Rabid (36 page)

He needed somewhere to think, alone, about this.

His townhouse was ready today, though he had planned not to move in until Monday.

Conroy left the field, climbed the stairs, and walked over to his wife and that priest, sitting on the bleachers in the sweaty air of the Wallball Hall. “I forgot something in the lab,” he said mildly. “I need to go to the lab right now.”

“Ah,” the asshole priest squinted up at Conroy, his too-young skin wrinkling around his black eyes. “I can drive the girls home.”

Conroy left and ran though the cold, cold air to Beverly’s car. He would drop the Volvo at home and pick up his Porsche.

He needed his Porsche. His new one was going to be delivered next week, and he had promised to sell the old one to Yuri.

~~~~~

Chapter Twelve

Dante stayed for supper again after he drove Bev and the girls home from the soccer game.

Bev sliced vegetables for pasta primavera while the girls taught Dante the intricacies of video games. His character died within minutes, so he watched the girls traipse ruins and kill people.

He joined Bev in the simmering kitchen and held her around her strong shoulders, so different from slight Roman women.

Bev smiled and stirred the fuming pot. “After supper, Laura and Luke are taking the girls to that new kids’ film.”

His body pined for her touch and the slip of her skin. Dante whispered, “and Sloan?”

“He always works late.” She glanced toward the family room, frowning. “It’s funny. He must have picked up some of his books before he went to the lab. A bunch of them are missing.”

~~~~~

Leila’s cell phone chime-chirped and she stumbled in her dark apartment, blind-searching under scarves and knit hats on her entryway table before she found the contraption. “Hello!”

Conroy’s voice, buzzy as if speaking through an empty soda can, said, “I’m here.”

“Where?” She crammed the cell phone between her shoulder and ear, shrugged her white shirt over her shoulder, and buttoned.

“My new apartment.”

The sandbag stupidity of
my-new-apartment
smacked Leila. “
What
?”

Static. “Down by the university, off Woolf Road.” Whirling screech. “Can you come?”

“Those white townhouses?” Her own voice echoed out of phase,
houses?

“Yes. Number fifty-one.”

Leila clicked on the Tiffany lamp. Jody looked over Leila’s shoulder at the cell phone, and her blonde eyebrows dipped. She pulled her dark blue sweatshirt over her moonlight skin that glared in the floral-toned lamplight.

Leila asked Conroy, “Did you leave your wife?”

Jody’s mouth opened like she was grunting a disgusted
uh!

Conroy’s voice squeezed through the cell phone’s signal. “I left her a note.”

The idiot. The
idiot
. “Conroy, don’t do anything stupid. I’ll be right there.”

~~~~~

Bev waved good-bye to the girls clambering into Laura’s earth-shaking SUV. Dante stood behind the open door, his shirt open, and she toyed with his bare chest with her out-of-sight hand. Wine insinuated among her nerves, sparking sensation in her fingertips and drifting in her head.

Warmth slid up her bare arm, and she shut the door. Dante massaged her forearm and bicep. “You exercise?”

“Some. I golf.” She unwove her arm from between his fingers, grabbed his hand, and led him up the stairs to the darkened bedroom.

He shoved her and she bounced on the quilt-covered bed. The pillow crackled. One of the girls had probably planted a crayoned picture.

“Hold on a minute,” she said, but Dante was already on top of her in the dark, his mouth growling on her neck, his hands pulling at her blouse and pants.

Under the pillow, her hand found three pages of paper, stapled together.

Dante’s leg forced her knees apart, and he mouthed her collarbone. “What is it?”

“I don’t know.” She flicked on the lamp, rolled her head to the side, and looked.

The writing was typed, and the first line read,
Dearest Beverly.

Something from Conroy. Unease flitted, as if he was somehow present through his note. She dropped it, and it fluttered beside the bed.

Dante asked, “What is it?”

“Nothing.” Her belly heated as his warm body insulated her. She reached to turn out the light.

Dante crawled across her and lay cross-wise, his hard stomach pressing her, looking over the edge of the blue-draped bed.

“Wait.” He sat up and handed the paper to her. His expression softened, turning remote and priestly. “You should read this.”

~~~~~

Selections from Conroy’s note:

Dearest Beverly,

It’s not you and it’s not the girls, but I need some time alone to think. My life has taken some turns lately that I hadn’t foreseen, none of us could have. I’ve rented an apartment, just to have some time alone. I won’t be home tonight, or for a few nights.

51 Vita Place.

Three pages of meaningless drivel about obligations and commitment and meaning well and Beverly had become
unsympathetic
and something about the priest making him feel
cornered
and
claustrophobic
and
under surveillance
.

And:

Don’t be surprised, but there will be some papers delivered tomorrow. Legal things, for both of our protection.

Legal separation.

I know you’ll understand.

Love Always,

Conroy

~~~~~

Bev’s heart knotted, and her fist shivered, shaking the dry paper. A pulse thumped her temples like being cuffed on both ears.

She swung her legs around, grabbed the bedside phone, and dialed Conroy’s cell phone.

The phone clicked, and Conroy’s distant voice muttered, “Yes? Beverly?”

The weight of air crushed her chest when she tried to breathe. “What is this?”

“You’ve found the note.”

“Why?” Her voice echoed in that crappy cell phone of his,
Why
. “
Dearest Beverly
, and you’re leaving me?
Love Always
, and you want a divorce?”

“Beverly, we need some time to think.” His speech was metered in tone and tempo like he was reciting the damned note.

She said, “Come home.”

“Beverly, we should take some time to think.”

“Fine. I’ll come there.”

Conroy’s voice squalled, “Beverly, no!” through the air like a flying bug as she hung up the phone.

She said, “I can’t believe this.” She pressed her palms to her eyes and blue dots marched in regiments across the dark field of her vision.

Dante, his voice huge and dark after the squeak of Conroy’s cell phone, said, “He has made a mistake.”

“You bet he has.” She buttoned the blouse over her chest.

His voice strengthened, and he sounded more like a domineering doctor. “You shouldn’t go.”

“I want to talk to him.” She stepped into her shoes.

“You cannot change his mind. Do not go. You should not go tonight. You should not drive tonight. You have had several drinks.”

Bev stood, buttoned her shirt and, despite Dante’s fingers plucking at her clothes, she walked downstairs, coatless, into the February-cold garage and started her chilly, sensible car, next to the empty space where Conroy parked his stupid Porsche.

A black oil blot the shape of an elephant with an extended trunk stained the cement. That damned old car was always half-broken. It drank money and leaked dirty oil.

He couldn’t just leave her.

She revved the car’s engine.

~~~~~

Dante followed Bev to the garage. Cold air sucked into his shirt and clung to his chest. His white collar flapped beside his cheek. He leaned on her car window. “Bev! Wait!”

Bev thumbed the tab on her door handle, and all the car doors thump-locked in unison. Her staring brown eyes were wide, tearless and dry. She looked shocky.

“Bev!” He ran around the car to the passenger side, flipped the handle uselessly, and pressed his hand against the car window as if he could keep her there. “You have been drinking. You should not drive.”

She flipped levers on the dashboard. Her hair floated around her face from blowing air.

“Do not go,” he shouted through the glass and the locked door and above the car engine and fumes. “Don’t go!”

The garage door rattled and clanked like a drawbridge, flooding the garage with freezing air. She grabbed the back of the seat and wrenched herself around to look behind the car as she reversed.

The car rolled away into the icy night. He stepped aside, blown back, and she drove away.

The garage door clattered down, leaving Dante in the harsh neon light.

She had left him to go to that bastard.

In the note, Sloan had typed his address. Dante sprinted up the stairs. The carpet thudded under his feet and he found the papers beside the bed, scrambled through them trying to find the number, and wadded the whole mass into his pocket.

~~~~~

Leila started yelling when Conroy opened the apartment door. “You idiot! What the hell are you doing?”

Conroy’s thin body jerked. “Come in, come in.”

She flung her gray coat on the rose-flowered couch. The colonial-cliché townhouse was a decorating parody. A bowl of red wax apples sat on the cherrywood veneer coffee table. The shining gold guts of a black-lacquered grandfather clock swung back and forth. Blobs of chintz pretended to be furniture. The kitchen was probably stocked with television-sold knives and peeling non-stick skillets.