Blood Red (20 page)

Still, she's probably home. And when she leaves to walk to the restaurant, she'll come out the side door that faces the driveway. He recalls from his paperboy days that the Armbruster family rarely bothered to shovel the walk that leads to the porch because they don't use the front door.

After another furtive glance to make sure the street is deserted, he strides up the driveway, unzipping his backpack as he goes. He reaches the side door, finds the gift bag, and hangs it on the knob. Halfway down the driveway again, he thinks better of it and backtracks. This time, he opens the door and hangs the bag on the inside knob, where it will keep the door ajar. That way, she can't possibly miss it when she leaves.

Again, he turns away; again, he turns back with hesitation.

What if someone sees it before she does and steals it?

Glancing toward the street, he sees that one of the neighbors has materialized with her dog, standing by the curb.

Terrific.

Unfortunately, the leashed terrier isn't as clueless as Doofus, and immediately starts barking. The old woman turns, spots Mick, and gives him a long, suspicious look before recognition dawns.

“How are you, Mick?” she calls with a cheerful wave as her dog continues to bark. “How's your mom?”

“I'm great, Mrs. Gershin,” he responds in a low voice, hurrying away from Brianna's house. “Mom's great.”

“What's that?” she pretty much shrieks above the barking, and he looks at the upstairs window to make sure Brianna hasn't been summoned by all the commotion.

“Great, we're all great,” he tells Mrs. Gershin. “Everyone's great.”

Maybe he should ask her not to tell anyone she saw him here. He can explain about the Secret Santa.

No—­that's a bad idea. She's elderly and hard of hearing even without the yappy dog. He'd have to shout to get the point across.

It's better just to get away while he can. With any luck, Mrs. Gershin isn't just deaf, she's also senile and will forget she ever saw him here.

S
eeing Rowan's number pop up on her cell phone, Noreen immediately excuses herself from the client meeting.

If it had been going well, she might have stuck it out and made a mental note to return the call later.

But it isn't going well. The man sitting across from her and her partner Jennifer at the conference room table—­the wealthy businessman who's trying to hide a five-­year-­old love child and major assets from his wife of forty years—­reminds her of Kevin.

Welcoming the opportunity to step into the short hallway outside the conference room, she answers the call. “Rowan?”

“Oh my God. There you are. What's going on?”

“What do you mean?”

“I've been trying to reach you for days. Didn't you get my messages?”

“I got one.” Maybe two. Or possibly three, she realizes, though she's not about to surrender to any guilt trip her sister intends to lay on her. “You said it wasn't important.”

“Only the first time, and I lied. You always call me back. Why didn't you?”

“I've been busy.”

“You're always busy, but—­”

“I'm sorry. Is everything okay?”

There's a pause. “No.”

Ah, there it is anyway: guilt, trying its best to ooze in despite Noreen's intentions, and bringing with it a ripple of concern.

“What's wrong?” she asks, pacing the short length of the hall, past her office, Jennifer's office, the restroom, and the tiny waiting area. “Are the boys okay?”

The boys—­it's what their parents always called their older brothers. Mitch and Danny were the boys; Noreen and Rowan were the girls. The boys were always a solid unit, while the girls were frequently at odds with each other. Then again, Rowan was pretty much at odds with everyone in the family at any given time.

I spent so many years trying to smooth over her messes. Is it any wonder that I'm wary when she calls, even now?

“The boys are fine. It's me. I'm not fine.”

“What happened?”

“Are you alone?”

“Yes.”
More alone than you'd ever imagine.

“I need to talk to you about something. I wouldn't bother you if I had anyone else to turn to, but . . . I don't.”

“Did you try the supermarket cashier and the guy who does your gutters?”

“Noreen, come on, this isn't a joke. I need you.”

Hearing the vulnerability in her sister's voice, she softens. Just a little. She perches on one of the two waiting room chairs and begins straightening the pile of magazines between them. “Tell me. I'm listening.”

“Do you remember what I told you years ago? About . . . something I almost did?”

“The affair with your neighbor?”

“Shh!”

“I told you, I'm alone—­and even if I weren't, no one here would have any idea who I'm talking to or what I'm talking about.”

“I know, but still . . . for once can't you just be . . .”

“Warm and fuzzy? Is that what you want?”

That gets a laugh out of her sister—­not a long or remotely merry one, but at least it defuses the tension.

“Forget it. Warm and fuzzy isn't you. And . . . I need
you
. Do you remember what I told you that day when you asked me why Jake and I moved back to Mundy's Landing?”

Noreen does, very clearly.

“I know you thought I was taking a step backward and that I might get myself into trouble again,” Rowan said that day, “but . . . I was actually trying to keep myself out of trouble.”

It was then that she confessed the real reason she'd wanted to leave Westchester.

“I was worried about my marriage,” she told Noreen, who at that point would never have dreamed that she should have been worried about her own.

“Why? Did something happen? Did Jake have an affair?”

“It wasn't Jake.”

“
You
had an affair?”

“Almost, but I stopped it.”

Here we go again, she thought. Just when she thought Rowan had her act together and was going to be okay.

“With whom?” she asked her sister.

“Wow, even when you're completely scandalized, you use perfect grammar,” Rowan commented, shaking her head. “Do you remember my neighbor Rick? You met him and his wife, Vanessa, that time you and Kevin came over for Mick's first birthday.”

Noreen couldn't have picked Rick out of a crowd, but she remembered the party. It was a sprawling backyard affair complete with a rented bouncy house and a cotton candy machine. Hordes of bouncing, sticky, screaming kids on a sugar high.

She remembered Rick's wife, too. She was attractive, with dark hair and porcelain skin, but a little uptight. She seemed uncomfortable with the other women at the party, most of whom were in full-­blown stay-­at-­home-­mom mode. Noreen found herself relating to her, but it was Kevin who spent a lot of time on the deck talking to her while Noreen shielded their children's fragile skulls from the baseball bat her sister kept handing to frenzied toddlers to use on the piñata.

She opted not to pick a fight with Kevin about it on the way home. When it came to their marriage, she chose to let a lot of things go over the years.

And now you're second-­guessing them all.

At least she isn't the only one whose marriage is less than perfect. Then again, her sister had gone to great lengths to save hers, moving upstate just to get away from temptation.

“That's a little drastic,” Noreen commented at the time. “Couldn't you just have avoided him?”

“No. I didn't trust myself to do that. Sometimes I can be . . . you know.”

Yeah. She knew. Self-­control had never been Rowan's forte.

Not about to relinquish her long-­held role as her sister's moral compass, Noreen felt obligated to scold the weakness and near indiscretion. They never discussed it again.

“Did you tell anyone about it?” Rowan asks her now.

Noreen stops straightening the magazines. “You made me swear I wouldn't, remember?”

“I do remember. That's why I'm asking. Did you tell anyone?”

She hesitates, not wanting to admit the truth.

Back then, she told Kevin everything.

She wished she hadn't told him about that, though. He asked more questions than she cared to—­or even could—­answer, including some that made her squirm. She even wondered whether deep down, her husband had a crush on her sister. Maybe he was drawn to the proverbial bad girl now that he'd dutifully married the good one.

At the time, Noreen couldn't relate to wanting to walk on the wild side, though she can now. Not that she'd ever admit it to her sister, much less to her soon-­to-­be-­ex-­husband. Let Kevin take the blame for their failed marriage. She's perfectly content to play the role of the wronged and heartbroken wife. No one ever has to know that isn't quite the case.

Yes. You take your comfort where you can. Some nights, you find it in cozy socks and good wine; other nights, though not lately, between the sheets in an unfamiliar bed, in someone's muscular arms.

Kevin would be stunned if he knew he wasn't the only one who'd ever strayed. But he'll never know or even suspect. If he goes through with the divorce, she'll make good and sure that he's the only villain.

Noreen may not have gotten much better at honoring certain vows over the past decade or so, but she's definitely mastered the art of keeping a secret.

Her own, anyway.

R
ush hour on the subway is always crowded, and today is no exception.

It might have been tolerable if Rick could have boarded the downtown express at his midtown stop and stepped off in Union Square five minutes later, but something has gone seriously awry. For the past half hour, he's been stuck underground on a stalled train, standing shoulder to shoulder, chest to back, back to chest—­or perhaps breast; it's hard to tell—­with a throng of strangers who are silently, and sullenly, resigned to their fate. The lone exception: a deceptively normal-­looking businessman with frenetic eyes who's loudly informed everyone, repeatedly, that there's no cell phone ser­vice in this spot.

That means Rick has no way of letting Bob know he'll be late for their dinner. Hopefully, Bob'll figure it out. Or maybe he'll assume Rick isn't going to show up at all.

Maybe I shouldn't, even if I ever get off this train.

Then again, he and Bob don't have to rehash Vanessa, or—­God forbid—­Rowan, or the kids, or anything else remotely personal or unpleasant. They can just talk about sports or old times or Bob's travels. Something safe.

The speaker clicks on to broadcast a garbled announcement from the conductor: something about police activity on the track ahead.

“What did they say?” someone asks from somewhere behind him.

“MTA code for someone jumping in front of the train” is the reply. “This happened the other day, too, and that's exactly what they said. Police activity.”

“Yeah, well, it's the holiday season. Suicide rates are up.”

“It's the most . . . wonderful time . . . of the year,” a new voice sings.

“What, just because some idiot loser is miserable, we all gotta suffer now?” yet another passenger chimes in. “You gonna kill yourself, you gotta be considerate of others. You know what I'm sayin'?”

“Hell, yeah. Do it at home. Gun to the head, noose to the neck . . . No fuss, no muss. Well, maybe a little muss.”

The jokes roll on, because this is a city of extremes. When hordes of New Yorkers find themselves captive in a stressful situation, group interaction tends to go one of two ways: dark humor or explosive anger.

Rick is steeped in the latter by the time the train starts moving again—­backward. Downtown express ser­vice has been disrupted for the foreseeable future. Dispatched at the previous station, he opts not to wait on the platform to catch the next downtown local with the crushing crowd.

As he makes his way up several flights of steps to the sidewalk, where another gloomy, wet December dusk has fallen, his pocket vibrates.

Ah, cellular coverage has resumed. Pulling out his phone, he sees that he missed three calls while he was stuck underground. Predictably, one is from Bob.

The others are far more important.

R
owan was late getting home after spending fifteen minutes in the car talking to her sister. Mick was already upstairs when she got there.

Now she's back behind the wheel with him in the passenger seat, wearing his busboy uniform and a jacket she insisted he put on because it's chilly out. He grudgingly agreed.

“You begged me to buy you that coat,” she reminds him as she drives toward Marrana's. “And it cost a fortune. Now you never want to wear it.”

“That's not true.”

Rather than argue, she changes the subject. “Did you eat?”

“Yeah, I had cereal. I couldn't find anything else.”

“I'm sorry. I meant to get groceries over the weekend, but . . . you know. There was a lot going on.”

“I know,” he agrees, although of course he can't possibly know what's been going on: that his mother is neglecting to feed her family because she's been caught up in this . . . this ugly . . .
thing
.

“I'll stop at the store right now, and when you come home later, I'll make you anything you—­”

“Mom, it's okay. I ate.”

“Cereal isn't dinner.”

“I'll get something at the restaurant later. It's fine. Really.”

No. Clearly, it isn't fine. Mick has resumed staring out the window on his side of the car. Something is bothering him. She wants to ask what it is, but is afraid to.

What if he's figured out what she's been up to?

Oh, come on. Since when do kids his age waste two seconds brooding about anything that doesn't directly impact themselves?