The Up and Comer (26 page)

"I have a copy of it, Jonathan," I told him. "You do realize, though, that for verification purposes, only the original is admissible in this hearing?"

Absolutely, he did. This was his song and dance, after all. His squirming body left little doubt about it. But all that reel-to-reel recording machine heard was the following: "I'm afraid you're right, Philip."

Sally, while paying attention, had remained clueless to what was happening. Clemments turned to her.

"Ms. Devine, it looks like this is your lucky day," he said. "Due to a clerical error, the Department of Motor Vehicles has no choice but to reinstate your driver's license effective immediately. I do hope that you don't interpret this oversight as lessening the seriousness of the crime that you committed. With that, I strongly urge you to re-evaluate your driving habits, if you haven't already done so by now."

"Yes, sir," said Sally.

Clemments turned off the recorder. Sally looked at me as if to ask,
That's it?

I nodded. That was it.

Clemments had immediately started to fill in some paperwork, and I interrupted him to say good-bye. He stood and shook Sally's hand first. She said something about taking his words to heart and headed straight for the door.

My turn. "Nice to have met you, Jonathan," I said, careful not to sound too aware of what had happened.

"Likewise, Philip," he said. His nose wrinkled. "Oh, and be sure to say hello to Jack for me."

Fittingly, the rain had stopped. As we walked out to the parking lot, Sally announced that she wanted to celebrate. I raised an eyebrow.

"No, not drinks," she said.

I was beginning to tell her that I had to get back into the city when she interrupted me. "Cake!" she practically shouted.

"What?"

"Cake. I think we should go have cake. What's your favorite?"

"Uh—"

"Mine's simple," she said. "Flourless chocolate with raspberry ganache. Is that okay with you? You're not on a diet or anything…? Because I think that would be the perfect way to celebrate."

"Sally, I..."

"I won't take no for an answer, Philip," she said. "At least not this time," she added, catching herself. "Which reminds me, I owe you an apology." She looked around. "Though a parking lot is no place for an apology, certainly not a Sally Devine apology. So what do you say, shall we go find a pastry shop somewhere?"

I sighed. "Let 'em eat cake," I said.

I followed Sally in my car as she led the way to some French patisserie place in town. I wasn't surprised to see that they had the exact flourless chocolate cake with raspberry ganache that Sally had talked about, especially after it became clear that everyone working in the place knew Sally by name, and vice versa.

I polished off two pieces and I could've had a third. In the wake of Tyler, I continued to have this insatiable appetite. What fodder for a shrink I would've been. Meanwhile, for a woman who was so determined to have cake, Sally took maybe four bites. She seemed more enamored of her peppermint herbal tea. Her right pinkie, the only finger besides the thumb on that heavily bejeweled hand of hers that was without either a diamond or a sapphire, pointed demurely into the air each time she raised the cup to her lips.

"Would it make you uncomfortable if I spoke openly about myself and perhaps my marriage?" she said. "The reason I ask is because for me to apologize to you, I need to do that... speak openly, that is. I realize you work for Jack, and I know you probably look up to him, which is okay. My intention isn't to ruin that."

"Sally, if you're worrying that I would say or repeat anything back to—"

"No, it's not that. I mean, I don't want you to say anything to Jack; it's just that I know what it's like sometimes when someone you don't truly know very well starts confiding in you. It can be a little unsettling."

"It's fine," I said. "Confide away."

Sally took another sip of her tea and followed it with a long look up. "It goes something like this," she said. "I'm a forty-eight-year-old woman who never had a career, was unable to have children, and who drinks to get attention. My husband cheats on me and the scary thing is, I'm not sure that I blame him. Even if I could blame him, what are my options — leaving him? Where would I go, what would I do? This is all I know, Philip: living in that house, getting dressed up, and going places to be with people who simply know me as one more wife of a powerful man they have to be nice to. If I disappeared tomorrow, it wouldn't make a difference to them. It wouldn't make a difference to anyone, which is basically what I'm trying to tell you."

"What are you saying?"

"What I'm saying, Philip, is that my car accident was no accident."

"Jesus, Sally…."

"I know, and like I said, you can't say anything to Jack."

"I won't, but what you just told me doesn't get much more serious. I think you need to get some help."

"I would think so too if it wasn't for one thing."

"That being?"

"I hit the brakes. I had steered right for that telephone pole and gunned it, but at the last possible second I tried to stop. I guess that's what it took to realize that I didn't really want to die."

I gave her a skeptical look. "That doesn't mean for sure the feeling won't come back," I said.

"It does with me."

"Sally, you were still drinking in the days after it, though."

"I didn't say I solved
all
my problems," she said. "But now that you mention it, I haven't had a drink for two weeks, and you know what? I've lost three pounds because of it. If I'd known sobriety was such a great diet I would've stopped drinking years ago!"

She laughed and I looked at her. It was a genuine laugh, I could tell, not one performed for my benefit. Hell, maybe she was going to be all right after all.

"Will you do me a favor, though, Sally?"

"What's that?"

"I'll honor your request not to say anything on one condition. If you find that things start to go bad for you again, you call me. I want you to feel like you can do that."

"I already do," she said.

"Good."

"Will you forgive me for making that pass at you?"

"I already have."

"Good." She smiled.

Later, as I drove back into Manhattan, there was only one thing I was asking myself: What was it with me and suicidal people?

TWENTY-FIVE

Tracy was crying.

I walked into our loft, turned the corner of our foyer, and saw her sitting there alone on the couch, her head in her hands. I took a seat beside her, saying nothing.

"He's dead," was all she could get out.

"Who?" I asked, as if I didn't know.

Tracy sniffed repeatedly and tried to catch her breath. "Tyler."

"You're kidding me!"

"They think someone broke into his apartment when he was asleep."

"Oh, my god, I don't believe it."

Tracy started to cry louder. If grief was an engine, disbelief was its pistons. "I know," she wailed. "I don't believe it either!"

I put my arm around Tracy and tried to console her. The Good Husband. I had fully anticipated having to endure this moment. What I hadn't anticipated was that it would be happening so soon after the fact. The grapevine was fast but not that fast, not even in the age of the grapevine.com. There was no way the word could have spread so quickly. Sit tight, Philip, the answer is sure to come.

A half a box of tissues later….

"She sounded so sad," Tracy said.

Thus began the story. Tracy and her artistic eye had finally gotten around to paging Tyler. However, from there the evolution of events hadn't progressed as I'd expected. Tracy's page had not fallen on deaf ears.

"Who sounded so sad?" I asked.

"Tyler's mother."

"His mother?"

"Yes. She's the one who called me back when I paged Tyler. She's the one who told me."

"Wow," I said. There was no need to pretend with that reaction. Tyler's mother? In the years that I had known him, dating back to Deerfield, I'd never heard Tyler say as much as one word about his parents. On the other hand, no one, including myself, had ever thought much to ask.

Said Tracy, "His mother told me that they found out two days ago. Tyler was discovered dead in his apartment. He lived by himself, so they don't know yet how long... I mean… when it actually happened. The landlord found him. Tyler was late on his rent, so the landlord had gone to see him. Anyway, Tyler's parents went to the apartment after the police notified them. His mother found his pager. I guess she held on to it."

"I can't believe she would call you back like that," I said. "She doesn't even know you. Hell, she doesn't even know me."

"That's the thing. After I told her who I was and how you went to school with Tyler, she just started talking, telling me how both she and her husband were so blown away by the whole thing and how the police don't seem to have any leads. She was thinking that maybe by keeping Tyler's pager on she'd get a chance to talk to one of his friends, you know, find out if maybe Tyler was in some kind of trouble."

"Is that what they're thinking?"

"I don't know. I guess with his history any-thing's possible."

"I still can't believe it," I said. "We saw him, what, like a couple of weeks ago?"

Tracy nodded and reached for another tissue.

"I guess that's the thing with life… why you can't take it for granted," I said, looking to initiate some closure on the conversation, or at least move beyond the initial shock. It was too late for Tracy to go shopping, so I knew there'd be more of the ordeal with which to contend. Though I didn't realize how much more until Tracy broke some more news to me.

"The funeral is tomorrow morning," she said. "I told Tyler's mother that you and I would both be there."

What?

I nearly choked on my own tongue. She couldn't be serious. Quick, Philip, make up an excuse. "Oh, no, did you say tomorrow morning?" I said, sounding my somber best.

"Yes, ten o'clock. Why?"

"I'm meeting with the Brevin Industries people all morning. You remember how I mentioned that case to you." I looked at my watch. "There's no way I can cancel it at this hour."

Tracy's eyes said it all: disgust. "Perhaps you weren't paying attention before," she said, accenting every syllable while gradually raising her voice. "Somebody killed Tyler — he's dead! —
 
and all you can think about is your stupid fucking meeting tomorrow?! Jesus Christ, Philip, could you be any more of a self-absorbed
asshole?"

No, I suppose I couldn't.

"You're right, I'm sorry," I said sheepishly. I wanted to be careful not to push it. I sank back on the couch and resigned myself to the unthinkable. There was no way around it. Like it or not, I was going to Tyler's funeral.

"Where's it being held?" I asked.

"It's in Westfield, New Jersey. Tyler's mother gave me directions. She said it's about half an hour out of the city."

I got up, and Tracy wanted to know where I was going.

"To call Gwen… reschedule the meeting in the morning," I explained.

"Thanks," she said, easing up on me a little. "I know you weren't exactly the best of friends with Tyler, but his mother assumed we'd be there. I couldn't say no."

"I understand. You did the right thing."

I went into the den, closed the French doors behind me, and plopped myself down on an ottoman.

Fuck.

TWENTY-SIX

Tracy was in her bra and panties, holding up two black suits against her body. "Which one says
I'm grieving
the most," she asked me, "the Donna Karan or the Armani?"

From where I stood across the room, they both looked like the same outfit. Nonetheless, I told her, "Definitely the Armani." Never mind that I didn't know which was which. As any intelligent married man will tell you, the more inane the question from your wife, the more important it is to give a quick and decisive answer.

Tracy nodded in agreement. "You're right, the Armani; simple, elegant... it says mourning but not in a depressing way."

I turned to phone the garage so they could have our car ready, and all along I couldn't help thinking one thing. Please, lord, let this day go by as fast as possible.

We got on the road, and it didn't take long to realize. The only way Westfield, New Jersey, could've been a half hour out of the city, as Tyler's mother had claimed, was if we had been the lone car on the road. No such luck. I hated traffic. Tracy hated to be late. The two of us were a dangerous combination in the front seat of the Range Rover. By the time we ultimately did arrive, we were barely speaking to each other.

We hadn't missed much. In fact, we hadn't missed anything. It made any lingering friction from the car ride between us seem kind of pointless. As we walked toward the entrance of Saint Catherine's Church, we saw that everyone there for the service was still milling about out front and in the vestibule.
Saint Catherine's,
huh? In light of Tyler's interesting take on God, it was safe to assume that he had been a lapsed Catholic at best.