Kiss Her Goodbye

by Wendy Corsi Staub

  Feeling gloriously defiant, Maeve reaches for the butter, slathers the roll, and wolfs it down in a few intensely ambrosial bites.

  EIGHT

  I can’t do this, Robby thinks as he and Jen head through a cold drizzle toward his car on the opposite side of the parking lot. I can’t.

  He steals a peek at Jen as they cover the last bit of ground. The wind is blowing her long blond hair straight back from her face, revealing big brown eyes and her one facial imperfection, the streak of white that bisects her left eyebrow. She’s shivering so badly her teeth are chattering audibly.

  She suddenly seems younger than usual. More vulnerable.

  So vulnerable that Robby’s instinct is to protect her, not—

  Stop it. You’ll do what you have to do.

  Oh, hell. Look at her, glancing up at him and smiling. He can see in her eyes that she’s tentative, but excited, too. She has no idea she’s walking into a deadly trap.

  I can’t do this.

  You have to. Think of the money.

  He envisions the growing stack of bills stashed in the coffee can on top of his closet. By this time tomorrow, if he goes through with the task ahead, a coffee can won’t be big enough to hold his cash.

  He used some of it the other day to buy Dad a new shirt for his birthday. It wasn’t expensive: twenty bucks on sale. But when Robby found it, he knew he had to get it. How long has it been since his father had a new shirt? Years. How long has it been since Robby was able to give him a birthday present?

  Never. You’ve never bought him a present before.

  The shocked pleasure on his father’s face when his son handed him a gift was a high unlike any chemical one Robby ever experienced. Dad has been wearing the shirt every day since.

  Yeah, and it needs a good washing. But some things never change.

  He and Jen have arrived at his car. For some reason, Robby is compelled to go around to the passenger’s side and open the door for her.

  “Wow, what a gentleman,” she says with a surprised smile as she climbs into the dim interior.

  A gentleman.

  He slams the door behind her and walks around to the driver’s side.

  A gentleman.

  There are some things he never thought he could be. A gentleman is one.

  A cold-blooded killer is another.

  He slides behind the steering wheel and looks over at Jen.

  “Are you sure you want to do this?” he hears himself ask.

  He holds his breath for her reply, telling himself that if she says no—if she decides to back out now—then he’ll let her go. He’ll forget about the plan, about the money; forget that he ever even opened the note that night in the parking lot.

  Why did he follow its instructions? Why did he show up at the designated time and place to find out who had written the note, and what else they wanted from him?

  Curiosity got the best of him, that’s why. Curiosity, and the need for cash.

  He waits for Jen to answer his question, and he prays that she’ll say no.

  Then he’ll be off the hook. He’ll give back the money he’s already received, and he’ll tell the creep to go to hell. He might even go to the police and report that somebody wants Jen dead.

  Yeah, that’s what he’ll do. He’ll be a hero. Not—

  “Yes.” Jen’s voice shatters his thoughts. “I definitely want to do this.”

  Robby nods grimly, his jaw set as he turns the key in the ignition.

  She wants to do this.

  So be it.

  Stella makes it as far as Cuttington Road before she has to pull over.

  Jamming the shift into Park, she opens the car door and leans out into the wind and the rain that’s been falling since noon.

  She vomits into the muddy rut below, made even sicker by the sight and smell of a smashed pumpkin littering the ground. When she’s finished, she leans back into the car, her stomach still churning, her forehead on fire.

  When she felt sick upon awakening this morning, she assumed it was because she pretty much polished off the contents of Michaela’s plastic pumpkin pail before bed. She figured that was what she got for gorging on one too many minipacks of Raisinettes and Milk Duds.

  Welcome to cold and flu season, she thinks grimly now. It’s starting off with a bang this year, just as the newspaper predicted it would.

  She must have caught something from one of the kids at school. Occupational hazard, and one that never seemed particularly perilous before she was a mother.

  Now, as she reaches into the glove compartment for a napkin to wipe her mouth, she prays that the girls won’t catch whatever it is she’s got.

  As for Kurt . . .

  Well, the truth is, she wouldn’t mind seeing him miserable.

  After what he pulled last night . . .

  “It was just a joke,” he said.

  “Well, it wasn’t funny.”

  “You have no sense of humor,” he accused.

  “You have a sick one,” she shot back, her heart still pounding like crazy.

  She had returned from trick-or-treating with the girls only to have him jump out from behind the door, hideous in a rubber monster mask.

  The girls shrieked and cried long after he made a big show of taking the mask off to show them that it was only their daddy.

  In the end, he opened the front door and tossed it out into the night, telling his whimpering daughters, “There. The monster’s all gone. See?”

  They saw. They calmed down.

  Stella didn’t. Not for a long time. Not even after his grudging apology.

  Looking back, she wonders if she was too hard on him. Maybe he really did think it was funny. Maybe if she had more of a sense of humor, if she were quicker to forgive, he’d be nicer to her.

  Guilt surges through her, along with another wave of nausea. She presses a wrinkled fast food napkin to her mouth until it passes. The nausea, not the guilt.

  The guilt has become as pervasive as the resentment.

  What the hell has happened to her marriage? How did she become this pathetic, vengeful person?

  She catches sight of herself in the rearview mirror and cringes at the misery etched on her face. It isn’t just the stomach bug. It’s everything. Her whole life is falling apart because her husband doesn’t want her.

  He hasn’t come right out and said it. Nor is she absolutely convinced he’s having an affair.

  But she does have her suspicions, based on . . .

  Well, based on nothing other than intuition.

  Oh, and the fact that he’s late coming home every night, and he pretty much limits his contact with her to conversations about the kids.

  It happens in lots of marriages, she supposes—this wall that goes up so slowly that you aren’t even aware it’s being built until one day, it’s just there, looming like one of those enormous houses that are popping up all over the development.

  She remembers what it was like at the beginning. Love at first sight. That’s what she told her college roommates, anyway.

  They met on a ski lift one weekend at Holiday Valley. He was skiing alone; her friend Emily chickened out just before they boarded the lift. So Stella found herself riding to the top of the mountain with a tall, good-looking charmer. By the time they reached the end of the ride, she was agreeing to ski down with him.

  She assumed he meant the intermediate slope, but as it turned out, he had one of the difficult trails in mind. Standing at the summit, gazing at the steep incline before her, Stella wondered if she’d lost hers.

  “What’s the matter? Are you scared?” he asked, his brown eyes almost seeming to taunt her.

  She shook her head, unable to speak.

  “You want me to go first, or do you want to?”

  She started to tell him that he could.

  But before the words were out of her mouth, he was giving her a little nudge. Just a slight tap, really . . . not a shove. But it was enough to make her wobble, almost losing h
er balance. The only way to keep it was to tilt forward . . . and with that, she was off, careening down the trail at breakneck speed.

  “Was he trying to kill you?” Emily asked her later, when Stella confided what happened.

  “Of course not!”

  Never mind that Emily was echoing exactly the thought that had raced through her head earlier as she struggled to negotiate the treacherous trail.

  “It was just a joke,” she assured Emily.

  A joke. Just like the monster mask.

  When she met up with Kurt at the bottom of the trail that day, he was laughing. “That was excellent,” he told her. “You were great. It’s a hard run.”

  His praise warmed her.

  She was young, naive, and, all right, stupid back then. Too stupid to care that she could have been killed. Too stupid to tell him to get lost. Too stupid not to fall in love.

  Well, she’s not stupid anymore. Not stupid, or young, or naive.

  Stella starts the car again and drives slowly toward home, wondering whether she remembered to leave her lesson plan for the sub who’s covering for her for the rest of the day. And she should have brought a stack of papers home with her to grade later, when she feels better.

  If she feels better later.

  With any luck, this is one of those twenty-four-hour bugs. God knows she can’t afford to be out of commission for any longer than that. She has a busy week at school, and she has to chaperone the homecoming dance Friday night.

  Stella pulls into her driveway and presses the automatic garage door opener. As it goes up, she spots wet tire marks on the concrete inside.

  That’s odd.

  It wasn’t raining yesterday, and even if it had been, any tire marks her car made would have dried overnight.

  It’s almost as though . . .

  No. Why would Kurt come home in the middle of the day? His office is a twenty-minute drive away.

  Spotting an election sign on a neighbor’s lawn in the rearview mirror, Stella is momentarily relieved, thinking he must have come home to vote. Then she realizes that election day isn’t until tomorrow.

  Well, maybe he forgot something, Stella tells herself as she pulls the car into the garage and lowers the door behind her.

  She steps out and makes her way to the door that leads into the house, her legs feeling weak and her stomach queasy.

  All she wants to do is climb into bed and go to sleep.

  The house is clean and quiet and smells of the chili she threw together last night right before she took the girls out trick-or-treating. Right now, it’s enough to turn her stomach, as is the sight of the girls’ plastic pumpkin buckets on the counter. She had guiltily dumped half the contents of MacKenzie’s into Michaela’s nearly empty one. With any luck, they won’t notice that all the good stuff is missing.

  Stella hurries from the kitchen after tossing her coat over a chair and her keys on the table beside a basket of gourds and apples. As she climbs the stairs, she spots something clinging to the runner halfway up. It’s a small shred of maple leaf somebody dragged in on their shoe.

  Which wouldn’t strike her as odd if Sissy hadn’t cleaned the entire place from top to bottom just yesterday.

  And if the leaf weren’t slightly damp.

  In the master bedroom, Stella pauses, toying with the leaf in her fingers. She stares intently at the bed she made only hours ago, looking for signs that somebody has been in it. The pillows appear to be propped just as she left them, and the quilt isn’t wrinkled.

  If Kurt came home unexpectedly from the office today, it wasn’t with a lover. Not unless he suddenly learned how to make a bed.

  Or unless they did it on the floor.

  Stella looks down, closes her eyes, sees her husband’s naked limbs entwined with the lithe arms and legs of a stranger.

  Pressing her hands to her mouth, Stella attempts to force back the bile that rises swiftly in her throat.

  The effort is futile.

  With a frustrated cry, she gives up and rushes to the bathroom, retching.

  “You look good, Dad.”

  “No, I don’t.” Drew Gallagher waves off his daughter’s comment with a gnarled old hand, scowling.

  Juggling a bakery box and shopping bag, Kathleen bends over his wheelchair to press a perfunctory kiss against her father’s cheek. His skin sags across his features like the hovering nurse’s baggy, parchment-colored hose do around her ankles.

  The nurse, whose name Kathleen can never seem to remember, tucks in his lap robe, then flashes a conspiratorial smile at Kathleen. “Don’t let this old grumposaurus fool you. He’s spent the whole day waiting for your visit.”

  “That’s just because he knows I always bring him something. But Dad, you have to promise that you won’t try to sneak out of here again.” It happened just yesterday—he managed to dress himself and escape.

  This time, it was a few hours before he was spotted by a policeman on patrol, nearly a mile away from the nursing home. And this time, Kathleen didn’t even know he was missing until it was all over and he was safely back in his room.

  In fact, if she hadn’t happened to call in to check on him and learned about it from the nurse on duty, she might not know about his latest escape at all. It makes her wonder if the staff even bothers to inform her of his every attempt to break out. She vows to have a talk with the management. But not today. She’s got other things on her mind today.

  “Did you hear that, Mr. Gallagher?” the nurse is asking. “You have to stay put. Your daughter doesn’t want you out on the streets. You could get hurt.”

  “Yeah, yeah, yeah.” Drew scowls as the nurse leaves the room, then turns to his daughter with anticipation. “What’cha got for me today, Katie?”

  She hands over the white bakery box and the plastic Wal-Mart shopping bag she just filled with candy corn and pumpkin-shaped marshmallow Peeps on clearance.

  “Fried cakes!” he exclaims, peering into the bakery box. “I love these.”

  “I know you do.” She smiles. She, too, adores the frosted, sprinkle-covered doughnuts unique to western New York and this time of year. There’s nothing like freshly baked fried cakes and hot apple cider on a brisk autumn day. She’s missed that in the years since she left, just as she’s missed true Buffalo wings, and beef on weck, and concord grapes . . .

  Funny how she never realized she was homesick until she actually came home. Homesick for more than food, she acknowledges, a lump rising in her throat as she watches her father looking over the contents of the doughnut box.

  Dad is homesick, too. That’s why he keeps trying to run away.

  I just want to go home, Kathleen.

  “You got me a whole dozen?” he asks, delighted.

  “A baker’s dozen,” she clarifies around the lump in her throat, and he chuckles.

  “Good thing I’m not superstitious about thirteen.”

  “Good thing. And you’ll have enough to share with all of your friends here.”

  “What friends? You mean the jail guards? I’m not sharing with them.” A mercurial scowl dissipates once again when he sets the box aside and looks into the plastic bag. “Candy!”

  “Yup.” She watches him tear into cellophane as eagerly as Riley. Dad has a sweet tooth to rival any child’s. He always has. One of her few happy childhood memories is of going to the five and dime with him, and being allowed to fill a big paper bag with all the penny candy it could hold.

  “I forgot it was Halloween,” he says around a mouthful of orange marshmallow goo. “Are the kids going out trick-or-treating later? Or don’t they do that these days?”

  “They do it, but they already did.” Kathleen perches on the edge of the bedside chair. “Halloween was yesterday.”

  “Oh.” He looks embarrassed. Why didn’t she let him think that he knows what day it is? What difference does it make?

  “Riley was Winnie the Pooh this year,” she goes on with forced cheer. “And Curran was a baseball player.”

&nb
sp; “How about Jenny?”

  Dad insists on calling her that, though nobody else ever does. Kathleen is never sure whether it’s done out of affection, or if he simply doesn’t bother to remember her name.

  “She didn’t get dressed up.”

  This was the first time ever. Back in Indiana, Jen wore a Halloween costume and went out trick-or-treating right up until last year, and Kathleen has no doubt that the friends she left behind still are. But here, the kids Jen’s age don’t wear costumes—at least, not elaborate ones. Sure, a handful of older kids showed up late in the evening with trick-or-treat bags, unchaperoned. And they had made only halfhearted attempts at disguises: a fake mustache, perhaps a wig, an eye mask at most.

  “Don’t give them candy,” Matt advised Kathleen when she complained that they were running low on Kit Kats and Nestle’s Crunch Bars.

  “I’m afraid not to.”

  “Why? They’re too old and they’re not even dressed up.”

  “Yeah, but I get the feeling it’s like blackmail. When they say trick or treat, they mean it.”

  Sure enough, this morning, she woke up to a neighborhood decorated with toilet paper and Silly String and strewn with smashed pumpkins. For the most part, the Carmodys’ lawn and trees were spared, and they brought the pumpkins inside before dark, but there were eggs around their mailbox. It was easy to tell who had turned the older kids away without candy; those houses were hit hard.

  “Jenny’s getting too old for that kid stuff,” her father says now. “How old is she, anyway? Twelve? Thirteen?”

  “She’ll be fourteen tomorrow.”

  “Already?”

  “Already.”

  Kathleen falls silent as he crams another sugar-encrusted Peep into his mouth, his dark green eyes thoughtful. She wonders if he’s thinking about the granddaughter he once refused to know; wonders if he has any regrets about all those wasted years.

  It was Aunt Maggie who convinced Kathleen to invite her father to her small wedding in Chicago, just as she convinced her niece to have a priest officiate, rather than the justice of the peace she and Matt had originally chosen.

  That her father decided to attend caught Kathleen utterly off guard.