Keeping Time: A Novel (14 page)

“Can you help me with the bath?” Daisy, asking.

“The birth?” Michael.

“The bath, the shower.”

“Oh, sure.” Slinking past her and into the hall.

Daisy, following him into the bathroom. “Because of my arthritis I can’t turn the knobs.”

“No prob.” Thinking that anything was better than his parents noticing he still hadn’t opened his textbook. He pulled back the shower curtain and easily got the water running. Looking at Daisy over his shoulder, adjusting the temperature. “So, did you really black out your windows?”

“Of course we did,” Daisy, saying. “We didn’t want to get bombed.”

Michael, smiling. Working the knobs, adjusting the temperature and pressure. Daisy, watching him with grateful eyes.

“And did you really have rations?”

“Oh, yes.” Daisy, tired of standing, seating herself on the closed lid of the toilet.

Michael, noticing that she was getting comfortable, doing the same,
sitting down on the side of the bathtub, his hand remaining under the running shower water.

“It was terrible.” Daisy, seeing that he wanted her to go on. “My parents had a bakery, and they had a terrible time trying to keep it going?” Elisabeth, asking.e close. They had to make do with so little. We were always running out of ingredients. Thank goodness for your great-grandmother, your grandmother Ann’s mother. She saved us by sending us food from America—rice, flour, and sugar mainly, things that wouldn’t go bad. It could take months for the shipment to get to us.

“Once, I remember, she sent us these bags that were almost as big as you are, one of sugar and one of rice, and everything got mixed together. All the rice was in the sugar bag. Oh, my goodness, it was awful. My father was so distressed. My mother cried for days. I wanted to help, so at night I would sneak out to that bag. It had been dumped into the pantry and forgotten. I dragged my sister Doreen with me, and we worked a few hours while our parents slept. Doreen gave up after the third night, but not me, I kept at it. It took more than two weeks for me to finish picking every single grain of rice out of that sug

TWENTY-THREE

HOURS LATER. THE HOUSE, QUIET. The boys, in bed. Daisy, too.

Elisabeth, bleary-eyed and half dead, was like a zombie as she went through her nightly ablutions after her four-hour stint at her home office desk, sifting through a year’s worth of W2s, 1099s, interest and dividend statements, monthly bank statements, mortgage statements, crumbled business receipts, checks to charities, and barely legible scrap paper containing information about business investments. Robotically brushing her teeth. Surprised to find two hands cupping her butt.?” Elisabeth, askingerplCr

Richard had crept up from behind. In the bathroom without knocking—at almost one in the morning, on a work night, and after spending his day yawning, zoning out, and sleeping through his sons’ recitals. His day, his week, his month, his half year. His life since January. His job constantly pushed him harder with unrelenting stress and ever-increasing hours.

Elisabeth, tingling at his presence. Trying not to picture her five-time baby-bearing torso seeking refuge under her frumpy cotton nightgown, her ever-expanding waistline that was no longer the twist in the Tootsie Roll wrapper but was now the Tootsie Roll, or her sad breasts losing their fight with gravity. Perimenopause. Would he be able to tell? Skipped periods, two in a row after months of more frequent, heavier-than-usual activity.

Her skin nonetheless blinking awake, in full agreement that a twenty-minute suspension from drudgery was welcome indeed. Feeling her stance softening. Her breath, shifting. Her head, falling back in his direction, forgetting that the Crest toothpaste was foaming in her mouth and her toothbrush poised midair.

Remembering. Clumsily finishing her teeth, Richard’s hands caressing the contours of her back, hips, butt, waking cells one at a time. Delighting her that her exhaustion was quickly seeping away like water into soil. Turning to him, holding each other with kisses, mapping the course to the bed. Murmurings transporting them there. Anticipation sweeping through their soft landing. Palms, fingers, lips, mouths, packed with pent-up agendas, now unleashed, following unspoken orders, relishing the journey, prizing the finish.

But Elisabeth’s quest unexpectedly ended. Too early and certainly not to be prized. Her hopes, ruthlessly dashed, her expectations quashed, her satisfaction left unclaimed.

Because of what he said. And when he said it.

When all was in place, all set for the big finish. Everything, just right, words, whispered: “Tender like a woman’s behind.”

She could hear the smile in his voice. The words, ousting her from the place she had been, ripping her away so thoroughly that there was no way back.

Elisabeth, hobbling to the finish.

Richard, sprinting mightily.

Elisabeth, rolling away, hollow.

Richard, sleeping, spent.

ELISABETH, MINUTES LATER IN BED, blinking into the dark night—thinking, sweating, listening to Richard’s deep slumber. Reaching a decision. Once again, creeping out of bed. Once again, down the long
hallway silently in the dark. Down the creaky old stairs, holding her breath until she was out the door and on the driveway.

Completely unaware that Daisy, who was still not entirely on U.S. time, was wide awake behind the guest room door, watching quizzically. Wondering if all Americans didn’t sleep at night or just this family. She watched as Elisabeth got in her car and headed out into the darkness, not knowing that someone else was awake in the house.

Michael, his forehead resting on the palm of his hand, was heavily involved in his European History textbook, devouring the history of England during World War II so deeply that he didn’t even hear his mother go.

ELISABETH HAD NO TROUBLE finding Richard’s bike. He had been locking it in the same garageȁ# herselfhabck4;a block from his office—for decades. She recognized the red mountain bike at first glance. The only bike there, it was chained to an old, dented, rusty rack.

She got the lock’s combination right on the third try. It wasn’t his birthday; she had tried that first. It wasn’t their anniversary; she had tried that second. It was what she had considered the longest shot and found exceedingly touching: her birthday.

The lock sliding open. Elizabeth, breathing very calmly, inhaling the smell of grease, oil, tires, exhaust. A car horn, blaring angrily on Fifty-seventh Street, just outside the wide garage entranceway. Elisabeth, trying to look convincing, as if she were accustomed to unlocking her husband’s bike at 2:15 on a Sunday morning. Eyeing the attendant. Waiting, crouched, breathing evenly, until he was otherwise engaged and had drifted off into the bowels of the cavernous, echoey garage. Elisabeth, pocketing the chain and lock, wheeling the bike to the SUV, hoisting it up, shoving it inside. Closing the door calmly, moving in a way that would not draw attention.

Pulling away from the garage slowly, checking the rearview mirror
for any signs of distress. Nothing. The attendant was just walking back into his little booth, not having noticed a thing, flipping a coin in the air, whistling.

Estories if

CERTAINLY ELISABETH NEVER would have believed that some hot summer night in mid-June, at age forty-four, she would be wheeling her husband’s bike into Central Park at East Sixty-seventh Street. Moving quickly along a path to a playground situated not far from her illegally parked, emergency-flashing SUV. The playground had a black metal fence around it with a gate. It was empty, naturally, at that hour. Perfect.

Checking for possible thugs or rats, surprisingly unafraid, making sure not to lose sight of her car. Wheeling the bike quickly over to the shiny, black, three-foot fence that was spiked on top. Leaning the bike there. Leaving it.

Turning and stepping away from it. Back up the path. Noticing she had somehow broken a fingernail. Tearing the hanging piece off with her teeth, spitting it out, smoothing the jagged edge with her thumbnail. Thinking about Richard discovering his missing bike. Hurrying along the concrete path, turning back to take one last look. Paying her last respects, mumbling good-byes.

Boom! Crashing headfirst into something hard. The sound of bodies colliding, of clothes shifting. A cool metallic edge of something nicking the corner of her eye.

Spinning around to see a badge with the name of a lieutenant, one of the two New York City police officers blocking her way.

“Good evening.” One of them.

Elisabeth, completely shocked, murmuring in kind.

“That your bike?” The other, gesturing over her shoulder with his chin.

Elisabeth, turning around to look at Richard’s bike. Struck dumb, dumb and worried. They must have seen her leaving it there. They had to have. It would be better not to feign surprise.

Her insides churning; a destructive storm blowing through, whipping her organs around in different directions. Every part of her was drenched in adrenaline. Her heart pumping triple time. Afraid to hesitate for too long, fearing that she wouldn’t have a voice when her mouth opened. She nodd?” Elisabeth, askings e closeed and tried to look normal even though her tongue was overturned and stuck halfway down her throat. Looking past them to their car with its lights blazing, pulled alongside hers, emergency flashers calling out in the night. A young couple, arm in arm, passing on the sidewalk, heads and shoulders touching, fingers interlocked. Elisabeth, eyes returning back to the cops, but unable to look them in the eye. Swallowing hard. Her jagged fingernail forgotten.

“You mind telling us why you’re leaving your bike there?”

Unfortunately, Elisabeth
did
mind telling them. Wanting to ignore the question, get back in her car, and hit the road, but evidently they wanted an answer. They stood waiting, staring her down, more than idly curious.

Elisabeth, snickering. All of a sudden the whole thing was so stupid that it was funny. She had been wondering for weeks whether she should call the cops, confess her suspicions, and throw her husband’s name into the mix. Also wondering whether she would really be able to do it, rat out her faithful husband of twenty-one years, and if there really was anything to rat out. And now here she was being handed all this on a silver platter. She could feel the cops’ eyes penetrating her, reading her openly. She had to answer; that much was clear. But how? That much was not.

“I don’t want it.” Elisabeth, dimly hoping that would be enough. Of course it was not.

“What’s your name?”

Elisabeth, telling them.

“You live around here?”

Her response causing four eyebrows to rise upon both cops: the tall, barrel-shaped, thirtysomething, red-lipped, dark-eyed, round-jawed, Hispanic-looking one and his shorter, wide-handed, big-footed, light-brown-haired, late-twenties, Irish-looking partner.

“Port Washington, Long Island? And you drove all this way at two in the morning to leave a bike at a Central Park playground?”

This wasn’t going well. Elisabeth was no longer snickering. Actually, she was slightly panicked. Did they have the right to haul her off to the police station? This might not turn out to be such a funny story after all.

“Actually, it’s my husband’s. He keeps it at his office.” Her voice, wavering slightly. Attempting to stop it from doing that. “I’ve been wanting him to get rid of it for years. It’s such an old piece of crap. It must be dangerous riding downtown on it. But he’s attached to the old hunk of junk, so what I did was … well, you can see what I did. He’ll think it was stolen. He’ll have to buy a new one.” Finishing with a chuckle. Thrown in for good measure.

Then standing there like a schoolgirl: feet together, pointed forward; hands at her sides; head held high. She could feel them continuing to size her up, looking from her to the bike and back again, going through her words and sniffing around for a lie, a hole, a discrepancy.

She saw it. It was small, almost imperceptible, but still she saw it—a slight shoulder movement, the slightest, by the Hispanic-looking one. There was the smallest letting go, a loosening, a guard going down, shoulders dropping, lowering by a hair, a degree, nothing more. But for Elisabeth, enough to buck her up. Not home free yet but perhaps on the way.

“Where’s your husband’s office?” The Irish-looking one with jaw thrust forward and eyes slightly narrowed,#nd thehabck looking skeptical.

“He’s a lawyer, a partner at a law firm on Fifty-seventh Street.”

The Irish-looking one, now even more skeptical. Sniffing the air—he actually did sniff the air—with an upward movement of his face.

“Your husband’s a partner in a law firm?”

“Yes.” Elisabeth, chuckling lightly as if sharing their incredulousness. Mutually agreeing that she was some kind of a kook. “He’d die if he knew I was here in Central Park in the middle of the night, leaving his bike.”

“You know, we’ve been looking for someone who’s been riding around on a bike like that. Dart Man.” The Irish-looking one.

Elisabeth, feeling his intense gaze, trying not to blink. Did she? Did she blanch or stiffen? Were signs surfacing all over her face?

“Have you heard of him?” The Hispanic-looking one, looking into her eyes. Could he see into her? Read her fear?

In a way this was the moment she had been waiting for, the moment that would crack open the lid and squeeze out the truth. It would force her to conclude, to confront what it was she really thought—force fantasy into fact or fact into fact. It would make her come to an understanding, admit to herself what it was she really thought because, honestly, she didn’t know what it was she really thought. Was her husba Man?

She still didn’t know, but she did reach one conclusion: If it was him, she wasn’t going to rat him out. “I think I heard about it on the radio at work. I’m a CPA.” Irrelevant, she knew, but throwing it out. Attempting accreditation.

Four eyebrows going up again, but the Hispanic-looking one suddenly appearing bored. Believing her. Smelling the truth. Ready to move on.

The Irish-looking one, harder to convince. “This Dart Man’s been
riding around on a red mountain bike like that one. Would you know anything about that?”