by Jan Burke
“Harriman.”
“How official-sounding you are, even after hours.”
“Irene? Thanks for calling. Are you okay?”
“I’m safe and sound. How about you? Did I wake you?”
“No, I was lying here awake, wondering about you, to tell the truth.”
So he was in bed, too. Something nice about that. “Hmm. Well, what did you wonder? I had Pete following me around all evening, so you couldn’t have wondered if I was safe.”
“I did anyway.”
“How are you feeling?”
“Better. Restless, but not so sore. What are you up to tomorrow?”
“Going to have lunch with Barbara, but nothing else planned.”
“Want to get together later?”
“Yes, I’d like that.”
“Stop by after lunch, okay?”
“Sure.”
“How was the fund-raiser?”
“Well, for some reason Mrs. Hollingsworth took a shine to me and decided to give me a personal tour of the place. It’s really something. And she’s really something.”
“Yeah, that’s what I hear. Don’t they call her the Ice Queen?”
“Yeah, I guess because she sort of overwhelms you at first. But I don’t know, I kind of like her. She can be abrupt and opinionated, and I wouldn’t want to get in her way if she wanted something. But she has a sense of humor. And she did things she didn’t need to do — she even fixed Pete up with some sandwiches and coffee when she found out he was out there watching over me.”
“Well, you’re right, that doesn’t sound too coldhearted. Poor Pete. He’s put in a long day.”
“He’s devoted to you. I don’t kid myself that he’s really there for my sake.”
“Pete’s a good man. And he likes you. He’d probably keep an eye on you anyway.”
“Are you kidding? I make him mad all the time.”
“You’d be surprised how many people you have that effect on.”
“Very funny. I’d better get some sleep if this is the kind of humor I’m going to have to put up with tomorrow.”
“Goodnight. Sweet dreams.”
“Thanks. You too.”
I hung up and lay awake for a little while. Something was nagging at me, something that had come up in the course of the day, but I couldn’t figure out what it was. I was tired and distracted by thinking about the conversation with Frank.
I fell asleep, and as ordered, had sweet dreams. Amazingly sweet for a good Catholic girl.
35
SATURDAY MORNING I awoke when a big tomcat jumped up on my shins.
“Ouch! Cody, you did that on purpose!” He looked at me with all the innocence he could muster in his ornery cat face, and purred loudly. I reached out sleepily and scratched his ears. He came padding up along my body, stepping on a number of major organs that didn’t need to be poked about by a cat’s paw, and came to rest between my breasts. He started purring and kneading, then lifted his chin, just in case I had an urge to scratch it. I stretched and looked at the clock. It was 11 A.M. This startled me fully awake. “Thanks for coming in, Cody. I might have slept until noon. Damn near did anyway.”
He wasn’t too happy when I rolled out of bed, but he followed me around as I got ready for lunch with Barbara. I took a quick shower and put on a pair of jeans and a soft gray T-shirt that I’m rather fond of. Lydia had left a note saying she had some errands to run and might catch me later on. I looked down at Cody with suspicion. “How soon after she left did you get lonely?”
He responded by rubbing up against my legs. “‘Love the One You’re With,’ is that it? Just like the old song.” I picked him up under his front legs and made him dance while I sang the chorus to him. He wasn’t nuts about this and scurried off when I set him down again.
This little exercise filled my head up with songs from my junior-high and high school days, starting with “Suite: Judy Blue Eyes.” As I drove toward St. Anne’s, I was singing the “Do-do-do-do” part of it at the top of my lungs. It was a warm, sunny day and I had the top down on my old Karmann Ghia, which is not much younger than the song. I stopped at a light and a guy who looked to be about my age leaned out the window of his pickup truck. I thought he was going to ask me if I was some kind of maniac, but he started singing the harmony. The light changed and we nodded and smiled, but I must admit I was a little more subdued after that.
I pulled into the visitors’ parking lot at St. Anne’s in a fine mood. On my way into the front entrance, I stopped by a newsstand and plunked in a quarter for the Express. I gave a start when I unfolded it and saw a picture of Hawkeyes on the front page. Near it an article entitled “Suspect Found Dead” told about police finding him after an anonymous tip. It said the cause of death was not known, which seemed odd to me. I guess I had assumed he would have been shot or knifed or something obvious. Identification pending.
As I made my way to Kenny’s room, the article and the hospital atmosphere got to me and I was downright somber by the time I got there.
Barbara smiled at me as I walked in.
“Look who’s here, Kenny. It’s Irene.”
So he was awake. He had fewer bandages, although his face was a mass of deep-purple bruises. His eyes were less swollen. His upper body was still immobilized by bandages and splints. “Hi, Kenny,” I said, wondering why I felt a knot in my stomach.
He didn’t say anything, but he looked toward me.
Barbara talked on as if he had given me a warm greeting. “Irene has been asking about you, Kenny. She’s been by here and she’s really helped me out a lot.”
Nothing. He turned his eyes away from me.
“Shall we go?” I said to Barbara.
She was staring at Kenny, who, in turn, was staring at some place on the wall.
“Yes, I suppose so,” she said after a minute. We got up and left.
“There’s a burger joint on the corner that makes terrific strawberry shakes — you up for that?”
“Sounds great,” she said. “Hospital meals have all the charm of a well-balanced diet. I’d love to eat something sinful for lunch.”
“Okay, we’ll split a big order of fries, too.”
“Sorry about Kenny. He’s been very moody today. He’s feeling frustrated and uncomfortable. It’s just a guess, but I think the fact that his dad is dead is starting to sink in.”
“I understand,” I said. Oh, O’Connor. Are you really gone?
“Remember how it was when Dad died?”
“Sure.” In the silence that followed, I thought to myself, sure I do, Barbara. I watched him ebb away from himself day by day. I sat there with him, watching the guy I always thought of as the strongest man on earth become a fragile reed — while you hid out in the frenzy of your courtship with Kenny.
But this subsided. I couldn’t blame Barbara for dealing with Dad’s illness in some way other than the way I dealt with it. We just were and probably always would be very different people. And as painful as those days with Dad were, at least he and I had them together, and I was richer for it.
“I hate myself,” she said suddenly.
“Why?”
“I’m so selfish sometimes. You stayed with him. I didn’t.”
Had I spoken my thoughts aloud? No, I knew I hadn’t. I recovered my composure and said, “It’s over, Barbara. It doesn’t matter who stayed with him. Right now all that matters is that we stick by each other.”
“I’ve thought a lot about Dad lately,” she said quietly. “I ask myself why I can stay with Kenny, but never could stay with Dad. I don’t know. Maybe it’s because Kenny has always been so dependent on me, so it’s not so scary that he needs me now. With Dad it was the other way around.”
“Like I said, it’s over — it was years ago. You need to take a break from Kenny every now and then, Barbara. Sitting around in that hospital room with him, looking at him all beat to hell — that’s bound to make you feel a little morose.”
“I guess you’re righ
t.”
We grabbed a booth at the burger place and ordered our All-American lunch. She lightened up a little and we ate in a companionable way, mainly because I was trying out a new way of communicating with her. It involved a lot of biting of my tongue and redirecting the conversation if she started to get critical. I have to give her credit, too; I think she was pretty much trying to do the same thing.
I walked back to the hospital with her, but decided I didn’t need another trip through the halls today. “Thanks for doing this, Barbara. I know you don’t like to leave Kenny.”
“Thanks for coming by. It was nice to get away for a while.”
I started to leave, and she said, “Irene?”
“Yes?”
“I just was wondering how things are going for you.”
“What things?”
“I mean, I guess I forgot to ask earlier how you are doing with — you know — everything that has happened to you.”
“It got to me for a few days, but I think I’m doing a lot better now. It was hard for me to keep my balance, you might say. Friends help. You help.”
“I do?”
“Yeah, sure you do.”
She started to cry.
“Oh, for pity’s sakes, Barbara,” I said, putting an arm around her. “I didn’t say that to make you cry.”
She bit her lower lip and sniffed, wiping the tears away in a really ladylike way. I was proud of her. I would have used the cuff of a sweatshirt or something.
“I’m a mess,” she said.
“You just need some rest and an occasional change of scenery.”
“I’ll try to take your advice.”
That will be a first, I thought. I gave her shoulders a squeeze. I looked around and saw a pay phone. “If you’re okay now, I’m going to go make a phone call.”
“Why not come in and make your call from Kenny’s room?”
From Barbara, this was an exceptionally generous offer. But she instantly read my hesitation.
“Oh, this is a private call, isn’t it?” she said, breaking into a grin. “Are you calling that detective?”
“Yes,” I said, wondering why I didn’t lie.
“That’s great!”
“Barbara, I said ‘I’m calling him,’ not ‘I’m marrying him.’”
“I know, I know,” she said, but she still had that grin. Better than tears, I guess. “Well,” she said with a girlish giggle, “I’ll see you later.”
She practically skipped into the hospital. Barbara is a charter member — nay, the founder — of that club that’s worried about my marital status. It was sad that the club was so desperate for any glimmer of hope. I could see the minutes of the next meeting: “We are happy to say Irene called an eligible male for other than business purposes.” Applause thunders in the meeting hall. For a moment, it made me think of just spending the rest of the day by myself.
But then there were those dreams from the night before. I made the call.
Frank answered with his last name again.
“Kelly,” I said back.
“Hi. Coming over?”
“Leaving St. Anne’s right now. See you in a few.”
“I’ll be waiting.”
I hung up and allowed myself the same kind of grin I had just seen on Barbara.
36
I TURNED ON THE RADIO and listened to rock and roll from the modern world so that I wouldn’t sing oldies all day. It was a good day for a drive down to the beach. I pulled up in Frank’s driveway and went to the door. He opened it, and I must confess to giving him a very unladylike stare. Barbara would have been appalled. But she wasn’t looking at Frank’s legs for the first time.
He was wearing a pair of shorts and some sandals, and his legs were tanned and muscular. He had on a T-shirt that didn’t make the top half look so bad either. Yowza.
By the time I got up to his broken nose and bruised eyes, I realized that I was being pretty obvious in my assessment of him.
“Hi,” I said, feeling the color rise in my cheeks. “Been out in the sun?”
“Just out back for a few minutes. Are you up for a walk on the beach? If I don’t get out of the house for a little while, I’m going to start climbing the walls.”
“A walk sounds great.”
He closed up the house and we made our way down to the beach at an easy pace. Frank walked a little slow and still seemed a little stiff because of the ribs, but he was moving around a lot better than the day before.
We reached the boardwalk, where a double stream of humanity strolled in each direction past food vendors, street musicians, and little booths offering sunglasses, beachwear, jewelry, sandals, and every kind of T-shirt imaginable. We forded the stream without getting jostled, a real accomplishment. Of course, Frank looked as if he had just stepped out of a boxing ring, so people tended to back off from him.
“Are you embarrassed to be seen with me?” he asked, noticing their reactions. “Once I’ve shaved, I tend to forget that I look like this.”
“Not embarrassed in the least. Besides, I figure you earned some of those bruises on my behalf.”
“Just the way things happened.”
“No sale, but the modesty does make you more charming.”
“You are impossible.”
“No, but I’m not easy either.”
He shook his head as if to say he gave up, and we started walking again, this time winding our way between bodies tanning on towels. The soft sand was harder for him to manage. I could see he was relieved when we made it to the wet, firm sand near the waves. I stopped to tie my shoes. He watched me, and smiled.
“I can’t believe it. You still don’t know how to tie your shoes.”
“What are you talking about?” I said, though I knew exactly what he meant.
“I just remember that in Bakersfield, you always had trouble keeping your shoes tied. I remember figuring out that you tied them backward — you’re the only person I know with shoestring dyslexia.”
“Blame my father. I learned to tie shoes by tying his for him in the morning before he went to work. So I still tie them as if they were on someone else’s feet.”
“Yeah, but how long ago was that?”
“Never mind how long ago. Besides, they come untied because I step on my own laces.”
“I can see how it would make you feel better to believe that,” he laughed.
“You better quit it, Frank, you’ll make your ribs sore again.”
“Tell you what — let’s take our shoes off — then we won’t be interrupted all the time while we walk.” He eased himself down onto the sand, and we took off our shoes. It felt good, sitting there in the warm sand, a few feet out of the reach of the waves.
“Seems like I spent whole summers running around barefoot,” I said.
“I can see why.”
“Enough about the shoelaces, already.”
“Okay, okay. I spent whole summers barefoot, too. Drove my mother nuts. ‘You’ll step on a piece of glass!’ she’d say, or ‘People will think I don’t buy you shoes.’ But after the first week or so, my feet were so tough I could have walked on razor blades.”
“My mother used to say the same things to me. Barbara would be inside, trying on my mother’s high heels, and I’d be barefoot, climbing the tree in the front yard.”
“You had lunch with Barbara, didn’t you? How’s she doing?”
“Other than the fact that she spends too much time sitting there staring at four walls and trying to cheer Kenny up, she seems all right. We actually got along with one another today. I don’t know. We’ve never been real close, but we were okay until my father’s illness; then Dad died and she got married to Kenny, and except for a brief spell after Kenny dumped her, we haven’t had much to do with each other. We always seem to get on each other’s nerves.”
“I didn’t know your dad had died,” he said.
“It was before you moved down here, about seven years ago. He had a long fight with cancer.”
“I’m sorry.” He was quiet for a minute, watching the waves. “My dad died three years ago.”
I looked over at him.
“I guess I should be grateful,” he said. “It was quick. He had a heart attack.”
“Not any easier on you.”
He was quiet for a long time, but then said, “Maybe not.”
“How’s your sister?”
“Cassie? She’s doing great. She and my mom still live in Bakersfield. She’s married and has two kids.”
“Two kids? Your little sister has two kids?”
“Two boys, four and six — Brian and Michael Junior — hellions, both of them. But I’m crazy about them. Her husband is with the Highway Patrol. Cassie did okay by marrying Mike — he’s good to her. We’ve turned out to be one of those real cop families: my dad, Mike, and me.”
For a long while, we didn’t say anything.
“You know what’s crazy?” I asked.
“Yeah — the fact that we didn’t get in touch with each other more often.”
“Right.”
We watched a big black dog dive into the waves, swimming after a Frisbee. He returned soaked and sandy, but carrying his trophy proudly, prancing back to his owner, whom he showered with ocean water as he shook his dripping coat.
“I guess we could have tried harder,” Frank said.
“I don’t know. Timing was bad, I guess. We get to know each other, I move down here. You move down here, but you’re with somebody. You get in touch with me, but by then I’m with somebody.”
“What happened to that guy?”
“Greg?” I asked, grimacing. Greg, the man I was seeing around the time Frank returned to Las Piernas, was part of my Dating Hall of Shame. “In a word, nothing. I got tired of nothing and we broke it off. He just never got his act together. I think I was going through one of my desperate periods when I hooked up with him.”
“I can’t imagine you being desperate.”
I laughed. “Believe me, Frank, I have. And I ended up with some real doozies. True disaster cases. I pride myself on the fact that it has been a while since it happened. Maybe I matured enough to figure out that it was better to just ride out any panic I was feeling about being alone.”
