Still Life

by Joy Fielding

  “Are you taking Lola trick-or-treating this year?” Janine asked Drew.

  “Yup. She’s going as a cat.”

  “A cat? I would have thought she’d be a fairy princess.”

  “Fairy princesses are so last year. This year she wants to be a cat.” Drew’s proud smile filled her face. “Like her mother,” she said, beaming. “I always used to dress up as a cat on Halloween. Remember, Casey?”

  Casey smiled at the distant memory.

  “So when Lola gets home from school, we’re going to make cat ears.”

  “Sounds like fun,” Janine deadpanned.

  “Gail’s coming with us. And Casey. They’re going to be cats, too.”

  Janine turned her attention back to Casey. “Is that the price you have to pay for staying here until you’re all better?”

  “She loves it here. Don’t you, Casey?” Drew said. “She’s never leaving.”

  “Are you sure you’re up for so much activity?”

  “Jeremy thinks she is,” Drew answered in Casey’s stead. “We’re only going to go a couple of blocks.”

  “How is Jeremy?”

  “He’s great. His shoulder’s almost healed. He hopes to be back working by the first of the year.”

  “And the two of you?”

  “Still going strong,” Drew replied, borrowing Gail’s girlish giggle.

  “That’s nice.” Janine sounded genuinely pleased. “I’m really happy for you. And for you,” she told Gail as she reentered the living room. “Even if all this sex she’s been having lately is making her quite unbearable.”

  “You’ll meet someone,” Gail said.

  “Not high on my list of priorities at the moment,” Janine said, squeezing Casey’s hand.

  “How’s your business doing?” Drew asked. She sank down in the coffee-colored sofa across from the large window overlooking the lake.

  “Seems to be picking up. Oh—you’ll never guess who I ran into the other day. Richard Mooney! Apparently he got a job over at Goodman and Francis.”

  “Aren’t they the guys who represented Warren?” Gail asked.

  “That was Goodman, Latimer. They’re better than Goodman and Francis. Not that it did Warren any good.”

  “I guess their hands were kind of tied once Nick Margolis agreed to testify against him in exchange for taking the death penalty off the table.”

  “I still can’t believe he tried to kill Casey, and then strangled that poor nurse’s aide,” Gail said after a pause, deep sighs replacing her usual soft laughter.

  “I don’t know,” Janine said. “There were times I wanted to wring that girl’s neck myself.”

  “I don’t believe you said that.” Gail pushed an errant curl behind her right ear, her eyes widening in shock.

  “What? What’d I say?”

  “At least Warren got what he deserved,” Gail said.

  “Not really,” Drew countered. “He’s still alive, isn’t he?”

  “If you call spending the rest of your life behind bars any kind of life.”

  “Beats spending it in a coma. Right, Casey?” Drew asked. “Too bad my sister’s such a lousy shot. If that bullet had been another two inches to the right, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”

  The kettle started whistling from the kitchen.

  “That’s my cue,” Gail said, exiting the room.

  “I’ll help you,” Drew said, going with her.

  “You’re very quiet today,” Janine told Casey after a pause of several seconds. “Does it upset you? Listening to us talk about what happened?”

  “Not really,” Casey said, her words slow and measured. She was still adjusting to the sound of her own voice, just as her body was still adjusting to its growing range of movement.

  “I guess I sounded pretty insensitive before.”

  “I know,” Casey said quietly.

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean …”

  “About you and Warren,” Casey qualified. “I know.”

  There was a moment’s silence. Janine nodded, as if she wasn’t entirely surprised by the revelation. “Do you hate me?”

  “No.”

  “I’d hate you,” Janine said.

  “I know you would.”

  “Do you want me to leave?”

  Casey shook her head. “How can you leave now? You still have twenty-three pages to go.”

  Janine smiled sadly, a gentle upturn at the sides of her mouth. “You don’t need me to read them to you.”

  “On the contrary,” Casey said. “I honestly don’t think I could get through them without you.”

  Janine lowered her head to her chest and burst into tears. “Oh, Casey. I’m so sorry.”

  “I know you are.”

  “I was so stupid.”

  “Yes, you were.”

  “And I hate stupid.”

  Casey smiled. “Warren fooled everybody, Janine.”

  “If only I could go back …”

  “You can’t.”

  “I know.”

  “We have to move forward.”

  “If there was something I could do to make it up to you, you know I would.”

  “You can come trick-or-treating with us tonight,” Casey suggested.

  “What?”

  “I’m sure Lola will be happy to make another set of cat ears.”

  “You really do hate me,” Janine said.

  Casey laughed out loud.

  “Now, that’s a beautiful sound,” Drew said, returning to the living room, holding an orange enamel tray containing a plate of pumpkin-shaped cookies, four mugs, and a sugar bowl, Gail following right behind with the teapot. Drew deposited the tray on the brown leather ottoman in front of the sofa and knelt on the cream-colored shag carpet. Gail sank down beside her. Casey pushed herself off her overstuffed beige-and-brown velvet chair to join them on the floor.

  “Careful,” Janine said.

  “Watch yourself,” Gail echoed.

  “I’m okay,” Casey told them, crossing one leg over the other.

  “I don’t know how you do that,” Janine said as Gail poured the sweet-smelling herbal tea into each mug. “When ever I cross my legs, my knees end up around my ears.”

  “Speaking of ears,” Casey said, “Janine’s decided to come with us tonight.”

  “Fantastic,” Drew said.

  “Good stuff,” Gail agreed.

  “How could I turn down a chance to join the ever-popular pussy posse?” Janine quipped, and the other women laughed.

  “Just don’t let me hear you talk like that in front of my daughter,” Drew cautioned protectively. “Here. Try one of my cookies. I made them myself.”

  “God, is there anything worse than a reformed junkie?” Janine asked rhetorically, biting into one of the cookies. “These are good,” she admitted, taking another bite.

  “It’s my own recipe,” Drew told her. “Peanut butter, sugar, a little hashish. Just kidding,” she said to more laughter. “Honestly, Casey. Just kidding.”

  Casey joined in the women’s laughter, feeling the fire from the nearby fireplace warm against her back. “To my sister,” she said, securing the mug in her right hand and raising it to her lips, “who saved my life.”

  “To my sister,” Drew echoed softly, “who saved mine.”

  Casey rubbed the tiny silver shoe dangling from the chain around her neck, wishing she could always feel this safe. She sipped slowly at her tea, her taste buds soaking up the subtle flavor of strawberries and vanilla as the liquid swirled around her tongue, then traveled smoothly down the back of her throat. She took a deep breath, her eyes floating lovingly between her sister and her two closest friends, and breathed again.

  SEAL BOOKS

  PROUDLY PRESENTS

  THE WILD ZONE

  JOY FIELDING

  Coming soon in hardcover from Doubleday Canada

  Turn the page for a preview of The Wild Zone….

  CHAPTER ONE

  This is how it starts
.

  With a joke.

  “So, a man walks into a bar,” Jeff began, already chuckling. “He sees another man sitting there, nursing a drink and a glum expression. On the bar in front of him is a bottle of whiskey and a tiny little man, no more than a foot high, playing an equally tiny little piano. ‘What’s going on?’ the first man asks. ‘Have a drink,’ offers the second. The first man grabs the bottle and is about to pour himself a drink when suddenly there is a large puff of smoke and a genie emerges from the bottle. ‘Make a wish,’ the genie instructs him. ‘Anything you desire, you shall have.’ ‘That’s easy,’ the man says. ‘I want ten million bucks.’ The genie nods and disappears in another cloud of smoke. Instantly, the bar is filled with millions and millions of loud, quacking ducks. ‘What the hell is this?’ the man demands angrily. ‘Are you deaf? I said bucks, you idiot. Not ducks.’ He looks imploringly at the man beside him. The man shrugs, nodding sadly toward the tiny piano player on the bar. ‘What? You think I wished for a twelve-inch pianist?’”

  A slight pause followed by an explosion of laughter punctuated the joke’s conclusion, the laughter neatly summing up the personalities of the three men relaxing at the crowded bar. Jeff, at thirty-two, the oldest of the three, laughed the loudest. The laugh, like the man himself, was almost too big for the small room, dwarfing the loud rock music emanating from the old-fashioned jukebox near the front door and reverberating across the shiny black marble surface of the long bar, where it threatened to overturn delicate glasses and crack the large, bottle-lined mirror behind it. His friend Tom’s laugh was almost as loud, and although it lacked Jeff’s resonance and easy command, it made up for these shortcomings by lasting longer and containing an assortment of decorative trills. “Good one,” Tom managed to croak out between a succession of dying snorts and chuckles. “That was a good one.”

  The third man’s laughter was more restrained, although no less genuine, his admiring smile stretching from the natural, almost girlish, pout of his lips into his large brown eyes. Will had heard the joke before, maybe five years ago, in fact, when he was still a nervous undergraduate at Princeton, but he would never tell that to Jeff. Besides, Jeff had told it better. His brother did most things better than other people, Will was thinking as he signaled Kristin for another round of drinks. Kristin smiled and tossed her long, straight blond hair from one shoulder to the other, the way he’d noted the sun-kissed women of South Beach always seemed to be doing. Will wondered idly if this habit was particular to Miami or endemic to southern climes in general. He didn’t remember the young women of New Jersey tossing their hair with such frequency and authority. But then, maybe he’d just been too busy, or too shy, to notice.

  Will watched as Kristin poured Miller draft into three tall glasses and expertly slid them in single file along the bar’s smooth surface, bending forward just enough to let the other men gathered around have a quick peek down her V-neck, leopard-print blouse. They always tipped more when you gave them a flash of flesh, she’d confided the other night, claiming to make as much as three hundred dollars a night in tips. Not bad for a bar as small as the Wild Zone, which comfortably seated only forty people and had room for maybe another thirty at the always busy bar.

  YOU HAVE ENTERED THE WILD ZONE, an orange neon sign flashed provocatively above the mirror. PROCEED AT YOUR OWN RISK.

  The bar’s owner had seen a similar sign along the side of a Florida highway and decided the Wild Zone would be the perfect name for the upscale bar he was planning to open on Ocean Drive. His instincts had proved correct. The Wild Zone had opened its heavy steel doors in October, just in time for Miami’s busy winter season, and it was still going strong eight months later, despite the oppressive heat and the departure of most tourists. Will loved the name, with its accompanying echoes of danger and irresponsibility. It made him feel vaguely reckless just being here. He smiled at his brother, silently thanking him for letting him tag along.

  If Jeff saw his brother’s smile, he didn’t acknowledge it. Instead he reached behind him and grabbed his fresh beer. “So what would you clowns wish for if a genie offered to grant you one wish? And it can’t be anything sucky, like world peace or an end to hunger,” he added. “It has to be personal. Selfish.”

  “Like wishing for a twelve-inch penis,” Tom said, louder than Will thought necessary. Several of the men standing in their immediate vicinity swiveled in their direction, although they pretended not to be listening.

  “Already got one of those,” Jeff said, downing half his beer in one long gulp and smiling at a redhead at the far end of the bar.

  “It’s true,” Tom acknowledged with a laugh. “I’ve seen him in the shower.”

  “I might ask for a few extra inches for you though,” Jeff said, and Tom laughed again, although not quite so loud. “How about you, little brother? You in need of any magical intervention?”

  “I’m doing just fine, thank you.” Despite the frigid air-conditioning, Will was beginning to sweat beneath his blue button-down shirt, and he focused on a large green neon alligator on the far brick wall to keep from blushing.

  “Aw, I’m not embarrassing you, am I?” Jeff teased. “Shit, man. The kid’s got a PhD in philosophy from Harvard, and he blushes like a little girl.”

  “It’s Princeton,” Will corrected. “And I still haven’t finished my dissertation.” He felt the blush creep from his cheeks toward his forehead and was glad the room was as dimly lit as it was. I should have finished that stupid dissertation by now, he was thinking.

  “Knock it off, Jeff,” Kristin advised him from behind the bar. “Don’t pay any attention to him, Will. He’s just being his usual obnoxious self.”

  “You trying to tell me that size doesn’t matter?” Jeff asked.

  “I’m telling you that penises are way overrated,” Kristin answered.

  A nearby woman laughed. “Ain’t that the truth,” she said into her glass.

  “Well, you ought to know,” Jeff said to Kristin. “Hey, Will. Did I tell you about the time Kristin and I had a three-way?”

  Will looked away, his eyes skirting the dark oak planks of the floor and sweeping across the far wall without focusing, eventually settling on a large color photograph of a lion attacking a gazelle. He’d never been comfortable with the sort of sex-charged banter Jeff and his friends seemed to excel at. He had to try harder to fit in, he decided. He had to relax. Wasn’t that the reason he’d come to South Beach in the first place—to get away from the stress of academic life, to get out in the real world, to reconnect with the older brother he hadn’t seen in years? “Don’t think you ever mentioned it,” he said, forcing a laugh from his throat and wishing he didn’t feel as titillated as he did.

  “She was a real looker, wasn’t she, Krissie?” Jeff asked. “What was her name again? Do you remember?”

  “I think it was Heather,” Kristin answered easily, hands on the sides of her short, tight black skirt. If she was embarrassed, she gave no sign of it. “You ready for another beer?”

  “I’ll take whatever you’re willing to dish out.”

  Kristin smiled, a knowing little half grin that played with the corners of her bow-shaped mouth, and tossed her hair from her right shoulder to her left. “Another round of Miller draft coming right up.”

  “That’s my girl.” Once again Jeff’s muscular laugh filled the room.

  A young woman pushed her way through the men and women standing three-deep at the bar. She was in her late twenties, of average height, a little on the thin side, with shoulder-length dark hair that fell across her face, making it difficult to discern her features. She wore black pants and an expensive-looking white shirt. Will thought it was probably silk. “Can I get a pomegranate martini?”

  “Coming right up,” Kristin said.

  “Take your time.” The young woman tucked a strand of hair behind her left ear, revealing a delicate pearl earring and a profile that was soft and pleasing. “I’m sitting over there.” She pointed toward an
empty table in the corner, underneath a watercolor of a herd of charging elephants.

  “What the hell’s a pomegranate martini?” Tom asked.

  “Sounds revolting,” Jeff said.

  “They’re actually quite good.” Kristin removed Jeff’s empty beer glass and replaced it with a full one.

  “That so? Okay, then, let’s give ‘em a try.” Jeff made a circle in the air with his fingers, indicating his request included Tom and Will. “Ten bucks each to whoever finishes his pomegranate martini first. No gagging allowed.”

  “You’re on,” Tom agreed quickly.

  “You’re crazy,” Will said.

  In response, Jeff slapped a ten-dollar bill on the bar. It was joined seconds later by a matching one from Tom. Both men turned expectantly toward Will.

  “Fine,” he said, reaching into the side pocket of his gray slacks and extricating a couple of fives.

  Kristin watched them out of the corner of her eye as she carried the pomegranate martini to the woman sitting at the small table in the far corner. Of the three men, Jeff, dressed from head to toe in his signature black, was easily the best looking, with his finely honed features and wavy blond hair, hair she suspected he secretly highlighted, although she’d never ask. Jeff had a quick temper, and you never knew what was going to set him off. Unlike Tom, she thought, shifting her gaze to the skinny, dark-haired man wearing blue jeans and a checkered shirt who stood to Jeff’s immediate right. Everything set him off. Six feet, two inches of barely contained fury, she thought, wondering how his wife stood it. “It’s Afghanistan,” Lainey had confided just the other week, as Jeff was regaling the bar’s patrons with the story of how Tom, enraged by an umpire’s bad call, had pulled a gun from the waistband of his jeans and put a bullet through his brand-new plasma TV, a TV he couldn’t afford and still hadn’t fully paid for. “Ever since he got back … ,” she’d whispered under the waves of laughter that accompanied the story, leaving the thought unfinished. It didn’t seem to matter that Tom had been home for the better part of five years.