by Leary, Ann
“I ran it down to a guy I know in Lynn. A guy I can trust. He’s gonna fix the dents on the hood and replace the windshield. He’s not gonna tell anybody.”
“Frankie, really, I would remember if I had gone out. And I didn’t hit anything on the way home, after I spoke to you. I wasn’t even drunk. But … where’s Jake? Have they found him? Is he okay?”
“No, the whole town’s out lookin’.”
“Frankie … you can’t be thinking that I … Are you crazy?”
“Whatta you think I thought when I saw your car? WHAT THE HELL AM I SUPPOSED TO THINK? You hit somethin’. And you must’ve gotten out of the car, because there was blood all over your friggin’ blouse.”
It was hard to breathe.
“Frankie, that was wine. Where’s the blouse? You can smell it. I spilled wine all over it.…”
“Smell it? I burned it.”
I really did feel like I might faint, and I’m not the fainting type. I just couldn’t get the air into my lungs.
“Hildy, sit down,” Frankie said now in a slightly gentler tone. Somehow I managed to take the few steps to the table and sit back down on a chair next to Frank.
“Maybe we should call the police,” I whispered. “Maybe you should call Sleepy and let me talk to him. I know it’s best in this type of situation if you come forward.”
“Yeah, right, report that you smashed into somethin’ but don’t remember what it was, the same night that a handicapped kid goes missin’.”
Now I was really crying. Frankie rested his forehead in his hands.
“Hildy, maybe you hit a deer,” he said finally. “Maybe that’s what happened. Deer run off when they’re hit, usually. A deer or a dog. The boy would’ve been found by now … if you hit him. He wouldn’t have been able to go far.”
“Stop saying that,” I begged, grabbing his hand and clutching it.
“The thing is, Hil, we both know that even if you didn’t hit anybody last night, there could always be a next time. When this is all over, when they find the kid, the thing you gotta do is, you gotta stop drinkin’.”
What Frankie said made sense. If I had hit Jake—oh, how my pulse raced when I even thought about it—but if I had hit him with my car, he would have been found by now.
“I didn’t go out last night. I didn’t hit anybody. How could you even have thought that, Frank? I mean, really.”
“You can stop drinkin’ again, Hildy. For good this time. I really liked the way you were when you weren’t drinkin’. I really liked you better that way.”
I dropped Frank’s hand. “Well, that must have been nice for you. Did it ever occur to you that I might like you better when I AM drinking? That I really don’t like you much at all when I’m sober? Does anybody ever consider the way I feel?”
Frank just sat staring at me. I couldn’t help but notice that his old shirt was stained with grease. His hands were rough and chapped and looked dirty, as they so often did, especially after work.
“You’re just like my girls. You only think of yourselves. I have to change my behavior, so you all will like me better.”
“I’m not thinkin’ about myself, I’m thinkin’ about you, Hildy. It’s what I’ve been doin’ all night long.”
“So that YOU’LL like ME better. Well, what about what I like and don’t like? I like myself the way I am.”
Frankie was walking toward the front door, which enraged me.
“I like myself fine just the way I am, except for one thing … this stupid arrangement I’ve got going with you. Did you see me listed with the top fifty most successful business owners in Massachusetts two years ago?” I was shouting now. Shouting and crying. I guess you’d say I was a little hysterical. “And you, the fucking fix-it man, the garbageman, think you know better than me how I should live my life? That’s really outrageous.”
Frankie stopped, and without turning to face me, he said quietly, “Listen, Hildy, you’re a drunk. You can’t go there now, but when this thing has some time behind it, you better go back to that place your daughters sent you and stay a good long time.”
“GET OUT OF MY HOUSE. I had nothing to do with Jake’s disappearance. I was home last night. Just mind your own business. And get me my car back as soon as possible. I want to go see Cassie.”
But I was saying it to nobody. Frankie had left.
I admit, I was a bit of a mess. How could Frankie have said such awful things? And where was Jake? I searched for my phone with the intention of calling Cassie, but when I finally found it on the floor next to the fireplace, I had a fuzzy recollection of calling somebody the night before. Yes, now I remembered. It was Frankie. I had tried to call Frankie, but he wouldn’t pick up his phone.
I had wanted to convince him to come over. I often get all mushy with sentimental ideas when I drink, and I recalled now that I’d felt this crazy urgency to be with Frank, to tell him how much I loved him. I must have been hammered. Was it a dream, or had I put on lipstick and fussed with my hair and wandered out to my car in the middle of the night? I had a recollection of doing so, of floating out to my car so that I could go see Frank.
What have I done?
Scott used to keep a pack of Marlboros in the cabinet above the fridge, and though I hadn’t smoked in years, I dragged a chair over and climbed up, head pounding, hands shaking. I found a twisted old pack with three cigarettes left in it. I lit one and coughed. It tasted horrible. It was old and stale. I took another drag. I felt the little nicotine buzz. I needed it to clear my head. The dogs were barking incessantly and I shouted at them to shut the hell up. I would need another drink soon, but I waited. Frankie was coming back with my car. It wouldn’t do for him to think I had been drinking after all his wild accusations that morning, so I sat at the table, puffing on my butt, crying like a baby.
I saw a movement in my living room. There was somebody in my house.
“Rebecca?” I cried.
Why Rebecca? I don’t know. I sensed Rebecca there. Instead, Peter Newbold stepped into my kitchen and made me scream. My nerves were shot.
“Peter, what? Why didn’t you knock?”
“I did knock, Hildy. Didn’t you hear me?”
I took another drag of my cigarette and shook my head. Why did Peter have to show up now? I supposed he suspected me as well in this whole Jake business, and when I looked up into his eyes and saw how red they were, I knew that he did.
“Peter, what’s going on?”
“Are you alone, Hildy? Is anyone else here?” He was looking around my kitchen. I supposed he was looking for Rebecca.
“No, nobody’s here but me, Peter. Rebecca’s in Nantucket for the weekend. What’s going on? Have you heard the awful news? About Jake?”
He slumped down into a chair across from me and said, “Yes, I was on my way over here and saw all the police cars in town. I stopped for a while.”
“So they haven’t found him?” I whispered.
“No, not yet. I came to talk to you about Rebecca, Hildy. But now, with this sad business about the missing child, it all seems so much less important. Seeing those poor parents downtown, now…”
Now what? Why was he looking at me like that? Did he think I was somehow responsible for Jake’s disappearance, too?
“I have no idea where Jake is. I was home all night. I can’t imagine what happened to him,” I said, looking at my cigarette. I took one more puff, then I dropped the butt into my remaining coffee.
“I know. Nobody knows where he is.” Then he said, “Hildy, I need to make sure that Elise and Sam are going to be okay. I came over to ask you if I can count on your discretion. Can I trust you?”
“Of course.”
“I mean, no matter what happens, can I rely upon you to not tell anybody about what happened between me and Rebecca?”
“Peter, why are you asking me this again? I have more important things to think about. Patch and Cassie are certainly out of their minds with worry. I’d really like to go to them.”
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br /> I stood up to make a fresh pot of coffee, but I had to steady myself for a second by gripping the back of my chair.
“I spoke to Rebecca last night. She knows about our plans to move, and she’s … threatened to reveal our affair if we proceed. My career will be over, my family destroyed. I’ll be unemployable, unable to send my son to school.…”
“I didn’t tell her, if that’s what you’re thinking, Peter.”
“I know that, Hildy. It seems almost impossible to keep a secret in this town, but I think you can keep secrets. I think you do keep them, when you need to.”
“Of course I keep secrets,” I snapped.
Oh my head.
“I just want your promise. It’s not for me, not just for Elise and Sam, either. It’s also for Rebecca’s own good. Why should her husband and children get dragged into this mess? Once I’m gone, I know she won’t say anything. That’s why the sooner I leave, the better. I’m leaving today, Hildy. I just wanted to stop to say good-bye, and to make sure that I can count on you.”
“Peter, I think Rebecca is used to getting what she wants; in fact, I’m quite sure of it. I don’t see how your leaving town today will in any way satisfy her.”
God, the man has to get a clue, I thought. How could he call himself a psychiatrist and have so little insight? Well, Peter was always a little weird. They say all shrinks are. That’s what draws them to the profession, I guess, a need to come up with answers, to fill in the missing pieces of their own jigsaw psyches.
I had to hold the coffeepot with both hands in order to keep the water from sloshing over the sides when I filled the coffeemaker. “Anyway. You can count on me, Peter.”
“Why are you so shaky, Hildy?”
“I’m not.” I turned on the coffee and then walked back to the table and sat opposite Peter. I looked at him and what I saw made me brace myself against the back of my chair. I know I’ve said it’s all a gimmick, but the truth is, I can read intentions and certain types of thoughts people are having. Anyone can, if they’re taught, the way my aunt taught me. I learned by watching her. I saw the way she was able to clear a path through the air with her gaze, and if the room were to have burst into flames around her, she wouldn’t have noticed. That’s how locked in she became with the subconscious of another. It was the submerged memories, urges, longings that she saw in the flicker of an eye in response to a question; secrets and fantasies that she saw in the fluttering of eyelids or the pulsing vein of a temple. Mild thoughts are like whispers, but intense feelings of love, hate, joy, fear—well, it’s almost hard to hang on when you’re trying to read them, they can be so fast and furious. When a person has evil on his mind, he shouts it with his thoughts, and they almost drown out his words.
“I just don’t like the way you’re looking, Hildy.” I heard him, finally, over all the noise of his rage and despair. “You look like you might do something … well, something crazy, for lack of a better word.”
But I read the following, loud and clear: Hopelessness and something else. Hate? No. It’s death. He has death on his mind. I had to look away. He was a reader himself. I didn’t want him to see my fear.
“Maybe you should take something, Hildy. I have something. It’s just Xanax. A mild sedative. Let me get you some water.”
Peter walked over to the counter and started opening cabinet doors. “Where do you keep your drinking glasses?” he asked. “Oh, here they are.”
I heard him fill the glass with water, then put it on the table in front of me. Next to it he placed a small pill bottle, filled with tiny white tablets.
“No thanks,” I said. “I don’t like to take pills. I feel fine.”
“Please, Hildy, I can smell the booze on you. You must have had some time of it last night. Just take one. It’ll help you take the edge off. I’ve already taken a couple myself.”
Peter was gazing down at me, and I quickly looked away.
“I told you, I don’t like taking stuff like that.”
“Well, sometimes we need to. When the doctor tells us to. Hildy? Hildy, did you hear what I said?”
I reached for the pill bottle and held it against my chest so my shaking hand wouldn’t rattle its contents.
“I had such an awful night last night, Hildy.”
“Why?” I asked. “What did you do?”
“I thought Rebecca might come here after I got that crazy call from her. I wanted to talk to her. To both of you. When I stopped here, your car was gone. Where were you last night, Hildy?”
“I was out with some business associates. Why do you care?” I was weeping. My eyes were filled with tears, my nose dribbling everywhere, and my tissue was a sodden piece of pulp clutched in my tight fist. One of the dogs suddenly scampered across the floor in the living room.
“KNOCK IT OFF,” I hollered. “Sorry,” I said to Peter. There was no response.
“Peter?” I turned and looked around. Where had he gone?
I sat back at the table. I knew I had tissues in my purse, so I lifted it from where it hung on the back of my chair and started fishing around in it. That’s when I felt Peter hovering over me.
“What are you doing?” I demanded, spinning around in my chair. He was staring down at me and again I saw death in his gaze.
Die. Die. Die. The thoughts pulsed in the air all around me, becoming louder and stronger, beating in time with my heart.
Now I recalled the way he had told me he had such confidence in me, just a few days before. The way he had told me that he knew I wouldn’t drink. He knew how to plant a negative suggestion as well as I did. It was like telling a child that you know they won’t touch the candy that you left out for them—tell a person not to think about something and you plant an obsession. Did he plant the suggestion that I get drunk?
He wanted to “make sure” I wouldn’t tell anyone about him and Rebecca. How was he planning to make sure of that?
“Hildy. I think you should take the medication. I’m worried about you. You seem a little unstable. Please. Take the medication now.”
That’s when I felt the little hairs on the back of my neck—my “hackles,” as my aunt used to say—rising, and I felt my fingers and toes grow numb. Sometimes my aunt would get a very angry person in her home for a psychic reading (sometimes a complete nut job), and she said she always knew they were unbalanced because her “hackles” would go up the minute they entered a room.
“Hildy, look at me,” Peter said. I had been looking down at the glass of water. I knew he could read emotions, and fear is the easiest emotion to read—easier than anger, even. I sniffled and dabbed at my eyes with the sodden tissue, then I dug around in my purse some more, avoiding his gaze. Rebecca and I were the two people who stood in his way, who threatened his future. What had he been planning for us?
“Excuse me, Peter,” I said. I tried to keep my voice steady. “I’m just going to get some tissues from the powder room.”
Peter placed his large hand around my wrist. His hand was so cold. “No. Stay where you are,” he said. Then, in a gentler tone: “Your pulse is racing. It’s best to sit quietly. Have some water. I’m worried about you.”
We stayed like that for a moment, his large hand on my wrist, my eyes fixed on the table.
“You’re in shock,” said Peter. “You’re withdrawing from alcohol—that’s what a hangover is, just withdrawal—and you’re in shock from the news about Jake. You need to rest now.”
I really needed a drink. I wondered where Rebecca was. I wondered, again, why Peter had been out looking for us last night, two women with the knowledge and power to destroy his life. He’d been out hunting two witches last night; now he had his hand clenched around my wrist. My head was pounding. Oh, God, for just one drink …
“I know you’re thinking about how much you’d like a drink now, Hildy, but it’s not a good idea. Take the pill. It’ll soothe your nerves.”
Babs and Molly were suddenly skidding and barking across the floor in the other room again
, which made Peter turn in his chair. That’s when I managed to pull away from him and stagger to my feet.
“What was that?” asked Peter.
“It was just the dogs,” I said. I was backing away from him now. “They bark like that all the time, Peter. They … they drive me insane.”
“Where are you going?”
“The bathroom.” I was afraid to turn my back on him, so of course he could really see my fear now.
“Hildy, you look like you’re going to faint.”
Peter took a step toward me.
I turned and ran.
I ran past the powder room, through the old pantry, and then I flew down the stairs into the cellar. I made sure to pull the door behind me first, though, and it slammed shut for an instant, just long enough for me to duck into the darkness at the bottom of the stairs. Then Peter opened the door, which cast a yellow shaft of dust-speckled light down the center of the old wooden steps. The bulb in the cellar’s only light fixture, a dangling ceiling socket, had burned out weeks before. I’d never gotten around to replacing it. I could hear Peter trying to click the light switch at the top of the stairs on and off, to no avail. Now I was on my knees, crawling behind the hot-water heater. The heater isn’t terribly far from the stairs, but it’s in a dark corner and there’s a little space between where it stands and the wall. I was trying to wedge myself into that space.
“Hildy”—now the tone was kind and gentle—“it’s me, Peter.”
My heart was racing.
“Hildy, it’s just me, Peter.”
I was quiet as a mouse.
“Hildy, I think you’re being paranoid. This is how you get when you have a hangover, isn’t it? You start imagining things. You think people are thinking unkind thoughts about you. I’m not, Hildy. I’ve always admired you. I remember you when you were just a teenager. Remember? You and Allie and Mamie and me? I remember once we stopped at your house to get something and your mother was sitting on the porch.”
The tears had started again, but I had to be careful not to sob. He was walking tentatively down the stairs. The cellar door had partially closed behind him and he was feeling his way along each step with the toe of his shoe.
