Next To You (18 page)

‘We’re going to have a nice lunch.’

‘I feel a little bit like Bette Davis in
Now Voyager
. She and I both of came out of a kind of hibernation, but I’m wishing I had a note pinned someplace on my jacket to tell me what I should to do next, like she did. Jesus, I almost wish I smoked. You could light one for both of us, like Paul Heinreid does for her. You don’t smoke, do you?’

Will simply reached across the table and took her hand. ‘No, I don’t smoke, and buzzards don’t have removable wing tips.’

***

The coffee table water rings were gone and Julie’s glass sat on a coaster. Julie still looked the same. Flavored coffee was still her brew on offer but the Olympic ring stains had disappeared. Caroline wanted to know how long it would take before the stains had finally vanished from her life. She sighed. ‘Did you use mayonnaise?’ she said, touching the tabletop.

Julie chuckled. ‘No, I rubbed in white toothpaste and baking soda. When it was dry I used furniture polish. Can you smell it?’

‘All I smell is the hazelnut coffee you made. Thank you for not offering me any. Hey, do you think toothpaste and baking soda would get nicotine stains off skin they way it does teeth?’

‘Nicotine stains?’

‘Yeah, like Phillip Seymour Hoffman had. Did you ever notice that? He was a phenomenal actor and he had these awful, nicotine-stained fingers. Like Bethany has.’

‘I think lemon juice would probably work on that. So you saw Bethany?’

Caroline sat back and tucked her feet under. ‘Yep. I was with my friend William. I was glad he was there.’

‘William’s the guy who lives next door to you, the one friend you told me about before?’

Nodding, Caroline said, ‘We’ve become quite good friends. He’s introduced me to his friends. They’re nice people. My neighbors are all really nice people. I’m living in a nice community, and William is a very nice man.’

‘You still smile when you talk about him.’

‘I like him.’ She nodded again, trying hard not to smile. ‘Everything feels so normal, you know, ordinary when he’s around.’

‘And he was with you when you saw Bethany?’

‘Bethany.’ Caroline rolled her eyes. ‘She’s nuts you know. I’m the one that got put away. I’m the one who had the acute stress disorder, the postpartum depression, but she’s always been histrionic, psychopathic, and borderline.’

Julie arched her brow. ‘Spoken like a million daughters-in-law.’

‘She’s just so horrid—and William is so nice. I told him about what happened. I told him I was in Linden Oaks and he was totally fine with it.’

‘He’s your friend.’

Caroline smiled. Again. And she didn’t care. ‘I’ve made one really good friend. William likes movies and loves Batman. He’s easy to get along with and I’m comfortable around him. I can be myself. I’m not worried—well, not too worried—that I’ll say or do the wrong thing. But …’

‘But what?’

Her smile turned into a frown. ‘What’s it mean when you notice your friend is really good looking?’

‘What do you think it means?’

‘Oh, I hate when you do that.’

Julie didn’t say anything. She simply peered over the top of her glasses and waited.

‘All right.’ Caroline let out a huff. ‘It means he’s a handsome man. I noticed a man was handsome. I noticed my friend, William, is good looking. I’m not reading anything into it beyond that fact, and I not going to consider that noticing he’s attractive is an indication that I’m interested in anything other than the friendship, and support he’s given me. I don’t even want to go in that other direction.’

‘Why not? You’re grabbing life by the balls, aren’t you?’

Caroline snorted. ‘I can’t believe you of all people would be suggesting that I … wait.
Are
you suggesting that I …’

Julie did the peering over the top of her glasses thing again. ‘Maybe it’s time.’

‘Come on, Julie. You know I get confused sometimes, all jumbled up by how I’m supposed to feel or not feel. I have to ask myself if that quivering thing in my stomach means I’m happy, exited, terrified, or that I need to eat lunch like it did the other day. Really, like I need to complicate matters with a romantic relationship.’

‘Okay. I know you’re not ready and trying to do the right thing.’

‘Yeah. The right thing. I did the right thing, but it was the wrong thing, and people got hurt. Then I did the wrong thing, which was the right thing, and people still got hurt. I don’t want to hurt anyone.’

‘What makes you think that will happen again?’

‘Alex. Bethany.’

Julie pulled off her glasses and gestured with them. ‘Wow, Bethany really pissed you off. And you said you didn’t know how you felt.’

With a shrug, Caroline said, ‘Well, anger’s easy to label.’ She got up and went to the little refrigerator that was hidden in the credenza beneath the coffeemaker. She took out a small bottle of water and twisted off the cap as she toed the fridge door shut. ‘Know what I don’t get?’

‘Nut-flavored coffee?’

‘Ew.’ Caroline wrinkled her nose. ‘That and the idea that certain things have to be significant, and people thrust that “significance” on everyone, whether it means something to them or not. Like certain birthdays, that “Oh my God, you’re forty” crap that mandates because you’re wigged out by turning forty then everyone else must wig out too. And the idea that I can move beyond the pain and shit of my past, but have someone like Bethany
demand
that I have to live it, or be crippled by it, or have it color everything that I do because she does.’

***

‘Obviously the harpy hasn’t mellowed with time. Gus is one poor bastard to be married to that.’ Her uncle grumbled, shaking his white head as he tossed the two-toned, tasseled saddle shoes she bought him back into the box. ‘Thanks for these. That was sweet.’ He had the last mouthful of his Scotch and soda and signaled the college-aged barman who wore white jacket with a Foxhollow Country Club emblem stitched on the left breast.

‘I saw them and I had to get them for you. I’m glad you like them.’

‘Who said I liked ’em?’

‘They’re an exact match to those shoes you used to call your
hole-in-ones
.’

‘That’s because there was a hole in one, you know,’ Reg said with a laugh. ‘I had a bunion on my left foot and I had to split the shoe open so I could play.’

‘If you don’t like them, I’ll take them back and get you something else. They’re too flashy for this ultra-conservative country club anyhow.’

He held up his hands. ‘I didn’t say I didn’t like them, did I?’

‘You’re getting crotchety, Uncle Reg. Maybe I should fix you up with Bethany.’

‘And I thought you loved me.’

The young barman arrived. As her uncle said something about a Scotch, the barman bent his fair head forward slightly, similar to the way William often did.

Had teenaged William Murphy ever been a bartender or waiter? Had he’d spent his summers working in a stuffy country club like this kid? Knowing William, odds were he worked for a judge or congressman and had started wearing tailored suits when he was fifteen.

Uncle Reg poked her.

She looked at him, dragging her eyes from the fair, freckly barman. ‘What?’

‘My very rude niece will have a tonic and lime.’

‘Oh, excuse me. Yes, thank you, a tonic and lime, please.’

With a nod, the kid left to get their drinks and her uncle said, ‘Your M-I-L spooked you, didn’t she?’

‘No. My mother-in-law embarrassed me. She followed us, screeching, and I wanted to hit her. It would have been six-guns a-blazin’ if William hadn’t been there. Jesus, he just looked at Bethany and she shrank away, just like Bonnie Chesterman does. Did you know Bonnie presses herself against the wall when she sees William. I thought she was just trying to give him room to pass by on the stairs, but you’re right; she’s terrified of him. Bethany was afraid too. I hated that I put William in that situation. I finally have a friend I can trust, and my past is back, trying to fuck things up.

‘Language, Caroline!’ he said.

‘Sorry.’ Caroline made a face, and shoved hair behind both ears. ‘I know confrontation is a natural consequence. I know some people have a need for revenge, and some people don’t, like Gus.’ She sipped the tonic water the young waiter had set down. ‘I had that dream again last night,’ she said. ‘I’ve gone months without it and one event brings it all back.’

‘The dream when you’re the only one who hears Drew crying?’

‘M-hm. I used to wake up bawling, but this time it pissed me off. I asked Julie why it would piss me off now. She said, “It’s just part of restoring equilibrium to your life.” Equilibrium.’ She snorted. ‘You know what? I don’t cry about it any more. Ever.’

Reg leaned back in his chair, grinning. ‘If you really want to get your mind off all this, instead of going to see your shrink, why don’t you get yourself a lover?’

‘What?’

‘I said, get yourself a lover.’

Caroline squinted at her uncle. ‘Uh-huh. And what is that going to do for me?’

‘Are you kidding? Do you really need your old, yet still very active uncle to tell you
exactly
what a man can do for a woman?’

‘You always did well with the ladies. Better than I have with men.’

With a little flip of his hand he said, ‘Puddin’, not every man you choose is going to end in disaster.’

‘I never said that would happen.’

‘All right. So, what about Will? You like him.’

Caroline barked out a short laugh, and shook her head. ‘Have you been talking to Julie?’

‘No, why?’

‘She said something sort of similar. All right, yes. I like William. He’s a lot of fun to be with. He makes me feel good about myself, but I want to keep things friendly and neighborly, and not have it get awkward when the ex-wife he carries a torch for comes over to spend the night—again. Most importantly, and I mean that it’s the most important thing, I’m still settling on my feet here, finding my ground and balance. Why would I go and toss it all away by doing something stupid like sleeping with William, just because he smells good?’

‘Ah-ha! You’ve noticed he smells good!’

‘You smell good too.’

‘I know. That’s what Joni Hodgson told me last night,’ he uncle said, a wicked gleam in his eye.

Chapter 8

Caroline tucked
The Final Confession of Mabel Stark
under her arm. She shouldered her purse, and stepped off the bus behind a man plugged into an iPod that cost more than his black polyester suit and genuine imitation leather shoes combined.

She knew she had a bad habit of finding fault with the clothes some people chose to wear. It was an occupational hazard. Julie confessed she did a similar thing at dinner parties her friends threw—only she diagnosed each guest with a mental disorder. So maybe having your profession influence your daily life was commonplace.

And maybe it wasn’t. However Caroline looked at it, the woman walking alongside Polyesterman was dressed abominably. Everything she wore was three sizes too small. A roll of flesh bubbled like melting pizza cheese over the top of her bright orange high-waisted jeans, and as she walked that cheesy roll wobbled. The banded sleeve of her crop top cut into her skin. Her bra was the wrong size, and far too tight; it pinched her back into a shelf of flesh that make it seem she had breasts below her shoulder blades.

She wished that every woman knew that, no matter what her shape or size, she’d look best in clothes that fit her, not in clothes that were trendy—although trendy clothes worked just fine—as long as they were the right size.

Mesmerized by the fashion disaster, Caroline walked up the street, watching the woman, doing a fashion-rescue makeover in her mind. As the girl moved out of sight, Caroline turned the corner and smacked into another pedestrian, stepping on feet. ‘I beg your pardon,’ she said, channeling William’s good manners.

‘Hi,’ Alex said.

‘Aw, no. Not today.’ She stepped around him, going back the way she’d just come.

After a few steps, anger kicked in.

Why should she run away? She had every right to live unhindered by his harassment.

Spinning, she walked back the way she’d been going, and kept walking, knowing he’d follow. ‘All right. Your mother told you she saw me,’ she said, when he fell into step beside her.

Alex licked the corner of his mouth and nodded. ‘What the hell did you say to her?’

‘Nothing. And I have nothing to say to you either.’ She cut across his path and stepped off the curb, hurrying between parked cars to cross the street.

Alex yanked her backwards. She slammed against a parked SUV instead of being struck by the oncoming Ford she had failed to see.

The book plunged to the ground. One red spiked heel flew off and into the gutter. Her purse cushioned the impact when her head
clunked
into the SUV’s bumper, her knee cracking into the pavement, splitting the skin into a ruby-welling crescent moon.

‘You trying to kill yourself again, Caroline?’ Alex picked up her shoe and moved to haul her upright.

She slapped his hands away. ‘Get the hell away from me.’ She stood and snatched the shoe from his grasp. Her right stocking dropped down around her ankle. She made to pull it up and whipped the shoe at his head.

Alex caught it. ‘I’m
trying
to be nice! Jesus, you nearly got creamed by a car! I think yo—’

Alex lurched. Something a heavy had struck him in the back. He turned. A teenage boy with braces wound up his backpack to swing it again. A plump woman gripped an umbrella, and threatened to use it like a policeman’s club as she shouted, ‘You piece of shit, you leave her alone!’

‘Hey, hey, hey! Now wait a minute here. I was only talking to her! I never touched her. I didn’t lay a finger on her,’ he backed away, ‘I was only trying to tell her something …’

The boy and his mother inserted themselves between her and Alex, and Caroline hollered, ‘So tell me and go away!’

Grim-faced, Alex took a breath. ‘My dad died.’

Caroline’s hands went stiff and clammy. ‘What?’

‘My dad died. Did you know that?’

‘When?’ she said, a chill rushing down her neck and spine, all the way to her hips.