Blood Red (10 page)

“She heard me telling the saleswoman that I was browsing for something for my mom,” Dad says, “and for some reason, she decided to put her two cents in.”

“Because he was looking at the gaudiest earrings you ever saw.”

“And you wanted me to buy her perfume that stunk to high heaven.”

“It was Giorgio Armani. Your mother loves it.”

“Now she does—­”

“Thanks to me.”

“Thanks to you,” Dad agrees, “but I still think it stinks.”

“But you bought it for her. And you bought me a beer that night when we ran into each other again down at the Windmill.” That's a local pub.

“And you dumped it on my lap.”

Mom would insist that it was an accident, and Dad would say it was on purpose. Then they'd argue about whose idea it was to go see a movie together on Christmas Day, because neither of them bothered to make sure the theater would be open. It wasn't; nor were any of the restaurants in town. To salvage the date, they went skating on Milkweed Pond behind the high school. Mom remembers that they had the ice all to themselves and that it was snowing; Dad is convinced there were other skaters and that there was no snow.

The only detail that was never disputed by either of them: that even on that first date, they knew they would be together forever.

Mick locks his bike on the rack in front of the library and walks toward the shops and restaurants that line the village square. The Windmill is still there, a few doors down from Marrana's.

Someday, he and Brianna will go there, and they'll skate together on Milkweed Pond, and they'll share their love story with their kids. It'll start with the moment Mick fell off his bike in front of her that summer before freshman year—­they'll leave out the fact that she was with another guy who called Mick a carrot top. The next part will be about how he left her anonymous little Secret Santa gifts every day for a week, and on Friday came the big gift, the one that won her heart . . .

What will it be?

Not a twenty-­five-­dollar gift certificate to Marrana's, that's for sure.

But he has a pocket full of tip money and all afternoon to figure it out.

V
ast and iconic, the white-­columned James A. Farley post office branch is always extra-­crowded in December, not just with ­people mailing holiday cards and packages but also with hordes of Good Samaritans. This is where Operation Santa Claus began over a century ago, with ­people picking up letters from needy children and anonymously buying gifts for them.

The tradition is going strong on this rainy Manhattan Saturday. Casey has to weave past crowds of do-­gooders to join hundreds of customers on the long line that snakes toward the ser­vice counter.

No one amid this chaos is likely to question—­or later remember—­a plain brown-­paper-­wrapped package.

It takes nearly an hour to reach the counter, but that's just fine. There's a redheaded woman standing just a few ­people ahead in the line, her long hair a tantalizing reminder of the pleasures that lie in store very soon . . .

As a child, even during the hardest years, Casey was always anxious for Christmas. But that giddy anticipation was nothing compared to this.

Another stand-­in might be necessary after all. Not here, though. That would break all the rules of the game, rules that are there for very good reasons.

If something were to go wrong now, then none of this will have any meaning. Casey's efforts will amount to nothing, and a guilty woman will go unpunished.

I couldn't bear that. I can't take any chances. I have to stick with the plan, follow the rules, wait it out.

It's the redhead's turn to step forward to the counter. As she moves out of reach, Casey fists fingers that long to grasp that beautiful hair and yank her backward.

“Next!”

Casey places the package on the counter, keeping an eye on the redhead a short distance away.

“Is there anything fragile, liquid, or perishable inside?” the postal clerk asks.

“No.” A lie.

“Do you want insurance or tracking or delivery confirmation?”

“No thanks.”

“You sure?”

“Positive.”

The clerk, a diminutive Asian woman, takes her sweet time typing on her keyboard with glossy purple fingernails that clash with her close-­cropped red hair.

Casey's hands clench and unclench, clench and unclench.

She slaps a label on the box.

“When will it get there? Do you know?”

The clerk glances at the label. “I doubt Monday, but you never know. Probably Tuesday. Wednesday or Thursday at the latest.”

“That's not very specific.”

“You could have sent it priority so that it's traceable or—­”

“I didn't want to do that.”

“Then you take your chances. It's Christmastime. Things are crazy here.”

Yeah. No kidding.

Everything about her is irritating. What a pleasure it would be to slice into her belly and see her flesh rip open, oozing gobs of white fat and red blood.

But it wouldn't bring pleasure in the usual way.

She's all wrong. Her dye job is unnatural, and her hair is short. Things would be different if it were long and silky like Rowan's, or like that of the young woman standing nearby . . .

The woman who's going to get away if this bitch doesn't speed things up.

Dispatching the clerk would be strictly business, resulting in the same perfunctory pleasure you get when you've finally swatted a fly that's been buzzing around the house.

“That'll be six dollars and five cents.”

Seething with impatience, Casey hands over a twenty-­dollar bill.

“Do you have a nickel?”

“No.”

Wearing a disapproving expression, she takes change from her drawer, counting it twice before handing it over. “Have a good weekend.”

“Oh, I will.”
Believe me.

Casey pockets the money and turns to see that the redhead—­the other redhead, the potential stand-­in—­is just finishing up, too.

Yes, it would be against the rules, self-­imposed or not.

But as the saying goes—­and as Rowan herself clearly agrees—­rules were made to be broken.

 

From the
Mundy's Landing Tribune
Archives

Community Notebook

July 1, 2004

New Hires at Local Schools

At Mundy's Landing Elementary, a new fourth-­grade teacher will replace retiring teacher Eloise Duncan in the upcoming school year. Born and raised in the village, Rowan Carmichael Mundy attended MLES and was a student in Mrs. Duncan's classroom just over twenty-­five years ago, as was her husband, Jake. The ­couple moved back to their mutual hometown in 2002 and live on Riverview Drive with their three children, all of whom are students in the public school district. Asked how she feels about being employed at her alma mater, Ms. Mundy smiled and stated simply, “It's home, and I'm glad to be back.”

 

Chapter 5

O
n Saturday evening, when Rowan drives around the bend and her house comes into view, she knows immediately that something is terribly wrong.

Night fell over an hour ago, but the windows are dark from attic to basement, and the porch light and lamppost are off.

She'd exchanged text messages with both Jake and Mick shortly before leaving Central Valley to make the long drive home. Mick was already gone, out for pizza with friends before tonight's varsity hockey game, but Jake was home and suggested that they go out to dinner.

Date night? Marrana's?

Sounds great!
she'd responded even though it's the last thing she feels like doing.

She has to force herself to keep driving toward the dark house, her heart pounding wildly as her mind flits through the possibilities, each horrific in its own way.

Jake knew she'd lied about where she was going this morning and decided to give her a taste of her own medicine, or . . .

Or he'd found the burnt cookies in the attic and figured out what had happened between her and Rick fourteen years ago and had walked out on her, or . . .

Or someone broke into the house and attacked him . . .

Or . . .

Or he dozed off watching TV before it got dark, she realizes with relief as she turns into the driveway and spots a telltale faint blue flicker in the living room window.

Ironic that her mind didn't even go to that innocuous scenario despite the fact that it happens regularly.

It's because her guilt has been festering all day.

As she was driving back from Manhattan, she'd worked herself into a panic about the box in the attic, worried that Jake might have decided to put up the outdoor Christmas lights this afternoon to surprise her.

They're also stored in the attic—­yes, on the opposite end, but still . . .

Every year, she has to nag him to string the lights in the shrubs and along the porch eaves. This year—­the one year she's been trying to keep him out of the attic and thus hasn't mentioned it at all—­would be the one year he'd do it.

And if he'd gone poking around up there and found the package . . .

Oh, come on. One plus one doesn't add up to five.

She tried to convince herself that a box filled with burnt cookies and old newspaper couldn't possibly lead Jake to conclude that she'd been unfaithful. But by the time she arrived at the mall, paranoia had gotten the better of her.

She tried to call Noreen, but her sister didn't pick up her cell or at the house. She left a message, trying to sound casual: “Loved your Christmas card. Call me back whenever you have a chance.”

Noreen is one of those ­people who walks around with her phone in her pocket when it isn't in her hand. She always returns calls promptly. This time, she didn't.

Maybe she's busy.

Of course she's busy; she's always busy.

Rowan takes a deep breath as she pulls around to the back of the house and parks beside Jake's Jeep. After turning off the engine, she rests her forehead against the steering wheel for a moment, spent.

You're okay. Pull yourself together. You've got this.

She gets out of the minivan and grabs the shopping bags from the back. She'd more or less raced through the outlet center snatching up things she thought Jake and the kids might like for Christmas, along with a belated engagement gift for her nephew Andrew and his fiancée, who live in Chicago near her oldest brother, Mitch.

Her efforts resulted in a convincing pile of paper shopping bags and the promise of hefty store credit card bills come January.

By then, though, this will all be behind her. She'll have figured out which of two possible scenarios is the more likely.

Either Rick was playing out an elaborate charade today, lying about having sent the package or at least about having told someone what had happened between them years ago, or . . .

Or the one person in whom Rowan confided is responsible in some way for the burnt cookies.

But Rowan just can't imagine it. Her sister is much too classy—­not to mention too busy—­to pull something like that. Besides, although Noreen might be sanctimonious at times, she would never deliberately hurt Rowan.

It's far more likely that Rick is behind this.

He seemed earnest today—­for the most part—­but how well does she know him, really?

Not well at all, anymore. There had been a time when she knew him as well as she knew her own husband, but ­people change.

I need to talk to Noreen
, she thinks as she juggles the shopping bags to unlock the back door.
I'll call her again, and if she doesn't pick up, I'll tell her it's really urgent.

There's a brand-­new garbage can sitting beside the back steps, the latch firmly in place. Now she can get rid of the evidence at last.

In the dark living room, she finds Jake dozing on the couch in front of a college basketball game. There's a bag of chips and a soda can on the coffee table—­sans coaster, as usual, but she's not about to chide him for that. Not today.

“Hey,” she says, startling him. “Sorry. I'm home.”

“Welcome back.” He yawns, stretches. “How was the mall?”

“Great.” She holds up her bags. “How was your day?”

“Great.”

“What'd you do?”

“This, pretty much. And some errands.”

“Did you have a chance to refill your prescription?” He's been on medication to lower his cholesterol since his last physical, much to his dismay, and he keeps allowing it to run out.

“Forgot.”

“Did you remember to pick up some dog food?” She'd texted him that they were running low.

“Forgot,” he says again, “But I did buy a new trash can and drop off my shirts at the dry cleaner.”

“Terrific. No more rancid garbage in the backyard, plus you'll look nice and spiffy while your cholesterol is spiking and the dog is starving to death.”

“Spiffy? Who says spiffy?” he retorts, but in his usual good-­natured way.

She smiles, glad things are back to normal, then reminds herself that things were never
not
normal. Not on Jake's end.

And that's the way it's going to stay, she vows, drinking in the gallery of happy family photographs beside the stairs as she heads up to change for dinner.

The call to her sister will have to wait until later, or tomorrow morning. Tonight is date night with her husband, and Jake deserves her undivided attention at last.

N
oreen is finally finished driving the kids around.

For today, anyway. What a whirlwind. She just dropped Sabrina and her friends at a bat mitzvah in Great Neck, and someone else's mom is picking them up at midnight. She ran to the mall with Samantha to get a birthday gift for a friend, then delivered her and the gift and a trio of other girls to the birthday girl's sleepover. Shannon won't be home until tomorrow and Sean won't be home until Christmas and Kevin is still at the hospital and God only knows when he'll be home.

She texted him earlier to make sure he'd seen the billing statement for Sean's spring semester tuition. No response. He's probably in the OR. She's used to that. He nearly missed the delivery of their fourth child because he was miles away in surgery when her water broke. The contractions progressed so quickly that she was pushing by the time he got her message.

The labor room nurses reassured her that he'd be there on time for the birth—­and in the end, they were right—­but everyone else seemed more disturbed by her husband's absence than she was.

I can take care of myself. I've never needed anyone there holding my hand or, God forbid, looking over my shoulder . . .

Rowan called her cell phone twice today; called the house, too. Not urgent, according to her messages.

As always, the thought of her younger sister is accompanied by an intermingling of nostalgia, affection, and deep-­seated antagonism. Her relationship with Rowan is perhaps the most complicated one in her life—­and considering the state of her life at the moment, she's in no hurry to return her sister's call.

In the master bedroom, she folds the jeans she'd worn today back into the bureau drawer and hangs her silk blouse in her walk-­in closet. She pulls on a cozy long-­sleeved T-­shirt, a pair of fleece-­lined yoga pants, and soft yarn socks. At times like this, small doses of comfort go a long way.

Downstairs in the butler's pantry that connects the kitchen to the formal dining room, she takes a hand-­blown crystal goblet from a glass-­fronted cabinet. It's part of an elegant set of four she and Kevin received for their wedding, courtesy of his long-­dead great-­aunt Martha. They'd registered at Tiffany's to please his family and Macy's to please hers. She wound up returning nearly all the gifts from her side in exchange for store credit, which she never did use.

The irony is that she never used most of her Tiffany's gifts, either, including these glasses. She was always afraid they would break. Tonight, who cares? Everything is fragile; everything is breaking.

She picks up the bottle of Pontet-­Canet Bordeaux she pulled from the wine cellar when she got home and inserts a butterfly corkscrew imprinted Mundy's Landing Wine & Liquor. She took the corkscrew from a drawer at her parents' house after her father died. He didn't just use the bottle opener on top to pop the caps off his beer bottles; he opened cream sodas for Noreen and her brothers and sister on special occasions.

She made sure Rowan didn't see her pocket the corkscrew that day as they were cleaning out the kitchen—­not because she thought her sister might want it, but because she didn't want Rowan to know that she did.

She twists the cheap corkscrew into the cork and pulls, gratified when it glides out with a slight, almost celebratory popping sound.

She really should let the Bordeaux breathe, and she really shouldn't be drinking alone, but to hell with rules tonight. She tucks the corkscrew back into a drawer beneath a stack of linen dish towels, pours some wine into her crystal goblet, and sips.

She plunks the glass on the counter a little too hard, but it doesn't crack. Nor does her face, when she allows a smile to touch her lips for the first time all day.

There, see?

Better already.

S
ometimes, you can discover more about a stranger just by watching her from afar for a little while than you'll ever know about loved ones.

After leaving the post office, Casey followed the redhead to a bookstore just off Union Square. She counted out pocket change to buy a small cup of coffee and proceeded to nurse it for several hours while she sat in a comfortable chair reading magazines off the rack. At a table nearby, Casey pretended to be engrossed in a thick textbook plucked from a shelf in the science section, while noting every detail about the redhead.

She took only one magazine at a time, turning the pages carefully and making sure she didn't spill a drop of coffee on the merchandise. She read each magazine cover-­to-­cover and when she finished, she returned it to the proper slot on the rack, rather than placing it haphazardly or leaving it where she was sitting, the way other so-­called customers were doing. Her choice in reading material was eclectic: the highbrow
New Yorker
and
Paris Review
were followed by
Us Weekly
and
Sports Illustrated
.

So she's brainy with a frivolous and athletic streak; she's conscientious, and she's either frugal or flat broke. She's also most likely unattached, judging by her bare ring finger and the fact that she never once looks at her phone or sends or receives a text. These days, lovers in her age group constantly check in with each other electronically.

Dusk has fallen beyond the plate-­glass windows when at last the redhead stands and stretches. She takes her time putting the last magazine back on the rack and doesn't seem to notice Casey making a hasty exit to the street, leaving the textbook sitting open on the table.

Never once looking over her shoulder, she walks north on Broadway through Chelsea, turns left at 28th Street, and walks west, following it as it curves past the Penn South residential complex toward the Hudson River. She crosses Eleventh Avenue and covers half the final block before unlocking the door to a small, narrow apartment building.

Casey can't follow her inside, but makes note of the address and the fact that there's a large Con Edison facility directly opposite the building. Interesting. Maybe it's some kind of sign that this is meant to be.

Less than a minute after the redhead disappears inside, a light goes on in the fourth-­floor apartment. As if to confirm that it's the right place, and provide yet another sign, she appears in the window briefly, a real-­life Rapunzel with coppery hair.

Then she's gone again, leaving Casey to gaze thoughtfully at the grillwork ladders and platforms that zigzag up the front of the building, right to her window. Watching her from the fire escape would almost feel like watching Rowan through the skylight, from the high branches of the elm tree in her yard.

Adrenaline spikes through Casey's veins, undiminished by the voice of reason:
What if someone sees you up there and calls the police?

Pedestrian and vehicle traffic on this block is relatively light. A nosy neighbor in the same building or even on the same side of the street would have to stick his or her head all the way out the window to even see the fire escape. That's not likely on a gloomy December night. There are no residential buildings facing the apartment from across the street, only the windowless Con Ed facility. Still . . .

You're too smart to take stupid chances.

Smarter than anyone. Smarter than
everyone
.