Trick of the Mind

by J. S. Chapman

  The widow made a stunning figure. Like her daughter, she was dressed in black for mourning. With her hair tucked beneath a pillbox hat and her suit befitting the occasion, she stood in quiet repose even while her eyes flitted from face to face. Most likely, she didn’t have a clue of why she was here or what was happening.

  The priest was kindly. His words came from Kendra’s childhood, familiar yet offering cold comfort. A language she couldn’t understand—Latin and the mystical trappings of its supernatural syllables—would have given her greater consolation. The casket was an elaborate affair for a practical man, even if fitting for a devoted husband and father. Better, Kendra thought, to bury a pine box instead of a bronze watertight coffin containing nothing but ashes. She did not understand death.

  Mac’s spirit may have taken flight, but Kendra sensed his presence in the flutter of a single maple leaf basking against a dove-gray sky. Soaked red, the frail leaf whipped around whenever a breeze chanced along but stubbornly maintained its tenuous connection to an outstretched tree limb.

  Because the maple tree had been stripped bare, it was impossible to imagine the bronze foliage of the autumn past or the buds of a verdant spring yet to come, but destiny dictated that it live out the seasons overlooking a family gravesite. One plot had been taken. The second was about to be occupied. A third lay unspoiled. There was no room for a fourth. Had it been an oversight on Mac’s part? Or an acknowledgement that Kendra would be buried with her own husband and children? Kendra would never know now. Past, present, and future lay at her feet, but none of these manifestations promised a better tomorrow.

  The inevitable happened. A crosswind blew across the maple tree and detached the leaf. It puffed up into the air, glided on outspread wings, and landed on the coffin, taking its rightful place among the lilies.

  The mourners murmured, “Amen”, and offered final condolences to a daughter whose heart was bled dry and a wife incapable of comprehending the full magnitude of her loss.

  Kendra tossed the rose onto the coffin and turned her back on the grave. Joel held her close as they walked toward the roadway. Over the past days, everyone had looked to her for strength and guidance. She held up long enough to make the necessary arrangements and see the ritual to its conclusion. Now she felt like collapsing and curling into a ball. Except she had one last thing to do.

  “I made an appointment with Daddy’s lawyers after all.” She nodded toward a taxicab parked at the curb. She planned to put off the reading of the will. She already knew what was in it; Mac had given her a copy long ago. But she decided to get it over with so she could sign the necessary papers and move on. “Can you take mother and Birdie home?”

  “Sure you don’t want me to go with you? I have to get back to work, anyway. Mrs. Santana is coming in to go over the accounts, but we can have a quick lunch.”

  “I have to do this alone.” She backed away. “Will you be home for dinner? We can talk then.”

  “Sure. Anything.” Joel had been more than supportive. Kinder than she deserved, considering her foul mood and quick temper. Even now, he closed the gap between them, ducked beneath the picture hat, and gave her a token of his affection.

  She turned towards the awaiting cab, but the doleful expression on her mother’s face gave her pause. Emily resisted Birdie’s entreaties to board the limousine. Stubborn to the last, she broke free and marched down the driveway using long strides and vigorous arm swings. Hugging did not come naturally to Emily McSweeney, but she hugged her daughter now. “There, there,” she said, patting her back. “It’ll be all right. He’s in Heaven, looking down on us.”

  If ever there was a moment when Kendra wanted to be rocked in her mother’s arms, it was now. But she stood frozen inside her embrace. Afraid of letting her guard down. Afraid of being let down. Afraid of breaking into a million pieces.

  Tears running down her face, Emily stepped back and smiled the sweetest of smiles. “Please drop by the house. Kendra’s coming from lunch. She’ll want to see you.”

  As the cab pulled away, Emily was still gazing at her daughter through the window and waving a handkerchief soaked with tears.

  Chapter 13

  EVERY TIME THE blonde lifted a fork to her cherry-red lips, the bracelets around her wrists jangled a dissonant tune. Between munching wilted lettuce and nibbling cucumber slices, she chortled like a Marine and swore like a cop. A dreamy-eyed air often attacked her engaged expression. Something other than eating or catching up on gossip consumed her thoughts.

  Lunch and laughter wound down with each passing minute. At half past the hour, she left the diner and ambled down Clark Street with her girlfriends. Soon she waved farewell. They waved back, calling out her name. “Tina!”

  The name confirmed Kendra’s suspicions. Joel’s law clerk Tina Ambrose was also his intimate companion of the other day: the young thing who exchanged kisses and favors in the front seat of the Porsche before scampering into the office ahead of her boss. Between then and now, she had covered her dull brown hair with platinum glory. It didn’t improve her looks or appeal, but it made it easier to single her out in a lunchtime crowd.

  Tina made three stops before going back to work. Each was a bank or brokerage firm. When the hour struck, she concluded her final errand and headed back to the office. The building’s gloomy masonry and skeletal underpinnings symbolized power, but after working there for several months, she took her surroundings for granted and failed to notice the woman following her ever since she left for lunch.

  Kendra crossed the street, set up a watch post inside the protective spine of a bank’s emergency exit, and chain-smoked. The street ebbed and flowed. Dressed in unremarkable shades of gray and beige occasionally broken up by bursts of red or blue, office workers merged, formed patterns, subdivided, and regrouped. While scurrying here and sauntering there, they had no idea their lives had become open books. Kendra had always watched people like this, but never before did she feel like a voyeur.

  Eventually the corner coffee shop proved a more comfortable place to watch. She occupied a two-seater located flush against the street-side window and drowned her bladder with café latte while letting time fritter away. Her patience paid off when a brunette dressed for seduction strolled from the direction of Jackson Boulevard. Kendra left the coffee shop and mirrored the other woman’s stride from across the street. Upon approaching the building’s entrance, the long-legged beauty assessed her reflection in the revolving door. Had she looked closer, she would have detected a second woman mirrored in the spinning glass panes, only the foreshortened boulevard separating one image from the other, and would have remarked that they could have been mistaken for each other. But without a second glance, she went inside.

  Kendra recognized the woman from the many photos of her on the web. Her name was Juliana Morrissey Santana, the widow of Eddie Santana, the mobster who died of an unexpected heart attack just two months after their marriage.

  A half hour went by. Forty-five minutes. Fifty. Having concluded her business, she emerged into the blustery winds looking more untidy than when she entered. Lipstick smudged her mouth as if a man had roughly kissed it. Her hair was snarled as though a lover had run his fingers through it. And her face was flushed as if a paramour had aroused her innermost yearnings.

  She paused to light a cigarette before marching back toward Jackson. Kendra shadowed her to the parking garage where Santana presented a claim ticket. Impatient to get going, she vigorously paced the glass-enclosed waiting area. Her cell phone rang, and she answered. With the squeal of tires and a honk of the horn, the valet brought down a shiny sports car. While giggling playfully into the phone, she slipped the valet a tip and lowered herself into the bucket seat. Soon she was on her way, still talking on the phone.

  Kendra retraced the woman’s path back to the tenth floor of the LaSalle Street office building. She didn’t bother stopping at the reception desk but went straight through to Joel’s private office.

  He was chucklin
g into the phone. When he looked toward the doorway, surprise registered. He ended the call quickly by saying, “I have to go.”

  “I’m sorry,” Kendra said. “Are you busy?”

  “You should be home. Resting.” He was up and out of his chair. “How did it go at the lawyers?”

  She shrugged. “As expected.”

  “Good. That’s good.” He guided her to the leather sectional. Lavish seating arrangements met the criteria of high-powered meetings and romantic interludes. A cocktail table filled the squared-off opening. On the glass surface sat an ashtray holding two cigarette butts daubed with lipstick.

  Husband and wife sat side-by-side, close enough for thighs to touch but farther apart than Mars was from Venus. Kendra made a ceremony of removing the hat. Joel sat forward, edgy, his heels beating the Oriental rug.

  “The thing is, Joel, I need you. I want you to hold me.”

  “Here? Now?”

  “Yes, here. Especially now.”

  A facile smile gave away his thoughts. He told his secretary he didn’t want to be disturbed. Then he closed the door on a hush. After taking care of the lock and dimming the overhead lighting, he sauntered back and helped Kendra off with her coat.

  Distant voices and mechanical hums filtered in from nearby offices. Breaking unspoken rules of professional decorum heightened their escapade. His skin smelled of the other woman. The discovery titillated Kendra, as if she were engaging in a ménage à trois.

  He pushed aside her clothing, unbuttoning here, unzipping there, and exposing just enough flesh to make the hunt exciting. She did the same with even more urgency, struggling with his belt and tearing at the knot of his tie. He tugged at a Bobby pin and loosened her hair. She stifled a giggle. He swallowed a groan. She applied shuddering fingers to her task. He used his burning mouth to find all the erotic zones that pleased her.

  For Kendra, testing the limits of respectability heightened the climax. Desire didn’t enter into her side of the bargain. Inflicting a perverse kind of revenge was her motive. She wanted to make him want her more than any other woman. She bit down on the soft pad of her hand to silence her moans. After everything, Joel still had the power to arouse her.

  He collapsed against her, his eyelashes fluttering against his cheek and his breaths slowing to shallow whistles. Kendra checked her watch. Joel sensed the gesture and stirred. He muttered sleepy nonsense that cogently meant, Don’t go.

  “I’m beat. I’m going home.”

  He shook his head into her breasts, exposed like underdone eggs in the sulfuric lamplight.

  “When will you be home?”

  “Latish,” he said, “but not late.”

  “Should I make dinner?”

  “I’ll bring home Chinese takeout,” he mumbled. “Wear something see-through. And red. We can nibble chow mein and each other with chopsticks.”

  “When’s the Santana case coming to a head?”

  “Not for weeks,” was his garbled response. “Weeks and weeks and weeks.”

  “Then I won’t wait up.”

  His eyes opened, groggy and black. “I’ll cancel the meeting.”

  “Duty waits for no attorney. Jordan is counting on you to be as dysfunctional as he is.”

  They sat up and reassembled themselves. Kendra put her hair back up, jabbed the hatpin into place, and pushed to her feet. He accompanied her to the door, where they performed the customary rites of separation: kisses beneath the jaunty hat, rehearsed pleasantries, affectionate caresses, and monosyllabic assurances.

  When he opened the door, Tina Ambrose was waiting on the other side, a file gripped in her hand. Up close, the Geisha complexion and rosebud lips made the girl seem breakable. Yet despite loud jewelry, she was as plain and unattractive as an Amish housewife. She introduced herself with a fishy handshake, afterwards handing Joel a document for his signature. To Kendra, she offered stale condolences. Upon excusing herself, she left behind a perfume different from the fragrance slathered on the couch.

  Kendra gave Joel a peck on the cheek and showed herself out.

  Back on the street, Kendra walked straight into the wind. The gusts swept away unshed tears and dried her eyes to a flawless glaze. A block away, she became aware of a man dogging her heels. She lengthened her stride and lost him in the pack but couldn’t shake the feeling that he was watching the stiffened curve of her spine and guessing what kind of sordid tryst had just happened.

  At the gift shop, Kendra presented a shopping bag containing a pair of Gucci sunglasses. A price tag dangled from one of the earpieces. Kendra didn’t have a receipt, nor did she remember buying them. All the same, she found them in her dresser drawer, tucked inside a stack of sweaters.

  The sales clerk said, “If you like, we can credit your account.”

  “Do I have an account?”

  “Why, yes. You do.”

  “If you wouldn’t mind going to the trouble.”

  “Not at all.”

  As Kendra folded the return receipt into her purse, the sales clerk asked, “What’re wearing? The perfume?”

  “I just purchased a bottle. Do you like it?”

  “Very much.”

  “It’s called Black Orchid.”

  Kendra visited the pawnshop on Jackson Boulevard. Burglar bars and a buzzer entry system protected the seedy storefront. The proprietor looked as sleazy as his establishment. Too cheap to put up the thermostat, he wore a ski jacket and a Russian cap with the flaps turned down. When Kendra presented the pawn ticket, he groaned to his feet and trolled along the glass case. She recognized the Movado watch he slid out from a tray. Joel had given it to her on Valentine’s Day two years ago. She wore it only on special occasions. The proprietor didn’t remember her or the watch, but even if he had, his was a business requiring the briefest of memory and the fuzziest of recall. “You can have it back for fifty bucks.” He gave Kendra a second look and the offer a second think. “For you, sixty.”

  “I’ll give you seventy-five.”

  “Deal.”

  Her next stop was a trickier proposition. The maître d’ denied ever seeing her before. The waiter gave her the same line. Neither recalled two women, identical meals, and a scene of epic proportions. Or else they didn’t want to fess up to a wronged wife in search of a scandal and a philandering husband.

  Upon exiting the restaurant, she was taken aback by the reappearance of the exhibitionist. He had assumed his former post with the same feigned posture of disinterest. It seemed too coincidental that he should be here, at this hour, and of all days. In a zip of time, she was transported to that blustery night and conveyed back to present day. Her heart restarted, and her breath returned in a rush. When he didn’t blush from her open-eyed stare, Kendra grasped what she had become: a magnet for debauchery.

  She turned east and walked at a fast clip. The flasher followed. When she glanced back, he feigned disinterest, eyes peeled to the sidewalk and hands plunged deep into his pants pockets. At intersections, when Kendra’s progress was impeded by the flash of a Don’t Walk signal, he would pick out another woman to admire or approach a man to ask the time of day. Mostly, he rocked back on his heels and pretended to be a typical pedestrian. When at last the traffic light changed, Kendra quickened her pace. So did he.

  She headed for the subway station but changed her mind and turned south, hoping to lose him in the crowd. He kept up, shadowing her a few paces to the rear and matching her stride for stride.

  She approached a traffic cop. “That man, over there. He’s following me.”

  The police officer looked at her as if she were crazy. “What man? Where?”

  When Kendra turned around, the flasher was gone. “But he was just ...”

  “Ma’am, are you all right?”

  She saw herself in the reflection of his eyes and shrunk back from the distorted image of a madwoman. Cars honked. The cop blew his whistle and flagged oncoming traffic. Kendra staggered away.

  A block farther on, she sought support
from the cornerstone of a building. The plumb lines and flat surfaces stretched upward toward a single point of perspective. Dizziness overcame her. When she swung her head in a wide circle, the scenery spun at a faster clip.

  Kendra ambled on, heedless of direction. She found herself in front of the art museum. Its Parthenon façade welcomed her with an embrace of familiarity. She paid the admission fee, checked her coat, and climbed to the upper galleries, where van Gogh unveiled his insanity in a self-portrait and Seurat put sunbathers to sleep in a pointillist world. Kendra would have gladly entered either canvas.

  Footsteps echoed hers. She glimpsed her patron with a skewed eye. A smile rose on his feral lips. He wasn’t as fearful as Kendra supposed. Though he hadn’t shaved for a few days and his fair hair was unkempt, he was clean and neat. His relaxed posture and blasé attitude put her at ease. He had found his milieu, here among masterpieces painted by dead men.

  When he angled closer, she allowed him the nearness. A spicy aftershave billowed in his wake. Their roles switched. He wasn’t following her anymore. She was tracking him.

  He made a full circuit of the Impressionist galleries, moving at leisure from painting to painting and admiring each with an artist’s eye. He alternately drew nearer the canvases to analyze brushstrokes and stepped back to take in the illusion. By appreciating the same paintings Kendra had long loved, he forever turned them into nonsensical compositions of rhomboids and tetrahedrons.

  After viewing Renoir’s terrace, Caillebotte’s Paris street, and Picasso’s blue guitarist, he led Kendra to the cafeteria below and paid for lunch. They dined at a table for two. His tray was loaded with meatloaf and cherry pie and hers with a Caesar salad and iced tea. Throughout the meal, he ran an appraising eye over her. She couldn’t shake the feeling that he saw her as a valuable painting set inside an antique frame.

  They didn’t speak a single word to each other.

  When they had eaten their fill, he walked her past stained-glass windows and banks of Medieval armor, and finally shepherded her out to a bleak cityscape filled with diesel-spuming buses and lost mittens. They crossed Michigan Avenue, sauntered inland, and turned onto Wabash Avenue. Upon arriving at a hotel, he offered an elbow. Slipping her hand into the crook of his arm, she allowed him to escort her into the upscale establishment.