My cell phone started to ring. I apologized for the interruption and answered it.
“How’s your hangover?” Detective Leary asked.
“I’ve had clearer starts to the day,” I said.
“Me too—and I hope you weren’t beating yourself up too much this morning . . .”
“I’m always beating myself up,” I said.
“So I gather.”
“And I did an especially good job around six a.m. today. But listen, can I call you back? I’m with my lawyer right now . . .”
“Then my timing’s spot-on, as I happen to be in Pelham, Maine, right now.”
“You’re kidding me.”
“I wish I was. What a dump. Still, there are worse things to do with a hangover and a day off than drive up to the middle of Maine. And in the course of my snooping around, I happened to turn up something rather interesting.”
He then explained what he had unearthed from the distant past. I listened with growing amazement.
“That really happened?” I finally said.
“So it seems,” he said.
My brain was whizzing. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.
“That changes everything, doesn’t it?” I said.
“I certainly think so.”
“Listen, if I hand you over to Greg Tolland, who’s agreed to take me on as a client, would you mind explaining to him what you’ve just told me? He needs to hear it too.”
“Well, if he charges what most lawyers charge, my five-minute explanation will cost you fifty bucks.”
“He’s not that kind of a lawyer,” I said. “Hang on a sec . . .”
I whispered to Tolland who I had on the line. I handed him the phone.
“Good afternoon, Detective . . .” he said into the phone, and then swiveled his chair away from me as he became engrossed in the conversation. He reached for a legal pad and took a lengthy stream of notes while he spoke. As the call progressed, he became increasingly animated, punctuating his questions with sixties jive: “You serious?” or “Well, that rocks” and—the real throwback word—“groovy.” I have a lawyer who talks like a roadie for the Grateful Dead. Still, I was grateful to have him in my corner.
When he finished the call, he handed the phone back to me, flashed me a big smile, and said:
“We are going to soak those suckers.”
And then he started to outline his strategy.
As soon as I left Tolland’s office I rang Margy in New York and detailed the contents of Leary’s discovery in Pelham.
“Holy shit,” she said. “The people on The Jose Julia Show are going to love this.”
“Do you think they’ll buy into it?” I asked.
“Are you kidding? They’ll completely eat it up. It’s exactly the sort of crap that keeps the blood coursing through their sleazy veins. I’ll get on to them straightaway, say we’re ready to go when they are, see when they can slot us in next week.”
“I’m still a little worried about how I’ll stand up in a debate with the guy.”
“When they fly you down to New York, we’ll arrange for you to arrive here the day before and we can do a couple of practice runs, get you nice and prepared to take the bastard’s head off.”
And then she started to outline her strategy.
I drove home. As soon as I came up the drive, I slammed on the brakes. The front door had been attacked again by someone with a pot of red paint and a brush. Only this time the graffiti had somewhat altered. The word TRAITOR had returned . . . but beneath this had been added: GET OUT NOW.
This time, I didn’t blink in shock. I simply seethed . . . especially when I saw that all the front windows had been smashed. I parked the car. I used the back door to enter the house. I tried to remain controlled and calm. I picked up the phone and called the glazier. He answered immediately and said that he was on his way. As I waited for him to arrive I suddenly, out of nowhere, had this deep, abiding need to be on my own; to walk away from everyone and everything to do with the situation.
So I called my dad and told him I’d be disappearing for a few days.
“Why don’t you disappear over to Burlington?” he asked.
“I have to be on my own for a while,” I said.
“I see,” he said quietly.
“Please don’t take it personally,” I said.
“I’m not taking it personally,” he said. “I just want to make certain you know my door is always open to you day and night.”
“I know that, Dad. You have been so fantastic during all this.”
“Every time I see another article about you and that appalling man—or I hear Judson’s sanctimonious voice during yet another interview, talking about how Jesus forgave him his betrayal of his country—all I can think is: if I hadn’t told him . . .”
“Dad, this is pointless—and does neither of us any good.”
“Where will you go?”
“Somewhere I can’t be found.”
The glazier showed up around a half hour later.
“You’re not exactly winning the local popularity contest, are you?” he said.
“I guess not.”
“You planning to stick around now?”
“I think I’m going to give in to intimidation, and vanish for a little while.”
“Then if you don’t mind me making a suggestion . . . something that should ensure no one hits the front door with graffiti again . . .”
He told me his idea. I smiled grimly and said, “Do it.”
While he worked, I packed a suitcase, including the clothes I’d need for the interview in New York in a few days’ time. Halfway through this task, the home phone rang. I answered it.
“Is this a bad time to talk?” Alice Armstrong asked me.
“Yes, it is,” I said. “I have nothing to say to you.”
“I don’t want to explain,” Alice said, “or ask your forgiveness. I just want to try and clear up why this happened.”
“That sounds like an explanation to me.”
“Neither of us ever thought this would turn into anything. But . . .”
“Let me guess. From the outset, you just thought it was a friendship. Or maybe you just considered Dan to be your fuck buddy?”
“We’d been having lunch for a couple of months . . .”
“Just lunch?”
“Initially, yes.”
“If it had just been lunch at the start, Dan would have told me. What’s lunch with a mutual friend, right?”
“All right, it wasn’t just lunch after the second time.”
“How did it start?”
“Hannah, you don’t want to know this . . .”
“I’m asking the question, so I obviously do want to know. How did it start?”
“I had to see Dan about a recurring rotator cuff problem.”
“A rotator cuff? Really?”
“Lots of illustrators suffer from it.”
“And do lots of illustrators then sleep with their orthopedist—or does that only happen when the orthopedist is the husband of one of your best friends?”
“I didn’t mean to fall in love. Neither of us did.”
“Oh, it’s love, is it?”
“Do you really think Dan would have just walked out on you like that?”
“How touching to know he did it for love.”
“Look, I am not asking for your understanding. I just wanted to explain.”
“You want my forgiveness, don’t you?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“Then what’s the actual point of this call?”
“I feel bad . . . I’m sorry . . . I’m . . .”
“Apology not accepted,” I said, and put down the phone.
I sat down on the bed and bit hard on my index finger—in an attempt to stop me from screaming or reaching for the first inanimate object and hurling it through the window. But even though there was a glazier downstairs, ready to do the repair work if I started smashing glass, something s
topped me. Maybe it was the fact that the initial urge to scream and cry was doused immediately by a cold numb rage.
I forced myself up from the bed. I finished packing. I went around the house, checking that all windows were locked. I wrote notes to the milkman and the newsboy, telling them that I wouldn’t be needing their services until the middle of next week. I phoned Margy and said that I was heading off to points unknown in a little while.
“But you will be able to get to New York for Monday?” she asked.
“I’ll be there.”
“Well, don’t run too far away. The show is set to be taped early evening on Tuesday, which means we’ll have around thirty-six hours to get you primed to take on Judson.”
“I’ll be ready,” I said.
“You sound terrible. Another sleepless night?”
I explained about the call from Alice Armstrong.
“Doesn’t surprise me,” she said.
“Why the hell not?”
“Because she’s obviously suffering from terrible guilt, especially as she was your friend, which is probably making her guilt about ten times worse. As someone whose own husband left her, she’s going to know what she’s putting you through.”
“That’s cold comfort right now.”
“Hon, nothing anyone is going to say or do is going to make this better. But you know that, don’t you?”
“I’m afraid so.”
“Go hide out for the weekend . . . but have the cell phone with you, so I can get hold of you at all times. You know what a control freak I am.”
I brought my bag out to the car. As I did, I saw that Brendan had replaced all the smashed windows and had also whitewashed away the graffiti. In its place, as agreed between us, he was using a can of red paint to write: YOU WIN . . . I’M GONE.
“That will definitely keep them away from you,” he said.
“How much do I owe you?” I said.
“Forty bucks will do it.”
“But the last time you charged me three hundred.”
“The labor’s on the house this time.”
“That’s very generous, but not necessary.”
“Yes, it is necessary.”
I didn’t flee far from home—just a few hours north to a little hotel on Mount Desert Island. As it was early May, it was still the off-season, so there was no problem getting a room.
The hotel was a little weather-beaten, and its decor was shabby. But the place was clean, there was a beach nearby and plenty of walking trails, and my room had a wonderful old armchair with a beat-up ottoman, which made it the perfect spot in which to collapse with a book. I arrived just before sunset. I checked in and hiked over to the beach and stood on the sand, looking out at the Atlantic, telling myself that, whatever happened next week, I would still carry on, still find something productive with which to fill the day. And yet, while convincing myself, mantralike, that things would work out, the words sounded hollow. I’d persevere. But with no one to go home to, no children to call, no close friends nearby, no . . .
Enough.
I walked the beach. I went back to the hotel, insisting that I attempt to concentrate on nothing; that I treat the next two days as “time out,” and do my best to avoid thinking about anything.
Fat chance. But I still tried. I worked my way through three novels. I took long walks, including the gently inclined, but still lengthy, hike to the summit of Mount Desert. I never turned on the television, never opened a newspaper or magazine, and kept my little portable radio tuned to Maine’s all-classical music station that made a virtue of never broadcasting the news. I found a small seafood place in Bar Harbor where I ate dinner each of the three nights, a book propped up against a wineglass, the owner asking me no questions about what I was doing here alone at the end of spring, but insisting on giving me a liqueur on the house every night.
I kept my cell phone off for most of the time, checking in with its voice mail twice a day to collect messages. There was a particularly persistent journalist from The Portland Press Herald, insisting that I agree to an interview—“You owe it to the people of Portland to set the record straight”—to which I could only think: No, I don’t owe them anything. There was a crank call from some shrill woman who refused to identify herself, but hissed, “I’m glad they fired you from school. We don’t want sluts like you teaching our kids.” It was, thankfully, the only nutcase message, but it still unsettled me, and I couldn’t help but wonder how she got my number. There were several worried messages from Dad, but when I called on Saturday evening, he seemed to accept that I was in all right shape and that, yes, once everything settled down, I would come see him and Edith soon.
Margy only called twice—once simply to say hi and see that I hadn’t “checked into the Bates Motel,” the second time to inform me of the travel arrangements that the Jose Julia people had made for me.
“They’re also providing you with one hundred fifty bucks per night of credit at the hotel, to cover meals and stuff—though on Monday you’ll be over at the apartment, eating with me.”
“Why don’t you let me take us out?”
“It’ll be easier if we eat here,” she said.
“By which you mean?” I asked, sounding suspicious.
“I want to eat at home, okay?”
Her tone was definitive. I decided not to push it.
“Whatever you want,” I said.
“Ben, my assistant, will meet you at the hotel after you arrive and bring you over to the office for some coaching. He’ll be assisting Rita, who’s my number two here. You’ll like her. She’s this total hard-ass JAP from the Island who hates religious idiots and really wants you to stick it to Judson. So be prepared for some serious grilling from Ms. Rita.
“Oh, one final thing. I spoke with the Jose Julia people again about how everything will pan out. They’ve made all the arrangements now, gotten all the okays . . .”
“And do you think . . . ?”
“I called your Detective Leary again. He seemed to feel pretty confident that it will play our way. Of course, this kind of thing . . . it is risky. If it goes wrong, the whole thing blows up in our face. But if it goes right . . .”
“I’m getting nervous now,” I said.
“That’s understandable,” Margy said, “as the next couple of days will definitely be nervous ones.”
Still, I managed to sleep well on my last night at the hotel. I woke at seven, took a final walk on the beach, then headed south for the three-hour drive to Portland. Around ten miles north of the airport I checked my watch and saw that I still had a little time to kill, so I turned off the highway at the Falmouth Foreside exit and drove down Route 88, slowing down as I approached my house. I turned into the driveway. The graffiti—YOU WIN . . . I’M GONE—hadn’t been augmented by anyone else. All the windows were intact. The tactic had worked. The house had been left alone.
I didn’t stop to check the mailbox. I backed up and headed off straight for the airport. Once there, I deposited the car in the Extended Stay Parking Lot, wheeled my bag into the terminal, and checked in for the flight to New York.
I am not a nervous flier, but every small lurch of the aircraft today made my hand go wet and my stomach backflip. I shut my eyes and told myself I was being ridiculous. Computers run these planes—and they are built to withstand even a lot of turbulence. But it wasn’t the moderate winds that were making me nervous. It was the days ahead.
At LaGuardia there was a man in a suit and a black chauffeur’s hat holding up a sign with my name at the arrivals gate. We crossed the 59th Street Bridge, and that vast vertiginous cliff of buildings enveloped us as we plunged into Manhattan. I kept staring out at the streets, wanting to be excited about being in New York. But all I felt was complete dread.
When I reached the hotel, Ben Chambers was waiting for me in the lobby. He was a short, jumpy guy in his late twenties, who nonetheless radiated a certain take-charge charm.
“You’re here, that’s great, that’s
great. And we’re all waiting for you at the office. So say we meet back here in thirty minutes. Thirty minutes ready to go, okay?”
My room was large, spacious, faceless—but with a great view toward midtown and the East River beyond. I unpacked quickly and was downstairs well before the half-hour deadline. Ben was pleased that I was early.
“This is good, this is good, we’ve got a lot to deal with. And we’ve only got two hours to deal with it, because Margy’s expecting you for dinner at seven.”
“How’s she doing?” I asked.
A fast anxious shrug from Ben Chambers.
“Put it this way: she’s one hell of a fighter.”
That sounded ominous.
Margy’s office was only two blocks away—and as it was a bright late-spring day, we walked. Or, at least, I tried to walk while Ben negotiated his way through the human traffic at a pace that could be best described as a take-no-prisoners canter. We crossed 6th Avenue and then entered an old squat 1940s office building on West 47th Street. Margy Sinclair Associates was a small suite of offices on the eleventh floor—four rooms with framed posters and photographs of past PR campaigns and assorted clients; the decor simple, sleek, can-do.
I was ushered into a conference room and came face-to-face with Rita. Unlike Ben, she was large in every department: a woman of size who seemed to wear her substantial girth with ease. Her voice was foghorn loud; her head a large Methuselah-like bundle of tight black curls. Her handshake was chiropractic, her stare positively forensic.
“You know what I thought after reading that asshole’s book?” she said, motioning for me to sit down at one of the chairs around the long table. “There’s nothing worse than a born-again Christian playing with skeletons in other people’s closets.”
Coffee showed up—and after about three sips, Rita said, “All right, let’s get on with the show.”
For the next two hours, I was subjected to the sort of grilling that left me feeling as if I had been pistol-whipped. With Rita in the role of prosecuting attorney—and Ben regularly interjecting with additional questions—they pried, probed, cajoled, and baited me. At first, the verbal assault was unnerving. So much so that I actually believed they were taking Judson’s side. That was the point, of course. As they jolted me—continually throwing me off balance while picking apart all my arguments and excuses—they were simultaneously toughening me up, preparing me for the worst that Jose Julia and Judson could throw at me. The level of aggressive questioning sent me reeling. After ninety minutes of Inquisition-style tactics, Rita interrupted their interrogation and asked, “Having fun?”
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