Was Bickfords different? Or had she changed that much? Was the grief she had once held in her heart the oppression of a life not yet lived? Had all that pain at long last been lifted?
She walked through the crowd of women wearing their early-autumn-theme sweaters adorned with big orange pumpkins and Indian corn. They must have gotten them together at B. J.’s and wanted to show them off even though it was still September. All these familiar faces... Some of the women had worked on the checkout line of the 7-Eleven for over twenty years, some in the fish plant, and some had never been out of New Hampshire—and all Charlotte felt toward them was love.
The evening continued with heartfelt tributes and toasts made with bad punch. It was a night she would remember forever. And at the end of it, when she thanked everyone for coming, for their support, she added one last thought.
“Well, for those who were here last year, you may remember my speech.” Whispers ran like a current through the crowd.
“But I’ve had a year to work on a new one, and here it is. Everyone has a journey in them. All we have to do is take that first step. That’s all I did. True, it was in a somewhat unorthodox way (laughter ). Who knows where it will all lead? But that’s almost secondary. It’s the journey. It’s all about the journey, because the journey is not about waiting for life to take you someplace; it is life. And life at its give-and-take best is all about the love we give and take. So what I wish for you, my friends, my dear, sweet friends, is love. So much love that it can’t help but spill over you until... until you’re swimming in it.”
Applause resounded, and Charlotte said her good-nights, moving through the pockets of people and making her way toward MaryAnn. MaryAnn put her arm around Charlotte’s shoulder, and they strolled out into the parking lot together, collapsing into MaryAnn’s car. She drove Charlotte back to the motel and parked in front of her unit.
“Well, this is the real good-bye, Charlotte.” MaryAnn leaned over and unlocked the glove compartment, handing Charlotte her new life.
“The man who picks you up at the airport in Italy will take you to wherever they’ve set you up. I’m sure it will be a nice place, something out of the way. Discreet.”
“Did I ever tell you I’m petrified of flying?” MaryAnn cracked up. “No. But then again, you’ve never been on a plane, to my knowledge.”
“Unfortunately, I was on a plane, something called a JPAT, for prisoners. I threw up for five hours. Ever try that in shackles? Not fun.”
“But this is first class, Charlotte. It’s like being in a living room.”
“It weighs a thousand tons. How do they get that into the air?”
“You’re just one surprise after another, Charlotte.”
“Don’t try to comfort me or anything.”
“Tonight, when Joey Buttabingbang picks you up, I’ll tell him to give you some Halcion.” “What’s that?” “It’s nothing bad; it’ll just help you sleep on the plane.” “I’m not gonna see Jesus or anything with it?” “Charlotte, I take it all the time when I can’t sleep. You’ll be fine.
You’ll wake up in Italy thinking you’re still on the tarmac in Boston.” “Okay.”
Then there was a silence, a sad silence that said it all.
“What can I say?” MaryAnn blurted out. “This sucks.”
“Yeah, it really sucks.”
“I know we’ll see each other again.”
“I know that, too.”
“I called Dolly once more before I went to the party, but there was still no answer.”
“Jesus! Maybe she and Dr. Cohen decided to stay in Palm Springs. Maybe they even got married!”
“Well, wherever she is, I’ll track her down. If they are in Palm Springs, she’ll eventually come home. Even just to get her mail.”
“Yeah, that’s right; she’d have to pick up her mail.”
“So...I guess this is really good-bye, Charlotte.” MaryAnn was desperate to keep this short. She didn’t want to fall apart.
Charlotte lifted her thumb up to MaryAnn, and MaryAnn pressed hers against Charlotte’s.
“Friends?” MaryAnn asked.
“Sisters,” Charlotte answered.
“No tears, just well-wishes and good thoughts.” Charlotte opened her door and got halfway out before turning back to MaryAnn and hugging her with all the rightful tightness of a friendship that had endured the thick and thin of twenty-eight years.
“Hey, need any money, like a couple of mil?” MaryAnn asked. And then they both broke into laughter, as though there were no funnier question on earth.
She closed the car door, waved, and did not move until MaryAnn’s taillights faded into the distance.
She walked over to the pay phone in a desperate effort to reach Skip or Dolly one last time. She knew she wasn’t supposed to, but she couldn’t help it. It was stronger than she was. Skip’s number was disconnected, and Dolly’s rang incessantly, jangling like the endless throb of an awful toothache.
She walked back to her room, exhausted; she just wanted to close her eyes for a minute or two before she had to get ready to leave. These would be her last hours in the town she had tried so hard to get away from, and the irony was, she missed it already.
CHAPTER 75
JOEY WHATEVER-HIS-NAME-WAS banged loudly on her door. Charlotte had fallen so deeply asleep, he nearly had to wake her with a low-impact explosive. She felt as if she’d just closed her eyes.
“Jesus Christ, dey said you’d be ready. What da hell you doin’ anyway?” he growled.
Charlotte gathered up her things as fast as she could and rushed out to his waiting ’98 blue Ford Taurus.
She made the attempt to shake his hand, which he completely ignored. “Hi. I’m Charlotte Clapp.”
“No ya not. Ya Lila Nata, and don’t fah-get it.”
You couldn’t hear an “R” in his vocabulary if his life depended on it. It was as if his alphabet went N,O,P,Q, _ S,T.
“Do I have time to make a phone call?”
“No, get in.”
So this was the way it would be all the way to the airport. Charlotte began to see MaryAnn’s objections to her extended family a little more concretely. Joey didn’t say a word the entire time; he just sucked on his cigar that seemed to be out more than it was lit, and kept adjusting the belt that traveled miles around his gut.
She took this time to think about the looks on the faces of the judge and Walter Bloomberg when she didn’t show up for her arraignment. She wondered what the women would think, sitting like guests at a wedding awaiting their absentee bride. Would they be happy? Would they be disappointed? She might never know. She thought about Hobbs and Makley, and this made her laugh out loud.
“What?” Joey asked.
“Oh, nothing.”
Joey grunted.
Finally, as the signs for Logan appeared and they traversed their way through the airport, Joey said his first complete sentence.
“Oh, shit, ya goin’ to Innanational, ahn’tcha?”
“Yes.”
“Fuck, I have ta make a loop. Dis Big Dig has evvyt’ing fucked up.”
They finally arrived at Air Italia. Charlotte only had a carry-on.
“Well... thanks, Joey,” she said uncomfortably, glad to be soon out of his company.
“Wait. Heah’s da name of da hotel ya stayin’ in, and heah’s da Bahzinis’ phone numba, and heah’s da cash I’m suppose to give ya and da bank dat’s got ya money unda ya name, Lila. ”
His accent distorted the “Lila” so that she thought she’d never hear her new name normally again.
“Oh, ’n’ one mo’ t’ing, MaryAnn axed me to give ya deze.” He pulled a bottle of pills out of his pocket. “Dey’ll putcha out so ya ain’t all jumpy on da plane. Dat’s what she tol’ me to tell ya.”
Charlotte took the bottle of pills. “Thanks.”
She walked into the terminal and turned around one last time to see if Joey No-“R” was still there. But he was gone.
C
HAPTER 76
THE COURTROOM WAS FILLED with all of Charlotte’s friends and fans. Her lawyer was there, waiting patiently; the judge came in and took his seat; MaryAnn was present clutching her purse; Makley and Hobbs stood in the back; Edgar Halfpenny sat front and center; and, of course, a barrage of reporters held their notepads at the ready throughout the room.
Five minutes passed from the time Charlotte was supposed to appear, and suddenly, the door opened. All heads turned; however, it was not Charlotte. It was a handsome man with blond hair and blue eyes you could see from clear across the room.
MaryAnn knew who this was from the moment he entered. Skip. How had he found out about the arraignment? What would she tell him? Skip was at long last here, and Charlotte wasn’t. This would be hard. He squeezed into the room and stood in the back.
The crowd continued to sit quietly like shills at a funeral. But the ladies of Gorham knew full well that the casket was empty. Every now and then, someone would pass a furtive glance but then look down immediately if the person behind them looked back.
The minutes dragged by: 9:10... 9:15... 9:20...The judge, Bloomberg, and the prosecutor looked baffled. MaryAnn was as calm as the eye of a storm. The minutes passed with excruciating anticipation. It was as if someone had wound a watch too tight and the spring finally had to snap. At 9:25 it did.
Judge Cavallo stood up. “It appears that Miss Clapp is not going to show up today, so what I propose to do is to—”
At that very moment the door of the courtroom sprang open. There, to everyone’s shock, stood Charlotte Clapp, who was supposed to be gone hours ago—Charlotte Clapp, beneficiary of MaryAnn’s grand plan gone somehow awry. MaryAnn looked pale as a ghost.
Cautiously Charlotte walked down the center aisle of the court, as if she were avoiding land mines that lay between her and the judge.
Bloomberg stood up as Charlotte approached. If eyes had the capability to drill holes through someone, Charlotte would have become a pasta colander under Bloomberg’s gaze.
“Thank you for joining us today, Miss Clapp,” the judge said, irritated beyond the pale. Then, turning to her lawyer, he asked if he was ready to begin.
“Yes, Your Honor,” he replied, though he did not look entirely convinced.
“Where the hell were you?” Bloomberg hissed quietly so that only Charlotte could hear him. “I can’t decide whether to defend you or strangle you!”
“I got caught in traffic.”
“Gorham has no traffic!”
“Exactly. That’s when I realized I was lost.”
“We’ll talk about this later,” Bloomberg grumbled.
Charlotte’s lawyer stood up before a room of fans that seemed to have had a spell of sad resignation cast over them. There was no way their heroine would avoid jail now. She had already sealed her fate by admitting guilt weeks ago. This was just due process now, merely a last opportunity to say good-bye.
“Your Honor,” Bloomberg began, “I have informed Miss Clapp as to what will transpire here today.”
“Miss Clapp,” Judge Cavallo asked, “would you approach the bench?”
Charlotte stood up and walked toward the judge.
“Miss Clapp, for the bank robbery perpetrated on the Gorham Savings and Loan, in which you stole two million dollars, how do you plead?”
“Excuse me,” Charlotte interrupted.
“Yes?” Judge Cavallo asked.
“I have something to say to the court first, if it’s okay with you, sir.”
“Okay? Why wouldn’t it be okay? You come in a half hour late; then you want to have a little chat with the court. What next? Recess? I should explain to you now, Miss Clapp, that recess does not mean milk and cookies.” The gallery giggled.
Bloomberg tried to sit Charlotte down, but her momentum could not be reversed.
“I know this is highly unusual, but I’ve been up all night thinking and rethinking about today, about this moment, and I really feel I need to get something off my chest.”
“I don’t exactly know what you mean, but court decorum became a moot point about a half hour ago, so by all means, take a load off your mind,” Cavollo offered. Cavollo was clearly becoming more curious than annoyed. Even for him, Gorham could be a bit humdrum. This was at least out of the ordinary, albeit, irregular.
Charlotte turned to the anxious crowd. It was standing room only. People were wedged into that courtroom tighter than acorns in a squirrel’s cheeks.
“I know most of you,” Charlotte began, looking around the room. “Not all of you well, but we’ve talked and shared, laughed and cried, endured and survived. On some level there is this unspoken connection we have, be it our town or some history we’ve had along the way. But it’s a strong bond. You’ve showed me that in so many ways these last few weeks.
“I’ve committed an unspeakable act, robbing our bank of two million dollars, and all of you have stuck by me. I have to be honest. I was going to skip bail, leave town without a trace, flee the scene of the crime, and leave you all wondering what happened to Charlotte Clapp.”
No one stirred. No one looked around. No one wanted to convey that they knew anything. They sat at attention with military precision. Even MaryAnn sat so still that it looked as if she would burst into a million pieces of confetti if someone simply tapped her on the shoulder.
“Skipping bail was the only way I could stay out of jail. But last night, when I should have been well on my way, something clicked. It was as though a stoplight went off in my head and leaving became a problem for me.
“I have to admit I was torn. On the one hand freedom awaited me; on the other... well, you know. But in thinking about it, I realized that it wasn’t freedom that awaited me at all. I would have still been behind bars, except this time the bars would have been my own. I was running away from the people who believed in me, who supported me. How could I be free with that knowledge? I’d be more free being in jail, knowing I had done the right thing by everyone who stood by me.
“The closer I got to leaving, the less free I felt. After a year of growing, learning, coming into my own... how could I run away? Hell, I had just arrived!
“And so I want to thank you all for helping me do the right thing. Destiny? I don’t know. But I do know this: I wouldn’t change a thing. Not for all the money in the world.”
Applause rang out through the court, and instead of hurling his gavel down, the judge just sat there, letting the room revel in what seemed more like a celebration than an arraignment. Even he could feel the strange joy. Finally, the clapping subsided and an eardrum-breaking silence spread over the court.
“Miss Clapp,” the judge said, gathering his thoughts together, “thus far, this hasn’t been your ordinary, everyday arraignment. So, since we have broken with judicial tradition already, I suggest either Mr. Bloomberg or our court-appointed prosecutor, Ms. Larson, say a few words now.”
Bloomberg and Larson looked over at each other as if to say, “You first,” “No, you first.” Finally, Ms. Larson rose and faced the court.
“Okay. Well, as you may or may not know, our revered ex–bank president, Mr. Kelly, had been illegally harboring great deals of money over the years in Gorham Savings and Loan.
Boos and hisses rumbled amid the pews. The proceedings were becoming more like a boxing match than an arraignment. Cavallo’s gavel came down.
“Order!” he yelled.
“It took a disgruntled employee, who was tired of receiving honeyed hams for Christmas, to come forward and bring this to our attention. But it was Charlotte Clapp who helped us fill in some of the details of Kelly’s scam.”
Again the court cheered, and again Cavallo struck his gavel down.
“That scam not only involved outside funds, but your money as well. Unbeknownst to the good people of Gorham, you were getting...”
A voice from the back called out: “Screwed!”
“Yes,” the prosecutor agreed, “in a manner of speaking, you were getting screwed.”
“Without any of the pleasure!” someone else yelled out. Laughter exploded. Cavallo did nothing: it was hopeless.
“And so, with the help of Ms. Clapp, we were able to gather a great deal of the information needed to track Kelly’s actions to the
penny and indict him on felony charges.”
Everyone clapped, even Makley and Hobbs.
“Now, as a prosecutor, it is within my power to make certain decisions with regard to the prosecution of a defendant. And so, after deliberating, I have arrived at a conclusion.” She turned to Charlotte. The only sound you could hear in the entire courtroom was a fly caught in the blinds.
“Ms. Clapp, because of your invaluable help in exposing the illegal escapades of both Kelly and his brother-in-law, it was decided by the government two days ago to drop all charges against you. Needless to say, I’m glad you opted to stay here.”
“The bond is exonerated,” the judge exclaimed. “The money posted is to be returned to the suretor, and the defendant is free to go.” Judge Cavallo was relieved, as happy for Charlotte as he was to have an end to these unorthodox proceedings. He needed to go back to his chambers and have a well-earned drink.
Well, it was as if the governor had delivered a reprieve with less than a minute to go.
Applause, cheers, and downright jubilation could be heard a quarter mile from the courthouse.
Charlotte was free to go, free to walk out into the streets of Gorham without fear, without shame. And a town that was once anything but happy to her now felt like the happiest place on earth. These once ordinary streets were transformed as a host of hundreds escorted her into the new day.
Night Swimming Page 34
