“Let’s talk,” Chloe said.
They crossed the street and sat in the lobby of the Ritz-Carlton Hotel near a fragrant gingerbread house display. Children ran around while weary grown-ups sat surrounded by shopping bags. Beth’s head was spinning.
“Alex is a sweetheart,” Chloe explained. “So sweet he has trouble saying no. He’s charming too, so he’s always got admirers. I’m used to it. It’s been this way ever since we declared our feelings for each other—”
Beth flinched. “How can you contemplate such a thing?”
“How do you mean?” Chloe asked, surprised.
“With your brother?”
“Stepbrother,” Chloe corrected. Now Beth was surprised. “You have to understand,” Chloe said. “Alex gets involved easily with people, but he always comes back to me. Always.”
Beth heard the blood whoosh through her veins, melding with the general din as Chloe kept talking.
“My uncle—our uncle—would like nothing more than to see us marry. It’s odd, but he’s very protective of me since my father died, and he knows I love Alex. This would be good for Alex, of course. He didn’t make it into our parents’ will, and his mother had so little …”
Chloe, her eyes downcast and her hair falling in perfect waves just below her shoulders, looked like an angel delivering the truth. Nausea washed over Beth.
“Thank you,” Beth whispered. “I should have known. It seemed complicated. Even getting the tickets—”
“The money,” Chloe interrupted. “I know how he is, how unfair he is. How much did you give him for tickets?”
Beth tried to recall what each one cost. Eight hundred dollars? Nine hundred? It was Leah’s money, but Chloe clearly pegged Beth as someone Alex had duped. Perhaps he had.
“Let me write you a check,” Chloe said. “My uncle’s generous with me, as is Alex, though I worry about things he does. Whatever the case, it’s terrible for you to be out any money. Do you have five minutes? We’ll run back to the apartment now. No worries.”
Nothing had changed about the Belgravia except the bright wreaths now festooning the front doors.
“Chloe,” the doorman said, then nodded at Beth.
Passing through the marble lobby and under the chandeliers, Beth tried to imagine herself back into the first time she came here, but couldn’t.
They entered the apartment and Chloe began looking for her checks.
“They must be in the bedroom.”
Beth felt pressure build behind her eyes. She imagined telling everyone the trip to Paris had been canceled. She imagined Leah and her mother looking at her, thinking she’d screwed things up or gotten too emotional. Again. She imagined her grandmother telling her she shouldn’t waste time feeling sorry for herself if she wanted to meet another nice young man.
Her head throbbed and her mouth was dry. She noticed an Air France ticket on the coffee table for the flight she was supposed to have taken. The ticket had Chloe’s name on it and a receipt confirmed its purchase by Alex two days prior. How could he? But Beth had trouble blaming Alex. Perhaps he was trapped—all the “family stuff” he mentioned. And here she was, sitting in his apartment, allowing his stepsister to send her away with a check. What would Alex think when he found out she’d accepted a paltry sum—nothing compared with the fortune the two of them could make—instead of opting for a life of love and adventure with him? Her mind reeled. It made no sense to let Alex down. She loved him too much. He loved her.
There, on the table, a silver letter opener with a filigreed handle caught her eye. It wasn’t sharp, but it might do. She stepped on the Oriental runner in the hallway to avoid making noise as she came up behind Chloe, who was searching a drawer beneath the bed. Before Chloe could turn around, Beth plunged the letter opener into her neck. Chloe gasped and collapsed over the drawer.
But something was wrong. The weapon wouldn’t go deeper and Chloe was still alive, trying to move. Beth withdrew the makeshift knife, causing Chloe to scream and blood to gush out of the wound onto her white cashmere sweater. Beth forced the weapon into a new spot in Chloe’s neck. More blood, more gasping, but Chloe still breathed. Her eyes were open and her mouth twisted with pain. Focus, Beth told herself when she started to tremble. Find an actable objective: to kill Chloe in order to live a life of happiness with Alex. She scrambled to the closet and found a plastic bag, then lifted up Chloe’s head by the hair and fastened the bag tightly around her neck, squeezing with her hands to speed things up. Tremors wracked Chloe’s body, her arms and then legs. Then nothing.
Beth stood up, sweating and weak. She didn’t have much time. She found Chloe’s passport first. They both had brown eyes but Beth’s hair was dark. To play a convincing Chloe and make it to the airport by six-fifteen, she’d need to leave the Belgravia, visit a hair salon, and return to pack. She didn’t want to take any chances and decided to leave and come back as Chloe in case the doorman was paying attention. Finding scissors, she slit open the bag around Chloe’s head, then cut off all the blond hair not covered in blood. She tied up her own hair, then used clips to fasten Chloe’s to the edges, hiding the jagged line between the two with a winter hat. It looked amazingly natural. She hustled into Chloe’s coat, grabbed her purse, and ran out.
The afternoon became a series of tasks: she was Chloe, rushing to finish errands; she was Beth, discarding hair in the restroom at Liberty Place and washing flecks of blood off her wrists; she was whichever one’s credit card she used, stopping by Liquid Salon, explaining she was about to go to France to meet her fiancé and wanted to surprise him by going blond. Could a colorist do that in the next two hours?
She was Beth, but with honey-colored hair, anxious to get things from her apartment, then suddenly aware of a police cruiser parked on Pine and 19th, so she was Chloe again, walking past Beth’s apartment, no turning back, and heading home.
“Chloe,” the doorman nodded.
She packed as if she might stay in France a long time and got ready to leave. It was a shame about the body—how odd it looked with hacked-off hair. She turned off the heat and opened the bedroom windows. The corpse might not smell for weeks if it stayed cold.
She was Beth, anticipating a romantic getaway with her boyfriend. She was Chloe, anticipating holidays with family. She was trying new things, making strong choices. She was her own mind, racing a thousand miles a second, already in Paris.
Soon, love, she texted Alex from Beth’s phone.
Soon, love, she texted Alex from Chloe’s phone.
Soon, mon amour, he replied to each.
SWIMMING
BY HALIMAH MARCUS
Narberth
Tom and Jackie Middleton’s swimming pool is the jewel of Narbrook Circle. The cool aqua rectangle is nestled on the western side of the Middletons’ house, which sits atop a hill and presides over the neighborhood. Standing on the porch of that home, one can easily survey the luscious green neighborhood, the houses that border it, and the stream that divides it in two. Narberth, their town, is a self-conscious time capsule of small-town America, always preserving old traditions alongside new ones: the Memorial Day parade, relay races at the playground, fireworks on the Fourth of July. Although the outskirts of Philadelphia begin only a few miles away, Narbrook Circle is the isolated within the isolated, a suboasis of the suburban oasis, a place as calm and beautiful as any place you could hope to be.
Tom, a psychiatrist, sees clients in the finished side of their basement. There is a separate back entrance to a room containing an armchair and a comfortable couch adorned with too many pillows. There’s a side table with a box of tissues, a Venetian screen hiding an exercise bike, and nothing on the walls. One of Tom’s clients is a seventeen-year-old boy by the name of Seth Lever. Seth attends a private Quaker school on City Avenue, where Jackie happens to be the guidance counselor. Seth is tall for his age and good looking, although he doesn’t seem to know it. He dresses the same way he probably has since middle school: old T-shirts, jeans, an
d sneakers. In recent months Seth has become noticeably withdrawn and begun to fail his classes. While she did her best to help him, Jackie felt that Seth needed more frequent, longer sessions—beyond what she has time for—and that he might benefit from the positive male influence of her husband.
During their first session together, Seth plops down on the couch and says, “First off, you should know that I don’t want to be here, and that I think therapy’s bullshit.”
After that, Seth says very little. He reveals only the most basic of information: his parents are divorced; he is bored by high school and thinks maybe he’ll go to college to study music, if he goes at all. When Tom presses for more information, Seth mentions that he is also in the chess club at school and reads chess strategy books.
“I play a little chess myself,” says Tom.
“Oh yeah?” Seth brightens.
“Sure, not so much now, but I was crazy about it in college. Used to reenact Bobby’s games and whatnot. Fischer, I mean. We could play sometime.”
“No thanks,” says Seth, but Tom can see that he’s tempted.
For Seth’s next session, Tom brings the chess set down to the basement, just in case. He’s read about therapists doing this—playing games with their clients to put them at ease. Seth is fairly nervous and it would be good for him to be able to relate to Tom over something he already understands.
The thing is, Seth isn’t a shy kid. Tom can see that by the way he sits on the couch, leaning back, taking up lots of space. When he does speak he speaks confidently, knowing exactly how much he will reveal before he opens his mouth, unlike many people who negotiate with themselves halfway through a sentence.
At first, Tom doesn’t mention the chess set, and Seth doesn’t bring it up either. Tom begins as he normally would, by asking Seth what his goals are for therapy.
“I haven’t set any goals,” says Seth. “I already told you, it wasn’t exactly my idea to come here.”
“Whose idea was it?” asks Tom.
“My mom’s, I guess.”
“And why do you think she wants you to go to therapy?”
“I don’t know, you’ll have to ask her,” answers Seth.
There is a touch of defiance in his voice, but it’s nothing Tom hasn’t seen before. Tom lets the room stay silent, giving Seth the space to say more, if he wants. Part of being a psychiatrist is learning to endure these awkward moments.
“I see you brought the board down,” Seth says, after a while.
“I thought we might play a little, if you’re up for it.”
“I’m up for it.”
As it turns out, Tom and Seth are pretty evenly matched. Tom lets the game run out the clock, and when he says, “Time’s up,” Seth doesn’t conceal his disappointment.
That night, before going to sleep, Jackie asks Tom about Seth.
Tom thinks for a moment. “He’s doing all right, I guess. He’s a funny kid.”
“You know, he’s not popular. As far as I can tell, he doesn’t belong to any groups at all. There aren’t many students like that at Friends’ Central. If they’re not popular, they’re into drama or something,” says Jackie.
“He’s into chess,” says Tom.
“Oh really? I didn’t know that.”
“We played today. He’s good. Really good.”
“Hey, you know what you should do?” says Jackie.
“What?” he asks unenthusiastically.
“Switch sides. Turn the board around. Then you’ll have to think like him and he’ll have to think like you.” Pleased with herself, Jackie kisses Tom and turns off the light.
The next time Seth comes in, Tom has the board set up between them on an old card table. The pieces are ready and waiting. They play five moves and then Tom turns the board around. Seth looks at him skeptically but doesn’t ask for an explanation, and Tom doesn’t offer one.
Viewing the board from Seth’s perspective, Tom sees a complex web of attacks and defenses he only half understood from the other side. Seth’s strategy is impressive, and as the board turns back and forth neither gains nor loses much ground.
It isn’t until the third session of this game that Seth begins to open up on his own. Over the next several weeks, he tells Tom, in pieces at first, of an older woman he works for named Marianne. Several months ago, he saw a job posted on the Whole Foods community board for a gardener/general yard worker for a house in the neighborhood, and when he went to ask about it, Marianne hired him on the spot.
Seth even describes the house—a big, gray Victorian with azaleas out front. “She had me paint the columns on the porch pink and green,” he tells Tom.
Immediately, Tom knows the house. There aren’t many Victorian-style houses around, and he can picture that porch. At first he can’t place it, but then he remembers; it’s just around the corner on Windsor Avenue.
It doesn’t take long for Tom to realize that Seth and Marianne are having an affair. Seth is smart and deliberately drops little hints. Initially, it’s just the general way he talks about her, saying things like, “Marianne likes me to come over straight from school,” or Marianne wants this and says that, etc. The more Seth lays it out for him, the more dubious Tom becomes. It’s possible, isn’t it, that Seth’s leading him on, just to stay entertained? Of course, if Seth really is having this affair, the worst thing Tom could do is not believe him, so he puts his doubts aside, confident that the truth will out itself.
From what Tom can gather, the affair is surprisingly sexually mature, and other than the considerable age difference, there is no outward manipulation. But when Seth answers Tom’s questions, he’s using someone else’s words. This is what worries Tom the most—Seth has no perspective. He doesn’t know which way is up and which is down.
Tom thinks very carefully about how to proceed. He considers it to the point of agony, but doesn’t discuss it with Jackie, sure that she’ll overreact. Ultimately he decides that since Seth is almost eighteen, he should keep the information confidential. The circus that it could create would be far more damaging to Seth than if they managed it together, through therapy.
So, in their next appointment, Tom decides to address the topic more frankly, and ask questions that encourage Seth to speak freely about the relationship. What do you talk about? Not very much. What do you do? Have sex, mostly. Are there any other girls who you are interested in? No, not exactly.
Eventually Tom asks, “Do you love her?”
“No,” Seth laughs, as if to say, Come on, we’re all adults here, which of course they aren’t.
The following weekend, Tom finds himself driving by the gray Victorian. The car in front of him has one of those bumper stickers that Tom hates: I drive under 25 m.p.h. in Narberth, PA, a pledge the driver observes with due diligence. As Tom creeps along well under the speed limit, he gets a good look at the house. He can see that Seth and Marianne haven’t only been fucking; Seth’s been working too. The yard looks immaculate.
The next day, passing by, he sees her. She is leaning against her doorframe, staring into nothing as if she is remembering something. Tom takes off his sunglasses to get a better look. He can’t believe it, but it’s her: Amelia Watson. She’s lost some weight and she’s dressing differently, maybe even dyed her hair too, but it is most definitely, unmistakably her, Amelia goddamn Watson. From the dark of the hallway, Seth emerges. She leans forward like she is going to kiss him goodbye, right there in the open. But before she gets too close, she catches herself and touches his shoulder instead. Tom slumps in the seat as Seth walks away, and Amelia retreats into the house.
At home, Tom unlocks his filing cabinet and thumbs through the manila folders until he finds it. Watson, Amelia. The first page of the file is the form that he requires all patients to fill out: a brief medical history and a confidentiality agreement. At the top of the page, in her tight handwriting, it reads, Watson, Amelia Marianne. Shaking, Tom closes the file.
It’d gone on for several months, and Jackie never
knew. They’d kept up their weekly appointments for appearance, and they’d even done it on the couch in this very office. Once they started fucking it became impossible to talk, and the fifty-minute sessions were painfully slow. He’d ended it eventually, and Amelia had agreed it was best for her to move in with her sister in Rhinebeck, New York, where things are quieter and there are more open spaces. Tom even gave her the name of a therapist up there, a woman who’d come highly recommended.
That night, Tom takes Jackie out to dinner. Almost every Saturday they go into the city to try the latest restaurant written up in the Main Line Times, and tonight cannot be any different. They eat overpriced Mexican tapas, and on the way home, when Tom is careening down Schuylkill Expressway, Jackie reaches over and gently squeezes his crotch. Tom is stiff and guilty but he tells himself nothing’s wrong. It is a warm summer night and Jackie turns off the air-conditioning and opens the windows.
At home, Jackie suggests they to go for a night swim, something she likes to do when her belly is full and her mood is high. They change into their bathing suits, wrap themselves in towels, and go out onto the deck. Jackie walks down the steps to the poolside, and Tom crosses the deck to switch on the underwater light. As soon as he flips it on, Jackie screams. In their neighborhood, which some say was designed to be an outdoor amphitheater, whispers carry like they do in the valleys of mountains. Hers is not a scream that Narbrook Circle has heard before, and to be sure, all of Narbrook Circle hears her scream.
Tom is at the railing. He sees what she sees, a body of a man—a boy—floating facedown in the pool. He doesn’t have to look any closer to know that it’s Seth Lever.
The police arrive, Jackie is crying, and the whole neighborhood is out, trying to get a look. Tom wishes, more than anything, that he were wearing something besides a bathing suit. The yard is roped off, there are police swarming the property, red lights shining on the pine trees. Everyone whispers that it’s suicide. By the time they get Seth out of the pool, it’s after midnight. They ask Tom to put on some clothes and drive down to the station, which he does. They don’t make him bring Jackie with him. He tells them everything he can, but he doesn’t mention Amelia Marianne.
Philadelphia Noir Page 11
