An Inconvenient Woman

by An Inconvenient Woman (retail) (epub)

  By the time I got back to Los Angeles, I’d found it.

  Claire

  I AM JUST getting to my first client’s house when my phone rings.

  It’s Ray.

  I don’t answer it.

  A few seconds later there is a text message.

  Claire? Tried to call you. Everything okay?

  Nothing is okay.

  Why would Ray hire me under such false pretenses? He doesn’t need a French teacher. What’s his game?

  Game.

  Even the word suggests a hidden hand.

  I tell myself that it has nothing to do with Simon.

  As far as I know, Simon hasn’t done anything in the wake of my meeting with Charlotte.

  But he will.

  I know he will.

  It’s only a matter of time.

  •

  I arrive at Margot’s house just after ten in the morning.

  When she opens the door, I know something’s wrong. She steps out of the light, her head bowed. When she looks up, I see that she’s applied a great deal of makeup, particularly around the purplish bruises at her right eye and in two long, smudgy lines circling her throat.

  “I didn’t want to cancel.”

  She closes the door and escorts me to the dining room, where she has already placed various materials.

  I sit down opposite her and pretend not to see the obvious signs of the beating she has taken. Her bottom lip is cracked and swollen, and a scratch, red and jagged, stretches from the corner of her right eye into the hairline at the side of her head.

  “Are you ready to begin?” I ask her.

  “Yes.”

  I start with a few very simple questions that require her to practice the three tenses she is learning.

  As she answers, she keeps her eyes lowered and responds in a soft voice. She says nothing about her bruises. I don’t mention them either.

  I am her French teacher, after all, not her guardian. She has given me no indication that she wants help. I suspect that she is fixed in the notion that somehow something will change, though I suspect it won’t.

  I fashion the lesson in a way that I hope will be sensitive to her situation. In French, I ask her what she will do on Monday.

  She answers that she will cook dinner.

  I ask her what she will do in winter.

  She says she will buy warm clothes.

  I ask her to tell me about her future, hoping that it will jar her into seriously considering it.

  She answers in generalities about having children, going on vacations, growing old, responses that give no hint of how the violence in her life profoundly contradicts the idyllic future that is only in her head.

  At the end of the lesson, I hand her new vocabulary sheets.

  She walks me to the door. “Thank you,” she says.

  I feel a final urge to intervene. I want to tell her that she can call me, that I will help her if she needs me.

  Instead I watch as Margot shrinks back into the house and closes the door.

  •

  On the way to my next client, I keep thinking about Margot. I should have let her know that I was aware of her situation, perhaps looked up a hotline number and given it to her.

  My phone rings.

  It’s Julie Cooper.

  “I have to tell you something, Claire,” she says. “I’m not what or who you think I am.”

  Her tone is strained yet tender, the voice of confession.

  “My name isn’t Julie Cooper.”

  She sounds very grave.

  “I’m not a writer.”

  There is a note of shame in her tone.

  “I work for Simon.”

  I am stunned. I can hardly breathe.

  “My name is Sloan Wilson.”

  Sloan

  IT ISN’T LONELINESS that destroys human beings.

  It’s broken trust.

  They can handle solitude, shattered dreams, all manner of failure, as long as they don’t feel completely betrayed.

  I was betting that since Claire felt herself deceived, or at least disbelieved, by just about everyone, she might see me as her only remaining ally.

  She was silent after I told her my name.

  I waited a few seconds before I added, “The day you brought Destiny in, you asked me whether I ever just had a feeling about something. As it turned out, I got a feeling about Simon. So I studied your records. What you said about him five years ago.”

  I took the sort of pause that leaves the listener in rapt anticipation of what comes next.

  “And the thing is . . . I believe you, Claire.”

  I paused before making the ultimate reversal.

  “I’m working for you now.”

  I made it sound like we were sisters-in-arms, two woman warriors pitted against Evil Simon.

  As a final thrust, I added the fearlessness and determination she’d want in an ally.

  “Together,” I told her in a voice so steadfast and unyielding she couldn’t possibly doubt my resolve.

  I waited for her to respond, but she didn’t. “Together,” I repeated.

  Then once more, this time quite forcefully.

  “Together, Claire.”

  •

  I called Simon an hour later.

  “It’s Sloan,” I said when he answered. “I’d like to talk to you.”

  Simon heard the gravity in my voice.

  “Face-to-face, I take it?” he asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Okay, how about the Grove? Bar Verde. On the patio. I can meet you there in an hour.”

  When he arrived, he was dressed somberly, in a dark suit.

  “What happened?” he said as he sat down.

  I told him that I’d turned the tables on Claire. She now thought I’d come over to her side, a strategy that would allow me to keep a closer eye on her as well as have more power over what she thought or did.

  Simon was clearly troubled by this change in direction.

  “Be careful,” he said. “Because she can be very persuasive.”

  He seemed seized by the need to explain himself once again.

  “Imagine. You’re sitting in the cabin of a boat. Suddenly your wife comes in and tells you that your stepdaughter has accused you of being a creep. I was horrified. All I could do was deny it. How could I prove I’d never touched or looked at Melody in a bad way? I’m sure you know what I mean, given your father’s experience. The accusation is enough.”

  He shook his head.

  “I can barely stand to remember this.”

  His hurt gave way to a deep sadness.

  “I loved Melody,” he said. “She was like my own daughter.”

  “What did you say to Claire when she confronted you that night?”

  A sense of futility settled over him. He was like a man defending a fortress alone, with the enemy on all sides.

  “I told her it wasn’t true, and that she was crazy to believe it. Melody was a teenager. She had . . . ‘raging hormones.’ Isn’t that the phrase? Who knows what she was capable of coming up with?”

  He paused briefly before he added, “Claire listened, then turned and left the cabin. I saw her pass the window a few times. She was searching everywhere. But Melody had already gotten into the dinghy.” He looked as fully tortured by Melody’s subsequent death as Claire. “It was too late.”

  He’d spewed all this out spontaneously.

  At the end he looked exhausted.

  “Anyway,” he said, “be careful with Claire. She can be very . . . manipulative. When she tells you things, you might be tempted to believe her.”

  “Nothing could make me believe her,” I assured him.

  Simon smiled.

  “Good,” he said. “I’m glad to hear it.”

  He looked at me pointedly.

  “I’m sure you didn’t call me here just to tell me that you were making friends with Claire. You could have said that over the phone.”

  “You’re right, there
’s something else,” I said. “I’m going to draw her into a plot.”

  Simon was intrigued.

  “Really? What kind?”

  “Murder,” I said.

  He laughed, thinking this was a joke.

  When my expression remained dead serious, he asked, “Who’s she planning to kill?”

  “You.”

  He looked at me uneasily.

  “If I can get her on tape in a murder-for-hire scheme, then we’ll have something to use against her,” I explained. “It doesn’t have to be all that much. No money has to change hands. It’s just something you can use to get, say, a very tough restraining order against her. The sort that if she breaks it, she could be arrested on the spot, go right to jail. Given what happened to her last time, that possibility should get her attention.”

  Simon smiled. “It’s not a plot to kill me,” he said flippantly.

  “No, it’s only a tactic for silencing her. No one else will be involved. Just Claire and me. Two voices on a wire. If I can get her on tape discussing a murder, then I’ll have a gun to her head. She either shuts her mouth or ends up in serious trouble. That’s all you want, isn’t it? To shut her up?”

  He nodded. “Yeah, that’s all I want. For Claire to be . . . silent.”

  I expected Simon to probe a bit for what I had in mind, but instead he called the waiter over and ordered two glasses of champagne.

  “We have something to celebrate.”

  He drew a photograph from his suit pocket.

  “This is the award,” he told me. “The Monroe Wilson Scholarship.”

  In the picture Simon is holding a large drawing. It is a mock-up of a brass statue of my father in uniform. Standing tall. Looking proud. Exactly the way I remembered him.

  “We can give the statue with the scholarship,” Simon said. “The recipient will always have it. Like an Oscar.”

  I was pleased by how powerfully the figure of my father brought back memories.

  “You can keep the picture,” Simon said.

  When the champagne arrived, he lifted his glass.

  “To your dad.”

  After we drank, Simon offered another toast, this one almost whimsical. “And to our success in getting rid of Claire.”

  We went our separate ways a few minutes later.

  Once in my car, I placed the picture on the passenger seat. From time to time, as I drove home, I glanced at it, and felt almost as if my father had returned to me, was riding beside me, as if we were partners on the job.

  Claire

  THE NEXT MORNING I replay my conversation with Sloan. Her strength is like solid ground beneath me.

  Firm.

  Supportive.

  A cautious hope envelops me.

  I expect it quickly to dissipate, but it lingers throughout the day. It is almost as if she is at my side, my partner, as it were, in crime.

  •

  I’m in the middle of my last lesson of the day when the phone rings.

  Normally I don’t answer calls while I’m teaching, but caller ID tells me that it is Dr. Aliabadi.

  “Excuse me,” I tell my student, then immediately answer the phone.

  “Your father isn’t doing very well,” the doctor says. “You should come to the hospital.”

  She doesn’t go into detail with regard to his condition, but I can hear the urgency in her voice.

  “All right. I’ll get there as soon as I can.”

  I stop my class and rush to the hospital. On the way to my father’s room, I see Dr. Aliabadi near the nurses’ station.

  “How is he?”

  She shakes her head.

  “There’s nothing more we can do. His heart is worn out.”

  He is awake when I come into the room.

  When he sees me, he closes his eyes. I settle into the chair near his bed.

  A couple of hours go by before I get up and walk out into the corridor. I turn to the right and move down the hallway. Some of the rooms have their doors open. I get glimpses of patients and their families.

  Suddenly I see her. Margot.

  She is lying on her back. There are bandages along the side of her head and another across her nose. Her eyes are black and her lips are so swollen they no longer look human. Tubes run from the respirator to her mouth and nose.

  I am mortified.

  When a nurse approaches, I introduce myself and tell her that I’m a French teacher and that Margot is one of my clients.

  “Is she going to be all right?”

  “I don’t know,” the nurse answers.

  I look back into the room and wonder if I could have stopped this if I’d talked to her. But I didn’t, and now it’s too late.

  Too late.

  Is that the theme of my life, its unending refrain—that I can’t trust myself to do the right thing? It’s dangerous to feel this way. An undermining that could cause me to collapse, to surrender.

  Je me bats, I remind myself. I am fighting.

  But I need an ally.

  I call Ava but get only her voicemail.

  I don’t leave a message because I know that the tone of my voice would alarm her.

  That’s when I think of Sloan.

  Our latest conversation.

  The last word she’d said to me. Together.

  I dial her number. When she answers, I say, “I hope you don’t mind me calling you.”

  “Of course not,” Sloan assures me. “What’s the matter? You sound . . . stressed.”

  “I let someone down.”

  “Who?”

  “One of my students. I let her down.”

  “What happened, Claire?”

  “I was too late for her.”

  “In what way?”

  “I knew her husband had hit her and I should have . . .”

  “Where are you, Claire?”

  “At the hospital in Marina Del Ray.”

  “Meet me at the cafeteria. I’m on my way.”

  I’m on my way. Sloan’s voice is strong, her reaction immediate.

  Some friends are like first responders. When you call them in an emergency, they come as fast as they can.

  Sloan

  CLAIRE HAD NEVER sounded more distressed. She was in the middle of a crisis. She hadn’t acted in time. Someone had suffered as a result. That was all I knew, but it was enough.

  It didn’t matter what Claire had done or failed to do. The point was that it had really upset her. Which provided the perfect opportunity for me to initiate my plan to incriminate her.

  To make the most of this situation, I quickly went to my car and headed for the hospital.

  Claire was sitting in the cafeteria when I arrived. She was fidgeting with a cup of coffee. Her nerves were on edge, and there was a jittery agitation in her eyes.

  “I should have done something, Sloan,” she said.

  “Tell me exactly what happened.”

  “Margot, one of my clients, is here,” Claire told me. “Her husband beat her up. I knew it was going to happen, but I didn’t do anything about it. And now she’s . . .”

  She was clearly ashamed of whatever she’d done—or failed to do. She was both angry and disappointed in herself.

  A friend would have taken Claire’s hand and insisted that none of this was her fault. But I wasn’t her friend. I wanted her to continue to blame herself for this beating, accuse herself of being weak, hesitant, always too late.

  I kept quiet as Claire went through the details. She talked about how she’d seen the bruises on Margot’s face and immediately known their cause. Which was Margot’s husband. She’d thought about confronting the situation head-on, perhaps giving Margot the number of some service that might help. Instead she’d done nothing. The result being that Margot was now barely hanging on to life.

  I just listened, because I knew it was better to let Claire stew in these juices for a while. To offer any relief would lessen the internal pressure she was feeling.

  Once she’d finished telling
me all this, she said, “I want to see Margot.”

  We headed for the elevator and got off on the fourth floor. I followed her down the corridor and into a room where a woman lay unconscious. She looked like she’d either been in a car accident or been badly beaten.

  “I let this happen,” Claire told me.

  She was at rock bottom now.

  “Let’s go back downstairs,” I said. We turned and headed to the elevator.

  Once we were in the cafeteria again, I was careful to guide her to a table in the far corner.

  On the way, I didn’t say a word.

  After we’d taken our seats, Claire folded her hands in front of her.

  “What now?” she asked.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Will her husband be arrested?”

  “He’s probably already been arrested.”

  “And he’ll spend, what? A few nights in jail?”

  “That depends.”

  “On what?”

  “Mostly on how much your client wants to make the case against him.”

  Claire shook her head.

  “If she goes back to him, he’ll do it again.”

  She looked at me angrily.

  “That’s what they bet on, isn’t it? That we’ll convince ourselves it was just this one time. It’ll never happen again. They depend on us accepting that lie. They know we won’t stop them.”

  And I thought, Now.

  “Anyone can be stopped,” I told her matter-of-factly. “But doing it can have serious consequences.”

  As if I were only describing a routine business experience, I said, “I knew a woman who killed her husband. He’d been beating her for years. She finally took a knife and cut his throat while he was dead drunk on the living room sofa. She seemed to think that would be the end of the story. But it wasn’t. It was murder. She got fifteen years in prison. The same could happen to Margot.”

  “Margot’s already in prison,” Claire said grimly. “Every day. Just knowing her husband’s alive and he can do whatever he wants.”

  I let a second or two go by before I set the snare I had in mind.

  “A man can be prevented from getting what he wants,” I said. “But it shouldn’t be the woman who does it. Not the wife, I mean.”

  Claire looked at me quizzically.