Heartstopper

by Joy Fielding

  “Tim’s mom teaches English,” Amber said. “I get her next year.”

  If we’re still in Florida, Tim added silently.

  “Can we give you a lift home, Tim?” the sheriff asked.

  “No, thank you, sir. Thanks anyway.”

  “Tim’s waiting for his sister,” Amber explained. But the sheriff was already getting back into his car.

  “What about Delilah?” Tim heard him ask.

  “She left already.” Amber opened the passenger door and climbed into the front seat beside her father, offering nothing further. She turned back and waved as the car pulled away from the curb.

  Tim stood on the sidewalk, watching the car until it was absorbed into the horizon, rubbing the elbow Amber had touched with the hand her father had mangled. What was that all about? he wondered. Had her sudden interest in him meant she was, in fact, interested, or had she just been interested in a chaperone, someone to make sure she made it to the other side of the park safely and in one piece?

  “Who knows?” he said, as he began his return trek through the park. Who the hell ever knows what goes on inside a woman’s head? he could hear his father muttering.

  He was almost halfway through the park when he saw a lone figure leaning against a large royal palm, staring into the bushes beyond the nearby path. “See anything interesting?” Tim asked, approaching cautiously.

  “What’s your idea of interesting?” came the measured reply.

  Tim shrugged. He was sorry he’d asked. He should have known better. Brian Hensen was a weird one. “I understand our mothers are out on the town together.”

  Brian angled his shoulders toward him without changing the position of either his hips or his feet. Tim thought that must be hard to do. “Guess so.”

  “Your mother has friends in Fort Lauderdale?” Tim tried to make his question sound as casual as he could. He leaned against the side of the tree, hoping to get some information about what exactly his mother was up to while simultaneously taking the weight off his sore leg.

  “Not that I know of. Why?”

  “I thought that’s where they were going.”

  “Yeah? She didn’t say.” Brian reangled his shoulders back to their original position. He stared into the distance. “I think they had dates lined up,” he said after a lengthy pause.

  Tim’s mouth went dry. “What makes you think that?”

  “I’ve been reading her e-mails. She’s signed up with some online dating service.”

  Tim was more shocked by Brian’s audacity than by the fact Rita Hensen was using a dating service to meet men. But what shocked him most of all was that his mother was somehow involved. He checked his watch again, although this time he didn’t bother illuminating the dial. “They should be home by midnight.”

  “Yeah? Don’t hold your breath.”

  Tim realized he was doing just that, and he released the air in his lungs in one prolonged, and painful, exhalation. “You seen my sister?”

  Brian shook his head. “Not for a couple of hours.”

  Tim pushed himself away from the tree. He had to find Megan. Where was she? And what was his mother doing going out with men she met through an Internet dating service? Was this her way of getting back at his dad, some twisted idea of payback? Women were so confusing, he thought. Maybe he should just go live with his father. It would probably be a whole lot easier.

  Except that his father didn’t want him. Hadn’t he made that perfectly clear by moving out?

  “My mom told me your dad committed suicide,” Tim said, then thought he probably shouldn’t have. He and Brian weren’t exactly friends, despite their mothers’ best efforts. This was probably the longest conversation they’d ever shared.

  “She’s right.”

  “She said you were the one who found him.”

  “Right again.”

  Tim couldn’t tell from the sound of Brian’s voice whether he was angry. Brian tended to sound the same no matter what he was saying, his voice flat and surprisingly deep for one so slight. Although he wasn’t really as slight as Tim had once thought, he realized, noting the size of Brian’s muscles beneath his tight, gray T-shirt. While his complexion was still an otherworldly pale, lending him an almost fragile air, he’d bulked up considerably in recent months. Tim wondered if he’d been working out and thought of asking him about his exercise routine. Instead he said, “What was it like? Finding him, I mean.”

  “It was pretty gross,” Brian replied matter-of-factly. “I mean, he’d hanged himself, you know, and his eyes were bulging out and his tongue was off to one side, kind of like this.” This time his whole body swiveled around to face Tim. He jerked his head to one side, thrust his tongue out of his mouth, and widened his eyes so that their whites all but glowed in the dark.

  Tim took an involuntary step back.

  “I thought I might try it sometime,” Brian continued. “I don’t mean kill myself, of course. Just a minor blackout. I hear some people really get off on it.”

  Tim began backing away. He’d gotten enough of a charge from Amber Weber simply touching his arm. “I should get going. Gotta find Megan,” he said, stumbling on his sore leg and falling on the ground.

  Brian extended his hand to help Tim up. “That was very cool,” he deadpanned.

  They heard a rustle in the bushes up ahead, saw a man emerge and walk along the path toward them, the light from one of the lamps casting shadows across his bald head.

  “Mr. Peterson,” Tim gasped. “What are you doing here?”

  “Just keeping an eye on things,” the science teacher replied with a sly smile. “Making sure they don’t get out of hand.” He nodded toward Tim’s hand, still in Brian’s.

  Tim immediately pulled his hand away. “I fell,” he stammered. “Brian was just helping me up.”

  Mr. Peterson’s smile spread to his eyes. “Have a nice night, boys.” He continued on down the path.

  Behind Tim, Brian was laughing.

  Tim spun around, almost falling a second time.

  “Careful there,” Brian warned, then laughed again.

  “What’s so funny?”

  “You should have seen your face.”

  “You know what he was thinking, don’t you?”

  “Who cares what he was thinking?”

  “Shit,” Tim muttered. Were the rumors true? Was Brian gay?

  “You want to know what I think?” Brian asked. “Not especially.”

  “I think you should go find your sister,” Brian said anyway. Then he laughed again.

  SEVENTEEN

  Sandy was wondering how one human being could be so stupid. Especially one who was supposed to be so smart. Or at least smart enough to have been entrusted with the impressionable minds of several hundred young people, minds she was supposed to be developing, shaping, guiding. Who was she to guide anybody?

  What had she been thinking? How had she gotten herself into this mess?

  She did a quick recap of the evening’s more salient events: at seven-thirty, Rita had picked her up; by eight-thirty they were pulling into the parking lot of Miss Molly’s Ocean Bar and Grill in Fort Lauderdale; at approximately nine o’clock, their dates had arrived; several minutes of excruciating conversation later, Will Baker had miraculously appeared; less than fifteen minutes after that, she was speeding down the highway in his bright red Porsche, laughing and stealing looks at the disarmingly handsome and charming man whom she might have thought too good to be true had she been thinking at all. What was it they said—if something seems too good to be true, it usually is? Why hadn’t she thought of that before she agreed to get in his car, before she used his cell phone to call Rita and tell her she wouldn’t be coming back, asking her to apologize to Bob and Ed on her behalf, and saying she’d speak to her in the morning?

  “I’m sorry. I think we have a bad connection,” Rita had answered calmly as Sandy pictured her excusing herself from the table. “What do you mean, you’ll call me in the morning?” she demande
d moments later. “Where the hell are you?”

  “I’m with Will,” Sandy responded, as Will smiled and reached over to pat her hand. His hand lingered on her thigh, and Sandy felt—and quickly dismissed—the first pang of doubt about what she was doing.

  “Well, I’m not exactly thrilled, but I can’t say I blame you. He’s very cute.”

  “I agree.”

  “Is he going to drive you back to Torrance?”

  “I assume so.”

  “Maybe you better find out.”

  “Don’t worry. I’ll call you in the morning.” Sandy hung up before Rita had a chance to say anything else.

  “So, everything okay? Your friend not mad at you for leaving her with those two yahoos?”

  “Oh, they weren’t so bad.” Actually Sandy had found Bob pleasant enough and felt a stab of remorse for having ditched him so cavalierly. He deserved better. “And Rita’s cool. She’ll handle it.”

  Rita’s cool? Sandy repeated silently. Since when had she started speaking like one of her students? What was happening? First she’d deserted her best friend for a handsome stranger. Now she was tossing out unfamiliar words like cool. It was a slippery slope she was traveling on, she thought, wondering if they were headed anywhere in particular or just cruising around. “Beautiful night,” she said instead of asking, settling into the tan leather bucket seat. “Beautiful car.”

  “Beautiful night. Beautiful car. Beautiful girl,” Will said with an easy smile.

  Sandy smiled too. How long had it been since anyone had referred to her as a girl? And while she would certainly have bristled had either Ed or Bob used that appellation earlier, she found it downright thrilling coming from Will. She leaned her head back, luxuriating in the recklessness of what she was doing. She’d always been such a good girl, such a stickler for playing by the rules. And where had it gotten her? It had gotten her to Torrance. It was definitely time for a change. “So, are you from Florida originally?” she asked, wishing she’d been able to come up with something fresher.

  “Is anyone?” he asked in return.

  “Practically everyone in Torrance was born there.”

  “Torrance?”

  “Where I live,” Sandy explained. “It’s about an hour west of here.”

  “Isn’t that where that girl was murdered last week?”

  A second pang. “Yes. You know about that?”

  “Just what I read in the papers. They find the guy?”

  “Not yet.”

  Will was silent.

  “So, where are you from?” Sandy asked.

  “Chicago.”

  “Got tired of the long winters?”

  “Got tired of the hassles with my ex. Decided it would be in everybody’s best interests if I relocated.”

  Sandy felt yet another pang of doubt jab at her side. That’s silly, she told herself. So what if he has an ex-wife? What did she expect? That he was without a past, without flaws? Besides, wasn’t she a soon-to-be-ex herself? Ex-wife, soon-to-be-ex, what exactly had she been expecting? Ex, ex, ex, ex, she repeated silently, enjoying the harsh sound. “Do you have children?” she heard herself say.

  “Two boys. One’s seven, the other’s nine.”

  Which meant he was probably younger than she was, Sandy realized, a fourth pang poking her squarely in the ribs.

  “You?” Will asked.

  “A boy and a girl. Megan’s seventeen; Tim’s sixteen,” she added reluctantly, wondering how much younger than her Will might be. Five years? A decade? And what did that mean exactly? That he had a thing for older women? That he considered age unimportant? That he was as blind as a bat without his glasses?

  “Really? You must have had them very young.”

  “I was ten actually,” Sandy said.

  Will laughed. “A child bride.”

  “Just about.”

  “And what happened?”

  “We grew up.”

  Will nodded. “Yeah. It happens to the best of us.”

  “Apparently.”

  “What’s he do?”

  “He’s a doctor.”

  “Well, that works out great for you.”

  “It does? What do you mean?”

  “You can soak him for all he’s worth.”

  Sandy detected a slight hint of anger behind Will’s expansive smile. Another pang. “I’m not interested in soaking him.”

  “That’s what they all say in the beginning. Then they change their minds.”

  “They?”

  “You put him through med school?”

  “Yes. But then he put me through teacher’s college later on.”

  “You still come out ahead.”

  Sandy heard herself sigh. She turned away, stared out the window at the passing scenery. A row of high-rise condominiums was blocking out any view of the ocean beyond. She thought of Rita, wondered how she was managing with Ed and Bob. She owed her friend an apology, she decided. Maybe she’d pick up a plant from Publix or a box of chocolates. The thought of chocolates made her stomach rumble. She crossed her hands over her stomach self-consciously.

  “I take it the divorce wasn’t your idea,” Will said.

  Was it that obvious? “No. It wasn’t.”

  He touched her hand. “Doesn’t mean it wasn’t a good one.”

  Sandy smiled, feeling the tension in her body ease. “Where are we going?” she asked as he turned left at the next corner.

  “Thought we’d stop for a bite to eat.”

  Good idea, Sandy thought, as her stomach rumbled again. The sports car picked up speed. Within minutes, they’d left the ocean far behind. “There doesn’t seem to be a lot of restaurants in the area,” Sandy noted, her eyes scanning the quiet residential streets.

  “Who said anything about restaurants?” He turned right, then left, then left again into the parking lot of a modest-looking, twenty-story, white building. He pulled into a space marked 602 and turned off the engine. “Here we are.”

  “Here we are where?”

  “Be it ever so humble.” He jumped out of the car, quickly coming around to her side and opening her door.

  Sandy hesitated. “Will …”

  “Something wrong?”

  “I’m just not sure this is a very good idea.”

  “What’s not a very good idea?”

  “This.” Did she have to spell it out?

  “This?”

  Apparently she did. “Going up to your apartment.”

  “Are you afraid of elevators?”

  She laughed. “No. I just thought …”

  “What did you just think?” He was smiling again. Clearly he was enjoying himself. “You thought we’d spend all night just driving around?”

  Sandy realized she hadn’t been thinking that far ahead, that she hadn’t been thinking at all. “I just don’t want you to get the wrong idea.”

  “And what idea would that be?”

  “You know.” This was silly. She was behaving like an adolescent.

  “You think I want to get you up to my apartment so that I can have my way with you?”

  “No. It’s not that.” Of course it was. Why else did a man bring a woman back to his apartment? She may have been away from the dating scene for twenty years, but no matter how much the world had changed in those twenty years, some things never did, and this was definitely one of those things.

  “Okay. Truth time,” Will was saying. “And the truth is, I’m starving. I haven’t had anything to eat since breakfast, been working like a dog all day, and I stopped at Miss Molly’s on my way home, hoping to grab a bite, which was when I overheard your conversation and saw your discomfort and made a judgment call to spirit you away, but now I’m so hungry I’m about to faint, and I can’t drive anymore without something in my stomach, and I have some leftover chicken in my fridge, that I made myself, incidentally. Did I tell you I’m a great cook?”

  Sandy shook her head.

  “Well, I’m a great cook. Come on, Sandy. What’s t
he matter? You trusted me enough to get into my car. What are you afraid of now?”

  “I’m not afraid.”

  “You think I’m a dangerous man?”

  “What? No.”

  “So what’s the problem?”

  What was her problem? Sandy wondered. Her body swayed toward him, although her legs refused to move. “Look. I tell you what. We’ll go inside for two minutes. I’ll check my messages, grab a piece of chicken, and then I’ll drive you back to Torrance. Okay? How’s that? Can’t get much fairer than that, can I? You can even wait in the car, if you don’t trust me.”

  Sandy felt her lips relax into a smile. She was being silly, she told herself. Will Baker was a sophisticated man. And she was a grown woman, not some helpless teenager. So, stop acting like one, she told herself, climbing out of the car. “Maybe I’ll have a piece of that chicken myself.”

  “Thought you’d come around.”

  They proceeded inside the heavily mirrored, white-and-gold lobby of the old building, where an elderly security guard sat behind a high marble reception desk. “Hello, Mr. Baker,” the man said, waving as they walked past.

  Sandy felt whatever tension remained in her body dissipate. She had nothing to worry about. The security guard knew Will by name. And he’d seen her face. She was perfectly safe.

  “Mr. Samuels,” Will said as he guided Sandy toward the bank of elevators at the rear of the lobby. “How are things?”

  “Pretty quiet. You heard about Mrs. Allen in 1412?”

  “No. What happened?”

  “Stroke. Last Monday.” Mr. Samuels tried snapping his arthritic fingers. “Went like that.”

  “Sorry to hear that. How’s Mr. Allen holding up?”

  “Are you kidding? The quiches have already started piling up outside his door. He won’t have any trouble, believe me.”

  Will laughed as the elevator doors opened behind him. “Catch you later, Mr. Samuels.” Will pressed the button for the sixth floor.

  “It’s so easy for you guys, isn’t it?” Sandy commented as the elevator doors drew to a close.

  “What is?”

  “Women.”

  Will laughed. “Why do you say that?”