by Joy Fielding
“Couldn’t have?”
Did he have to repeat everything? Was he hard of hearing?
“Did she elaborate?”
“She just kept repeating that she couldn’t have it, that she didn’t want it, and then she begged me not to tell Victor that she was pregnant. I told her he’d find out soon enough anyway.”
“And what did she say to that?”
“She said he might never have to find out about it at all.” She paused and looked directly at Donna. “When it occurred to me what she had in mind—”
“Objection. The witness has no way of knowing what was in Mrs. Cressy’s mind.”
“Sustained.”
“Just tell us what was said, Mrs. Adilman,” the lawyer advised.
“Well, after she said that, about Victor never finding out, I said, ‘Oh no, Donna, you can’t mean that. You wouldn’t do anything to hurt that helpless baby, would you?’ I mean, I just couldn’t believe that she would actually do anything like that, kill her own—”
“Objection, your honor.”
“Sustained.”
Donna’s eyes filled with tears. I didn’t do anything, did I? she screamed silently at the woman on the stand, who, for the first time, seemed embarrassed and averted her eyes. I didn’t abort my baby. I went through that whole mess again. I got fat; I went to more classes even though the odds were I’d have to have another Caesarian. I went through the operation again with Victor at my side. I had my little girl. And you, you old witch, you were right. I couldn’t kill my child, no matter how it was conceived, even though I wanted to, wanted to as much as now I want to hold onto her. Because that little life is my life, and no matter how much I’ve managed to mess up my own life, that little girl is a happy, gorgeous, well-adjusted little angel, and I’m the one who’s largely responsible for that fact. While you’re up there telling them about my changes of mood and hair colors, and all my sneezing and cleaning and crying, would someone please point out that in the interim I somehow managed to produce two gloriously beautiful, well-adjusted children! Would someone please put in a kind word for me? No, Donna answered herself silently. It’s not your turn yet.
The next witness identified himself as Jack Bassett. He was tall, slim and blond, with the look of a slightly over-the-hill beach bum. He ran a sporting-goods shop and had known Victor, he explained, albeit on a fairly casual basis, for several years. Victor had, in fact, sold him a policy one day while in the shop looking at fishing reels with his small son. Several weeks later, he had run into Victor and his wife and son as they were walking in the Palm Beach Mall. Donna was pregnant at the time, he said.
Donna remembered no such meeting and no such man. He stood—or sat, she corrected herself—before her, about to condemn her with his responses, and she had no idea why, or what he had to say. Had she stepped on his toe when they were introduced? Had she giggled inappropriately or asked for a Kleenex?
“Did you see Mrs. Cressy on any other occasions?” Ed Gerber asked.
“Only once.”
“Would you tell us about it, please?”
Jack Bassett smiled. His teeth were white and straight. Donna wondered what other memorable meeting they had shared. “I’d taken my cat, Charlie, to the vet, a Dr. Ein, over on South Dixie near Forest Hill.” Donna felt a slow ache in the pit of her stomach. Though she still had no recollection of this witness, she knew now the area into which they were moving. At last, Mr. Gerber had returned to the fork in the road. He was beginning his journey down the other path. Donna quickly looked behind her. Mel smiled reassuringly. Jack Bassett’s all-American voice pulled her eyes back to the witness stand. “I parked in the lot and took Charlie inside.”
“This is a parking lot for clients of the veterinarian?”
“For the Animal Clinic, yes, and for several other medical offices on the other side of the lot.”
“What happened when you came out of the clinic?”
“Well, I was feeling a little at loose ends. Dr. Ein had said he’d have to keep Charlie overnight and I love that cat like I love my kids—”
Everyone smiled approvingly. And she was the one who was supposed to be crazy?
“Anyway,” he continued—
Anyhow, Donna mouthed.
“I went back to the parking lot. There were a lot more cars parked there now—I’d been in the vet’s about an hour—and I couldn’t remember where I’d put the damn thing—excuse me, I’m sorry for the language.”
The witness was duly pardoned and asked to go on.
Get on with it, Donna urged silently. Get to the good stuff. We know it’s coming. You saw something, didn’t you? When you were looking for your car. Something you didn’t expect to see. Tell us all about it. Why did everyone feel they had to build suspense? Didn’t anyone just want to mind his own business anymore? Where was all that marvelous non-involvement she kept reading about?
“Anyway—”
Anyhow.
“I looked around and then I saw this little white MG. You know, one of the old classics. A beautiful little car. I thought I’d go take a look at it. I honestly didn’t realize anyone was inside it.” He seemed embarrassed. “I bent down and peered in the window.”
“Someone was inside?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Did you recognize anyone?”
“Not at first. At first I just saw what I thought were a couple of kids necking.”
“You saw two people kissing?”
“Yes, sir. Quite passionately.”
“And?”
“And I think that was all they were doing. I really couldn’t see.”
“Objection.”
“No need to object, Mr. Stamler,” Mr. Gerber followed with quickly. “The question was misinterpreted. I didn’t mean ‘and what else were they doing,’ I meant simply ‘and what happened next.’”
“Strike that last answer from the records,” the judge instructed.
“And what happened next?” Ed Gerber repeated clearly.
“I guess they caught sight of me and they pulled apart.”
“Did you recognize them at that point?”
“Not really. She looked a bit familiar, but it wasn’t until they got out of the car a few minutes later that I recognized who she was. Her hair was very different from the last time I’d seen her.”
“And who was she?”
“Mrs. Donna Cressy,” he said, smiling inappropriately at Donna.
Surprise! she wanted to yell.
“And the man she’d been kissing?”
“Dr. Mel Segal.”
“Why is it dragging on for so long?”
Donna sat next to Mel inside the classic white MG she had heard described earlier that afternoon. They were parked in front of the house she was currently renting.
“Victor has a lot of witnesses,” Mel said, by way of an explanation.
“One for each grudge.”
“Apparently.”
“They all say the same thing.” He nodded. She turned abruptly toward him. “Do you think I’m crazy?” He put his arm around her. “I don’t know,” she continued, shaking her head. “I sit and I listen to them. Can they all be wrong?”
Mel smiled gently at her. “They’re all wrong,” he said.
She leaned her face against his. “Thank you.”
“What are you going to do tonight?”
She looked toward the house. “I thought I’d take the kids over to McDonald’s. God, what would Victor do with that one? Letting my children eat junk food!”
“Victor would never be stupid enough to touch something like that. If he attacks McDonald’s—he’s attacking an American institution!”
She laughed. “You want to go get Annie? Come with us?”
He shook his head. “No. You go. Just you and the kids.”
She patted his hand and unbuckled her seat belt, smiling. “What kind of a man has seat belts installed in a classic old sportscar?”
Mel laughed. “Only us vi
le seducers of pregnant crazies,” he answered, leaning over and kissing her.
Donna put one hand on the door handle and stopped. “You know I’m kind of afraid to go in there!” Mel looked at her, the question implicit in his eyes. “Just that Adam got into a big discussion on life and death last night,” she explained. “I’m not sure I’m up to it again tonight. It was a very strange thing,” she continued. “I wanted to tell him that my mother had gone to Heaven, but I just couldn’t get it out.”
“Why is that?”
“I’m not sure. I guess because I don’t really believe that there is a Heaven.”
Mel’s voice was soft and reassuring. “Do you have to believe everything you tell him?” he asked simply.
The truth of Mel’s question caught her off guard. Suddenly, she found herself laughing. “Of course not,” she answered, images of Santa Claus, Cookie Monster and the many other creatures of Adam’s fertile imagination—an imagination she actively encouraged—passing instantaneously before her eyes. “Thank you,” she said, nodding her head, feeling things regain their proper perspective. She opened the door. “You’ll always be here, won’t you?” she asked, looking back at him before getting out of the car. “Whenever I start taking myself too seriously and things—”
“What things?”
She smiled. “I love you.”
“Aw, you say that to all us vile seducers.”
She closed the door and leaned through the open window. “You bet your ass I do.” Then she turned and walked quickly up the pathway to her front door.
ELEVEN
He had been staring at her for the better part of an hour.
At first, she had assumed he was staring at someone else; then she had changed her mind and concluded he was staring at the wall behind her. Now, she had definitely decided he was staring at her. She moved an imaginary hair away from her right cheek, lowered her chin and simultaneously lifted her eyes in the manner she had heard Lauren Bacall describe as “The Look” she had once made famous. Donna wondered if the bearded man across the room thought she looked like the young Lauren Bacall. She lowered her gaze.
Fat chance, she said to herself, coming face to face (face to stomach?) with reality. She was eight months pregnant. Of course, with all the people between them, it was quite possible he couldn’t see her whole body. From the breasts up, she didn’t look pregnant at all. If anything, she had lost a lot of weight everywhere but in her stomach. Most people at the party seemed surprised, in fact, at how much weight she had lost in the last few years. She, in turn, was surprised at their surprise, having not realized herself how thin she had become. Maybe it was her hair, she thought suddenly, pulling on it. Maybe she should do something about it—trim it, cut it, maybe even color it. It was making her look too thin, too haggard when she was supposed to be blooming. Blooming—sure thing.
He was still staring at her.
Donna didn’t know who the man was. She knew most of the people at the party, although it had been several years since she had seen them. They had been largely her friends, after all, and somehow she and Victor had lost contact with most (if not all) of her friends in the last couple of years. She looked around the room: there were former friends from McFaddon Advertising (“They’re so boring,” Victor had said, “all they ever talk about are their ad campaigns.”); a few girlfriends she used to lunch with (“I don’t know how you can stand them, Donna. All they ever talk about are movies. They’re so frivolous. You have more substance than that.”); some old boyfriends (“I don’t like to know about your past. It’s none of my concern.”); and her good friend, her former good friend and confidante, Susan Reid, whose party she was now attending. (“All she ever talks about are men and wild parties. Definitely not a good influence, Donna.”) Also present were a number of Susan’s friends that Donna recognized but did not know, and some she did not recognize at all. Including the man with the sandy moustache and beard who stood over by the patio door staring at her.
“Who’s that man over there?” Donna asked her hostess as Susan was about to walk by. “The one with the beard.”
Susan pretended to be looking around the room. She lifted her drink to her mouth and talked from behind its protective shield, her gaze now floating absently without establishing any unnecessary eye contact. “Oh, him. That’s Mel Segal. He’s a doctor. Divorced, I think. Has a little girl. Kind of cute, huh?”
Donna shrugged. “Not my type.” Then she laughed. “Look who’s talking about type! I’m eight months pregnant, for God’s sake,”
“Where is Victor anyway?” It was the first time in the two hours Donna had been at the party that anyone had even asked.
“He’s out of town on business. Sarasota.”
“Everything all right with the two of you?”
“Oh, sure. Fine. Why do you ask?”
Susan shrugged. “I don’t know. Just that you look, kind of—I don’t know.”
“Tell me,”
“You just don’t look like you!” she blurted out. Donna instinctively did not want to understand what Susan’s observation implied.
“Well, I am pregnant,” she replied.
“Yeah,” her friend concurred. “I guess that’s what it is.”
The two women stared at each other with fond regard. Donna thought of all the phone calls they had shared, the laughs and agonies over assorted lovers, the movies they had seen together, the gossip they had exchanged. Until her wedding. Susan and Victor had simply never gotten along; their personalities were diametrically opposed. No one ever said anything, but gradually, Susan’s visits had become less and less frequent and Victor was always finding an excuse not to go to one of Susan’s many social get-togethers. (The one time in the last few years he had run out of excuses, he had stood around most of the evening waiting to leave and had finally jangled his keys in Donna’s direction at ten P.M.) Donna knew that the only reason she was here at all tonight was because Victor was out of town. Thank God for Sarasota, she thought.
“Can I get you another drink?” A man’s voice. Donna looked up, surprised to discover that Susan had gone and that Dr. Mel Segal had taken her place. She handed him her glass.
“Ginger ale,” she said, when she couldn’t decide what else to say.
She watched him angle his way through the crowd. He was a nice-looking man, she decided. Fair complexion, a lot of hair. A good muscular body which probably had to struggle to keep in shape. He looked like an overgrown kid, Donna concluded, as he moved back toward her, a drink in each hand. He had brown eyes, and dimples when he smiled.
“A ginger ale for the pregnant lady,” he said, handing it to her.
“Thank you.”
“You want to go out on the patio?”
Donna found herself startled. Why did he want her to go out on the patio? Did he have a thing about pregnant women? She’d read that there were men who did.
“Any special reason?” she heard herself ask.
“I’d like to talk to you,” he answered.
She wanted to ask him what about, but decided she might not like his answer, and by now she had decided that she did want to go out on the patio with him. He motioned for her to lead the way.
“Have we met before?” she asked him as they walked past the other guests on the cement patio and over to a section of lawn that was unoccupied.
“No.”
They stopped.
“I’m all ears,” she said.
“I was hoping you’d do the talking.”
“Me? You’re the one who said you wanted to talk.”
There was a long silence. Finally, after obvious deliberation, he spoke.
“This is none of my business.”
“What is? Isn’t,” she corrected.
“You.”
“What are you talking about?”
Another long silence.
“Look, this isn’t like me at all. I usually never interfere with someone’s private life. I’m very easy-going; I believe in
letting sleeping dogs lie and all that—”
“What are you trying to tell me?”
“That you are the most unhappy-looking woman I have ever seen.”
Donna was too surprised to react.
“I’m sorry. It’s a hell of a thing to say to a complete stranger, I know. Just that I’ve been watching you, and I keep hearing people go by saying ‘What’s happened to Donna? She used to be so pretty,’ and, to be honest, well, I think you’re still pretty, but you’re obviously so desperately unhappy—”
“You said that,” Donna was beginning to react. She felt the tears filling up her eyes.
“Oh, no, please don’t cry. I’m a total disaster when a woman cries.” He moved his arms around her and walked with her to the far end of the garden. The tears were becoming sobs, her shoulders were starting to heave. Minutes later, the rest of the guests had deserted the patio area and Donna sat on the far grass, curled in the doctor’s arms, crying as she hadn’t cried since that night almost nine months ago. Mel sat beside her, his hold never weakening, until the last sob wrestled free of her body.
“I shouldn’t cry,” she said at last. “It’s not good for the baby.”
“Start worrying about what’s good for the mother,” he answered. “Usually what’s good for Mommy is good for the child.”
Donna tried to smile. “I forgot you’re a doctor.” She paused, wiping her nose carelessly with the paper napkin from around her drink. “Where’s your office?”
“South Dixie. By Forest Hill Boulevard.”
She nodded her head. “In one of the clinics?” His turn to nod. “General practice?” He nodded again. “You like it?”
“Very much.”
“Susan told me you had a daughter—”
“Yes. Annie. She’s seven. Going on twenty-four.” Donna managed a weak laugh. “Kid’s been through a lot the past few years.” He stared into her eyes. The tears hung precariously on their lids, waiting for the slightest provocation to fall. “I guess Susan also told you I’m divorced.”
“Yes.”
“Amazing girl, that Susan. She’s learned the art of staring right at you, saying all sorts of nasty things about you, smiling at you all the while, and you don’t even see her lips move. Great talent.”