Cruel Beautiful World

by Caroline Leavitt

  Well. There you had it. And why shouldn’t he take someone’s number? She swallowed her jealousy. Patrick suddenly looked up and saw her, and she couldn’t read what was in his face, so she abruptly turned and went back into the house to call Iris, to tell her she was coming home in a few days.

  This time, Iris’s line rang and rang. She glanced at her watch. It was two in the afternoon. Where could she be? Lunch was over, and dinner wasn’t served until five. It was the third time in a week that this had happened. She hung up and called the front desk. “I’m worried about my mother, Iris,” she said. “She hasn’t been answering her phone. It’s not like her.”

  “Why, she’s probably busy,” the woman at the desk said. “You should be so happy about it.”

  “Please, can you just check on her? See if she’s in her room? Room two thirty-four?” Charlotte imagined Iris slumped on the couch. Or, good God, what if she had fallen in the shower? Women Iris’s age had heart attacks. They had strokes. Or sometimes they simply died. “I need to know she’s all right.” Charlotte heard her voice quicken.

  “Okay, honey. Hang on a sec.”

  Music blared in her ears, and five minutes later the woman came back. “She’s not in her room,” she said. “But I’m sure she’s fine.”

  “Can you leave her a message that I called?” Charlotte said. “And wait—can you tell her I love her?”

  “Sure, I will, honey.”

  “And can you check on her again this evening? See if she’s in her room?”

  Charlotte heard the woman sigh, but she didn’t care. Iris was paying a small fortune to be in this place. They could check on her.

  Charlotte hung up the phone and went to look for Patrick. She found him by the basil plants, pruning the leaves.

  “My mother’s not answering her phone, and I’m worried.”

  He nodded. “So you have to go home?”

  He stood up. He was so close she could see the shadows his lashes made on his cheeks. “I think I do. But there’s one more place I have to see,” she said. “Will you come with me?”

  THAT NIGHT THEY took his car, and the closer they got, the more her breath seemed trapped in her body. Patrick slowed to the parking area below the walkway of the bridge where William had jumped. As soon as they were on the bridge, she felt a hot wire of rage. It was a gorgeous early evening. People ambled along the walkway, holding hands, standing at the rails, and taking in the water. A mother was pulling her son away from the railing. All she could think about was William, coming here at night, when the bridge was all lit up. You did this. You did this. She hated him for killing her sister, for leaving her there, swimming in blood, for not turning himself in. He had come here, a coward.

  “We don’t have to do this,” Patrick said. “We can go back in the car.”

  She looked across the expanse of bridge. “I think I have to,” she said. They walked until they were about a third across, not speaking, and then she moved to the railing and looked down at the water. A boat was cruising by beneath them. A few waves churned. All this water went out to sea.

  The boat was gone. The water was still moving. Anyone who had jumped from this height into the water would have been killed instantly. It wouldn’t have mattered how good a swimmer you were, how crafty a plan you might have. William would never have survived this. Fool that she was, she had thought seeing this would make her feel a release, but instead it all became more vivid.

  “I hope it hurt him,” she whispered, and Patrick took her hand and covered it with his. “Come on,” he said. “Let’s go.”

  Chapter 23

  That night, after Charlotte was asleep, Patrick went to the kitchen and poured himself some wine. He wished that they hadn’t gone on that bridge, that he hadn’t seen all that water and imagined William jumping into it. He kept drinking until he knew he was drunk. He thought of the woman who had given him her number at the farm stand. Shelley Kostner. She was a librarian and he liked her, but the whole time he was talking to her he kept glancing over at Charlotte, the way she glided through the aisles of the stand, the way she tilted her head up when she was thinking. He imagined Charlotte’s hair, rich and dark as chocolate, her full, pretty mouth, her straight nose, like a Modigliani. How he wanted to touch it, to touch her. He took another drink. Charlotte was leaving tomorrow, and she had no more reasons to come back, which meant he had no real reason to be thinking about her. Better to think about Shelley Kostner.

  He hadn’t wanted to be a monk. He had dared to think that there might be another woman in his life, that he might be happy again, or maybe it was just that he thought another woman would cover the pain he felt because of Vera. He had tried. He went to parties and bars, and women came up to him and talked, and sometimes a woman seemed kind and funny, and for a moment, possibility glinted in front of him, and then he would think about bringing her home, but he couldn’t quite do it, not until one night, when he found himself talking until three in the morning in a bar with a woman named Sandy. She was a third-grade teacher with a shock of black hair cut into a pixie and big black eyes, and the more he talked to her, the happier he felt. She told him knock-knock jokes that made him laugh, not because they were so funny, but because of the delight she took in them. Knock, knock. Who’s there? Cash. Cash who? No, thank you, I’d like an almond instead. Her laugh was like a peal of bells. He asked her home with him, she spent the night, and it was sweet and warm, and he fell asleep with an arm around her. He woke in the middle of the night, and she was up, too, and they went into the kitchen to have tea, and she asked him about Vera, and he felt so relaxed he told her. But as soon as he did, he wished he could bite back the words. Her eyes filled with tears. She reached across and took his hand, clamping it in hers. “You know why I love that story?” she said. “Because if you’ve had one great love, to me it means you can have another.”

  She took him to her place, a sad little efficiency by a railroad track, with a chipped tile floor and a crack racing along the ceiling. She waved her hand. “I never bothered to fix it up because I figured I’m getting married someday, so why bother?” She smiled at him. “I could fit my whole place in your living room just about,” she said. “Think of the money we could save if we lived together.”

  She kept pressing. “What can I say? It’s lonely living alone,” she told him, and it made him feel that he could be anyone, and he stopped calling her.

  For two weeks after that, he dated a second-grade teacher named Betsy, and at first he thought it might work because she was so happy all the time that it made him feel good to be around her. But then one night, his wedding anniversary, he couldn’t hide his sorrow. He told her briefly what was going on, and she sighed.

  “You know, happiness is a choice,” she said.

  “Excuse me?”

  “You have to take control,” she told him. “You can’t let yourself sink into the mire or you’ll stay there.” She nuzzled against him. “I bet I know how to cheer you up,” she said. She reached for his zipper, and he caught her hand.

  She pulled back. “I’ve had enough sadness in my life,” she said. “I don’t think I need more. I need to be around someone with positivity.”

  After that, he stopped trying to date. He told himself that if something was going to happen, it would happen like a surprise. He didn’t think about the future anymore. When he had lived on the commune, people were always talking about how there was no future because there was no time, and it had comforted him, though he didn’t really believe it at all. The only thing he knew for sure was that things could happen suddenly and it was better to brace yourself for the ride. Maybe he’d find someone to be in a relationship with when he was old. Maybe it would be great to have a companion instead of a soul mate, and he would make his peace with that. It might be nice to have someone sharing his bed, his kitchen. Or maybe he wouldn’t ever have that. Maybe he’d stay right here and build up the farm stand some. Maybe all you got from life was that one little sliver of brilliance,
and the light from that happiness had to shine across your whole life. But wasn’t he lucky to have had it at all? To have had a love like that?

  It was two in the morning, and Patrick couldn’t sleep. He went to the bathroom and splashed water on his face, and then he passed Charlotte’s room. Charlotte hadn’t asked him for anything except that one night when she asked him to go to the bridge with her. She didn’t want him to rescue her. She wanted to rescue Lucy.

  Her door wasn’t completely shut, and he glanced in. She slept so funny. Her head was on the side of the bed, her legs were sticking out on the other side, and she was tangled in blanket. The whole time she was sick with flu, he had sat by her bed, keeping watch. She had soaked through the sheets and the T-shirts she was sleeping in, and he knew he had to change her clothes. He had to see her naked. He had carefully undressed her, as quickly as he could, as if he were a doctor himself, gently cooling her body down with a cloth, putting her in his nightclothes, and then positioning her under the covers. She moaned, feverish. Her hair kept falling in her face, so he got a rubber band and piled the hair on top of her head, startled to see how high and lovely her forehead was, how small her ears. He had called his doctor friend, Gus, the second she had collapsed, and made him come out and take a look at her. “Simple flu,” Gus said, but Patrick knew illness was never simple. He had watched over Charlotte and had made Gus come back to check on her when she hadn’t moved in four hours. “She’s sleeping. That’s what she needs to do, doofus,” Gus told him. “Let her heal.”

  He had sat by her bed, reading to her at first, and then he began to tell her stories about his childhood, about meeting Vera, about leaving school. She never responded, but it still felt good to tell her.

  He was drunk now. And Charlotte was well. He walked away from her room. Being drunk was the only reason he was thinking about kissing her, the only reason he remembered seeing the slight, perfect swell of her breasts, the curve of her bare hips. Or maybe it was because he knew she was leaving, going back to Brandeis soon, to her other life. It was easy to want things when you knew you couldn’t have them.

  He stood in the kitchen, rummaging in one of the cabinets, pulling out another bottle of wine. He’d have just one more glass and then maybe he could sleep, too.

  He got out the corkscrew and it flew from his fingers, and when he turned to pick it up, she was there in the doorway, in one of his white T-shirts, which grazed the bottom of her thighs. He didn’t bother to hide the bottle of wine or the glass, and he waited for her to say something about it, but instead she picked up the bottle and the corkscrew and got a glass and poured herself some wine and drank it down. He watched her. His heart was racing too fast. His breath was too thin. He was caught in a dream. Her skin seemed lit from within, her mouth was impossibly lush, and he wanted to touch her stomach, her breasts, the small of her back. He wanted to touch her face, to inhale her, and then she walked toward him, stumbling, as if she were still asleep, and she pressed her mouth against his, and he was kissing her back.

  IN THE MORNING, he bolted awake in his bed, the light streaming in. His head was thick with a hangover, and his mouth felt as if it had sprouted mushrooms. He turned to get up, to make coffee, and then he saw her, naked and asleep beside him, her mouth faintly open, and he jolted out of bed. What the fuck had he done? He had been drunk, and she had been upset, and then there was all that wine.

  He carefully got up, quietly pulling on his jeans and his T-shirt, and then he went into the kitchen. He got out eggs, and bread for toast, thinking food might settle his stomach. He opened a window. He thought of her smooth, flat belly, the curve of her hip, and he swallowed and forced himself to consider the coffee he was making, the eggs. Normal things that would put the world back into order.

  SHE CAME INTO the kitchen, in a T-shirt and shorts, her feet bare, and he cut his glance from her. He didn’t want to see the arch of her back, her long, graceful legs. “Patrick?” she said. “Is this all too weird?” He didn’t know what to say to her. Of course it was. She was Lucy’s sister. When he tried to speak, the words were frozen in his mouth. She came over and rested her head against his shoulder, and he couldn’t help it. His hands found her hair.

  It didn’t matter what he did or didn’t want. She’d go back to work and then, in September, back to school. She’d have her pick of smart, ambitious guys in a big, burly city where anything might be possible for her, and he’d become a story she’d tell her friends, the grad-school dropout who ran a farm stand in the middle of nowhere. The guy still pining for his dead wife. After a while he’d turn into a memory for her and not a person, one she wouldn’t want to keep thinking about because all of it was soaked in Lucy. He pulled away from her.

  “I know this is crazy,” she said. “I’m not sure how I feel about any of it, and I bet you’re the same, right?”

  “It’s weird,” he admitted.

  Her shoulders rose. “Come back with me.” She swallowed. “We can spend some time in Boston. See how things go.”

  “I don’t know if that’s a good idea.”

  “It’s a wonderful idea. Your staff can easily watch the stand for a few days, right? You can explore Boston, meet me for lunch. We’ll have our evenings.”

  “We’ve known each other only a little while.”

  “Doesn’t it feel like longer to you? Don’t you feel you know all you need to know?”

  “Charlotte—”

  “Maybe there’s more to find out right in Waltham. I could go talk to Diana again. You could come with me.”

  “That’s a horrible idea.”

  “Why is it horrible? She was so quick to get me out of her house. Maybe there’s something she wasn’t telling.”

  “She wanted you out because you reminded her that her son is gone. You can’t always make things be the way you want them to be. Believe me, I know. You have to stop this.”

  “I have to find out what really happened.”

  “You know what really happened. What did it get you, coming here, going to William’s school, going to the bridge? Did you learn anything new? Did it bring Lucy closer to you?”

  “Shut up. Please shut up.”

  “You’re chasing so many ghosts you’re in danger of becoming one. You know you can’t fix it. Some things just stay fucked and you have to deal with it.”

  “Like you deal with Vera?” she said, and he flinched, as if she had punched him. “You’re the one chasing a ghost, not me.”

  She dug her hands into her pockets. “Fine. Okay, if you won’t go, then I can come back.”

  “Charlotte, I don’t think I’m looking for a relationship. Especially not a long-distance one.”

  “I don’t understand. What was last night, then? Was that just a moment?”

  “We were both drinking. It was something that happened.”

  “No. No, I’ve had times like that, and this wasn’t one of them.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Because I feel it. Because I know you.”

  “No, you don’t. Not really.”

  “Go ahead and think that, but we both know that isn’t true. I know you’re hiding out here. I know you drink, and Lucy knew it, too. I know that you can’t let go of Vera, that you won’t let yourself because you’re full of blame. You think I’m wrong to keep asking questions about Lucy, to try to piece together the life she was living, to visit all the places she might have been. You think that’s a waste of time, and that I’m obsessed and acting crazy, but at least I have a goal. At least I’m doing something.”

  “And there’s nothing more to do.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “Because I’ve seen you trying.”

  She sank against the wall. “I was too late,” she said quietly.

  “For what?”

  “I should have come sooner. And I didn’t. I didn’t know how bad things were. She called me to come get her, and I knew she could be a drama queen, expecting me to drop everything and do what she w
anted. I was scared of losing my job. I didn’t go until the next morning, and look what happened.” She rubbed her eyes. “Please don’t look at me like that. I know what I did.”

  His stomach was sour from all the wine. He met her eyes and held them. “You still came. You still drove out to get her. That’s what matters.”

  “No, it doesn’t.”

  “Look, I could have taken my car and driven her back to Waltham. I could have immediately called the police when I thought something was off. But I didn’t. Don’t you think I wish I had?”

  She was quiet for a minute. “I wish you had, too. I can’t lie about that.”

  “Well, I was too late, too. When Vera was sick. I was busy with school and wasn’t paying attention. She wanted to go see a doctor, and I said it was just stress, because we had so many bills, and she agreed with me. What does that say about the way I loved her?” As soon as he said it out loud, he felt himself sinking.

  “Why is Vera’s death your fault? Why isn’t it Vera’s?”

  He looked at her, astonished. “You’re blaming Vera?”

  “She could have gone to a doctor on her own. She could have taken care of herself. That makes her responsible.”

  “I think you should stop talking,” he said. “I think you need to stop right now.”

  “Really? Are you sure? Why was it all up to you? Why were you the one who had to take on all the burdens? Make all the decisions? She was an adult. Why didn’t she take care of herself?”

  “I could say the same about you and Lucy.”

  “Oh, really. Lucy was my baby sister. I practically brought her up. I watched out for her because she sure as hell couldn’t watch out for herself. I was the one who was supposed to be looking out for her, not you. I fucked up. She called me! Lucy called me! If I had gotten here sooner, if I had come when she called—”

  “Jesus! You can’t control everything!”

  “Neither can you! So Lucy wouldn’t let you help her. How were you supposed to know what was going to happen next? So Vera was really sick and you didn’t know that, but you didn’t cause it. It wasn’t your fault.”