34
He grabs the Cointreau by its neck and gets up, sways a little, crosses to the wall by one of the windows, and flips a switch.
The garden lights up. Peter’s pretty lit too.
“Want to see?” he says, waving the bottle that way, coming back. “I planted Rodgersia and ferns, have a shade garden coming with iris too.” He takes my arm, pulls me toward the wrought-iron steps. “There were bed springs out there, all kinds of crap. I dug it out, replaced the soil myself.”
“Where do you find the time?” I ask. “Thought you guys work twelve-hour days.”
“I’ve been out there at midnight. It’s therapy. Oops!” he says almost musically.
He has stumbled; curses about his shoelaces. “Changed too fast when I got home, too tired to see straight.” He plunks down on the top step, pulls me down next to him, and starts fiddling with his shoes.
“Therapy…?” I ask.
“Told you. I’m a very unhappy person. All cold and hollow.”
“That’s why you dated nonstop women?”
“Probably. It’s like gorging on candy - you get sick of it, wait a few days, then start all over again. That gives gossips the right to call me a predator, right? Except the women only bitch about me after the breakups. I’m a selfish bastard, I just used them, blah blah.”
The Cointreau’s next to him on the step; he grabs it, slugs straight from the bottle.
“I used them? It’s the other way around. Darcy and Chloe were ambitious. They wanted career help, I gave it; made calls, introductions, you name it. Every time Darcy saw a photographer, she’d throw her arms around me. Said it raised her brand at Condé Nast.”
It fit Chrissy’s description of women running after him, draped over him in every photo, calling their house’s land phone, stalking him to his hotels. And Beth Jarrett’s description of him pulling screaming-at-him Chloe from the brink comes to me with even more finality.
He hasn’t killed anyone.
I inhale, and stare out at the garden.
Ground lamps light boxwood-lined paths, a small tree, September flower beds starting to shut down. Toward the rear a vine-clad arbor hunches, then brightens suddenly as the moon sails out from the clouds.
I tell Peter his garden looks beautiful. He thanks, pleased, and then curses; he’s broken a shoelace.
“Your marriage,” I ask. “Have you ever wanted to go back to it?”
He stops what he’s doing, looks gloomily ahead.
“No,” he says quietly. “It started well…Chrissy adored me, needed me, and was rich. Eight years ago, that mattered. Adoration turned to incredible, just incredible neediness. Would I come with her while she shopped, she couldn’t decide which dress; would I help her decide which china to use for dinner parties I hated; should she put her right foot in front of her left foot? On and on – suffocating! Just the thing for a guy who works my hours, has to travel…”
I say nothing, my gaze fixed on a dimly lit birdbath. It’s tilting a little…or is that the Cointreau’s effects? Everything’s tilting a little. I’m woozy.
Peter has abandoned his broken shoelace; now is back to muttering “something for you.”
He leans against my shoulder, his hand plunging into his jeans pocket on his other side. “Brace yourself,” he says, straightening again, suddenly somber. “This will be hard.”
Out comes something small, square, and black. He angles his body so the light from behind us is better. I shift closer to him so I can see.
“You ready?” he says, and hesitates. “Seriously, brace yourself.”
I nod, watch him, feel a chill.
He presses a button, holds the little thing up. I see a small screen, two figures struggling. And I hear…
…voices. A man yelling. A woman weeping, pleading.
My heart stops.
I recognize Brett Moore. Kim’s back is turned; she’s twisting in his grip and that’s the dress she died in, the long, glinty-silver one. “Please…don’t…nooo…”
Begging for her life at the top of Moore’s stairs.
In shock I drop my face to my hands.
Peter flicks it off. “No more…hey.” His arm goes around me. “It’s Brett Moore’s surveillance tape. Ricky Boudreau yanked it and had it hidden when the cops arrived. Just give it to your lawyer and don’t look.”
“How…how…?” I croak, face still pressed to my fingers, seeing Kim crying, struggling…
“Boudreau put me onto one of Moore’s bodyguards, who was there too when it happened and kept the tape. I paid off both of them, but they’re scared.” Peter’s voice is tense. “Once Moore’s sent away they’ll feel safe, but for now tell no one how you got it – not even your lawyer. That’s your husband, right?”
“About to be ex,” I whisper into my hands. Tears scald through my fingers.
“He’ll have it but should keep its existence quiet, even to other lawyers. They talk; say they don’t but they gossip plenty, and Brett Moore’s insane. He has guns; would kill these guys if he felt they screwed him.” Peter’s arm squeezes me harder; his face is close. “Understand?”
“Yes, yes.” My head is bowed, my shoulders heave.
“I’m so sorry. It’s a shock.” Peter pulls my hands away, swipes at my tears with his fingers. “Need tissues,” he mutters. “Wait.”
For seconds I sit alone, reeling. Then he’s back with cocktail napkins.
“God, I’m sorry,” he says again, mopping my face. “Damned booze, I should have prepared you better.”
“No…it’s….” I take the napkins from him, dab one eye, then the other. “I’m just stunned…thank you.” My voice quavers. “How did you know about the tape in the first place?”
“My lawyer knew. Other lawyers did too; that kind of gossip you can’t keep under wraps. Weeks after it happened, the bodyguard and Boudreau got their nerve up and went to one of them. They wanted to finagle a payoff or something, then decided they were terrified.”
So two men had known. Alex heard only half the story.
Peter looks back across the terrace. “Where’s your bag? We have to put this in your bag.”
He pulls me up, helps me back to the table with the liqueurs. I’m wobbly, sink down woefully to the chaise while he finds my purse and starts rummaging in it. “So much stuff, lipstick, brush, Snickers… Okay, I’m putting the tape next to your wallet.”
My face drops to my hands again. The bricks far below swim and float and there’s a high, hot ringing in my ears. The booze, the shock…
“I feel faint,” I whisper, seeing Kim crying, falling.
“Oh boy.” Peter bends, and his hand touches my brow. He groans, straightens, turns.
From far away, I hear him start clunking in his ice bucket. “…good, isn’t melted,” he says as I try to look up; see two of him pulling off his shirt, loading cubes into it with his bare hands.
He kneels before me, shirtless, pressing his ice pack to my brow. I lean into it, eyes squeezed shut, feeling the blessed, dripping cold on my brain. I bring up both my hands, press them to his hands. They’re freezing. He’s shivering.
“You’re kind,” I manage.
“No, I’m an idiot; should have anticipated…” He moves his ice pack to the side of my head, and I see his muscled, bare shoulders in the dimness. He holds me.
“Can you stand?”
“Still feel faint.”
He removes the ice pack, helps me up and it’s no good; I’m not ready for upright and my face drops to his bare shoulder. “Oh, God.” I fight tears. The terrace whirls.
His arms wrap tighter around me, and he drops his face to the crook of my neck. “Y’know what I think?” he says softly, his stubble against my cheek.
Feeble: “What?”
“I think you should lie down. We both should. I’m zonked too.”
I nod.
“Yes.”
35
He reaches, one-handed, for my purse and the sleeping bag, and help
s me in.
Through the French doors which he fumbles and locks, through a semi-dark kitchen all white plaster and dark cabinets and bulging movers cartons – “Ow!” he says, bumping into a carton marked PLATES - through a hall to the living room filled with more movers cartons.
One small lamp is on, by the window I must have seen from the alley. There’s a blur of fireplace, armchairs, tall plants before tall, dark windows, and a wide sofa. Peter fumbles off the lamp. By the dim wash of moonlight, he pulls me to him, and kisses me. I kiss him back, losing myself in a tide of need and passion and incredulous relief.
“You’ve been…the tape, I’m overwhelmed…”
“I can do more,” he whispers against my mouth, kissing me.
Then pulls off my jacket and T-shirt and bra; pulls me to him harder as he kisses me and our skins meet. It’s electric. We topple to the sofa, squirm off the rest of our clothes, and he pulls the sleeping bag over us. His stubble scrapes. His breath is warm on my face, my lips, and my arms squeeze him…
Love comes so easily. My heart soars. It feels right. From far, far away I hear Chrissy’s he’ll be after you next, but honestly, I don’t care. I feel alive again.
Later, we nestle in each other’s arms, hear each other’s breaths grow heavy. My eyes are closed. I want to stay in his warmth.
“There’s a bed upstairs,” he mumbles. “Let’s go up.”
My eyes open.
Outside, a siren sounds; occasional traffic rumbles past. The siren flashes images of my first visit here, the scare and his gun in the alley…and that reminds me of the murder.
Two murders?
I roll away a little, look at the shadowy ceiling. “What time is it?”
He raises his wrist. “Ten-forty.” His hand flops down.
“What if there are reporters outside in the morning? Or anyone with a phone?”
Moments pass. He inhales. “…don’t care. Want to wake up with you.”
“Your lawyer won’t like me in new headlines.”
Silence. He’s breathing more heavily.
I roll back to him. His eyes are closed. “I should go,” I whisper, cupping his cheek. “There’s also your divorce case…” I hesitate. “Custody. Me offering friendship to Chrissy. Nick twisting that into nastiness.”
His eyelids flutter. He frowns in the dimness. “Oh.”
I pull away to sit up. His hand grips my arm. “I’ll drive you.”
“You’re in no shape. I’ll call a car.”
“I’m fine,” he mumbles, and his hand flops down again.
I ease away and onto my feet; get dressed again. I’m woozy, but the shock of the tape has abated, and I’ve had way less to drink than he has. His breathing has become slow, regular.
I kneel back down to him, overwhelmed at what this night has brought; overwhelmed, too, at recalling when he came to my apartment reminding me of Gatsby…who was a tragic character; wound up shot dead. My eyes fill and I blink. I’ve lost myself for a minute.
“Thank you, Peter…so much.”
He rolls to me, smiles groggily. “Only the beginning…”
I pat his shoulder. A last question has resumed nagging, and I let it. Strange, how the subconscious bubbles up at odd moments. I ask, “Why is your daughter’s doll named Mary?”
Heavy breathing for moments; then: “…character in a book. Secret Garden.”
And he’s out. Passed out from booze and exhaustion. He’s rolled onto his side, one hand softly fisted to his cheek the way he was on the terrace.
I stare at him for a moment, thinking Secret Garden? My childhood favorite…
Then I lift the sleeping bag back over him. Like bookends, it feels: I covered him when I came, and I’m doing it again. It pains me, because I want terribly to stay with him.
I retrieve my bag and leave. Move quietly through the hall and the kitchen, then open the French doors, adjust their lock as he did. To the right of the door on the right is an alarm pad he didn’t use…careless…but he was drunk. I don’t know the code, of course, but the lock seems solid.
I step out, pull the doors closed, and hear the lock snap.
From the terrace I call a car. It’s West Village, they go 24/7 in this neighborhood, and one arrives fast.
Minutes later I’m sitting on my bed, pulling the little black tape from my bag. Slowly, I turn it in my hands, gutted to be holding something that is simultaneously a triumph, yet so devastating.
I look at the photo of Kim and me with the canoe. It is done. We have our justice.
My head bows; the great wet balloon of sorrow bursts. I cry for long minutes.
When the tears slow, I think incredulously that the man I’d called every bad name in the book…did this; pulled strings, used his resources, got the tape for me and Kim and the trial.
He isn’t Moore. How my mind wanted him so, but he isn’t. What an unbelievable turn of events.
Could I love him?
God help me, I think I already do.
I get up, and at my desk push the tape into a small manila envelope. I fold the envelope and hide it inside the lining of my bag. The bag goes next to my pillow on the bedside table.
Then, feeling utterly drained, I get ready for bed.
36
“You’re kidding,” Alex says, too loudly, as if I’d just insisted that the world was flat. “How? We searched, interviewed, even got a court order. Where’d this come from?”
I can hear him shoving papers and visualize his office, his desk piled with briefs. “Lower your voice,” I say. “Tell no one. The tape can be a secret right up to the trial, right?”
“Yes, since it’s civil not criminal. The defense can holler-”
“Let them. It’s video and audio. Horrible, shows everything.”
I resume pacing in my kitchen, surprised to find that I’m feeling pretty good. Not great, no, but that cold, heavy dread of the last two years is gone. I also slept last night, making an amazing two nights in a row…and getting dressed, I actually put on a chino skirt and a V-neck red sweater. So this is what it’s like to feel energized? Thank you, Peter; Moore is toast. I feel almost buoyant.
Alex is tense and sputtering. Let him. I’m remembering Peter’s warm breath on my face as my soon to be ex goes from excited to skeptical, disbelieving the tape’s authenticity. He wants to see it right away, and can’t; has an appointment and then a deposition at eleven and is still prepping for it.
“Could you bring it up?” He says it like a demand. Sure…let me struggle through traffic and leave my boss and his little business hanging. He has admin assistants and junior associates galore.
“I have to work,” I say, pacing, annoyed.
“I’ll send a messenger for it!”
“No. It stays with me until I put it in your hand.” My microwave dings.
“Where do you have it?”
“Hidden,” I say vaguely, wedging the phone to my shoulder, getting out a hot muffin.
I know Alex’s mind. The Moore case will be the biggest headline maker of his career. His appointment and depo will suddenly seem way less pressing.
And he’s so wonderfully predictable.
“Okay I’ll come,” he gives in, frustrated, knowing that I know he reschedules all the time. “Are you at work yet?”
“Just leaving. See you there.”
I disconnect, and pull in a huge gulp of air. Dealing with Alex is beyond stressful. Even in our good, early days, he was uptight, always in a rush.
How to decompress? I look toward my short hall, wander out to my front room.
It’s in a high shelf over my father’s desk, and I pull it down; hold The Secret Garden for long moments, staring at its cover. Its illustration is beautiful and mesmerizing: a young, unhappy girl in an early 1900s dress stumbles through thorny underbrush. Mary Lennox, orphaned after her unloving parents die in India, is sent to live in a gloomy old manor on the English moors. She finds and tends her late aunt’s mysterious, long-neglected garden,
and discovers its life-changing secrets.
How I loved this book, and not just as a child. Kim and I both loved it; it’s been called one of the most transformative coming-of-age novels ever written.
What surprise I felt last night when Peter, practically passed out, mumbled the title…but the shock of the tape made me barely able to process it. Still I dreamt about it, and being young again, curled up in my safe little bed with the book clutched in my hands. I also thought of it first thing when I woke…before the tape, even. I almost came running out for it before calling Alex.
I hug the book to me, feeling better, thinking of Peter’s little girl who must love it too. Abby, her name is…she named her doll after Mary Lennox. I remember Abby’s big, soulful eyes…
Back in the bedroom, I push the book into my bag, against the dark lining hiding the dreadful tape in its manila envelope. That stops me for seconds; I stare at the dark lining and it brings me down again.
No…let the book my antidote. Stay feeling better, I tell myself. Hang on…
I check my appearance in the mirror. There’s a slight abrasion where Peter’s stubble scraped my cheek. So what? It warms me too. I apply more lipstick and a little mascara; run a brush through my hair and give a little turn, watching my hair swing on my shoulders.
Haven’t done any of that in ages.
Outside the window, rain threatens and the temperature’s dropping. I grab my vinyl slicker, lock up, run downstairs, and head for work…
…re-mulling the other, insistent thought I had upon waking.
The stairway Peter described, at the rear of their cavernous Fifth Avenue apartment. Surveillance possibly broken, but the servants are carefully vetted and have keys - in addition to family members including Nick Jakes who “controls Chrissy;” has probably run everything since Peter moved out.
That stairway, Peter said. Nick could come and go at any time without being seen.
And the police never checked the apartment’s surveillance! Why? Well, nothing presumably happened there….
Thinking hard, really pushing the noodle, I slow my steps on Greenwich Street outside Best Tea ‘n Beans, aromatic even out on the sidewalk. It’s a sign of my feeling better that I enter, activating a cheery tinkle from the bell over the door. The fragrance of this specialty shop is intoxicating, transports you to another world of hot, exotic scents and spices. I browse mint teas from Morocco, masala tea from Malaysia and Thailand, coffee from Bali…and my gaze falls on a coffee blend from Java. I buy it, smiling and kibitzing with the aproned man who serves me, then head back out toward Cooper’s.
Girl Watching You Page 15
