She Loves Me Not Page 9

  When he resorted to following her downtown that night, he was hoping against hope that she was meeting a female friend, or, when her cab ventured into the heart of the Village, perhaps one of the men she’d met through her AIDS charity work.

  Later, he would try to convince himself that he knew all along what he would find; that it was no shattering surprise. That he never really trusted her from the moment he met her at that party in Quogue, the party to which she had never been invited. She liked to tease him that she was just a Jersey girl there to land a wealthy husband, and voila! David Brookman swept her off her feet, and vice versa.

  But the truth was, he did trust her. And it went against everything he had learned, growing up in the dual Brookman households, one on Park Avenue and one on Fifth. He was the product of his mother’s first marriage and his father’s second. There were half-siblings and step-siblings; men he called “uncle” who eventually became stepfathers, shadowy mistresses who were transformed into stepmothers, but only for a while.

  Maybe David should have seen Angela for what she was right from the start.

  His parents certainly did. Neither of them liked her. They considered her beneath the Brookmans. They accused him of marrying her simply to spite them.

  And maybe, in retrospect, that was true. Maybe Angela was his way of rebelling. After all, he did everything else properly. He wore the clothes they chose for him, he went to the schools they had attended, he socialized with the sons and dated the daughters of their friends . . .

  Until Angela.

  Maybe he should have been prepared to find her gazing into another man’s eyes on St. Mark’s Place on that warm May evening.

  Maybe he should have confronted her right there on the sidewalk.

  But he didn’t.

  Brookmans don’t cause scenes.

  In the end, he never came face-to-face with her lover. For all those months that he kept his discovery to himself, he fantasized about finding the guy and beating him to a pulp. But he never did.

  Angela ended the affair—or so she claimed—in the weeks before her death. David never knew who he was. It occurred to him, after her funeral, that he might have been there, among the mourners, but at the time, David didn’t have the presence of mind to scan the crowd. And anyway, why would he? Angela was gone.

  But gradually, when his initial shock subsided, David came to realize that her lover was still out there, still anonymous, perhaps smugly believing that her husband never even knew; perhaps grief-stricken, consumed by his own intimate recollections of David’s wife.

  Somehow, all of that makes David’s grief that much more bitter. He was cheated out of the chance to—

  “David? David Brookman?”

  He looks up from his scotch to see a complete stranger standing before him, clad in what Angela once referred to as “the uniform.” Saturday night in this dimly lit club on the Upper East Side calls for khaki slacks, a chambray shirt with an open collar, and a navy Brooks Brothers blazer. Only the initials on his jacket’s gold monogrammed buttons set David apart from the newcomer.

  “I’m sorry . . . have we met?”

  “Dennis Carrington. I was a year behind you at MIT.”

  “Oh, right. Dennis.” He’s drawing a blank. “How are you?”

  “Good, good.” The man rests an elbow on the bar and motions for the bartender to come over. David lifts the glass to his lips again.

  “Listen, I was sorry to hear about your wife.”

  This time, he chokes on the acrid gulp of scotch.

  Dennis Carrington looks flustered. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you. I just—I read about it in the papers when it happened, and . . .”

  David nods. Of course. The papers.

  The entire world read about the Snow Angel’s death in the papers. By the time they finished with her, she was a heroine, an icon, a saint.

  “It was wonderful, what you did,” Dennis goes on awkwardly. “After you had her, uh . . .”

  “Unplugged?” The word is brittle.

  “Look, I didn’t mean to—”

  “It’s okay.” David rises from the bar stool and throws down some bills.

  “Why don’t you let me buy you a drink?”

  “No, thank you. I have to get home. Good night.”

  He makes his way through a haze of pipe and cigar tobacco, past countless other scotch-drinking men in their Brooks Brothers blazers with monogrammed buttons. The few women in the mix are wearing silk and pearls, mutely sipping white wine and looking as though they’d rather be anywhere else.

  Angela would have hated this place, David thinks, as he tips the coat-check girl, who greets him by name.

  She’d have found it incredibly dull. But she wouldn’t have admitted it. No, she’d have been here in her silk and pearls, sipping wine and hovering at his elbow, pretending to belong in this crowd, to be one of them.

  And all the while, would she have been thinking of him? Of the man who brushed her hair back from her eyes? Hair that was all wrong on her, in David’s opinion. With her dark brows and olive skin, she looked unnatural as a blonde.

  How many times, since that Saturday night on St. Mark’s Place, has he wondered if she cut and dyed her hair for her lover?

  It was just another unexpected change amidst myriad more subtle ones that last summer and fall. She took to listening to pop music instead of the classical she claimed to enjoy when she met him. She stopped eating red meat; she bought a juicer and concocted strange-colored beverages; she took up Pilates at the gym.

  For her March birthday, when he “kidnapped” her one morning and surprised her with an impromptu trip to Barbados on a weekend when he was supposed to be working, she faltered before feigning pleasure. And she excused herself to go to the ladies’ room several times at the airport. He followed her and saw her duck into a private corner, dialing her cell phone.

  David later realized she was trying to reach him, to cancel whatever plans they might have had.

  Perhaps it was partly his own fault. If he hadn’t spent so much time working; if he had been more attentive, less preoccupied . . .

  She might not have fallen in love with somebody else.

  But she’d still be dead.

  So what, in the end, is the difference?

  Either way, he’d still be alone, and miserable on this gloomy Saturday night in February.

  The difference, he reminds himself grimly as he steps out onto Third Avenue, turning up his collar against the icy blast, is that she’d still belong to David. Even in death.

  Chapter Five

  On Sunday morning, Christine leaves Ben sleeping soundly in the bedroom—and the faucet dripping steadily in the bathroom tub—and goes out into the freezing rain to eight-thirty mass at Blessed Trinity church three blocks away. She can’t help feeling guilty as she slips into a back pew. This is just the second time she’s set foot in Blessed Trinity since they moved to town, and she’s only here because she has a selfish prayer.

  As the elderly priest drones on in an endless homily about forgiveness, Christine silently closes her eyes and begs God to send her a child.

  A child will change everything. A child, she is certain, will bring joy to her lonely days, will transform her increasingly taciturn husband into a loving family man.

  God answered her prayers once before. Last year, when she discovered the lump in her breast that proved to be a malignant tumor, she turned in desperation to the religion she relinquished when she married out of the faith.

  Guilty now that the return to her Catholic roots lasted just long enough for her to receive a clean bill of health, Christine closes her eyes and promises God that this time, she won’t stray. If she is blessed with motherhood, she’ll christen the baby and raise it Catholic. Surely Ben won’t mind. He hasn’t set foot in a synagogue since his bar mitzvah.

  When Christine opens her eyes, she sees that a steady stream of parishioners fills the aisle to receive communion. Her gaze falls on a familiar
face.

  It’s her neighbor, Rose Larrabee. Christine almost didn’t recognize her here, with her dark shoulder-length hair pulled straight back from her face in a wide clip at the base of her neck. The severe style renders her features gaunt; her posture exudes a fragile weariness.

  Glimpsed from a distance through a windowpane, Rose has always appeared healthier and younger than she does now. She must be around Christine’s age—perhaps in her early thirties—but she looks like she’s been through hell.

  I should be a good neighbor and ask her if there’s anything I can do for her, Christine decides, watching Rose disappear behind a pillar on the aisle.

  Five minutes later, as the organist plays “Now Thank We All Our God,” Christine buttons the long cashmere wool dress coat she hasn’t worn since her working days in the city. She steps into the aisle. Her stomach flutters a bit at the sight of a drowsy infant resting on its mother’s shoulder just in front of her.

  Maybe next year at this time . . .

  Please, God.

  She smiles at the sleepy-eyed baby, who looks startled. Uh-oh. The child scrunches his face as though he’s about to burst into tears.

  Dismayed, Christine looks away and glimpses Rose Larrabee a few steps behind her. Her head is bent as she dips her fingers into a font of holy water and crosses herself.

  Christine steps out into the cold February air and waits until Rose draws nearer. She notes the nubby spots on her neighbor’s beige-colored coat and the faint scuff marks on the unfashionably rounded toes of her brown boots. Money must be tight in the Larrabee household.

  “Rose . . . ?” Christine touches her arm.

  The other woman looks blank for a moment, before the recognition dawns.

  “Oh, hi. Christine, right? You live next door? I haven’t seen much of you since you moved in.”

  “I’ve seen you coming and going with your kids, but it’s been too cold for me to stick my head out and say hello.”

  Too cold to stick your head out? What kind of lame excuse is that?

  “Maybe we can go grab a cup of coffee or something across the street at the diner,” Christine adds hastily. “That is, if you don’t have to run back home to the kids?”

  “Actually, they spent the night with my sister-in-law. She insisted. She thought I needed some time to myself.”

  “I’ll bet that was nice for you,” Christine tells her, thinking that she would gladly trade away her own endless solitude. Ben spent last night complaining about how lousy he was feeling and working in his upstairs office while she repeatedly surfed the measly few local television channels in a futile search for something to watch.

  Rose shrugs. “It was restful. I dozed off at eight o’clock watching television and slept straight through till this morning. It was good to catch up on sleep, but . . .”

  “You miss the kids? Let me guess . . . can’t live with ’em, can’t live without ’em, right?”

  “That’s pretty much it.”

  The wind gusts off the bay, tinged with the dank smell of the sea. Christine tucks her hands into her pockets, wishing she had remembered her gloves. The rain has stopped but the salt air still feels raw and wet, colder than before.

  “So do you want to get some coffee?” she asks Rose, who looks at her watch, then nods.

  “Sure. I have about an hour before Leslie is supposed to bring the kids back home. I usually don’t make it to mass this early. It’s impossible to get out the door with the two of them before noon on a weekend. Do you usually come alone?”

  “I usually don’t come at all, but . . .”

  But I’m bargaining with God again.

  “Okay, guys, what do you want for breakfast?” Leslie rests her elbows on the laminate breakfast bar, her chin in her hands, and regards the pint-sized siblings parked on the pulled-out couch in front of her television set.

  Only Leo looks up, and only long enough to suggest, “Candy?” before refocusing his gaze on Cartoon Network.

  “Candy,” Leslie echoes, shaking her head. “I had to ask.”

  She yawns, wondering what Peter is doing. He rarely sleeps in when he’s here, but maybe at home it’s different. Maybe he’s still in bed.

  She glances at the clock. Hmm. At nine-thirty? No way.

  She reaches for the phone. Maybe he can pick up some bagels and come over. They left their plans for today up in the air when they parted last night.

  Normally, Peter would sleep here and they would spend Sunday morning together.

  When Leslie returned from her outing yesterday with Jenna, she found Rose wrestling with a wailing, miserable Leo. It seemed Hitch had brought him to a movie, pumped him full of candy, and dropped him off before rushing off to fix somebody’s pipe that had sprung a leak—at which point Leo threw a tantrum and begged to stay with Hitch.

  “It’s snowing here,” he yelled at Rose. “You said we could go on our sweds.”

  Glancing from her sister-in-law’s fatigued expression to her red-faced nephew to her eye-rolling niece, Leslie spontaneously said, “I have an idea. I’ll take the kids to my place for a sleepover.”

  Cheers erupted from the kids. Rose tried to protest, then quickly gave in. Peter wrapped up his work on the shelves for the evening, and took everyone out for pizza before dropping Leslie and the little ones at her place.

  “Have fun.” He kissed her briefly on the cheek. “I’ll miss you.”

  “You’re not staying?” she asked, dismayed.

  He eyed Jenna and Leo. “I don’t think that would be right, do you ? I mean . . . we’re not married yet. And anyway, there’s no room.”

  Now, as the phone rings on the other end of the line, Leslie finds herself wishing she had insisted that Peter stay anyway. She isn’t accustomed to waking without him beside her, and last night was oddly lonely despite the children sleeping on either side of her in her queen-sized bed.

  There’s no answer at his place. She tries Rose, but she’s not home either. Or maybe she’s still sleeping. Leslie hopes she’s still sleeping. She debates paging her sister-in-law, knowing she wears Sam’s old pager every time she leaves the house when the kids aren’t with her, but decides to wait until later.

  Instead, she dials Peter’s cell phone. He answers on the third ring, in his truck.

  “Are you on your way here, I hope? I can use some bagels and”—she peers into the fridge. Not much here besides condiments, a stick of butter, bottled water, and two cartons containing her skim milk and Peter’s coffee creamer—“and some cream cheese. And whole milk, too. Or at least, two percent.”

  “I was going to call and tell you I’d meet you over at Rose’s,” he says. “I have to pick up more nails at Home Depot.”

  “Rose isn’t home.”

  “That’s okay. She gave me the spare key yesterday.”

  “Really?” Leslie shuts the fridge. “I already have a key to her place.”

  “I know, but it was when you were gone and she was on her way out to go grocery shopping. I told her I might run out to the hardware store and she said she didn’t want me to leave the house unlocked.”

  “I told you, that anonymous admirer of hers is freaking her out. And I’d be willing to bet that it’s—”

  Conscious, suddenly, of the children within earshot, she clamps her mouth shut. Leo, especially, adores Hitch. He talked about him all night. It breaks Leslie’s heart that her brother’s son is so hungry for a male role model.

  “You’d be willing to bet that it’s what?” Peter prods in her ear.

  “Nothing. So I’ll meet you at Rose’s. We’ll get breakfast on the way. Do you want anything?”

  “Nah, I ate earlier.”

  She smiles. “Earlier? How much earlier?”

  “You know me. Around six-thirty.”

  “Well, tomorrow morning you’d better plan on sleeping a little later,” Leslie says. “And don’t forget we’re going to go look at cars for me.”

  “Les, you’re fading. Can you hear me?”
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  “I can hear you just fine.”

  “I’m losing you, babe. I’ll see you at Rose’s.”

  He hangs up.

  “Aunt Wes-wee? Got any choco-wat?”

  She looks down to see Leo standing there in his footie pajamas.

  “How about if I make you some . . . uh, chocolate toast?”

  His face lights up. “What’s that? It sounds good. Is it good?”

  I have no idea, she thinks, opening a cabinet. She pulls out some powdered chocolate drink mix Peter bought, and what’s left of a slightly stale loaf of bread.

  “How do you make it?” Leo asks.

  She smiles, taking out the sugar bowl as an afterthought. “It’s a secret recipe. Sort of like cinnamon toast.”

  “On-wee it’s choco-watee.”

  “Right. It’s chocolatey.”

  “Can we call Uncle Hitch and tell him to come over to have some?”

  “Nah, not today,” she says. “But Uncle Peter will be waiting for us at your house, okay?”

  Leo ponders this. “Petah’s my uncle, too?”

  “Well, not yet. But he’s going to be married to me so he’s going to be your uncle very soon. Your real uncle.”

  “Gweat! That’s one, two uncles.”

  “Well, Uncle Hitch isn’t really your uncle, Leo. He was a very good friend of your daddy’s when they were little boys.”

  “And when they were big men, too.”

  She considers this. Hitch more or less vanished from Laurel Bay for the decade he was in the army. Presumably, Sam kept in touch with him throughout those years, but he rarely mentioned him to Leslie. Or maybe he did, and she didn’t pay much attention.

  Now, she can’t help a twinge of resentment as she considers the fact that Hitch might be interested in replacing her brother in Rose’s life. Sam should be here. Nobody can take his place.

  But you don’t want Rose to spend the rest of her life alone.

  Of course not. But this just . . . it feels too soon. And the unsigned valentine, the chocolates . . .

  That’s not romantic, and it’s not what Rose needs right now.