He shook her. “You ordered the house merlot.”
“Please bring the lady whatever she wants. That’s what you said. The waiter acted like a prick, and you acted like a prig.”
“Before, Kendra. Earlier.”
“You’re not making any sense.”
“You wolfed down the salmon.” His body chafed against hers.
“No ... no, I distinctly remember ...”
“You left to go to the ladies’ room.”
She shook her head. “I couldn’t stay there. I ran. Ran and ran and ran until I couldn’t run anymore.” She ended her lament on a sob.
“You were gone a long time.”
“I was halfway to the el station, crying my eyes out, and you ...”
“I was worried. I asked one of the waitresses to check the stalls. She couldn’t find you anywhere. I thought you’d started smoking again. So I waited.”
She couldn’t breathe for his suffocating embrace. Wind stirred the trees. Leaves fluttered to the ground in a wide circle. A tomcat called for his soul mate. She answered from behind a sealed window.
“When you came back ...”
“I didn’t come back!”
“—you thought two other people had eaten at our table. You ordered a second time and made almost the exact same choices. Merlot, salmon piccata, marinara sauce.”
Her arms burned from the numbing cold and the crush of his fingers. “You’re trying to confuse me.”
“Think, Kendra. Think.”
“I had that project to finish, just like I told you. I tried to reach you. You didn’t answer your cell.”
“I turned off my cell because I was with you. We were having a good time.”
“You ... you’re playing a cruel joke on me ... just because I was a little late.”
“It’s all right, Kendra. I understand.” Tears filled his eyes. “Rob’s been putting you through a full-court press. You’ve been under a lot of stress. You haven’t been sleeping.”
She used the flanks of her forearms to pry herself loose and tottered sideways on unsteady legs. “I would have remembered eating a goddamn five-course meal.”
Rain droplets skittered down his face and mingled with his tears. “That’s just it,” he said calmly. “You don’t.”
Chapter 3
KENDRA WAS OUT of breath by the time she reached the house on Marshfield Avenue. Tree limbs swayed across the red-bricked façade of a 1920s bungalow. It was an old house with an old history, and lots of nooks, crannies, and hiding places. Some would say the place was haunted, but it was typical of the architecture found on the block.
Gangways separated the house from those flanking it. Except for the brick color, the adjoining bungalows matched the Swain house in every way, including casement windows opening up octagonal fronts and ground-hugging junipers hiding garden basements.
Seven cement steps led up to the stoop. Kendra counted them out by habit. When she reached the sheltering portico, motion sensors triggered the porch light. Her hands were unworkably cold as she fumbled for the house key.
Inset with a stained-glass window, the door looked onto the foyer and the front room beyond. As a rule, she left on the hall light. But tonight, smoky latticework obscured the interior.
Joel sauntered up the block. Aside from his moony face peering up at her through the trickling rain, he could have been a night shadow, easily lost in the gloom. She turned the key. The deadbolt was unlocked, easily overlooked in their haste to grab the morning paper. She glanced back. Joel waited below, his arms dangling at his sides and the streetlamps chiseling his features into a ghoulish mask.
The overhead light glimmered and steadied. Moth wings batted the lampshade. She turned back to the door and fit the key into the main latch. That, too, was unlocked. She wound her hand around the doorknob. The brass slipped moist across her fingers. The inner mechanism jiggled with her handling. She sensed Joel standing behind her. Reluctant to enter, she screwed around and sought explanation. The gutters made a glug-glugging sound. Lightning struck nearby. A count of five anticipated the din of thunder. The stoop shuddered with aftershocks. He reached around her and nudged open the door. The hinges groaned. Again she faltered, fearful of what lurked on the other side.
“Better go in,” he said. “They’ll be disappointed if you don’t.”
When she stepped over the threshold, glaring houselights switched on and blinded her for a moment. Ribbons of black crêpe paper were strung from wall to wall. Blacker balloons hugged the ceiling. Primary colors swamped everything else. She recognized each face in the packed front room but riveted her attention on her father, who held a birthday cake before him like a trophy. Thirty candles danced in the draft.
A chorus of disharmonic voices shouted, “Surprise!”
It was a picture postcard. Tidings from Marshfield Avenue. Wish you were here.
She wanted to weep, not from gladness but from something profound and unspeakable. Joel’s breath feathered the side of her throat. Warm. Like a kiss. She put a hand up to her wet hair, as if it mattered, what she looked like. Giddy with anticipation, her friends and loved ones waited for the corny reaction. She dragged out a smile and said, “You guys,” as if she had guessed all along.
Another birthday. Another year. Another decade. Over the hill. Black for mourning.
They were waiting for something more, the expectant hush poised like a knife above a layer cake. She reviewed the many steps that led her from the moment she left the office to this moment, when a gathering of friends and family congratulated her on surviving thirty years of living. Time stood still. She was holding her breath, suspended in a limbo between dream and reality.
The spring unwound when Mac McSweeney handed off the cake and collected his daughter into his commanding embrace. She reached around his neck the same way she did as a child and clung to him for those last reassuring pats. Did he whisper in her ear, I love you? Or had she imagined it, along with the downy kiss he brushed across her feverish cheek? But for his premature withdrawal and the excited onlookers, it would have been a Norman Rockwell moment.
She excused herself. Everyone understood. She had to change. She had to do something with her hair. She had to throw water on her face, pinch her cheeks rosy, and reappear dressed in comfortable clothes. When she reemerged from the back bedroom and paused in the connecting archway, she was herself again. Everybody was in full party mode; it was easy to slip into the crowd unnoticed.
When she sidled up to Rob, he grinned down at her. “Recovered?”
“I don’t like surprises.”
“Everybody likes surprises but don’t want to admit it.”
“Joel brought you in on his practical joke, didn’t he?”
Though Rob possessed one of those faces that would remain forever juvenile no matter the age, his russet hair was turning increasingly gray, and two stress lines at the bridge of his nose deepened by the day. “Joke?”
“Making sure I left late.” Their conversation dredged up nagging misgivings ... about a work-driven life that didn’t leave much time for living. She was always on the go. Always preoccupied. And always running on empty.
“I knew about the surprise party, but ....” He drank from his highball. The ice cubes clinked against the glass. Pointing his chin ahead, Rob wrapped an arm around her shoulders. “Come on, birthday girl. Into the gauntlet.”
In the living room, Kendra accepted a beer and took center stage, lounging cross-legged on a pile of cushions. She laughed at the gag gifts and feigned pleasure at the risqué lingerie, the over-the-hill gimmicks, and the It Was a Good Year slogans imprinted on sundry t-shirts and keepsakes. Only the Swarovski figurine from Rob and the pearl pendant from her father were worth keeping.
She left the large blue box for last. White satin ribbons slipped off the corners and piled like a dahlia in her lap. Flaps yielded a jewelry case overlaid with alligator skin. Her hands trembled when she cracked open the lid. Stiff hinges yielded to pressure. Lin
ed in flesh-colored satin, the clamshell interior displayed a necklace of fire and ice. Evenly spaced along the choke line, blood-drop rubies and tear-shaped diamonds shimmered in the lamplight. Two pierced earrings—each composed of one perfect ruby dripping with diamond chips—bracketed the necklace like quotation marks.
She hesitated touching the jewels for fear they would melt into worthless puddles.
Joel sprang to his feet and pulled her beside him. Coupled like a centerpiece on a seven-layer cake, Mr. and Mrs. Swain basked in the spotlight of adulation. Freeing the necklace from its case, Joel held them up for everyone to admire. Confounded by the dazzling display of a husband’s devotion for his loving wife, their audience reacted as expected: with guttural intonations of esteem. Kendra turned into the blazing circle. He fastened the clasp at the nape of her neck. She fingered the single pendant ruby that turned the rest of the stones into mere trinkets. When she twisted into her husband’s arms, he was waiting with a kiss.
In the quiet aftermath, everyone gave her privacy. She took the moment to gather strength. Then, spinning around, she tossed out a winning smile. Joel melted when she washed his face with the kind of worship an adoring wife gives her loving husband after receiving a gift such as this. With trembling hands, she returned the necklace to its clamshell interior and blinked back tears. She wasn’t sure if the tears were for jubilant happiness or profound sadness.
The rest of the evening dragged on like an overlong movie. Everyone feasted at the dining room table, laden with takeout pizza and plentiful side dishes. Friends broke off into intimate groupings, drinking sociably and engaging in bubbly conversation. Kendra was ravenous but didn’t have much of an appetite. Still, she sampled everything, stuffed herself with birthday cake, drank until she was intoxicated with affability, and pretended to be in high spirits. Nobody noticed her throat was bleeding all over the hardwood floor.
Patty Byrnes drew her aside. Best friends since kindergarten, they knew everything about each other, and accepted the best and the worst without judging. “So where do you plan to debut the family jewels?”
“Joel’s balls or the rubies?”
“You know what I mean.”
“Think they’ll impress my gynecologist?”
“Joel’s balls or the rubies?”
“Not Joel’s balls.”
They laughed like old times, when school and boys were the only things on their minds, when the days marched to the sound of giggles, and when the worst that could happen on any given day was a broken fingernail or a disappointing grade on a test.
“Glenna’s divorced, you know,” Patty said. “One year of wedded bliss and pfft! I told her I wanted the toaster back, and she clammed up until I got it out of her. Can you believe? She re-gifted it to Rita.”
Kendra listened with half her attention. The other half was watching Joel and Rob, leaning together like co-conspirators. “Why did Rita need a toaster?”
“Got married last April. To that jerk, what’s-his-name.” Patty read into Kendra’s confused expression. “You didn’t know?”
“Guess I lost touch with everybody.” She shrugged as if it were unimportant. It happened to all her girlfriends. Whenever one of them hooked up with a guy, she stopped calling. Kendra was no different. Patty was the only one she still kept in contact with on a regular basis, but only because Patty was the one to call.
Kendra peered across the room at Joel. The years compressed into a five-by-seven picture frame. The boy she met at one of Patty’s parties had matured. Despite the five-o’clock shadow, the trailing shirttails, and the wind-blown hair, he dripped good looks. She still couldn’t help staring at him from the other side of a crowded room and imagining herself lying naked beside him.
The Steinway struck Patty’s fancy. Cuing in the PianoDisc, she pretended to play while the keys moved on their own power. “Anyway ... giving me a call every once in a while is only polite. We could go out to lunch. Get plastered on Long Island iced teas. Cry crocodile tears over my lost loves and nouveau pricks. Discuss what it’s like getting sex on demand.” She pulled a face. “Does anybody play this thing? For real, I mean?”
Kendra placed an affectionate hand on Patty’s shoulder, then wormed her way across the room and sat next to Joel. He was boasting about his newest toy. “A Catalina 36.”
“Ready for cruising?” Rob asked.
“Tall rig, wing keel.”
“Auxiliary?”
“Thirty-horsepower Westerbeke diesel. Three-bladed prop. Roller furling genoa. Full-battened main with two reef points and Dutchman flaking. Spare jib and spinnaker halyard. Boom vang. Adjustable genoa cars with double turning blocks and clutches. And a mast-mounted whisker pole.”
Impressed, Rob whistled. “Electronics?”
“Radar, VHF in the cockpit, remote mike, chart plotter, autopilot. Stereo speakers wired throughout. Masthead satellite.”
“Where’s she tied up?”
“Belmont Harbor.”
“Galley?”
“The works. I don’t have to put a thing into her.” He looked at his wife. “Except Kendra.”
She slapped his thigh, an easygoing thump wives give husbands to demonstrate feigned displeasure. Joel slipped an arm around her shoulders, a possessive gesture husbands use to brand their wives.
“Hate to ask how much,” Rob said.
“Hundred thou.”
The conversation droned on. Someone turned on the Bears game. Co-workers laughed over a dirty joke. Patty gabbed nonstop with a mutual friend. The cat snuck out of the den, but quickly scampered back to his hiding place.
Joel leaned close and whispered. “Are you okay?”
“Of course I’m okay.” She sent him a fleeting smile. “Why wouldn’t I be?”
When Lenore Swain stole into the kitchen, Kendra used the opportunity to excuse herself.
Gazing out the back door into a murky night, Joel’s mother snuck a smoke over the sink. She wore a turtleneck sweater beneath denim overalls, an adorable outfit for someone in her thirties but out of place when the woman was close to sixty. Lenore Swain was permanently stuck in an earlier generation. She could get away with it. Pampered by money and a life free of worries, she carried with her the unmistakable stamp of privilege. Though no beauty queen, prestige compensated for anything lacking.
Kendra said, “Sweet of you to come, Lenore.”
She waved off cigarette smoke, wrist bangles jangling. “Sorry Jordan couldn’t make it. Business.” Her sigh was heavy. “Always business. This, that, or the other.”
“You must have known about this surprise party for a while.”
Even though the kitchen was steamy, Lenore crossed her arms as if she were cold. “Joel called last week.”
“Wish you’d phoned.” Kendra started a pot of coffee. “I would’ve called it off.”
“Nothing you could’ve done about it.” The shake of Lenore’s head was emphatic. “Once Joel gets something in his mind ....”
Long after Lenore finished her cigarette and returned to the party, Kendra blinked and realized the coffee was ready. She glanced up to see Mac leaning over the porch railing, smoking his pipe.
When Kendra pushed through the screen door, the clack brought him out of his reverie. “How long have you been out here?” The storm had wrung itself dry, leaving behind a cold snap. Her father’s body heat was enough to take off the chill.
“I like your house.”
Kendra took pleasure in the aroma of his pipe tobacco, one of her best memories from childhood. “You said so before.”
“Yes, but every time I visit, I like it more. I can see your hand in the place.” Mac McSweeney epitomized the gentility of a bygone era. Self-made. Resilient under fire. Handy with both carpenter tools and statutory laws. And devoted to one woman for nearly forty years. Friends called him the silver fox, as much for his prematurely graying hair as for his wiliness when it came to business.
She asked after her mother. “How’s Emily?” She made
out where the grass yielded to the vegetable garden, the garden gave over to the rose bed, and the rose bed outlined the garage. In the moonless dark, everything lost color and definition. Tonight, Kendra wished she could crawl outside, blend in with the fog, and disappear.
“A case of the sniffles,” he said into the night. “Birdie’s looking after her. Thirty years. My God, Kendra, when did that happen?” He ran track in college and still possessed the trim physique that allowed him to fill the cut of a business suit with the same ease and sophistication as the sports coat and slacks he wore tonight.
She felt safe in his presence. And secure. It had always been that way. Even on this night, when a stranger was skulking down the alley, hands plunged into the pockets of a hoodie and eyes bent down. Just before reaching the garage next door, he glanced over his shoulder and looked straight into Kendra’s yard. Then he disappeared behind the garage.
Though a circumspect man, Alan McSweeney was also the quintessence of charm. Most people of Kendra’s acquaintance, or of his for that matter, never suspected his darker side. His affable personality and good looks covered secrets and lies, the kind of secrets and lies gentle folk didn’t want to hear much less discuss. “Your mother only wanted the very best for you and Danny. They were the happiest days of her life ... our lives ... when you two came along.” He tapped the tobacco into the flowerbed below. “Thirty years. What does that make your mother and me? Thirty years older, I expect.”
After everyone left, Kendra and Joel straightened up the house in exhausted silence and trudged up to bed. Kendra showered first. They passed each other in the hallway without exchanging a glance, much less a word.
In the dresser mirror, Kendra held up the necklace and admired its splendor. What was Joel thinking to give her something like this? And where would she wear it? This she knew: the dazzling display set her complexion aglow, explaining why women have coveted jewels since the beginning of time. Sparkling stones put them a cut above jungle animals.
Joel snuck up behind her and snuggled against her back. Fresh from the shower, he hadn’t dried off. Water pearled across his arms. He wrapped Kendra inside their wetness and spoke to her through the mirror’s reflection. “You like?”
Trick of the Mind Page 3
