Wilde Lake: A Novel

by Laura Lippman

  “Heck, AJ, it was probably jet lag more than anything else. You were loopy.”

  She’s glad he told her. And she can’t decide what she thinks her father should have done. Obviously, she couldn’t be told when it happened. She was a newborn. At what age would she have been able to absorb the information? And what could her father have told her that wasn’t a lie? She is not a stranger to such issues: there are articles and books written for parents such as herself who have to explain the facts of life to their children, then explain why those facts don’t apply to them. When the twins were five, she began to drop hints: “You know, you weren’t in Mama’s belly.” How they laughed, thinking her droll. Of course they were in her belly. Then, last year, when they asked where babies came from, she had given them the full information, adding that they had been in another woman’s belly.

  “So we had a different mama?”

  “No,” she said. “I was always your mama. But my body couldn’t make a baby, so we found someone to help us.”

  So far, this version has satisfied them. But the books warn to expect flare-ups later. They may ask to meet their surrogate. (They have met her, in fact, and would see her more often if she lived nearby. They know her as Miss Michelle.) If they want to meet the donor—well, good luck with that. All Lu knows about her is that she looked a lot like Adele Closter Brant, because Lu chose a light-eyed, dark-haired donor who had more in common with AJ than her. No matter—the kids came out looking like miniature Gabes. Dark hair, dark eyes, olive skin.

  Because AJ is being so kind and big brotherly, Lu finds herself feeling solicitous of him. It’s obvious to her why he told her when he did. The trauma of standing there, near the site where Ben Flood died, probably kicked up some tough memories and those were a springboard to his memories of their mother. They are not, he has finally admitted, memories to envy. “I mean she loved me—loved us—but it was impossible to know what mom you were going to get. It was like I had three moms. There was sweet mom, mean mom and sick mom.”

  Sweet mom read him books and played games with him, delighting in make-believe. She sang songs—AJ’s voice is her legacy. Sick mom shut herself in her room for days at a time, sobbing and refusing to come out.

  “Mean mom,” AJ said, “told me that I had ruined her life, that she wished I had never been born.”

  “Oh, lots of mothers say that,” Lu assured him, knowing it was a lie. She hoped, more than ever, that AJ would become a father. Motherless, Lu had no one to teach her how to be a mother and she thought, in the main, that she was a good one. AJ would be a good dad, and that would make him see that his mother’s legacy was not a damaging one.

  On the last Saturday morning in June, Lu is amazed by a fleeting thought: I’m happy. It’s a beautiful day, hot but not wretchedly humid, the sky so blue and bright that the world feels as if it’s in a picture frame. Penelope has an all-day swim date with another family, a family generous enough to drop Justin at his sailing camp. (Lu tries to separate them, to the extent that they will allow themselves to be separated.) Her father has gone for his morning walk around the lake. She has a moment alone in the house, something that almost never happens. The silence is delicious. She makes a second cup of coffee in her father’s high-tech espresso machine, froths some milk. Lu notices, as she often does, that the kitchen now bears no resemblance to the original—every footprint has changed—but the sink still faces a window in the side yard. She looks into the lilac bush, its blossoms long past, and remembers the day she and AJ saw a pair of green eyes in there, staring back.

  Impulsively, she picks up the phone and calls her brother, wanting him to hear that her voice is lighter, happier, than it has been in weeks.

  Wonderfully, his is, too. “Lu!”

  “Where are you?” she asks.

  “In Italy,” he says. “Just finishing lunch before I go tour this biodynamic vineyard.”

  “Nice life,” Lu says, ungrudging. If AJ and Lauranne go ahead and have kids, things will be less freewheeling. Yet he might be happier. That’s the paradox. Life is harder with kids, yet somehow better.

  “Well, we can’t all spend summer in Columbia, Maryland.”

  “You know what I was thinking of just now? Noel, the day we met him. And I’ve always wondered—what came between the two of you? Why did you stop talking to each other?”

  “Oh, Lu, it was so long ago. I’m not sure exactly what happened. Noel was a drama queen. He got mad at me, I got mad at him for being mad at me. He got madder at me for being mad at him for being mad at me. Frankly, I always thought he was a little in love with me and that was a problem. Because I was never going to have those feelings for Noel. Never.” AJ sighs, less happy now, and she feels a twinge of guilt. “I don’t want to talk about Noel. It hurts. I regret so much not going to see him when he was sick. But I was scared.”

  “Of contracting HIV?”

  He pauses for so long she begins to think the connection is lost. “Yes,” he says at last. “It was early days, Lu. No one knew anything. I’m ashamed to say that, but it’s true.” He yawns. Loudly, showily. “I’m going to need a nap. Lunch was amazing. You cannot believe the food here. You should come here. Let’s do it as a family next summer. I’ll book a villa for a month.”

  “I’m a public servant, AJ. I don’t get to go to Italy for a month. I’ll spend one week in Rehoboth this August and I’ll be tethered to my e-mail. I used to think Dad was mean, never taking us anywhere. Now I get it.”

  Another showy yawn. “It’s just so beautiful. It makes you wonder—what are we doing, running, running, running, working, working, working? Such busy little bees. Or ants. Whichever one works harder. I thought I simplified my life, but all I did was find another way to be busy, telling other people to simplify their lives. Why am I touring a biodynamic vineyard, except for the fact that I want to have material for a podcast? Or an op-ed for the Times? Then I can deduct my trip, as if I need to worry about tax deductions. Drinking wine, eating good food is reason enough to come to Italy. I had a lovely white wine at lunch. Vermentino. I have no fucking clue if it’s biodynamic. But it made me happy.”

  “Sounds like you’re working on a sequel.”

  “No,” he says adamantly. “No more polemics disguised as memoirs. Or memoirs disguised as polemics. I’ve said everything I have to say. I’m going to learn to be.”

  “You sound really happy,” she says.

  “I think I am. I leave in two days. Can’t miss Fourth of July with the family, fireworks over Kittamaqundi.”

  She hangs up, delighted AJ is finally learning to enjoy himself. Then, out loud in the kitchen, although no one is there to hear. “I do believe my big brother was a little tipsy just now. Good for him.”

  And if AJ can let loose—she calls a familiar number, one she has not used for many weeks, one whose messages she has ignored or fended off with pleas of busyness, another ant with her head down, working, working, working. Maybe she can’t have Vermentino with lunch, but there are other earthly pleasures to pursue.

  JULY 3

  “Stay,” Bash says.

  “What?” They have been together for almost four hours and she has showered, dressed. In her mind, Lu is already on the road, going through her parallel tracks of to-do lists, work and home.

  “It’s a federal holiday. I know that even if my wife doesn’t. And, yeah, I’m sure you have a ton of work to do, blah, blah, blah, but—c’mon. We’ll get a pizza, have some wine. Or we could even go out for an early dinner. Bethesda has lots of good places. There’s this one, with tacos and good tequila—”

  “No,” she says. “Not out.” Never out. The demarcation between here and everywhere else is thick, defined, never to be breached. She experiences Bash only inside, in rooms where no one else visits, with the exception of cleaning ladies who arrive long after they have gone.

  “Then we’ll have delivery. Or I’ll go out and get something, bring it back, whatever you want. If you run back to your office, you’r
e going to end up eating at your desk. Just stay.”

  She is being lobbied by a lobbyist, one of the best. Still, it’s worrisome, a reminder of that surprise visit to her Christmas open house. She thought they were safely past that. Really, a Bash who talks about pharmaceutical solutions to menopause is preferable to one who wants to take her to a restaurant.

  “Something fast,” she says. “Pizza.”

  They sit at the granite counter in the never-used kitchen, eating pizza straight from the box, drinking a ridiculously expensive red wine from water glasses. Lu studies the label, wonders if her father would like it. Good wine is a nice gift for the man who has everything, even if much of it is paid for by his daughter.

  “I feel bad,” Bash says. “About the last time I saw you.”

  Oh. “Oh. That’s okay. I’m sensitive about any discussion of menopause because—” Still, she hesitates to tell him that she went through menopause after her hysterectomy. She feels it de-sexes her. “I guess all women are.”

  “No, not about that. I—I didn’t even mention what happened to you. That crazy Rudy Drysdale jumping you in court that way.”

  Maybe it’s the recent revelation about her mother, but the word crazy hits her ear hard.

  “He really did have severe mental issues,” she says, with frosty sanctimony. “You have to be pretty disturbed to do what he did.”

  “Oh, I know. Sorry. Force of habit.”

  “Habit?”

  “That’s what we called him in high school, Crazy Rudy. He was like our mascot for a while there. Always hanging around. Finally, he took the hint and left us alone.”

  Davey knew him, Lu reminds herself. But he said he saw him at the mall, hanging around Nita. And Davey was alone whenever he was with Nita Flood.

  “A mascot—you mean, one of the teams you played on? Was he Willie the Wilde cat?”

  “No, he was always mooning over Davey and AJ. There was some party or something at Davey’s house—I wasn’t there, but I heard about it—and these guys embarrassed him, but Davey and AJ took up for him. End of sophomore year, junior year? We could not shake him after that. He was worse than you. He showed up everywhere. AJ and Davey were nice to him. I mean we all were. I think AJ finally had a talk with him. At any rate, he stopped hanging around.”

  “AJ said he didn’t know him in high school. We discussed that when he was arrested.” She is seeing a yearbook, the Glass Hour, a circle of lamplight. AJ pulled his own yearbook out that night, but remembered to put it back on the shelf. Why? He either knew Rudy or he didn’t. Did he think a picture would jog his memory?

  “Maybe AJ didn’t remember him. I didn’t, not right away. Then it clicked—and I was, like—oh, yeah, Crazy Rudy. I always thought he was harmless. But isn’t that the cliché? Watch out for the quiet types.”

  The Glass Hour. The glass house. Lu tries to remember everything she can about that afternoon at the cast party—the humiliated boy who darted from that walk-out basement and into the woods behind the house, the trees that allowed the Robinsons to live in a house where their lives were on display. Where did he go? Everyone’s attention had been focused on AJ and Davey, the nasty boys they had chased. No one thought to go looking for the boy they had taunted.

  “Bash, was Rudy there that—that night Nita Flood crashed your party? The one at Davey’s house, where everything . . . happened.”

  “No.” He seems irritated that they’re still talking about this. “I told you, he followed us around, but we didn’t invite him to stuff. That was just me, Davey, Noel, and AJ. We were the only ones.”

  “And Nita.”

  “She was shitfaced. Even then, I’m pretty sure she couldn’t remember much.”

  “But not when she was with Davey. She got drunk playing the game, right?”

  “Monopoly,” Bash says promptly. Promptly. As if prompted.

  “That’s some memory you have,” she says. “Monopoly, Rudy Drysdale.”

  “It’s hit and miss. Like I said, I didn’t remember Rudy, not right away. AJ probably forgot him, too.”

  “I have to go,” she says, sliding down from the stool.

  “Really? You’ve barely finished your one slice.” He grabs her wrist. She looks at his hand circling her arm. His hand looks enormous. He’s so much stronger than she is. Who isn’t? If he decided to force her to stay, if he decided to force her to do anything, he could. And if she dared to complain or suggest his behavior criminal, what would he say? You always liked it before. I’ve sent you home with bruises and you were fine with it. I thought it was what you wanted.

  She removes his hand. “I have to go. It’s Friday. Teensy doesn’t like to stay late on Fridays.”

  The highway is clogged despite the fact that the holiday weekend should be in full swing, everyone released from their obligations yesterday. Some of Lu’s people tried to find a way to take Thursday off as well, but she put her foot down. Weekend creep has to end somewhere. She passes the exit to Columbia, continuing north another twenty miles. Teensy’s not even working today. The twins are with their babysitter, Melissa, who is happy for a few extra hours.

  Lu says grimly to her phone, via the dashboard: “Find funeral homes, Locust Point, Baltimore, MD.” It takes a while, with the phone offering almost comic alternatives, but she is finally connected to Charles L. Stevens Funeral Home.

  “Hi, I’m calling about the funeral costs for Rudy Drysdale, whose wake and burial you arranged back in April. I’m his cousin and the family never received the invoice. Could you tell me if it was sent and what address you used?”

  Sure enough, the bill went to the very address toward which she is speeding.

  “Lu,” AJ says, opening his door to her, the center one. Door number 2, as Lu thinks of it. The other two doors are nonfunctional, one bright blue, the other bright red, their street addresses still visible, all part of AJ’s attempt to disguise his wealth. His attempt to disguise who he really is.

  He’s not surprised to see her on his doorstep, unannounced. She wishes he were.

  “Is Lauranne here?” she asks.

  “She’s teaching a hot yoga class at Charm City’s Midtown location,” he says. “She’ll be home about six or so.” Then: “Do you want to stay for dinner?”

  She doesn’t and doubts that he will want her to, in the end. But all she says is: “If things aren’t too crazy at home. Melissa’s with the kids.”

  “I’m sure, Dad can—”

  “AJ, why did you lie to me about not knowing Rudy Drysdale?”

  He doesn’t answer right away. He walks to the kitchen, Lu on his heels; he gets a bottle of wine from his retro refrigerator, a bulbous thing in orange, the kind of appliance that looks cheekily affordable, but costs a lot.

  “I brought five bottles of this back from Italy,” he says. “I wish I could have imported cases of it. Costs maybe six dollars a bottle and it’s just the perfect summer wine. Want a glass?”

  “No, thanks.”

  “I’ll bring the rest tomorrow, for the party. Have to fight these hoarding instincts.” He is in no hurry to have this conversation. He pours himself a glass of wine, fixes a plate with slices of cured meats and cheeses, despite Lu’s assurances that she’s not hungry. “Smuggled all this in. Don’t tell Dad. You know he’s a stickler. I guess I shouldn’t tell you, either, officer of the court.”

  “Not my jurisdiction,” Lu says. “However, Rudy Drysdale was.”

  “Let’s sit by the pool,” he says. “It’s nice in the shade.”

  “Nice” is a bit of a reach, but it’s pleasant enough. AJ really does have a green thumb and the U-shaped courtyard is full of containers. Mostly plants and herbs, but there are some pots of impatiens.

  “How much have you figured out?” he asks.

  “Enough,” Lu lies. Everyone knows the old canard that an attorney never asks a question to which she doesn’t know the answer, but that’s for court, after investigations, depositions, discovery. Right now, Lu doesn’t have
the luxury of knowing the answers. She has to bluff.

  “But not everything,” AJ surmises. “You can’t. No one can. Only Rudy, and he’s dead.”

  “You knew him in high school. You can’t have forgotten him. Davey remembers him. Even Bash remembers him. He’s the kid you were trying to protect, at the cast party. For months, he hung around you, tried to get in with your crowd. That’s not someone you’d forget. Why would you lie about that?”

  “He’s a disturbed individual, Lu. I didn’t want to be linked to him.”

  “Davey didn’t have a problem admitting he knew him.”

  “Good for Davey.”

  “Of course, Davey didn’t pay his funeral expenses.” She decides to risk a guess. “Or his legal bills.”

  AJ nods. “You’re a good investigator, Lu. The Drysdales don’t even know who helped them out. I used an intermediary.”

  “Bash?”

  “No, why would you think that? I mean, once a bag man, always a bag man, but I didn’t want him involved. He had as much to lose as anyone, I guess, but I couldn’t trust him either. And no one had more to lose than Rudy. It was his idea, he acted on his own, no one knew he would do anything like that. I wanted no part of it. Settle down, I told Rudy. It’s just talk. No one’s going to listen to her. No one’s looking for you. But then Davey had to go and pay her. Worst thing you can do with a blackmailer. For one thing, it only convinced her that she was right, after all these years. Why would Davey pay her if he didn’t rape her? Forget the statute of limitations—who wants to deal with this kind of scandal in midlife, when you’ve finally got things figured out. Who wants to be accountable for his seventeen-year-old self? Even Bash couldn’t afford to have something like this being batted around. It’s one of the few times I’ve been glad Noel is dead. He was spared this stupidity, at least.”

  His voice trails off. From somewhere in his house, a phone begins to ring. It rings twice, stops, goes to voice mail, presumably. Lu remembers another ringing phone, the black squat phone in their living room, how it rang and rang that winter their grandmother was trying to get through to them. Their father changed their home number, then AJ got a phone in his room. Anything to keep the secrets at bay, right, Dad? AJ had a phone in his room, and Lu was so jealous. He was on it all the time. All the time.