The Last to Know Page 10

  How long has it been since she and Joel went back to Ohio?

  They haven’t been back since Daddy’s funeral. He had died in early December, so close to Christmas that it didn’t make sense for them to return for the holiday a few weeks later. Joel had to use his vacation time for the funeral, anyway.

  They were planning to go back for Christmas last year, even though Max was a newborn. They had even purchased plane tickets, but it turned out that Joel couldn’t take the time away from the office. The agency was pitching new business, an important account that they ultimately won.

  That didn’t make Tasha feel much better about spending Christmas at home in Townsend Heights, just the five of them. Joel, overworked and exhausted, came down with a miserable cold that the kids prompty caught. Tasha spent Christmas Eve alone in the living room, watching some ridiculous cable movie starring Tim Allen as Santa Claus, drinking too much spiked eggnog, and crying and feeling sorry for herself as she put together the toys Santa would be leaving for the kids.

  What a crummy Christmas.

  They haven’t even discussed what they’ll be doing this year. She assumes they’ll go to Ohio, but they had better make their airline reservations as soon as possible, come to think of it. It’s only two months away. She’ll have to talk to Joel about it tonight, along with everything else on her agenda.

  Max is playing happily with his blocks. Hunter has turned on the television set, and he and Victoria are already transfixed by a Disney cartoon. Tasha normally doesn’t like them watching TV when Hunter comes home from school, but right now, if it keeps them occupied it’s fine with her.

  After hanging the coats in the hall closet, where there are somehow never enough empty hangers, Tasha goes into the kitchen. The red light on the answering machine is blinking.

  She presses the “Play” button, the tape whirs, and Joel’s hurried voice fills the room. “Tasha, Stacey said you called again. Is everything all right? It’s been a crazy day. I’m leaving the office now. I have a meeting across town, and then I’m going to try and catch the six forty-four. I’ll call if I don’t make it.”

  The six forty-four? That means he’ll be home by eight.

  Suddenly, the day doesn’t seem quite so grim.

  Tasha opens the freezer and takes out a package of chicken breasts, putting it into the microwave to thaw. She’ll give the kids a frozen pizza, put them down early, and make dinner for herself and Joel so that they can actually have a conversation.

  “Can we have Spaghetti-Os?” Lily asks Jeremiah as he opens the wide stainless-steel refrigerator.

  “You just had Spaghetti-Os last night,” he tells the twins, who are sprawled on the two steps that lead from the kitchen to the adjoining family room. They’re both wearing embroidered jeans with ragged hemlines, and short, tight tops that show their stomachs. Melissa would never have let them get away with looking like that, even though it’s what all the kids are wearing, but Aunt Sharon and Uncle Fletch don’t seem to mind. In fact, it was Aunt Sharon who bought them most of their new clothes.

  “So what if we had Spaghetti-Os last night? We bring peanut butter sandwiches to school for lunch every day,” Daisy points out. “Peanut butter’s healthy, and so is spaghetti. What’s the big deal if you eat a lot of something that’s good for you?”

  Jeremiah, who assumes it matters, but isn’t sure exactly why, merely shrugs. He pushes past the cartons of Panda Palace takeout, the diet salad dressings, the imported beer, in search of something to give his stepsisters for supper. Finally, he closes the fridge and says, “Okay, whatever. You can have Spaghetti-Os.”

  They slap each other’s hands in a high five.

  As he opens the can, he tells them, “Tomorrow night, you guys are on your own. Tell Aunt Sharon or Uncle Fletch to get you something for dinner before they go out.” He has no doubt that his aunt and uncle will have plans—they’re rarely if ever home in the evenings. That’s fine with him. In fact he prefers it that way.

  “Where will you be?” asks one of the twins—he doesn’t bother to turn his head to see which one, and their voices are as identical as their faces.

  But it’s easy to tell them apart visually ever since Lily impulsively got her reddish curls lopped off a few weeks ago. To Jeremiah, she looks strangely shorn. He can only imagine what her mother would have said about the haircut. Melissa insisted on long hair for the twins and short hair for Jeremiah.

  He’s been growing his dark hair ever since her death. Now that it’s getting shaggy, down past his ears and collar, he’s been half-expecting Uncle Fletch and Aunt Sharon to ask him to cut it. But they haven’t. At least not yet.

  Dad definitely will, when he gets back from overseas. With his own military-short buzz, he’s as conservative as Melissa was. But who knows when Dad will be back? Maybe by then, Jeremiah will be sick of the long hair and ready to cut it off anyway.

  “Jer, I was talking to you! Where are you going tomorrow night?”

  “I have to babysit,” he tells Daisy.

  “Babysit?” She and Lily exchange a glance.

  Jeremiah knows what they’re thinking. That babysitting is for girls. Well, they’re wrong. He scowls and turns his back, dumping the Spaghetti-Os from the can into a small glass casserole dish.

  After he hung up with Mrs. Leiberman earlier, Uncle Fletch said, “Babysitting, huh?’’ in a way that let Jeremiah know he thought it was for girls, too. Jeremiah felt his face grow hot.

  Why is it that Uncle Fletch can make him feel so . . . wimpy? Just the way Peter Frost and his friends do. But Uncle Fletch doesn’t mean to do it. He’s been trying so hard to be a father figure to Jeremiah, who’s sure his uncle isn’t deliberately making him feel uncomfortable. But every time Uncle Fletch gives him that look—the sort of head-tilted, can’t-relate look—Jeremiah feels angry.

  “For who?”

  Startled, he says, “Huh?”

  Daisy repeats, “For who—I mean, you’re babysitting for who tomorrow night?”

  “For this lady down the street.” He sticks the casserole dish into the microwave, sets it for three minutes, and glances at the twins. “When this beeps, serve yourselves.”

  “Aren’t you gonna eat with us?”

  “Nah.”

  “How come?”

  “I’ve got stuff to do upstairs.”

  “Wait, Jer, we need to ask you something.”

  He pauses in the doorway. “What is it?”

  “We need to get our pumpkin downtown for the judging on Saturday,” Daisy says. “Will you help us?”

  He hesitates. His sisters grew the giant pumpkin in the backyard of the house where they lived until the fire. They planted it last spring in hopes of winning the cash prize and getting their picture on the front page of the Townsend Gazette, a local tradition.

  Ironically, before summer’s end their mother’s photo occupied that spot, above the caption

  Melissa Gallagher of Townsend Heights lost her life in a blaze that destroyed her home yesterday.

  As for the pumpkin, it got left behind in the small patch of garden behind their house. Jeremiah has walked the twins over every few weeks since they moved, so that they can weed around it. But they haven’t mentioned it lately, leading him to think that maybe they’ve given up on entering it in the contest.

  Guess not.

  “I don’t know,” he says. “That pumpkin must weigh a ton. How are we supposed to get it there?”

  “We can balance it in our wagon. It’s still in the shed there,” Lily says, like she’s thought the whole thing through.

  “Why don’t you just ask Uncle Fletch or Aunt Sharon to help you?”

  “Don’t you want to do it?” Daisy asks, pouting. “You were the one who helped us plant it in the first place.”

  “Besides, Aunt Sharon always gets her nails done on Saturday mornings, an
d Uncle Fletch golfs,” Lily adds.

  “Okay,” he says reluctantly. “I’ll help you.”

  He leaves the kitchen, making his way through the big colonial-style house. It’s one of the biggest on the block, and one of the oldest, too. Jeremiah wonders if his aunt and uncle will ever move from here. Melissa used to say that they can afford a much fancier place with all the money Uncle Fletch has made in baseball, and that they’re just too lazy to go out and buy one.

  Jeremiah passes through the big formal dining room, where nobody ever eats, and the sprawling living room with the kind of furniture you can’t get comfortable on. Which doesn’t matter, because nobody ever really sits in there. The giant-screen TV is in the family room, and there are televisions in all the bedrooms, too, but not in the living room. At the foot of the stairs in the foyer, Jeremiah glances into the adjoining den.

  The French doors are closed, as always. Through the glass panels, Jeremiah can see the bookshelves lined with trophies and framed photographs of Uncle Fletch. There are more pictures of him on the wall, and some framed, matted newspaper articles and magazine interviews, too. The furniture is oversize, and upholstered in maroon leather. In one corner is a giant desk, and in another, a row of tall wooden filing cabinets. Jeremiah has never seen his uncle sit at the desk or open a filing cabinet. In fact, he spends very little time in the den. Jeremiah figures the room is pretty much just a shrine to his career as a pro player.

  Jeremiah realizes that he has never set foot in the den—not on any of his occasional visits to the house with his dad, and not since he’s been living here. Suddenly curious, he reaches out to turn the handle of one of the doors.

  It’s locked.

  He tries the other door. It, too, refuses to budge.

  Why would Uncle Fletch need to keep the den locked? None of the other doors in the house are ever locked when the rooms are empty. Not even the master bedroom.

  Jeremiah abruptly releases the handle of the French door and turns toward the stairs again. No reason to hang around here wondering about the den now. He can hear his sisters’ voices back in the kitchen, chattering.

  Jeremiah takes the steps two at a time. He hurries past a row of closed bedroom and bathroom doors. At the end of the hall, he slips into the master bedroom.

  Already a familiar guilt has overtaken him, yet he doesn’t turn back.

  Chapter 5

  Dropping her cigarette in the street beside her Honda, Paula steps on it, grinding it out. Then, grabbing her cell phone—an outdated model, far bulkier than George DeFand’s sleek state-of-the-art one—she tucks it into her pocket, closes the car door, and walks hurriedly up the sagging front steps of the small clapboard house that sorely needs a paint job. Built around the turn of the century, it must have once been a nice, decent home, conveniently located just a block from Townsend Avenue. Now the small porch is missing countless spindles from its rail, several shutters are hanging crookedly, and there’s a huge crack in one of the panels in the round stained-glass window above the double front door.

  Mr. Lomonaco, the elderly widower who owns the place, has been in a nursing home in Peekskill for the past two years. Paula has been sending her rent checks to his son in California, who has made it clear that he plans to sell the place as soon as his father dies.

  Paula is hoping Mr. Lomonaco will hang on a while longer—not because she particularly likes the crotchety old guy, who has made it clear that he doesn’t approve of divorced, working mothers—but because she won’t be able to afford the rent once the house is sold.

  Apparently Mr. Lomonaco and his son have no idea that with the current market value and scarcity of rental properties in Townsend Heights, they can probably get twice as much as she’s paying for the one-bedroom second-floor apartment.

  She has no idea where she and Mitch are going to go when they figure that out or sell the house, whichever comes first. She desperately wants to stay in town, but on her current salary she wouldn’t be able to afford anything else in Townsend Heights even if there were abundant apartments available. She’s been watching the classifieds for the past few months just to get an idea of what’s out there, and there hasn’t been a single local listing under rentals.

  That means she’s either going to have to make a lot more money by the time they have to move, or move away and find someplace she can afford—like one of those downscale urban apartment complexes in Yonkers or Mount Vernon. She doesn’t think she can stand that; she really doesn’t. Mitch would have to switch schools, and she would have to commute to work, and . . .

  But maybe it won’t happen, she tells herself now as she fishes in the jacket pocket of her suit for the sterling Tiffany keyring she treated herself to on her last birthday. Maybe we won’t have to move out of Townsend Heights.

  She lifts her chin.

  Of course we won’t. Sooner or later somebody’s going to realize I’m not just some small-town reporter. Somebody’s going to finally pay me what I’m worth, and then Mitch and I will get Frank off our backs for good, and we’ll live it up.

  She checks the mailbox before unlocking the door. It’s empty. Good. That means Mitch is home and safely upstairs.

  Someday she’ll be able to afford a sitter to stay with him after school until she gets home from work. For now she counts on him to take care of himself. If he ever needs anything, he’s supposed to either call her on her cell phone or, if he can’t reach her, knock on old Mrs. Ambrosini’s door. She’s in her eighties and lives in the first-floor apartment. She’s always home, except on Sunday mornings, when her daughter picks her up and drives her the two blocks to Immaculate Conception, the local Catholic church, for mass.

  So far, Mitch has never had to knock on Mrs. Ambrosini’s door, for which Paula is grateful. The old lady isn’t particularly neighborly and doesn’t seem fond of children. But at least there’s an adult in the house when Mitch is home alone.

  Paula steps into the dim vestibule. She can hear the evening news blasting out of Mrs. Ambrosini’s apartment. The old woman is practically deaf. There are times when her television is so loud it vibrates Paula’s bed through the floor. She used to complain to Mr. Lomonaco about it, but he never did anything. Now there’s nobody to complain to, except Mr. Lomonaco’s son, and Paula figures he’s not likely to care, either.

  She walks past the old woman’s closed door and starts up the creaky wooden staircase. The steps are treacherously steep, unbroken by landings, just a straight pitch from the first floor to the second. The bannisters are long gone, too. Mr. Lomonaco talked about replacing them, but he never has. She doubts he or his son will ever bother.

  Perhaps the stairway was open once, but now that the house is chopped into two apartments, it’s enclosed by a clumsily built wall. There’s a circular mark on the ceiling where a real light fixture once must have hung; now there’s only a naked bulb that does little from its lofty perch to dispel the shadows.

  Paula used to fantasize about buying the house herself and restoring it. But much as she would love to own a home of her own in Townsend Heights, she doesn’t want it to be this one. Not located here, on a short block dotted with commercial buildings and homes that are too close together and, though not quite shabby, not nearly up to par with the rest of the residences in town.

  No, Paula doesn’t want this small, scarred old house, situated on a tiny lot between a beauty shop and another old Victorian that provides office space for a dentist, a marriage counselor, and a Realtor.

  She desperately wants to live in one of the newer, bigger homes on the outskirts of town—a house in one of the woodsy developments inhabited by seemingly perfect suburban families with their seemingly uncomplicated lives.

  She wants that kind of house, that kind of life for herself and for Mitch. It’s what he deserves. Hell, it’s what she deserves.

  She’s never lived anyplace but an apartment. Not even when she was a li
ttle girl. Paula spent most of her childhood in a dingy three-family row house in the north Bronx, raised by an emotionally distant, self-absorbed mother and a seldom-there father who held down two jobs and went out whenever he wasn’t working. Especially after Paula’s baby sister died in her crib. Both Pop and Mom were heartbroken about that.

  They talked for a while about having another baby, but Mom decided she couldn’t bear to take a chance. Just in case SIDS really was hereditary, as the doctor had warned them it might be.

  So it was just the three of them after that. Paula smiles remembering how excited Pop was when he realized a lifelong ambition and was finally able to move them to Westchester. Paula was a freshman in high school by then, already making plans for college and her journalism career. After she met Frank and moved out, her father stayed in the rent-controlled apartment in a downscale New Rochelle neighborhood until a few years ago, when he hurt his back and was unable to keep working. That was shortly after he was widowed.

  He asked Paula to let him move in with her and Mitch. There wasn’t much room, and it meant giving Pop the one bedroom while she shared the lumpy pullout couch with her son, but what else could she do? Pop had nowhere else to turn; she and Mitch were his only family after Mom died.

  So Pop moved in, exhilarated by the fact that he was actually living in Townsend Heights. He spent his days and nights mingling with the locals, making friends more easily than Paula ever has. He really loved it here.

  But in the end, Paula did what she had to do. Anyway, he’s better off where he is now. She did the right thing.

  She unlocks the apartment door and opens it, stepping into the small hall. “Mitch?”

  “In here.”

  He’s in the living room, as always, perched in front of the television watching one of those half-hour tabloid entertainment news programs.

  “Hi,” Paula says, dumping her bag on a worn chair and kicking off her shoes. She allows herself to wiggle her liberated nylon-clad toes, then reluctantly pushes them back into her black leather pumps. The heels are higher than she’s used to, and the shoes might be a size too small, she realizes. But they were such a good bargain, and they looked so classy that she couldn’t resist them.