"Is it safe?" I sidled out of the kitchen. "Are we still going to the meeting?"
Barbara blew her nose vigorously on an oversized silk bandanna, one of Jimmy's favorites. It was a good sign.
"Absolutely," Jimmy said. "Pumpkin, you'll be okay?"
"I do have to work late," she said. "I spent at least an hour puking every morning this week, so I'm behind on my paperwork."
She waved and dashed out. We could hear the elevator door lumber open for her and close again.
"Are you okay, bro?" I asked Jimmy.
"I'm fine. You ready to go?"
I chugged the last two fingers of my Diet Coke and headed for the door. The elevator was crowded, and we didn't talk. The lack of privacy didn't stop the twenty-year-olds or even the thirty-year-olds from yakking on their cell phones or the dogwalkers' charges, in a variety of breeds and sizes, from trying to lick my crotch. I wondered if I was getting old. We made it out of the building alive and headed toward Amsterdam Avenue. You can find AA meetings all over the Upper West Side, mostly in church basements and school cafeterias.
"You're not really fine, are you?" I said. "I don't see how you can be."
"Do you think Barbara and I will be okay?" he asked. "That's the most important thing."
"That was kind of an ugly fight," I said. "Do you go there often?"
"No!" he said. "Never. It's—well, we're both under a lot of pressure. We overreacted."
"That's one way of putting it," I said. "You had me scared."
"Don't be," he said. "We're not breaking up. We just have to get a grip and figure out the parenting thing."
"So you're saying," I said, "the only problem is everything else."
"Well, yeah."
"You've got a lot on your plate," I said.
"I never realized how many problems I've been solving with money. It never occurred to me I was switching addictions, you know?"
"Me neither," I said.
"So now my career goes down the tubes just when I need to provide for a baby. I'm trying to grapple with this compulsive debtor thing. And now I've lost my sponsor."
"A normal person would have put that differently," I said.
"Okay, okay. A civilian would say my sponsor just got murdered." He elbowed me in the ribs. "Asshole."
"Creep." I elbowed back: our old routine from when we were eight years old. I found it comforting.
"When someone you know gets killed," he said, "it's upsetting."
"No shit, Sherlock."
"No, I mean it's not like when you hear it on the news," he said. "When you're not a part of it, you kind of enjoy it in a sick way. This is different."
"Well, yeah, it's personal."
"I didn't know that much about Sophia," he said. "She was one of those all-business kind of sponsors. If she wanted to talk, she had plenty of people of her own. But my God, she knew a lot about me, so it was plenty personal."
"You trusted her," I said.
"She had strong recovery," he said. "But it was more than that. It's weird. We clicked somehow."
This guy Glenn had been my AA sponsor almost since I got sober, and I still told him nowhere near everything. On the other hand, he saw right through my bullshit. That worked for us.
"I'm not used to feeling this kind of shame," Jimmy said. "I gave up the booze so long ago that I can hardly remember being that guy. But this debting thing. I'm still doing it, dammit."
"I thought you cut up your credit cards."
"Well, yeah, I did. I've put together a few days of solvency. But I have to go on using money while I figure the whole thing out. You can't put a cork in it and be done with it."
"I know."
"I don't know if I'll be able to find another DA sponsor that I'm willing to be honest with about this shit."
"You still have your pressure relief group," I said.
It was hard to use the term with a straight face. I guess it was one of those things like gratitude and humility that you'd die of embarrassment rather than say to anyone outside the rooms. But if you stuck around long enough, you had to admit they were actually profound or even brilliant.
"Dan and Eleanor? I don't know them very well yet. The idea of outsiders telling me what I can and can't spend makes Barbara crazy. And she's kind of sensitive right now."
"Hormones," I said.
"She'd take your head off if she heard you say that," Jimmy said. "She's scared. I've been stalling on the spending plan. I'm afraid if they tell me not to spend money on the things she wants for the baby, it will send her through the roof. Oh, God, Bruce, what am I going to do?"
"Hey, fella, one day at a time." I clapped him on the back. "And it's a good day, because you didn't pick up a drink today."
I was trying to get him to lighten up, but he nodded earnestly and kept plodding toward the meeting, carrying his shoulders as if the weight of the world sat heavily on them.
When we turned the corner, we could see knots of AA members hanging out on the sidewalk, gabbing and smoking between meetings. Smoking is not allowed in church basements any more, and there is a Nicotine Anonymous, but it hasn't gone viral or anything. Jimmy, I knew, would march right in and take a seat in the front row. Even after twenty years, he didn't want to miss a word.
"Before we go in," he said, "what does Cindy have to say about the case?"
""Don't worry, dude," I said. "She'll make sure they check your alibi. Actually, she wants us to cool it for a while."
"I'm sorry to hear that," Jimmy said. "I like Cindy. I thought you were good together."
"So did I," I said. "But she warned me from the beginning that cops are clannish, and now she's circling the wagons. To be fair, knowing us makes her only two degrees of separation from Sophia. She doesn't want her boss to think she has a conflict of interest."
"But you barely knew Sophia," Jimmy said. "She can't think you have anything to do with the murder. You're not even someone they could ask about her life or what she was like."
"I know," I said, "but I'm close to you, and you were her sponsee. That's one of the many things we don't see eye to eye about."
"So I'm not the only one who's been fighting with my girlfriend?" He grinned.
"She hasn't called me names yet," I said. "On the other hand, she's not talking to me, so it hasn't had a chance to escalate. The point is that if it came down to whether to be loyal to her or you, she couldn't be sure I wouldn't choose you. Of course you didn't kill Sophia, but if you had, I'd like to think I wouldn't rat you out. And I understand how she might have a problem with that."
"That's ridiculous," Jimmy said. "Nobody kills their sponsor. Has she read what I wrote yet?"
"She hadn't when we talked about it," I said.
"Well, don't worry about me. I would never kill my sponsor."
"So once they know for sure you weren't there," I said, "they'll go away."
"It's not that simple," he said. "Let me ask you a question. What's the fourth step all about?"
"A rhetorical question? You tell me, Socrates."
"Resentments," he said. "The most basic feature of your fourth step inventory is the list of all the people you resent and all your resentments against them."
"I'm listening."
"Most people have a lot of resentments against their family," he said. "Right? But I did all that in AA years ago. So who do you think is at the top of my resentment list these days?"
"Oh, shit," I said. "Barbara. For one thing, you resent the hell out of her timing."
"It's worse than that," Jimmy said. "She was jealous of Sophia. I resented that a lot more than I resented the pregnancy. Dammit, I want the baby. I just need to get used to the idea. But she has no right to be jealous."
"I know. But she is. Was."
"I guess she talked to you, huh?"
I nodded.
"Well, there you go," Jimmy said. "I'm not the one we have to worry about. Once they read how Barbara hated Sophia, they're bound to suspect her."
Chap
ter Seven: Bruce
"You have to come to the funeral," Barbara said, panting as we jogged up Cat Hill. "Two funerals. She's being cremated, and that's private, but there'll be a service in the city later on."
"Jimmy's coming too?" I was running slower and panting louder, even though I wasn't the one who was pregnant.
"Of course," she said. "He'd do anything for Sophia. He's still jumping through hoops for her, even though she's dead. It's her fault I'm making you run up the steepest hill in Central Park."
"I was wondering about that," I said. "I thought it was because you want to kill me. And because you want to run the women's half-marathon."
"I really wanted to run the Marathon in November," she said.
"Yeah, and give birth on the finish line. You do know that even the elite runners do Cat Hill downhill, not uphill, in the actual Marathon?"
"Blame Sophia," she said. "I wanted to join a gym. I could have been keeping in shape through my whole pregnancy with swimming and zumba and machines that do all the work for you. But oh, no, Sophia said spending more money than he has, even if it's for me--or for himself, for that matter--is something DA calls 'debting to yourself.' I can't afford to pay for the whole thing myself on a counselor's salary. So no gym. Running's the cheapest sport there is. Once you've got the shoes and a few pairs of athletic socks, you're all set."
"What are you going to do when you're in the third trimester? How are you going to run when you have a whole giant baby in there?" I was kind of pleased with myself for finding a way to put it that didn't imply that Barbara would get fat.
"Didn't you ever hear about the guy carrying the calf upstairs?" she said. "I think it was one of the ancient Greeks. He carried a calf up a flight of stairs every day from the time the calf was born, so eventually he could carry a full grown cow."
"One day at a time, huh? There's got to be a fallacy in there somewhere. I have to think about it. I'll get back to you."
We reached the top of the hill and stopped to bend and stretch and wipe off some of the sweat.
"Let's cut over past King Jagiello to the Turtle Pond," I said. "Then I have to head east. I've got a lot of dirty laundry waiting for me at home."
"I love the turtles," she said. "It's baby season for them too. Let's go."
We turned left off the road that circles the park onto one of the many paths, this one slanting northwest over yet another hill, away from the Metropolitan Museum and toward the Great Lawn.
"So are you going to this funeral or not?"
"If Jimmy goes, I'm going with him," she said. "You'll come, won't you?"
"Yeah, yeah. Has it occurred to you that there'll be cops there checking everyone out?"
"As a matter of fact," Barbara said, "I've been thinking it'll be a great place to check people out ourselves. Just because I hated her and how she mesmerized Jimmy doesn't mean I don't want to know who killed her."
"Here we go again," I said. "Can't you leave that job to the cops?"
"Most cops don't know anything about the program," Barbara said. "They're bound to suspect Sophia's relatives and friends, but what about people that she only knew from meetings? They might not even think of it. Anyhow, Jimmy needs closure so he can move on."
"Uh, are you sure you want the cops to consider Sophia's program friends and sponsees as suspects? Jimmy won't be able to move on if he's in the slammer accused of murder."
"Well, there you are," she said. "How can we protect Jimmy if we don't know what's going on? And how can we know what's going on unless we investigate for ourselves?"
"I know you think that what you just said makes sense," I said.
The park was a hundred shades of green. People in various states of undress were lying sprawled all over the grass by the pond at the south end of the Great Lawn, with Belvedere Castle perched high on the rocks beyond it. On the Great Lawn itself, baseball games in progress filled the air with shouts and whistles and the occasional thwack of a bat hitting a ball. We circled the pond, squeezing into a fenced area behind the Shakespeare theater. At the edge of the pond, dozens of turtles of all sizes sunned themselves or paddled, climbing amiably all over one another. New York turtles: being crowded didn't faze them.
"I don't get it about DA." Barbara leaned her elbows over the rail and closed her eyes, turning her face up to the sun. "All of a sudden, he doesn't want to go to dinner or see a movie, even if I say I'll pay for it. We can't go to California the way we planned, even though he knows how important turning forty is to me. Every time I suggest we do something that involves spending, even little things like going to the flea market on Sunday or taking a cab or going to the zoo or a museum, he acts like I'm this monster who wants to sabotage his recovery."
"You're not a monster."
I had picked a couple of tall reeds with feathery tops as we walked along. They grew in abundance at the edge of the pond. Now I waved them gently back and forth, trying to work up a bit of a breeze.
"I'm doing my best to let go," Barbara said. "If he won't go with me, I go wherever it is by myself or with a friend. I've always done that anyway. How many times have you and I gone out somewhere while Jimmy stayed home with his computer? But this is different. The things a baby needs, the things a growing kid needs are not optional! I need him to be in this with me.”
A ladybug hopped onto my shoulder. I coaxed it onto my finger, and it crawled around for a moment and then flew away.
"I don't completely get it myself," I said. "You're not supposed to put your life on hold. The spending plan is a way to allot what you've got: your own needs first, then saving and paying off your debts. A lot of it is attitude, like in the other programs. In DA, they say you've got a choice between abundance and deprivation. Then you're supposed to figure out what your vision is. That's a stumbling block for me. If I've got one, I have no idea what it is."
"Jimmy already has his vision," Barbara said.
"You're right," I said. "He's been exactly where he wanted to be, doing exactly what he wanted to do, for the past ten years. His problem is it isn't working for him any more. Now he has to come up with a different vision, and at the same time, he's supposed to be living in abundance now. Or at least, he's not supposed to let feelings of deprivation paralyze him."
"What about my vision?" Barbara's voice was loud enough that the tourists trying to photograph the turtles and keep their kids from falling into the water turned to look. She lowered her voice. "My vision is to be a mother and a real therapist, and both of those take money and emotional support, my partner's emotional support."
"A real therapist?"
"A counselor can't see clients independently, and there's a limit to how much counseling jobs pay. I was thinking maybe while I'm on maternity leave, I could go to social work school and get a master's. I could do it slowly. I'd make a good shrink, Bruce. You know I would."
"Yeah, you would."
"I deserve to have a vision of my own."
"Of course you do."
Should I tell her that the cops had Jimmy's fourth step? Should I warn her that she'd have to answer some very personal questions? I decided not to. Last week in an Al-Anon meeting I'd heard a saying I liked: "Not my circus. Not my monkeys." Either Jimmy or Cindy and her colleagues, maybe both, would have to break the bad news.
Chapter Eight: Cindy
When Cindy arrived at the morgue, Sophia Schofield's husband, Larry Kane, and Sophia's sister, an actress named Arden Daventry, were already there. Neither was willing to forgo the distinction of formally identifying Sophia's body. Cindy rushed in on the brink of late again, wondering how angry Natali would be and if he'd mention it to Sergeant Washington. She had better postpone telling them she was in a twelve-step program until some time when she was looking good. The victim's relatives had not yet seen her when one of the heel pads that kept her feet from flopping around in her shoes came loose. She had to stop and push it back into place, balancing on one leg like an untidy and harassed stork. At least she got to eavesd
rop. The pair of them were quarreling in furious whispers about the disposal of the murdered woman's remains.
"She would have wanted a viewing," Daventry said. "We've always had a viewing in our family. My sister was a Schofield, and we have our family traditions. You can't compare a lifetime of being family to the measly couple of years she lived with you."
"We were married ten years," Kane said. "I think I can claim to know my wife better than the dysfunctional family she couldn't wait to get away from. She had a horror of anyone seeing her dead. She loved my family, my healthy family, and the Jewish traditions she shared with us. We're going to sit shiva for her, and you and your precious Schofields can participate or not."
"That's ridiculous," Daventry said. "Sophia wasn't Jewish. We'll have a service at the Church of the Heavenly Rest and the viewing at Campbell on Madison Avenue. She'll be buried in the family mausoleum at Saint—"
"I don't want to hear it!" Kane said. "She wanted to be cremated and her ashes interred in the cremation garden at Woodlawn. It's eco-friendly. As a matter of fact, we went there for an interment, and Sophia liked it so much that she said she'd like to be buried there. So I bought niches for the two of us, and that's where she's going to go."
"What?" Daventry shrieked. "You'd already made plans for her to die? I'm telling the police about this!"
"Keep your voice down!" Kane snapped. "Show some respect. I'm a lawyer, not a drama queen living from hand to mouth with a career that's sixty percent waitressing, thirty percent not getting the part, and ten percent showcases that don't pay the actors a dime. In my world, being prepared for death is part of life."
Cindy decided it was time to introduce herself. She ushered them into a room where they could view a video of the deceased. If they had expected a refrigerator drawer, a toe tag, and a sheet, they were doomed to disappointment. In fact, Kane remained impassive. Daventry burst out, "Aren't we—? I was in an episode of—" but subsided when Kane shot her a dirty look and Natali turned to her with eyebrows raised in bland astonishment. Afterward, he asked them to wait while he had a word with Detective Cenedella, who would then walk them out.
Death Will Pay Your Debts Page 4