Life Penalty (33 page)

H
is solution was for them to go to Florida.

She heard him on the phone making last-minute arrangements, booking the airline tickets for three days hence. He lined up several other veterinarians who were prepared to take on any sudden emergencies. He called Lieutenant Cole and explained that they’d be away for two weeks, giving him the number at which they could be reached. He phoned Dr. Manoff and arranged an appointment for as soon as Gail returned. He let Gail’s parents know the exact time of their arrival. They had been after them recently to come down. They were planning a trip to New York to see Carol and her boyfriend, and they would stay in Florida with Gail and Jack for a few days before heading for New York and leaving them on their own in the condominium. It might be their last chance to see the Eden Rock, Gail’s mother had warned her son-in-law. They were thinking of moving to another building just down the beach.

“We land in Miami,” he told Gail.

“Miami? How come?”

“Only flight I could get. We’ll have to rent a car and drive up to Palm Beach. We did it once before,” he reminded her. “It’s only about an hour’s drive, maybe a little more.”

“It’s a pleasant drive,” Gail agreed.

“You haven’t seen your parents in a while,” he continued. “It’ll be good for you to see them again.”

Gail nodded. “And I’m sure you can use a holiday.”

“That’s certainly true. I think it’ll do us both good to get away.”

There was a pause that Gail immediately sought to fill, anxious to continue the steady stream of harmless chatter.

“Apparently, they’re having a terrific winter in Florida. The papers say it hasn’t rained there since November. The natives are complaining like crazy about the crops—you know how they go on about the drought—but the tourists are in seventh heaven.”

“Sounds wonderful,” Jack said, but his voice carried worry, not wonder.

Gail realized that this would be their first trip to Palm Beach without Cindy. She saw herself walking with the child along the beach, advising her not to step on anything that looked like a blue bubble (“They’re called man-of-wars, and they sting,” she had cautioned) and to hold on to her hand tightly when they went near the ocean. She thought back to when Cindy was not quite a year old and she had taken her for a walk to find seashells. It had been very windy that morning, and she had picked Cindy up and carried her close against her chest through the difficult sand, her feet sinking repeatedly up to her ankles. Ultimately, the wind and Cindy’s weight combined to defeat her. She had turned back, facing directly into the wind, only to find Jack waiting by the dunes with his camera. He had snapped a picture of the two of them, their faces pressed tightly together, their hair blowing around them as if from one head. Gail had thought at the time that it was a waste of good film, but when the picture was developed, it had been so good that they had had it enlarged and framed. It hung on the wall of her mother’s
living room. It would be there for her to see when they reached the Eden Rock.

“We need some sun,” Jack said, and Gail realized he was trying to convince himself as much as her.

Gail looked out their bedroom window at the gray sky. It seemed that no matter how moderate the winter, what ultimately wore people down between November and April was the perpetual cover of gray.

The day before they were scheduled to leave, Jack’s new receptionist quit. He had just spent a month training her, breaking her in, when she announced her intention to leave without notice. When he pressed her for a reason, she confessed to a deep fear of snakes. He explained that the ailing boa constrictor which had been brought in that morning was the first snake he’d treated in ten years, that his practice consisted almost entirely of dogs and cats, with the occasional parakeet thrown in to keep him on his toes. She mentioned the possibility of contracting cat scratch fever or psittacosis. She was afraid she might get AIDS, she continued, and Jack had stared at her in helpless fury and said nothing. She wouldn’t even agree to remain for the two weeks of Jack’s holiday. At literally the last minute, Jack was forced to hire a temporary worker and pay her extra to come in that night to learn the way the office was run so that he would be able to leave the next morning.

“We could cancel the trip,” Gail offered when he got home at midnight and started to pack. Their plane was due to leave at 8 a.m.

“We’d never get another flight,” he told her. “I checked. Besides, I’ve just spent the last four hours going over everything with this new girl. I think she’ll be all right.” He flopped across the bed. “Why do these things always happen when you’re trying to get away?”

“I thought AIDS was a homosexual disease,” Gail said with genuine curiosity.

“What are you talking about?” Jack asked, sitting up and staring at her as if she had gone completely mad.

“You said that Mandy was leaving because she didn’t want to contract AIDS. I thought AIDS was a homosexual disease.”

“Nobody knows exactly what it is. Apparently, it can be passed on through the blood. Like hepatitis. I guess she’s afraid that someone who has AIDS and also has a cut finger is going to hand her his sick pet and that his finger is going to come in contact with a cut that she also happens to have on her finger, and that their blood will mix and her entire immune system will break down and she’ll die.” He smiled at the thought. “I think I have just summed up the essence of my receptionist.”

“It sounds like you’re well rid of her.”

“I would have been better rid of her two weeks from now.”

“It would have been Cindy’s seventh birthday in two weeks,” Gail reminded him. She saw him wince. “I know.”

“She would have been seven,” Gail repeated to herself, and sat down at the foot of the bed.

J
ack took the ocean route from Miami up to Palm Beach. It added over half an hour to the drive, but it was lush and scenic, and the sun shone down as promised. The radio blasted out the latest in country and western tunes, a song about illicit love in a dirty old motel followed by something about the evils of liquor. Next came the weather report: there would be nothing but sunshine for the next five days, with a zero percent chance of rain. This was followed by the news of the hour. Trouble in Miami, the voice decreed sadly. A family of four had been found dead in a burning automobile: a man, his wife and their two children, boys aged two and four, were discovered in the wreckage with their hands tied behind their backs. The police were trying to determine whether they had been placed in the burning car dead or alive.

Jack’s hand moved to the radio.

“What are you doing?” Gail asked, her hand blocking his.

“I’ll find some music,” he said.

“I want to hear this,” Gail told him.

“Why, for God’s sake? It’s so grisly.”

“It’s important to be aware of these things,” Gail said

“Aware of what? That there are a lot of sick people in this world? I thought that was one of the things we came
down here to forget.” He pressed the button that changed the station.

They caught the tail end of a song about unrequited love, and then the news reasserted itself. A family of four, the announcer began, before Jack unceremoniously cut him off with the press of another button.

“It’s everywhere,” Gail said quietly, closing her eyes to the deep greens of the immaculately kept lawns and neatly trimmed trees, blocking out the sight of the sprawling yellow and pink homes. The storybook world of Palm Beach, she thought, remembering that even fairy tales were full of evil witches and ugly monsters.

“We’re here,” Jack said as she opened her eyes, looking around in astonishment. “You fell asleep,” he told her. She looked out the car window at the six-story white building, palm trees framing and enhancing it. “Welcome to the Eden Rock,” he said, and hopped out of the car. “The air smells terrific.” He always said that. Every time they came to Florida, every time they arrived at her parents’ condominium, every time he first set foot out of the rented car and looked over at the luxury building, he said the same thing: “The air smells terrific.” Gail smiled to herself and got out of the car.

The guard greeted them at the door and promptly buzzed up to her parents’ apartment, which was on the fourth floor overlooking the ocean. Jack spoke to her father on the intercom while Gail looked around the lobby for any changes. There were none.

That was the nice thing about Florida, Gail decided.

It never changed. It was like a soap opera that you could leave for a year, even two, and when you came back, it was as if you had never left.

The floor of the lobby of the Eden Rock was of beige marble tile, covered in part by a beige rug on which sat two streamlined sofas of beige with burgundy highlights.
Very tasteful. Nothing to which anyone could possibly object. But as with most of the condominiums in the area, the people who inhabited this building found plenty with which they could, and consistently did, take umbrage.

Children were what they seemed to object to most. Because the majority of the residents were of retirement age and had only themselves to worry about, they tended to become crotchety about small annoyances. They didn’t like noise or loud music, which meant they had a particular aversion to teenagers. They didn’t like sudden cries, or anything sudden for that matter, and since small children could rarely be relied on to do things in an orderly fashion, children made them nervous. They were terrified that one of them might leave something untoward in the pool, and they were always testing the water for sudden warm spots. Gail had pointed out to some elderly gentlemen that they probably had more to fear from the older bladders than the young ones, a remark that spread through the condominium and caused her mother embarrassment at her next bridge game.

It seemed that every time Gail and her family came down for a visit, there were new rules posted. When Gail’s parents had moved into the building, it was brand-new and there were no rules. By the next year there were signs everywhere. No eating or drinking by the pool; no running; no jumping; no toys around the pool; children must be toilet-trained; no inflatable rafts; showers were obligatory before entering the pool; tar had to be removed from feet after a walk on the beach; no reserving of beach chairs around the pool. When Gail finished reading through the growing list she remarked, “Why don’t they just put up a sign that says No Fun Around the Pool?” Again this comment spread like wildfire through the condominium.

The year the residents installed an outdoor whirlpool bath, Gail had taken Cindy in with her for a few moments. On their next visit there was a sign by the whirlpool stating that children under the age of thirteen were not allowed to use it.

Gail wondered now what new rules they would encounter, then realized that without her children she probably had nothing to worry about. It wasn’t that these people didn’t like children—most of them had grandchildren of their own—it was that they preferred them from a distance. They didn’t want the inconvenience of children. In that respect, Gail thought, they really weren’t that much different from the rest of the world.

Gail’s father was suddenly at her side. “Hello, darling,” he said warmly and took her in his arms. Gail returned his hug, glad to see him, happier than she had expected to be.

“Come on up,” her father said, grabbing one of the suitcases from Jack. “Your mother’s waiting for you upstairs. She’s fixed up the apartment a bit, changed a few things around. You’ll see.”

They got inside the elevator and pressed the appropriate button. “What’s this?” Gail asked, pointing to a cannister hanging on the wall.

“Oxygen,” her father said.

“Oxygen? What for?”

“Well, you know,” her father began, “there are a lot of old people in this building, and they get worried that one of them might have a heart attack in the elevator or that they might need oxygen, so they put some in. That’s one of the reasons your mother wants to move. She says the place is starting to fill up with old fogies.”

The elevator doors opened, and they followed the beige and burgundy squares of the carpet to the apartment at the end of the hall. The door was already open and the
inside balcony windows pulled wide apart so that the ocean seemed to spill over into the living room, an effect that was enhanced by the bright blue of the ceramic tile covering the floor.

“Gail,” her mother called, coming toward her and stretching out her arms. Gail pressed her mother’s body tightly to her own. “Let me look at you,” her mother said, pulling back. “Are you all right? You look like you lost more weight.”

“I don’t think so,” Gail answered. “I’ve been eating. Sometimes it feels like that’s all I do.”

“Yes?” her mother asked skeptically. “Well, eat some more. I made reservations tonight at Capriccio’s.”

“Sounds nice,” Gail said, hoping she sounded enthusiastic. “What have you done here? You changed everything.”

“I just moved the furniture around a bit, put the sofa against the wall, and moved the television into the bedroom.”

“Where I hate it,” her father interjected. “She did it just to annoy me.”

“Don’t be silly,” her mother said. “I did it because it doesn’t look nice to have a television in the living room.”

“It looked nice that way for four years.”

Her mother dismissed him with an impatient wave of her hand.

“And you had the chairs recovered,” Gail noticed.

“Do you like them?”

Before she could answer, Gail’s father interrupted. “She had a beautiful swatch, a lovely thing with green and white flowers …”

“It didn’t go with the tile, and besides I was tired of flowers. I thought the blue and white stripes were more sophisticated.”

“Who needs sophisticated?” her father demanded sharply. “I don’t need to impress any bridge ladies.”

“I wasn’t trying to impress the bridge ladies. I thought that it would look nice. What do you think, Gail?”

“I like it,” she said honestly.

Her mother turned to Jack for the first time, as if she had just noticed he was there. “Hello, Jack,” she said, taking him into her arms.