The Last Night Out

by Catherine O'Connell

  ‘Well, the truth is, everyone was in total shock. Your mother cried. Flynn’s mother cried. Your dad looked like he’d been foreclosed on. And I’ve seen Flynn look better.’

  ‘Flynn? He went to the restaurant?’

  ‘Yep. He showed up and took your parents and his parents aside and talked to them. Then he told the attendants, that would include me, what he must have told your parents. That the two of you came to the realization that it wasn’t right for you to get married and you had to stop before you made a mistake. He rocked, Maggie. Handled it with a lot of class. Didn’t say a bad word about you.

  ‘Then the Sig Ep boys rallied around him and declared that if there wasn’t going to be a wedding, there was going to be one hell of a party. He’ll be OK, Maggie. Of course, I don’t know about his sister. Nan looked really heartbroken.’

  I flinched at the thought of disappointing Nan. God, I was an evil creature. But you can’t get married for other people, I reminded myself. That was what had brought me here in the first place. And then I got down to the real reason for the call.

  ‘I’m at a truck stop and I just saw them arresting the father of the child on the news. And, am I totally out of my mind, or was Michael there?’

  Carol Anne’s voice changed yet again. ‘There’s a hell of lot more to this story than what you just saw on the news.’

  She filled me in on what she knew, of Suzanne nearly being killed by the same guy who probably killed Angie, of Michael saving Suzanne’s life. She had no idea where Steven fit into the picture. She only knew he was arrested. There were so many questions, I didn’t know where to start. I asked the most important one first.

  ‘How’s Suzanne doing?’

  ‘She’s in the hospital. They had to sedate her and her parents are with her. I think she’ll be OK, physically anyhow.’

  ‘Thank God Michael was there.’

  The prolonged silence told me maybe it wasn’t such a good thing that Michael was there – for Carol Anne anyhow. ‘He was entertaining a male friend while I was at your almost rehearsal dinner. Maggie, I’ve had it. We’re done.’

  I hung up thinking how the world as we knew it had rotated off its axis.

  This time my headlights faced west. My Volkswagen and I sped through the pitch black towards Chicago, driven by an urgency I didn’t quite understand myself. Despite all the misery I’d caused Flynn and others, for the first time in ages, I didn’t feel trapped. I felt a sense of liberation like the caterpillar that had just sprouted wings and was able to fly.

  And then the truth unveiled itself. For once I had done what I wanted. The truth was not becoming Mrs Flynn Rogers Hamilton III tomorrow sat quite well with me. During my college days in Iowa City, I was passionate about things. Theatre. Poetry. Literature. And causes like world hunger and equal rights and the environment. In the years since graduation, those passions had been muted by age, but they’d also been buried under the heavy workload of a job I’d never been passionate about. Sometimes you get so swept up in what everyone else thinks you should be doing that you aren’t sure what you want anymore. And while I still wasn’t really sure what I wanted, I knew it wasn’t Flynn and the life he would have provided for me. Flynn was my mother’s dream and the dream of a lot of other women. But he wasn’t mine. And there was one other thing I knew. No matter what happened, I would not be returning to the Chicagoan.

  As for the mysterious Steven Kaufman. I had no clue who he really was or what would become of him, but I did know one thing. If this baby in my womb caused only one-tenth the upheaval in my life that he had, then I had to put on my seat belt and get ready for the ride of my life.

  It was after two a.m. when I let myself back into my apartment. I rushed into the bathroom to relieve myself for the first time in hours. When I turned around to flush the toilet I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. The bowl was as red as a Christmas tree ornament.

  I crawled into bed and slept soundly for the first time in months.

  The next morning I went to the lock-up where Steven was being held while waiting extradition to New Hampshire. O’Reilly made arrangements for me to see him, leaving us alone in a small windowless room with a couple of plastic chairs. He looked tired, his curls drooping, his face speckled with cuts and bruises. The swollen eye looked better than it had on last night’s news. He sat in his chair like a student awaiting a lecture.

  ‘I just came to tell you I’m not getting married after all,’ I said. ‘I don’t know why I felt compelled to let you know, but I figure you had enough to do with it that it seemed like the thing to do.’

  Our eyes met with a shared understanding that both thrilled and frightened me. ‘They’re sending me back to Manchester,’ he said. ‘I’m not going to fight extradition. But I want you to know one thing. I’m not the man who did those things I’m charged with. Well, except for the bigamy, but that wasn’t my fault. The worst thing I’ve ever done in my life is try to set things right by everybody else.’

  ‘Don’t I know how that goes?’ I reflected.

  ‘Maggie, I know our meeting hasn’t exactly been under the best of circumstances, but if I get out of Manchester in one piece and I come back through this way, can I see you?’

  ‘I don’t see why not. That is, if I’m still here. I may head out west.’

  His next words were guarded, tossed out like a fly fisherman’s lure in the wrong season. ‘And what you told me Thursday night about being pregnant? Was that the truth?’

  ‘I thought it was,’ I replied. ‘But wouldn’t it just figure. I got my period.’

  FIFTY-TWO

  Kozlowksi was spending a leisurely Saturday with his wife and, with nothing to keep him in his dreary apartment, O’Reilly was tidying up his desk, his hangover so mild that he barely noticed it. He was cutting back on consumption. His phone rang.

  ‘O’Reilly here.’

  ‘Well, Detective.’ There was no mistaking her husky voice. ‘I should have known better than to second guess you.’

  ‘Is this the intuitive and persistent Ms Delaney? Don’t feel too bad. You weren’t a hundred percent wrong about your man from New Hampshire. We did have a warrant out for his arrest after all. And it’s a good thing we were watching him or things could have turned out pretty poorly for your friend, Suzanne.’

  ‘I don’t know. Something about that guy still bugs me. But I’m not calling to talk about Angie’s murder for a change. Not entirely anyhow. I believe you offered to buy me dinner if I was free tonight.’

  ‘Yeah, I heard the wedding is off.’

  ‘You called that one too. But I don’t know if that’s a bad thing.’

  ‘Your friend Maggie is a nice person,’ he said. ‘A little confused, but nice just the same.’

  ‘We’re all a little confused,’ said Kelly. ‘But what about dinner? Does your offer still stand or was that a bogus invitation?’

  ‘How about seven o’clock?’ he asked, running a finger beneath his already loosed collar.

  ‘That would be great.’

  ‘I’ll pick you up.’ He ended the call and watched as a group of five young skinheads were shepherded across the room for a lineup. It never stopped. But it was over for him for today. He opened his top drawer and pushed the ever present paperwork inside. Then he reached into the back of the drawer and took out the flask that lived there. He considered it for a minute and then tipped it into the trashcan.

  Kelly pushed her plate away, leaving half of slab of ribs and an untouched mound of French fries. ‘I can’t eat another bite,’ she exclaimed. ‘I’ll be running this off for a week as it is.’ She took a sip of diet cola and opened a Wet-Nap from the pile stacked on the table. O’Reilly polished off his last rib and washed it down with a couple swallows of beer. It was only his second of the evening. She had been counting. He put the glass down, leaving five clear barbeque-sauce fingerprints.

  ‘No trouble getting a conviction there,’ Kelly teased.

  He examined his sticky hands.
‘Guess this isn’t the smartest place for a first date, is it?’

  ‘Is this a date?’ She opened a few more Wet-Naps and tossed them to him.

  ‘So now I’m waiting.’

  ‘Waiting?’

  ‘Waiting for you to fill in the blanks.’

  O’Reilly drained the last of the beer. ‘Well, the Columbo girl is under psychiatric observation and ten’ll get you twenty she cops a loony. Her old man will see to that. If it even comes to trial. Her lawyer shut her up and no one’s talking.’

  ‘So what do you think happened?’

  ‘In short order, she was insanely jealous of Papa’s girlfriend and wanted her out of the picture. Only the first time, she didn’t get it right. Then, when Papa Columbo’s behavior doesn’t change …’

  ‘She figures out they killed the wrong person,’ Kelly finished for him, ‘and goes after Suzanne.’

  ‘Told ya you should be a cop,’ O’Reilly said. He was thinking about another beer and looked around in search of the waitress. Then he looked back at the woman sitting opposite him. Her pale blue eyes seemed to see right through him. Maybe he didn’t need another beer after all. ‘How about a movie?’ he asked, surprising himself. He hadn’t been to a movie in years.

  ‘Sounds good to me,’ Kelly said, pleased with herself.

  After the movie, he drove her home and walked her to the door. She had chosen some art film, and while he thought he was going to hate it, it was actually pretty good even if there were no cops, no car chases, and nothing blew up. Standing awkwardly in front of the garden apartment, he noticed how pretty she looked, half her face in the glow of the streetlight, half dappled with the shadows of the overhead trees, her transparent blue eyes as inviting as the water he’d swum in once, on his only vacation with his wife to the Caribbean. He was struck with the urge to kiss her, but the fear of failure stopped him. It had been some time since he kissed a woman. Since his wife actually. The only thing he’d kissed since his divorce was a bottle.

  Kelly looked down at O’Reilly in the yellow light. Even in flat shoes, she was taller than him. She was feeling emotions she wasn’t quite comfortable facing straight on. Though she knew it might spell trouble, she didn’t want the night to end yet.

  ‘Do you want to come in for a coffee?’ she offered.

  He shrugged and the corners of his mouth tipped upwards. ‘Why not?’

  Too late, she remembered Tizzy. The cat was asleep in the middle of the flowered sofa, and when they entered the room, she raised her head, giving O’Reilly a one-eyed glare. Before Kelly could stop him, O’Reilly put a thick-fingered hand to the cat’s head. Kelly gasped and waited for the cat to tear into him. Tizzy looked at the hand warily and then pushed her head against his palm.

  ‘That is the strangest thing I’ve ever seen,’ Kelly said, watching in amazement. ‘That cat hates everyone but me.’

  My Epilogue

  I’ll talk about the others first.

  Kelly and O’Reilly ended up getting married a year later. In a small civil ceremony at City Hall followed by cake and coffee. That was it. No four-course meal, no bridesmaids, no band, no flower arrangements, and definitely no champagne toast. The rummy cop had actually dried out. But he never got the promotion he was hoping for. His partner Kozlowski got it, so he quit the force and Kelly quit school and the two of them opened a private detective agency. They named it, of all things, White Truck Investigations.

  I went back for the wedding, one of my last trips back east, even if it meant listening to my mother lament over Flynn’s elopement to Las Vegas shortly after our non-wedding. She could barely contain her tears at the thought of another woman living in what would have been her daughter’s house. It pleased me to learn Flynn had rebounded. He was a good man and I wished only the best for him. There was relief in knowing I hadn’t ruined his life after all.

  Carol Anne ended up divorcing Michael. She tried giving him one last chance, but after months of sex therapy, couple’s therapy, regression therapy – you name it – Michael realized he couldn’t practice heterosexual monogamy. The divorce was an amicable one. He left Carol Anne quite well off financially, and with a lifetime guarantee of complimentary cosmetic improvements. At first, life without Michael had been difficult for her since it was all she knew. But she started a decorating business and met a man seven years her younger at a seminar for small business owners. He came to Kelly’s wedding with her, and I must confess, not only was he good looking, I hadn’t seen Carol Anne smile like that in years.

  Unfortunately, things did not turn out as well for Suzanne. She suffered from terrible anxiety and nightmares following the experience on the boat, and was in therapy for years afterwards. She ended things with Vince right off, refusing to see him ever again except once in the presence of her attorney to settle their accounts. Since her memory of that horrible night was impaired and Sal was dead, no charges were ever filed against Vince’s daughter. In fact, Anna ended up the CEO of her father’s company and her name crosses the headlines from time to time. Suzanne sold nearly everything she owned to get out of debt and moved in with her parents. She ended up working at their store. She was diagnosed with breast cancer just before the millennium and died a few months later. Her parents followed her shortly thereafter.

  Natasha’s life ran into a major speed bump when Arthur was indicted for insider trading. He ended up doing some serious jail time and they lost the Lake Forest house. However, ever resourceful Natasha divorced the buffoon and married an even richer, more obnoxious trader. I hear she spends most of her time in France these days.

  As for me, Steven stopped back in Chicago less than a month after he had been extradited to New Hampshire. I was still in my apartment, living off my savings, and planning my move out west. When I saw him standing on my threshold, it was like a ticket to the stars. You have to experience true passionate love in your life to understand how it felt to see him again, his long curls framing his face, his eyes apologetic behind the wire-rimmed glasses.

  His criminal charges had been dropped when his second wife recanted her story against him. She confessed it was her own father who had given her the brutal beating after catching her on the floor of a jobsite with one of the roofers. The lawyers were still working on the bigamy charges, but that didn’t matter to me. We didn’t need a piece of paper to enjoy what we shared.

  So we moved to the Roaring Fork Valley in Colorado, best known for the town of Aspen. There was a serious building boom going on, so Steven had no trouble finding work and I got a job writing for the local newspaper. Our life was idyllic. We hiked and camped and skied. We climbed a few mountains. We managed our lives so our work was flexible, and spent a couple of months a year traveling around places like Europe and the Far East. We trekked to Machu Picchu and snorkeled off the Great Barrier Reef. And in the times between sport and travel, we attended concerts at the Music Festival and studied the classics in Great Books.

  We eventually started our own construction firm, the business grew, and our lives continued to blossom. We were deliriously happy, our passion for each other fed by the beauty and culture that surrounded us.

  Even the crash, which ruined us financially along with many of our friends, didn’t dull our love for each other. Though we had our challenges, the chemistry we shared kept us together. But the crash was responsible for our end in another way. After our company went bankrupt, Steven found work on one of the few jobs in the valley, the construction of a massive house up the Castle Creek Valley. While he was putting in a retaining wall, a massive boulder broke loose from the mountainside, ending his life in a matter of seconds and in so many ways mine.

  So it was with mixed emotions that I learned of this brain tumor. The doctors have told me it’s a fast-growing cancer, so the end won’t be far off. I actually look forward to parting ways with this world now, because I am sure I will see him again in the next. And when we are back together I hope to finally get an answer to the question I never asked him, a quest
ion that has plagued me since he left my apartment after our first night together.

  How did his truck end up on the other side of my street that next morning?

  Postscript to Readers from Kelly O’Reilly

  This story was given to me by Maggie’s younger sister, Laurel. I was totally shocked when she called to tell me of Maggie’s death, and even more shocked when she and her partner, Alice, showed up on my doorstep with the manuscript. They found it in Maggie’s cabin after her death, and Alice told Laurel her sister’s memory would best be served by turning the manuscript over to me.

  Looking at Laurel, I was reminded so much of Maggie, the red hair and impish eyes. My heart skipped a lonely beat as I thought back to how close we had once been. All those shared memories, some good, some not so good. Time and distance had moved us apart, tethered each of us in our own worlds. But it was amazing how quickly I was drawn back into our mutual world when I started reading Maggie’s words. Her story was well told, and I had to laugh at how much about me she nailed on the head, especially the start of Ron’s and my relationship. And in all truth, I owe my marriage and children to Maggie, either directly or indirectly. Had she not gone crazy on that last night out, I don’t think Ron’s and my paths would have ever crossed. Unless I started drinking again!

  But more seriously, the last line of her book was an aha moment. Regardless of how her life played out with Steven Kaufman up until his death, I always thought there was something fishy about that guy. In fact I worried about her being with him somewhere so remote to us as Colorado, especially because we barely saw her again after she moved west. But as the years passed and our communication grew more infrequent, I forgot about my suspicions. After all, our lives were so separate, and I was working and raising my kids.

  But now the matter had been reopened. After I finished reading Maggie’s manuscript, I went into the living room where Ron was glued to a Bears game. I try to be sensitive to his interests and not disturb him in the middle of sports events, but this was far too important to wait even an hour.