He carried her into the foyer. "He didn't take your stairs," he said, then placed her carefully on the second step. "I'll get you some water."
"I wish you wouldn't do this."
"Save the thanks for later;" he said, softening the words with a quick smile. "Just point me toward the kitchen."
She didn't have the energy to argue with him. She pointed him toward the kitchen, then leaned back against the carpeted steps. She couldn't see much of the living room from there, but then there wasn't much left to see.
Robert had stripped pictures and paintings from the walls, taken embroidered pillows, the crystal jar of potpourri, and the chunky candles from the mantel.
All that was left was the pale cream-colored carpet and the stack of magazines that had rested on one of the now missing end tables. She was surprised he hadn't tried to pry the house from its foundation and cart it away in a giant U-Haul.
The top of her head felt ready to explode. Her, ears throbbed with the sound of her blood pulsing through her body. She could feel her heart beating loudly in her throat, her chest, her temples. The baby shifted position then kicked sharply, and she placed her hand against her belly and willed herself to calm down. "You're all that's important," she said out loud. "You're the only thing that matters."
The helpful stranger—if only she could remember his name—walked back into the hallway then handed her a glass of orange juice. "You still have a fridge."
"That's good to know." She took a long sip of juice, closing her eyes as the cool liquid slid down her throat. "Listen, this is very kind of you, but I'm sure you have better things to do with your time."
"No," he said, crouching down in front of her. "I don't."
His face was inches away from hers. His eyes were a shade of blue that bordered on navy. She'd never seen eyes like that before. His lashes were thick and straight and inky black. A woman would kill for lashes like that. He wore his dark hair long. It brushed the collar of his denim work shirt. He had a small crescent-shaped scar on his left cheek, a wide and sensual mouth, and a strong jaw. She'd never seen anyone like him. He certainly didn't look like the kind of man you'd see walking the streets of Princeton. There was something vaguely uncivilized about him, as if he didn't know the rules and wouldn't play by them if he did. "You don't have a wife holding supper for you someplace?"
"She's holding supper for her second husband somewhere west of the Grand Canyon."
"Sorry to hear that," she said.
"I stopped being sorry about two years ago," he said. "Only took me eight years to get there."
Eight years? He might as well have rolled an eighteen-wheeler over her. The thought of feeling this pain for eight more years was overwhelming. Labor couldn't possibly hurt more than Robert's betrayal did.
She took a long sip of juice. The man in front of her looked appealingly uncomfortable. Very protective and very male. Your wife must have been a fool, she thought.
Robert had never been this solicitous of her. Not even back when they were newly married and still happy. It had always been about Robert's comfort and Robert's needs and Robert's expectations. Not that she had complained. She knew the score when she signed onto the team. The most important thing was that the team stayed together.
"I'm sorry I can't help you about the basement," she said, standing up. "I'm also sorry you can't return the money,"
"So am I."
"I almost believe you mean that."
"I do mean it."
"Well, there's nothing we can do about it now, I suppose."
"Your lawn's overgrown," he pointed out. "Your shutters need fixing. I could work off the money that way."
"I don't know," she said. "I'm in the middle of a divorce. I don't know what's going to happen next." Her laugh held more than a touch of fear. "Want to hear something funny? I don't know how I'm going to pay next month's mortgage." She didn't know why she'd said that. It wasn't something she liked to admit even to herself.
He didn't look shocked or judgmental. Maybe in his world not being able to pay .the rent was as commonplace as :a summer cold. "Do you work?"
"Part-time."
His eyes followed the movement of her hands as they instinctively cradled her belly. "You're pregnant."
She nodded. "Fourth month. The doctor doesn't think I should commute to Manhattan on a daily basis, so I've been freelancing." She waited for him to ask what exactly she was freelancing, but he didn't. "I'm looking for some local work." She forced a smile. She was good at smiling. People didn't look too closely when you smiled at them. "Need an editor?"
He blew right past her question. "How many rooms have you got here?"
She blinked in surprise. That wasn't the response she'd been expecting. "Five bedrooms, three baths, full basement. What does that have to do with anything?"
"You could rent out a few rooms to help pay your mortgage ."
"To boarders?" She sounded horrified.
"Yep." He hooked his thumbs through the belt loops of his jeans. "Good way to make some money without doing much of anything."
"I couldn't live with strangers."
"Just an idea," he said easily, watching her with a combination of curiosity and something uncomfortably close to pity. She hated that look in his eyes. It made her want to turn away in embarrassment.
"Not a very good idea," she said.
"So forget about it."
"I will."
"What do you want to do about me?"
"I can't do anything right now," she said. "You're throwing questions at me, and all I can think about is whether or not I still have a bed to sleep in."
"Then you'd better find out."
"Listen," she said, "I know what you're doing and I appreciate it but I'm fine. I'm not going to pass out on the floor or dissolve in tears the second you leave."
"You're not going to call the cops?"
"Why would I call the cops?" she countered, puzzled. "You didn't do anything wrong." So what if he couldn't return the money. That was Robert's loss, not hers.
"Somebody around here did something wrong," he said. "You were robbed."
She felt heat rise up from her chest. "Don't worry. I'm not in any danger."
"How do you know?"
"Believe me, I know."
"Why don't I check the house for you?"
Her temper flared up. "Why don't you—"
"Molly, oh, my God, I can't believe what—" Gail from across the street burst into the foyer and stopped dead. Gail of the three perfect children and the adoring husband who showered her with Land Rovers and trips to Paradise Island. Gail thought Molly was just like her, a matron-in-waiting, a mother-to-be who would do all of her being right there in a big, beautiful house where she was queen of all she surveyed. A woman who believed she'd been born to be served.
"Who are you?" Gail demanded, staring at the man whose name Molly wished she could remember.
He turned his slightly amused gaze on Gail. "Rafe Garrick. Who are you?"
Molly watched, amazed, as Gail's cheeks reddened.
"Who is he?" Gail asked Molly: The righteous tone in her voice got under Molly's skin.
"Rafe Garrick," Molly said. Good thing she'd been paying attention this time. "He just told you."
"I mean, what is he? To you, that is."
"Did you want something, Gail? I'm not in the mood for social chitchat right now."
"I'm not surprised, after what Bob did. I never thought I'd live long enough to see a husband do this to his pregnant wife."
Rafe Garrick met Molly's eyes. "Your husband did this to you?"
She was too angry to be embarrassed. "You didn't think a stranger would be so sneaky, did you?"
Gail's beady little eyes didn't miss a trick. Molly knew the woman was filing away every word, every detail, so she could pass the gossip on to the neighbors. "We couldn't believe what was happening," Gail confided to Rafe, as if Molly weren't even there. "Bob was the nicest guy ... just the nicest. He helped me with
the fiat tire I got down on Route 1. When Edie and I saw him pull up in that big U-Haul—well, it just about broke my heart."
"You saw him do it?" Molly asked. "You actually saw him stealing the furniture?"
Gail shifted her weight and glanced away for a second before answering. "I don't know that I'd call it stealing.
"He took the furniture out of my house," Molly snapped. "If that's not stealing, I don't know what is."
"I'm just telling you what he said."
"You spoke to him?"
Gail looked as if she wished she were anywhere but in Molly's foyer. "Just for a second. I had to make sure you weren't being robbed. I mean, not being robbed by a stranger."
"You should have called the police for me," Molly said, struggling to keep her tone as even as possible. Molly knew that Gail Lockwood had disliked her from the first moment she and Robert moved in. "Maybe then I'd have some furniture."
"Oh, I don't think he took everything," Gail said in a cheery voice that rang as false as her helmet of blond hair. "I'm sure he left you more than enough."
Something in Molly snapped, and she grabbed the woman by the forearm and marched her to the entrance of the empty living room. "Still think he left me more than enough?"
Gail's cheeks were stained an ugly liver red, and the corner of her left eye twitched rhythmically. Twitch . . . twitch-twitch . . . twitch . . . twitch-twitch. Molly smiled in grim satisfaction. At least she wasn't the only one feeling embarrassed and uncomfortable now.
"It's just one room," Gail managed, pulling away from Molly's grasp. She rubbed her arm with elaborate, melodramatic gestures. "You have the rest of the house."
But Molly knew better. She'd noticed the dirty footprints on the center staircase, seen the nasty scrapes where furniture had crashed against the bannister and railings. She'd been cleaned out.
This was the stuff neighborhood legend was made of. Thirty years from now they'd still be talking about Molly and Robert and the way he'd moved out after only a handful of months and taken everything with him but the house itself. She'd be an old woman, pushing her shopping cart through Super-Fresh, and the young ones would point at her and whisper, "That's the one who was dumped."
She dragged Gail across the foyer to the dining room. The empty dining room. "What would you call it, Gail? How does minimalist sound?"
Gail stared at the empty room. "The bastard really did clean you out."
"You knew that before you came over," Molly said with deadly calm. "You and the rest of your pals watched as he stripped this house of every piece of furniture, didn't you?"
Gail looked toward Rafe Garrick for help. "What was I supposed to do—throw myself in front of the moving van and stop him?"
"Mrs. Chamberlain's right. You could've called the cops," he said.
Molly smiled grimly. If Gail was looking for an ally, she was out of luck.
"I don't think they would have appreciated it," Gail said with an edge to her cultivated voice. "We don't call the police for every little thing in this neighborhood."
Molly stepped forward. "Okay," she said, "that's enough for one day. I'd like you to leave now, Gail."
Gail's patrician jaw dropped open in surprise. "You're throwing me out?"
"No," said Molly patiently, "I'm asking you to leave. If you don't, then I'll throw you out."
"You have a hell of a nerve," Gail said. "You haven't been the friendliest neighbor on the block. I only came over here to help you."
"If you wanted to help me, you would've tried to stop Robert."
Gail looked over at Rafe Garrick, as if trying to determine where he figured in the, scheme of things. Rafe looked back at Gail with a closed expression on his face. Molly was reasonably sure she was having an out-of-body experience. The whole day felt as though it belonged to somebody else.
"Fine," said Gail, squaring her shoulders. "I have supper to make for my husband and children." She started for the front door, took a few steps, then stopped. "I hate to be the one to say this, but we're not at all happy with the way you've been keeping up your property since your husband left you. It's your business if you can't pay for your groceries. Just don't take the rest of us down with you. Maybe you don't care about things like property values, but we do."
"I hate her," Molly said as she stood in the doorway and watched Gail saunter across the street.
"That's like hating a copperhead," Rafe said. "She is what she is. Don't waste your time on it."
Robert would have lectured her on controlling her temper, the dangers of stress and negative thinking. He would have had her apologizing for everything, from her red hair to her bad disposition.
"I can't believe she knows about the supermarket. It's been less than an hour since it happened."
"What happened at the supermarket?"
"Let's just say it was a great opening act for what happened here."
He looked supremely uncomfortable. "I'd better shove off," he said. "You've probably got things to do."
"I'm sorry about the job," she said. "I'm sorry Robert treated you so unfairly."
"So am I," he said. "I could've used the money."
She looked at him. "Me, too."
She wasn't sure if it was her words or the way she said them, but he met her eyes and started to laugh, and, to her great surprise, she found herself laughing right along with him.
"We've got us a problem," he said as the sound of their laughter, faded. "You need the money back. I don't have it to give you."
He'd give it to her if he could. She could see that in his eyes.
"So keep it," she said with a toss of her head. "This is between you and Robert. You don't owe me anything." In fact, she kind of liked the fact that Robert was out a healthy sum.
"You could use some lawn work."
"Right now I don't care if the, weeds strangle this entire neighborhood."
''Call me when you do," he said, "and I'll take care of it for you."
It was the right thing to say. Polite. Generous. Sincere. But why would he want to mow her lawn? "I'll do that"
He hesitated for a moment on the top step. He looked as if he wanted to say something. She couldn't imagine what. They were two strangers who'd just happened to share the worst day of her life. She could feel her defenses sliding back into place.
"See you around," he said at last.
"Yes," she said. "See you."
Polite talk. She'd never see him again. Not in a million years.
She closed and locked the door behind him, then set out to assess the damage.
The downstairs was as empty as an abandoned warehouse. All she had to do was follow the trail of footprints—big muddy boot marks and the slightly smaller, more precise markings of expensive Italian loafers—to see what they'd been up to. Maybe she should thank Robert for making her life easier. She should be able to zip through her housecleaning in a fraction of the time now.
She followed the footprints upstairs. Robert and his crew had been remarkably thorough. She had to admire their attention to detail. The bedroom had been picked clean. That set her back for a moment. She could understand taking the armoire and the triple dresser and the nightstands, but the bed? Mattress, box spring, heavy oak frame—every single piece of it.
What kind of man would bring his marital bed with him to his next relationship? She tried not to think too hard about that question. She'd loved him once. Maybe she'd even still loved him this morning when she woke up, when she still believed he had her best interests at heart When she still believed he at least cared about their unborn child.
The den had been stripped of her books, the computer, monitor, printer, office supplies of all description. He'd even taken the bulletin board that hung over the desk and the Far Side wall calendar, her favorite one, with the barhopping elephants and angry housecats on the prowl.
He left the guest room untouched. She supposed that shouldn't surprise her. The guest room was their old life made visible. They'd emptied their entire a
partment into the guest room when they moved. The cheap assemble-it-yourself Ikea knockoffs, the double bed from Dial-A-Mattress. Paperback books and photo albums from their wedding and those silly little stuffed animals he'd won at the Fireman's Fair three Augusts ago. No, Robert didn't want any of those things. He probably never had. He left them behind for Molly.
She moved down the hallway to the last bedroom, the one near the octagonal window. Not much he could do to that room. The only thing in there was a lamp with a split shade and no bulb.
The lamp was gone. She couldn't believe her eyes. He'd actually taken that miserable garage-sale reject and left the fractured shade on the floor near the window. The idea of fussy, style-conscious Robert living with that monstrosity struck her as so absurdly fitting that she started to laugh for the second time since she'd stepped into the nightmare. He deserved that lamp. He deserved every rotten thing that befell him and his blue-blooded lover. What kind of rotten son of a bitch would steal the mattress from under his pregnant wife?
Of course, she knew the answer: the one she'd married, that's who. The one she'd pledged to love and honor and stand with shoulder-to-shoulder through every dark moment life threw their way. She'd never figured Robert would turn out to be her darkest moment.
She picked up the shade then put it down on the windowsill. One of Gail's children was Rollerblading in front of her house. Even the woman's children were perfect. Their clothes never wrinkled. They never fell off their bikes and skinned their knees. They probably liked homework and broccoli.
But Molly had to admit that her sharp-tongued neighbor was right. She hadn't given property values a second thought. What had seemed like an old man's innocent stubble a few hours ago now looked like an indictment of her worth as neighbor and homeowner. Each dandelion probably reduced her property value by five hundred dollars. Maybe even a thousand. If she had to sell the house at some point, every thousand mattered.
She pushed the thought from her mind. She'd lost her husband, her credit cards, her furniture, and a good chunk of her pride. If she lost the roof over her head, she might as well give up the ghost. A part of her wanted to call Robert on the phone and beg him to come back home. Another part of her wanted to grab the handgun they'd kept locked in the bedroom closet and shoot him dead. And then there was the part that wanted to run home to her parents and let Mommy and Daddy make everything right again.
Once Around Page 3