The Douglas Kennedy Collection #1

by Douglas Kennedy

  Jeff complained much of the way south. I stopped twice to change/feed/cuddle him but he wouldn’t settle down. Still, I had no choice but to keep driving, keep awake, keep telling myself that I just had to pull myself through a very long day ahead.

  The sun broke around seven-fifteen. Fifty minutes later, I rolled into Pelham. As soon as I brought Jeff into the house and put him in his playpen, he conked right out. I envied him. Having hardly slept the previous night (when guilt and sexual craziness kept me awake) I had now been awake for nearly forty-eight hours.

  However, I didn’t have time to consider my exhausted state. I simply needed to get the house in order and get out of here. So I washed up all the dinner dishes and pans from the previous night, did a fast scrub of the bathroom, vacuumed around the bedroom, and made certain that nothing telltale (like a strange cigarette butt or discarded male underwear) had been left by the bed. Then I made another pot of coffee, and threw myself into the shower, blasting the water in an attempt to keep myself awake. I ran downstairs with a handful of laundry, and noticed to my shock that the stained sheets I had put in the machine the night before had been hung up to dry. And just as I was wondering if I had lost my reason and had forgotten I’d hung them up, I heard a voice behind me, “Hope you didn’t mind me helping you out with the laundry.”

  I spun around. It was Billy, standing near me, a bucket in one hand, a long extension ladder under the other arm.

  “You hung up the sheets to dry?”

  “Yeah,” he said, all smiles. “Saw you put ’em in last night before you left with that fella . . .”

  “You saw me put in the sheets?”

  “Well, I happened to be around here when . . .”

  “Billy,” I said in a calm, reasonable tone, “the laundry room is in the back here . . . which means that the only way you could be watching is if you made a deliberate effort to put yourself somewhere where you could . . .”

  “I wasn’t spying or anything,” he said, suddenly very defensive. “I was just watching, that’s all.”

  “Hey, I’m not angry at you,” I said, deciding this was not the right moment to get into a discussion about the difference between spying and watching.

  “You sure?”

  “I’m sure.”

  “Good, ’cause I was planning to wash your windows this morning.”

  “You don’t have to do that.”

  “Told the doctor I would around a week ago—before he left town.”

  “Well then, by all means wash our windows.”

  “You really sure you’re not angry at me?”

  “We’re friends, Billy.”

  That brought a smile to his face.

  “We sure are,” he said, “and I’d never say anything about you leaving town last night with that fella.”

  Oh God . . .

  “Well, I was just bringing him to the bus station in Lewiston.”

  “But you were gone all night.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “Your car wasn’t here until this morning.”

  “I had a flat, had to stay in a motel all night.”

  “With the fella?” he said, giving me another of his skewed smiles.

  “Hardly,” I said. “Anyway, he was gone on the bus before I had the flat.”

  “You kiss him good-bye?”

  “What?”

  “Saw you kiss him once.”

  “Where did you see this?”

  “Saw it in your window.”

  “When?”

  “A night or two ago.”

  “Around what time?”

  “Oh, it was real late. I was out walking, saw the light on, looked up, there you were, kissing the guy.”

  “Was anyone else with you?”

  “Heck no. Main Street was deserted. I was the only person out.”

  “And did you tell anyone that you saw me?”

  “Heck no again. You’re my friend. I wouldn’t do that.”

  I was about to touch his arm, but thought better of it, remembering what happened the one time before this when I made that mistake.

  “Well, I truly appreciate that, Billy. Secrets are very important between friends—and I am very, very grateful to you for keeping this one.”

  “You going to leave the doctor for this fella?” he asked, his tone as nonchalant and nonthreatening as before.

  “Of course not. It was just a kiss good night, that’s all.”

  “A real long kiss good night, the way I saw it,” he said, laughing his goofy laugh. Was he indirectly threatening me . . . or was this just his way of reporting events?

  “It was just a kiss, that’s all. But if you mention anything to anyone about that kiss—or about me not getting home last night—it could cause me a lot of problems.”

  “Would you stop being my friend?”

  “Well, put it this way: if you asked me to keep a secret and then I told somebody about your secret, what would you do?”

  “I’d stop being your friend.”

  “And you’d be right to,” I said. “Because friends keep secrets, right?”

  “You bet they do.”

  “So I can trust you with my secret, Billy?”

  “You bet you can.”

  “Thank you.”

  He gave me a shy smile, and said, “Can I wash your windows now?”

  All the way to Portland Airport, I fought the temptation to throw up. I was now sick with worry that Billy might somehow spill the beans and bring my entire life down around me. I ripped open another pack of cigarettes and smoked three during the hour-long drive, my lungs raw from nonstop chain-smoking for the last eighteen hours.

  When Dan got off the plane, he waved at us, then gave me a tired hug and kiss before fetching Jeff up in his arms to say “Hi, big fella” and handing him back to me.

  When we got into the car, he sniffed all the accumulated cigarette smoke and said, “God almighty, have you turned into a chimney?”

  I said nothing, but I was grateful to let him drive us home. I settled down into my seat and listened to his angry monologue brimming over with resentments about the way the second-rate hospital in Glens Falls had treated his father, and the indifference of some long-standing neighbors . . .

  “Am I boring you?” he asked.

  I realized I had nodded off.

  “Sorry. I had a terrible night with our boy. If I caught two hours of sleep, it was something.”

  “I didn’t mean to sound like such a cantankerous old shit,” he said. “It’s just been one godawful week.”

  I reached over and stroked his face. “Well, it’s good to have you back.”

  “Your visitor leave?”

  “Last night.”

  “Was he in the way?”

  “A little bit—one of those boring lefty types who talks revolution all the time.”

  “Well, I’m sure your dad was pleased you put up with him.”

  “Yeah, I’m sure he was.”

  We stopped in Bridgton on the way home for food. When we reached Pelham, I had visions of Billy waiting out in front of the doctor’s office, saying, “Still told nobody about you kissing that fella!” But Billy was nowhere to be seen. Dan took in the apartment with a cursory look and said something about getting in touch with “that awful Sims guy” about when we could move into the Bland house. I made lunch. Afterward, when Jeff nodded off for his afternoon nap, Dan put his hand on my thigh and motioned toward the bedroom. Though I could have screamed with tiredness, I followed him, took off my clothes, and spread my legs and tried to appear passionate.

  I drifted off to sleep, and awoke sometime later to the sound of a ringing telephone. As I stirred, I saw that it was dark outside. I glanced at the clock by the bed. Five forty-two p.m. I had been asleep for around three hours. Dan opened the bedroom door.

  “You feeling better?”

  “A little, yeah. Thanks for letting me have the nap.”

  “No sweat. Listen, your dad’s on the phone.�
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  “Tell him I’ll call back.”

  But I didn’t call him back that night. The next morning, the phone rang about eight-thirty. But it wasn’t my father—it was Nurse Bass, wanting to speak to Dan. As he hung up, he reached for his coat and medical bag and said, “Looks like Josie Adams’s son has gotten an advanced case of tonsillitis. I’ll be back in an hour tops.”

  Five minutes later, the phone rang again.

  “Hannah, it’s Dad.”

  I said nothing.

  “Hannah?”

  “What?”

  “You okay?”

  I said nothing.

  “Hannah?”

  “What?”

  “You upset about something?”

  “Now why would I be upset about something?”

  “Look, whatever’s going on, I just wanted to say that I’ve heard from our mutual friend, and he told me how you helped him out. I’m so pleased that you . . .”

  I hung up—and found myself gripping the side of our armchair for a few minutes in an attempt to calm down. You upset about something? Didn’t he have any idea about anyone else’s feelings? Was he that self-absorbed? But he must have understood that, by sending that shit to me, he’d put me under suspicion with the federal authorities. Why else would he have talked in such coded language about “our mutual friend”?

  The phone rang again. “We seemed to have been cut off,” he said.

  “No, I hung up.”

  “Hannah, I didn’t mean to place you in harm’s way.”

  “But you did, you did, you . . .”

  I started to sob. Everything I had kept under control for the past few days suddenly came out in a torrent of anguish. I hung up. The phone started to ring again. I raced out of the living room and into the bathroom. I filled the sink with cold water and then found myself hanging on to its edge. The phone kept ringing. It took me a good quarter of an hour to get myself under control again. I splashed some water on my face, then caught sight of my reddened eyes in the mirror—underscored by deep black rings—and couldn’t help but think that I was suddenly looking older and a lot less wise.

  I dried my face. I walked into the kitchen and put the percolator on for coffee. I poured myself a small shot of bourbon and downed it in one go. I treated myself to a refill, and felt considerably better as its anesthetic warmth did its work. I lit a cigarette. I poured myself a cup of coffee. I took a deep breath. The phone rang again. I picked it up.

  “Hannah . . .”

  “I don’t want to speak to you,” I said.

  “Please hear me out.”

  “No.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Good. You should be.”

  I hung up. The phone rang and rang. I didn’t answer it.

  My dad didn’t call after that. But three days later, just after Dan had headed downstairs to his office, a letter arrived Special Delivery, postmarked Burlington, Vermont. I recognized my father’s neat, taut handwriting on the front of the envelope—and though I signed for the letter, I immediately tore it up and threw it away. Then I loaded Jeff into his baby carriage, deposited him at Babs’s house, and moved on to Miller’s for my paper and cigarettes. When I got to the library I made coffee, then opened my newspaper. As I browsed through the Globe, my eye caught a small UPI item on page 7, under the headline “National News in Brief.”

  WEATHERMAN ESCAPES TO CANADA

  Tobias Judson, 27, the onetime co-leader of the Students for a Democratic Society who helped shut down Columbia University during the student protests of 1968, has fled to Canada following his alleged involvement with the bombing of the Department of Defense office in Chicago on October 26. In a statement issued by Revolutionary Press International—an international underground news agency—Judson stated that, though he was not a member of the Weather Underground group that claimed responsibility for the Chicago bombing, he had aided his “fraternal comrades in the struggle”—and was forced to flee to Canada in order to avoid “persecution” by federal authorities. According to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Judson has had a long-standing affiliation with the Weather Underground and harbored the two alleged Chicago bombers—James Joseph McNamee and Mustafa Idiong—after the explosion at the Federal building which killed two security guards. The FBI said they are working with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police to apprehend Judson, who was recently spotted in Montreal.

  I read the article twice, vastly relieved that there was no photograph of Toby, and that they hadn’t listed his assorted aliases—one of which might have been the Tobias Mailman he had used here. I knew that Estelle read the Globe every morning but couldn’t see how, without a photograph, she would be able to connect the Weatherman now on the run with the guy she drooled over while he was in Pelham. In fact, she’d made little mention of Toby since Dan had come back—bar one comment, “Back to the marital grind, I suppose,” on the Monday after Dan had returned.

  I scoured all the Maine papers at the library that day, to see if they made any mention of Judson—or had dug up a photo of him. The Portland Press Herald had run the same UPI item as the Globe—reduced to around three lines and buried in a corner of a page. I made a point of watching network news that night at home. Nothing on any of the three networks, nothing on the All News/All The Time AM radio station from Boston that my little transistor radio was just about able to pull in.

  Days passed—and I woke every morning with a terrible dread that today would be the day when the feds would arrive, or Judson would issue another asshole statement from the High North implicating me, or Billy would tell Nurse Bass about seeing me in deep embrace with Mr. Revolutionary, or my father would show up and confront me about the manner in which I had cut him off, and the entire desperate truth would come oozing out and drown me.

  But . . . nothing happened. I woke up. I got my husband and son ready for the day. I did my early-morning routine. I went to work. I picked up Jeff. I went home. Dan came home. We ate. We talked a bit. We watched TV or read. We made indifferent love twice a week. The weekends came and went. The working week started again. And in the midst of all that . . .

  Nothing happened.

  Oh, things happened. My dad wrote me another letter—which I also threw away. I got a phone call from my mom, who said she just wanted to say hello and asked all sorts of roundabout questions about how things were going, and talked a little about a new exhibition she was working on, and then, as a matter-of-fact aside, asked me, “Anything wrong between you and your dad?”

  “No,” I said calmly. “Why?”

  “Anytime I’ve mentioned him recently, you’ve gone all quiet, even a little sad. And when I’ve asked him if you’ve had a falling out or something, he’s clammed up. So go on, Hannah—spill it. Why the rift?”

  I surprised myself by remaining completely composed and cool in the face of the third degree.

  “There’s no rift,” I said.

  “Then what’s the problem?”

  “There’s no problem.”

  “You are such a hopeless liar.”

  “Listen, I’ve got to go now . . .”

  “Hannah, don’t play games . . .”

  “I don’t play games—and you know it.”

  “I want some answers.”

  “And I have none to give. Good-bye.”

  She called three more times that afternoon. But I held my ground, refusing to give anything away. Because I had also reached the conclusion that, as I could never win my mother’s approval, it was useless trying to pursue it. And the very fact that I was no longer chasing her love rendered her powerless over me.

  “You will tell me what’s going on,” she finally yelled into the phone.

  “There’s nothing to tell, there’s nothing to say.”

  I hung up again and didn’t answer the phone when it rang and rang for the next hour.

  Of course, there was everything to tell, everything to say—and like anybody with a terrible secret, I was desperate to talk about it, to
share it with someone. And so, when Margy called the next afternoon and immediately shot off into one of her wonderful motormouth monologues—“Just sitting behind my dumbass desk at this dumbass office still doing this dumbass PR job, and wondering how my best friend, who I haven’t spoken to in about a month, is doing right now”—I said, “Listen I can’t talk right now . . .”

  “What’s up?”

  “It’s just not the right moment. But are you around tomorrow—say at four p.m.?”

  “Sure . . .”

  “Be at your desk at four and I’ll call you then.”

  I hung up and picked up the phone and dialed Babs and asked if she would mind looking after Jeff until six-thirty tomorrow, as I was heading into Portland on a little shopping expedition. That night over dinner, I told Dan that I’d heard about this great Italian deli in Portland, and thought I’d borrow the car tomorrow afternoon and drive over there.

  “Can you get real Parmesan?” he asked.

  “That’s what the Press Herald said.”

  “Well, that sounds worth the trip to me.”

  I left work an hour early the next day and got to Portland just after two. I found the little Italian joint and dropped nearly thirty dollars on wine, cheese, pasta, authentic Neapolitan canned tomatoes, garlic, bread, amaretto cookies, real espresso, and even a small two-cup espresso maker that you put on the stove. It was the cost of our weekly grocery bill, but I didn’t care. The owner insisted on fixing me one of his “famous” provolone hero sandwiches, washed down with two glasses of Chianti “on the house.” I was still feeling a little light-headed when I reached the telephone exchange at Central Portland Post Office and told the operator on duty that I wanted to place a station-to-station call to New York City.

  “Booth Four,” she told me.

  I entered the booth. I sat down on the hard wooden chair adjacent to the little table on which an elderly phone sat. After a moment it rang. “Your call’s being put through,” the operator said. Then I heard a ringing tone and a decisive click as the operator left the line. Margy answered after two rings.

  “Hannah?” she asked immediately.

  “How did you know it was me?”

  “It’s four o’clock—and I’ve been worried sick for the last twenty-four hours about what the hell is wrong with you.”