Come Out Tonight (36 page)

Maybe
responsible
is too much to ask, I asked myself.
 
Maybe smart and sexy is all you really need.
 
In that case, I’d found him.
 
Why did I have to insist on all those other things?

Julian finally got home at five, all smiles.
 
Whatever he had been doing was clearly tons of fun.
 
He got himself a drink, threw himself down on the couch, trying unsuccessfully to throw me down with him before he realized anything was wrong.

“Okay, what is it?” Julian asked, setting his glass down hard on the walnut veneer of the coffee table.
 
I went to get a coaster and slipped it underneath before lowering myself gracefully onto the other side of the couch.

“Why didn’t you tell me about your girlfriend at 297
Central Park
West?” I asked with a sigh.

He looked at me first with surprise, then shook his head, chuckling to himself.
 
“How could I forget?
 
You’re a detective.
 
You followed me.”

“Not really,” I said, splitting hairs.

“Then how?” he asked.

“It doesn’t matter.
 
What matters is that you were keeping this…this dalliance… from me.”

“For God’s sake, which one of your codes am I breaking here, Donna? We’re not married anymore.”

“Exactly.
 
Then why did you keep it from me?”

He shrugged.
 
“I didn’t want to hurt you.”

“Sure you didn’t.
 
Who is it, anyway?”

“Does it matter?”

I thought about this for a moment or two.
 
As long as it was what I thought it was, and it clearly was, what did it matter who it was?
 
But before I had a chance to answer, Julian announced, “It’s the woman whose apartment I was living at.
 
We met last year when I was interviewing at Hongkong & Shanghai Bank down on Wall Street.
 
She was the one who interviewed me.
 
I didn’t get the job, but,” he couldn’t help but smile, “I got
her
.”

The smile, in particular, irritated me. “I see,” I said.
 
“So you’ve been living at her place this past year.”

“More or less.”

I ignored the
less
.
 
How could it be less?
 
“Then why come to me?”

Julian picked his drink up from the table, the coaster coming too, sticking to the bottom of the glass.
 
He peeled it off the base, letting it drop back onto the table, bounce briefly before rolling off underneath the couch. He took a long, unhurried sip.
 
“Her parents came to visit from
Hong Kong
.
 
Very traditional.
 
Very Chinese.
 
They wouldn’t have understood her having a live-in boyfriend.”

“So you became a live-out boyfriend.”

“For the time being.”

“I see,” I said again.
 
“I guess she wasn’t just a couch to you.”

“No,” he said.
 
“I guess not.”

“In fact,” I concluded, “
I
was the couch.”

He sighed.
 
“You know it isn’t like that between us, Donna.
 
I do have feelings for you.”

Really, I wasn’t going to go through all that again; e.g., let me go on doing all sorts of egregious things because I do have feelings for you.
 
I sat there silently, shaking my head.

“Okay, if that’s the way you want it,” Julian admitted, finally.
 
“
You
were the couch.”

What he should have realized is that if he hadn’t admitted to it, I might actually have let him stay.
 
Honestly, didn’t he know me by now?
  
But once it was out in the open, once the criminal had confessed, what else could I do?
 
“Out!” I said, my finger pointing to the door.

“Oh, Donna.
 
What’s the big deal?
 
Look at all the fun we’ve been having!”

“Out!” I repeated.
 
I dropped the finger.
 
There was only one way out, after all.

“But I can’t go back to her place yet,” Julian whined.
 
“Her parents are still there.”

“That’s your problem,” I told him.
 

I watched while he packed his three Louis Vuitton bags.
 
Then he was gone, and I didn’t even track him to find out where.

HENRY

Saturday afternoon I was at the home again.
 
I walked in to find the detective and Sherry having an animated conversation, face to face in two vinyl chairs, the detective asking something low and ominous, Sherry, seemingly, lost in thought.
 
I stood at the doorway for a minute or two, the detective’s back to me, hearing again Brown Suit’s threat not to talk to the NYPD.
 
Fine, I thought; I wouldn’t say a damn thing.
 
But just maybe, I might hear a little about what she was saying....

Just then, Sherry looked up.
 
Then Detective Sirken turned around, too, saw me and closed her mouth, mid-sentence.
 
Whatever they had been talking about was history.
 
I walked towards them.

“Mr. Jackman,” Sirken said as I leaned over to give Sherry a kiss.
 

“Detective Sirken,” I replied.

No one moved.
 
It was a stand-off: two gunslingers dead-still, hands on their weapons.

“What brings you here?”
 
I finally asked.

“Just come to see how Sherry is.
 
She seems so much better,” the detective said, a fake smile on her face.

I thought back to the picture of them as I stood at the doorway, their chairs pulled close, huddled together in sisterhood, and suddenly I felt the strangest sense of dread.
 
It was as if there were more to this whole situation than first appeared, more to Sherry and more to me, more to the detective, more to the whole world, and though I didn’t know what it was, I could sense that it was bad.

“Bullshit,” I said.

“Henry!” Sherry scolded.

I don’t know what came over me.
 
Paranoia, maybe, maybe not.
 
I watched Sirken out of the corner of my eye.
 
She seemed oblivious.
 

“So, really, what were you talking about?”
 
I asked, casually.

The detective didn’t answer.
 

“Henry,” Sherry said, her eyes telling me to quit it.

“Have you been putting ideas in her head?”

“Do I need ideas in my head?” Sherry asked, staring at me.

I didn’t answer that.
 
I could tell that Sherry was not pleased, but she wasn’t the one I was aiming at.
 
Here I was facing off with the detective, and Sherry kept getting caught in the crossfire.

“No, really, Henry.
 
Tell me,” Sherry was saying.
 
“You think I’m so stupid now I can’t think on my own?”

“No,” I said.
 
“Stop it, Sherry, this isn’t about you.”

“No?” Sherry cried.
 
“Who
is
it about?
 
Who got hurt?
 
Who has to pay?”

The detective was getting up.
 
“Good seeing you, Sherry.”

“Don’t go,” Sherry told her, a hand on her arm.
 
“Henry should go.
 
He’s in one of his moods, and you don’t....”

“Moods?” said the detective.

“I’m not going,” I said, surprising myself with my stubbornness.
 
“I’m staying right here.
 
I want to hear what you were saying about me.”

“Who says we were talking about you?”
 
Sherry asked.

“Sherry,” I said. “Are you really so naive to think the detective’s here to find out how you are?
 
She’s here, because she’s trying to find someone to pin the crime on.
 
Some schmuck like me.
 
She’s pumping you for information.
 
What did you tell her?”

Sherry eyes said don’t you dare fuck with me.
  
“What shouldn’t I tell her, Henry?” she demanded.
 
“What shouldn’t she know?”

Something unfamiliar told me to hit her, told me to hit the cripple and shut her up.
  
I lifted my hand, and Sherry saw.
 

“You mean your temper, Henry?
 
When you’d blow up and threaten to hit me?”

I put my hand down, but Sherry was just getting started.

“Or maybe your jealousy?
 
How you said you’d kill Ryan if you ever saw him near me one more time?”

“I never lost my temper with you.” I shouted at Sherry.
 
“I never did those things!”
 

Sirken was standing there, taking all this in.
  

“What are you still here for?” I yelled.

“I’ll just come back another time,” Sirken said, picking up her notebook from the chair, and leaving the room.

Sherry was crying quietly.
 
“Why don’t you believe me?
   
I never said a thing until you went to hit me.
 
Not one thing.”

By now whatever had taken hold of me was gone.
 
I went to her, got down on my knees and begged her forgiveness.
 
“I don’t know what came over me,” I said.

We sat there a long time, me at her knees, Sherry’s hand caressing my hair.
 
“I’m sorry, too,” she said. “I’m sorry for what I said.”

By now it was early evening.
 
The nurse came in with Sherry’s supper, the meat pre-cut, potatoes mashed, stuff for someone who could hardly maneuver a knife and fork.
 
I peeled off the top of her milk container, tied her bib around her neck.
  
She ate a piece of meat or two, a spoonful of potatoes.
 
I tried to help her, but she wouldn’t let me.
 
“I have to learn to do it myself.”

“That’s my independent Sherry,” I said, smiling.
 

She ate some applesauce while I obsessed over everything that had happened that afternoon.
 
I couldn’t quite get rid of the paranoia I was feeling before.
  
“She said she’ll be back,” I said.
  
“She’s gonna ask you more questions.”

Sherry put the spoon down carefully.
 
“I love you,” she said.
 
“I won’t ever tell her what happened that night.”

“Won’t?” I echoed.
 
“Does that mean you remember?”

She looked at me with somber eyes.
 
“I remember what happened,” she said.

“When?
 
When did you remember?”
 

“Now.
 
I remember now.”

“Who did it?”
 
I cried.

“I’m not telling,” Sherry said.
 
“Not even you.”

*
   
*
   
*

Needless to say, I obsessed about that the rest of the weekend.
 
Could she really have remembered?
 
And why wouldn’t Sherry tell me?
 
Was it Ryan?
 
Did she think if she told me I’d kill him?
 
Could she have told the detective?
 
No, she insisted she didn’t tell.
 
Round and round I went, getting nowhere.

Monday came, and I tried to put it out of my head.
 
I walked the eight blocks to work in the cold rain, grabbing a latte on the way.
 
Nadia had already opened up.
 
I busied myself in the back until Carl came in.
 
He seemed in a pretty good mood, as if our talk the other night had never happened.
 
We joked around for awhile until the first customers came in.

Old Mrs. Levinson came in demanding a renewal on her Fosamax.
 
“I came Thursday night just after eight o’clock, but your store was closed!
 
Aren’t you supposed to be open Thursday nights?” she yelled.
 

“Mrs. Levinson, you don’t have to shout.
 
Turn up your hearing aid,” I told her.

“What?” she shouted.

“We’re always open Thursday nights,” Carl called from the back.

“Well, you certainly weren’t last Thursday!
 
I came all the way up from 96
^th
, and the door was locked.
 
I had to walk the whole way back in the rain.
 
And now I have a cold.”
 
She coughed.