She Loves Me Not Page 3

  Then she spots it.

  Pulls it out.

  Unfolds it.

  A red paper heart, creased down the middle.

  That’s all.

  The kind of thing Jenna or Leo might make in school, with construction paper and safety scissors.

  But this doesn’t appear to be a child’s handiwork. The edges are cut perfectly straight.

  Who would send her a paper heart?

  Rose turns it over and over again, and again and again, searching for a signature.

  There is none.

  A red paper heart.

  A heart.

  A chill slithers down Rose’s spine—and this time, it has nothing to do with crunching snow.

  Hearing a car door slam, Christine Kirkmayer rises from the couch and goes to part the drapes covering the wide bay window facing the street.

  The little girl next door is home.

  Jenna.

  An oddly fragmentary name, in Christine’s opinion. As though somebody were too lazy to complete it on the birth certificate.

  Jennifer is much better. If Christine and Ben ever have a baby girl, maybe they’ll name her Jennifer.

  But hopefully, if they have a baby, it won’t be a girl—at least, not one with her mother’s unfortunate genes.

  Christine sighs, watching Jenna Larrabee waving at the occupants of the car that just dropped her at the curb.

  Then she notices Jenna’s mother standing in the shadows over by her own car in the driveway.

  She doesn’t know Rose Larrabee well. In fact, she’s only met her once and seen her a few times in passing since December, when she and Ben moved here from the city.

  But anyone can see that something is wrong. There is tension in Rose’s posture, in her rigid wave before the car at the curb pulls away, red taillights disappearing into the dusk.

  As Rose goes to meet Jenna by the front steps, Christine notices that her expression is troubled—and that she’s clutching something in her hand.

  Papers, or . . . mail?

  That’s what it looks like from here.

  Hmm. Maybe she got something disturbing in the mail.

  Christine’s imagination takes flight as she watches Rose hug her daughter and unlock the front door.

  Maybe she just got a foreclosure notice from the bank. Or a letter from her late husband’s mistress . . . not that Christine has any reason to suspect that her husband had a mistress. But wouldn’t it be interesting if he did?

  Both mother and daughter have disappeared inside the house. Just as Christine is about to turn away from the window, Rose steps back outside, without the mail.

  She returns to the car, opens the back door and takes her younger child from his car seat.

  The little boy is groggy. He doesn’t want to walk to the house, but his mother coaxes him along.

  Why doesn’t she just pick him up?

  Christine shakes her head, watching. If that were her child, she would carry him into the house, no matter how heavy he was.

  She lets the beige curtain fall back into place, then glances back at the television set and the first of several New York evening newscasts. That’s all there is to do at this time of day: watch the news. The five o’clock news, and then the five-thirty news. The six o’clock news, capped off by the national news at six-thirty. She probably knows more about current events than Tom Brokaw does.

  If only Ben would let her get cable television. But he’s too cheap—or thrifty, as he refers to himself—for that. He says cable TV is a waste of money, and more importantly, a waste of time. He says the same thing about the Internet, and won’t spring for a DSL connection. As a result, the computer’s modem is so slow that she rarely spends time surfing the Web, and that’s fine with Ben. He wants her to spend her time doing other things. Reading, volunteering, maybe even taking a class or two at a local college.

  That would cost money, of course, but Ben says it would be good for her, after all she’s been through. He also says that if she wants, she can go back and get the teaching degree she never finished a decade ago, when her loan money and grants ran out and she left City College to take a secretarial job.

  What Ben doesn’t say is that if she became a teacher, she could go back to work and eventually bring in a good salary to supplement his.

  Christine has no interest in a college degree or a teaching job. She wants only one thing.

  A baby. That would be good for her.

  The doctor says there’s no physical reason she shouldn’t be able to conceive, despite everything. Just give it time and it’ll happen. Just relax, and it’ll happen.

  Well, they’ve been trying for almost a year now, and she’s done nothing but relax in the two months since they moved to Laurel Bay. What else is there to do here?

  Leaving expensive, crowded Manhattan was Ben’s idea. They looked for houses closer to the city, in Nassau County. But everything was so expensive, and so small. Out here on the eastern end of the island, they could afford something decent—not that this two-story turn-of-the-century Victorian is Christine’s dream house. But it does have charm, and the neighborhood is safe and family-friendly. It’s so close to the water that gulls fly overhead and the dank scent of salt and seaweed hangs heavy in the air on warmer days.

  Ben said he wouldn’t mind the commute to his midtown accounting firm—two hours each way. And he doesn’t seem to mind.

  Christine is the one who minds.

  She sighs. Another evening stretches ahead, long and lonely. Ben won’t be home until almost nine. She’s become a suburban housewife cliché. Nothing to do but watch the news, daydream about babies, and spy on the neighbors through a crack in the curtains.

  “Mommy, can I lick the beaters?” Jenna asks, hovering at Rose’s elbow as she turns on the mixer. Her long hair, precisely the glossy dark shade of the devil’s food cake batter, hangs perilously close to the bowl.

  Rose tucks the wayward silky-straight strands back over her daughter’s shoulders, saying firmly, “No, you can’t lick the beaters. There’s raw egg in there.”

  “I like raw egg.”

  “It’s not good for you, Jenna. You can get sick from it.” Rose checks the back of the Duncan Hines box to see how long she’s supposed to mix the batter.

  “You used to let me lick the beaters,” Jenna grumbles.

  “That was before I read that raw eggs aren’t good for children.” Oops. She was supposed to be mixing it on medium speed, not low. She hurriedly adjusts the dial.

  Too high.

  A chocolate shower spatters all over the tan Formica counters, the knotty pine cabinets, the green striped wallpaper.

  “Mommy! “Jenna shrieks.

  “Shh!” Rose hurriedly turns off the mixer. “You’ll wake up—”

  Leo’s frightened cry drifts down from the second floor.

  “—your brother,” she finishes lamely.

  Just what she needs.

  It took her a half hour to get Leo down the first time. Now he’ll want her to sit with him again until he drifts back to sleep. At this rate, she’s not going to finish the cupcakes till midnight—at which point, she’ll have to start writing out valentines for Leo’s classmates, and praying he’ll miraculously sleep through until morning.

  He used to do that, but for the past few weeks, he stirs at every little sound. At first she thought he might be coming down with the flu that’s been going around, but he’s been healthy. And he’s long past the teething stage.

  “Wow, what a mess.” Jenna’s brown eyes are more enormous than usual as Rose surveys the kitchen in despair. “There’s cake mix everywhere, Mommy—even up in the sky.”

  Rose looks up just as devil’s food raindrops fall from the ceiling, landing in her eye.

  It stings, and dammit, Leo is howling up there.

  It’s all Rose can do to keep from joining in.

  “I’m going to go up and calm him down,” she tells Jenna as she hurriedly splashes water in the sink, trying to
flush her eye. “Don’t you dare touch the mixer.”

  “But I can finish—”

  “No!” Rose’s tone is sharp. “You could get your fingers cut off in the beaters. It’s dangerous.”

  “You think everything is dangerous,”Jenna mutters, idly picking up Rose’s electronic pager from the kitchen table.

  “And don’t touch my pager, either,” Rose admonishes.

  “It’s Daddy’s pager, not yours,” Jenna snaps at her, tossing the pager back on the table.

  Rose’s breath catches in her throat. Jenna’s right. It is Sam’s pager. Rather, it was. But she’s been using it ever since she started working again, carrying it just in case one of the kids’ schools needs to reach her in an emergency. It’s cheaper than buying a cell phone . . . and anyway, it makes her feel closer to Sam. He always had the pager hanging from his belt loop when he left the house.

  She chooses to ignore Jenna’s comment, saying only, “Did you finish your math worksheet?”

  “Yup.” Jenna is smug.

  “Did you remember to put your name and the date on top?”

  “I put my name. I didn’t know the date.”

  “It’s February thirteenth,” Rose says over her shoulder, making her way to the front of the house. “Which reminds me . . . if your homework is done, then go start writing out your valentines, Jenna.”

  “You said you’d help me.”

  “You know how to do it.”

  “It’s not fun alone.”

  No. Nothing’s fun alone.

  Rose sighs. “Okay, wait here. I’ll be back down as soon as your brother’s back to sleep.”

  She grabs her coat and the kids’ jackets, which are draped over the stairway bannister, and carries them up the stairs. The house is a true Victorian, with very little closet space upstairs and none on the first floor. Sam was going to turn an alcove off the living room into a coat closet someday.

  Someday . . .

  Rose climbs the stairs, pushing Sam from her thoughts only to have them taken over by the mysterious red envelope again.

  Who sent the construction paper heart?

  And why the typewritten address label?

  Maybe she has a secret admirer. But if that’s the case, wouldn’t he have written something? Or at least, have sent a regular card, instead of a plain red heart?

  It isn’t necessarily scary.

  Just . . .

  Odd.

  Rose doesn’t have the patience or the energy for odd. She’s doing all she can do to make it through each day as it is.

  “Mama!” her youngest child wails.

  “Coming, Leo.” She trudges wearily up the stairs.

  Fresh from a relaxing late-night bubble bath, Christine turns a critical eye on the full-length mirror on the back of the bathroom door.

  Her blond hair looks good, at least. The baby-fine, hippie-straight hair that fell out with chemotherapy never grew back, and was replaced instead by thicker, bouncier tresses that air-dry in the kind of loose waves she used to futilely attempt with a curling iron.

  Yup, all it took was life-threatening cancer and the ravages of chemo to give me the kind of hair I always coveted, she thinks dryly.

  And anyway, she isn’t thrilled with her image from the neck down. Maybe she should have taken one of her flannel nightgowns out of her drawer to wear tonight, instead of this skimpy negligee she got as a bachelorette party gift from the girls in her office. This old house is so drafty that her bare arms and legs are covered in goose bumps, and the nightgown doesn’t fit right anymore, either. The slinky fabric strains across her midsection, and the bodice gaps where her cleavage used to be.

  She turns away, knowing that if she continues to critique her reflection, she’ll lose her nerve.

  The tub faucet is dripping again. Ben tried to fix it last week, and whatever he did worked for a while. But now, when Christine bends to turn it off, no matter how tightly she twists the knob, there’s a steady plop, plop, plop of water into the drain.

  Her first thought is that she’ll have to call the super.

  Then she remembers that there is no super. Ah, the joy of being homeowners.

  She’ll just tell Ben they’re going to have to spring for a plumber. The next-door neighbors must have a good one—and lousy pipes. She frequently spots a panel truck—Hitchcock and Sons, Plumbing and Heating Contractors—parked over there.

  Christine leaves behind the dripping tub and thoughts of plumbers, hangs the bath mat over the shower curtain bar, turns off the light, and makes her way back across the hall to their bedroom.

  The house is chilly. She contemplates running downstairs to adjust the thermostat, but knows what Ben will say about that. Oil is expensive. Sixty-two degrees is as high as he’ll allow the temperature to go during the day; sixty at night.

  She left her husband reading the latest issue of Kiplinger’s. Now he’s curled up on his side of the bed, snoring already, the magazine still clutched in his hands.

  Disappointment steals over her.

  She turns off the bedside lamp and slips between the cold sheets on her side.

  “Ben?” she whispers, poking him. “Ben?”

  He mumbles incoherently, his back to her.

  Shivering, she stretches out beside his warm body, wrapping her arms around him, kissing his shoulder. “Ben?”

  He grunts, rolls over. “Why did you turn off the light?”

  “You were sleeping.”

  “I’m reading.” He turns the lamp back on.

  “You’re not reading anymore.” She kisses his neck.

  He closes his eyes again, wearily as opposed to passionately.

  “Ben. Warm me up, will you? It’s freezing in here.”

  “Turn up the heat.”

  I’m trying, she thinks grimly, pushing the comforter and sheets back to expose her supposedly provocative self. Her teeth are practically chattering, and Ben’s eyes are still closed.

  “Ben . . .” She kisses his neck again. “Look at me. Please?”

  He opens his eyes. If he’s enraptured by the sight of her in her nightie, he’s doing a hell of a job keeping his burning desire under wraps.

  “No wonder you’re cold,” he says. “Go put on something with sleeves.”

  “Or I could take this off and not put anything on,” she says, feeling slightly ridiculous. She isn’t good at seduction. She never has been. Dammit, why won’t Ben take the lead? She trails kisses along his collarbone.

  He squirms. “Come on, Christine, cut it out. It’s tax season. I need to get some sleep.”

  “You just said you were reading.”

  “Well, now I’m sleeping. I took cold medicine an hour ago and it knocked me out.”

  “Why? You’re not sick.”

  “I think I’m coming down with the flu. Everyone at work’s been getting it.”

  Terrific. Ben is prone to frequent moaning when he’s ill. When they were newlyweds, she relished the chance to play Florence Nightingale, but that got old very quickly. Especially after she got seriously sick herself, and Ben’s bedside manner left something to be desired.

  “This is my fertile time, Ben,” she points out. “How am I supposed to get pregnant if you have no interest in me whatsoever?”

  “I didn’t say I had no interest in you whatsoever, Christine, I just said I’m not in the mood tonight.”

  “You’re never in the mood.”

  “I’m coming down with the flu, and I’m wiped out after a fifteen-hour day. You try riding the train round trip for hours every morning and night and see how you feel.”

  “I’m not the one who wanted to move out here, Ben. You are.” She rolls away from him and sits up, pulling the blankets to her chest, partly because she’s shivering, partly because she’s suddenly self-conscious about the plummeting neckline. “You know I would have been perfectly content to stay in the city.”

  “You were miserable in the city for the entire last year we were there. I thought a change of
scenery would help.”

  “I went through hell last year, and it had nothing to do with where we lived. If you want to help me, you know that a baby would— Where are you going?”

  He’s out of bed, throwing a sweatshirt over his pajamas and heading for the door.

  “Out for a walk.”

  “I thought you were so goddamned tired.”

  His reply is lost in the door’s staccato slam.

  She’s left alone to cry into her pillow, shivering from the chill.

  Long past one A.M., lamplight still spills from the first-floor windows at 48 Shorewood Lane.

  He wonders whether Rose has fallen asleep on the couch in front of the television again, like she did last night. Or maybe she’s awake, folding laundry, as she was when he peeked through the window late one night last week.

  His boots make a squeaky, crunching sound in the snow as he crosses the small patch of side yard, boldly leaving footprints.

  At first, he was so careful not to disturb anything, never to leave a sign that he’s been lurking.

  Yes, at first, he was content simply to win her trust by day, and watch her by night.

  Not anymore.

  By now, she must have received his first gift.

  By now, she’s puzzled . . . perhaps even wary.

  He smiles, imagining what she’ll think in the morning when she notices footprints around the house, so close to the spot where her husband died.

  Will she think it’s Sam’s ghost, coming back to haunt her?

  But ghosts don’t leave footprints. Only human intruders do that.

  Will she be frightened?

  Will she realize how vulnerable she is, alone in the house with two small children?

  In her perpetually distracted state, she may not notice the footprints at all. It will take something more conspicuous than the footprints, or the red paper heart, to get her attention.

  All in due time . . .

  He slips into the shadows alongside the house. Overgrown forsythia boughs and a wooden lattice laced with a tangle of bare wisteria vines screen him from the street, should anyone come by.

  It isn’t likely. At this time of night, all is quiet on Shorewood Lane in Laurel Bay. So different from the city—and in more ways than that.