The Ex

by John Lutz

  She leafed through the mail. Nothing but junk and a postcard from a friend who was traveling in South Dakota. The card featured a color photograph of Mount Rushmore. Molly couldn’t look at Mount Rushmore without thinking of the Hitchcock movie North by Northwest. Average people suddenly pulled into dangerous situations through no fault of their own was a recurring theme in Hitchcock movies. Molly was glad it didn’t happen that often in real life.

  She closed and locked the mailbox door and turned around.

  Gasped and dropped the mail.

  Deirdre was standing in the lobby, smiling at her.

  She was wearing jeans and a faded red T-shirt and had on brown cotton gloves, the kind sold in hardware stores for working in gardens.

  “This must be Michael!” she said, and bent down and touched his cheek with a brown cloth glove finger. “He really does look like David!”

  “What are you doing here?” Molly asked.

  Deirdre picked up the mail while she was bent over to be on Michael’s level, then straightened up and handed it to Molly.

  “Sorry,” she said, “I didn’t mean to scare you.”

  Molly stood holding the mail, staring at her, puzzled and not at all liking her presence so close to home. “If you’ve come to see David…”

  “Oh, no, that’s not it,” Deirdre said. “The fact is, the darnedest thing has happened.”

  “Darnedest thing?”

  “Yes. David might have told you, I’ve been having some trouble finding a decent apartment. Well, a real estate agency recommended an apartment in this building, on the fourth floor. I looked at it and loved it. It was perfect! It wasn’t until I’d signed the lease this morning and started moving in what little stuff I have that I noticed the name ‘Jones’ on one of the mailboxes, just saw it out of the edge of my vision. Such a common name, though, I figured it couldn’t be my Joneses. But one of the neighbors said yes, David and Molly Jones! It’s a tiny world, isn’t it?”

  Molly was thunderstruck. Her mind couldn’t grab on to what she’d heard. “You mean you’re moving into this building? Here?”

  “Sure am. Right this very moment. Craig’s helping me.”

  The street door opened, letting in a wave of warm air and Craig Chumley. He was wearing a blue workshirt and paint-spattered jeans, clumsily backing into the lobby carrying a large cardboard box that had once held cartons of Cheerios.

  Still smiling, Deirdre said, “Oh, Molly, this is Craig.”

  Chumley grinned; his teeth looked yellow in the lobby light, the long bicuspids lending him an amiable but wolflike expression. “Hi, Molly. Sorry I couldn’t make it to dinner the other night.”

  Molly ignored him completely, still staring at Deirdre. “Here?” she asked again in disbelief.

  “Yes, we’re neighbors! I didn’t plan it this way, but when I found out, after having met you, I didn’t see any problem. At least not enough of a problem to try breaking my lease. Even if that was possible. Which of course it isn’t.”

  “Whatever’s in this box,” Chumley said, “it’s getting heavier by the nanosecond.”

  Deirdre laughed. “Oh, sorry!”

  She hurried to the elevator and pressed the Up button. The elevator was still at lobby level from Molly and Michael’s descent, and the door opened immediately. She entered, and Chumley carried the box in and stood beside her. He didn’t put the box down but continued holding it in front of him. Molly could just see his paint-spattered jeans and the top of his balding head.

  “Bye for now, neighbor!” Deirdre said as the door slid shut.

  Molly stood motionless, gripping her mail hard enough to kink the postcard from South Dakota.

  “Wanna walk,” Michael demanded from the stroller.

  David sat at his desk at Sterling Morganson, pressing the cool plastic phone to his ear and staring at the letter he’d been composing on his computer monitor. It was a reply to a fee client in Idaho who’d inquired about a special rate if, instead of one novel, two were submitted for appraisal and possible marketing. The glowing screen seemed to recede, the letters merging to form wavering white lines on the deep blue background.

  “What?” he asked, his voice incredulous. “You’re sure about this? She’s moving in now?”

  He listened intently to Molly for several seconds. A part of his mind was grasping the true import of what she was saying; something fundamental and problematic had happened, and his life was changed. His heart got colder and heavier with every word she spoke. He didn’t see Lisa pause in the doorway and stand watching him.

  “I’ll talk to her,” he said at last. “But it won’t help. She has a right to live where she wants, and if she signed a lease there might not be much she could do to get out of it even if she tried. Just like we can’t get out of our lease.”

  His face became paler as he listened.

  “Dammit, Mol, I don’t like it any more than you do but-”

  Another pause. He adjusted the receiver so it wouldn’t hurt his ear.

  “But I don’t know what to do,” he said. “We’ve got a situation here. Have you got any ideas? Mol? Molly?”

  Lisa moved back into the hall and hurried away as he slammed down the receiver.

  He sat quietly for a moment, his mind lurching in numbed shock as it struggled to assess the perils and possibilities in what he’d just heard.

  Then he picked up a bound manuscript from his desk and hurled it against a wall.

  The noise must have attracted Josh, who looked into the office holding a half-full glass coffeepot. His gaze panned the office, took in the manuscript on the floor, then fastened on David.

  “Want some coffee, boss?”

  David sat hunched over his desk, his face buried in his hands.

  “No,” he said between splayed fingers. “Not unless it contains strychnine.”

  “You’re in luck,” Josh said, and entered the office.

  20

  Molly sat that afternoon with Traci Mack at a table in Midnight Espresso, an Upper West Side coffee shop on Columbus Avenue. Behind the counter two women were serving coffee from complex steel urns, near a rack of upside-down bottles of colorful flavorings for lattes and cappuccinos. Alongside the counter was a display of gourmet coffee beans for sale, ground or whole, in white six-ounce bags. August heat had infiltrated the coffee shop with the frequent opening and closing of the door, and the scent of brewed coffee permeated the warm air. Several customers stood at the bar sipping coffee, while others sat at tables.

  Molly and Traci were at a small table near the door. Traci’s black leather attache case, with another ten copyedited chapters of Architects of Desire inside, was leaning against the curved wooden legs of her chair. She was wearing one of her sacklike black dresses, this time with a silver pin on it resembling a chalked outline of a body. A gift from her mystery author, she’d told Molly.

  She wiped frothed cream from her upper lip, put down her cappuccino, and looked at Molly. “So what’s new with you and the ex?”

  Molly told her.

  Traci stared at her in surprise. “You’re kidding! She’s actually moving into the same building?”

  Molly gazed down despondently at her caffe latte, as if it were a crystal ball that had disappointed her. “She’s probably already moved in by now,” she said, “cooking up poison recipes on the stove.”

  Traci sat back in her chair. “Hmm. Your attitude’s changed since the last time we met.”

  “Well, the circumstances have changed.”

  “What’s David say about this?” Traci asked.

  Molly looked up at her. “A situation, he calls it. We’re just going to have to live with it.”

  “It would be an understatement to say you seem less than happy about that.”

  “Because it seems there’s nothing I can do about it.”

  “You could move,” Traci suggested. Another sip of cappuccino, another wiping away of the white foam mustache with the back of her curved forefinger.

&n
bsp; “I’m afraid not,” Molly said. “We’ve got our own lease, and it runs for another six months.” She gazed out the poster-cluttered window at New York suffering in the relentless heat, then sighed and took a sip of her latte. “Maybe I’m making too much of it. You know how Manhattan apartment buildings are-neighbors exist in the cocoons of their lives and hardly ever see each other. Maybe it’ll all work out.”

  Traci raised a hand and toyed with the silver pin. “It doesn’t work out in the mystery novel I’m editing.”

  Molly found herself getting irritated. “Life doesn’t always imitate art,” she said defensively. “David and I have a strong marriage.”

  “Sure, I know that, Mol. But do you want it tested this way?”

  “I’ve thought about that,” Molly said, “and I have to admit, I shouldn’t be afraid of being tested. David and I love each other, we’ve got Michael, and whatever was between David and Deirdre is over. That’s why they divorced.”

  “You sound as if you’re trying to persuade yourself.”

  Molly made a helpless gesture with both hands. “I have no choice other than to believe that’s the way it is. Besides, I told you Deirdre’s romantically involved with Craig Chumley.”

  “All true enough,” Traci said. “But on the other hand, men are men.”

  “Jesus!” Molly said in disgust. “You sound like one of those gynocentric feminists.”

  Traci was unflappable. “Just speaking from experience.” She sipped again at her cappuccino. “What’s this Chumley guy look like?”

  Molly thought about that. Chumley certainly wasn’t a standout and was difficult to describe. Of course she’d only seen him in work clothes, and behind a cardboard box. “Average-looking,” she said. “Maybe even dorky-looking. Tall with thinning brown hair, a little overweight in the wrong places. In his mid-forties, I’d guess.”

  Traci cocked her head to the side. “Odd that the woman you describe would glom on to somebody like that, even if he is near her age.”

  “What are you getting at?” Molly asked.

  “Maybe she’s using him.”

  “Oh, she’s probably wearing him out!”

  Traci laughed. “That’s not exactly what I had in mind, though you might well be right. Hell, I’m pushing forty and I wish I had somebody to wear out.”

  Molly sat frowning. She found she wasn’t at all comforted by having confided in Traci. She should have known better than to tell her everything.

  Traci leaned forward with her elbows on the table, her wrists bent and her fingers laced off center so they were diagonally twined. “Don’t look so severe, Mol. I’m interested in your dilemma. As a friend.”

  “It doesn’t help,” Molly said, “to have your friends predicting doom.”

  “I’m not predicting it, Mol. In fact, I’m hoping like hell this mess all works out for you, however that’s possible.” She suddenly raised her head and sniffed, like an animal testing the wind. “What’s that perfume you’re wearing?”

  “Is it overpowering the scent of the coffee?” Molly asked. “I was distracted this morning and put it on twice. It’s Oscar.”

  “De La Renta or Madison?”

  Molly made herself smile. Traci’s humor could crush you if you let it. “Very funny. David likes it.”

  Traci lifted her tall cappuccino mug. “Then for God’s sake, keep wearing it.” After she’d taken a sip of coffee and replaced her mug on the table, she said, “I almost forgot, a woman phoned Link today and asked for you. I told her you sometimes did work for us but you were freelance and didn’t have an office there.”

  “She leave a name?”

  “Darlene, I think it was.”

  “Did you give her my phone number?”

  “No, I thought you might not want me to do that.”

  “Could have been an editing job.”

  “If it was, she’ll figure out a way to get in touch.” Traci grinned. “Anyway, right now we don’t want to share you.”

  Molly ran a fingernail back and forth on the table, thinking. “I’m sure I don’t know any Darlene.”

  Traci shrugged dismissively. “Well, she knows you.”

  21

  The same afternoon heat that made the Midnight Espresso coffee shop uncomfortable made Koch Public Recreational Swimming Pool almost unbearable anywhere but in the water. Only dedicated sunbathers appreciated the searing afternoon glare. They reclined on loungers and on beach towels spread on the pool’s concrete apron. Occasionally people climbed trailing water from the pool or rose from where they lay baking on towels, the hot, high sun puddling their shadows at their feet as they walked to and from the snack stand with drinks whose ice was melting almost before they could take it into their mouths and chew on it, or cup it in their hands and rub it over chest or shoulders.

  But it was only the relatively few adults who seemed to be suffering severely or taking precautions against sunburn. Most of the swimmers and sunbathers were teenage or younger.

  Bernice was seated with Michael in the water at the shallow end of the crowded, noisy pool. She’d obeyed Molly’s instructions and lavishly applied sunblocker on Michael. Then she’d smeared it liberally on herself. But she still preferred to keep both of them submerged to limit exposure to the sun. Besides, the water was blessedly cool compared to the hot, rough concrete surrounding the large, rectangular pool.

  The only problem was that almost everyone else felt the same way. The pool was too crowded to swim more than a few strokes in any direction without bumping into someone. Or to dive, which was what Bernice enjoyed most about coming to Koch.

  She watched a prepubescent girl in a two-piece black bathing suit pinch her nose between thumb and forefinger then leap from the diving board and create as large a splash as her light body would allow. Bernice couldn’t actually see the girl enter the water. Her view was obstructed by the splashing and turmoil of dozens of scantily clad bodies of every hue among the glittering blue water and white foam of the pool.

  She reached down with cupped hands and dribbled water over her shoulders. “Lots of people had the same idea we did this afternoon,” she said to Michael.

  Too busy playing to acknowledge her, he concentrated on the small red plastic boat he’d brought. He grinned as he made the boat skip over the glinting water then suddenly dive straight down.

  Bernice kept a watchful eye on him, but she also sneaked glances at the deep end of the pool, waiting to see if the activity around the diving board would subside.

  There continued to be a line of people waiting to dive, especially from the low board, which Bernice preferred. The impact of hitting the water from the high board had once made the top of her swimming suit slip down, and she’d had to hurriedly work it back up and refasten it underwater to avoid embarrassment.

  Apparently the red boat had gone to war. It had resurfaced, and Michael was making gun sounds in the back of his throat and slapping his hand down ever closer to it, splashing water as imaginary shells closed in. The boat was rocking, threatening to swamp.

  It was then that Bernice noticed there were only three people waiting to dive. She decided to take advantage of the lull.

  “Michael, if we get out and go to the other end of the pool for a few minutes, will you promise to stay on the towel while I dive?”

  He docked the boat next to his small chest and smiled up at her, squinting into the sun. “Promise.”

  She gave him a hug, feeling him trying to pull away from her. “What a good boy!”

  Making sure he had a grip on his boat, she picked him up and carried him from the pool to where their towels lay on the concrete, along with her blue rubber thongs and the bottle of sunblocker. She slipped her feet into the thongs, carefully hooking the strands of rubber between first and second toes, then picked up everything and went with Michael to the deep end of the pool.

  That end of the pool was only slightly less crowded. The only place there was room to spread out a towel was well away from the water, whi
ch was fine with Bernice. It kept Michael all the farther from danger and allowed her plenty of time to dive, surface, and get to him even if he did decide to wander toward the pool.

  She spread out the large Miami souvenir towel with the sunset-and-flamingo design, then made sure Michael was happy seated on it, pouring a thin stream of water from his toy boat.

  “Promise me again to stay here until I come back?” she asked.

  He was watching the water from the boat making dark patterns on the pale concrete. “’Course,” he said, without looking up at her.

  Confident he was busy with the boat and would obey her, she slipped her feet from the thongs and hurried over the sun-heated concrete to the diving board.

  After waiting for one other diver, she got up on the damp rubber matting of the board and glanced over at Michael.

  He was still on the towel, watching her now. She waved to him and he waved back. A few men and teenage boys looked her way, but the frail, almost bustless woman in the yellow-flowered two-piece suit didn’t hold their interest.

  With a final glance at Michael, she walked to the end of the board, sprang twice for height, then did a fairly neat jackknife, entering the water clean and not making much of a splash.

  After the heat of the sun, the cool envelopment of the water felt wonderful. She reached the slightly angled bottom of the pool, pushed away with her hands, and quickly surfaced, stroking to the side of the pool and checking on Michael even before she climbed up the aluminum ladder onto the concrete. He was still safely on the towel, as he’d promised.

  Bernice smoothed her wet hair back where it had worked from beneath the rubberband behind her head and started to walk over to Michael. Then she noticed there was another lull around the diving board. And he was preoccupied playing now with the plastic bottle of sunblocker.

  “One more dive, Michael!” she yelled over to him.

  He glanced her way, smiled, then pretended the sunblocker bottle was another boat, steaming toward the red toy one at the edge of the towel. Bernice hurried to the diving board.