“Yeah. There was.” Erin shrugs and goes back to the fridge, pulling out a plastic carton of supermarket-style caramel apples with orange and yellow sprinkles. “You think these are any good?”
Relieved the subject of Robby has been dropped, at least for now, Jen says, “You’d better not eat them. They’re probably for the kids.”
“So? There are only two kids, and there are three apples in here.”
“Yeah, but Erin . . .” Jen shakes her head. She sighs and stares absently at the calendar on the fridge door, where Mrs. Gattinski’s neat printing on today’s date reads, Chaperone dance/Pick up Jen @ 7:30.
“Don’t eat the candy apples, okay Erin? Have a regular apple. There’s a bunch of those in the crisper. Mrs. Gattinski told me to help myself to as many as I want.”
“Fruit? That’s boring.”
“It’s not boring. It’s healthy. Here.” Jen takes a couple of apples from the crisper and puts them on the cutting board, along with Mrs. Gattinski’s red-handled corer and a long paring knife.
“What am I supposed to do with that?”
“Cut up an apple. That’s how I do it for the girls.”
“What am I, three years old? If I want an apple, I can eat it the regular way.”
“Yeah, but for some reason they taste better cut up.”
“You’re a nut,” Erin says, but not in a nasty way. “Anyway, I don’t want an apple unless it’s a candy apple.”
“Well, those are for the kids.”
“Who’s going to notice?”
“Erin, no.”
“Please–please–please?”
“No–no–no.”
“Meanie.”
Grinning and rolling her eyes, Jen goes back into the front hall. She double checks to make sure the door is locked, just in case. After what happened a few weeks ago, when she thought she saw a Peeping Tom out there . . .
Well, she isn’t taking any chances.
It’s not like she can call her Dad to come running over here this time if she gets spooked. Her parents are way up in Niagara Falls with her brothers, eating dinner at the Como.
In fact, with any luck, the restaurant will be jammed on a Friday night, and it’ll take them forever to get a table. Then after they eat, maybe they’ll stay to walk around the falls for a while, since it’s such a nice night. Riley always begs to do that when they go to the Como.
If things go as planned, one of the Gattinskis will probably be home before Jen’s family is, and they’ll never know she went out.
If not, she just has to pray that her mother won’t look into her room to check on her. She never should have said that about being sick. Knowing Mom, she’ll be all worried and want to hurry home and get the thermometer.
As it is, Jen figured she’d probably be calling to check up on her. Good thing she had the foresight to take the phone off the hook so the line will ring busy. For once, she’s glad her parents weren’t willing to spring for the call waiting service.
She almost left a pillow propped in her bed beneath the blankets, too, the way people do on lame TV shows when they want to make it look like somebody’s sleeping. But Jen figured she’d probably get into even more trouble if her parents found that.
This way, if they beat her home and find her room empty, she can make something up about how Mrs. Gattinski called for a sitter after they left. She can say Mrs. Gattinski was in a bind and that she felt really bad not helping her out.
Oh, who is Jen kidding?
That won’t work. Not when she’s supposed to be grounded. And sick.
The bottom line: if her parents get home before she does, she’s in trouble.
But who cares? She’s in trouble anyway.
“I’m going to go get the kids to bed,” she calls to Erin. “Don’t eat anything till I get back. And don’t order Pay Per View.”
“You know, you really need to lighten up, Jen. You’re totally no fun,” Erin grumbles, and it sounds like she means it.
So they’re back to this?
Maybe Jen was better off when Erin wasn’t speaking to her. At least then she didn’t feel like such a straitlaced loser.
Jen heads upstairs, wishing things would just go back to the way they were, before . . .
Before she found out Robby is dead?
Before she found out Quint Matteson is dead?
Before she found out her father isn’t her father?
Before they ever moved to Woodsbridge?
Suddenly, an overwhelming wave of nostalgia sweeps over her and she longs to be back in her old life in Indiana. She wants it so badly she has to stop near the top of the stairs and grip the railing to steady herself. Closing her eyes, she pictures her old friends, her old house, her old . . .
Family.
Mom, Dad, Curran, Riley, the way they used to be.
Her old self. Happy-go-lucky Jen, not a care in the world.
But that girl is gone forever, and so is the rest of it.
She’s stuck here, stuck with a life that feels more peculiar with every passing day . . . almost as though it was meant to belong to somebody else.
It’s almost time.
Jen has disappeared into the bathroom upstairs with the two children. They’re whining again, this time about toothpaste flavors. Good Lord, their mother has spoiled them rotten. It’s almost tempting to shut them up once and for all . . . but that would be too messy.
The plan has already become complicated, thanks to Erin showing up here tonight. At first, it almost seemed prudent to wait, to search for another opportunity to get to Jen when she’s alone and vulnerable.
But that’s starting to become more and more difficult. Especially now that they’ve gone and changed the locks at 9 Sarah Crescent.
Very clever of Kathleen to do that—or so she believed. Has it given her a false sense of security? Does she think that simply by changing the locks she can keep at bay any threat to her cozy little world?
And did Jen assume, when she checked the front door lock just now, that she’s safe because she’s on this side of it?
Did it never occur to her that the danger she’s instinctively bent on evading might have slipped into the house when nobody was looking?
She thought she heard something a short time ago.
Then, a few minutes later, so did Erin.
Funny . . . they both said that at times when I hadn’t made a sound.
Are their ears playing tricks on them? Is hyper-vigilant paranoia conjuring footsteps and creaking floorboards where there are none?
Perhaps.
Or perhaps some primitive intuition has kicked in: the same intuition that alerts a helpless creature to a nearby predator.
What a useless instinct it is, for the unfortunate prey tends to sense its vulnerability only when it’s too late.
Listen to Jen up there, singing a silly song to the girls. The water runs, stops, runs, stops. Giggling children and their unsuspecting babysitter retreat down the hall. The door is left ajar; voices float down the stairs. She’s reading a story.
Good night, Moon.
Most of the words are muffled, but their lulling rhythm is recognizable even from down here.
Who would have thought I’d hear that story again? Who would have thought I had it memorized?
Even after all these years, it comes right back: the great green room, the red balloon, the quiet old lady whispering hush.
And Mother, and Father . . . snuggling on the sofa between the two of them. All was right with the world back in the days of Good night, Moon.
Damn Jen for choosing that book to read tonight.
Damn her for dredging up memories better left where they belong: buried beneath decades worth of bitter resentment . . . and blood lust.
Damn her to hell.
It’s time to do just that.
Time to step out of the shadows.
Good night, Moon.
Goodbye, Jen.
“Excuse me, Ma’am, can I help you?”
Stella turns to see that the restaurant hostess has left her post in the reception area and is hurrying after her.
Reluctantly pausing her stride toward the sign marked Banquet Room, Stella tells her, “I’m sorry, my husband has a meeting in there.” Her icy hands clench into fists inside the pockets of her long trench coat. “He just . . . he forgot something at home and he asked me to drop it off for him.”
“He’s at a meeting in there?”
Stella nods, already knowing, just from the woman’s dubious expression, that this just isn’t going to happen. She’s not going to open that door and walk into that banquet room and find Kurt in a meeting.
“Are you sure about that, Ma’am?”
“I thought he said this is where he’d be.”
“Because there is a banquet in there . . .”
Hope flickers once again.
“. . . for the Daughters of the American Revolution Good Citizenship awards.”
Hope is extinguished.
Deep down, she knows she should have given up when she pulled up to the restaurant and failed to see Kurt’s car. Between the parking lot and the door, her brain conjured up all sorts of possible reasons: he’s late, he’s come and gone, he got a ride with someone else, he’s decided to skip the banquet and surprise her at the high school gym, he’s sick, he’s hurt, he’s dead.
If only he were dead, damn him. Being a widow would be better than being divorced . . . wouldn’t it?
If she were a widow, people would offer sympathy rather than pity.
Stella doesn’t want pity.
She doesn’t want sympathy, either.
Christ, Stella, what do you want?
Do you want Kurt back?
All she knows for certain is that she’s already lost him. She swallows the painful truth with an enormous lump in her throat.
“Ma’am?” the hostess asks. “Are you all right?”
Stella nods, unable to speak. If she tries to speak, she’ll cry, and she can’t cry here. She turns her back on the stranger’s sympathy—damn it, on her pity—and heads blindly toward the exit.
Outside, the cold November night wind whips her hair across her eyes. The strands stick to the few tears that manage to escape and are blown dry in place as she makes her way to her prized Volvo station wagon.
Will she even get to keep the car?
The wayward thought is followed by another, far more disturbing one: Will she get to keep the girls?
What if Kurt insists on dual custody?
Frantic fear takes its place alongside sorrow and humiliation.
Calm down, Stella. It hasn’t come down to that. It won’t come to that. Kurt won’t try to take the girls away. He won’t.
Slides behind the steering wheel, closes the door to shut out the wind. In the silence, she heaves a vehement whisper. “I hate you.”
The wrath is directed toward Kurt as much as it is toward herself. How did she become this person? This frumpy, put-upon, cheated-upon suburban housefrau? What the hell happened to the beautiful, confident blonde with a lifetime of endless possibilities ahead?
Bowing her head in despair, she jabs her key into the ignition. What now?
Not just for the rest of her dismal life, but in the immediate future? Where the hell is she going to go now?
Should she drive around aimlessly, looking for her husband?
Should she go to the school and chaperone the dance?
No. She can’t do either of those things. She isn’t ready to face her coworkers or the students or the loud music; she certainly isn’t ready to face Kurt.
Despite her fantasies about confronting him earlier, she has no idea what she’ll say to him now that his suspected duplicity is a reality. Will she ask him for an explanation, or a divorce? Will she pretend to believe him if he denies an affair? Will he even bother to deny it?
Again, she finds herself grasping at straws, searching for another explanation for his behavior. Terminal illness? Money problems? Embezzlement?
But deep down, she knows. What else can it be? When a suburban husband becomes withdrawn, disinterested in his wife, starts sneaking around and lying, there’s only one reason.
It’s got to be another woman.
Utterly, emotionally drained, Stella starts the engine and heads in the only direction she can possibly go right now: toward home.
“Okay, this time I mean it. Good night, girls.”
“One last kiss?” Michaela begs, as her sister’s protest is lost in an enormous yawn.
“Just one.” Smiling, Jen plants a final kiss on each twin’s forehead, then slips out the door, leaving it ajar.
They sure are cute. A handful, but cute.
She stops to go to the bathroom, then spends a few minutes wiping the purple globs of toothpaste out of the sink and mopping up the water that splashed on the floor.
It’s amazing how exhausting it can be to get two little girls into bed. Checking her watch, she realizes she’s been up here for a good twenty minutes—maybe even a half hour.
What the heck has Erin been doing downstairs all this time?
Come to think of it, Jen is surprised she didn’t come up looking for her, asking if she can pleasepleaseplease order a movie or pleasepleaseplease eat the candy apples. Then again, she wouldn’t be surprised if Erin just went ahead and did one or both of those things. She isn’t the type to obey the rules, especially when they’re set by a peer.
As Jen steps out of the bathroom, she stops to listen in the hallway. All is quiet in the room down the hall. Good. Maybe the girls are so worn out they’ll go right to sleep.
She can hear the music blasting from the television set and realizes Erin has settled on MTV. Which is great, but it’s too loud.
“Hey, Erin?” she calls, reaching the first floor. She raises her voice over the familiar opening strains of Mercury Rev’s new video. “You want me to make some popcorn? I bet Mrs. Gattinski won’t mind. I’m kind of hungry, too.”
No answer.
Coming into the family room, Jen finds no sign of Erin, and the remote lying on the carpet in front of the couch.
She sighs. The least Erin could do if she drops something is pick it up. She bends to retrieve it, lowers the volume, and sets the remote on the coffee table. Erin must be in the bathroom under the stairs. She straightens a couch pillow that’s precariously perched on the arm of the couch.
She hears a faint rustle of movement somewhere behind her.
“You want popcorn?” she asks again, turning toward the kitchen, expecting to see Erin there.
The kitchen, located past the counter that separates it from the family room, is empty.
“Erin?”
Silence.
But not the kind of silence that means a room is deserted.
No, it’s the kind of silence Jen used to sense when she and her brothers played hide and seek in their old house. There were plenty of nooks and crannies where they could conceal themselves, but of course, she was familiar with every one of them.
She still remembers how she’d check the potential hiding places one by one, even though she always ultimately perceived, walking into a room, whether or not she was alone there. She’d either sense the emptiness, or she’d sense the stealthy, watchful presence of somebody hovering nearby, witnessing her every move as she searched—or merely pretended to, for Riley’s benefit.
Jen has that same acute awareness now. Only this isn’t a game.
Is it?
“Erin?”
This isn’t the comfortable old house in Indiana. This is a brand-new house, a strange house full of dark, unfamiliar hiding places.
Jen tries to swallow and realizes her mouth has gone dry.
“I want to go over and see the falls now!” Riley announces as they leave the restaurant.
Kathleen’s heart sinks. She knew it was coming. They never get away with a trip to the Como without driving over to look at Niagara Falls down the road.
But
she’s been feeling increasingly uneasy all evening. Right now, all she wants to do is get home to check on Jen. She should never have let her stay home alone tonight.
“You know what, Riley?” she says before Matt can speak. “Mommy is feeling a little too tired to see the falls tonight. Why don’t we come back tomorrow, in the daylight?”
“But I like to see it at night!” Riley protests in dismay.
“Yeah, we want to see the lights,” Curran chimes in.
“Are you okay, Kath?” Matt asks, touching her sleeve.
“I’m just worried about Jen,” she admits in a low voice.
“You have your cell phone on, right?”
Kathleen nods.
“You told her to call if she needed us, right?”
“Yes, but—”
“She’s fine, Kathleen. Let’s just take the boys over to see the falls, and then we’ll go home.”
They’ve reached the car. Matt presses the key remote to unlock the doors.
“Please, Mommy?” Riley cajoles, looking up at her.
“All right,” she agrees, pulling her cell phone from her pocket. “But I just want to call Jen and make sure she’s okay.”
Matt nods, opening her door for her. “I’m sure she’s fine, but go ahead.”
Sitting in the passenger’s seat as Matt starts the engine, Kathleen dials their home number.
“Well?” Matt asks, hand poised on the shift.
“It’s busy. She must be on the phone.”
“Guess she’s feeling better,” he says with a wry shake of his head.
“What if she’s not? What if . . . ?”
“What? She’s talking to one of her friends, Kathleen. Trust me. She’s fine.”
She nods, her stomach churning. If the boys weren’t in the backseat, all ears, she would tell Matt the truth right now.
“Can we go to the falls now?” Curran asks hopefully.
“Sure. Let’s go.” Matt steers out onto Pine Avenue.
Kathleen stares out the window, trying to quell her nagging fear and the unsettling realization that she didn’t even go upstairs to kiss Jen goodbye before they left. The boys were already waiting in the car, and Matt rushed her out the door.
Kiss Her Goodbye Page 24
