Close to Home

by Cynthia Baxter

  The French restaurant across the street from the monolithic office building that housed Klinger-Wycoff Pharmaceuticals had been a clothing store back in the old days, featuring designer fashions at a discount. Now it was obviously a popular hangout for the business lunch crowd. There were more silk blouses and rayon dresses in there now, it seemed, than when it had been a boutique. Anne immediately took charge.

  “Oh, here comes the maitre d’. You always have to play games with this guy to get a decent table.”

  Beside her worldly companion, Jessica felt reduced to a passive role, shy and inadequate, like a child who was being led around by her much more knowledgeable older sister. Had she ever been this confident, she wondered, totally at ease in a place like this, where the waiters nearly outnumbered the patrons?

  “Before we order,” Jessica said as soon as their waiter had left them to enjoy the view of the hungry faces pressed against their window, peering at the menu posted there, “let’s agree to split the check, okay? I know that having lunch today was your idea, but I certainly don’t want you to feel—”

  “Are you kidding?” Anne looked surprised. “I’ll just put this on my expense account. I’ll call it... oh, I don’t know, research or something. Pumping an old-timer about how things used to be done back in the good old days.”

  Before Jessica had a chance to voice her protest against that one, their waiter reappeared, this time bearing two large menus.

  “Would you like something from the bar?”

  “I’d love a white wine spritzer,” Jessica said gratefully.

  “Oh, just a Perrier for me.” Anne sighed. “God, you’re lucky. A woman of leisure, able to have a drink at lunch because you have nothing to do all afternoon but, what, hang out at Bloomingdale’s? I, meanwhile, have to remain totally sober and responsible-looking while I’m presenting those damn projected P and Ls to Al Norman at three.”

  Jessica just smiled wanly, glad she had had the foresight to order something alcoholic. The way things were going, she was definitely going to need it. When the waiter delivered it a few seconds later, she helped herself to two large swigs.

  “So, Jess, tell me everything.” There was an eager glint in Anne’s eye as she leaned forward, both elbows on the table. It was as if she were waiting for Jessica to report back on life on another planet. “Tell me all about your life out in lawn-mower land. You and Prince Charming . . . and Baby Charming, of course. I want to hear every last detail.”

  Jessica was annoyed. “Really, Anne, it’s not as if I’ve joined some bizarre religious cult or something.”

  “You might as well have, as far as I’m concerned. I mean, look how different our lives have become. I’m burning the candle at both ends, trying to work twelve hours a day and still manage to have something resembling a real life—”

  “For heaven’s sake, you make it sound as if I have nothing to do all day but polish my nails,” Jessica returned sharply. “I work hard, too, you know.”

  Anne was undaunted.

  “Okay,” she said with a shrug. “So tell me all about it. What are you doing with yourself these days?”

  Jessica hesitated. Great, she thought. I’ve really backed myself into a corner now. What am I going to tell Anne, who in less than three hours is going to tell the executive vice president of one of the country’s top five drug companies where the firm should go from here? That the current focus of my life is trying to choose a color scheme for my living room? That my main mission for the rest of the week is getting my car serviced?

  She was saved by the sudden appearance of another well-dressed woman, this one in a mauve suit, at their table.

  “Anne!” the woman cried. “I’ve been trying to get you on the phone all morning. I need the most recent C.L.O.G. reports right away.”

  “I know. I’ve been trying to get a hold of them, too. But believe it or not, the fax machine broke down this morning.”

  “Oh, no. Well, we’d better get them messengered over from—”

  “Oh, by the way,” Anne interrupted with a wave of her hand, “let me introduce Jessica McAllister. She used to work at Klinger, too. Marketing, like me. Laura here—Laura Stein—is a marketing director over in the International Division.”

  Jessica offered her a limp hand.

  “Hello, Laura. Pleased to meet you.”

  “Pleased to meet you, Jessica. So you baled out of Klinger, did you?” Laura said with a grin. “Where are you now?”

  “Oh, I’m, uh, I’m not anywhere. I mean I’m not working right now. Uh, what I’m trying to say is that I’ve taken off a few years to raise my son.’’

  “Oh.”

  Laura’s face slackened. From that point on, as Laura and Anne commiserated over their respective workloads, it was as if Jessica had somehow ceased to exist.

  “I’ll get back to you later, Anne,” Laura finally said, reluctantly dragging herself away. “We really need to touch base on those figures.”

  “Sure, Laura. I’ll call you this afternoon, as soon as they come in.”

  Once she was gone, Jessica turned to Anne and blinked. “Anne, what’s a C.L.O.G. report?”

  Anne looked startled. “Why, Jess, you really don’t remember? They’re consumer logs, where Mr. and Mrs. America record what products they buy. We were using them back when you were here, weren’t we?”

  Jessica reached for her drink, needing another sip of her spritzer. In fact, she suspected she was going to need another spritzer. She glanced around the restaurant, searching for a neutral topic of conversation.

  She found the solution in the form of the woman at the next table, someone who embodied a confusing contradiction of philosophies. She was sitting with five business-suited men, wearing a tailored business suit of her own. But instead of a tailored shirt, she had on a blouse that was a variation on the boudoir theme, a pink silk creation trimmed with ruffles and lace and tiny ribbons.

  “My goodness,” Jessica commented, gesturing with her spritzer glass. “Check that one out. Back in the old days, we never would have dared dress like that. Any reminder of one’s femininity was considered a sign of weakness.”

  Anne glanced over her shoulder. “Don’t be fooled, Jess. As far as those guys can see, she’s still not one of them. The times may be a-changin’, but not in the way you think. As far as I’m concerned, they’re changing back. It used to be there were two kinds of women, the virgin and the whore. Nowadays, there are still two kinds, those who use their uterus and those who use their brain.”

  It took Anne a few seconds to realize what she had just said. When she did, she turned an appropriate shade of scarlet.

  “Not that that’s true, of course. I just mean that that’s the way society sees it. You know, the media and everything....”

  “Yes, I know what you mean,” Jessica agreed, not wanting to make a federal case out of a comment that, fifteen years ago, could well have been grounds for exactly that. Besides, what Anne was saying unfortunately happened to be the truth. “I know you don’t think that. But it is the popular image once again, isn’t it? We’re back to Donna Reed versus Rosalind Russell. ‘Okay, girls, which one would you rather be?’ There doesn’t seem to be much in between, does there?”

  She decided to change the subject by asking the one question that was guaranteed to launch Anne, or just about any other single woman living in New York, into an animated monologue.

  “So tell me, Anne. How’s your social life?”

  As she had been expecting, the mere question was enough to send Anne off into a hilarious report on all the turkeys, wimps, nerds, jerks, and cretins with whom she had attempted to form relationships over the past few months. She rolled her eyes and waved her hands animatedly as she described each one. At one point she groaned so loudly that the people at the next table glanced over with concern, probably concluding that she had just discovered a cockroach in the folds of her mint green linen napkin.

  She ended her presentation with an anecdote about W
illiam, an attorney who was the friend of a friend. He loved opera, dressed with a real flair, and was actually capable of making conversation. After spending the night, however, he lingered under the blankets for a peculiarly long time, finally explaining that he preferred that she serve the breakfast she made him in bed.

  Finally, with a loud sigh, Anne said, “Jess, you’re so lucky to have David.”

  “David?” Jessica was on the verge of starting a diatribe of her own. But complaining about her husband right now would be hitting too many raw nerves. Besides, she felt it would balance things out a bit, letting Anne think that being married to a supposedly perfect man was as wonderful as having a job like vice president of marketing.

  So she just smiled. By this point, she was actually having fun, and she wanted the mood to continue. Especially since the best part was yet to come: catching up on the gossip.

  “Hey, whatever happened to Michael Dennison?’’ she asked, ordering up her third wine spritzer. “Is he still in Accounting?’’

  Anne looked surprised. “Oh, gosh, didn’t you hear? He left months ago.”

  “Oh, really? Where’d he go?” Jessica was surprised. She and Michael had been pretty good friends at one point.

  “Mennen, I think. Yes, that’s right. Down in New Jersey.”

  “Ah. Hey, how about Marilyn—whatever her name was? The one in Personnel, with the nails?”

  “Oh, she’s still there. She got married. Remember Pete Silver?”

  “Gee, I guess not—”

  “Oh, sure. You remember Pete, don’t you?” Before Jessica was forced to admit for a second time that she didn’t remember Pete Silver at all, Anne interrupted herself. “Oh, listen to this. You’ll never guess who I ran into a couple of Saturdays ago. At Bloomingdale’s, no less, in the bakery.”

  Jessica shook her head and shrugged. “Who?”

  “Why, Ed Coulter.”

  Jessica was puzzled. Ed Coulter, of course, had been their boss, back in the days when Anne and Jessica had both been product managers. He had been her mentor, the one person in a position of power at Klinger-Wycoff who had looked after her. It had been Ed Coulter, as she frequently reminded herself, who had told Jessica on the day of her office baby shower that he would make sure there was always a place for her at Klinger.

  Jessica could feel the color drain out of her face as the meaning of Anne’s words gradually began to dawn on her.

  “You mean Ed doesn’t work in our division anymore?”

  “You mean you didn’t know? Boy, you really are out of touch, Jess.” Anne was gleeful over having a real tidbit of gossip to share. “Ed Coulter left Klinger ages ago. It must be what, six or seven months already. He’s with some small computer firm somewhere up in Massachusetts. Right outside of Boston, I believe.”

  Jessica’s stomach suddenly felt leaden. In fact, all she wanted to do was get out of there.

  Fortunately, Anne was also in a hurry, having remembered a few things she wanted to get copied before her three o’clock meeting. The two women parted with cursory pecks on the cheek, promising to “do this again soon.” Jessica was only too happy to disappear into the crowds on the sidewalk, making their way back to work now that their bellies were full.

  As she walked uptown toward Bloomingdale’s she was in a kind of daze. She felt as if the proverbial rug had been pulled out from under her. Here she had been assuming for the past three-and-a-half years that all she had to do was pick up the phone and tell Ed Coulter she was ready to rejoin the living, and presto chango, she would have her old job back. As of right now, it was time to start facing the fact that she was not simply taking a breather. All her ties to her old life were gone.

  * * * *

  By the time Jessica turned her key in the lock of the back door, it was almost nine o’clock. She had stayed in the city longer than she’d planned. She had been trying to make some sense out of the chaotic flood of emotions rushing around in her head.

  She’d wandered around Bloomingdale’s for hours, cheered somewhat by the bright colors and abundant displays. Happiness for sale—or, if not happiness, at least temporary satisfaction. Then she had gone to a movie, an import from Portugal that was much too artsy ever to be shown on Long Island. Finally she had treated herself to a quick dinner at a Greek diner, one of those places she missed in theory but which, in actuality, proved to be about on par with the suburban fast-food joints she was so fond of complaining about.

  Throughout it all, she remained preoccupied with what she had learned during her lunch with Anne Marshall. The truth of the matter was that nothing had really changed. At least, that was what she kept trying to convince herself. It wasn’t as if she suddenly regretted her decision to leave Klinger. It wasn’t as if she hadn’t decided of her own free will to take time out to devote herself fully to raising her child, abandoning her nine-to-five life and all its constraints. No, that had been her choice.

  Driving back from the city, she had felt a comforting sense of coming home. Leaving behind the congestion of the city was like shedding a pair of tight jeans. The names of the exits on the Long Island Expressway grew more and more familiar, as if she were being welcomed by old friends. She let herself feel pulled back into the relative serenity of life out here, where for her there were no deadlines, no judgments, no pressures from the outside world. It was safe. It was simple. And, for now at least, it was what she had chosen.

  Jessica actually experienced a rush of excitement as she pulled into her driveway. Her own driveway, in front of her garage, at the back of her house. This world was as secure as a womb, and she was ready to be absorbed into its folds. She couldn’t wait to see Sammy. She especially couldn’t wait to see David. Poor David; she had been making him out to be the bad guy. She was distorting things, twisting them in her own confused mind. How unfair she had been! But she intended to make it up to him, starting the very moment she walked in the house. She almost skipped up the walk.

  And then she opened the back door.

  Across the kitchen table, a pool of oatmeal, now coagulating, had seeped through an inch-high stack of paper napkins, scattered over the entire surface. At the edge, a box of Cheerios lay on its side, two-thirds of its contents spilled to the floor. The pots and frying pans and baking tins had been removed from all the cabinets, along with a dozen or so different gadgets from the drawers. In addition to the pile of metal strewn about the linoleum floor, one of the chairs had been toppled over.

  Jessica walked zombielike through the dining room, into the living room. Every light in the house was on, as was the television, the VCR, and the stereo, its needle going around and around at the center of a now-silent record. The usual assortment of toys, games, and puzzles was scattered everywhere. Several of the couch cushions were on the floor, as was an overturned bowl, the popcorn that had been in it lying on the rug like a snowdrift.

  Sammy, still fully clothed, was asleep on one of the couch cushions, right in front of the TV. His face was smeared with chocolate, already hardening and looking like some obscure but horrible skin condition. David was sprawled across the couch, also asleep.

  When she snapped off the television, his eyes opened.

  “Hey, honey,” he said groggily, “I’m really zonked. You don’t mind straightening up, do you? I’m going up to bed.”

  Whisking the snoring Sammy up into his arms, he headed upstairs.

  Jessica sank into a chair, her purse clutched against her chest. Her mind was racing as she sat there, frozen. She didn’t sit still for long, however. With panicky motions, she began rifling through her pocketbook, afraid she would have mislaid what she was looking for. She practically cheered when she found it, the slightly shredded paper napkin that was down at the very bottom, stuck to a cherry-flavored cough drop. She headed for the telephone and dialed the number written there.

  “Hello,” she said breathlessly, in response to the greeting at the other end. “This is Jessica McAllister. I’ve been, uh, thinking, and, uh . . .”r />
  She paused, trying to will her heart to stop pounding. Then she took a deep breath.

  “Terry,” she said, “I’ve decided that I would like to help you with the murder investigation after all.’’

  Chapter Nine

  There had been a time, Jessica could remember, when preparing for an occasion for which she wanted to look her best began with a leisurely shower, one that involved a coarse Swedish loofa, the gentle foaming action of Pantene shampoo, and a product called Vitabath that was as fragrant as a dewy morning in an English herb garden. Then, back on dry land, her regimen moved on to the meticulous application of virtually every item in the Clinique line. Finally, she would spend more time with her hair dryer than many Olympic competitors take to warm up for competition.

  These days, however, getting spruced up revolved around everyone else’s schedule. Today, Jessica had exactly half an hour between Sammy’s drop-off at nursery school and Terry’s arrival at her house for her first briefing session in the area of coldblooded killing. So the notion of a leisurely anything was laughable. Besides, her new place of residence did lack a normal bathroom—that is, a room with tiles on the walls and a working shower, the combination of which provided the opportunity to become clean via water rushing forcefully in a downward direction. All primping, including hair washing, had to be done in a pool of soapy water.

  After climbing into the bathtub, Jessica discovered that her own cache of toiletries was out of sight and out of reach. She had no choice but to borrow Sammy’s. In the end, she learned that the Big Bird shampoo worked well enough, with its bubble-gum fragrance offering a rather refreshing change. However, she did have trouble getting the turquoise dinosaur-shaped soap to yield very much in the way of lather.

  It’s just as well, she thought, quickly blotting herself with a towel that featured overall-clad teddy bears communing with red and yellow birds. It’s not as if you’re getting ready for a date or anything, for heaven’s sake. All you’re doing is getting together with Terry Nolan to talk. About murder, no less.