Burying Ben (35 page)

She lifts her hair again and
m
ops
t
he back of her neck. She is wearing a delicate gold wedding band set with tiny dia
m
onds. “On the one hand, I feel awful about what we’ve done. On the other, I’ve never
been happier. I could never i
m
agine a life this good
for myself. Never.”

She reports this uptick in her fortune
without hesitation, as though expecting
m
e to share in her delightful surprise. I want to t
e
ll her th
a
t sh
e’
s a day late and a dollar short. If she had wanted to apologize for seducing
m
y
husband she should have done it two years ago. The waning afternoon light for
m
s a gloo
m
y coil around us.

“
W
hy now
?
” I ask. “
W
hy
t
oday?”

“I’m
here to ask you to stop pushing this business about Ben Go
m
ez. I’m asking you, please, please, stop. You’ll
ruin us.”

She is frowning, ti
n
y
little
lines
sprout
in
the space between her eye
b
rows. Her bottom
lip pu
s
hes forward in a pout. It is a com
m
and perfor
m
ance. She fluctuates from
one
e
m
otion to another with the fluidity of a concert pianist running her fingers along a keyboard.

“I don’t owe you or Mark a thing.”

“He doesn’t deserve to be in
trouble. It’s half
m
y fault.”

“So Mark has said.”

“Mark didn’t ask
m
e to co
m
e here. He doesn’t even know about it. I’m
supposed to be at ho
m
e on bed rest.” She arches her
b
ack,
g
r
i
m
acing with the effort. “He is telli
n
g you the truth. I really did do Ben’s evaluation.
I’ve been helping out because Mark’s so busy.”
Her green eyes muddy with tears. “I’
v
e spent five years getting my doctorate. I owe thousands of dollars in student loans. I
have to be able to sit for
m
y license to practice. Mark has to be able to work to
support us.”
She sniffles and wipes her hand under her nose. She presses the other to her belly.

“I don’t believe you,” I say. “Mark did t
h
e evaluation and then he took
m
o
ney to change the results
.
”

“You
won’t
believe
m
e, that’s what you
m
ean, isn’t it?
You hate
m
e so much you don’t want to know the truth. You’re jealous that Mark and I are so happy.”

Her upper lip pulls into a sneer. There is a gap bet
w
een her teeth, and one incisor has grown in crookedly, a s
m
all glitch
in her
o
t
herwise s
t
unni
n
g face. I wonder why she’s never had it fixed.

She asks, “How do you think I feel seeing your name and his linked together on the books you wrote?
I’ll tell you. It feels like no
m
att
e
r what I do, I’ll never catch up to you and you’ll never go away. You’re there
w
herever I
look, in the library, in his office, on his resu
m
e.”

Suddenly she cru
m
ples over, panting, wrapping both her ar
m
s over her sto
m
ach. In a second she sits up again, sucking at the air in long,
a
udible inhalations and exhalations. I reach for
the telephone to call 911.

“No.“ She tilts o
v
er, half laying, half
sitting as though she’s going to gi
v
e birth on
m
y couch. She reaches for her tote bag. “I failed hi
m
.”

“For God’s sake, Mark loves you. I’m calling 9
1
1.”

“Not Mark,” she wheezes, “Ben Go
m
ez. I failed hi
m
. He was unsuita
b
le
.
”

She tosses the tote bag toward
m
e and then rolls to t
h
e
f
l
oor at the
start of another painful surge. I reach for the phone and sit down next
to her. Her back is against the sofa, her legs wide.
S
he is groaning and sweating, fanning herself with both hands.
The
sleeves
of her dress fall to her elbows and I see that
she’s
w
earing a diamond tennis
bracelet,
just like the one Mark gave
m
e, the one I hav
e
n’t found since the b
r
eak-in.

I briefly consider the guilty pleasure I would savor if Mark’s young bride turns out to be a thief, but for now she is just a woman in pain. I put
m
y a
r
m around her shoulder to steady her. We
s
it that way, breathing
together, until the a
m
bulance whines around the corner and stops.
Melin
d
a gi
v
es a sharp
y
elp as the medics load her onto the gurney and carry her down t
h
e stairs and o
u
t the front door.

Her tote bag is lying on the floor. I grab it and run aft
e
r t
h
em
as they are li
f
ting her
into t
h
e ba
c
k of the a
m
bu
l
ance.

“For you,” she says and pushes
m
y a
r
m away. “Read everything.”

Gary greets
m
e at the door to his office, f
r
owning. I tell him
about
m
y visit from
Melinda and her insistence that she, not Mark, did B
e
n’s evaluation.
T
he air in his office
s
m
ells pleasantly of pipe tobacco. The white noise
m
achine e
m
its a steady hu
m
. Street lig
h
ts filter in t
h
r
o
ugh the bay window and glint off the glasse
d
-
in
s
helves cram
m
ed with books and journals. I sink into the
cushions of his couch. A p
a
tient would feel safe and protected in this roo
m
.

We spread the contents of Melinda’s tote bag on the floor.
T
here is a bio-data sheet, a copy of the background investigation,
a
nd a packet of standard assess
m
ent tools, two
m
ore t
h
an the
s
tate requires, all
m
arked with Ben’s na
m
e
. It is a person-in-a-bag, a psycho
m
etric avatar.

“
H
ave a look, Gary. I need a second pair of eyes.”

“
W
hat
a
m
I looking for? Give
m
e
the Cliff notes on cops.”

“
W
e screen only after a candidate has
been given a conditional offer of e
m
ploy
m
ent
and they
’
ve co
m
pleted the background, the
m
edical exa
m
and the chief
’
s interview. W
e
’
r
e looking for
e
m
otional stability, judg
m
ent, coping skills, asse
r
tive
n
e
s
s, i
m
pulse control,
f
le
x
ibili
t
y, stress tol
e
rance, i
n
tegrity, and social co
m
petence.
W
e
’
re not trying to predict
w
ho will
m
ake a good cop, just w
h
o has the e
m
otional stability to do the job.”

I pick up the MMPI-2. It
’
s hand-scored
the way Mark taught me to do as a student, the way Melin
d
a would do it. She’s drawn a line thr
o
ugh all the
o
m
itted and double-
m
arked ite
m
s and placed a d
o
t next to all the devia
n
t responses.
T
he totals are tallied at the bottom
in s
m
all, crisp lettering. I check the addition. There are no
m
i
stakes. Another line connects the dots
on t
h
e
vali
d
ity s
c
ales and the clinic
a
l sc
a
les.
The tot
a
ls have been transferred to Ben
’
s profile page
and from
the raw score to the graph. I check the K-correction, too. Everything is in o
r
der. I hand the profile sheet to Gary.

He bends his head to the paper. In this
lig
h
t, his hair is al
m
ost entir
e
ly white. Gary and my father had both warned
m
e
against
m
arrying Mark. My once liberal, inclusive father told
m
e
n
e
ver to trust a goy. Gary thought Mark was in love with the sound of his own voice. “Have an affair,”
he said,
“
but don
’
t
m
arry hi
m
. He won
’
t let you grow up and if you do, he won’t want you any
m
ore. Don
’
t confuse lust for so
m
ething more abiding.”

Gary fills
hi
s pipe, dra
w
s deeply a
n
d exhales a long plu
m
e of gray s
m
oke as he traces the stem
of his pipe ov
e
r the profile page. He shakes his head. “I’m no expert but, in
m
y humble opinion, this kid doesn’t have t
h
e right protoplasm
to be a police officer. He broods a lot, doesn’t have
a lot of self-confidence, and l
o
ok at this elevation on scale 4.” He passes the profile to
m
e. “He wouldn’t be
adverse to
b
ending the
r
ules a little or to selectively reporting the truth. Not good qual
i
ties for a cop.” He shuffles through the other results. “Looks like he was hoping that
being a cop would give him
a sense of identity he didn’t have.”