North of Boston (14 page)

He doesn't pick up at the number I called before, so I ring Jackson Hartwell on the dot of nine, ask to speak to Larry Wozniak.

The receptionist says she's very sorry, but Jackson Hartwell does not employ anyone by that name.

I ask if she's sure—perhaps he's freelance? A hired investigator?

No, he's not on the roster, never has been. She's sure.

“Oh, I see. Is Ocean Catch one of your clients?”

She's very sorry, but she cannot give out the names of individual policyholders or insured vessels. She hopes I have a nice day.

I put down the phone. Experience a bit of pre-nauseous whirling. The rabbit hole just got longer.
Trust me,
he said.

Not that I did. But still.

I google his name and get this:

Mr. Larry Wozniak
WINSTON-SALEM—Lawrence Brian Wozniak, 30, of Garden Valley Drive, died Monday, July 21, 2010, at WFU Baptist Medical Center after a sudden illness. He was born June 27, 1980, in Greenwood County, S.C., to Ronald E. Wozniak and Katherine Bryant Wozniak. He attended Mars Hill College and Wake Forest University. He was a medical technologist at WFU Baptist Medical Center. Memorials to be directed to the Liver Transplant Memorial Fund at Duke University Medical Center.

No wife. No kids. The right age. A good identity to steal.

P
irio!” Thomasina greets me like I'm an old friend she lost track of years ago. When I follow her into the kitchen and see who's standing at the counter, this reaction makes more sense. It's Max, the guy from the funeral party. He's shirtless and shoeless, mixing up pancake batter. He gives me a charming smile. Thomasina goes over and rings his lean torso with her arms, turns a pleased, bashful face to me. “Pirio! You remember Max!” There's an air of festive domesticity and good happy fucks. Even the Saturday-morning sunlight streaming through the window seems especially bright.

The whole thing makes me feel like a dour spinster, since my first reaction is incredulity; my second, suspicion; and my third, doom mongering. It doesn't help that I've stopped by to share news about suspicious payments, secret voyages, and a fraudulent insurance agent. Not to mention what I forgot to tell her about the U.S. Navy and me.

I greet Max as politely as I can.

Thomasina pulls out a chair. “Sit down, by the way!”

Oil is sputtering in a frying pan. Max turns off the heat and slides the pan onto a cool burner. Noah's bedroom door is closed.

“Look!” Thomasina sits next to me and shows me a delicate pendant she's wearing around her neck, holding up its small diamond between two fingers for me to admire. “Isn't it beautiful?”

I tell her it's lovely, even though we both know that she has more impressive jewels in her box, and that the diamond solitaire pendant necklace is not an object she has ever coveted. Until, apparently, just now.

“We're dying to go away together. Aren't we, Max?”

He has disappeared into her bedroom, and reemerges in a few seconds, pulling on a T-shirt. He looks healthier than he did in the thick, jaundiced atmosphere of Murphy's Pub. High-cheeked, ruby-lipped, he's the kind of man whose appeal lies in a feminine face set on a taut, muscular body. He and Thomasina are the same height, which creates a sibling impression.

“Don't we want to go away together, Max?” She seems to have an urgent need for Max to corroborate this fact. As if it will somehow cement them as a legitimate couple in my mind. Or hers. Or maybe his.

He says he'd love to get away, hasn't taken any vacation days all year. He smiles haphazardly.

“Just the two of you?” I say, wondering where that would leave Noah. But the answer's obvious: with me.

Thomasina charges into the breach. “Well, we'll have to see. It's still too early to make plans. Max doesn't have the time off yet anyway. For now we were just thinking of something simple, like maybe a weekend at Foxwoods.” She gives him a brilliant smile.

He murmurs a vague, passive assent, and I'm struck by the inexplicable chaos of coupledom. Thomasina hates gambling. She was dragged into casinos by a gambling-addicted father who dolled her up and sneaked her in well before she was twenty-one. Before he could pass her off as an adult, he left her alone in hotel rooms with an array of oversized stuffed animals that were supposed to keep her company. A place like Foxwoods is about the last place she'd want to go. But suddenly she's gung ho on the idea, and appears to be convincing Max, who seems like just the kind of guy who'd normally be dying to experience the high life there.

Thomasina pours me coffee, and Max resumes cooking the pancakes and bacon. He tells me he works at Massport: basically, he's a harbor cop. Knew Ned for years and is good friends with John Oster. “We're a tight group, us water rats,” he says jokingly. He wields the spatula, flips the pancake discs with flair. I'm guessing Thomasina told him about finding the title of the
Molly Jones
. She's not good at keeping interesting factoids to herself. Max slides the plates across the table and sits down. Thomasina, making a show of dazzlement, leans over and kisses his neck, summoning a blush.

I pick up my fork. “Is Noah going to eat?”

He ate earlier, I'm told.

The conversation shifts to television drama. Max and Thomasina, looking urgent, tell me in virtually a single voice that the fall lineup is one of the best in years. He recounts a lengthy plot involving desperate characters. Complications abound.

“Positively Dickensian,” Thomasina murmurs. I scan her face for irony, and find none, so apparently complete has been her transformation into this man's better half.

A respite from the charade opens up at the end of the meal when Max goes off to shower and dress. Then Thomasina resumes recognizable qualities. “Please, Pirio. I know you're disgusted—you show it, too, by the way. No wonder Max is dying to get out of here—he won't say it, but I can feel it in his body language.”

“Sorry. It's a bit of a shock. You've known this guy, what? Two weeks?”

“The time doesn't mean a thing. When you're older, you know what's out there and exactly what you're looking for.” She leans close, whispers, “You better get used to him. 'Cause I think he's the one.”

“Oh, God. Cut the shit, will you? Get sober, see where that brings you. Jesus Christ.”

Her eyes flash. “I'm sober right now. Do you see? I'm sober.” She sticks her hands under my face so I can see they're not trembling. “I'm sober, and I don't care what you think. I want to get married, and why shouldn't I?”

“
Married?
Did you say
married
?”

“People get married all the time. It's a normal thing to do. Why shouldn't I try it?”

“Try it? You don't
try
being married. It's not a fucking outfit. And for that matter, you tried it already. Remember that?”

“What do you mean? Are you talking about Ned? You know we were never married. We didn't have a thing in common. He was all wrong for me. Max is completely different. He has a college degree and a good job. He can talk about books. You heard him.”

“He was talking about TV.”

“So what?”

“So what? So what's the difference between TV and books? Is that what you're asking?”

“Pirio, for God's sake, what difference does it make? I meant he's
literate
, OK? He can talk about things. He knows about the world. He's not boring.” She doesn't say
like
Ned
.

“He's completely average, Thomasina. He'll bore you in a month. You're ten times smarter than he is.”

“I'm not. I'm not!”

We both remain silent while that dainty, love-soaked lie floats to earth.

She holds her balled napkin to her forehead, gives a few rapid sighs, like she's fighting back tears or trying to find them. Finally, she speaks in a sort of angry, pleading anguish. “Noah needs a dad. Boys need fathers. What do I know about raising a boy? They need fathers—a woman can't raise a son alone. They need someone to teach them things like . . . hunting.” She looks so doubtful.

“Are you insane?”

“Don't say that to me. I'm trying, aren't I? Do you see what I'm drinking? Diet Coke. Look, I'm serious. That's
Diet Coke
.”

She's pointing to her glass, full of the amber soda. Still full.

“I haven't had a drink or even a Percocet in a week, ever since the funeral for Noah's hamster. Max understood right away; he went through the apartment with me, helped me get rid of everything. He says to call him anytime; he comes over after work. He's giving me a new life, Pirio. Come on, when's the last time you saw me smile when I wasn't high? I know you're pissed about the shit I've been pulling. So am I. I want to be a good mother to Noah. He deserves so much more than what I've been giving him. And Max just makes me feel . . . I don't know how he makes me feel. . . . Just
better
. Like, maybe not well but better. Like I
could
be well. Normal, with a normal life. You know, go to the mall on Saturdays, soccer games, pizza nights with friends. . . .” Her voice trails off. “Thanksgiving,” she says vaguely. “It's coming up.”

I resist making a remark about Norman Rockwell, because that would have been her line. Ten years ago, it would have been on the tip of her tongue. Instead, I blurt that Noah doesn't even play soccer.

“He could learn,” she insists. “He'd join a team and have friends like all the other boys. Because his mother wouldn't be a drunk anymore.” Her face is hot; her lips are trembling. “She'd be married—we'd live in a real house. He wouldn't have to be ashamed.” She sips the Diet Coke gingerly, trying to like it.

My eyes fill. It's true. She's drinking Diet Coke, not a morning mimosa or Bloody Mary, and she doesn't seem hungover. She
is
trying. My anger slowly deflates, and I regret everything—myself, my hard line, what I think I know about anything. I blink back tears, but my heart won't stop churning. “Jesus, Thomasina,” I say finally.

She softly says, “I know.”

When Max returns, damp and clean, Thomasina and I are staring in opposite directions, trying to collect ourselves. The astringent, lime-patchouli scent of Old Spice aftershave wafts off him. It's the noxiously familiar odor of too many generations of dull American men. I wish he were wearing anything else.

“Max, dear,” Thomasina says, turning a composed face to him. “Pirio and I have been friends forever. Since high school. We're like sisters almost.”

He understands immediately, says it's time for him to be off. Says it was nice to see me again, blah, blah, and is gone.

Thomasina gets up to do the dishes; the stiffness in her back is armor against my skepticism. I don't offer to help. The kitchen's small, there's not much to do, and I want to give that stiff back the space it's asking for.

There's a lime-green iPod nano propped in a Bose speaker on the scarred wooden table, twenty or more jars of spices grouped haphazardly on the counter next to the stove. Manila folders are stacked along the windowsill, Thomasina's rudimentary filing system. Back when we were roommates at the Gaston School, she was the detailed one, always writing notes to herself and keeping track of events in a weekly planner. She also kept diaries, scribbled her thoughts and feelings daily and copiously, seemingly on fire with the urgency of making a complete record of herself. What I assume to be her present diary—a leather-bound book with an ornate medieval-looking clasp—is on a shelf next to an incense burner. I imagine her up at midnight, engrossed in getting down all the intimate details that no one else in this world cares about. Why wouldn't she want a real person to confide in, instead of a blank book?

Having rinsed and stacked the dishes, she pours me more coffee and sits down at the table with a purposeful thud that indicates she will not be easily moved. “Please be happy for me, Pirio. Please.”

“Sure. I'm happy,” I say woodenly.

She drops her voice to a low, confidential level. “You know how I know he's the one? I drew the Empress at Madame Jeanne's.”

Oh, no. This is worse than I thought.

Madame Jeanne is Thomasina's muse and mentor, her spiritual guide. On Wednesday afternoons she sits in the window of a trendy café on Newbury Street and gives fifteen-minute tarot readings for ten dollars. Thomasina brought me to the café once several years ago, and, when I sat down across from Madame Jeanne, a cold wave of aversion passed through me. I didn't like the powdered web of wrinkles at the corners of her eyes, or her blue eyeliner, or the brownness of her large, flaccid lips. She was old, but it wasn't her age that bothered me, or even her cheap costumey clothes. It was her aura of emotional collapse.

“The Empress is the arch feminine,” Thomasina says. “She's all about love, sexuality, and fertility. A really positive card. I've always wanted to get it but never did, never thought I would. Then I met Max, and I started to feel just a tiny bit like these things might be possible for me. So I went to Madame Jeanne, hoping in the back of my mind to get this card, and—can you believe it?—it turned up in the second row.

“But that wasn't all. I also got the Wheel of Fortune and the Nine of Cups. The Wheel of Fortune is about a really big positive change about to take place. And the Nine of Cups? Well, that's just about the best card there is. Riches, success, fulfillment—it's all predicted in just that card. Getting these three together in one reading is unbelievable. It's like all the stars lining up and the whole world suddenly transforming into a better place. Funny thing is, I always thought it would happen for me this way—that someday my life would just change. Years of going nowhere—and then one day I'd wake up and everything would be different, better—the way it always
ought
to have been. Madame Jeanne kept asking me what was going on, and the only thing different in my life was Max.”

I've never seen her so delusional. And that's saying a lot. “What you're describing isn't love. It's not even romantic love.”

“What's romantic love anyway? Isn't it just the same as hope? A crazy hope?”