And When She Was Good (11 page)

W
EDNESDAY,
O
CTOBER 12

I
t is one of the oddities of life in Maryland that no single supermarket can serve a household's entire needs. The organic and semiorganic ones—Whole Foods, Roots—don't offer a full range of paper products and cleaners. (Heloise tries to be “green,” for Scott's sake, but if it's a choice between greenliness and cleanliness, cleanliness wins.) The big chain stores often don't stock the exotic items required by Scott's newfound love of cooking—five-spice powder, tamarind seed, Manchego cheese, even arugula. Produce is best when bought from farmers' markets and the small seasonal stands that dot the back roads, even in Heloise's upscale neighborhood. And almost no grocery store is allowed to sell beer and wine, thanks in part to the efforts of one of Maryland's best lobbyists, a man whom Heloise can't help but admire: He's better at seducing senators and delegates than she is—and makes more money than she does.

But the main thing grocery stores have taught Heloise is that it's better to be a one-stop shop.

This afternoon she has chosen Tommy's Market, a local upscale grocery in Turner's Grove, for a last-minute shopping trip. She is coming from work and so is nicely dressed, which marks her as out of place at this time of day. Everyone else here is a stay-at-home mom, a nanny, or a teenager just released from the nearby high school. No one notices her. No one ever really notices anyone. Her father was right—she was born with a nothing face. But so is everyone.

Yet one man, as out of place at three in the afternoon as she is, seems to be tracking her. He has on khakis and an oxford-cloth shirt, blue striped. His hair is very blond, almost platinum, yet his eyes and brows are quite dark.

“Can you help me pick out a tomato?” he asks Heloise.

“You don't want to buy a tomato in October,” she tells him, having learned this from Scott.

“But these are plum tomatoes, for a dish I make with shrimp and feta cheese. You can use canned, according to the recipe. Even the worst real tomato has to be better than canned, right? So I don't think it matters that much.”

“If it doesn't matter, why are you asking me?”

He gives her a winning smile. “Because I needed an excuse to talk to you.”

It's sweet, and Heloise is flattered, almost charmed. But not tempted, never tempted. Of all the things in the world she cannot have, “real” men top the list.

“Have a nice day,” she says as kindly as possible, pushing her cart past him.

He follows her, pulls his cart alongside hers. “I'm sorry if I seemed overly bold. Are you married? I didn't see a ring—”

She holds up her left hand. There is a ring there, because Scott believes that his mother was married and his father died tragically and she can never love anyone else as she loved him. She wears the ring for Scott. And moments like this.

“I'm sorry,” he repeats. “You must think I'm a louse, hitting on a married woman.”

He looks humiliated, and Heloise does something she almost never does—she takes pity on a man.

“I'm a widow,” she says.

“Wow, that's sad. How long?”

“Twelve years. He died when I was pregnant.”

“Oh.” He looks confused. “That's a long time.”

“In some ways. Do you know the cliché about raising a child? The days are long, but the years are short.”

“I don't have kids. And I don't have a wife, past or present.” He holds up his naked left hand. He has exceptionally nice hands—clean and trimmed nails, long, delicate fingers—although there are calluses on the palms, as if he clutches something tightly on a regular basis. Weights, from the look of those shoulders.

“As if the absence of a wedding ring proves anything on a man.”

She's teasing him. He was so horrified by her ring that she has to think he's a well-intentioned sort. But that's as far as she dares to take this light flirtation. “I have to go.”

“Can I at least know your name?”

“Don't worry about the plum tomatoes. If the recipe says canned is okay, use canned. Why make extra work for yourself ?”

“I'm making more than just one person can eat,” he calls after her.

“Freeze it.”

L
ater, in the parking lot, she catches him watching her as she loads her car. It's about as respectful as such a gaze can be. Wistful, not leering. She feels a little pang of regret as she drives away.

That night, at dinner, she allows herself an extra glass of wine and, once Scott is in bed, a little extra melancholy. She has had such encounters before, although usually even briefer. It's like receiving a postcard from a land where she will never travel. A nice man in an oxford-cloth shirt might as well be the Taj Mahal. Or one of the wonders of the world that no longer exists. She can't get there, and even if she could, the Hanging Gardens of Babylon aren't there waiting for her.

The man in the grocery store is not the only reason for her funk. There was a letter in the mail, one with the return address she wishes she didn't know, had never known. It's not the first time she has received such a letter, but it's been at least four, five years. She can't even bring herself to open it. Just the envelope, the familiar handwriting, feels like a burden.
I don't owe you anything,
she tells the letter. Heloise shuts it up in the lap drawer of the desk in Mother's office. Later she'll take it downstairs and shred it.

She continues to sit at the seldom-used desk, this cubbyhole where some developer, no doubt a man, imagined Mommy cheerfully doing accounts within earshot of her family. The desk is positioned so that she can see the family room, the large windows at the rear of the house. With her own house dark except for the glow of her laptop, she has a view of lighted windows, the shadows of families beyond them. She knows that the women are tired, probably much more tired than she is. They don't have enough time for themselves. They don't have
any
time for themselves. If they have jobs, they feel guilty. If they don't have jobs, they feel guilty. If they work part-time, they are convinced that they are deficient on both fronts, children and office. Some of them, too, probably are sitting with a glass of wine right now, staring out windows or at large plasma television screens, not registering the program flashing by.

As for the women who are going it alone, as she does—there are none here in Turner's Grove. But they are not far away, the divorcées and the widows, maybe a town or two over. What would they give for a nice-looking man—one who cooks yet!—making a pass at them in the grocery store? What will Heloise give for the same experience in a few years?

She fired January today. Business is slow, she can afford to be one woman, one month down. Anna Marie is a nice girl, one of her best, and it hurt to let her go, but Heloise has to be consistent. She reminded Anna Marie of the confidentiality clause she had signed when she came to work for WFEN. It's a funny thing about that contract: It's grossly tilted to Heloise's favor; no reputable lawyer would ever allow a client to sign it. But the girls she recruits never ask a lawyer to look at it, of course. The very fact that Heloise wants them to sign a legal document makes them feel better about their choice of employment. How illegal can a business be if it starts with such a proper contract?

Technically Sophie will be in violation of the contract if she tries to file for workers' comp and reveals the nature of WFEN's clientele. But that technicality can't save Heloise. Sophie's too broke to fear a financial judgment. Sophie's too broke and too angry to fear anything, and that makes her extremely dangerous.

Anna Marie wasn't angry. She seemed chastened, apologetic. “I really thought you would be open to it. I just didn't know how to go about it. I guess I mishandled it.”

“Yes, you did. Once someone has gone behind my back, whatever the motive, I can't trust that person. If you move to another service, I hope you'll do me the courtesy of not trying to poach clients.”

She always says this, but she understands it's the first thing Anna Marie will try to do. Heloise might lose a client or two, but not Paul. Sure, he'll be tempted to cheat on her, but she'll ignore it, let him get it out of his system.

“I don't think I'm going to continue in this line of work. My college loan is almost paid off, the one from undergrad. And I've got a stipend for next semester.”

“Really? A week ago you were plotting to buy my business, and now you're not sure you're even going to continue working in the industry?”

“It was Paul who first brought it up.”

“Paul?”

“He liked my thoughts about public health, finding ways to decriminalize, if not completely legalize, the sex trade. He said he knew someone who might be interested, a money guy who could back me. He sort of encouraged me to follow my ideas to the logical conclusion.”

Sure, that's what Paul liked. Her
ideas.
Still, it's interesting information, and Heloise files it away, just in case it's true.

She doesn't blame men for wanting younger women. It's evolution at work, hardwired into their brains. Once women can't have children and the children no longer require care, then what are women for? She read recently that women were supposed to die before or around the time of menopause, which explains why menopause is so awful: It's supposed to make you grateful to die.
The world is done with you. Get out.
Yet Heloise then stumbled on the writings of a scientist who said that menopause itself no longer serves a purpose. When childbirth was a serious health risk, it was better if middle-aged women, already loaded down with kids, didn't have to worry about an untimely death in pregnancy. Now women are taunting science, having children past the age of fifty. In her heart Heloise doesn't think that's right, but she can't help cheering for anything that levels the playing field. If men can have children up until death, it seems only fair that women can, too.

Like a pro athlete, Paul had told her.
And Val agreed.
That was more hurtful, Val's ready agreement that she should move exclusively to the management side. All her life the only thing men have wanted her for is sex. What else can she possibly provide, at her age, in this economy? What is she qualified to do?

She hears Scott give a little yelp in his sleep. She waits to see if he's going to wake up, need her, but it's just one of the noises that children make in the night. Scott has been remarkably free from nightmares. His bad dreams usually come closer to sunrise and generally involve an enormous dog not unlike one that scared him badly when he was a toddler. She pours another glass of wine, finishing a bottle for the first time in years, yet feeling as if she's not drinking alone, far from it. She's one of a dozen, a hundred, a thousand, a million women, holding a glass and staring into space, asking herself the musical questions she used to hear on soupy, soapy WFEN radio:
What's it all about? Is that all there is? What are you doing the rest of your life?

Heloise misses the randomness of that radio station, someone else calling the shots, picking the songs from some remote location in the country's heartland. Nowadays life is à la carte—watch your favorite television show when you want to watch it, create your own radio station on Pandora or your iPod, tick off the sexual acts you wish to enjoy on this handy order form. Not that she has an order form, but she could, come to think of it, a piece of paper like those handed out in sushi bars. Get what you want when you want it. Her business is steeped in this philosophy, thrives because of it.

Her life? Pretty much the opposite.

1999

V
al was neither sentimental nor stupid. He had to know that keeping a gun used to kill someone was an exceedingly poor idea. But perhaps he thought it would be enough to conceal it well, while the two Georges tossed Martin's body into the bay. Martin's body had traveled a very long way before he was found, washing up one day in the trash nets of the Inner Harbor. It took longer still to identify him, and while his murder had remained an open case all these years, as all homicides do, no one had much hope of solving it. A naked man, a bullet in his head, a known associate of bad people—young Martin was not a priority.

Yet a week after Helen took her pregnancy test in the diner bathroom, four years after Martin's death, police arrived at Val's front gates with a warrant. It was not the first time that Val's home had been searched, and he did not pay much attention as the team of officers worked their way through the large house. He sat in the family room—his name for it, used without irony—watching television, surrounded by his people. His family. Helen, the two Georges, three other girls, including Mollie, his current favorite. She sat tight as a tick by his side, trying to distract him with little pats and kisses. Helen could see that her attentions merely annoyed Val, that he neither needed nor desired to be distracted.

Helen worried that the cops would do their job too quickly, revealing their inside knowledge, but Tom had prepped them well. Besides, they had full run of the house—why not take advantage of it? As one hour turned into two and the men continued riffling drawers, she began to worry that her message had been garbled through the chain of command. Or maybe she was wrong and the gun had been moved. Val had not even pretended to read the search warrant, and he assumed it was the usual nuisance visit. If he had known what was at stake, would he have been nervous? But maybe he did understand and wasn't worried because the gun was gone.

After two hours in the house, the cops fanned across the grounds. Was Val nervous now? He owned more than three acres, although much of it was heavily wooded, a buffer between him and the world. Helen wondered if the cops even knew anything about nature, if they would be able to find the ash tree among the oaks, if Tom had paid attention when she told him about the odd knot in the trunk. It was almost dark when the cops returned to the house with the dirt-covered gun and announced that Val was under arrest for the murder of Kristofer Martin.

“Who?” Val said, very convincingly. Maybe he didn't recognize the name, which had surprised Helen. Or maybe he no longer remembered the full name of the young man he'd shot four years ago, for the simple crime of using Val's full name.

They took Val away, held him without bail. The house felt odd without him there, even though he was normally gone at least ten days a month. The Georges drove the girls into town, brought them home again as if nothing had changed. It occurred to Helen that she wasn't sure where the bills went or who paid them. Val had once told her that he didn't keep anything in his name, but whose name did he use? She called his lawyer, asked for help, but the lawyer refused to tell her anything. She wasn't a wife or a relative, he said. He wasn't authorized to speak to her.

“Where do the bills go?” she asked the Georges. “How do we keep the lights on? Is there a mortgage?”

She didn't really care. But in asking, in pretending to care, worrying about her day-to-day expenses, she was setting up her reason for leaving.

“Don't worry,” they said. “Val won't let his house slip away.”

She was now four weeks along. She probably had six to eight more weeks before the changes in her body would become obvious. But Val knew her body so well. She went to visit him in county lockup. Martin's corpse might have washed up in the city, but the murder had happened in the county—and the county would go for the death penalty if it could, although there didn't appear to be grounds for a capital case. Flight risk, the judge had ruled, but Helen was the real flight risk.

“The charge isn't going to hold,” Val said, confident as ever. “But I can't wait to get to discovery, find out who the CI was.”

“The CI?”

“Confidential informant. Has to be one of the Georges, I'm thinking. Who else would know where that gun was?”

It would be in character for her to defend them, Helen decided, so she did.

“There were others, too,” she said. “There was a girl that night—the one you let go because she developed such a bad cocaine habit. Bettina.”

“Yeah,” he said, remembering.

“And—”
Careful,
she warned herself.
Don't overplay it. The less said, the better.
They had watched a lot of cop shows together over the years, and that was what Val always said.
Most of these people hang themselves. They're too clever. They never shut up.

“What?”

“Nothing,” she said.

“No, go on, you were going to say something.”

“Well, Mollie has a big mouth, too, if it comes to that. She wasn't with us then, but she might have heard some things.”

He smiled. “Look at Helen being catty.”

“No, I was just saying.”

“Sure you were. I like it when you get territorial. Look, Mollie's not competition. Besides, like you said, she wasn't there then. So how would she know? It has to be Bettina. Or that other girl. What's her name? Brown hair? West Virginia? The one who liked to make out with other girls when she was drunk, remember?”

Helen wanted desperately to escape this topic. “Val, what do we do for money while you're here?”

“Do? You go to work. Whatever you make, you can use to pay your way. I've got the house and the utilities covered. But when I come out—and I will be coming out, although there's no avoiding a trial—things go back to normal.”

“It's just—my mom, she's really sick.”

“Your mom? You have a mom?”

“Of course I do. Everyone does.”

“You never spoke of her.”

“And you never spoke of yours.”

“Not about to start either.”

She is curious about Val's origins, especially now.
Who were your people? Did they make you this way or were you born this way?
But those are questions she can never ask.

“My mom—they say she has three months, tops.” Deliberately picking a small number, fewer months than she needed, believing it would be easier to claim urgency, then get home and relay the unexpected good news, that her mother had made it to six months, nine months.

“What's she got?”

“Colon cancer.”

“That's a bad one.”

“Yeah.”

“Did she get that thing where they put that camera up your butt?”

“I doubt it. She's not even fifty.”

“Are you close?”

She didn't understand the question at first, thought he was asking if she was close to getting the procedure, or even if she was close to fifty. It was a normal question under the circumstances.
Are you close to your mother?
Helen didn't have much experience with normal questions.

“In a way. Not in the keeping-in-touch way, because I couldn't see how to make that work. I send her cards at Christmas and stuff. But she was always good to me. I didn't leave home because of her.”

She waited to see if he would ask,
Then why did you leave home?
But Val seldom asked such questions. None of the men in her life asked her questions about herself, except for George II, and those were rare, brought out by these very mellow moods he got when he smoked a lot of dope and became chatty.

“I want to go home. I know I won't be earning while I'm gone, but as you said, I would have been supporting myself, right? It's just up the road in Pennsylvania. She needs me.”

“And if I said I needed you?”

A test. But Helen was good at tests.

“I would stay here. I would do whatever you needed me to do.”

It was the right answer. He nodded. “I'd been counting on you holding things together kind of, but if this is how things are, if I don't have you to keep an eye on things . . . Tell the other girls to get out. Make sure they go. Make sure they take only what's theirs—clothes, makeup, that kind of shit. You and the Georges supervise them. Then, when they're gone, you can go to your mother. But keep me posted, okay? And keep coming to visit. It's not so far that you couldn't visit, right?”

“Three, four hours, one way,” she lied, knowing that she would never make the trip.

“I won't be here long,” he said.

“I know, Val. You always come out on top.”

The weird thing was, she almost found herself rooting for it, if only because Val's ability to survive was one of the few tenets in her life.
Val always came out on top.

She was riding in silence alongside George I before she remembered that Val had been arrested because she'd told Tom where cops could find the gun, then given them a full report on the death of Kristofer Martin.

But when Val's trial finally wended its way to discovery, he would be told that the informant was someone else. Someone who, with any luck, wouldn't even be alive, a reliable CI dying of cirrhosis—and happy to have the money that Helen funneled to him, through Tom, to pay for the funeral of his dreams.