The Last Day For Rob Rhino

by Kathleen O'Donnell

  About to try the bathroom again, a darkened room by the shrine, door ajar, beckoned her. She pushed the door open. In the blaze of the candlelight she could see the nursery furniture. The crib, changing table, dresser. A rocking chair with a thick pad, most likely handmade by Deborah. Even in the glimmer the furniture looked new. Like a sleepwalker, Claire wandered to the middle of the room with its thick carpet, ruffled curtains, and stuffed animals. Smelled like fresh paint.

  She went back to the bathroom to knock when the sounds coming from inside stopped her. She put her ear to the cool wood. No mistaking it. Whoever sat behind the closed door was crying. Claire leaned back and looked down the hall toward the front of the house. Grace and William still stood in the kitchen gossiping about her. Elizabeth and Deborah plotted Elizabeth’s rise to national fame in the living room. Claire laid her palms against the door.

  Connor.

  Claire rested her forehead on the smooth surface, closed her eyes, and listened. She wrapped her arms around herself as a stand-in for the man alone in the bathroom who needed comfort she couldn’t give, whose heart was broken.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Claire unplugged.

  She stood in her hotel bathroom under the glaring light, naked in front of the mirror. Sans Chanel, Burberry, Prada, McQueen, or Carolina Herrera. No expensive designer label to cushion the blow. Not even a mid-priced one like DVF or DKNY.

  Just Claire.

  She touched the sharp edge of her collarbone where it jutted out at the bottom of her neck, flesh pale as the belly of a tuna and just as wet. She could see veins and count ribs through papery skin. The sight of her breasts sharpened her breath, the sad empty flaps of stretch-marked skin, slashed tires of her womanhood. Lips cracked and chapped a purplish inhuman color. Her already big eyes bulged out of an alien-like head. Even when she shut them the ghoulish image stayed branded on her brain.

  She could only see herself from the waist up.

  A small mercy.

  I’ve seen concentration camp victims better lookin’ than her.

  She toppled over to the bed and fell down on it. Pissed, she noticed the maids left the empty vodka bottles next to the new half-full one. If they were going to sneak sips of her sauce they could at least throw out the empties.

  Claire needed to get these next couple weeks over with, been here nearly a week already. She’d see if Joe could hurry along that damn crypt. She needed to get this memorial service out of the way. As a shrink would say—closure. She needed to stop thinking about Liam and how much he’d hurt her, shamed her, and go on with life.

  But what about Ellen? Always Ellen.

  Claire’s eyes filled. What was the use? She still hadn’t heard anything from Andrew. Ellen would probably drag this thing out for years. Claire’s tears ran unchecked. She struggled up onto her elbows.

  Drunk-dialing cheered her up at home.

  The nice lady at information (though she kept saying, “You’re slurring ma’am. I can’t understand you”) told her there was no listing for a Rob Rhino. Or a Roberto Hoskowitz. Or Reynaldo Harmon.

  What the hell was his real name?

  What was that he’d said about love?

  Did he think she was beautiful?

  After a couple more ridiculous designation combinations and some miraculous operator intervention she finally got it right.

  “Claire? Jesus Christ. Where are you?” Rob said.

  “In this black hole of a town. Where do you think?”

  “At your hotel?”

  “Duh.”

  “Are you all right? I can’t believe you’re calling me. What’s wrong?”

  “Guess a lot of shit is wrong.” Claire felt the room changing shapes. “Do you think I’m ugly?”

  “Ugly? What the... well, you could use a few pounds.”

  “Blah, blah...”

  “It wouldn’t kill you to wear a rug now and again.”

  “Fuck a rug.”

  What imbecile would call this asshole for anyway?

  “And fuck you too,” she said.

  “I’m just sayin’,” his voice brightened. “Hey, I could hook you up with a bodacious set of knockers. On the cheap too. Just the thing. I know a—”

  “You’re a hideous—” Claire’s sobs cut off her insults.

  “Hey now. There I go again. I’m an asshole.” Rob’s voice purred. “I was just messing with you. Trying to cheer you up, make you laugh. I’m an idiot.”

  “You are an asshole.” Claire kept crying. “And an idiot.”

  “You’re not ugly Claire. Mean as a snake, but not ugly.” He made mean as a snake sound endearing. “More like a fixer upper.”

  Claire wanted to ask him about love but in her crazed state she didn’t know how, couldn’t put the letters in the right order. “Love. What about love?” she said in a low slurred mutter.

  “You’re stoned. How much shit did you take? I’m coming over.”

  “They think I’m dying. No reason.” Claire threw it out there like a fishing line.

  “Who?”

  “Liam’s weirdo family. Fuckers.”

  “We can talk about them when I get—”

  “You don’t know where I am.”

  “Yes, I do.”

  “Did you say you killed your wife?”

  ****

  “I never should’ve told you that. I’m sorry.”

  Rob’s odd presence in her room threw her off. More off than she already felt.

  “I just wanted to scare you. So you’d stop taking all those pills.”

  Claire couldn’t focus. She couldn’t remember how he got in her room. Had she called him, let him in? Why was he there?

  “I wasn’t scared.” She wasn’t, was she?

  “I know. But I wanted you to be. So you’d stop.” He kept talking but she stopped hearing. Like the day he gave his speech. She watched him, acted like she comprehended, yet didn’t really.

  Was he saying something about Gloria?

  Why was he always wearing the same clothes?

  She looked down at herself on the hotel bed. She had on a T-shirt barely covering her butt, the top of her stick legs. She grabbed the bottom of it, tried to pull it down, make it longer. Rob sat across from her on a nubby chair, his hair unnaturally black, wild. He reached for her.

  “It’s okay Claire. I’ve seen it all. I’m a history professor, remember?”

  He made a lopsided smile, scanned the mess of a room, picked up two empty vodka bottles off the floor. “Did you drink all this tonight too?

  Claire’s eyes closed, her lips felt made of lead. She fell over on her side. Rob yanked her up, shook her. She couldn’t see him, but even in her pitiful state she knew he wasn’t smiling anymore.

  “Is this how it’s going to end? Like this? Here in this shithole?”

  She didn’t answer.

  He shook her harder still. “You’re gonna go out like some street junkie?”

  Her head flung backward with a vicious sting. He slapped her. She opened her eyes wide. Her hand touched her face where she could feel the imprint of his hand, his fingers. The skin stung like a burn, throbbed.

  “What’s it gonna be Claire?” He smacked her again, dragged her off the bed. “Tell me. Wake up and tell me if you want to die.”

  “I’m gonna be sick.”

  ****

  She laid her head on his chest, pressed against a coconut-covered tree.

  “Don’t you have a family in California?” he said.

  She couldn’t move her mouth, her jaw sore from vomiting, the force of his hands. She could only nod.

  “Kids?”

  Claire nodded again.

  “They’ve already lost their father. Don’t be this selfish Claire.” He hugged her tight against his gut.

  “Why do you care?” Claire’s vocal chords, ragged, uncooperative, eked out frail sounds.

  “I just do.” He held her out away from him. “Why don’t you?”

  She wondered what
it felt like to kiss him with that gap in his teeth. Would her tongue fit in it? She felt herself getting warmer, hot. She wrapped her leg around his.

  Claire’s trashed brain cells flung a memory to its surface, urgent. “Was it an accident?”

  “What?”

  “When you killed your wife?”

  Rob squeezed his eyes shut. “I told you. I didn’t. I was just trying to scare—”

  Claire pried them back open with her fingers. “Was it? An accident?”

  “Would it matter?”

  Claire felt bile rushing up her esophagus. “I hope so.”

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  “You’ve reached Annabelle. Leave a message.”

  Shit.

  Still turned off. Claire called like a stalker, to no avail.

  Her head pounded, hands shook. Snippets of the night before tortured her, made her cringe. Liam’s family, the dead baby.

  Rob Rhino.

  He’d been there, at her hotel ’til the wee hours she guessed. She woke up alone. She bent at the waist, a dry heave, and jerked back up. God forbid.

  Somewhere a vague whisper of memories... she sat on the bed, smoothed her hand over the sheets, tried to recall. Claire could still smell his musky scent in her room, lush, ripe. She licked her lips, inhaled. She could still hear his whispers, feel the flat of his hand against her face, taste blood from the inside her cheek. He’d held her, she couldn’t breathe... the choking... his hands had been on her, rough. A fleeting vision of skin, tousled covers, hovering shadows. Sweet entanglements, little deaths, silent halleluiahs. Hot, fresh, flesh.

  He’d brought her back to life.

  Like hanging on to fog, her thoughts flittered away.

  She didn’t know anything for certain. Other than she didn’t want to think about it or know for sure. She covered her face with both bony, bruised hands. If she never saw him again, it’d be too soon.

  ****

  She’d stayed away from the diner down the street since that first day. But she didn’t know of anywhere close to eat. The place clamored busier than ever. Trustee Week must mean big business in a little town like this. She stood in the crowded doorway with the other schmucks waiting for tables and tried to decide whether or not she wanted to stay. She needed to settle her stomach, eat bread or something. The usual points and stares made the drive-thru a more attractive option when she heard her name over the racket.

  “Over here, Claire,” a long-fingered hand waved atop an outstretched arm encased in a lavender long sleeve. Nice cufflinks from what she could see squinting but a little gaudy.

  Claire elbowed her way through the waiting diners to stumble to Joe Lansing’s booth.

  “Come join me.” Joe motioned toward the empty side across from him.

  The thought of another meal spent like a leper made Claire grateful to see Joe. He felt like an old friend compared to the gawkers. She slid into the booth. “Are you sure? I don’t want to intrude.”

  “Are you kidding? Delighted.”

  She knew he’d say that. He glowed. Queen for a day.

  “What are you doing in this neck of the woods?” Claire didn’t have any idea about his usual neck of the woods.

  “We don’t live too far from here. I pass this diner every morning on my way to work so I often stop in for breakfast. Lawrence and I aren’t compatible breakfast eaters.” Joe chuckled.

  Claire put down her bag and smoothed her powdered cheeks. She’d put makeup on this morning for the first time in months in an effort to hide last night’s episode (she knew Deborah’s mother’s Yankee pot roast had smelled funny). She’d tossed a cashmere pashmina around her neck to hide the finger-shaped bruises near the bottom of her cheek, neck, and collarbone. Good thing Conchita thought ahead and threw that scarf in the box. She would, having slapped Claire to her senses a time or two herself. By the look on Joe’s face she could tell the combined affect was more Baby Jane/Norma Desmond than she’d anticipated.

  “Are you feeling all right?” Joe said.

  “Having trouble adjusting to the time change. Not twenty anymore, you know.” Claire rubbed her cheeks in case her blush wasn’t blended.

  “When I hit fifty it all went downhill. Everything’s around my knees now.” Joe eyed her scarf.

  He’d just ordered so the waitress brought Claire a menu so she could catch up. They got coffee and ate their breakfasts over talk about the crypt, the upcoming memorial service, the odd unfinished piece of business here and there. Joe dug a piece of paper out of his man purse to take notes.

  Claire munched her toast, sat back in the booth, and looked Joe over. A solicitous, gentle man underneath his gold-digging (grave-digging) exterior. Funny, Joe didn’t seem too swishy. Not like the dean.

  “Lawrence tells me your sister-in-law, the charming Elizabeth, will take your seat on the board of trustees,” Joe said.

  “She seems the logical choice.”

  You poor bastards.

  “She won’t be worse than a lot of them.” Joe took the last bite of his blueberry pancake.

  Claire buttered her English muffin. “By the way, I saw Rob Rhino’s speech a few days ago.” She balanced her knife at the edge of her plate. “At the auditorium.”

  “Ahhh... Doctor Horowitz, the infamous history professor.” Joe laughed. “Quite a character.”

  “Quite. Surprising though. The speech, the topic.” Claire sipped her coffee. “It’s not like he’s a professor anymore. He’s a porn star for Chrissake. Isn’t anyone offended?”

  “Perhaps a few.” Joe stacked their plates, put them to one side. “But this is a liberal arts college. The dean is quite progressive.”

  “Takes all kinds,” Claire said her nostrils pinched.

  “Well, Rob’s a good man.” Joe wiped the crumbs off the table onto the floor. “When he’s in town he volunteers at the hospital’s rehab program, at our literacy outreach center, hands out food to the homeless. Not what comes to mind when you think of a porn star.”

  “A real saint.”

  “His father-in-law doesn’t think so.” He pushed the stationery he’d been taking notes on toward Claire, pointed at the list of names running down one side.

  She stopped mid-chew, pulled the paper toward her. “What?”

  “Jesse Metcalf. Gloria Metcalf’s father. You know Rob was married, don’t you?” Joe tapped his buffed fingernail on the university letterhead. “He’s a trustee emeritus.”

  “Yes I do know. I didn’t know Rob Rhino’s father-in-law was on your board. This is a small town.”

  “Honorary now, he’s old. He shows up at the annual events to ramble on about how much he hates Rob. After all this time.” Joe smiled the satisfied smirk of a blue-haired old lady at a coffee klatch. “You know poor Rob lost his wife many years ago. Drug addict I’ve heard.”

  Claire’s ears almost flapped. “Why would her father hate Rob for that?

  “Who knows? Better to blame someone else for her drug habit I guess.” Joe motioned for more coffee. “He’s so old no one can make sense of anything he says anymore. Nonetheless he’s a father. Can’t blame him for not appreciating the finer points of porn. Rob was a history professor when he married her after all.”

  “What would possess him to change careers?”

  “Probably genetics.” Joe laughed.

  Claire laughed too. “What about her mother?”

  “She’s a recluse. No one ever sees her, but she’s alive as far as I know,” he said. “She’s rich, which explains the trustee seat. Rob’s wife isn’t buried here though... something weird about that whole thing. Can’t remember what, way before my time.” Joe shrugged. “As the World Turns.”

  Claire squinted down the sides of the letterhead, printed in a tiny elegant cerulean font. “How many trustees are there?”

  “Thirty governing, ten emeritus. Or is it emeriti?” Joe laughed. “I can’t keep that straight.”

  Distracted, Claire said, “He never married again?”

&
nbsp; “Not that I know of.” Joe poured more cream in his coffee. “Once is enough for a lot of us.

  Claire’s coffee went down the wrong pipe.

  “You were married? To a woman?” She didn’t mean to sound so astonished. Or offensive. Not out loud.

  “Surprised?” Joe laughed.

  Too late to pretend she didn’t come from three generations of white trash. “I’ll say. I thought... well... you and the dean. I thought you were—”

  “Gay?”

  “That’s it.”

  Joe laughed more. “Yes afraid so. Card carrying. But I pretended I wasn’t. So I married a wonderful unsuspecting woman and ruined her life.” Joe stopped laughing. “And had a kid just for kicks so I could drag her through the whole mess too.”

  Claire’s coffee cup froze midair halfway to her mouth.

  “I’m sure that’s more than you wanted to know.” Joe took off his glasses and wiped them with his napkin.

  “No, well, I... I’m sorry. I had no idea.” Claire put her cup down. “How long were you married?”

  “Ten years. A decade of keeping the closet door and Pandora’s Box shut.”

  “That’s heartbreaking.” Sorrow tiptoed, fragments crept to the surface.

  “Yes, terrible lonely years for her. Then several more to heal, to forgive.”

  “No, for you.” Claire didn’t realize until she said it that she meant him. “All that pressure, the faking, then the guilt.”

  “Well, we all got lucky in the end. Our daughter is healthy, happy, married now. How she came through relatively unscathed is a testament to her mother. My ex-wife went on to marry a man worthy of her but unfortunately she died of cancer last year. And five years ago I met Lawrence.” Joe opened and closed his eyes, blinked back tears. “Not before kissing a lot of toads.”

  Pictures, flashes like butterflies caught in a net, worked free behind her eyes.

  A dark-haired child tap, tap, tapping across the asphalt playground in his Payless five-dollar cowboy boots, cherished for their heels. His boy pumps. Every Halloween embraced with fervor the littlest drag queen. Lips pressed against a young forehead hot from trying. A mother mourning a son who wasn’t.