Don't Be Afraid (10 page)

“What’s her name?”

“Amy, you don’t need to know that—”

She’d pulled away from him, huddling against the headboard. “What’s her name!”

“Tempo.”

“Tempo? That’s the name of a car, not a person.”

“Well, that’s her name.”

“Did you have sex with her?”

“Jesus, Amy!” He pushed off the bed and stalked out the bedroom door and she followed after him, but he was only getting his clothes to hang up. He’d always cared for his clothes, buying the highest quality and taking care of it when he got it.

“Did you?”

He emptied the pockets of his pants with sharp, jerky movements, slamming his cell phone and a handful of change onto his dresser. Something white fluttered to the floor. A business card. Amy stooped and got it before Chris. She turned it over and read:
TEMPO WHITLEY, VICE-PRESIDENT OF MARKETING, MILANO COSMETICS
.

She was stunned. It hadn’t occurred to her that the breathy-voiced girl on the line could be someone so successful. Chris snatched the card from her hand, but not before she’d seen the words sprawled in blue ink: “Call me.”

“How many times, Chris?”

“She’s just a girl, Amy. It doesn’t matter.”

“How many times did you fuck her?”

“Oh, for God’s sake—”

“Why won’t you tell me? Is it where you did it? Oh, my God, did you do it here?”

“No!”

“Well, where then? A back room at Longfellow’s? A hotel?”

Chris sighed again and didn’t answer for a long moment, carefully lining up the creases in his pants before putting them on a hanger. “Her place,” he said, very low.

“What?”

“We went to her place. Her apartment. Okay? Are you satisfied?”

He actually sounded angry, as if he’d been the one violated. She retreated back onto the bed, drawing her knees as far up as her belly would allow.

“Amy, baby, she doesn’t matter.” His voice was soft again, his eyes pleading. “It’s just a guy thing.”

His own particular version of boys will be boys. How many times had she heard that from him over the last five years? Amy turned again, trying to find a comfortable position so she could fall back to sleep.

She’d had trouble sleeping those last weeks of her pregnancy with Emma. Chris had been so kind, rubbing her back and stroking her head and tucking her against him so that, despite her massive size, she felt held and secure. And he’d been great during labor, too, helping her breathe just like they’d practiced in Lamaze, coaching her through it like a pro. So what if he’d had more late nights two weeks after she’d given birth to Emma?

“Do you really want to know where he is?” her mother said, gently burping Emma after Amy had nursed her. “Why not just be happy that he’s not demanding that attention of you right now?”

“He’s cheating on me!”

“He’s a man, Amy. Men have different needs than we do. If he’s giving you everything you need, why not just be happy?”

Why hadn’t she been happy? Was it just the knowledge that he was having sex with other women? Was it the fact that she’d begun unconsciously counting her own failings, checking herself obsessively in the mirror for flaws and working out compulsively to shed the baby fat. Even sex, which had always relaxed her, became work. She’d wonder if he’d tried that same position with someone else, or whether he was comparing her to a string of other women, not to mention the fears that she’d contract a disease. He’d agreed to get tested with her, even though he informed her that he always wore condoms, and seemed to expect an apology when the results were negative. She didn’t offer one.

For a time, she became obsessed with exactly how many women he’d slept with, pestering him to get a number that he refused to divulge. Then she reached the shocking conclusion that it wasn’t so much a stubborn refusal to say it, as it was an inability to recall, which was an answer in itself.

In the midst of this stress was Emma. A perfect baby. That’s what they’d said at the hospital. Lovely proportions, healthy color, ten fingers, ten toes and a high Apgar score. At three weeks old, she started wheezing. A faint snuffle, nothing to be concerned about, maybe she’d caught a cold, the pediatrician said. Her lungs seemed a little full. Only the cold didn’t go away and the wheezing increased.

Maybe she’s allergic to your breast milk. Feed her soy formula and see what happens. She hated the soy and it didn’t stop the wheezing. Amy went back to breast-feeding, listening intently to every labored breath, and watching the tiny rib cage quivering in its thin layer of skin.

“Asthma,” the specialist declared at eight months. A regimen of medication and breathing treatments started that had to be followed precisely. Amy did it all, while Chris seemed fixed on figuring out how it had happened.

“There’s no asthma on my side,” he said. “I checked with my mother and she can go back three generations. Nobody. So have you asked your mother?”

Amy had been fixing a tiny oxygen mask to their daughter’s sweet little face. “Yes. None of us had it and she can’t remember anybody with asthma.”

“How far back?”

“For heaven’s sake, Chris, what difference does it make?”

“I just want to know.”

Another day he’d asked if she’d remembered to take all her prenatal vitamins. “Sometimes vitamin deficiency can lead to asthma.”

He seemed afraid to touch Emma and he wanted her to do all the treatments. “You’re better at it,” he’d said.

“But what if she has an attack when she’s out with you? You need to be able to give her the inhaler.”

“You should always be with her. She responds better to you and we can’t risk it.”

At night, Amy was the one who monitored Emma, waking up abruptly if there was a change in her breathing. There was an eight-month period when she was so exhausted that everything was a blur and she barely noticed the change from day to night. In that time, Chris’s nights got later and later and then one night he didn’t come home at all.

She didn’t even realize it until the following afternoon when Emma slept long enough for Amy to get a load of laundry done and she couldn’t find the shirt he’d worn the day before. He came home late that night as if nothing had happened and at that moment she made a deliberate choice to feign sleep and say nothing.

Her days fell into a routine. In the mornings, she took Emma to the playground around the corner and there they’d meet other mothers and babies. On cold mornings, they’d gather at a local coffee shop instead, strollers clustered around the small tables, the babies bundled in festive winter hats and snowsuits. Often Emma cooed and laughed and her breathing wasn’t a problem all day. Amy began to look at her photos again and thought about pulling together enough of them to have a show.

Chris encouraged her to take Emma out to the country, to his aunt’s home in Steerforth. There would be other mothers and babies in the suburb and there would be green grass and acres of trees giving off oxygen so there was plenty of clean air. She loved the city, but Steerforth had its charms. It was a Norman Rockwell place, with its pretty frame houses and window boxes overflowing with flowers. The town was an eclectic and charming mixture of old and new. There was an old-fashioned station with trains running hourly into the city. Off she’d go to Grand Central, hauling Emma, the stroller, and a bag packed full with baby things and her photography equipment.

Chris was barely home anymore, blaming his desire to make partner for his later and later nights. He reacted angrily when Amy told him he wasn’t seeing enough of Emma. One day she overheard him telling his mother that the air in Steerforth hadn’t cleared up Emma’s asthma as expected.

“Did you think she was going to be cured?” Amy said. “That fresh air was all she needed?”

“I never saw myself as the parent of a sick child.”

She’d misunderstood him. “I guess nobody expects it, but it’s the hand we’ve been dealt.”

“It doesn’t have to be! You should take her to another specialist—I don’t think this one’s doing enough.”

She’d been astounded. Dr. Rez Mohammed was an expert in children’s pulmonary problems. She’d been lucky to get Emma seen by him. They argued, speaking in angry whispers so that Emma wouldn’t hear and that night, for the second time, Chris didn’t return home.

The next evening, he brought her flowers and said he was sorry “we fought.” He didn’t mention the other woman that she could smell on his clothes. When she wondered out loud if he should get another HIV test, he reacted angrily, blaming her for not meeting his needs.

“Men need sex like women need water,” her mother counseled when she’d pried the information out of Amy. “If you can’t meet his needs, he’s going to find it elsewhere. It would help if you fixed yourself up a little. When was the last time you got your hair styled?”

She thought about that, thought about the women she’d seen who became totally consumed by parenting and forgot they were independent people with passions, including sexual ones, of their own. She threw herself back into her photography and hired babysitters to help with Emma’s care. She spent less time in Steerforth and more at the gallery in SoHo. She integrated some sexy, non-nursing clothes back into her wardrobe. She even had her hair done.

Chris seemed to notice. He came home early a few nights. One night they even made love in their small kitchen, her with her dress up, sitting on a countertop, him with his pants around his ankles, the stir-fry turned low on the stove, the lights of the city glittering across the river outside their window.

When she got her first solo show, he promised he’d be there, only to call her late that afternoon to inform her that he wouldn’t be there on time, if at all.

“I’m so sorry, babe, but it’s this case. I’ll try to make it. I’ll do everything I can to get out of here.”

The crowd at the gallery hummed and glittered under the lights. They clustered around the black-and-white photographs—her photographs—on the walls and Amy watched them, nursing a glass of good champagne.

Every corner of the tiny spot in SoHo was filled with people. Evening clothes in various shades and textures of black were relieved by occasional splashes of color—the white of a French cuff, the vibrant blue of a silk tie.

She was in red, a rich red velvet dress that hugged every curve. It was a loaner from Perry, who said that she absolutely must wear it to her first solo show because everyone would want to spot the artist.

They found her, admirers of her work coming one after the other, making their way through the crowd with drinks and small canapé plates held aloft. She smiled, she laughed, she tried to keep her eyes from straying to the door every time she heard it swish open and felt wisps of cold air filter through the gallery.

It was the end of February. Winter was holding on in New York, one dreary day after another, the holidays so far in the past that everyone had forgotten that the sight of perfect snowflakes like those now falling once evoked sighs of pleasure not pain.

“We’re going to get another two inches,” the cabdriver had bitched to Amy as he’d raced through the maze of Manhattan traffic two hours before. “The slop’s barely been cleared from the last one!”

At the sixth-hour mark, the last of the gallery emptied. Almost every photograph was marked with a sold sticker. The gallery owner, Sebastian, was finishing the last bottle of champagne, leaning against a pillar and extolling the quality of the caviar while the caterer’s crew moved silently around him, softly clinking lipstick-stained glasses as they loaded them onto trays.

“Do you want a ride back, sweetheart?” he offered. “I’m heading to Williamsburg.”

“No, no thanks. I’ll just grab a cab.”

The depression hit once she was in the taxi. The driver this time was foreign. He barely understood her and she had to repeat the address of her apartment building.

The taxi made good time, the driver having yet to learn the art of extending his fares. She paid him, tipped him and tottered into the building, thinking that she wouldn’t wear heels again for at least a month.

Lying in bed now, she thought back to that night, realizing that if the cab had taken longer, if she’d lingered in the lobby, or the elevator had been broken, things might have been different.

A man called out to hold the door just as she pushed the button and he stepped on with a bichon frise. His nose was red, his dog was shivering in its little embroidered sweater. He eyed her cleavage and Amy pulled her coat tight around her.

Seventh floor and the man got out. Up again, an almost silent climb. A faint whir of the silver box rising and the
ping
as it landed on each floor. Amy thought of how Emma loved to count the numbers up to fifteen. She hoped Emma was having fun sleeping over at her grandmother’s house. The apartment would feel empty without her.

Only it wasn’t empty. Lights were on in the hallway. Chris’s dress coat was tossed over the back of the sofa. Another coat lay next to it. Soft music was coming from the bedroom. Soft voices. A sudden squeal.

Afterward, Amy would not remember walking down the hall, but she must have, because all at once she was at the doorway to the bedroom. Her bedroom. The one she shared with her husband—his and her sides of the bed, his and her mismatched nightstands, his and her books and glasses and mugs of forgotten tea.

It was this moment, so many months later, that she remembered most clearly as if she’d captured the image on film: Chris’s naked back to her, the light tan of the shoulders that she’d kissed, the long line of the spine that she’d traced, the whiter flesh of the backside she’d gripped, all in the tight embrace of another woman.

The manila envelope was tucked under the windshield wiper of Meredith’s Mercedes SUV when she came out of Whole Foods. She pulled it out, careful not to scratch the black paint, and carried it into the car with her, tossing it on the passenger seat as she roared out of the parking lot.

She drove one-handed, punching a number into her cell phone and glancing from the road to the envelope. There was no return address.

“Hi, Carla, it’s Meredith. I’m running a little late, okay? Let Maurice know that I’ll be there in ten and he’d better dare not complain because I’ve had the day from hell.” She listened for a moment. “Great. Thanks, Carla. You’re a doll. Ciao.”

She closed the phone and tossed it on the seat, picking up the envelope and looking at it more closely. Suddenly she had to brake hard as the Camry in front of her stopped short at a light. Meredith laid on the horn and flicked the driver a manicured middle finger before sliding the nail under the flap and ripping open the envelope. The light changed and she let the envelope drop on the seat as she hit the gas.

It wasn’t until she’d pulled into the spa parking lot that she saw the photos that had slid out onto the leather seat.

They were all of her. Naked. Meredith flicked through them once, then again, hands shaking with rage. “You bastard, Henry!”

She thrust the photos back in the envelope and slid it under the seat so no one else could see her ex’s latest attempt at shaming her. Well, it was going to backfire on him.

Cell phone in hand, she stormed into the spa as she dialed Chomsky Cellular Technology. “I want to speak to Henry,” she said, handing over her purse and accepting the white robe the receptionist offered her. Walking back toward the massage rooms, she listened to the terrible elevator music Henry’s company played for waiting customers before his simpering assistant told her that Henry “wasn’t available.”

“Yeah, I’ll just bet he isn’t,” Meredith said, stalking into a dressing room and stripping off her clothes while she balanced the phone on her ear. She slipped on the robe and mouthed “one minute” at Maurice, who was leaning against the wall flipping through
Vanity Fair
magazine. Then she said out loud, “Listen, you tell that little rat bastard that my lawyer’s seen the pictures and he’s talking compensation for emotional distress.”

She listened for a second. “Oh, he’ll know what pictures. Just tell him!” She slammed the phone shut and climbed onto the padded table on her stomach, letting her head fall into the groove in front. “Okay, Maurice. Do me.”

 

 

Marriages ruined by death, adultery, divorce—all of the sad stories had been told at one time or another by members of the single-parent support group while the others listened, hands clutching Styrofoam cups of cheap coffee.

Wednesday night’s meeting was little different, except that even longtime members were wearing the shell-shocked expression typically reserved for newcomers.

“We’re all saddened by the untimely death of Sheila Sylvester,” Father Michael said in an announcement. He’d made his way down to the basement early, instead of waiting to pop in and say hello at a later point in the meeting.

There were several new members who weren’t sure who Sheila was and other members relayed the information in whispers. Amy could feel their eyes finding her, and she knew that she’d become the “one who found the body.”

It was something Sheila would have laughed at, but Amy couldn’t manage it. Instead, she found herself looking around at the members of the group. Could one of them have killed her? Sheila’s brashness, her bold laughter, her frank talk had managed to offend virtually every member at one time or another, but they’d all forgiven her because she was just as likely to laugh at herself.

If someone mentioned being afraid to confront their ex in court about custody, Sheila would show up at the hearing for moral support. Once a member had mentioned how exhausting it was to single-handedly care for both her dying father and her young son and Sheila paid for a local restaurant to provide a month’s worth of free dinners.

Maybe she hadn’t been universally liked, but surely no one had hated her enough to kill her. Yet Amy couldn’t help viewing the group with suspicion, probably because the police hadn’t made any arrest and because she’d been back to the station at the behest of Detectives Black and Juarez to answer pointed questions about Sheila’s relationships with others.

“Did she have any disagreements with anybody recently?” Detective Juarez said. “Did she ever mention an altercation with anybody?”

Put on the spot, she’d been unable to think of any. But sitting here, looking surreptitiously at the other members, she recalled an argument Sheila had three weeks earlier with Richard.

What had started it was never quite clear to Amy. People were milling about in small groups toward the end of the regular meeting and she’d wandered over to fetch more coffee. One minute there’d been a conversation going on about kids and the next minute Richard was red faced and yelling at Sheila.

“You don’t know what you’re talking about!”

“Just because you yell louder, doesn’t make you smarter!” Sheila said back. “My opinions are fact based, unlike yours, which are based solely on emotion!”

What had they been fighting about? Amy didn’t know. She’d pulled Sheila away from the fight, never an easy thing to do, but she hadn’t gotten her to explain why Richard had been so angry. Sheila claimed not to know.

“He’s overly sensitive,” she’d said when Amy pressed. “He thinks his good looks are enough to carry him through everything, but he needs to learn some manners.”

Richard was sitting, as he usually did, on the edge of the circle, leaning back in the metal folding chair with his eyes half-shut, as if he couldn’t be bothered to stay fully awake for the conversation. Amy looked at him, trying to picture him hurting Sheila, but it was hard to get past the physical. Despite a day’s worth of beard, ratty jeans, and a ragged fisherman’s sweater, Richard still looked like he’d just gotten done with a photo shoot for
GQ
. He caught Amy looking and winked. She turned quickly away, trying to pretend she was looking for something or someone else, but she could feel his eyes on her and knew that he wasn’t fooled.

They were introducing new members and Amy tried to concentrate on that. She listened as a teary-eyed woman named Elaine, with nails bitten to the quick, described her husband leaving her and their four children.

When Elaine was finished, Father Michael introduced another new member, a boyish-looking man with short-cropped blond hair and wire-rimmed glasses. Paul told them about his wife’s death from cancer, fiddling with his glasses as he spoke in a soft voice. Most of the women and a few of the men were crying when he described holding their infant son at his mother’s deathbed.

After those stories, everyone needed a break, and Amy wandered over to the refreshment table to get more coffee. Jackson made a point of walking away when she came near and she wondered if the police had interviewed him yet.

The new member, Paul, joined her by the coffee urn. He smiled at her and she said, “I’m so sorry for your loss.”

“Thank you, but I’m coming to terms with it. It’s been five months, but I feel as if Beth’s still with me. I mean, I know she’ll always be with me in spirit, but sometimes I feel as if she’s really with me.”

“How are you managing with your son?”

“Beth’s sister watches him while I’m at work and then we have our evenings and weekends together. He’s too young to remember Beth, of course, but I keep showing him her picture.”

“You are so brave.” Audrey joined them at the coffee urn, gripping Paul’s forearm and giving it a little shake for emphasis. “I don’t know many men who could manage as well as you are.”

“I’m sure everyone has different methods of coping,” he said, gently detaching her.

“That’s a polite way to put it,” she said with a bitter laugh. “When my first husband’s mother died, he coped by blowing his inheritance on coke.”

“You’ve been married more than once?” Paul said and Amy knew he was wondering why she was in a single-parent group. Having heard it all before, she hid a smile.

“I’ve been married three times and they were all big, big disappointments,” Audrey said. “But I’m very positive and I just know that my perfect man is out there, ready to be a family with me and my little girl. I just have to trust that he’ll find me.” She beamed at Paul and he smiled faintly, fiddling with his glasses.

Amy excused herself and walked over to Father Michael, who was making his goodbyes. “Thank you for the nice things you said about Sheila at her funeral,” she said. “I really appreciated it and I know her family did, too.”

“Very kind of you to say, my dear,” the elfin priest said, patting her hand. “Though you know as well as I do that Sheila would have hated it.”

Amy laughed, the first genuine laugh she’d given in days. At the same time, tears sprang to her eyes. “At least you didn’t call her the finest person who ever walked the earth.”

Father Michael smiled. “I know she’d be haunting me if I did that.” He looked distracted. “I just hope her death doesn’t hurt other people.”

“How do you mean?”

“The police are asking around, trying to find her killer. Innocent people could get caught under their prying eyes.”

What did he mean by that? Before she could ask, Bridget pulled him away, urging him to take some cookies home. Were other members complaining about the fact that their names had been given to the police? Father Michael had seemed to support her in that earlier, but something, or somebody, had changed his mind. But what had her option been? Refuse to tell the police? Play dumb?

All at once Amy felt like she needed a break. She didn’t want to hear any more sad stories or talk about what it had been like finding Sheila’s body. It suddenly seemed as if the whole group existed only as a meeting place for complaints and tales of woe and she didn’t want to be part of that.

Making an excuse about needing to get home to Emma, she said goodbye to their unofficial leader, Penelope, and waved to the other members of the group before escaping up the steps, through the basement doors and out into the crisp night air.

She stopped short when she saw that Richard was standing just outside the doors. His back was to her as he spoke quietly but rapidly into a cell phone.

“No fucking way. I’m not taking the fall on this. That is not the way it’s going down.”

She stood still, but he whirled around obviously having heard her.

“I’ve got to go,” he said into the phone while scowling at Amy. He snapped it closed. “Why are you eavesdropping?”

“I wasn’t,” Amy said, scowling right back. “You’re blocking the exit.” She stepped around him and hurried toward her car, trying to listen without looking back to see if he was following her.

Only once she was past did the implications of what he’d said on the phone fully hit her. She turned around, sure she could hear his footsteps racing after her, but he was gone and there were only a few leaves scuttling along the empty sidewalk.