Second Nature

by Alice Hoffman

  “So he knows you’re fucking your little helper and he’s pissed.”

  He really enjoyed Robin’s wounded look, and he wished, just for an instant, that he’d been even crueler. Then she might have burst into tears.

  “Oh, that’s nice,” Robin said. “I’m so glad Connor’s under your influence now.”

  She was mouthing off, but Roy could tell how upset she was. She’d lost weight, and her eyelids were that soft purple color they turned when she couldn’t sleep.

  “Is Stephen living here with you?” Roy said. When Robin didn’t answer, he shook his head. “It’s not like I’m asking you for state secrets or anything.”

  “He’s at my grandfather’s.”

  “Just comes over here when he wants some?” Roy spoke before he could stop himself. “Forget I said that,” he told Robin. “Forget everything I ever said.”

  “Connor’s all right, isn’t he?” Robin tilted her face up to Roy; she wasn’t quite sure what she wanted his answer to be.

  “No, he’s not all right,” Roy said.

  He would have liked to get her down on the floor and fuck her right there; he could do that, he could have her begging for more. That’s when he knew he had to get out. He went to the door. It was so goddamn cold, it was almost too much for a man to bear.

  “Connor should be living here with you,” Roy said.

  Robin couldn’t believe she’d heard correctly. She put her hands on her hips, waiting for the put-down she was certain would follow, but then she saw that Roy had meant what he said. For the past few weeks she’d considered giving Stephen up; maybe that was what she was supposed to do to make Connor happy. A few nights earlier she’d told Stephen she couldn’t be with him anymore, just to see how it felt to say it aloud. It was awful, not just the words she’d said, but the way Stephen looked at her. She’d gone to lock herself in the bathroom, where she ran the water in the sink to make sure that Stephen wouldn’t hear her crying. An hour later, when Robin came out of the bathroom, her eyes red, she found that he’d been waiting for her, just outside the bathroom door, and she knew she wouldn’t be able to let him go. Not yet.

  Those who kept secrets paid dearly, Robin saw that now. For six months before she’d found him out, Roy hadn’t been able to sleep. She’d discover him in the kitchen, just before dawn, and each time he’d assure her nothing was wrong—indigestion perhaps, or bad dreams—and maybe he’d even believed it, at least back then, never mind that his insomnia always coincided with the times he cheated on her. It was totally disconcerting now to think that Roy, of all people, might best understand her, and yet that’s what seemed to have happened. When Roy went out the back door, Robin almost regretted his leaving. He stood out on the porch, turning to face her as he buttoned his coat.

  “I’ll talk to Connor,” Roy told her.

  “That won’t do any good,” Robin said. “He’s too angry to listen.”

  “Perfect,” Roy said. “I’m used to that.”

  Robin surprised them both by laughing.

  Roy grinned at her. “Don’t worry. He’ll listen.”

  He talked to Connor that night, over a pepperoni pizza that had far too much salt for human consumption. Roy lifted the pepperoni off his slice with the edge of a knife. He knew if he didn’t talk fast he’d miss his chance with Connor, not just because Connor would be off to see Lydia but because Roy himself would lose his nerve.

  “It’s been great having you here,” Roy said. “But your mother wants you back home.”

  Connor folded a slice of pizza neatly in half. “Are you saying you don’t want me to live with you?”

  “No,” Roy said, a little too quickly. “My house is your house.”

  Connor thought that over. “Good.”

  “Here’s the weird thing,” Roy said. His hands had started to sweat. “Everybody’s parents have sex. Otherwise they wouldn’t be parents. They could adopt, sure.” He was getting off the track, and he knew it. “But they still have sex, Connor. Even when they break up. Even if they’re not sleeping with each other. That’s the facts.”

  Connor pushed his chair away from the table.

  “You’re not going to say a few words on this subject?” Roy said.

  Connor had already grabbed his leather jacket. Robin would have had a fit if she knew he was wearing it, rather than his winter coat. She probably would have insisted on mittens and a scarf.

  “I’ll be back after eleven,” Connor said.

  “After you’ve screwed Lydia?” Roy said, real easy, as if baiting Connor was the last thing on his mind.

  Connor came back to the table; he towered over Roy, and Roy just had to hope his son would hold himself back.

  “Just shut up. All right?” Connor said. “Who I’m with is none of your business.”

  “I couldn’t agree more,” Roy said. “It happens to go both ways.”

  “Are you defending her?” Connor said. “Don’t you get it? The whole time they were pretending that nothing was happening.”

  If it had been anyone but Stephen, Connor might not have felt so betrayed. He was just a pawn, moved around at will—feel this way, feel that way, feel nothing at all. Connor saw his real mistake now. He’d trusted Stephen completely, as he would the family dog. He’d taught him tricks: how to play chess, fix a sandwich, handle a razor without slitting your throat. Someone else might have been repelled by all the things Stephen must have done just to survive, but Connor had to go and admire him. He’d kept Stephen’s secret, he’d run alongside him, down to the Point, until he was too winded to keep up. In return he’d gotten nothing but lies and he’d been played for a fool, too blind to see what was set out right in front of him.

  “Take my advice,” Roy said now. “Mind your own business.”

  “You don’t know anything about it ”, Connor said.“You don’t even know what he is. Maybe you think you’re talking to a human being when you’re talking to him, but you’re not.”

  Connor ran all the way to Lydia’s house that night, in spite of the ice and the dread he felt inside. He took the long route, so he wouldn’t have to pass by his own house. He really didn’t know what he’d do if he saw Stephen face to face, and he didn’t want to know. When he got to Lydia’s, Paul Altero answered the door. A lucky break. Connor knew that Mr. Altero had always liked him, and now he managed to have a conversation with Lydia’s father, although about what, Connor later couldn’t remember. Mr. Altero insisted that he come into the kitchen for a soda, and that meant Connor would have to speak to Lydia’s mother, something he usually managed to avoid.

  “Is Lydia taking the car tonight?” Michelle asked her husband. Connor still had only a permit, but Lydia had gotten her license, and the Toyota was now the only place she and Connor could have any privacy. “It’s so icy,” Michelle added.

  “She’s a good driver,” Paul said.

  Now Michelle turned to Connor, and without thinking he took a step backward and crashed into the refrigerator.

  “You moved out,” Michelle said to him.

  Just what he’d dreaded. An actual conversation.

  “Your mother must be upset.”

  “I wouldn’t know,” Connor said. “You’d have to ask her.”

  That suggestion effectively ended the conversation, just as Connor hoped it would. Still, he was grateful beyond words when Lydia finally came down, already wearing her coat. She smiled at Connor, and since they didn’t dare greet each other the way they wanted to, Connor looked down at the floor; he didn’t want her parents to see how desperate he was to be alone with Lydia.

  “Thanks, Pop,” Lydia said when her father handed her the car keys.

  As soon as they got into the Toyota, Connor pulled Lydia to him, even though they were parked in the driveway and Michelle could have easily looked out the kitchen window and seen them. His arms were shaking; his throat was completely dry. When he was with her he didn’t give a damn about anything else. He was dizzy with wanting her; he didn’t have t
o think about wrong and right. Lydia threw her head back and laughed, but she was a little panicked by how desperate he seemed.

  “Wait a second,” she said to him. “We’re not in a race.” Connor slouched over to his side of the front seat. Just looking at him, hunched over and filled with longing, Lydia felt herself falling in love with him all over again. She climbed onto his lap, and she kissed him so deeply and for so long that for years afterward Connor would remember the exact thought that kept running through his head as the car idled in the driveway. This will never change. That’s what he’d thought. Not this.

  Christmas Day was the coldest ever recorded in the island’s short history, and the next day was even worse. It was a good day to stay indoors, preferably in bed, and when evening came, suddenly, as if a curtain had been drawn, it was best to have a hot rum and some leftover turkey and go right back under the covers. Of course, some people had more important things to think about than the weather. Jenny Altero, for one—who’d gotten the hand-stitched stuffed palomino pony she’d wanted for Christmas, as well as a pair of beautiful black boots—simply couldn’t sit still.

  A note had been dropped into Jenny’s desk at school before vacation started; Tim Lester, whose father owned the diner in town and who was a grade ahead, had a crush on her. The note was anonymous, and Jenny didn’t know if it was Tim himself or one of his friends who’d written it. But it was male handwriting, of that she was certain, a sloppy scrawl that had sent her reeling. Her heart had been racing ever since that day, and tonight she planned to do something about it. She washed and dried the supper dishes; she played Pictionary with her father and kissed her mother before she went upstairs at bedtime. Then she waited for her parents to go into their room, and once she heard them turn on the TV beside their bed, she began to put on her eye makeup, with quick, accurate movements, the way Lydia had taught her. She chose her earrings carefully, the pearl ones that dropped like tears. Actually, they weren’t hers at all, but she’d taken them from Lydia several months before, in the summer, and by now it seemed reasonable that they should fully belong to her.

  As Jenny braided her hair, she took a certain pleasure in tonight’s reversal. Lydia, after all, had come home at nine, her French braid untangled, her lips kissed raw, contrite for the first time in ages. The Toyota had skidded into one of the Feldmans’ crab apple trees, splitting it right in half. The front left fender would have to be replaced, and the headlight as well, but not even their mother had had the heart to scream at Lydia, that’s how shaken she’d been by the accident. It was the passenger side of the car that had been dented, and for one sickening instant Lydia had thought Connor was hurt. He’d only been dazed, but Lydia still had wanted to go right home. Michelle had given her a few drops of whiskey and a cup of hot tea for her nerves, and now there Lydia was, already asleep in her bed, and it was Jenny who had better things to do.

  She pulled on the white sweater and a pair of corduroy slacks, then tiptoed downstairs to the hall closet and grabbed Lydia’s coat, which was so much more grown-up than her own pink ski jacket. She closed the front door so quietly she might have been a mouse sneaking out with some Christmas pudding in its cheeks. As she walked along Mansfield Terrace, she saw that Robin’s bedroom light was on; good, there was no need to worry about being caught by her this time around. Jenny knew of at least three other girls who often slipped out after their curfews to go down to Fred’s Diner, which never closed before two. They went for the vanilla Cokes and the fries, as well as the chance to flirt with Tim, if he was working behind the counter. Tonight Jenny hoped these girls would be there, in a rear booth; they probably would think she was fifteen at least. They’d whisper to each other, “Who is she?” as she leaned toward Tim, and when they finally recognized Jenny in Lydia’s borrowed clothes and called for her to join them, she’d call back that she was busy, then turn her full attention to Tim.

  At this hour of the night the ice along the roads turned to diamonds, and the wind shook the black branches of the trees. Jenny walked quickly, and when she reached the town green the ginkgos moaned and the telephone wires crackled in the cold. She ran all the rest of the way to Fred’s, and once she was inside the diner, the sudden heat, from the radiators and the fryers, came as a shock. No one was here, at least not yet, only Fred behind the counter, cleaning up the grill. Jenny went and sat on a stool and ordered a vanilla Coke. She was extremely polite; she was, after all, addressing the father of the boy who might be crazy about her.

  “I go to school with Tim,” she informed Fred when he brought her the Coke. She was so casual, so cool; Lydia would have been proud of her. “Isn’t he working tonight?”

  “He sprained his foot yesterday,” Fred told her. “Ice hockey.”

  Jenny thought this over. She hated to imagine Tim in pain, and she was disappointed to have come all this way for nothing. She paid for her Coke and tugged the hood of Lydia’s coat over her head, in preparation for the long walk home.

  “He’ll be home all day tomorrow,” Fred told her, as if he were a mind reader. Jenny had just been wondering how on earth she could make contact, when school would be out for another week.

  “I could visit him,” Jenny said. She hoped she didn’t look as flustered as she felt. She crossed her fingers for luck.

  “I’ll tell him,” Fred said.

  Jenny was so excited she could barely speak. She’d wear her new black boots. She debated about bringing the palomino pony; she knew Tim rode down at the stables, but he might think her Christmas present was too babyish. No, she’d bring him cookies, that’s what she’d do. She’d stop at the bakery on the way to his house.

  “Great,” Jenny said. She had a big grin on her face, but even Lydia might not have been able to control that. “I’ll see him tomorrow. I’ll come by at ten.”

  Tim waited until eleven-thirty, and when Jenny didn’t show he went down to the bridge to meet his friend for hockey, since his sprain wasn’t as bad as his parents had thought. It was a gorgeous day and the ice was perfect, and none of the boys paid any attention to the siren that echoed across the frozen bay. And later in the afternoon they were still far too involved in their game to notice what looked like a red sack beneath the bridge where the willows grew, where you could scare yourself if you weren’t careful. They played on for hours, until their toes and fingers were nearly frozen solid, and not one of them had the slightest idea that Tim’s father had been the last one to see Jenny Altero alive, and that he’d been too busy wiping down the counter to see or appreciate her last beautiful smile.

  The search parties were still out in the frozen blue twilight with a pack of dogs borrowed from the state police. But long before they found the body, with the throat so neatly slit, Michelle Altero knew her daughter would never come home. She knew it early that morning, when she opened Jenny’s bedroom door to find that the bed hadn’t been slept in. Paul had been crazy with worry and had insisted on going out with a band of neighbors to hunt through the marshes. Michelle hadn’t said a word as he’d pulled on his fishing boots and grabbed the big flashlight out of the hall closet. She did nothing more than nod when he told her not to worry, and she’d let him kiss her good-bye, but as soon as he’d gone out, she went inside the hall closet and closed the door. She crouched down among the boots and the umbrellas, and cried so hard she thought she’d dissolve, right there on the floor.

  If Lydia hadn’t come to take her out of the closet, Michelle might have stayed there forever. Instead, she let herself be led to the couch, where she sat holding Lydia’s hand, the stuffed palomino pony on her lap. She didn’t move a muscle, she didn’t say a word—not even yes or no when Lydia tentatively asked if she wanted a cup of tea—but at a little before nine that night, Michelle suddenly sat bolt upright and began to tear out her hair. She pulled out fistfuls and made a gurgling noise in her throat, and Lydia had to restrain her and reassure her again and again, “It’s all right.” But of course it wasn’t. Down at the bridge, at the instant when M
ichelle began to tear at herself, Stuart and Kay came to sit on a wooden bench so they could lace up their skates. Stuart wore an old woolen hat Kay had dug out of a box in her basement and an ancient down parka, and Kay had on a camel-colored coat and a pair of leather gloves Stuart had ordered for her from L. L. Bean. They hadn’t gone skating together in the moonlight for more than twenty years, and it was a much colder activity than they’d remembered. Once on the ice, they were clumsier than they’d remembered as well, and had to hold on to each other for support. And just as Stuart was beginning to hit his stride, and had let out a whoop, Kay signaled him over, then grabbed his arm. Out in the marshes the search dogs were barking, and the sound echoed above the frozen bay. The moon was huge and white and circled by a halo of frost.

  “What’s wrong?” Stuart said. His face looked healthy from racing along the ice. “Are my knees creaking? Am I too old for this?”

  Kay came close to him and hid her face in his parka. As soon as Stuart looked past her he saw that something had been wrong with the ice all along and they hadn’t even noticed. Blood had seeped through the water beneath the ice and turned it deep red. The beams of light he and Kay had seen in the woods weren’t moonlight reflecting off the ice but flashlights and lanterns. He helped Kay back to shore, then shouted as loud as he could until at last people in the search party heard him, although once they approached, the dogs refused to set foot on the red ice, and they pulled at their leashes, then fell silent all at once. Because Stuart was a doctor, George Tenney called him over as he and Woody Preston knelt beneath the bridge. Stuart calmly examined the girl, but afterward he realized he’d been crying the whole time, and that night he went home with Kay and they held each other tight, while outside the wind grew so fierce it tore the new shingles off the roof of the fisherman’s shack down on the icy beach.

  It might have been Woody Preston who began the talk of an animal, one who knew exactly how to slash a throat in the most efficient manner, a predator so quiet it could come up behind its victim before she had the chance to run.