The Ex

by John Lutz

  “Have a good day, you two,” David said, and left the bedroom.

  She heard the floor creak as he walked into the bathroom, probably to recomb his hair, as she sorted through the dresser drawers for something Michael hadn’t outgrown.

  David laid his folded suit coat on the toilet lid and ran water in the washbasin. He wet his hands and slicked back his hair, then raked a comb through it and checked his image in the mirror. He’d splashed a little water on his shirt but the spots would dry soon.

  As he scooped up his coat to put it on, something fluttered from one of its pockets and landed on the hexagonal white tiles alongside the vanity.

  A small piece of paper, folded once so sharply that it would be permanently creased. He picked it up and stared at it, trying to remember if it was a note he’d written to remind himself of something. He couldn’t recall putting it in the pocket.

  He unfolded the paper and saw a phone number scrawled in black ink. Below the number was a message: Don’t be silty. We should be friends. Call me, please. Deirdre. P.S. Say hello to Molly and Michael.

  David crumpled the paper and lifted the toilet lid.

  But he paused and stood with his hand above the water. He was slightly surprised that he couldn’t release the note. Couldn’t press the lever that would remove it from his life.

  He glanced at himself in the mirror, then looked away as he stuffed the note into his hip pocket, shrugged into his coat, and left the bathroom.

  He could dispose of the note on the way to work, in the subway station, or at the office. There was no rush. This wasn’t some kind of goddamned test. Despite a persistent discontent some mornings in the dawn of waking, or at bad times during the day when he would contemplate the futility of his job, he was a settled and happy husband and father, probably less worried about the future than most men his age. Certainly he was more blessed than many he knew. He had unexpectedly run into his former wife yesterday and had an uncomfortable moment, that was all. They were grown-up folks living out their lives as best they could while trying not to experience or cause pain; there was no need for adolescent conflict here.

  And no need for him to see Deirdre again before she left town. He would either disregard the note, or he’d phone her and politely repeat his opinion that it would be best if they let the past lie undisturbed. Whatever in its chemistry might tug at him, he could and would ignore.

  He called goodbye again to Molly on the way out.

  7

  Molly backhanded perspiration from her forehead and squinted against the morning sun. Summer continued its relentless assault on the city. She thought it might be hot enough to buckle the sidewalk as she wheeled Michael in his stroller along West Eighty-fifth Street. Small Business was close enough to walk to, but since Michael had become more active lately, it was easier for both of them if she pushed him in the stroller rather than pursue him in his sudden and impulsive rovings. Trash bags and sidewalk grates drew him with irresistible power.

  Manhattan’s steel and concrete held and radiated the heat like a kiln. Michael seemed comfortable enough, leaning back and calmly watching the traffic and occasional smiles of pedestrians, his chubby right hand idly toying with the colored plastic beads strung conveniently within his reach. His small world was in order; beads properly aligned and easily movable, surroundings familiar.

  She noticed her own hands were clenched on the stroller handle. Relaxing her grip, bending her elbows slightly to remove tension, she leaned easily into the weight of the stroller, listening to the soft, rhythmic squeak of one of its front wheels, holding her breath whenever she caught a whiff of garbage from the plastic bags lined at the curb.

  Halfway to Small Business, Molly glanced across the street and realized she was looking at the same woman who’d been strolling parallel to them for several blocks. Not unusual in New York, but the woman was diametrically opposite Molly and must have been keeping pace with her almost to the step. There was something eerie about it. If anything, she should have been moving faster than Molly and Michael, since Molly was leisurely pushing the stroller.

  The woman was slender, wearing jeans, a tan windbreaker, and a blue baseball cap. She had on sunglasses with mirror lenses that concealed her eyes and altered her features like a mask.

  A horn blasted and Molly jerked and stopped the stroller so abruptly that Michael slumped forward and yelped in surprise.

  “Eye on the road, lady!” the driver of a dirt-streaked white delivery van yelled at her.

  “Outa the street!” someone else shouted.

  She realized she’d been so intent on watching the woman across the street that she’d pushed the stroller down the handicapped ramp at the corner, into the busy intersection. They might have been killed.

  Relieved but embarrassed, she backed the stroller up onto the sidewalk. Several women in business clothes, and a man carrying an artist’s flat, vinyl portfolio tucked beneath his right arm and pressed close to his body, moved around her to stand near the street while waiting for the traffic light to change. One of the women, who was elderly and had strikingly blue eyes and bad teeth, looked over her shoulder and winked at Michael, who paid her no attention. Everyone was still, poised for the change of the light while they stood breathing exhaust fumes. It worried Molly that Michael, who was on a lower level than adults, breathed so much Manhattan pollution.

  The light flashed a walk sign, imposing another electronic instruction on the conditioned New Yorkers staring in anticipation. Molly went with the flow of pedestrians and wheeled the stroller across the street and onto the opposite sidewalk.

  Then she steered the stroller into a pocket of comparative calm near a restaurant’s doorway, propped Michael up straighter in his seat, and peered across the street.

  The woman in the tan jacket was nowhere in sight.

  Fine, Molly thought. She pushed the woman out of her consciousness and pressed on to Small Business.

  When she reached the refurbished four-story building near Broadway, she saw that the usual signs of activity-the arrival and departure of parents’ cars as they dropped their children off before work-had already taken place. Julia Corera, Michael’s teacher, was standing halfway down the concrete steps to the entrance, beneath the green canvas canopy with its teddy bear design. She was wearing a baggy khaki skirt and a loose-fitting blouse with a wild, tropical plant pattern. There were already crescents of dampness beneath the arms of the blouse.

  “Yo, there, Big Mike,” she said with a wide smile. She was a heavyset, sweet-faced woman in her mid-twenties, with a perfect mocha-cream complexion and wise brown eyes. She’d heard during the first week of preschool how David referred to his son, and from then on the irony of the nickname had prompted her to use it.

  Molly unstrapped Michael, lifted him from the stroller, and stood him on the sidewalk. “Say hello to Miss Corera, Michael.”

  He grinned and craned his neck, staring up the steps. “Hewo, Yulia.”

  Julia bounded down the steps and picked him up. Molly wondered if Michael was her favorite or if she was equally smitten with all the children. She’d talked to Julia enough to know that she and her husband, a city fireman, wanted their own children but so far hadn’t had any luck.

  “Sorry we’re late,” Molly said.

  “That’s okay. It’s only a couple of minutes.” Julia flexed her knees and bounced slightly, jostling Michael. He laughed and tried to grab her ear. “If Michael ever runs away from home,” she said, “he can stay with me.”

  Molly laughed. “You might send him right back.”

  “Never!”

  Molly kissed her son on the cheek. “See you this afternoon, honey.”

  “Say bye-bye,” Julia prompted.

  Michael opted for silence, but he smiled and waved to Molly as she paused pushing the unoccupied stroller along the sidewalk and glanced back. A man and woman passing by gazed at him as if he were the most beautiful child they’d ever seen, making Molly almost sob with pride.

>   Julia and Michael waved to her in unison, then a red Volvo pulled to the curb and a man climbed out on the passenger’s side and ushered a girl about three over to Julia. Molly had seen the girl at the school before and thought her name was Margaret.

  She watched until everyone was inside the building. The car sat at the curb with its engine idling, a woman behind the steering wheel waiting patiently for the man to emerge. Another family’s day beginning. Molly stopped staring and continued down the street.

  This was her day not to jog, and she had the architectural manuscript well under control. She decided to take a walk, then stop at the grocery store near the apartment. Muffin was out of cat food. She’d buy that and a few other things to load into the stroller before going home and settling down to work.

  David draped his suit coat over the wooden valet in a corner of his office. It was a large office, with crowded shelves of books and manuscripts lining two walls above desk level. David’s desk was almost bare, but there was a side table with an IBM clone computer and a stack of manuscripts with letters paperclipped to them. Among the few items on the desk was a framed photograph of Molly and Michael. From where he sat, he could see into the anteroom, where the door lettered STERLING MORGANSON LITERARY AGENCY was open.

  After sitting down at his desk, David swiveled his chair to face the computer and booted it up, then checked his e-mail. Nothing urgent. He decided to answer some letters on paper and keyed into the word processing program.

  Movement caught his eye, and he looked up to see that fee reader Josh Quinby had entered the office. Josh was in his late twenties, short and not quite overweight, curly-haired, with a mischievous grin. One of those people who become everyone’s buddy within minutes. Sometimes that kind of ongoing joviality masked less admirable character traits, but as long as he’d known Josh, David hadn’t seen anything other than genuineness. Josh actually was good-natured and mischievous. And everyone’s buddy.

  Josh stared at him with concern. “You look like Gatsby near the end, old sport. What’s wrong?”

  “That any way to talk to your boss?” David asked with mock annoyance.

  Josh grinned and shrugged. “Sorry, boss. Now you can go ahead and promote me.”

  David didn’t mind Josh’s flip manner. They were friends, and Josh was his fastest and best fee reader. Josh was also his confidant sometimes, and David needed someone to talk to about what was happening.

  “I ran into my ex-wife in a deli yesterday,” he said. “After six years, I hear her voice call my name, I turn around, and there she is. It was like meeting a ghost.”

  “And?” Josh said, his dark eyes sparkling with interest.

  “She wants me to call her.”

  Josh leaned his back against the doorjamb and ran a finger along his chin. “Hmm. You must have married for a reason, and you must have divorced for a reason. Maybe even the same reason. Did you leave her?”

  “Vice versa,” David said.

  “Oh. Then I suppose the question is, did you ever let her go? I mean, all the way?”

  “Yes,” David said immediately. Then added, “I think so, anyway.”

  “Then give her a call,” Josh said. “Put your mind at ease.”

  Lisa Emmons, the receptionist and fee reader secretary, stepped into the office, smiled at David, then said, “Morganson wants to see you, Josh.”

  Josh grimaced, but he was grinning as he left the office. Lisa, a small, intense woman of thirty, attractive with brown hair and eyes, glanced back at David as she left, but he didn’t notice. She was five years out of Columbia with an MBA degree, and he knew she periodically looked for other, more rewarding employment. What he didn’t know was that he was the reason she stayed at Sterling Morganson.

  He got up and closed the door, then pulled the scrap of paper with Deirdre’s phone number from his pocket and stared at it for a moment.

  He returned to the desk and sat down, dragged the phone over to him, then pecked out the number with his middle finger.

  “Windemeyer Hotel,” said a woman’s voice on the other end of the line.

  “Could you ring the room of Deirdre…” He suddenly stopped talking, wondering what name she was using. “Deirdre Grocci,” he said, figuring she might still be using her ex-husband’s name.

  After a pause, the operator came back on the line. “We don’t have a Deirdre Grocci registered, sir.”

  “Maybe she’s using her maiden name,” David said. “Try Deirdre Chandler.”

  Again a pause, longer. Then: “We have no Deirdre Chandler registered either, sir. We do have a Deirdre Jones.”

  David was bewildered. “Would you ring her room, please.”

  He waited while the phone rang six times.

  “Your party doesn’t answer, sir,” the operator cut in. “Do you want to leave a message?”

  “No,” David said. “No message. I don’t really need to get in touch with her.”

  After hanging up the phone, he sat still. His hands were sweating. After a few minutes, he reached out and adjusted the photo of Molly holding Michael so that it was facing him directly, then sat staring at it.

  He inhaled and held air in his lungs until it had a calming effect on him. Controlling his breathing implied he was controlling his life. He wasn’t going to call Deirdre again. And probably he’d never see her again. She’d take care of her business in New York then return to her job in Saint Louis.

  He tore the note with her phone number into very small pieces and let the pieces flutter into the round metal wastebasket next to his desk.

  Then he tried to forget the name of her hotel.

  Molly rubbed her knuckles into her eyes, then pushed aside the architectural manuscript and publisher’s style sheet. It was quiet in the apartment except for muted street sounds and the faint noise of another tenant’s TV tuned to one of the frenetic talk shows that dominated daytime viewing hours. “She’s sleeping with him, and you don’t mind?” a woman’s incredulous voice inquired. Molly smiled and stood up from her desk.

  It was almost noon but she wasn’t at all hungry. She walked into the kitchen and poured her third cup of coffee this morning, adding cream and promising herself she’d cut down on caffeine, beginning tomorrow. Idly blowing on the steaming liquid to cool it, she wandered back into the living room, where she’d been working.

  “It might not be moral for most people,” said a TV voice from beyond the walls, “but it’s right for us.”

  Molly drifted over to the window as she often did to gaze down at the street, at the outside world of selective morality that entered her home by way of a neighbor’s blaring television.

  She was about to take a sip of coffee when she noticed the woman in the tan jacket on the sidewalk across the street. The woman still had on the baseball cap and sunglasses so her features would be obscured, especially from Molly’s angle. Her hair was tucked up beneath the cap.

  Molly placed the cup on the windowsill and moved to the side, trying to get a better view of the woman so that when she began walking her face might be visible. Right now she was standing squarely facing a Times vending machine with her arms crossed, her head slightly bowed, perhaps reading the front page through the murky glass.

  Then she straightened, turned her body slightly, and stared directly up at Molly.

  She seemed to be smiling as she looked quickly away and strolled out of sight, in the direction of Small Business Preschool.

  8

  “What makes you think she was the same woman?” David asked Molly that evening in the apartment. It was raining hard outside, a summer shower that blew intermittently and rattled the loose panes in the windows.

  “Same clothes, same size,” Molly said. “Same mirror-lens glasses. Why would she be hanging around the neighborhood?”

  David tossed his attache case full of work onto a chair. “Why did a man in a gorilla suit offer me Monopoly money on my way home tonight? Why does anybody do anything in New York?”

  “I don’
t know. Why are you defending her?”

  “Defending who?”

  Molly watched him but said nothing. It was so muggy in the apartment her skin felt oily. An emergency vehicle siren was wailing somewhere in the city, possibly responding to some crisis brought on by the change in the weather.

  “You never mentioned before that you think the sunglasses woman is Deirdre,” he said.

  “I don’t think it. But she seems the most likely candidate, considering she’s just popped into our lives.”

  “Who’s popped into our lives? Deirdre, or the woman you saw out the window?”

  “Let’s make it Deirdre,” Molly snapped.

  “She’s not in our lives,” David said irritably. “She’s in town for a couple of days on business, then she’s going back to Saint Louis.”

  “She told you that?”

  “More or less. She has a job there, a house or apartment. Friends. Roots.”

  “Didn’t she remarry?”

  “Yes. But she’s divorced.”

  Molly wiped her palm across her damp forehead, noticing that ink from the architectural manuscript had stained the heel of her hand. “So she’s single again,” she said, regretting the words immediately. She knew she was forcing David into a position where he had no choice other than to defend Deirdre if he was going to defend himself. It was unfair, but she seemed unable to stop doing it.

  “Mother Theresa’s single, too,” he said. He walked over to her and she let him kiss her, but she decided not to kiss him back. Questions and suspicions swirled unsettled in her mind. “Anyway,” he said, “neither of us is likely ever to see Deirdre again. And if we do, so what?”

  Molly studied his face, loving him, wanting so much not to doubt. No indecision showed in his eyes, in the vertical lines etched at the corners of his lips. “You mean that? The ‘so what?’ part?”

  “Of course.” He glanced around, using both hands to loosen his tie. “Where’s Michael?”