at First Sight (2008)

by Stephen Cannell

  “You’re absolutely right,” I said, taking her starch out faster than a Tijuana laundry.

  “I am?” She seemed stunned. Over the past year, about the only thing we’d agreed on was not to exchange birthday presents.

  “Yes, you are,” I said softly. “I acted badly. You’re interested in bodybuilding. Your trainer is about to enter a very important national contest. Of course you’d want to be there to see him compete. It was wrong of me to say what I did. I apologize. I think you should go.”

  “Really?” She was standing in front of me now, her long, tapered legs slightly spread, her expression puzzled. Evelyn wasn’t used to this kind of stuff from me and was immediately suspicious. I had to rein in my Mr. Reasonable act, or run the risk that she’d totally reject it.

  “I’m going to trust you and Mickey to be adults,” I said, trying to get back on the right side of the line.

  “I’m not fucking him, Chick.”

  She was such a delightfully subtle creature.

  “I know you’re not. I know that. I’m sorry I made a big deal out of the trip to Vegas.”

  She was still distrustful, studying me suspiciously, the way you’d study a large, black spider in the back of your cupboard, not quite sure if it was dangerous or how to handle it.

  “This is for real?”

  “Yeah, yeah … I want you to do the things that interest you and I’ll try and find things to do that interest me.”

  “I’m not sleeping with him. I don’t even find Mickey D the least bit attractive.”

  Boy, how dumb did she think I was? But I let her have that round. I just nodded and smiled and tried to look supportive.

  Anyway, without giving you the whole play-by-play, it went down pretty much the way I wanted. She and Mickey were on the phone immediately, making plans. The conversation lasted for an hour. I found out later that some of his weightlifter friends and some girls who were competing in Miss Fitness USA were all going to follow each other to Vegas. A rolling steroid party.

  Evelyn sat at her desk and was bright and animated as she talked to Mickey, waving her lacquered nails over the phone like a voodoo priestess blessing goat entrails. All thoughts of our bail-jumping daughter were left in the dust as we both planned for the weekend.

  It occurred to me that Evelyn had not mentioned Chandler’s death. It had been on the news for two days, and yet, not a word about it from her. I wondered how she had missed it. On the other hand, if she knew, why hadn’t she said anything? I chewed on that for a long time. After careful deliberation, my guess was she hadn’t heard.

  I could think of no reason why she would fail to mention it if she had. So, how the hell had she missed it?

  I had my suspicions there as well. They went like this: I knew that Mickey D didn’t have a TV, because Evelyn had wanted to loan him one of ours, a while back. My guess? Evelyn and the man she didn’t find the least bit attractive had been over at his place while I’d been in New York trying to save our business. Since there was no Melissa to worry about, she’d probably just moved in with Mickey for a few days so she could set his hand brake for him.

  Well, okay, that’s fine. I’m through worrying about it because once this all settles down, I’m gonna give Evelyn a standard California drive-by divorce. She can have half the community property, which right now, with all my liabilities, comes to minus eight million. If there was ever a cheap time to shed this marriage, now was that time. In case you’re bad with math, her half of minus eight million is zip.

  She left for Mickey’s apartment Friday, with a big smile, carrying her luggage, which was just one gym bag. My nudist wife probably wouldn’t be wearing much in Vegas, despite the fact that she’d just hit the charge account for a thousand dollars in new clothes—probably bought herself some snappy new nipple jewelry.

  After she was gone, I turned on the answering machine, packed my overnight bag, and left. I had plenty of time to catch my flight.

  With all of this going on, I still never once thought about Melissa. I know, I know. I should have been out on the streets driving around, trying to find her before she ruined her life, but I was so fucked up at this point, I had lost sight of my priorities. So I was off to LAX, my mind reeling with the possibilities that lay ahead.

  A funeral probably isn’t the best place to strike up a new relationship with the widow, but I wanted Paige Ellis more than I’d ever wanted anything else in my life.

  I wasn’t thinking straight. On that Friday night in April, I didn’t have a clue what I was doing.

  Chapter 15

  IT WAS HARD FOR PAIGE TO CONCENTRATE AT THE FUneral. Her mind was filled with gruesome images of Chandler’s dead body, produced by the open casket viewing that she’d had the previous day. Her friends told her that she should look at Chandler in death—that it would help her say goodbye and accept the fact that he was gone. She had long ago learned that most sentences containing the word “should” were downers, but she’d ignored her own counsel. Now her last memory of him was the ghastly, chalky-looking face that rested on a silk pillow in the coffin. That memory of him, for the moment, had replaced all others.

  It didn’t look like Chandler, either. The embalmers, working from photos, had made him too thin and stern. Chandler had always been lit from the inside. A kinetic spirit who seemed to glow. Sometimes, when she’d had an open period at school, she would sneak by his classroom and peek through his door. He was so focused when he taught that he often didn’t even see her. Watching him work with his L. D. students was like watching a magician perform.

  When he first took over the class, he’d been told by the principal that 90 percent of the kids were already lost causes—delinquents who never came to class, or anger-management cases that he was supposed to just sit on and keep out of trouble. But Chandler beat those odds by turning their anger into excitement. He found ways to inspire them, and most became interested students. The ones who played hooky would find him on their front porches with a deal. Come to school for a week; if you don’t like it, I’ll pay you fifty dollars. He held contests to challenge the kids who refused to read. The prizes were field trips to baseball games. Unorthodox, but he almost never had to pay up. He challenged these kids, but more importantly, he gave them his respect.

  The lump of clay lying in the casket in the mortuary’s slumber room just wasn’t Chan. Paige had to concentrate hard to erase that waxy memory from her mind. She wanted to remember Chandler alive, holding her hand and looking into her eyes. She wanted to remember their lovemaking, their laughter.

  She liked to remember the times they ran together on the river path. Chandler was quick, but she was the distance runner and usually left him around mile six. “Where you been, buddy?” she’d grin when he finally chugged in.

  “You cheated,” he would joke as he bent over, gasping for breath. “You stayed in shape.”

  She remembered the sand squeaking between their toes as they walked the beach at sunset. They talked about everything: current affairs, art, religion, sex. They argued with each other—mostly politics. He was the Democrat, the limousine liberal, a dove: “We shouldn’t try and solve the world’s problems with force!” he would say. She was the army brat—a fiscal conservative, the hawk: “We should stay the course and kick some Al Qaeda ass!” They argued, they challenged each other, they laughed, they made love, they discussed thoughts so personal that both of them knew they could never be shared with anyone else.

  The day after he died, she began an oil portrait of him, but had stopped, because even with all her talent and all her focused love, she couldn’t capture him. He was so much more than the sum of his parts.

  The funeral was mercifully over in an hour. The people who spoke seemed loving and sad, but to be perfectly honest, she’d only heard parts of what they’d said. Chandler’s parents, Peter and Sophia Ellis, had flown in from Los Angeles immediately after they heard. Chandler’s father was a tall, handsome man with wavy hair and a strong jaw. Physically, he alway
s reminded her a little of Billy Graham. At the gravesite, he talked about Chandler as a boy, playing in the backyard of their house. He told of a time when his son had found a bird with a broken wing and how he’d nursed it back to health. It never flew again, but he’d kept it as a pet and even taught it to eat from his hand. Chan’s first disabled student.

  Peter Ellis broke down at the end of his remarks. His wife, Sophia, had taken so many sedatives that she seemed disconnected and far away.

  Clarence Rutledge spoke last. Paige could have kissed him, because not once did he mention football. Instead, he talked about Chandler’s devotion to L. D. children—how, at Georgetown, he donated hours, working in a clinic in Washington, D. C., after classes.

  Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.

  Dirt was laid on the casket by the minister and it was finally over.

  She remembered walking with Chandler’s parents to the limo and the ride from the gravesite back to the church where the reception was being held. Even though she was always surrounded by lots of people, she had never felt so alone. Paige’s father had been an army colonel, and after he retired, her parents began a life of travel and recreation. But they died in a boating accident in Florida when she was nineteen. She was their only child. Except for an aunt who was now very ill in a convalescent hospital, and one cousin, in the army, she had no family.

  As they exited the limo and started inside the rectory for the reception, she felt a hand on her arm.

  “Paige?”

  She turned around and was surprised to see it was Chick Best.

  She reached out to take his hand, but he grabbed her and hugged her instead. He seemed almost desperate. He was holding her tightly, squeezing her until she had to finally struggle to pull away. “You came. You came all the way from California,” she said, finally disengaging.

  “I told you I’d be here.”

  She started looking around. “Where’s Evie?”

  “Couldn’t make it. Just me.”

  “Thank you so much for coming,” she murmured.

  Then other people were pulling at her, offering condolences. Chick stood there awkwardly, as if he had something more he wanted to say, but then she was swept away by the crowd heading into the reception.

  They were served sparkling wine and hors d’oeuvres. People stood in little groups, talking about Chandler and Paige in low voices. She overheard snatches of their conversations: “He was so young … They were so right for each other … So much in love … “

  Sometime toward the end, she felt a hand on her arm and turned again, to find Chick Best standing there. He was now holding a glass of wine, looking slightly out of place in a long, threequarter-length black coat, which she knew was the rage in Europe, but—in her opinion—looked ridiculous on him. He was too short for the style; it made him look like a Quaker.

  “I’m … Is there anything I can do to help you?” he asked softly.

  “No, no … I’m fine. Well, not fine, exactly. Pretty shitty, actually. But there’s really nothing, Chick. I think this is something I have to get through alone.”

  “Look, this may not be the best time. I know how stressful everything is, but I assume you’re inundated with financial issues right now and I can … “

  “Paige … ” a soft male voice said, interrupting Chick in mid-sentence.

  When she heard that deep, soft voice, she knew it was Clarence Rutledge. She turned away from Chick and faced him. Clarence had tears in his eyes.

  “I loved him so much;” Chandler’s old wide receiver said. He was tall and handsome, and had just graduated from Georgetown Law School.

  She reached out and hugged him. The two of them stood wrapped in each other’s arms for almost a minute. She could feel Clarence sobbing through the embrace. Then he pulled back.

  “My parents came:” he said. “Chan used to stay with us in D. C. in the summer before football and during our two-a-days in July. My folks were very fond of him. They want to meet you.” Then he led her toward an aging African-American couple.

  She forgot, until she was being introduced, that she had just walked off and left Chick standing there.

  Later, after the reception, Paige was with several of the other teachers from the school walking out to the church parking lot. She just wanted to go home and lie down. The whole thing was too much for her. Just then, she noticed Chick Best again, hovering near her limo in his threequarter-length coat.

  “Uh, Paige … If I could have just a moment, there was something I wanted to discuss with you.”

  “Oh, Chick, can’t it wait?” She knew he meant well, but she needed some space.

  “Well, I guess it could:’ he said, hesitantly. “But I have to leave first thing in the morning. Maybe I could take you out to dinner tonight.”

  “I’m really bushed, Chick. It’s been a frightful day.”

  “Right:’ he said. Her teacher friends, three middle-aged women, were standing there listening to all this.

  Paige saw a frustrated look pass across Chick’s face. “Would you mind terribly if we had a moment alone?” he said, rather sharply, to them. She thought the remark out of place, but before she could object, her friends turned quickly away, heading toward their cars. Now Paige was forced to stand in the parking lot while Chick tried to tell her what he wanted.

  “You know how sorry Evelyn and I are,” he began.

  “Thank you, Chick.”

  “And I wanted you to know that nothing, nothing is too much for you to ask.”

  “That’s very sweet of you, but I’m fine, really. I’ll get through this.” She wished she could get away from him. Since Chandler died, she had invested all her energy in making other people feel better. She was finally out of emotional currency. She needed to go home. She needed to be alone.

  “I’m very good with business,” he was saying. “Figures, accounts, all that.”

  “Oh, I know you are, Chick. You’re wonderful with that.” What on earth was he getting at?

  “I just wanted you to know if you need help on the probate for the estate or any financial stuff that you might not understand, I can stay and we can work on it or I could fly back here on a moment’s notice, to help you.”

  And now he grabbed both her hands in his and held them insistently.

  “Really. It’s what I do. I want you not to worry about any of it. Just turn everything over to me,” he said.

  “That’s so sweet of you, Chick. But … ,, “No, really. I’m serious.”

  “Yes, of course … “

  “Anything at all. I just want to help. It’s all I want.”

  “Of course. If I need anything, I have your number.” Now she was getting frustrated with him. He was gripping both her hands tightly. She tried to back away.

  “I could stay an extra day, if that would help,” he continued.

  Why wouldn’t he leave her alone? She just wanted to get away from these hovering, clutching people. “I’m fine, Chick,” she snapped at him. Didn’t he know the probate would be handled by the Chandler and Ellis family estate lawyers? She certainly didn’t need any of his help on that. “I think Chandler’s father’s lawyers are taking care of all that,” she said.

  “Oh, I … It’s just … “

  “Please, I need to go. I need to lie down. It’s very nice you came.” Then she tried to give him a quick hug, but he grabbed her again, squeezing her to him. She finally had to put her hands on his chest and push him away. “Give my love to Evie,” she said.

  It seemed an odd encounter, but almost immediately she forgot about it as more friends stepped forward to claim her attention. People embraced her. People asked her if there was anything they could do … if they could run her errands or help her with thank-you notes for all the flowers, until she wanted to scream. But she didn’t. She smiled politely and plodded on.

  “I think I need to get some rest,” she repeated over and over, but these friends wouldn’t let go of her either. They meant well, but they were smotherin
g her.

  “I’m fine,” she kept saying. “I’ll get through this. I know I will:’ But it was pure bullshit. She knew she wouldn’t get through it, and she certainly wasn’t fine.

  She was devastated.

  Her life, like Chandler’s, was over.

  Chapter 16

  SO GOING TO THAT DUMB FUNERAL WAS ONE OF MY ALL-time biggest boner moves. I admit it. From the very start, I was off balance, off my game. But in her grief, Paige was more beautiful, more endearing to me, than she had ever been, and I remind you that I was already so smitten that I had murdered her husband to make her more available. Now my lust, love, or passion, whatever it was, overwhelmed me.

  Going back over it, I got to the funeral with an hour to spare. I ended up standing in back of a crowd of Paige and Chandler’s family and friends, surrounded by Chandler’s high-school students, listening to one drippy story after another. The hands-down prizewinner was the one his father told about Chandler fixing a bird’s wing. As this saccharine tale unfolded, a bunch of tenth-grade dropouts and high-school teachers cried. I was going to need an insulin shot when this was over.

  The memorial program had a verse from Proverbs inscribed on the front. The minister said Paige had picked it because it had been one of Chandler’s favorites, something about it being better to be poor than rich. So even in death this guy was pissing me off.

  I won’t bore you with my feeble attempts at communicating with Paige at the funeral. What the fuck was I thinking? Here I was, standing with a bunch of people I didn’t even know, trying to explain to her how I could help her with her financial affairs, when she had the best legal assassins in the world at her disposal. I felt as out of place as a Buddhist monk in a strip club. I was standing there trying to blend in with a bunch of schoolteachers who thought it was appropriate to wear brown tweed to a funeral.

  In between bouts of social awkwardness, I stupidly kept hitting on Paige. Eventually, I got pushed into a corner with another man who looked as out of place as I did. But we were hardly a matched set. I was stylin’ in my Armani long line; he was dressed like a tractor salesman, in tan pants and a fifty-dollar blazer. He had the worst saltand-pepper, out-of-style flattop I’ve ever seen. It looked like his barber had used a lawn mower on him.