Hard Feelings: A Novel

by Jason Starr

  Still, the abuse had a major effect on her. When she was seventeen she started missing her period and her doctor diagnosed her as “borderline anorexic.” She had problems dating in high school, going out with verbally, and occasionally physically, abusive guys. When she went away to college she fell in love with me and was convinced that her troubles with relationships were behind her. But then, after we got married, she started feeling bad about herself again.

  “I’m not making any excuses,” she said. “Cheating on you was stupid and hurtful and it was probably the biggest mistake of my life. But at least I realize why I did it, and I never would have been able to do that without therapy.”

  She paused and took a sip of tea. I reached over the table and held her hand.

  “I’m sorry,” I said.

  “Don’t be,” she said. “If I could live my life over I wouldn’t change a thing. I’ve learned that what happened to me with Jimmy is part of who I am. If it wasn’t for Uncle Jimmy I’d be a completely different person and I don’t want to be a different person—I like myself now.”

  Thinking that she was even deeper into this therapy crap than I’d thought, I said, “I just wish you’d talked to me about it right away. I could’ve . . . I don’t know . . . helped.”

  “I tried to talk to you about it once,” she said, “but I couldn’t. Communication was a big problem for us—it still is a problem. That’s why I still need therapy so badly. Except for Dr. Carmadie, you’re the only person I’ve ever talked to about any of this.”

  “Well, it’s over now for both of us,” I said, starting to massage her hand gently. “Now we can go on with our lives.”

  She jerked her hand away.

  “It’s not over for me,” she said. “Maybe it’s over for you, but it’ll never be over for me. I don’t mean to belittle what happened to you, but do you really have any idea what I went through? This guy, Michael Rudnick, he wasn’t related to you. Can you imagine growing up, having the person who’s abusing you in your family? Watching your parents treat him like he’s this great person when you know he’s a scumbag? I don’t think anyone can understand what that’s like unless it’s happened to them. In a way, you were lucky.”

  “Lucky?”

  “Maybe not lucky—fortunate. You had a chance to confront Michael Rudnick before he died. I never had that chance. My uncle died a year after he moved to Chicago. Just dropped dead mowing the grass in his backyard one morning. I cried for days when I found out. How fucked up is that? I actually cried over that sick fucking bastard. I mean I can really understand why you went to his office that day to confront him. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve fantasized about confronting my uncle. I’d look him in the eye and say, ‘Fuck you, you ugly son of a bitch. How could you do that to a child?’ Other times, I imagine him sitting there in the reclining chair in his office, in the same chair he used to make me sit in when . . . Anyway, he’s sitting there, smoking one of his stinky cigars, and I sneak up behind him with one of those strings that Mafia guys use. I put the string around his neck and then pull, so hard he gets lifted up off the chair. Then I watch his big bald head turn purple until he stops struggling, until I just let go, and his fat, ugly body falls back onto the chair.”

  Suddenly, Paula’s face was turning bright pink, as if someone were strangling her. I could tell that in her mind she was there, killing her uncle, and I remembered how exhilarated I had felt when I was attacking Rudnick in the parking lot, as if for a few seconds I was outside my body, watching myself, the way people are supposed to feel before they die. I felt an urge to tell her the truth about everything. Maybe she’d understand why I’d done it and I wouldn’t have to keep it a secret from her anymore.

  But instead I said, “I’m glad you didn’t do that.”

  “Why?” Paula asked, her face still flushed.

  “Because people might not’ve believed you. You could’ve gone to jail, your life ruined because of some fucking pervert.”

  Paula was crying. I went over and put my arms around her waist. After a while, she put her arms around me and we held each other that way for a long time.

  While Paula was getting ready for bed, I walked Otis. Now that Paula and I were back on good terms, there was a noticeable change in Otis’s personality. He was much spunkier than he had been lately, walking ahead of me, exploring all the people and objects we passed, keeping the leash taut.

  As I walked Otis toward Second Avenue, I realized why Rudnick had told his wife about me. He was afraid I would blackmail him, so he’d told his wife that I had accused him of molesting me before I had a chance to make any demands. He’d probably told her that I was crazy and had made up the molestation story to capitalize on what I’d heard about him and the kid on the soccer team. This way, if I took my story public there would be a chance his wife would believe him.

  I smiled, thinking about how desperate Rudnick must have been during his last days alive.

  At the corner of Sixty-fourth and Second, I considered continuing east and checking on the Dumpster where I had thrown out the bag of evidence. Then I decided this was too risky—for all I knew, the police were watching me, waiting to see if I made a dumb move—so I made a U-turn and headed back toward my building.

  14

  FOR THE FIRST time in over a week, Paula and I made love. In the morning, when the alarm went off, we were still hugging. I didn’t want to get up. It felt too good, having my wife back next to me, where she belonged. I realized how close I had come to losing her and I promised myself that I’d never let anything come between us again.

  We showered together. Although we didn’t have time to make love again, we kissed and lathered each other all over like newlyweds. We wished that it wasn’t a workday or we could call in sick, but we planned to be home early, by seven o’clock, and to spend the whole night together.

  Paula had an early meeting and left the apartment at around a quarter to seven. I took my time, shaving and getting dressed. Despite everything that had happened during the past twelve hours, I felt invigorated. I turned on the stereo and listened to a rock station, which was unusual for me. For years, I’d been getting dressed in the morning in silence.

  I walked Otis, then I returned to the apartment and had a breakfast of raisin bran, half a glass of orange juice, and a piece of toast. By eight o’clock, I was out the door.

  I swiped in at 8:30 on the dot, looking forward to a long day of work. I had the three new projects to coordinate and I was going to be busy all day. I felt like I was a star again, a top performer, the way I used to feel at my old job at Network Strategies. As I walked up the corridor toward my cubicle there was a hop in my step, an inner confidence that had been missing in recent months. I didn’t feel like I was just showing up to cash a paycheck anymore. Now I was an important part of the company. I belonged.

  I spent most of the early morning on the phone with Jim Turner and other people in the MIS department at Loomis & Caldwell, discussing the upcoming Linux conversion project. I made an appointment for myself, one of my company’s project managers, and a couple of our IT guys to visit the Loomis & Caldwell offices at two o’clock. I was so involved in work that I almost forgot all about the police investigation. Occasionally, I remembered a snippet of dialogue from the detectives’ questioning, or wondered if they had talked to the bartenders yet, but I wasn’t very concerned anymore. The only reason the police had come to talk to me at all was because I had threatened Rudnick in his office. There was no evidence against me and the best lead was still Rudnick’s claim that a teenager had stabbed him. No matter how badly Burroughs wanted to nail me he would have a hard time getting past that one.

  At eleven o’clock, I met with Bob Goldstein and two project managers, Alex Petrovsky and Paul Evans, to discuss personnel issues relating to the upcoming projects. When the meeting was over, at around noon, Bob asked me to stick around because he wanted to discuss something “in private.”

  Sitting across from each othe
r at the conference table, Bob said, “I have some good news for you. This has nothing to do with the sales you made yesterday. We don’t make decisions at this company based on one day of success, but it just so happens that Mary in Recruiting resigned yesterday—”

  “You’re kidding me.”

  “The news came as a surprise to me, too. Anyway, she’ll be gone in a couple of weeks, so you can move into her office. I think it’s a little bigger than your old office, so you should be happy there.”

  Back at my cubicle, I couldn’t help laughing to myself. Maybe the new office had developed because Mary had resigned, but if I hadn’t had that great day yesterday there was no way Bob would have given me an office. Obviously, Bob felt I’d redeemed myself for my awful sales slump, and if I closed a few more big deals within a couple of months he’d probably promote me to VP of marketing. Steve Ferguson and I were next in line for a promotion, but I knew there was no way Bob would promote a “goy” ahead of a “fellow Jew.”

  The two o’clock meeting with Jim Turner and his people went extremely well. We discussed the timetable and scheduling for the upcoming job, and compatibility issues relating to the software upgrades. When the main meeting ended I met with Jim in private in his office, schmoozing about a number of different topics, none relating to work. Normally, I would have invited him out for drinks later in the week, or maybe taken him to a strip club, but I knew it would probably be a bad idea to tempt myself with alcohol. Instead, I suggested that we go to a Yankees game sometime in the next week or two. Bob had sets of corporate season tickets to Yankees, Knicks, and Rangers games, for the Midtown salespeople to use to wine-and-dine clients. Jim said that he was a big Yankees fan and that going to a game sounded like a great idea. We talked for a while longer, then we shook hands and he said, “I think this is all going to work out very nicely—I couldn’t be happier,” before we exchanged goodbyes.

  Riding uptown in a cab, I felt upbeat and unstoppable, like I always did after a successful meeting with a client, but then I arrived at the office and I knew right away that something was wrong. Karen usually gave me a big smile whenever I passed by the reception desk, but this time she looked at me strangely. I said hello and she paused, apparently still mesmerized by something, before she said, “Oh, hello, Richard.”

  In the hallway, I passed Heidi and, in a curt tone, she said, “Bob was looking for you before.” Rather than continuing on to my cubicle, I went straight to Bob’s office.

  Bob was at his desk, working at his PC. Remembering how I’d barged into his office the other day and how annoyed he’d gotten, I knocked on the half-open door. Bob looked over at me and said, “Richard, take a seat.”

  The chummy tone that he had used earlier in the afternoon was gone. Now he was speaking to me like he had a week or two ago, when my job was on the line.

  “Anything wrong?” I asked, sitting down across from him.

  “I hope not,” he said. He studied me for a few seconds, then he said, “You didn’t tell me the police came to your apartment last night.”

  I looked at him blankly for a moment or two, collecting my thoughts. Then I said, “It really wasn’t any big deal.”

  “Not a big deal? It was about that story that’s been all over the news—about that lawyer who was murdered. They said you’re a suspect.”

  “Who said that?”

  “The detectives who were here before.”

  “That’s the word they used? Suspect?”

  “Whatever—they said they were investigating you. They said you went over to the lawyer’s office last Thursday afternoon and made a big scene, fighting with him. That was the day you called in sick, when Heidi saw you on Madison Avenue.”

  “It was all just a big misunderstanding,” I said, smiling, trying to make light of the situation. “Yes, I knew the guy who was killed—yes, I was there that day—and yes, we had some issues in the past. But I had absolutely nothing to do with whatever happened in New Jersey. I can’t even believe the police bothered to come to talk to you about it.”

  Bob was staring at me seriously. He said, “They didn’t just talk to me—they talked to some other people in the office too—and it didn’t seem like they were bothering with anything. It seems like they’re running a serious murder investigation and you’re the focus of it.”

  “That must’ve just been the impression you got,” I said. “I’m telling you, they don’t really believe I was involved. They just wanted to talk to me . . . as a witness.”

  “They asked a lot of questions about you,” Bob said.

  “What kind of questions?”

  “Mainly about your whereabouts last Thursday and Friday. I had to have Ricky in Systems give them your swipe-in and swipe-out times on those days. I guess they’re trying to put some kind of time line together.”

  “I’m sorry this happened,” I said. “This whole thing has just gotten way out of control.”

  “Look, I don’t want to get involved in your personal life, all right? Believe me, that’s not my intention at all. But when the police come into the office conducting a murder investigation, it becomes my business. I had a client with me. Needless to say, the police were a major distraction.”

  “I understand,” I said. “But I’m telling you—it’s just a misunderstanding.”

  Bob’s arms were crossed in front of his chest. “Look,” he said, “I guess I just wanted to hear your side, all right? You’ve obviously been turning things around saleswise. I hope, for your sake, this police investigation turns into nothing.”

  Leaving Bob’s office, I noticed that people were avoiding me. If everyone in the office didn’t already know that I was a murder suspect, it was only a matter of time before they did.

  I decided not to let the situation depress me. Instead, I returned to my cubicle and focused on work. Unlike yesterday, when I was the big hero in the office and people were coming over to congratulate me almost nonstop, everyone kept their distance. At one point, I looked up and saw Steve Ferguson talking to Rob Cohen, the junior salesman, in the hallway, about ten yards away from my cubicle. Steve kept glancing in my direction, smirking, obviously amused by the gossip he had heard about me. I shot him a look that said “Go fuck yourself” and returned my attention to my computer screen.

  I knew that the best way I could shut up Steve Ferguson was to make another big sale and that was exactly what I did on my very next call—closing a proposal on a hardware roll-out and a network upgrade for 110 users. At the end of the day, when the signed quote came in, I made a copy of the quote and slipped it under Steve’s door—a not-exactly-passive-aggressive way of saying “fuck you.”

  Walking home, with my suit jacket slung over one shoulder, I was enjoying the cool, comfortable evening. Waiting for a light to change on the corner of Fifth Avenue and Forty-eighth Street, I realized that I was on the exact corner where I had spotted Michael Rudnick about two weeks ago. Staring into the crowd waiting to cross the avenue, it was a relief to know I would never have to see his face again.

  Approaching my building, I spotted Paula getting out of a cab. We kissed on the sidewalk and then walked inside holding hands. Paula told me all about her day and I told her about mine. When I mentioned how the detectives had spoken to Bob and other people in the office, she became extremely upset.

  “You should call a lawyer,” she said. “They’re harassing you now—it’s disgusting.”

  “I’ll think about it,” I said.

  “Why wouldn’t you call a lawyer? What do you have to lose?”

  “Nothing, I guess. But the police probably know they don’t have a case against me—maybe this is the end of it.”

  We showered together and then got dressed to go out. Paula put on a black dress and high heels and I wore a sport jacket and a pair of slacks. We went to a Malaysian restaurant on Third Avenue that we had avoided in the past because the menu was too pricey. Now that I was closing sales again, a hundred bucks for a dinner for two was chump change.


  After dinner, we went to a cafe on Fifty-ninth Street and shared a piece of opera cake and drank cappuccinos. On the way home, we stopped every so often and kissed. Nearing our block, it started to rain and we jogged the rest of the way, holding hands and laughing.

  During the next few days, my life continued to improve. At work on Wednesday a few people went out of their way to be nice to me. Martin Freiden, the CFO, came by my cubicle and said he’d heard about what had happened with the police, and told me that if there was anything he could do to help me I should just stop by his office to ask him. I knew it wasn’t a real invitation, that he didn’t really want to help me, nor did he really expect me to come to him for advice, but I still appreciated the gesture. Later on, Joe from Marketing, who I was more friendly with, asked me if I wanted to go to lunch with him. I told him that I’d have to take a rain check, that I was too busy, but that I definitely appreciated the offer.

  There was no mention of the murder in the Wednesday newspapers. This came as a big relief because I was ready to see the headline SALES EXEC SAYS DEAD MAN MOLESTED HIM. During lunch, I went to an Internet cafe in midtown, signing in with a phony name. I did searches on several news sites, but I found only the archived stories from last weekend. The story definitely seemed to be fading and I hoped that this meant the police investigation was fading too.

  Still, on the way back to my office, I couldn’t help feeling that undercover cops were watching me. I didn’t see anyone suspicious and I knew that I was probably just being paranoid, but I looked back over my shoulder every now and then anyway, expecting to see someone duck into a vestibule or look away suddenly.

  Paula had still been bugging me about consulting with a lawyer, so I decided to do it, mainly to get her off my back. The lawyer who had handled the closing on our co-op recommended a defense attorney, Kevin Schultz. I called Schultz that afternoon from my office. I explained to him what I had told the police—that I had confronted Rudnick in his office, but that I had absolutely nothing to do with the murder. Schultz said that it didn’t sound like I had said anything to incriminate myself, but he urged me not to talk to the police again without his presence.