“It’s Bob. He and Ginny are having problems again.”
“Yah? So?” she said with a little snort. “They’re having problems. They always have. Probably always will. But what’s that got to do with you, Lizzie?”
“It’s Mom and Dad. They seem so nervous all the time, so stressed. Especially Dad. He worries about you.”
“Well, that’s his problem, now isn’t it?”
“No, that’s what I mean. It’s not that simple. You have to think of other people, Fiona. It’s like when you drop a stone in the pond. The hurt goes out in ripples, and it affects everyone.”
“Everyone?”
“I mean all of us. We’re all connected.”
“All of you are, maybe, but I sure as hell haven’t felt very connected lately.”
“And whose fault is that, Fiona?” Elizabeth asked in a thin scrape of a voice.
“Wait a minute! So, the bottom line here is, it’s all my fault.”
“That’s not what I said.”
“Of course it is! Stones? Ripples? Jesus Christ, Lizzie! I mean, who made you the fucking family oracle? The way you tell it, I cause all the trouble, and you have to put it all back together again.”
“That’s not what I said.”
“No, I just did. What you said was bullshit. Pure and simple bullshit, because you never say what you really mean, do you? I’m going to tell you something, Lizzie, I may be the family fuckup, but at least I’m honest about it! I don’t try to avoid my own problems by focusing on everyone else’s!”
“Alright, Fiona. I wouldn’t expect you to understand. You never did.”
“No, you’re right, Lizzie! I never did, God damn you! God damn you all!” She slammed down the phone. What she didn’t understand was why she kept ending up alone in this same cramped space. No matter how hard she tried she could only get so far before being yanked back by an invisible tether.
Chapter 14
She woke up to the rumble of trucks sanding the glistening streets. In the wake of the rising sun, trees, bushes, mailboxes, power lines, and Fiona’s car were all glazed with ice. By the time she got the frozen doors open and a porthole scraped on her windshield, she was already late for work.
There was only one customer having coffee in the back booth. At the register Maxine and Donna Drouin giggled as they looked through a lingerie catalog. “Good morning!” they called in unison as Fiona reached over the counter for an order pad.
“Yah, I hope so,” she muttered. The last thing she needed right now was a slow day and time on her hands.
“Well maybe if you’d put a smile on that sour little puss it will be!” Donna said with a wink.
She looked up from the pad. “And what the hell’s that supposed to mean?”
“She’s kidding!” Maxine said quickly. “You know Donna, she’s just kidding.”
“Yah, and you know Fiona, she’s just not in the mood,” she said.
“Bad night?” Donna asked, pouting with concern. She sidled closer. “You do look tired.”
“I hardly slept,” Fiona said, turning the page of their catalog. The models wore skimpy bras and bikini panties. In some poses they leaned back on their hands, their legs spread wide. Remembering what had happened at Patrick’s last night, she shuddered with a wave of complicitous shame. She had spent as much time getting ready to see him as she would have for a date. More than she had wanted to please him with dinner and her complete attention, she had wanted him to be pleased with her. She had wanted to be admired, wanted him to need her, to feel his loss all these years so he would want her in his life now. It had been a seduction, but emotional, not sexual, and it had gone terribly awry.
“So what’s his name?” Donna asked in a low, sexy voice.
“Who?”
“The guy. The reason you hardly slept,” Donna said.
“There wasn’t any guy! I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“It was so obvious!” Maxine said in a shrill voice.
“My God! What’s that?” Donna said, pointing. She bent closer. “Your neck—it’s all black and blue, and under your chin too!”
Fiona’s hand flew to her throat. “It’s just some weird rash. I don’t know what it is.” Her shoulders and neck felt sore this morning.
“Those’re bruises,” Maxine said, coming around the counter. Her mouth hung open. “They are! Look,” she told Donna.
“What is he?” Donna moved her head back and forth, trying to see. “One of those weird rough-sex guys? I just saw that the other day on a show. You can die doing some of those things!”
“Don’t be ridiculous! That’s not what happened. I didn’t have a date last night. It’s just some strange rash. I woke up with it,” she said, conscious of Maxine’s stare.
“That, or someone tried to strangle you in your sleep,” Donna said, laughing as she hurried off to check on her customer.
Maxine touched her arm. “Somebody did that to you, didn’t they?” she whispered, her mascaraed eyes tiny with fear.
“No! Of course not!” she scoffed.
“It was Patrick,” Maxine said, staring at her neck. “He did that to you.”
A draft swept into the coffee shop as the door opened and three men entered. Lawyers from the offices next door, they always asked to be remembered to her uncle. They stood by the register taking off their topcoats as they waited to be seated.
“He’s crazy,” Maxine warned. “And I’m not just saying that.”
No, Fiona thought, watching her lead the men to a table. He wasn’t crazy, just so lonely and confused he didn’t know how to love, so he loved her in the wrong way. She couldn’t just walk away. Not from her own father, not after wanting him in her life for all these years. Not when he needed her help.
When she got home from work there were two messages on the answering machine. In the first, Patrick’s low raspy voice asked her to call him. And in the next made just moments later, he said he was sorry, “very sorry,” then hung up quickly. She stood by the phone now, her hand twice going to the receiver, then pulling back.
It was late afternoon and already pitch-black outside. She hated this time of year, the damp, bone-chilling cold, the hard, dead earth. The shortest days were yet to come. The nights would grow even longer, the darkness deeper. Her hand brushed her throat, and once again she was filled with bitterness toward her uncle, toward all of them who had so much because they had each other. And yet it was all so false. Elizabeth would live a lie rather than upset her parents. In order for them to be happy, the truth had to be hidden, denied, subverted.
She turned on the light and dialed George Grimshaw’s number, smiling when he answered so quickly. There was an edge to his voice when she said her name, a guarded disappointment. He must have been expecting a call from Elizabeth. When he didn’t seem surprised by Fiona’s invitation to the party, she realized Elizabeth had warned him, had probably ordered him not to accept. It would be perfectly platonic, Fiona said, reminding him of his past offer to be an escort should she ever need one. “And don’t worry, it won’t be a date. I’m just sick of always having to go places alone. You know what I mean?” she added.
“Yah,” he said with a sigh. “Yah, I do.”
“So what do you think?”
“I don’t know. I wouldn’t want to make Lizzie mad or uncomfortable.”
“Why would she be uncomfortable?”
“Well, you know,” he said so softly she could barely hear him.
“Hey, what happened, happened. Like you said yourself, George, it was circumstances.” She tried to sound offhanded, but she was almost choking with anger. So that was the ruse, the reason given, that they had slept together, one betrayal checkmating the other.
“Well, I know.”
“It doesn’t bother me anymore. So you better stop letting it bother you. Otherwise, you know how Lizzie is,” she said, pausing for emphasis. “This could drag on forever.”
When he didn’t say anything, she cou
ld feel him dangling. “You’ll still be trying to avoid each other in the nursing home.” She laughed. “I can just see the two of you, both shuffling around the corner at the same time on your walkers, then you both turn and try to shuffle away real fast.”
He took a deep breath, but still didn’t speak.
“I know! We’ll surprise her,” she said. “She’ll think it’s funny. You know she will. She’ll be relieved that you’re there and that she didn’t have to do the actual inviting, or whatever, because you know she really wants you there. She does. I mean, jeez, you’re such old friends,” she said, rolling her eyes as she began to flounder in the circularity of her argument.
“But what about the fiancé?” George asked.
“He has a name, George.”
“Yah, Rudy,” he grunted. “What about him?”
“Why should he care? I’m the one inviting you. Besides,” she added, wincing with the lie. “The last I heard he might have to work.”
It was settled. She and George would go together. She assured him that Elizabeth wouldn’t be upset, then bit her lip to keep from laughing. Rather than have to arrive in the plumbing van, she offered to drive to the party. Her hand trembled as she hung up, and for a moment she sat staring at the wall. What am I doing? she wondered, taking deep breaths to calm herself. Why had her giddy anger veered so sharply into this chilling dread? It’s harmless, and in the end she’ll be grateful, she told herself, trying to forget the look on her cousin’s face that morning in her bedroom doorway. The phone began to ring. She switched off the answering machine in case it was George, calling back to say he’d changed his mind. The phone continued to ring. She closed her eyes, then picked it up suddenly, but no one was there.
She leaned close to the bathroom mirror, shocked at all the discoloration. Patrick had left more than the imprint of fingertips in her flesh. It was a tattoo of frustration and blundering force, their separation made visible, an indelible mark of his pain, repugnant proof of how little she should expect of him. “No,” she murmured, then turned off the light. She wouldn’t be rejected again. His rage might fend off the rest of the world, but not her. The bruises on her chin could be covered with makeup, but the ones on her neck were too dark to hide.
She needed to buy a dress with a high collar for Saturday night. She took off her uniform and quickly put on pants and a sweater to go to the mall. She grabbed her jacket from the closet. She had to get out of here. She needed to keep busy. She didn’t want to think anymore about Patrick or her cousin. She looked up suddenly. Is that why she’d called George, because of what Patrick Grady had done to her? Did she want to hurt Elizabeth because she had been hurt? Was she that twisted and cruel? Of course not. She loved her cousin and had only been trying to help. She paused in the doorway as the telephone began to ring. If it was George, she would tell him he had been right. He shouldn’t go. She ran back inside.
“Hello?”
“Fiona!” Patrick said with relief. “I want to talk to you. I need to. Can you come over? I need to see you.”
“I can’t. I have to do something,” she said in as level a tone as she could manage. Her hands were trembling.
“Please, I’m sorry. I am. Please believe me. I’m so sorry.”
She took a deep breath. “You scared me.”
“I know. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you. That’s not what I wanted.”
“Well you did, and you hurt me too.” She touched her throat. “You should see the marks you made.”
“I didn’t mean to hurt you. I swear I didn’t. I love you, Fiona.”
“No! Don’t say that! You can’t say that!”
“But in the right way! The way you want, that’s what I mean, that’s all I mean.”
“Then why did that happen? Was it the pot? I don’t understand.”
“Please! Please come.”
“I can’t. Not tonight. Maybe tomorrow.”
“Why?” he demanded. “Why not? You have a date or something?” The way he spat out the word “date” made her hair stand on end.
“No. I have to go to the mall. I have to get something.”
“Well, stop by here on your way home then. Please? Oh please, Fiona,” he begged. “Just for a few minutes. You won’t even have to take off your coat. You can stay on the porch even, if you want. I just need to see you. I have to!”
The pain in his voice disarmed her. Feeling guilty, she said she’d try. When? he wanted to know. Maybe around nine-thirty when the mall closed. But she could only stay a few minutes, she added quickly, then listened for his goodbye, but all she could hear was angry muttering as he hung up.
Her eyes burned, her back ached, and her hair was wild after trying on so many dresses, but she had finally found one with a high neck that she liked. It was black and short with an open back. She waited in line at the register in Filene’s evening wear department. The announcement had just come over the loudspeaker that the store was closing in ten minutes. She had been shopping for almost three hours. She wished she hadn’t told Patrick she’d stop by. Glancing at her watch, she realized she probably wouldn’t even get there before ten. She was still too drained from last night for any more emotional encounters. She’d find a pay phone on her way out and call him. She’d see him tomorrow, on her way home from work. Before he had a chance to get too high.
After her dress was paid for she hurried down the escalator to the bank of pay phones by the exit doors.
Patrick got angry when she said she was too tired to come. He said he’d been counting on seeing her. For the past hour every time a car went by he had looked out the window.
“I’m sorry,” she said, thinking maybe she could stop by just for a few minutes. She moved her bag out of the way as a group of shoppers milled closer, waiting for the security guard to unlock the door and let them out.
“Where are you?” he asked.
The anxious crowd was growing larger. Whether it was mall policy or this elderly security guard’s own peculiar practice, he was refusing to open the door until some requisite number of people had assembled.
“I told you, at the mall,” she said. “They’re closing now.”
“Who’re you with?”
“Nobody. I mean, I’m near a bunch of people waiting to get out.” She spun around as someone tapped her on the shoulder. Rudy Larkin smiled over an armload of bags. She waved.
“This is ridiculous!” a woman fumed, and others muttered agreement.
“Help! Help, we’re being held hostage!” a teenage boy called in a loud falsetto, and people laughed.
“I’ll come by tomorrow,” she said, smiling back at Rudy. The bottom half of his shirt was unbuttoned and his hair was uncombed.
“That’s all right, you don’t have to,” Patrick said.
“But I want to.” She picked up her bag.
The security guard had been listening to his cellular phone. He spoke into it, then turned and unlocked the door. The waiting crowd surged past him into the cold, brightly lit parking lot.
“What time then?” Patrick asked.
Rudy tapped her shoulder again then waved goodbye. “Bye,” he called softly. “See you at the party?” As he turned, she reached out and grabbed his sleeve. She held up a finger for him to wait. He stood there, listening while she assured Patrick she’d stop by right after work. It was obvious Rudy thought she was trying to arrange a date.
“And don’t be calling at the last minute to say you’re not coming. I don’t need any more of this bullshit, you know,” Patrick warned.
“Hey, miss!” The security guard pointed at his watch.
“What?” she demanded, turning her back to Rudy. She could feel her face redden. “What did you just say?”
“You heard me,” Patrick growled.
She paused. “You’re right. I did,” she said, then hung up. She walked outside with Rudy. She felt strangely lightheaded, as if she had just been spun in a dizzying circle before being sent into this frigid night ai
r. She and Rudy began to tell each other how tired they were and how much they hated shopping. Neither one had eaten tonight. In unison they announced how hungry they were. Well then, Rudy said, they should go somewhere and eat, right now. She suggested Pacer’s. Rudy followed in his car. When they got there both the dining room and lounge were full. It would be a half-hour wait so they stood in the crowded vestibule, jammed shoulder to shoulder, shouting at one another in order to be heard over the smoky din.
Rudy seemed pleased that he’d just bought pants and a shirt, and a pair of shoes. He described himself as a pathologically insecure shopper. The few times he had ever gone shopping with his mother had ended with her fleeing the store to wait outside for him.
“Was she claustrophobic?” Fiona asked. “Or is it agoraphobic?”
He smiled. “Some kind of phobic.”
“She’d be miserable here then!” she shouted.
“Actually, she probably would’ve liked this,” he said, looking around. “It was decisions she had a hard time with, and having to deal with people individually.”
Was that why he continued to be so patient with Elizabeth, because she reminded him of his mother? “I’m surprised Elizabeth didn’t go with you!” she shouted at his ear. “She always—” She caught herself. “She’s always enjoyed shopping.” She had almost said that Elizabeth always went shopping with George whenever he needed anything. In high school everything George owned, even socks, had been chosen by Elizabeth.
Rudy said something, but she touched her ear and shook her head to show she hadn’t heard. More people had come in, and the hostess was calling out names to be seated. “She was supposed to,” he shouted, putting his hand on the wall above and leaning over her so people could get by. “But then she said she felt guilty for not helping her mother more!”
Fiona Range Page 29
