The Barkeep (23 page)

As Justin approached Cindy after his visit with Scott, he thumbed the car. “It should be okay there. So, you want to talk?”

“If we can.”

“Sure,” he said. “Come on in. Why don’t you make some tea while I take a shower, and then we can get down to it.”

34.

DARJEELING

H
e tried to figure out what she wanted while the cold water beat upon his neck. It had something to do with his visit to Frank. It had something to do with the fearful way she had stared at him from the steps that night. It had something to do with everything, but exactly what, he had no idea. Cindy and Justin had never gotten along in the years between his brother’s marriage and his mother’s death. He hadn’t wanted it to be cool between them, he had hoped she’d be the sister he had never had, but there was some barrier of resentment coming from Cindy, always, which made Justin always wonder what Frank was saying behind his back. Or it could have been simply that Justin in those days was an asshole.

“I found some Darjeeling in the cabinet,” said Cindy when Justin, in jeans and a T-shirt, joined her at the table, two mugs steaming on the tabletop. “But I couldn’t find your sugar.”

“I don’t have sugar.”

“No sugar?”

“White poison.”

“I thought that was cocaine.”

“I don’t have that either, but I have some honey if you want.”

“I’ll drink it straight, thanks.” She lifted her mug and took a sip, smiling slyly. “You seem to be doing okay. I caught a whiff of some very nice perfume. Jasmin Noir, I believe. Bulgari. It’s nice to see you’re keeping busy.”

“She was just a friend,” said Justin.

“Past tense?”

“Yeah.”

Cindy glanced down, gathering her words. “You look good. A lot better than you did before you left.”

“That’s not saying much, considering my condition then. I look okay, but you…” He stopped talking and gestured at her up and down. “You look transformed, like a different person.”

“Thank you,” she said, beaming into the compliment, although Justin hadn’t meant it as such. “When did you come back?”

“A few months ago.”

“I didn’t know you had returned until you showed up at the house. Frank never told me.”

“Things are still tense between us.”

“But even so, I knew something was up. He’s been drinking more than usual lately, which means he’s been drinking a lot.”

“I seem to have that effect on people.”

“We’ve missed you here.”

“No, you haven’t.”

She looked at him, her eyes blinking the truth, before she broke contact and took another sip.

“So where were you? What adventures did you have?”

“I went out west. It seemed just so American to head out there and find myself. So Jack Kerouac.”

“Did it work?”

“No.”

“What did you find instead?”

“That Kerouac is dead.”

“You didn’t have to leave Philadelphia for that.”

“Tell me about it.”

“I know it’s been difficult for you,” she said, “and I’m sure no matter how you might minimize the difficulties with flippancy, the last couple years haven’t been easy ones. But think about this for a moment, Justin: at least you had the chance to run away. Frank didn’t have that option. He was married, and had a baby, and the business needed looking after, and there was the house. And your father’s legal case kept going and going and going, through all the appeals. Whatever other plans he might have had for his life—that we might have had for our life together—they got lost in the shuffle.”

“Frank made his choices,” said Justin.

“No, Justin. You made your choice to leave the whole mess in his lap, and Frank was left to try to put the pieces together.”

“What do you want from me, Cindy?”

“I want you to know that we’re doing better. That things have calmed down. However hard you think you had it, it was just as hard for Frank. Or harder. You can see the consequences on his face. You look young still, but he’s aged twenty years in six. And he’s so wound up he has to drink himself to sleep at night.”

“Then he should get some help.”

“But there have been moments, lately, when your brother smiles at the little things. Like when Ronnie makes a catch in Little League and he looks so surprised. Or when Ellie rolls on the floor like a little wound-up dog and laughs. Things are getting better. It might be hard to believe, but things are approaching normal. After years, it’s like we can finally exhale. We thought we could almost put what happened behind us and look to the future with some sort of hope. We thought we’d reached some sort of equilibrium. And then you showed up.”

“I’m not trying to cause problems, Cindy.” Justin glanced at his watch.

“Do you have someplace to go?”

“I’ve planned to meet someone. I have some questions I need to ask.”

“About what happened to your mother?”

“Maybe.”

“What the hell are you up to, Justin?”

“Since I’ve been back, questions have been raised about my mother’s death. You know about my father’s motion for a new trial, and Tim Flynn’s changed testimony, and his strange death. Maybe you don’t know that the cops think it might have been a murder and that I might have had something to do with it, which is why that cop is sitting there on the square. Or that this bruise on my cheek came with a warning that I should stop asking questions about what happened to my mother.”

“From whom?”

“I don’t know, but it might not have ended with just a bruise if that policeman outside hadn’t shown up at my house when he did. All of this has got me thinking. I’m not out to upset anyone’s equilibrium. I’m just trying to find out what really happened to my mother.”

“To what end, Justin? What the hell are you trying to do?”

“It’s my mother. Doesn’t the truth matter?”

“I don’t know anymore. But I do know that Frank is starting to lose it again. And my family is starting to suffer. And you need to think about what might ultimately happen as a result of your muddying the waters, of all you might be putting at risk.”

There was something in her tone that struck a nerve, and Justin suddenly remembered why they had never gotten along before. It was as if she had internalized the twisted family dynamic between Frank and Justin and thereby treated
her brother-in-law as the enemy in some sort of family battleground, projecting toward him a condescending bitterness. And he could feel it now, just as he had always felt it, and it twisted something inside him.

“You mean your wonderful house, Cindy, that’s not really your house? Or the stylish new hair, or the black gas-guzzler parked on the square? You came here to tell me that I’m risking your wonderful new lifestyle, is that it?”

She stared at him with a hard, defensive anger, but there was something else in her eyes, some pleading that he took as a sort of shame. Like he had hit on it exactly, but not exactly. Yes, he was threatening her sweet upper-middle-class lifestyle, but there was something else, too, something else that he wasn’t getting.

She was about to spit out a reply reflexively bitter and hard, it was in her expression as her mouth opened to deal her crushing riposte, and then she stopped herself. She took a moment to smooth the lap of her slacks, pushed her chair back from the table, stood.

“Good-bye, Justin. Thank you for the tea,” she said before heading toward the door.

“If I’m full of shit, tell me,” said Justin to her retreating back. “Don’t just take it and walk away. Tell me off, but first tell me why everyone is suddenly so worried about what I might discover. What the hell are you so afraid of, Cindy, if it’s not losing your damn lifestyle? What are you protecting other than your stuff?”

She stopped and just stood for a long moment, the line of her back hunched and angry. But when she turned around, what he saw was not anger but fear.

“Do you really want him back in our lives, Justin? Do you really think that’s the best for anyone but him?”

35.

COSMOPOLITAN

F
or Annie they were always there, on the other side of things, mute specters haunting the dramas of seduction and submission she playacted with married men. The wraiths glowered sullenly from the darkened corners of plush bars, where Champagne sloshed over the rims of thin, languid flutes. They stared from behind the kitchen doors that swung open to dark, intimate restaurants, where family budgets were wrecked upon the shoals of overpriced wine lists and racks of lamb. And they writhed in anguish over the hotel beds where the stage productions reached their terribly unsatisfying Act III climaxes, each apparition with the same ghostly face, pale mouth open in voiceless outrage, there but not there, always felt, never heard.

Except for that one time at the Bellevue.

This was years after the Eleanor Chase murder. Annie had been sitting on a dark leather seat at the poorly lit bar on the nineteenth floor, sitting under a marble archway, drinking a Cosmopolitan because the red of the drink matched her heels, waiting for Brad. Brad was from legal at the insurance company she was accounting for at the time. She should have known better than to hook up with a guy named Brad, really now, but he
was old enough to prick her fancy and his suits were well made and, more than anything, he was persistent. Annie didn’t admire persistence—she thought it showed a bullheaded obliviousness to the facts of the world—but that didn’t mean it didn’t work with her. Sometimes it was easier just to say yes.
Oh, all right, if you insist.
And so here she was, on the nineteenth floor of the Bellevue drinking a blur of vodka mixed with all manner of extraneous stuff, waiting for the oh-so-persistent Brad. There were to be more and ever more drinks, there was to be a picked-over dinner, there was a waiting hotel room.

That’s what she liked about the Bellevue, one-stop shopping for adultery.

She was halfway through the drink, it didn’t take long actually, when an older woman lifted herself onto the seat next to hers. She was pretty and coiffed, her shoes were sling-backs, her fragrance was expensive, and she was wearing a sharply tailored suit that showed off her waist, like she was dressed for a wedding or some other sort of an affair. Annie figured that made two of them. The woman ordered a glass of wine from the bartender. Annie rolled her finger over her own half-empty Martini glass to signal her readiness for another. They sat side by side in quiet for a number of minutes, drinking.

“Waiting for someone?” said the woman, finally breaking the silence.

“He’s late,” said Annie, nodding sadly at the sad character flaw the lack of punctuality signaled.

“He’s going to be later than you think,” said the woman.

“How prescient of you,” said Annie. “Maybe I should shake your head and ask about my investments?”

“Oh, he’ll come to the bar.” The woman scanned Annie up and down. “He’ll show up for sure. He’s a tabby who likes his catnip, and you are all of that. But he’s a coward at heart, trust
me. He abhors scenes, and when he sees me sitting here with you, he’ll back out on tiptoes like a frightened little boy.”

“You know who I am,” said Annie, the tingling in her neck making her suddenly aware of exactly who this formidable woman might actually be.

“Oh, dear, I know you better than you know yourself. Here, let me show you something. You have time for a picture show while you’re waiting, don’t you?”

“I think I’m going to need another drink.”

The woman gestured to the barkeep for another round before pulling a wallet out of her bag and snapping it open.

“This is our son James,” she said. “He’s in high school now. He’s in the school play,
West Side Story
. He didn’t think he’d get a part, but he’s so excited, even if he’s a Shark, not a Jet. And this is Janice. She’s in middle school. She’s a foot taller than all the boys and takes it personally. And this is Ryan. Ryan has issues. I had to quit my job to take care of Ryan. He’s very sweet, he’s an angel, truly, but, well, he has issues.”

“It’s all very touching,” said Annie, draining her second Cosmo. “I’m about to burst into tears.”

“I just thought it would be nice if for once you saw all the people you were actually fucking.”

“You’re swearing at the wrong person here. I’m just an innocent girl in the big bad city.”

“You are anything but, dear heart.”

“Shouldn’t you be showing the pictures to him?”

“He knows already who they are. And who I am. And I guess he’s going to learn who you are too, deep down, because you can have him.”

“Excuse me?”

“He’s yours, dear. Not his money, of course, whatever there is, his children and I will get that. Along with the house. And
half his future earnings, which are not as much as you would think, considering my parents are still paying half the mortgage. But you can have him. All of him. With my blessings.”

“What if I don’t want him?”

“Well, we don’t always get what we want, do we? And fair warning, that thing he does in the middle, when his face gets all red and his eyes bulge and his pudgy little body goes into that grotesque spasm, like he’s Joe Cocker? It’s not a heart attack, you’ll just wish it was.”

When the woman slipped off the chair, she took a few bills out of her wallet and dropped them on the bar. “For the drinks,” she said. “If you see him, please tell him not to come home.”

“Where should I tell him to go?”

“Don’t tempt me.”

“Who’s Joe Cocker?”

The woman stopped fussing with her bag and looked straight at Annie for a moment before snapping it shut. “He always did like them young,” she said.

That, of course, was the end of Brad. It wasn’t the sob story about poor little Ryan with his issues, or even the moxie of the wife that killed the evening for him. It was the heart-attack image. There were many things in this world that Annie could stomach—way too much alcohol, a plate full of snails, even dentures in a glass—but Brad’s paroxysmal orgasm was not to be one of them.

Still, even as Annie went about the familiar process of forgetting Brad, the wife stuck. It was the way she had dressed for their confrontation—that suit, those shoes—and the sense of occasion that she gave it. Their tête-à-tête in the bar was a big moment in her life, a declaration of independence from being merely the cuckolded spouse, and in that bar she had
given voice to all the silent specters haunting the edges of what had become of Annie’s sad, spoiled existence, the ghosts of those cheated-on wives, each manifesting a singular face. But the face on each was not the face of Brad’s soon-to-be ex-wife, no, instead it was the face of Eleanor Chase.