And When She Was Good (3 page)

1990

H
elen could never understand how her father had landed any woman, much less two. But as her studies in world history advanced—she was admitted to the AP class as a junior, a real achievement—she gained insights into how the scarcity of a commodity made people irrational. She read about the tulip boom and bust of the seventeenth century and figured there would have to be a Hector Lewis bust eventually. Not that men were scarce in her town, not in general. If anything, Helen wished there were fewer of them, that she could get through the day with less catcalling and trash-talking as she rode her bike to and from school. She may have had a nothing face, but her rear end, propped up on a bike seat, was apparently quite memorable.

Yet the pool of men available to women such as her mother and the first Mrs. Lewis—as Helen thought of Barbara—was tiny. And Hector was good-looking, she supposed, although it's hard to see one's parent in that light. A few girls at school had said as much. His looks were secondary, however. By refusing to belong to either woman wholeheartedly, Hector kept both in a state of dynamic tension. When Helen's mother dared to complain about anything, he disappeared for a few days, probably to visit Barbara, although he always denied it. And every time he spent the night at Barbara's, he reset the clock on their separation, making it more difficult for either one of them to obtain a divorce. It wasn't often, no more than once a year, but that was all it took. Each woman wanted what the other had. Barbara wanted Hector to live under her roof and resume being a father to their four children. Beth wanted the surname of Lewis, the official status of Mrs.—and the obvious sexual chemistry he enjoyed with Barbara.

This, too, was new information for Helen. She thought men left women for fresher, more exciting sex. But her parents seemed to have a most lackluster life in that department, even though Beth Not-Really-Lewis was prettier in every way than Barbara Lewis—thinner, younger, better kept. Eventually Helen worked out that her father preferred sex with Barbara because it was forbidden, dirty. Sex with her mother had been that way only in the beginning, when he was cheating on his wife with the naïve nineteen-year-old country girl who worked as a carhop, of all things, across the street from where he sold cars. Once he got Beth pregnant and decided to move in with her, it wasn't furtive anymore, and therefore it wasn't fun. When he returned from his weekends at his first wife's home, there was a brief interlude where he had loud—and, presumably, satisfying, at least to him—sex with Helen's mother. But that honeymoon phase wore off quickly, and then the only way they could have sex was if he hit Beth first.

When he started hitting Helen, she knew enough to worry that it might become sexualized. She wasn't that much younger than Beth had been when she met then-thirty-six-year-old Hector. But her father never transgressed that boundary and seemed to think well of himself for it. He talked a lot about filthy perverts who had sex with their own daughters, how disgusting they were, what he would do to any man who dared to commit such a crime. Helen was not comforted by these diatribes. She worried that her father was protesting too much, that he was locked in a battle with himself he might lose. She kept herself as plain and unprovocative as possible, wearing her hair in two braids in an era when other girls had big, teased hair, and sticking with a preppy style that was considered out of fashion unless one was an actual preppy or a mean girl in a John Hughes movie. She became grateful for her nothing face, which she did little to enhance and then only at school, where she daubed eyeliner beneath her lashes. She was learning that her father was right in a way: There was a virtue in not attracting attention.

Still, throughout high school she could feel the tension building in the house.
Something's gotta give,
Ella Fitzgerald sang on her father's record player. He loved old jazz standards, which was the hardest thing for Helen to reconcile with her sense of him. He was an oaf, a boor, a lout in so many ways. Yet he loved beautiful music.

And Hitler wanted to be an artist, she learned in world history.

The breaking point, oddly, came over her report card. Oddly because it was a very good report card, all As except for a B in home economics. Yet her father focused on that B. She couldn't remember her father ever looking at her report card before. She had long given up on trying to impress him. But he found this one on the table, awaiting her mother's signature—and, Helen could admit, maybe a little praise, wan and tired as her mother's praise tended to be—and he began to harangue her for not making straight As. Yet she knew it wasn't the lone B that bothered him but the As themselves. He did not want her to think she was better than him.

Too late.

“World history,” he said with a sneer. “Trigonometry.” He stumbled on that one. “English III. Aren't you good enough for English I?”

“English III is what they call junior English.”

“French. Freeeeeeeeeeennnnnnch. The only thing on here that's going to help you in this world is home ec, and that's the one you got a B on. There's nothing worse than being book-smart and world-stupid.”

Her mother sat quietly at the table all the while, working the jumble. She worked the jumble, then the crossword puzzle; she read the advice from Dear Abby; she absorbed the hints from Heloise. She read every single word in the slender local newspaper.

Helen knew better than to defend herself, yet—“It's not my fault that we don't have a sewing machine at home. That's what pulled my grade down. I couldn't work at home, like the other girls, and—”

He hit her, the report card crumpled in his fist. He was smart about how he hit people. Usually to the side of the head, with his fist, maybe in the stomach. Sometimes a kick. But he almost never left a mark.

“Oh, Hector,” her mother said, picking Helen up, whispering in her ear not to antagonize him, not quite able to conceal her relief that it was Helen's turn to be hit. “I'm sure she'll bring the grade up next semester.”

“Why should there be another semester for her? She's sixteen now—she can drop out and go to work. Why should she have it better than you or me?”

Neither Helen nor her mother dared to point out that Beth had finished high school and gone on to get a nursing degree while Helen was a baby. Facts only infuriated Hector Lewis. He considered them a personal affront, unfair and sneaky. Give Hector Lewis a fact and he'd answer with a fist.

“If she wants to go to school, then she has to get a job, kick in her share of the rent and the food she eats. She eats a goddamn lot of food.”

“Hector—” Her mother cared enough about education to want to see Helen finish school. Or maybe it just galled her that Barbara Lewis's kids would all have high-school diplomas, maybe even college degrees, and Beth was very competitive with Barbara. The three older ones were all at the local satellite campus of the state university, getting by on grants and student aid; the youngest, Meghan, was almost as good a student as Helen.

“It's only fair,” he said again. And Helen understood, even though she didn't want to. She understood her father in a way that no sixteen-year-old girl should have to understand a parent. Where most people wanted their children to have more than they did, Hector wanted Helen to have less. Perhaps it was his guilt over the other four children, essentially abandoned. Perhaps the only way he could keep getting up in the morning was not to be left behind by anyone close to him. At any rate, he meant it. She would have to get a job, pay her way. It would be harder to keep her grades up, which would make it harder to get a scholarship. He was setting her up to fail.

He succeeded beyond his wildest dreams.

W
EDNESDAY,
O
CTOBER 5

S
cott plays soccer. His grandfather probably would have been appalled if he had lived long enough to see this. Not that Heloise would have allowed him to see Scott, much less have a relationship with him. Watching Scott now from the sidelines, she wonders how many grandchildren Hector Lewis has in the world. She knows that her half sister, Meghan, has four children, but Meghan has moved to Florida, and Heloise never kept in touch with the other, older children from her father's first marriage. Why would she? When she was a kid back in Pennsylvania, they didn't even acknowledge her on the street, although the oldest boy sometimes screamed after her, “Your mother's a fucking slut!”

It was interesting how hot and red one's ears could get on the coldest day in a Pennsylvania winter.

No screams here on the sidelines of Scott's soccer game. No one would dare. There is a long list of protocols for how parents are to behave. They must be models of good sportsmanship. They must not make suggestions to the coaches. No excessive celebration. Even cheers must be muted. Not that Heloise is a person given to excessive celebration, but
still.
She hates rules derived from the bad behavior of a few.

She always stands apart on the soccer field, her conversations with the other mothers polite yet fleeting. She's not sure whose fault that is. She has stopped trying to figure out if she's standoffish because the other mothers snub her or if she's snubbed because the other mothers sense she's standoffish. For the most part, she tells herself that she's happy for their neglect. It makes life that much easier, and Heloise is not the kind of person who disdains anything that makes life easier. Cake mix for the class cupcakes? Bring it on. Hiring a tailor to make the “simple” priest costume that Scott wore as Father Andrew in the school play on the founding of Maryland? Yes, please. Heloise doesn't necessarily throw money at problems, but she does apply it in bold, confident strokes.

True, she encourages incuriosity in most people. Yet it's still hurtful to see how easily people fall into line with one's desire to be ignored. What if she needed their attention? What if she had a crisis? There are only two people she could call: her au pair, Audrey, and the man who is standing here next to her, Tom. Come to think of it, the mothers are paying attention to
him,
and he's not even that attractive. Broad-shouldered and barrel-chested, which has never been Heloise's type. Pleasant-looking but not handsome. He is undeniably masculine, however, a man who somehow projects his ability to take care of those he considers his responsibility.

Heloise is lucky enough to fall into that small group of people.

“You don't have anything to worry about,” he is saying now, in the most conversational tone possible. Tom and Heloise long ago mastered the knack of having serious talks in casual tones. “They're not going to release a lifer like Val because of one bad expert. There was an eyewitness, remember? At worst they might agree to a retrial. But the evidence will be reexamined by a certified expert, and it will hold up, because ballistics are pretty cut and dried. Val's staying put.”

“You're always so certain. You told me I'd be safe forever once he was locked up.”

“And so far I'm right.” Tom shields his eyes against the late-afternoon sun. He actually tries to follow the game, and Scott within it. Heloise has never allowed him to meet Scott, at least not since babyhood, but Tom enjoys watching him from a distance. Tom would have liked to be Scott's stepdad, but it just wasn't to be.

“Forever is a long time,” Heloise says.

“True. So let's say I don't see this being a threat in your lifetime, based on those insurance charts about life expectancy.”

It is October, usually the most beautiful month in Maryland's most glorious season, although lately it has become hot and undependable. Still, Heloise feels that fall is a new beginning, as many people do.

“It's interesting,” Tom says, “that you called me today. Because I was going to call you.”

“About the ballistics expert?”

“No. Damn, you have a one-track mind at times. Fact is, I'm coming up on my twenty, Hel. I think I'm going to retire, move over into private security.”

“I can't afford you on the payroll full-time.”

He smiles, acknowledging her joke. He's never taken a dime from her. “No, no, you can't. And you won't have anyone else like me, going forward. This is something you actually should worry about. The guy coming up behind me, he wants to make a name for himself. He wants to make big busts, get attention.”

“I'm a small fish. They almost never go after anyone at my level.”

“Your client list has some folks that would be of interest to any prosecutor trying to make his bones.”

“I don't live in the city limits.”

“But you conduct a lot of business in the city. I'm pretty sure I know which hotels are friendly to you.” Tom and Heloise have always been very careful not to share too many details, although Heloise has never been shy about providing Tom with information on other vendors, those she perceives as threats or competition.

“Okay, so I just won't cross city lines for a while. There are plenty of hotels near the airport. Besides, half my business is in private homes.”

“Be careful, Hel. That's all I'm trying to say. I'm not going to be there to tell you what's going on, where they're looking. It's true your operation should be fine. But if you get sloppy or hire someone untrustworthy—”

“Won't you stay plugged in, at least for a little while?”

“The new guy's going to want to make the office his. You can't blame him for that. I've got to give him space—or risk having people wonder why I'm still so interested.”

“Maybe I really
could
hire you full-time.” If she got rid of the two drivers who work for the car service—after all, their primary job is providing security for the girls—or found another way to economize, she could probably come up with a competitive salary.

“No thank you, Heloise.” Very formal of him. He seldom uses her “new” name, although at this point Tom has known her as Heloise much longer than he knew her as Helen.

“Oh, don't be so gallant. Revenues aren't what they were, but I bet I could match your current salary, for a lot less work, and you'd be drawing your pension, right?”

“I can't work for you.” Eyes on the game, hands in his pockets.

“Why not?”

“Because what you do is illegal.”

Oh, so he wasn't being gallant at all.

“That's never stopped you from being my friend.”
Or wanting to be more,
she yearns to add.

“I owe you. You gave my department a big case, put yourself at risk. I want you and Scott to be okay, so I've done what I can to look after you. But I can't take your money.”

“It's not blood money, Tom. Jesus.”

“Look, just because I turn a blind eye to what you do, that doesn't mean I approve. I'm a captain in vice, Heloise. I'm supposed to arrest people like you.”

“So why don't you?”

She holds her hands out to him, fingers dangling toward the ground, wrists bent. The other mothers probably think it's a tender gesture, a woman asking her husband or boyfriend to warm her hands in the deepening chill of a fall evening. But Heloise is miming the act of being handcuffed. Something, by the way, she has never been, not even once.

“Stop,” he says. “Just stop.” Then: “Scott's team is lining up for the penalty kick. Another soccer match ends in anticlimax. I swear, I do not understand the fascination this game has for so many people. It's boring as crap.”

He's trying to extend an olive branch. She takes it, dropping her hands and the subject. “What do you think about that . . . situation?”

“Situation?”

“The next county over. The one in the garage.”

“Oh.” Tom's face is a study. “About that—be careful, Hel.”

“I always am.”

“Be extra careful.”

“What are you telling me?”

“As much as I can for now.”

Scott's team wins. He's more interested in the snacks offered after the game than he is in the victory. The light has disappeared very quickly, as it does this time of year, leaving a pink stripe on the horizon. Tom vanishes before Scott finds her on the sidelines. Tom has always respected the fact that no one—well, almost no one—can have access to both sides of her life. He's unusual in that he even knows that Scott exists, a fact she has kept from her clients and employees.

Yet he has been judging her, as it turns out, all these years. The moral relativism of the situation sends her reeling. She
knows
men. She knows that Tom desires her, would have given anything to marry her, raise Scott as his son. Is this payback for her not wanting him in return?

Or did Tom imagine that he could rescue her from herself, bring her back to the legitimate world? The way Heloise sees it, the legitimate world kicked her out when she wasn't that much older than Scott. Turned away from her, shut the door in her face.

Besides, if she's being honest—she always knew she could do better by herself than being a cop's wife. Than being anyone's wife. Because being someone's wife would mean being dependent on someone else for money, which was where the trouble always began. It wouldn't matter if the guy was a cop or a Wall Street bond trader—to go to a man, palm out, asking for money, to seek approval for every purchase—Heloise doesn't want to do that again, ever. When her father made her get a job, he unwittingly taught her the power of money.

She is so busy brooding about Tom's insult that she forgets at first to consider the real problem he has handed her.
Tom is retiring.
She will have no one on the inside. Careful as Heloise is, he has been invaluable to her a time or two. But mainly there was the
idea
of Tom, which gave her confidence, an indefinable asset in business.

Snack time is over, and Scott runs across the field. He's no longer one of the best soccer players, but he's beautiful when he runs. Her son is eleven now, almost twelve, but in seventh grade because of his December birthday. There is a lankiness that wasn't there last year. It might not have been there yesterday. His red hair is darkening, his freckles are less numerous, his brown eyes more foxlike since his face shed its baby fat. She wishes she couldn't see his father's face in his, but it's there, always. She can live with that, though—as long as she never sees anything else of his father in him.

“Mom, could we have a date?”

“Audrey put hamburger meat out to defrost.”

“It will be okay for another day,” he says, quite earnest. “We studied food safety in science last year. The important thing is to defrost food in the refrigerator, not on the counter.”

“Oh, Audrey always does that.”

“Then can we go to Chili's?”

She hesitates. Part of her wants to teach him about thrift and value, remind him that one can't always have what one wants. But that was the kind of lesson Hector Lewis claimed he was teaching her. Besides, Scott called it “a date.” And it's Chili's he wants, not the Prime Rib. A plate of nachos, free refills on soda, the televisions on in the bar, whereas Heloise never allows any screens at dinnertime.

“Of course,” she says, yearning to smooth down his hair, ruffled in the wind. But she knows better. “Of course.”

At the restaurant, over fajitas for Scott and a taco salad for her, she listens to Scott's cheerful report about school, her eyes catching the scroll of headlines on the television behind his head. There's the Suburban Madam again. Why did Tom tell her to be careful? She's always careful. Fastidious with her records, within the law on taxes, scrupulous about screening clients.

She decides that Tom's just a grump. Perhaps it wasn't his idea to retire at all and he is being forced out, and that's why he was unkind to her. Another reason not to marry. If a man wants to be grumpy with her, he has to pay for the privilege.