by Joy Fielding
Ellen smiled. “Yes, that’s exactly what I feel like.”
Stuart walked around the burgundy-and-blue-striped sofa toward the wine cabinet on the far wall. His hand was reaching for a bottle of Sauvignon Blanc when they heard a loud banging.
“What’s that?” Ellen asked as the banging took on greater urgency, filling the room. “Is that the door?”
Stuart took several tentative steps toward the sound.
“Don’t answer it,” Ellen warned.
“Hello!” they heard a voice call out. “Hello! Please! Is anybody there?”
“It sounds like a child,” Stuart whispered.
“What would a child be doing out in this weather?” Ellen asked as Stuart reached for the doorknob. “Don’t answer it,” she said again.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Stuart chastised, pulling open the door.
A girl was standing on the other side, the storm swirling around her, water cascading off the raised hood of the plastic raincoat she was wearing. The rain was dripping with such force into her eyes and nose that it was impossible to make out her features, except that she was young. Not a child exactly, Ellen thought. Not an adult either. Probably in her mid-teens.
“Oh, whew,” the girl said, flinging herself inside the cottage without waiting to be asked, and shaking the water from her hands and hair, like a large, shaggy dog. “I was afraid nobody was home.”
“What in God’s name are you doing out in this mess?” Stuart asked, shutting the door on the outside storm, the wind howling in protest.
“I had a fight with my boyfriend.” The girl’s large, dark eyes flitted about the room.
“Your boyfriend?” Ellen looked toward the door. “Where is he?”
“Probably still in the damn tent. He’s so stubborn. Refused to go to a motel, even when it started coming down in buckets. Not me. I said I was going to find somewhere warm. Except, of course, I got lost, just like he said I would, and I’ve been wandering around in circles for the past hour. Then I saw the lights from your cottage. I’m so glad you were home. I’m absolutely frozen.”
“Oh, you poor thing. Let me make you some hot tea,” Ellen said, biting down on her tongue to keep from adding, “You poor, stupid thing!” Who picks a fight with her boyfriend on a night like this? Who takes off in the dark, in a storm, to go running through the woods in thunder and lightning? Who does things like that?
Teenage girls, she thought in the next breath, answering her own question.
Ellen walked quickly to the kitchen sink and filled the kettle with water. “This should only take a few minutes.” She glanced back over her shoulder at the young girl. Little Red Riding Hood, she thought, as the girl stood dripping onto the beige rug, her eyes casually absorbing and assessing her surroundings.
“Here, let me hang that up,” Stuart offered, and the girl quickly removed her raincoat, revealing a slender body dressed in a white T-shirt and a pair of denim shorts. A large canvas bag was draped around her shoulder.
Ellen noted the girl’s long legs, full breasts, and large eyes, which continued scanning the room. Her eyes are definitely her best feature, Ellen thought, noting that the rest of the girl’s face was relatively nondescript, her nose long, her mouth small. Of course it was hard to look your best when you were dripping wet. Ellen decided she was being overly critical, something both sons had occasionally accused her of being. She resolved to be friendlier. “I’ll get you a towel.” She walked to the bathroom, returning with a fluffy white bath towel.
The girl was already curled up on the sofa, her bare feet propped under her thighs, her wet sandals on the floor in front of her, her canvas bag beside them. Stuart was sitting in the navy velvet armchair across from her, kind eyes radiating grandfatherly concern. He’s always been the nicer one of us, Ellen thought, realizing how much she’d relied on him to smooth over her sharper edges during their fifty years together.
“This is a beautiful cottage,” the girl said, uncoiling her feet and taking the towel from Ellen’s outstretched hands. “You’ve really done a nice job with it. I love the fireplace.” She began rubbing the ends of her long hair with the towel. “Thank you.”
Ellen tried not to notice that dirt from the girl’s feet was staining her sofa and that she wasn’t wearing a bra under her flimsy white T-shirt. I’m just a jealous old woman, she admonished herself, remembering when she used to have full, firm breasts like the ones now casually on display. “I’m Ellen Laufer,” she said, forcing the introduction from her mouth. Maybe if she’d been nicer to Katarina, friendlier to all her sons’ wives, she’d have more of a relationship with her grandchildren today, she couldn’t help thinking. “This is my husband, Stuart.”
“Call me Nikki.” The girl smiled and continued towel-drying her hair. “With two k’s. I like that name. Don’t you? You don’t happen to have a hair dryer, do you?”
“No. Sorry,” Ellen lied, ignoring the questioning look from Stuart. It’s one thing to give the girl a towel and a cup of tea, her eyes told him silently, but enough is enough. And what did she mean by “Call me Nikki”? Was that her name or not?
“You mean that curl’s natural?” Nikki asked. “It’s gorgeous.”
“Thank you.” Ellen touched the blond hair she’d spent half an hour fussing over with a curling iron this morning and immediately felt guilty. I should have let her use my hair dryer, she thought. What’s the matter with me?
“Is that water almost boiled?” Nikki asked.
“Oh. Yes, I believe it is.” Ellen walked back to the kitchen. The girl certainly isn’t shy about asking for what she wants, she thought, removing a mug from the pine cupboard and searching through another cupboard for some tea bags. She wondered how long they were going to have to play host to this girl, who couldn’t be more than sixteen. Where was her mother, for God’s sake? What had she been thinking, letting her daughter go off camping in the Adirondack Mountains with a young man who clearly didn’t have enough sense to come in out of the rain? “Which would you prefer, English Breakfast or Red Rose? I have both.”
“Do you have herbal?” Nikki asked.
“Actually, yes. Cranberry and peach. It’s my favorite.”
The girl shrugged. “Okay.”
Ellen dropped the tea bag into the mug of boiling water, thinking that her mother would be horrified. How many times had she told her that the proper way to make tea was to let it steep in the kettle for at least five minutes? Oh, well. Her mother had been dead for almost twenty years, she thought again, and times changed.
Twenty years, Ellen repeated silently, the thought seeping into her skin, like tea in boiling water. Could it really be so long?
“What’s taking that tea so long?” Stuart was asking, returning Ellen abruptly to the present tense. “The poor girl’s teeth are starting to chatter.”
“Can I have milk with that?” Nikki asked.
“With herbal? I really don’t think it’s necessary …”
“I prefer it with milk. Skim, if you have it.”
“I’m afraid we only have two-percent.”
“Oh.” Another shrug. “Okay. And four teaspoons of sugar.”
Ellen dutifully added the 2 percent milk and four spoonfuls of sugar to the already sweet herbal tea, then walked back into the main room and handed the sturdy blue mug to Nikki. “Careful. It’s hot.” She sat down in the burgundy-and-beige overstuffed chair next to her husband and watched the girl lift the mug gingerly to her lips. “I can’t imagine what it tastes like. I don’t know how you can stand it so sweet.”
“That’s what my grandmother always says.” Nikki took a sip, and then another.
“Your grandmother sounds like a very wise woman.”
“She’s a witch,” Nikki said. Then, “Do you have any cookies or anything?”
What do you mean, she’s a witch? Ellen wanted to ask.
“I’m sure we do.” Stuart jumped to his feet before Ellen could voice this thought out loud.
“
I’m sorry to be such a pest,” Nikki said, “but I haven’t had anything to eat since lunch, and I’m starving.”
“Well, then, I think we can do better than a cookie,” Stuart said. “We still have some sandwich meat in the fridge, don’t we, Ellen?”
“I think we do,” Ellen said, although what she was thinking was, That meat was for our lunch tomorrow. Now I’ll have to drive into Bolton Landing tomorrow morning to get some more. Assuming this damn rain stops by then. And how long is this girl going to be here anyway, this girl who speaks so disrespectfully of her elders? Yes, I know we can’t very well send her back into that storm, she answered Stuart, although he hadn’t spoken. But what if it rains all night? What if it doesn’t let up for days? “Maybe you should try calling your parents,” Ellen suggested to Nikki. Surely the girl had a cell phone in her canvas bag.
“What for?”
“To tell them you’re safe. To let them know where you are, tell them where they can come and get you,” she added, trying not to put too noticeable an emphasis on this last point.
Nikki shook her head. “Nah. I’ll be all right.”
“We have roast beef and a little bit of smoked turkey,” Stuart said, his head buried deep inside the fridge.
“I’m kind of like a vegetarian,” Nikki told him.
Ellen had to sit on her hands to keep from grabbing the ungrateful girl around the throat.
“How does a grilled cheese sandwich sound?” Stuart asked pleasantly, although the slight twitch at his temples indicated he was losing patience with their unexpected guest as well.
“Sounds good,” Nikki said. “I guess you don’t get a lot of visitors.”
“Not a lot,” Ellen agreed. “We’re a little off the beaten track.”
“You’re telling me! You don’t get scared, living out here all by yourselves?”
“There are some cottages not too far down the way,” Stuart said.
“Far enough. Where’s your TV?” Nikki asked suddenly, her eyes once again scanning the large room.
“We’ve never watched a lot of TV,” Ellen told her. Probably another reason the grandchildren showed no inclination to visit.
“We have a radio,” Stuart offered as he removed a chunk of cheddar cheese from the fridge and retrieved two slices of bread from the bread box on the counter, then began buttering both sides of the bread. “And we can watch shows on the computer, if we really want.”
“I couldn’t live without a TV. I’d get so bored,” Nikki said. “So, you guys have a gun?”
“Why on earth would we have a gun?” Stuart asked.
“You know, for protection.”
“Why would we need protection?” Ellen asked.
“You obviously haven’t heard about those people who got murdered last week in the Berkshires,” Nikki said matter-of-factly.
The butter knife slipped from Stuart’s hand. It ricocheted off the counter before dropping to the floor, where it bounced along the wide wooden planks before disappearing underneath the stove. “What people?” he and Ellen asked together, their voices overlapping.
“This old couple in the Berkshires,” Nikki said. “They lived alone, miles from anyone, just like you guys. Somebody butchered them.”
Ellen realized she was holding her breath.
“Hacked them to pieces,” Nikki continued. “It was pretty nasty. Police said their place looked like a slaughterhouse. Blood everywhere. It was in all the papers. You didn’t read about it?”
“No,” Ellen said, glancing at her husband with eyes that said, Get this girl out of my house now!
“Terrible thing. Apparently, whoever did it, they almost cut the poor guy’s head right off. Here, you want to read about it?” She grabbed her canvas bag from the floor and fished inside it, retrieving a piece of neatly folded newspaper. She unfolded it carefully and handed it to Ellen.
Ellen glanced at the lurid headline, ELDERLY COUPLE SLAUGHTERED IN REMOTE CABIN, and the accompanying grainy, black-and-white photograph of two body bags lying on stretchers, surrounded by grim-faced police. “Why would you be carrying something like this around?” she asked.
Nikki shrugged. “How’s that sandwich coming along, Stuart? You need some help?” She pushed herself off the sofa and walked into the kitchen.
What’s going on here? Ellen wondered, trying not to overreact. “I think we should call your parents,” she heard herself say, barely recognizing the tentativeness in her voice.
“Can’t. I’m not getting any reception on my cell, and your phone’s dead.”
There was a second’s silence.
“How do you know our phone is dead?” Ellen asked.
Nikki smiled sweetly. “Oh. Because my boyfriend cut the wires.” Then she marched purposefully to the front door and opened it.
A young man filled the doorway. As if on cue, a streak of lightning slashed across the sky, highlighting the coldness in his eyes, the cruel twist of his lips, and the polished blade of the machete in his hand.
“Hi, babe,” Nikki said with a giggle as the young man burst inside the cottage. “Meet tomorrow’s press clippings.”
Stuart lunged toward the drawer containing an assortment of kitchen knives, but despite years of regular exercise, he was easily overpowered by the merciless young man, whose machete ripped across Stuart’s wrinkled neck in one fluid, almost graceful, motion. “Ellen,” Ellen heard her husband whimper, the word gurgling from his open throat as he collapsed to the floor, the young man on top of him, slashing at his limp form repeatedly, Stuart’s once-vibrant eyes rolling dully toward the ceiling.
“Stuart!” Ellen screamed, spinning around in helpless circles, knowing there was nowhere for her to run. She felt the girl at her back, hostile hands in her hair, pulling her head back, exposing her jugular to the executioner’s blade. She felt something slash across her throat, watched in horror as a whoosh of blood shot from her body in an impressively wide arc.
Fifty years together, she was thinking. Such a long time. And then suddenly, without warning, it’s over. This is way too violent to last very long, she thought, recalling her husband’s earlier words regarding the storm.
She fell to her knees, saying a silent goodbye to her sons as she watched the room turn upside down. The last thing she saw before one last thrust of the knife closed her eyes once and for all was the warm and loving face of her mother.
ONE
BRIANNE,” VALERIE CALLED FROM the foot of the stairs, “how are you doing up there?”
No answer.
“Brianne,” she called a second time. “It’s almost eleven o’clock. Your father will be here any minute.”
Still no answer. Not that Val was surprised. Her daughter rarely answered until at least her third try.
“Brianne,” she dutifully obliged, “how are you coming along with the packing?”
The sound of a door opening, agitated footsteps in the upstairs hallway, a blur of shoulder-length brown hair and long, lean legs, the shock of a lacy black thong and matching push-up bra alternating with layers of bare skin, the sight of a pair of balled fists resting with familiar impatience on slender hips. “I’d be coming along fine if you’d stop interrupting me.” Brianne’s voice tumbled down the green-carpeted steps, almost knocking Valerie over with the force of their casual disdain.
“You’re not even dressed,” Valerie sputtered. “Your father …”
“… will be late,” her daughter said with the kind of rude certainty that only sixteen-year-old girls seemed to possess. “He’s always late.”
“It’s a long drive,” Valerie argued. “He said he wanted to get there before dinner.”
But Brianne had already disappeared from the top of the stairs. Seconds later, Valerie heard her daughter’s bedroom door slam shut. “She’s not even dressed,” she whispered to the eggshell-colored walls. Which meant she probably hadn’t started packing, either. “Great. That’s great.” Which meant she’d have to entertain her soon-to-be ex-husband and his
new fiancée until their daughter was ready. Which just might work to her advantage, she thought, since lately Evan had been hinting that things weren’t going all that well with darling Jennifer, and that he might have made the biggest mistake of his life in letting Valerie go.
It wouldn’t be the first time he’d made that particular mistake, Val thought, walking to the front door of her modern glass and brick Park Slope home and opening it, looking up and down the fashionable Brooklyn street for signs of Evan’s approaching car. He’d left her once before, running off with one of her bridesmaids just days before their wedding. Six weeks later he was back, full of abject apologies, and begging her to give him another chance. The girl meant nothing to him, he’d sworn up and down. It was just a case of raw nerves and cold feet. “I’ll never be that stupid again,” he’d said.
Except, of course, he was.
“You’re all the woman I’ll ever need,” he’d told her.
Except, of course, she wasn’t.
In their eighteen years together, Val suspected at least a dozen affairs. She’d turned a blind eye to all of them, somehow managing to convince herself that he was telling the truth whenever he called to say he’d be working late, or that an urgent meeting had forced him to cancel their scheduled lunch. She’d even insisted it was no big deal to concerned friends when they told her they’d seen Evan at a popular Manhattan restaurant, nuzzling the neck of a young brunette. You know Evan, she’d say with a confident laugh. He’s just a big flirt. It doesn’t mean anything.
She’d said it so many times, she’d almost come to believe it.
Almost.
And then she’d come home one afternoon, tired and depressed after a day of dealing with her mother, who stubbornly continued to resist dealing with her drinking problem, to find Evan in bed with the young woman he’d recently hired to design a new ad campaign for his string of trendy boutique hotels, the girl’s toned and shapely legs lifted high into the air above his broad shoulders, both of them totally oblivious to everything but their own impressive gymnastics, and her blind eye was forced wide open once and for all.