by Warren Adler
They sat in a booth at the rear of the coffee shop. A steady stream of customers came in and out, people of the night and early morning. They seemed much different from humans who lived by day, an alien breed.
"I've never been to an all-night anything before," she said after the waitress had poured them coffee, automatically. "I remembered the sign." Her fingers fluttered nervously until she finally steadied them around the coffee cup. "It seemed a logical choice. Only ten minutes from the house."
She looked at him briefly, then turned her eyes away.
"Convenient." He shrugged.
"It's awful. Absolutely awful," she said abruptly. "Like the ground opened up under my feet."
"Our feet, Mrs. Simpson."
She tried to lift her coffee cup, but her hands shook too much. She let it clatter back into the saucer, spilling drops.
"I feel so stupid and foolish," she said, shaking her head. "Even being here is ... well, bizarre. I can't imagine why I came." She lowered her eyes. "As you said, who else is there?"
"Not another soul, I'm afraid. Just you and me."
"Stuck in the same cell. You'd think we'd want to escape."
"I wish I knew how."
He wondered if she was having regrets about coming.
"Perhaps it wasn't such a good idea," he said.
"As good as any. What will I do back there? Toss and turn. Besides, I'm cried out."
"Me, too."
"I can't believe it's possible for us not to have known," she said. "I just can't grasp that." She looked at him, accusing.
"I swear to you, Mrs. Simpson. It comes as a total shock."
"But she was your wife. How can she have hidden it from you?" She looked into the coffee cup. "Now that's a stupid question. Where was I, you might ask."
"All right. I'll ask it. Where were you? They say a woman can sense those things."
"We'll just have to stop these generalizations," she said irritably.
"I'm sorry," he said. It had started badly. Perhaps this was not really a good idea after all.
"Did it happen before?" she asked, ignoring his apology.
"Did what?"
"Her being, you know, unfaithful."
"She wasn't a whore," he said between clenched teeth, instantly defensive. "What about him?" Was he trying to assign blame?
She shook her head.
"Never?" he asked cautiously.
"Who can say that now? I'll never say never again."
He rubbed his chin, feeling the rough stubble.
"Neither will I," he mumbled facetiously. "Maybe she was a whore. She certainly was a liar on a grand scale."
"Both of them were, Mr. Davis. Both of them were." She lifted her cup again. Coffee spills gathered in the saucer, but she managed a sip.
"But how? Why?"
"I don't know. That's why we're here, I suppose."
"Where did she say she was going, for God's sake?"
"To L.A. She's a—she was—a fashion buyer for Woodies. I thought nothing of her traveling. She did it periodically. She was, after all, a responsible executive." The old pride in her surfaced. Recognizing it again, he cursed her in his heart.
"A buyer for Woodies? Where would she have crossed Orson's path? He was a lawyer. Corporations. Lobbying. Far afield."
"They could have met anywhere, I suppose." Then, after a pause, "It doesn't matter now."
"That's what I keep saying to myself. But I can't get it out of my mind. All the speculation. I saw nothing. Nothing. I keep asking myself: Am I so insensitive, so thick and stupid?"
"The pronoun, Mrs. Simpson. Use the plural." It seemed a misplaced stab of humor. "We!"
"What is even worse"—she lowered her voice—"is that I feel more anger than grief."
"I know what you mean."
Her brown eyes inspected him, and he felt drawn to meet them.
"I wish I didn't feel that. I've never felt it before. And I keep saying to myself that a stranger was killed, not my Orson."
He nodded. Nor my Lily.
"I had no reason to assume that we had anything but a good marriage. I can't even envision Orson in this role. At first I thought there must be some other explanation—a dual personality. I'm sure it's possible. But then, in your case ... Two dual personalities? What are the odds against that?"
"Staggering, I suppose."
"And you?" Their eyes had not drifted. Now his turned away, and he looked at his fingers.
"The same. As you said, I had no reason to assume otherwise. I felt good about our marriage. I didn't pretend to be the greatest husband. I've got faults." He checked himself. His instinct was to be self-effacing, but something held him back. He did not want this woman to see his imperfections, although he was not quite certain why.
"There could be some other explanation." It sounded almost like a wish. "Like a CIA thing, something like that. A secret mission, like on TV." Her eyes widened. "You think I'm crazy?"
"Not crazy."
"Grasping at straws?"
"More like that," he said gently.
"Anything to explain it away, I suppose. To absolve them and us."
"Us?"
He did not wish to pursue that line. Next, they would be blaming themselves.
"We'll never know for sure," he sighed.
"That policeman said the only connection was that key." She fished out the key case from her pocketbook. Then she opened it and upended the keys. "I don't even know which one it was."
"I left the key ring at the house."
"I've thought a great deal about that key. What did it open? Just another unbearable question to live with. God, I hate thinking about it." She raised her eyes to his and locked them there again. "I hate discussing it."
"I'm sorry."
"So am I. Sorry for everything. You know something?" He felt the intimacy of her tone, and it disturbed him. "I don't think I'll ever be able to trust anyone again," she said. "I don't even trust myself. If I couldn't see what was happening right under my nose, how could I ever again trust my own instincts or judgment?"
Bending low over the table, she began to raise the cup again. Her hands trembled, and she put it down, placing her hands on the table's edge. Edward looked at her fingers. They struck him as being delicate, gentle. He felt an urge to be touched by them, as if somehow they would soothe, assuage pain.
"How long do you suppose it was going on?" she asked.
"I was afraid to ask myself," he murmured.
"A long time? Months? Years?"
Her alabaster skin seemed to whiten as she spoke.
"Are you all right?" he asked, reaching out but not touching her.
"I'll never be all right."
Outside, it was getting light, and more recognizable daytime types, white collar workers, began arriving. Vivien and Edward sat in silence for a long time. Edward felt enervated, emptied of all vitality. Vivien nodded her head as if she were contemplating the oil slick on the surface of her tepid coffee.
"I'm just taking it one day at a time," he said finally, clearing his throat of a sudden hoarseness. "The worst thing will be facing my wife's family. They'll think I murdered Lily...."
"Lily?" She shot him a quick angry glance, as if to repeat the name was somehow an obscenity.
"A bit old-fashioned, naming kids after flowers. Her parents were old-fashioned Italians."
"Corny. Like Orson. His mother is dead, but his sister is still alive." Her throat emitted an odd bubbling sound. "She objects to my decision to cremate Orson, so she won't come to the service."
He searched her face for some sign of irony, but her features were impenetrable.
"She called it a burning."
"It's a perfectly proper way to dispose of the body," he said, as if suddenly compelled to come to her defense.
"Perfectly proper." She looked at him, offering an unmistakable flash of belligerence. Their eyes locked.
In hers he imagined he could see the battle between fury and resignation, a mi
rror of his own.
"What an odd way to put it," she said. In his heart, he agreed with her choice, sensing it was deliberate. But he did not explore it further, fearing that his own choice for Lily's disposal was somehow an act of cowardice.
"It was all so strange. The way he looked. All pink and healthy. Lying there so quiet and innocent." Her lips pursed.
His last image of Lily intruded suddenly. The upper part of her head was caved in: Retribution? The question posed itself as though it were independent of his will. His stomach lurched, and a chill shot through him. Such ideas were alien and terrible, part of the distorted perceptions of a nightmare.
He looked about him, fixing his sense of place and reality. He was, he told himself, completely awake, living the immediacy of the moment.
"Anyway, that part will be over by tomorrow afternoon." She took a deep breath.
"I'll have to go up to Baltimore and face it with her family. Clannish, emotional Italians. It will be a ghastly experience. In a way they have a point. If I hadn't married her, she'd still be alive."
"I doubt that. Women like that always create some kind of mischief." She checked herself quickly, but it was too late to retrieve.
"Like what?" Incredibly, he was still defending. As he watched her, she seemed to be debating what she might say next. Her tense expression gave away her response. Oddly, he seemed to be girding himself.
"You're not going to deny it. The woman must consent. It's not exactly like rape." Her features distorted in anger.
"And the man? Isn't he supposed to be the pursuer?"
"Orson was not like that," she stammered.
"Takes two to tango," he said. Was she actually trying to affix blame? "Maybe three," he muttered. "Or four."
"Four?"
The idea transformed the issue. Up until then she had seemed poised for combat.
"Us. Something lacking in us," he said. "Something that drove them away from us, toward each other. Maybe we're cold, indifferent, unloving."
He watched her facial muscles go slack.
"I was a devoted, loving, dedicated wife, an old-fashioned hausfrau and mother. I tended, the home. I was a good little lamb."
"Who never strayed?"
"Never." She sucked in a gasp of indignation.
"Me, too," he sighed. Suckers, he thought. Unless she lied.
"Maybe we are to blame," she said after another long silence. She lifted her hands from the table, clasping her fingers to keep them from trembling.
"Maybe."
"Well, they're not here to explain it." Her voice rose. People in the next booth turned.
"That's for sure," he said bitterly.
"And even if they were..." Her lips clamped shut as she fought for control.
"Did you tell anyone?" he asked, surprised at the direction of his thoughts. Public shame was another alien idea. Now, for some reason, it filled him with dread. He could not deny the challenge to his manhood. He thought suddenly of Jan Peters mocking his faithfulness.
"Absolutely not. Never." The vehemence of her tone startled him, but it, too, merely articulated his own reaction. "Not even Dale, my husband's partner. It's not his business. He pressed me. Wanted to sue the airline for withholding the names so long. I said absolutely not. It won't bring Orson back. Thank God. I wouldn't want him." She looked determined. "I told no one. My parents are coming down tomorrow. I usually tell them most things. But not this."
"Do you suppose it will be in the papers? The Post called for a picture. I gave them nothing."
"I didn't either." She paused. "I couldn't bear to see it in the papers."
"Do you trust the cop? I mean, not to spread it everywhere. It would make a juicy story."
"I told you, I will never trust anyone again."
"I'll vote yea on that."
"Never."
He nodded, further underlining the resolution. Her fingers unclasped and formed themselves into balled fists. Without realizing, his own had done the same. They seemed to be feeling each other's anger.
"The bottom line is that neither of us knew a damned thing. Nothing."
"Where do you suppose they were going?" She looked at him, her lashes fluttering nervously.
"Does it matter?"
"No, I suppose not."
"Four days, she told me."
"Paris by Concorde and back."
"That's where he said he was going?"
She nodded.
"What lies. What horrible lies." This time his voice rose and a number of customers turned around.
"Maybe we should leave it alone," she said, pushing the coffee cup toward the center of the table. "If we go over and over it like this, it can't be good for us. I have a child to worry about. His child," she added, her eyes narrowing. "You?"
"No children."
He supposed he should be thankful for that. With the thought came another realization. He would not have a living memory to remind him always of her. His stomach tightened. Her betrayal!
"Someday my son will ask me exactly how his daddy died," she said.
"What have you told him?" The question seemed an intrusion.
"That he went to heaven." She flashed an empty smile.
"Heaven. That's a gas."
"When he's old enough he'll find out the truth; then he'll probably blame me for being inadequate."
"So don't tell him. Keep the secret." It struck him that the "secret" had become a kind of bond between them, like two independent witnesses to a murder.
"Maybe. It's too early to think about that," she sighed.
Too early to think about anything, he supposed, confronting the tangle of his own thoughts and emotions.
"Dammit," he said sharply, compelled to describe his state. "My mind is repelled by what I feel."
Her eyes suddenly widened.
"Yes. That's exactly it." She paused and nodded her head. "Yes. Are we supposed to be demolished by grief? I feel nothing like that. Shouldn't we be forgiving, tolerant, understanding? After all, hasn't the punishment fit the crime? Where is our compassion? I don't know about you, but all I feel is..." Her voice quivered, and the muscles of her neck worked to hold back hysteria.
"Anger?" he offered.
"More than that. I feel so much..."
He waited, sure she would say what he himself felt.
"Hatred," she gasped. "And I hate myself for feeling it. But I just can't help it. They had no right..."
"I know," he said gently. He moved one hand and put it over her still-balled fist. "Who the hell but us would understand that?"
She nodded, then removed her hand from his and brushed away a tear.
His mind drifted. Again he thought of the impending ordeal in Baltimore.
"I hope I don't blast it out to my in-laws. They think of Lily like her name—white and pure." A low chuckle rose from his throat.
It was the one weapon against her family that he was holding in reserve. If they pressed him too hard, he would take that arrow from his quiver.
"I hope you will resist that," she said with sudden panic, as though he had taken an oath of secrecy.
"I'll try," he said sincerely, knowing it was not going to be easy.
"It's that other fellow that worries me. Not the cop. The man from the airlines," she said. "Do you think he knows?"
"Probably. I thought about that. I don't think the airlines would let it out deliberately. If he says something, it will probably be later. A cocktail party joke."
"I'll never forgive them for that as well. Making our lives a filthy joke."
"Some joke." He shrugged.
"Mr. and Mrs. Calvin Marlboro."
"Very funny."
"What a mockery it makes of us."
"People will split their sides."
"I couldn't bear it," she said.
"Let's hope we don't have to."
"According to Dale, we'll be getting lots of compensation."
"I hadn't thought about that."
"I have. I won
't touch a cent of it. Not a cent of that dirty money." Flush spots suddenly appeared on her cheeks.
"Maybe it's still too early to make that kind of decision," he said cautiously.
"Not for me," she muttered. She seemed to be fading. Her brief animation dissipated. "I'd better go," she said.
She stretched out her arm, and he took her hand, cautiously offering the pressure of common purpose. When she returned it, he clasped harder. Somehow it felt like a ritual, the sealing of a lifelong promise.
"I'm glad we talked," he stammered. "It's as though we're in it together. Like conspirators."
A frown of confusion shadowed her face.
She got up, yet some vague idea was germinating in his mind, and he delayed releasing her.
"Do you suppose..."
She waited, standing at the table's edge.
"Suppose we found that place where they ... where they met. Now it's hanging in limbo, but if we found it, saw it, confirmed it, might it somehow put things in perspective?" He wasn't quite sure what he meant.
"I doubt it," she said. Releasing his hand, she began to move away. Then she stopped. "What would it prove?"
"I don't know. Just a thought." Still, he did not want her to leave.
"Maybe." She shrugged and began to walk away. He rose after her, fishing in his wallet. At the door he caught her attention. As she turned, he thrust a business card in her hand. Then he watched her walk out into the cold gray morning, leaving him feeling empty.
15
At first she was not certain as to why she had come. Going home, she knew. She had come to compare agonies, and she had gone away satisfied. His pain was no less than hers. It was as if they shared a semi-private room in the same hospital. Someone had decided that two people with the same condition would be more comfortable together.
This odd conversation with the husband of her husband's mistress actually raised her spirits. In the car she emitted a trill of ironic laughter. Misery does like company, she thought.
All day she had felt like a participant in a scavenger hunt in which she was the only hunter. Each step presented a strange new obstacle, each of which she felt ill-prepared to confront.
