Found: One Marriage

by Laura Parker

  Halle was appalled. “You shouldn’t have been asked to make a choice between your ethics and your friend.”

  “Yeah? The law doesn’t see it that way. The law is pretty clear on right and wrong. I wore a badge proclaiming to the world I was one of the good guys, better than the average man even. What I did by going in with Ed sullied that oath.”

  Sullied. Halle thought about the word he had chosen to describe his transgression. It was a lofty word. He hadn’t bent the rules or made a minor transgression, or put it all on the line for a buddy. He had sullied his reputation. The definition was very precise, to tarnish as in his badge, to mar the purity of his oath. Joe was a man who thought in those terms.

  Another door swung open on the mystery of the man. He had a code by which he judged things, a higher order than necessity, need, or convenience’s sake. What’s more, he had tried to live up to that standard in everyday life. That put him a step away from many people.

  “What did you do to redeem yourself?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Did you testify against your friend?”

  Joe shook his head. “Whatever I did wrong I did voluntarily. Because the department wasn’t happy about the idea of a policeman with my spotless record going down in flames they offered to accept my resignation instead of pressing charges.”

  “What about Ed?”

  “He cut a deal. He’d tell what he knew in return for immunity. He was the star witness in the case against Demotta. Been on all the major network talk shows. I hear he’s even writing a book.”

  “You mean he got the glory after he wrecked your career?”

  Joe’s profile was grim. “He didn’t twist my arm.”

  “I wonder. He traded on your friendship by even asking you to cover for him. He must have known how seriously you believed in loyalty. He must have known it would go against your personal code to betray him. I’ll bet he counted on that.”

  He slanted a glance at her that revealed that the barrier was back up. “Why, because that’s the way people behave in your world? Oh, come on, Halle. Don’t look so shocked. You used to tell me about the dirty dealings and underhanded tricks dealers played on one another to get a sale. Sellers and collectors in some cases are little more than thieves. They’d buy and sell merchandise they knew was stolen, as long as it couldn’t be traced back to them. So don’t get high and mighty with me about ethical considerations among my friends.”

  Halle gaped at him. “Is that true? Is that the kind of people I dealt with?”

  He nodded. “Every day.”

  “Oh.” Halle pulled in her shoulders and cupped her elbows with her hands. “I’m beginning to see why you don’t think much of me and my life.”

  “Life-style,” Joe amended. “You were better than the rest of them. At least it bothered your conscience. You kept saying you were going to get out of the selling end. You wanted to be part of the collecting efforts by museums and other more ethical collectors.”

  “Why didn’t I quit before now?”

  He shrugged. “I suppose because you had a real talent for the business. You were a natural with the most difficult of people. The house used you as a front man, front person, as often as possible. Your evenings were busier than your days. You’d come home after a big bash with stars in your eyes. You met everybody who was anybody in the art world. You were on a first-name basis with half the A list in Hollywood. I couldn’t expect you to give that up.”

  “Why would you have expected me to do anything?”

  Joe looked quickly away. Dammit! He’d almost stepped in a hole again. “I’m just saying you were your own person. You had to do what you had to do.”

  “Like you, you mean.”

  He looked back and nodded slowly. “Like me. We made our own mistakes. And we paid for them. Okay?”

  “Did we make any... mistakes together?”

  A half smile ratcheted up one corner of his mouth. “We’re sort of committed here to being together for a few days. Let’s be kind to one another and not worry about what might have been. Okay?”

  “Might have been or was?”

  His hand moved toward his crotch. Halle watched as he slid the soda can free and lifted it slowly to his mouth. “We don’t have a might have been,” he murmured before he took a swallow.

  Joe welcomed the sweet carbonation sliding down his throat. Hell! What did she think she was doing in defending him to himself? How dare she offer him the words of solace he would have given ten years of his life to have heard from her two years earlier. They came to her so easily now that she didn’t even remember the love he had for her. No, it wasn’t real. What she’d offered was the cheap, easy sympathy one offered a stranger who had just related a private grief. The truth was she didn’t believe any of the things she’d said during the last five minutes. She couldn’t believe them and treat him the way she had. His suffering was the only reality.

  “Tell me about your wife.”

  “Nothing to tell. It didn’t work out.”

  “Did you love her?” No answer. “That’s not what I meant. I meant, did you love her even after it was over?”

  “Why do you want to know?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe because of what you said earlier about loyalty. I gather you feel deeply yet you don’t seem the kind of man to be ruled by his feelings. You must have really cared for her to commit to marriage.”

  “Yeah.”

  “So you still love her?”

  He heaved a sigh. “Look, I don’t want to talk about it. It’s over. I’ve accepted that. She even remarried.”

  “Oh Joe, that must have hurt.”

  He glanced sideways at her. “What would be your point?”

  Halle winced at his rebuff. So, despite their history, he now considered her an outsider, one he wouldn’t let into his life in any intimate way.

  For the first time Halle began to consider the possibility that they had been nothing more than platonic roommates. If there had been any sexual heat between them she must have been doing all the generating. Had he ignored it or had it ultimately driven them apart? Who then was the man she had turned to for love? “Did you like my husband?”

  He shoved the cola can at her. “You look hot. Why don’t you finish this?”

  Halle took it. It contents had grown lukewarm from the intimate embrace of his thighs. She drank a little of it anyway to be polite.

  “My wife walked out on me because she thought I didn’t spend enough time with her. After we were separated, she heard I was having an affair which put the squash-you on a reconciliation.”

  Halle gulped down the warm soda but the bubbles felt like fur in her throat. The bare facts made Joe seem like the typical neglectful husband and unfaithful spouse. Yet, she didn’t buy it. Her very unreliable intuition was telling her that she had gotten in too close and he was repairing the breach in his defenses with whatever came to hand. Time would tell.

  Halle rose from the molded plastic chair where she had been sitting for the past ten minutes. The dance studio in north Dallas was really a storefront in a strip shopping center that had been converted by the addition of wooden floors, mirrors and ballet bars, and partitioned into a series of studios and offices. Joe was closeted with the manager. Directly across the narrow hall she had been watching through the wall of glass a group of high school girls practice a jazz routine.

  Two in particular caught her eye, a blonde and the brunette. The brunette was tall and model willowy with a faintly contemptuous glance and pout that must have had every boy in her classes drooling over her. The blonde was shorter, perkier with a sassy walk that said she knew blondes had more fun. Both wore thong leotards in neon colors and flesh-colored tights that left practically nothing to the imagination. These were girls Lacey would have bragged about knowing to his friends back home.

  As the final chords ended the set, the instructor called for a five-minute break in rehearsal. Following a hunch, Halle rose and went to stand by the bu
lletin board which was next to the water fountain. In twos and threes the other girls paraded out and stopped to drink there. Halle smiled at each set, waiting patiently for the blonde or brunette to emerge. When they did they were together. They didn’t approach the water fountain but paused outside the door to each unscrew the top from bottled water in its own personal gold leather carrier which they carried slung across one shoulder like a purse strap.

  “How darling!” Halle exclaimed loud enough to attract their attention. “What do you call those?”

  “Bottle slings,” the brunette offered with just enough reserve to indicate that she felt Halle was butting in.

  But Halle suspected she had disarmed more reluctant conversationalists. She moved forward as if encouraged. “Where would I buy one?”

  “At the Galleria.”

  Halle gave them her most innocent look. “Where’s that?”

  The blonde pointed toward the doorway. “It’s just two blocks that way, across the North Dallas Tollway. You can’t miss it.”

  “Thank you.”

  “You’re not from around here, are you?”

  “No, I’m from New York. I’ve been watching you dance. Whoever choreographed your piece is very familiar with Alvin Ailey.”

  The blonde perked up. “Oh, are you the talent scout from New York?” The blonde threw out her chest and the smile she gave Halle was Miss America material. “We heard you might be coming.”

  “No, I’m not a talent scout,” Halle answered, her gaze going toward the brunette to draw her in. “You don’t happen to know a cute guy by the name of Lacey McCrea, do you?”

  The girl blushed and glanced at her friend before saying, “Maybe. Why?”

  “Oh, because he described you very well when he said you were the prettiest—” Halle glanced for a fraction of a second at her blonde companion and made a strategic decision, “—brunette in Dallas.”

  “I told you!” the blonde squealed and squeezed her friend’s arm above the elbow. “Lacey does like you!”

  But the brunette was evidently accustomed to teenage boys’ adoration. Her almond eyes narrowed as she said, “Why would Lacey McCrea tell you about me?”

  “He wasn’t actually talking to me,” Halle improvised. “He was talking to that man over there.” She pointed out Joe, who had just come out of the office and was now talking to the girls’ dance instructor. “That’s my friend. He lives in Gap, near Tyler. I’m visiting him.”

  “He’s cute,” the blonde murmured appreciatively. “Why don’t we ever get any guys like that in Dallas?”

  “Lacey told that man about me?” the brunette prompted, not one to be easily led astray by other conversational threads from a discussion of herself.

  “Well, actually, he was complaining about his father not wanting him to come to the arts magnet high school come fall.” Halle leaned forward to impart confidentiality. “I gather his father’s not very progressive.”

  “He’s positively retro,” the blonde responded. “Lacey was talking about moving out, getting his own place, you know. He’s practically eighteen. He can do what he wants.”

  “It takes money to do what you want, even at eighteen,” Halle answered.

  “Lacey has money,” the brunette interjected. “His father’s a banker as well as a state senator.”

  “Is that so?” Halle said. “But if Lacey decided to tick off his dad, wouldn’t he need a job in order to pay for an apartment?”

  “He’s got plans,” the blonde said before the brunette shushed her.

  “I would think he must,” Halle answered and looked off as if she were more interested in what Joe was doing than in what the girls were saying. “I saw the notices on the bulletin board. Are either of you auditioning for the Six Flags Over Texas summer musicals?”

  “I am,” the brunette answered. “Worked there last year in the chorus.” She sighed and realigned the willowy curvature of her posture for better effect. “I sing as well as dance.”

  “I’m impressed.” Halle glanced again at Joe. “How old do you have to be to work there?”

  “Some jobs are open to sixteen-year-olds,” the blonde answered. “But the competition is so keen the really good jobs mostly go to college students.”

  “Lacey may have said something about that. I got the impression he didn’t think he was good enough to make the cut.”

  “Lacey could make it,” the blonde answered positively, “if he wanted to.”

  “Lacey’s the best dancer in this school.” The brunette flipped her hair back over her shoulder, a habit many women in Texas seemed to share, Halle decided. “And he can sing, too. We share the same voice coach. He says Lacey’s got a good clean stage voice. You can hear him all the way to the back balcony of the music hall. We did the Christmas show there last winter, The Nutcracker. Maybe you’ve heard of it?”

  Halle decided the girl was not being sarcastic despite her sulky expression. “Oh yes, the ballet with the Sugar Plum Fairy and the Christmas tree that grows.”

  “We were Sugar Plums,” the blonde announced. “Lacey was the Mouse King.”

  “Impressive,” Halle answered. “Oh, here come’s my ride. Nice to meet you girls.” She half turned away and then looked back. “I’ll be sure and tell Lacey you both said hello if I see him again. He’s been out of town a while now.”

  “Then he went—Ouch. What are you doing, Paisley?”

  The brunette was fuming. “Honest to God, you have the biggest mouth, Shelby!” She caught her friend by the arm and dragged her in the opposite direction without even a glance at Halle.

  “That was a great big waste of time,” Joe announced as he came up beside her. “The dance instructor admitted that she had written several letters of reference for Lacey but she gave them directly to him to use as he saw fit. The kid could have gone anywhere, including New York.”

  “I don’t think so. Lacey’s off somewhere auditioning for a job,” Halle answered.

  Joe’s brows rose in surprise. “What?”

  “Lacey left home to do an audition. I don’t think it’s for the Six Flags Over Texas Show, though.”

  His gaze tracked down to the end of the hallway where the blonde and brunette were engaged in an intense if quiet discussion. “Those girls told you that?”

  Halle took him by the arm and steered him toward the main office. “Not exactly. Let’s say I finessed it out of them.”

  He eyed her with new respect. “I don’t suppose you got the details of which auditions and where?”

  Halle smiled sweetly. “I didn’t want to strain my budding detecting talents. You’re the professional, after all. You should earn your salary some way. Ask the owner who in the surrounding states is auditioning summer stage jobs right now and which jobs a boy with Lacey’s talents could hope to land.”

  Five minutes later, Joe was back in the hallway, a big grin on his face. He walked right up and dropped a kiss on her brow. “You did all right, sweetheart. The Albuquerque Opera is auditioning extras for its summer run.” He flung an arm about her shoulder and turned her so that they could walk together toward the door. “To prove my heart’s in the right place, I’m gonna buy you a great big Tex-Mex dinner.”

  “Are you certain this is a good idea?”

  “Sure, I eat here all the time when I’m in town.”

  Halle glanced around the tamale factory. The long white-painted picnic tables were crowded with customers eating with their fingers hand-rolled tamales right out of the husks. Compelled by the press of Joe’s hand in the middle of her back she stepped across the threshold onto the cracked linoleum floor.

  “Find us a seat. I’ll place our order.” He gave her a little push and then moved past her to the end of the line.

  Halle stepped aside as several more people entered behind her. After a moment she moved along the wall scanning the tables for two empty spaces. The clientele was eclectic to say the least. There were laborers in hard hats and muscle shirts, men in gimme caps and tooled
leather belts that spelled out their names across the back, a quartet of businessmen in suits and ties, two women with infants in strollers, and a young couple who were quarreling rather than eating. The lively polka of a Mexican Mariachi band made the level of voices seem even louder than they were.

  The businessmen rose as she reached them, smiled in her direction and pointed to their places as they cleared away the aluminum pans and paper cups. With a nod of thanks she slid into one of the places and lay her purse next to her to hold a space for Joe.

  An outburst from the next table drew her reluctant attention to the quarreling couple. The man had risen and was tugging on the woman’s arm. Halle tensed as the level of conversation dropped. Everyone sensed trouble. The expectant stillness erupted again as the woman cried out and swung at the man with her purse.

  “Let me alone!”

  The man reeled off a spate of vile words and wrenched the woman’s arm so hard she popped off the seat and careened her into him. As they staggered across the room Halle winced in sympathy and grabbed her purse, ready to flee as nearby customers backpedaled away from their half-eaten tamales.

  “Help! Help me!” the woman cried and beat ineffectually at the man as he grabbed a handful of her hair and began hauling her toward the door.

  Halle glanced around wildly, wondering why someone didn’t do something. And then someone did.

  Chapter9

  “I still can’t believe you got involved in a brawl!”

  Halle stepped into the economy motel room Joe had already booked. As she passed through she dropped her purse and drug store bag onto the king-size bed and then headed for the bathroom sink with the bag of ice she carried. “You could have been killed.”

  Joe followed at a much slower pace, a handful of damp paper towels held to the cut above his eye. “Did it look like I wanted to get involved? I merely tried to point out that the woman did not want to leave with him. That was her right.”

  She leaned back through the open bathroom door into the bedroom. “It looked like you didn’t mind very much. You didn’t back down when he turned on you. Do you always come to the aid of strange females?”