I’d invested so much hope, so much of my time trying to be an award-winning reporter. I’d written about strawberry-picking festivals and Fourth of July parades and finally worked my way to exposing corruption at every level, especially at the Steel.
But in the end, I had lost the brass ring on a technicality. Yet it was an important technicality. If reporters demanded reality from their subjects, they must demand it from themselves.
Then I saw Alison, her fork stuck in her salad, her phone tucked under her jaw, her fingers tapping wildly on the keyboard. So confident in her prospective success and yet so unwilling to leave the isolation of her desk and the security of this newsroom.
I voted her most likely to start fabricating her sources.
Enough. No more. It was not as fun as it was before.
The News-Times and I were through. Forever.
Chapter Thirty-two
Jane was bent over her laptop when I got home carrying whatever my Visa had room for. That was the one benefit of getting fired right before Christmas, a two-week severance check and a self-destructive impulse to spend oneself into a mad spiral of bankruptcy.
For Mama, I’d bought the bread maker she requested. For Genevieve, a new pair of night-vision goggles, as her old ones had been run over by the ATV she’d been riding at the time. (Long story. Let me just say that it involved a survivalist named Lebron, the FEMA mission statement and a townie bottle of Mad Dog 40/40.)
Jane had been much harder to buy for because I wasn’t sure what personality I was dealing with. I mean, should I have bought her the complete series of The O.C.? Or a complete set of Jane Austen? Or were they one and the same and I hadn’t been swift enough to pick up on that?
In the end, I broke the bank on a Red Hot Chili Peppers CD and stereo hookup for her iPod. Then I threw in a copy of Betty Smith’s A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, because Jane likes trees. Dan calls her a tree hugger.
I plunked the groceries on the counter and tried to hide my other shopping bags as I tiptoed upstairs to shove them under the bed. Being curious and greedy like most teenagers, Jane should have been trotting after me or jumping around asking nosy questions.
She wasn’t. Instead, she was intently poring over a book, an old encyclopedia she used to love to read before she got kidnapped.
“What’re you doing?”
Jane flinched. “Ohmigod, Mom, you scared the shit out of me.”
“Aren’t you supposed to be hanging out with friends at the mall or whatever it is you and Jason do?”
Jane gave me a look. “Jason and I are split. As a matter of fact, I’m killing time waiting for G to pick me up. Says he’s taking me someplace special, whatever that means. Most likely a bowling alley.”
It took all the muscles in my mouth not to smile.
She gestured to her laptop. “I opened that file on Excel. I’m not sure it’s worth anything. It looks like maybe the person who gave it to you copied the wrong thing.”
Damn. I knew it was too good to be true. I reached into the refrigerator and pulled out a Diet A-Treat, popped it open, grabbed a bag of Christmas Doritos from my groceries and went to the table. Lunch as I knew it.
“What’s it say?”
“Not much.” Jane dug her hand in to the Doritos and pulled out a fistful of chips. She was wearing a supertight BEATLES T-shirt and tight, ripped jeans. There were at least three earrings in every ear and we were engaged in an actual conversation that didn’t involve weight, the state of that day’s complexion or how little to eat.
It was a miracle.
“The file is called STAR, like you predicted. But then when I open it, there’s just a listing of four names. Ada, Esther, Ruth and Martha.”
“Sounds like the entire blue-hair client list at the House of Beauty,” I said.
Jane half laughed. “Right. Well, they also could be some kind of code or combination. Computer passwords, I’m thinking. Other than that, the only thing they have in common is that they’re from the Bible. That’s why I’m looking up their origins.”
I tried to think if I’d come across any Adas, Esthers, Ruths or Marthas during my investigation. Nope. A Tess and a Zora. A Vern. A Marguerite and a Fiona. Debbie was Debbie. I didn’t know if that came from the Bible.
“Do you know if those are the names of Debbie’s mother? Her sister? Maybe Phil Shatsky can help us?” Jane asked.
Good idea. While Jane continued to read up on the women in the Old Testament, I went to the phone, my favorite source of all knowledge, and called Phil. The phone rang and rang.
“Where’s Sandy?” I asked, waiting for Phil to pick up.
“Getting ready for your big bachelorette party.” Jane ate another Dorito. “You are still getting married, aren’t you?”
“Of course. Why would you ask?”
Jane shrugged. “I don’t know. There are some evil rumors going around.”
“Hello?” It was Phil, sounding rushed.
I told him who I was and apologized for this being a bad time. “Hey, listen, you don’t happen to know if in Debbie’s family Esther and Ruth, Martha and Ada are significant, do you?”
There was a frosty silence. “Bubbles, I’m using all the restraint I can muster not to light into you.”
I froze. This was the part of reporting I hated, when people got mad at me. “What have I done now?”
“Digging into my personal life. What business is it of anyone’s if I happen to be gay and in a long-term, committed relationship with another man?”
He really was superticked. And, honestly, now that I thought about it, I didn’t blame him. No one likes to be spied on. No one likes their private affairs to be aired. Mark probably called him as soon as I left and told him everything.
“I’m sorry,” I said.
“Sorry is not enough,” he snapped. “All I can tell you is that I better not see this in the newspaper tomorrow. I shouldn’t have to explain how this could affect my livelihood. Isn’t it enough that I’ve had to bury my wife today? Do you need to treat me like a pathetic celebrity, too?”
Now I was feeling awful. Like true sewer muck. There was nothing to say.
“It’s not going to be in the newspaper. You don’t have to worry about that. I no longer work for the News-Times .”
Jane snapped up from her encyclopedia.
“Why?” Phil asked.
“I’ve been fired.”
“For what?”
“Personal stuff.” I winced.
“Yeah? Well, note how I am decent enough to be polite and not ask what kind of personal stuff,” he shot back, though his voice had softened somewhat. “Why do you need to know if Esther, Ruth, Ada and Martha were significant to Debbie’s life anyway?”
“It was on a CD that belonged to her.”
“To Debbie?”
“Right.”
“Where did you get it?”
Gee, I wished he hadn’t asked that.
“It kind of slipped into my purse. Well, I better be going. I have a bachelorette party tonight and—”
“Wait. You can’t leave it like that. What else is on that CD?”
Thankfully the doorbell rang loud enough, I was certain, for Phil to hear.
“Nothing. Forget about it.” And hung up. Man, did I feel crummy.
The doorbell rang again. Jane got up to get it. “It’s probably G. Did you get fired fired? Or is this another one of Dix Notch’s temper tantrums?”
“Fired fired,” I said, my hand still on the phone. What had I done to poor Phil?
Jane answered the door and said, “Mom?”
It wasn’t G at the door. It was Stiletto.
He was wearing a white T-shirt under a gray sweater under his leather jacket and those killer tight jeans. He hadn’t shaved and his hair, never neat, was tousled as if he’d been pulling his hands through it. It made me want to tousle it some more. The whole package, frankly, made me crazy.
Especially since I knew, finally knew, he was out of my grasp.
“Hi, Jane,” he said. “You look great, much better than when we last met.”
Jane twitched her lips with disapproval. “What are you doing here?”
“Thought I might say goodbye to your mother.” He looked over at me and cocked his head as if to ask if that was fine by me.
“I suppose that’s okay.” She opened the door wider to let him in.
“Actually,” I said, nervously, “it’s not okay. I’ve got to run down to the city center to help Mama and Genevieve with the Christmas pageant and—” God. I was so afraid, I could hear the panic in my own voice.
Even Jane could sense my reluctance. “Why don’t you talk to him, Mom? You two should have a few moments together. I’ll wait outside for G. You know how he hates to come to the door, anyway.”
I watched her—anything to keep from making eye contact with Stiletto—as she got her purse and shut down her laptop and then went outside just as G’s slick black BMW pulled up.
“That kid’s all right,” Stiletto said, watching her through the window. “Who’s the spiv in the Beemer?”
“G, if you can believe it. He’s hit pay dirt as a stylist hawking aloe vera.”
Stiletto snorted and shook his head, as if that weren’t the darnedest thing. “Doesn’t Dan drive a black BMW?”
Lead in my gut. Stiletto was right. “Ugh. Don’t say that. I’d hate to see Jane end up with a future Dan.”
Stiletto turned back to me. “And yet you’re marrying him.”
“Yes,” I said.
“Why, Bubbles?”
This was my cue to explain. This was it. Tomorrow night he’d be off to Greece and he’d never know. “Because I have to.”
“No, you don’t.”
“Yes, I do.”
He came over to me and took my hands in his. I could feel the electricity between us as if we’d never been apart. I tried to pull away, but he wouldn’t let me go.
“Tell me what’s going on. What’s Dan holding over you? I know he’s got some sleazy scheme.”
Tell him, my stupid brain screamed. “I . . . It’s that . . .” And then I thought of Dr. Caswell’s affidavit, that I was an unfit mother, a selfish, conniving disgrace to women everywhere, and how embarrassed that made me feel. I couldn’t go on.
The back door was flung open and a blond head popped around the corner from the kitchen. At first I guessed it was G, coming to fetch something for Jane. Then I saw it wasn’t him at all.
It was Sandy. Sandy as a blonde. And she was wearing my clothes. A pair of leopard-print tights under a zebra-patterned skirt, a scoop-necked red top and a black belt.
She looked awesome.
“Oh!” she said, startled. She was holding a shopping bag and in her hands was a pair of sunglasses, part of her disguise. “Oh,” she said again.
“Sandy?” Stiletto said. “What’s with the getup?”
Sandy darted a curious glance at me.
“She’s dressing up for my bachelorette party,” I fibbed. “It’s tonight. In fact, we’re supposed to leave in twenty minutes.”
Stiletto’s shoulders slumped in disappointment. “Then, this is it. This will be the last I see of you. This is goodbye.”
“You know what?” Sandy said. “I need to drop off these Christmas presents and go to the little girl’s room.” She slipped past us to the stairs. “So you two take all the time you need. I’ll be running the water and I won’t be able to hear a thing!”
She dashed up the stairs. I was impressed because those were two-inch heels and I knew Sandy was only used to flats.
“I better go,” Stiletto said.
“Yes.”
We stood there for a few minutes, the tension building between us. He wouldn’t let go of my hands. He kept staring at me. I couldn’t comprehend that this was the last time we’d see each other. It didn’t seem possible.
And then, before I could help myself, I threw my arms around him and sank my fingers into that hair, pulling him to me. It was wrong. I knew it. It would only make our parting harder. I didn’t care. I didn’t care about Sabina. I didn’t care about Dan. And, being the lousy mother I am, I didn’t at that moment care about Jane.
Stiletto’s lips returned the passion. It was still there. It hadn’t left. He pushed me against the banister and kissed me hungrily. I ran my hands across his broad shoulders and could feel his heart beating through his sweater. I inhaled the smell of wool and implanted it into my memory. Whenever I was near wool, I would think of Stiletto. This would be my secret.
Finally, he broke away and nuzzled my neck. “Do you love me?” he whispered in my ear.
I fought back tears. “Yes. I love you with everything I have.”
“Then don’t marry him.”
“I have to.”
He planted a kiss on my cheek, then held me at arm’s length. “Bubbles, this is a very short life and you and I took a long time to find each other. Don’t ditch it on a dare.”
I couldn’t speak. I was all choked up.
“Meet me tomorrow evening under the Hill-to-Hill. I don’t have to be at JFK until nine when my flight takes off. If you have any last qualms, if you need to get away, I’ll help you. I’ll take care of everything, okay?”
I nodded, though I knew I wouldn’t. I couldn’t.
“Whatever he claims he’s after,” Stiletto said seriously, “it’s a lie. You have to trust me.”
I looked up at him, blinking through tears. “How do you know he’s lying?”
“Why the hell do you think I flew all the way back from England?”
Well, I didn’t know why, did I? “I thought because you wanted to have some fun with me before I got married.”
He kissed me again, softly. “You never really did get me, did you? I’ll wait until seven. It’s your decision.”
Then he turned and went out the door. He hadn’t even driven off when I felt Sandy’s hand on my shoulder.
“So you weren’t in the bathroom running the water after all?” I said, wiping my tears on my sleeve.
Sandy took me in her arms, not saying a word, just soothing me.
She was so much lighter and smaller than Stiletto and she didn’t smell a thing like wool. She smelled like cigarettes and perfume. And I was so glad she was my very best friend in the world because with her quiet touch she could shoo away all the boogeymen who were out to get me.
I could live without Stiletto, I supposed. Not easily, but I could.
However, I would die without Sandy. Best friends are not optional.
Chapter Thirty-three
Phil Shatsky was watching us from his living room when we left for the bachelorette party. I saw him part the curtain. I saw him standing in the window, his hands on his hips. I think I even saw him grimace. I told this to Sandy, who was driving, and she told me I was imagining things.
“You’re under so much stress, Bubbles. What with Stiletto leaving, getting married, losing your job. I’m impressed you’re holding up as well as you are. If I were you, I’d get blotto tonight—that’s what I’d do. I’m your designated driver. Go for it.”
I didn’t feel like getting blotto. I felt edgy. Taut. My senses were heightened, as though I could hear better, see more clearly. Something was going on. Something was happening in the universe. And I needed to be as sober as a judge when it all came down.
Okay, maybe not a Pennsylvania judge. Bad example. A Utah judge. Yes, they were all sober, right?
“Where are we going anyway?” I said, when Sandy crossed the bridge into Allentown.
“Hubba, Hubba. It was Lorena’s idea.”
I didn’t know what Hubba, Hubba was. But I did know that if it was Lorena’s idea, it was bad.
“It’s an all-male review,” she said, sitting a bit straighter. “I’m glad Martin hasn’t a clue. He’d be horrified to know I was spending the evening throwing myself at seminaked men, though I don’t plan on doing that. I see my role as your escort. That’s it.”
“Nake
d men?” I cocked an eyebrow. “You know my mother and Genevieve are coming?”
“Who do you think made sure we each have a stack of dollar bills?”
Oh . . . my . . . God. I slid down in the seat as we pulled to the door of a low, all-black building to find Lorena, Mama, Genevieve and Tiffany, a hippyish former House of Beauty hairdresser, bouncing in line like schoolgirls waiting for the sock hop.
“You’re serious, aren’t you?” I said.
Sandy killed the engine. “Like I said, you better get blotto.”
As soon as Sandy and I got out, Mama hollered at the top of her lungs, “There’s the bride. There she is.” She was holding something in her hand. Something white. It was waving in the breeze.
Oh, super. It was a gag veil.
“Just go with the flow,” Sandy murmured. “Play along.”
“I’m glad you haven’t turned yourself into the police yet. If you hadn’t been here, I don’t think I could have stomached it.
“A strip club!” I squealed, faking shock and awe. “You girls are wild.”
They whooped with delight.
Mama stood on tiptoes and plunked the veil on my head, marking me for the evening as the world’s biggest doofus. I smiled weakly at the bouncer by the door. He smiled back. Seen one fake bride, seen ’em all, was his attitude. He had adopted the patient, mature demeanor of someone who is accustomed to handling lightweight middle-aged women who’ve tipped back a few too many strawberry daiquiris.
Genevieve was teetering already, a dipsy smile on her face. If I didn’t know her better, I’d say she’d already gotten into the kitchen sherry.
“We had a few drinks before we came over,” Genevieve confided. “You know how expensive cocktails are when you buy them at restaurants.”
“That’s okay. I’m buying, drinks and cab rides all the way around,” Lorena declared. She wore electric earrings that blinked S-E-X on one ear and H-O-T on the other. “Our only goal tonight is to let loose and give Bubbles the send-off she deserves. After all, this is the closest she’s going to get to hard bodies for a longgg time. She’s marrying Dan, don’t forget.”
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