflower in the center. The corners of her mouth turned up slightly.
“Is it really you?” Daniella felt the push of tears and she wondered, for a moment, if she was hallucinating.
“What are you doing here?” Eve asked Daniella, as if she were the one out of place.
“I live here. In Atlanta. I’m an attorney with Henritz & Powers. My God, Eve, it is you! I can’t believe it!”
The woman blinked, and the spell was broken. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” the woman said, slipping the Audre Lorde book back onto the shelf and then hurrying toward the door. Daniella, the Levertov poems still in hand, ran after her but was stopped by a clerk at checkout.
“You can’t take merchandise outside before purchase!” called the clerk, who wore a McGovern button on her vest, the wings of a peace dove spread above the letters. Pete had a matching sticker on the bumper of his car.
“Sorry,” said Daniella, tossing the book onto the nearest shelf. She ran out onto the sidewalk by the parking lot, looking in every direction, but Eve was gone, as if absorbed by the dark night sky.
Chapter 10
RETAINER
Atlanta, 1972
Daniella awoke with the disorienting sense that something of import had occurred last night, but she couldn’t recollect what. It was like the mornings after a fight with Pete—their fights were rare but fraught—when she woke up knowing something was off but not being able to remember exactly what until a few seconds later. (These days when she and Pete fought it was usually over whether or not to have a baby.) And now came clarity about the night before: For the first time in four years, she had seen Eve. Probably. Maybe.
She glanced at the clock on her bedside table. 7:25 a.m. In five minutes, her alarm would sound. She turned it off and rose from bed, taking care to be quiet so as not to wake Pete, who was asleep, curled up on his side, his reddish-brown hair just beginning to show flecks of gray near the temples. He was only twenty-nine, but the men in his family went gray early. Their cat, Argus, who was especially beloved by Pete, was waiting on the other side of their closed bedroom door, mewing for his daily dish of wet food. Argus kneaded their heads at night, keeping them awake, and so finally Pete had agreed to shut him out of the room when they went to bed, though he hated doing so and would often remind Daniella not to slip on Argus’s tears when she opened the door in the morning.
Belting her robe around her waist, she walked into the kitchen to feed Argus and start a pot of coffee. Pete ordered Kona beans from some roaster in New York, which was a ridiculous expense but something she agreed to because the smooth, chocolaty coffee really did taste better than the stuff you could get at the A&P. Once the coffee was brewing she opened the front door to get the paper. They took the Atlanta Constitution, which had a more liberal editorial page than the Atlanta Journal and was delivered first thing in the morning, whereas the Journal didn’t come until the afternoon. Pete thought they should subscribe to both for “balance,” but Daniella held firm in her refusal, saying two papers was a waste.
She pulled the paper out of the newspaper holder to the side of the mailbox and waved hello to Fran across the street, who was also in robe and slippers and also fetching the paper. A Quaker, Fran had recently left her husband, announcing that, after twenty years of marriage, she had finally reached the conclusion that “Norman is a real asshole.”
Who wasn’t leaving their spouse? On their short street alone four couples had split up. Four! Recently she had gotten together with some of the girls—women—who had lived in Monty House during her one year at Belmont: Lane, Eleanor, Kitty, and a woman named Beatrice whom she had never really known. Out of their group of five, three were going through a divorce—only she and Kitty had no plans to end their marriages! She had even heard that Eve’s brother, Charlie, and his wife had divorced. Apparently she had moved to San Francisco and gotten involved with est.
What would it be like to divorce Pete? What would it be like to lose a leg?
Back in the kitchen she poured herself a cup of coffee and then a bowl of cereal. Pete had cornflakes with milk every morning, often with a banana sliced on top. She had adopted a similar ritual, only she preferred raisin bran. Standing at the counter to eat, she unrolled the newspaper.
Above the fold was a photo of a burning house. The headline read: “Explosion and Fire in Poncey-Highland; Man’s Body Found; Police Suspect Bomb; Possible Link to Antiwar Radicals.”
Her mind immediately went to Eve. She had seen Eve, long-lost Eve, radical Eve, the night before. And this morning there was news of a bombing that had killed someone. Her heart was in her throat as she skimmed the article, alert for pertinent details. The explosion appeared to have been caused by a homemade bomb, the damage most severe on the main level of the house. In the burned-out basement of the building, the intact remains of a man believed to be John Travis (“J.T.”) Higgins were found. Mr. Higgins, a longtime employee of Mead Paper Company, rented the basement efficiency. Mr. Higgins’s supervisor confirmed that, while he typically worked nights, he had called in sick that evening, saying he had been to Grady Hospital, where he was diagnosed with pneumonia. The owner of the home, Patrick Daly, who lived in Decatur, described J.T. as “a real good guy, salt of the earth.” He said J.T. had been renting from him for years now, whereas “those two hippies, a fellow and a girl,” had only lived in the upstairs unit for three months. He had been there a few weeks ago, trying to fix a leak that was causing damage to J.T.’s ceiling. No one was home, but you don’t mess with water, so he had entered without their permission, noticing with disgust the posters he saw hanging on the walls: All leftist propaganda, including one showing a revolver with “Piece Now” printed below it. He thought of evicting them right then and there but knew he probably didn’t have the grounds. Plus, they had paid several months’ rent up front.
Daniella, who had been standing at the counter, felt her knees nearly buckle. She needed to sit. She made her way unsteadily to the breakfast table, sinking into one of the kitchen chairs. Breathe, she told herself. Breathe.
The “girl” described by the landlord must have been Eve. Otherwise, it was too much of a coincidence that Daniella had seen her last night. So the “fellow” was surely Warren. For, as much as Warren and Eve liked to deny that they were a couple, they had been inextricably linked since Eve and Daniella’s last year of college. And “Piece Now” sounded exactly like him.
Did Warren and Eve build the bomb together? Did it accidentally detonate, killing them both? The article said that the police suspected they would find more casualties. My God, was Eve dead?
Or maybe Eve had already built the bomb by the time Daniella saw her at Oxford Books. When did she see her? Eight p.m.? Eight thirty? Neighbors reported first hearing the explosion around 10:40 p.m. Perhaps Eve and Warren built the bomb, but then Eve made herself scarce, leaving Warren in charge of planting it—driving it over to, say, the Boeing Headquarters, because surely he hadn’t intended to blow up his own place. Maybe Eve helped build the bomb, then headed off to Buckhead, a place so close to her estranged home that no one would think to look for her there, the prodigal daughter lurking around the periphery of all that was once familiar.
In that case, Eve might still be alive. But she would also be a murderer.
Pete walked into the kitchen wearing his blue-and-white-striped pajama bottoms but no pajama top, revealing the scantest sprinkling of reddish chest hairs. He headed toward the coffeemaker but then stopped, studying Daniella, who was still hunched over the kitchen table, now rubbing her temples with her fingers.
“You okay?” he asked.
Daniella held the paper out for him to take. “I’m almost positive I saw Eve last night at Oxford Books.”
She watched as Pete scanned the article. “Shit,” he said after a few moments.
“I know. It had to be Eve,
right? It had to be Eve and that idiot Warren.”
“Are the investigators absolutely certain it was a bomb? And not a gas leak?”
“I don’t think the paper would have led with the word ‘bomb’ if they weren’t pretty damn sure it was one.”
“God.” Pete furiously scratched his head, tousling his already unkempt hair, messy from sleep. He walked to the coffeemaker and poured himself a cup, then came and sat at the table with Daniella. “Eve frustrated me, endlessly, but I can’t see her building a bomb.”
“I can,” said Daniella, in a small, pained voice. “She could become so overtaken with indignation and outrage. I can see her justifying it somehow.”
“I don’t think we know enough yet to draw any conclusions.”
“I know. Should we drive over there? Linwood Avenue is, what, two miles away? Maybe we could talk to a cop, figure something out.”
“I imagine the street is completely blocked off and completely secured.”
“I keep trying to think of someone we know at the paper, someone who might know more details.”
“I could drive downtown and see if the street edition has more information. It’s got a later print time.”
“Yes! That’s brilliant. Please do.”
“I can check the West Coast sports scores while I’m at it,” Pete joked.
Daniella gave him a half smile. “Hurry back.”
• • •
While Pete was on his mission, Daniella had another cup of coffee, got dressed, and then phoned the answering service at work, leaving a message for her secretary that she would be coming in late. She hung up quickly, not wanting to tie up the phone for any longer than necessary, just in case Eve might be trying to call. Of course, that was probably wishful thinking, as it seemed a distinct possibility that Eve had died in the explosion, that her remains simply hadn’t been found or identified by the time the newspaper story went to print. And even if she was alive, would she really contact Daniella? Other than the night before—assuming the woman she saw at Oxford Books really was Eve—they hadn’t talked in more than four years.
Daniella had just started pacing the living room when Pete returned with the street edition of the paper. “They found out more,” he said grimly. She grabbed it out of his hand and sat on the sofa to read, Pete sitting beside her. Soon Argus was on his lap, purring loudly. The paper did, indeed, have additional news. It now seemed very likely that the bombing was tied to some radical faction of the antiwar movement. A pair of dog tags and more human remains had been found among the rubble. They read: Minh, Ho Chi, the name of the now-deceased president of North Vietnam. An unidentified investigator speculated that the bomb was probably intended to go off elsewhere, its detonation an accident, an eerie parallel to the 1970 11th Street townhouse bombing in New York that had killed three members of the Weathermen, two of whom were engaged in the act of building the bomb when it exploded.
Ho Chi Minh dog tags. Jesus. Warren had Ho Chi Minh dog tags. He had shown them to her during that awful dinner in New York years ago; he had twirled them in front of her as if to elicit shock. She hadn’t given him the satisfaction. She had simply murmured, “Hmmm,” and turned to Pete to ask him to pass the soy sauce.
Was Warren dead, his body ripped to pieces and mixed among the rubble?
There had been so many bombings over the last few years—including several in Atlanta in 1970, the most significant an explosion at the State Capitol that shut down the place for weeks. It seemed there were reports of bombings all of the time. But with a few infamous exceptions, they were mostly symbolic, causing property damage, not death. Last night’s bombing had killed a man living in the basement. And it had presumably killed Warren, too. And maybe Eve. Oh God, please don’t let it have killed Eve.
Did Warren (and Eve?) know that J.T. worked nights and that was why he (they?) detonated the bomb at that time? But surely, as the paper had speculated, the intention hadn’t been to blow up the house where they lived. Surely the bomb was intended to blow up something else.
She turned to Pete. “Do you think I should call the police and let them know I might have seen Eve last night?”
“Hmm. Since you can’t be sure it was her, I don’t think you’re under any legal obligation to report it.”
“I don’t necessarily mean a legal obligation, but a moral one.”
Just then the phone in the kitchen rang. Daniella jumped, causing Argus to leap from Pete’s lap and run away. She rushed to answer it, hoping against all odds that it would somehow be Eve on the line. But no, it was just Sandy, her secretary.
“I’m sorry to bother you at home,” she said. “But a Mrs. Katharine Monty phoned. She said her case was urgent and you would know what it was about.”
But she didn’t know what it was about, didn’t know a Katharine Monty. Daniella was a corporate lawyer. Her clients were all men. Was there a chance that Katharine Monty was actually Eve, posing as their old friend Kitty, her last name a reference to their dorm at Belmont? If so, Eve was still alive!
After ending the call, she quickly dialed the number Sandy had given her. After ten long rings, someone picked up.
“Monty residence. May I ask who is calling, please?” It was Eve’s voice, repeating the exact refrain she used to use when answering the shared phone in the hallway at Monty House.
“This is Daniella Strum. I’m trying to reach Katharine Monty.”
“Daniella! It’s me. Kitty. Listen, I can’t talk now, but is there any chance we could meet for coffee?”
It was most definitely not Kitty.
“Are you okay?” whispered Daniella, as if her sotto voce might throw off anyone who might be tapping the call.
“How about the Majestic?” answered Eve.
The Majestic was a diner on Ponce that stayed open twenty-four hours a day and smelled always of bacon.
“Meet in an hour?” asked Daniella.
“Okay.”
She hung up. My God. She was going to meet Eve. Eve who might be involved in the explosion that killed J. T. Higgins and surely killed Warren St. Clair.
She wondered if she was obligated to call the police, but she wanted to speak to Eve first, learn everything she could about what had happened. If she were Eve’s lawyer she would have attorney-client privilege. She would offer to be her lawyer. Her phone rang again. It was her secretary.
“Your client Mrs. Monty phoned again.”
“Yes?”
“She said to cancel your prior plans, that she’ll meet you at your usual place instead.”
“Did she give any other specifics?”
“She said you would know where that was.”
“Okay, thanks,” said Daniella, and then thinking she should somehow explain things, she added, “She’s a little eccentric, but she’s loaded, so she’s a good client to have.”
She walked back to the living room, where Pete was still sitting on the sofa, studying the newspaper photo of the destroyed house as if it might tell him something if he just looked close enough. “Where is my usual place to meet Eve?” she asked.
His eyes widened. “She’s alive?”
“Yes. She called, gave an alias.”
“Thank God.”
Daniella felt that she might start crying, and so she made a joke instead. “Perhaps I should first try the Driving Club?”
“Didn’t you once tell me she took you to The Varsity a lot when you visited her in Atlanta?”
“That’s it! I mean, I can’t ever remember calling it ‘our place,’ but I did insist she take me there a bunch of times, and it’s so busy and crowded it’s easy to blend into the crowd.”
She went to her room, applied a light dusting of powder to her face and a little lipstick. She then went to Pete’s home office, where she kept a filing cabinet of her own. From the cabinet she pulled out a client agreement form.
• • •
It was only 10:45 a.m., but the lines at The Varsity were already long. Perhaps there was a
convention in town. Back when Daniella visited Atlanta during the summer before they transferred to Barnard, she had made Eve take her to The Varsity three times in as many days and one more time on the way to the airport. But now that she lived within a couple of miles of it she never went. Same with the Krispy Kreme on Ponce, where the clerk plucked hot doughnuts off the conveyer belt just as soon as they rolled under a cascade of glaze. Maybe Krispy Kreme was where Eve wanted them to meet. Was that their “usual place”?
She would stay until eleven, and if Eve didn’t show up she would head over to Krispy Kreme. She kept her eyes trained on the door, looking for the woman she had seen the night before. She had already scanned the lines that had formed at the counters. But maybe Eve was already seated in one of The Varsity’s many dining rooms. And then she saw her walk through the door, her short hair covered by a floppy straw hat decorated with a yellow ribbon, as if she were playing at being the belle she once had been. She wore a loose dress in a floral pattern with a Peter Pan collar. She looked as if she were going to a Junior League meeting.
Daniella did not wave her over but walked up beside her instead. “Excuse me,” she said.
“Daniella!” said Eve, as if she were surprised to see her. “It’s Kitty! Kitty Monty. What a wonderful surprise!”
Eve held open her arms and Daniella stepped into them, holding on tight. Through the fabric of Eve’s tent dress, Daniella felt the small, hard bulge of her friend’s abdomen—a sign of malnutrition?—made more noticeable because the rest of her body was so skeletal.
“Will you join me for lunch?” asked Daniella, playing along as best she could.
“You know, I’m kind of craving something else,” said Eve. “Do you think we could go to the Waffle House? The one in Avondale?”
“Seriously?”
“It’s a good idea to zig and zag,” said Eve quietly. “Why don’t you get in line and order something to go, then meet me there in thirty minutes.”
“Okay. Sure.” She stepped in line behind a black family, the two children wearing sweatshirts advertising Atlanta. She imagined they were out-of-town tourists, visiting all of the sites. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Eve exit through a different door than the one through which she had entered, as if she were an old hand at subterfuge.
We Are All Good People Here Page 14