After I'm Gone (25 page)

“Yes. They were great to work with.”

“And you went there every time?”

“I went to several places, but that was my favorite.”

“Like jewelry. Did you sell any jewelry?”

“Some.”

“But did you sell it to them?”

“No, I went to a Pikesville jeweler for that. Weinstein’s. I knew the owner back in high school.”

“Yeah, Weinstein’s. We saw those receipts, too. But we found one receipt, and it wasn’t from there.”

“Well, sometimes a piece isn’t right for a certain retailer. They don’t anticipate demand for an item. That’s how consignment works. As you see from the slips, I sold a lot of clothes, too, over the years, but I went down to D.C. for that. People in D.C. are better about the value of clothes. And the clothes were mine, not Aunt Harriet’s.”

“But for jewelry you went to Weinstein’s. Except this once, when you went down to Baltimore Street. Why didn’t Weinstein’s want this piece?”

“I can’t remember.”

“Was it because it was just one earring, one without a mate?”

“Could be.”

Bert was looking
at her, trying to get her to meet his eyes. She couldn’t. Her heart was rising like a skyrocket, up, up, up. She saw herself on her hands and knees, dusting. Cleanliness had been Bambi’s only weapon against the house’s encroaching seediness. Down on all fours, trying to get a dust mop under that long buffet in the living room. It was a beautiful piece. She should have sold it. French, antique, worth a lot. But Felix had loved it so. He was never happier than on a holiday when that buffet was piled high with food. Above it was a family portrait, commissioned pre-Michelle, which always irked her petulant youngest. Once, when Michelle was four, she attempted to add herself to it. Luckily, Bambi had caught her before she had a chance to touch a single crayon to the oil paint.

So there Bambi was, on her hands and knees on a wretchedly hot July morning, air-conditioning off because she had learned to pinch pennies until they bled copper, and there it was, winking at her, the beautiful diamond in the distinctive David Webb setting, her tenth anniversary gift from Felix.

Her first thought was:
I didn’t even realize I had lost one of these
.

Her second thought was:
I didn’t. I wore them just last week at Lorraine’s party.

Third thought:
Did Felix buy all his women the same earrings?
Now that she had it in her palm, she saw that it was slightly smaller than the ones she wore, but otherwise an exact copy.

Fourth thought:
Oh shit. Oh shit. Oh shit.

And now, twenty-six years later, she felt again everything she had felt then. Surprise, correction, muted fury, fear. No, something worse than fear, something primal and huge.

Bambi looked at the detective, the male detective, in the eye: “I killed Julie Saxony. She came to my house on July fourth, and I killed her. Not July third, July fourth. And, no, I don’t know where she was during the intervening twenty-four hours.”

5:00
P.M.

“Mama?”

The word still had the power to shock Rachel. It seemed to surprise Tatiana, too. Even now, eight months after she had joined them, there was a testing quality to it. The question mark at the end seemed to encompass a dozen questions:
Are you there? Still? Will you be there tomorrow? Are you really my mother? Is this really my life?

Rachel put her hand in her daughter’s and said: “Yes, I’m here, Tatala.” Rachel had called her daughter Tatiana, a choice that surprised everyone, because she wanted to use the endearment Tatala without confusing a little girl who was already on her second name, possibly her third. True, “tataeleh” was meant for boys, but Rachel had always liked the sound of it. She had justified “Tatiana” to Joshua by saying she had found a similar name in one of the Chinese dynasties. She didn’t tell him it was the name of a consort.

Tatiana’s Hebrew name was Mazal—the equivalent of Felicia. Bambi had raised one careful eyebrow at this, but said nothing. But, yes, Rachel believed her father was dead. She couldn’t explain why. It was a feeling that had come over her the day that Tatiana was placed in her arms. Felix was gone, his energy was no longer a part of this world, but there was someone new to fill that void.

Only now she was in danger of losing her mother. What was her mother saying to detectives? Why was she doing this? It was crazy, it wouldn’t stand. Rachel had to assume that Bambi’s “confession” would be seen through quickly enough, then the matter would be over. But what if she managed to persuade detectives of this monstrous lie? How much would Rachel have to tell? Did they know that she had gone to see Julie?

It had been such an emotional time. She had left Marc and promptly lost her job, as she had prophesied. No job for the girl who was divorcing the only male Singer. Marc wanted to reconcile, but he continued to lie about his infidelity, deny anything had happened. How could she return to him as long as he was lying? She was living at home with her mother and Michelle, feeling like such a loser. It was in this state that she first read the article about Julie Saxony’s “second act” as an innkeeper and soon-to-be restaurateur. The article ran in the
Star,
an afternoon paper that was a little more down-market, and it included a photo of Julie in her glory. “Saxony at the height of her fame as a Block dancer, in 1975, where she performed under the stage name Juliet Romeo. A year later, her boyfriend, Felix Brewer, would disappear, leaving her only the deed to a small coffee shop on Baltimore Street. Saxony used that opportunity to learn the hospitality business.”

So much to hate in just a few words. “Her boyfriend”—no mention, not in the caption, of the wife and three children he also left. “Only the deed to a small coffee shop.” That was more than he had left his family. “The height of her fame.” What was she famous for? Dancing in pasties and a G-string? Sleeping with her boss?

The more Rachel thought about it, the more it made sense: Julie had their money, just as Mother had always said. Even if all she had received was the coffee shop—that should have been theirs. Commercial real estate downtown wasn’t exactly moving in 1976, but by 1980, with the opening of Harborplace, the land might have been worth something. Julie had sold it for a profit she “preferred not to disclose.” How lazy of the reporter not to find it out, Rachel thought, reading the article in dull fury.

And next thing she knew, she was driving to Havre de Grace.

Julie Saxony led
her into a breakfast room, empty at this time of the day, although Rachel could hear someone banging about nearby, possibly in a laundry room of sorts. A dryer was humming,
whump-whump-whump. Whump-whump-whump
.

“You know who I am,” she said. Flat, not sinister, but also not a question.

“Yes,” Julie Saxony said. She sat in a dining-room chair, but she didn’t invite Rachel to sit. Her posture was impeccable, her hands folded in her lap.
Oh, aren’t you the lady,
Rachel wanted to sneer. In some part of her mind, she realized she was having the fight with Julie that she couldn’t have with Marc, much less his piece on the side. But that was okay, she reasoned. Being angry would help her get what she needed.

“Why were you at my sister’s bat mitzvah?” It wasn’t where she had planned to begin. She realized she had no plan, not really.

“I told you—I was observing the caterer. I hired him. He’s going to be the chef here. He’s already trying out menus and we hope to open this fall.”

“So it was just a coincidence.” Julie Saxony said nothing. “I didn’t think so. Did you spy on us a lot?”

She thought of her own mother, taking the older girls by Horizon House, pointing out Julie’s apartment. But that was just once. That didn’t count as spying.

“Did you?” she repeated. Her words had real authority to her ears. She felt dangerous, and it was thrilling.

“Certainly, I was interested in Felix’s family.”

“Don’t say his name.”

“I think,” Julie said, “this is going to be a difficult conversation if I’m not allowed to say his name.” A pause. “More difficult, I guess I should say.”

“You stole my family’s money. My mother told me.”

“I’m sorry, but that’s a lie. If your mother couldn’t live on what was provided, then that’s probably because she wasn’t willing to economize.”

“Economize? Economize? You try to economize with three daughters in private school, with college tuitions and a house that’s falling apart at the seams. You try to find a job when you dropped out of college at eighteen and became a mother by age twenty.”

“I didn’t even finish high school,” Julie said.

“Yes, but you had an advantage my mother doesn’t have. You were willing to sleep with another woman’s husband.”

Her words hurt, she was sure of it, although Julie’s composure did not crack. She said only: “I loved your father very much.”

“Then you should honor the woman my father loved and give her the money that is rightfully hers.”

“There is no money. What I had, I invested, and it was mine. I’m sorry, but that’s true.”

“My mother’s about to lose her house. She’ll be humiliated. Don’t you get it? She’s not just an ordinary citizen who can be foreclosed on in private. The house will go to auction when her balloon note comes due and the papers will write about it and it will all be dredged up again, just like the stupid article about you dredged it all up. My father loved my mother, above anyone. I don’t care what he told you or promised you. He loved my mother. You weren’t the first, you know. You wouldn’t have been the last.”

Julie licked her lips. “I don’t have any money. I just don’t have it. Not that I would give it to you if I did. I’m sorry if your mother has been improvident—”

“Such big words from the stripper,” Rachel said. Who was this person? Who had she become? It was horrible. It was strangely delightful, too, like playing a villain in a play. She was channeling the fury she felt for Marc, for every woman who had been cheated on.

“I’m sorry if your mother has been improvident.” That word again. “I really am. But it’s not my fault. What’s mine is mine.”

“If only you had been so clear about ownership when you started sleeping with my father. He loved her, Miss Saxony. Her and his daughters. Not you, never you.”

She sensed this was her best weapon, the only way to hurt Julie Saxony. And if Julie Saxony wasn’t going to help her, then Rachel wanted to hurt her. Men couldn’t cheat without women’s cooperation. Sure, there were men who lied, who misled their partners into unwitting adultery. But not her father. And not Marc. Believe someone the first time they tell you who they are. Marc had been a player in high school. He had been famous, Rachel remembered in wretched hindsight, for breaking up with girls by starting new relationships, then waiting for his ex to confront him. Everyone knew what he did, and every girl assumed it would be different for her.

The difference now was that Marc wouldn’t admit his behavior. He called her every night, asking her to come back, but he wouldn’t confess to his indiscretions, Rachel realized now, because they were going to continue. Just more discreetly. Marc loved her, but he had no intention of changing. Instead, he said:
Have a baby. Please have my baby. If we have a baby, everything will be okay.
The thing was, he thought he was speaking theoretically, about a baby that did not yet exist.

“Rachel—”

“Don’t say my name.”

There was a spike of fury in Julie’s words now. “Don’t say your father’s name, don’t say your name—why are you so proprietary about names? What’s the big deal? Brewer probably wasn’t even your father’s family’s real name, back in Russia or wherever they came from. I’ll tell you this much—if your father had stayed, if he hadn’t been forced to leave, I’d have his name by now. He loved me. He wanted me.”

“Keep telling yourself that,” Rachel said. “Tell yourself whatever lies you need to tell to get through.” She had an inspiration. “He knows you stole from us. He couldn’t do anything about it, where he is, but he knows. He never loved you, not really, and now he hates you. You destroyed the thing he loved most of all, his family.”

Finally, she had gotten a rise out of the woman. She was quite livid, almost in shock.

“He—he talks to her? To this day?”

“To this day.”

She left Julie’s
inn with that feeble, hollow victory. The situation hadn’t changed, despite her triumph over Julie. Her mother needed money, now, or she was going to lose the house. And Rachel knew what she would have to do to get it. It took a little longer than she anticipated, almost a week, but when her mother returned from the beach, Rachel was able to present her with the money she needed.

“Where did you get this?” her mother demanded.

“Let’s just say that Julie Saxony made good on her debts,” Rachel said. It felt like a safe lie at the time. But Rachel was an inexperienced liar and did not know all the ways even a safe lie can go wrong. Maybe she should have asked Marc for some pointers as part of their settlement, a settlement brokered by her mother-in-law, who was very happy to void the prenup if it meant Rachel would grant the get that Mrs. Singer desired, then go away forever—and take the stain of the Brewer name with her.

5:30
P.M.

The minute she said July 4, Bert had demanded another conference. Bambi granted his wish out of courtesy, but her mind was made up.

“Bambi, I may have to withdraw as your counsel,” Bert said, “if you insist on going forward with this.”

Was that all he had? “Then withdraw. I’m ready to tell this story, with or without you. You can’t say what happened on July fourth, can you, Bert? So you’ll just have to listen.”

A tape recorder was set up. Both detectives made eye contact in their individual ways. Nancy Porter was bright and focused, the kind of grade grubber who sat front and center back at Forest Park High School. The sad-faced one looked as if he knew every unfortunate thing that had ever happened to Bambi.
Lugubrious,
Bambi thought. That is the only word for how he looks. She decided to look at neither detective as she spoke, focusing on a point between their heads. They probably thought she was trying not to cry. Well, she was trying not to cry.