After I'm Gone (15 page)

Much to her surprise, Michelle started to cry. And everything around her was so beautiful, silken and pristine, that she wasn’t sure where to dry her tears, which were clotted with mascara. She padded back to the bathroom, picked up the towel she had left on the floor.

“What are you doing here?”

It was Sydney, the birthday girl, the girl to whom all this belonged, not that she would ever fit into skinny Lorraine’s dresses, no matter how her mother tried to starve her. Sydney was wearing a two-piece, which Michelle found absolutely shocking. She would live in a caftan if she had a body like Sydney’s.

“Your father told me to go put my top back on. I was lying on my stomach, just trying to avoid tan lines. But, you know.”

“His ideas about femininity basically align with Sir Walter Scott. He’s a prude, my dad.” A shrug.

Michelle envied Sydney those casual words even more than she envied her these beautiful things. To be able to say that one’s father was this or that.

To be able to say: “My dad.”
My dad, my dad, my dad
.

“Anyway, we’re about to have cake. Don’t you want cake?”

Sydney’s tone implied that everyone must want cake all the time. Michelle wished she did, that the pleasures of chocolate and frosting could still be meaningful to her. Then again, what did she find pleasurable? She enjoyed things mainly in the planning. If she had gone to Philadelphia today, the thrill would have been in the subterfuge and the escape. And then the night, the hours of denying someone else pleasure. That was what made her happiest, or at least close to something that others might recognize as happiness.

“Oh, I don’t know,” she said. “I’m not hungry.”

“I guess that’s why you have the body you have,” said Sydney. Cheerful, not begrudging. “Mom tries to make me live on lettuce and carrots, hoping I’ll look like you—or at least like her. But it’s just never going to happen.”

Michelle couldn’t help being impressed by Sydney’s matter-of-fact acceptance of herself. “How do you manage that?”

“Manage what?”

This was tricky to word. “Not minding. I mean, you know, being cool with how things are.”

Sydney smiled. Half smiled, really, using only the left corner of her mouth. “I’ve got my stuff. Believe me, I’ve got stuff that bugs me. Stuff that’s bigger than my weight.”

“Like what?” Michelle really could not imagine what could bother someone if she had money and didn’t care about her appearance.

“I was asked to leave camp last summer.”

“That’s it? You got kicked out of sleep-away camp?”

Sydney studied her, as if judging Michelle’s worthiness as a confidante. “Yes, that’s it. But it bugs me. I loved that camp. I loved—well, I wish I could go back. I would have been a junior counselor this year. But I can’t go back. They made that clear.”

Some boring kid spat, Michelle decided. She wouldn’t press further. She tried to ignore the fact that Sydney clearly wasn’t allowing her to press further.

“Look, even if you don’t want cake, won’t you please come back to the party? I know you don’t want to be here, with my friends, but I’m so happy you came.”

“You are?”

“I am. I don’t have any real cousins. You and Linda and Rachel are the closest thing I have. And my brothers are such assholes.”

“Sydney!” Michelle didn’t disagree. She was just shocked that Sydney was so candid.

“Everyone knows. Except Mom, which I guess is how it’s supposed to be. Look, I don’t mind that I was adopted, I really don’t, and that my brothers were born eighteen months later and everyone’s like, ‘Oh, that’s what happens when people adopt, they relax and have their
own
children.’ My parents have never made me feel second-rate. We’re all three spoiled, but the twins are extra spoiled. Did you notice they’re not here today? They’re out with Uncle Tubby playing miniature golf because I knew they would ruin everything. I asked Dad to get rid of them. They’re psychopaths.”

“Do you ever think about your natural parents?”

“Mom and Dad are my natural parents,” Sydney said. Then, after a pause: “I do wonder about my biological parents, though. I mean, I’m curious. How could I not be? And my folks won’t tell me much about my adoption. They say it was done through the Associated.”

“That makes sense.”

“Yes, but there should be a story, right? And the only thing I know is that it happened really fast, that they got a call and they picked me up and they didn’t have anything ready. Twenty-four hours after I was born. I don’t know. It doesn’t make sense.”

Michelle thought it made as much sense as anything did. She also realized she better start thinking about birth control. Eventually. The women in her family were fertile. Linda had four kids and was talking about getting her tubes tied. Michelle had been not quite an accident, a by-product of too much revelry, her father trying one more time for a boy, although her mother insisted he had preferred being the only man in a household of women. “He liked women,” she said, oh so dryly.

“Anyway,” Sydney said, “
I
want cake. And it’s my birthday. For one day I get to call the shots around here. Then it will be Heckle and Jeckle’s world all over again. Sometimes, I feel like Ferris Bueller’s sister. You know, there’s probably a reason she was such a freaking bitch.”

“Well, if you’re Jennifer Grey, you get to end up dancing with Patrick Swayze, so it’s not all bad.”

Sydney’s face was a study. “Yeah, no one puts Baby in the corner, right? Only I spend a lot of time in corners. Well, maybe not so many corners, but watching stupid TV, like
Blossom
. Everyone else in this family is so jocky. Even Mom plays golf.” She shuddered.

“So why did you want a pool party for your Sweet Sixteen?”

“I didn’t. I didn’t even want a party. I wanted to go to a nice restaurant, just Mom and Dad and me. They didn’t think that was special enough.”

“I’m sorry,” Michelle said. She wasn’t. It angered her that Sydney had parents who worried about what was special enough for her. Her family was always trying to knock down Michelle’s ideas about what she deserved, said she was grandiose.

“That’s okay. In two years, I’ll go away to college. My mom thinks I should go to one of the Seven Sisters, but I want to live in New York. Columbia, Barnard, NYU—whatever it takes, I’ll get into at least one of them, I think.”

“I wish I were going away to school. I’m just going to College Park.”

“College Park is away.”

“Not really.”

“Well, then kick ass your freshman year and transfer somewhere you’d rather be.”

“You make it sound so easy.”

“Not easy,” said Sydney. “But possible. You’re smart, Michelle. You’re just lazy.”

The words were specific—thrillingly, awfully specific. Michelle knew they had been snatched from some adult conversation. Lorraine and Bert, most likely, but maybe her own mother. “Smart”—a flicker of warmth because no one ever said Michelle was smart. But “lazy” and this brought a more familiar slap of shame because she knew she was exactly that. Michelle, who didn’t panic when she awoke in a strange bed as a man tried to undress her, felt nervous and ashamed that Sydney should have heard grown-ups say these things about her.

“You don’t know what it’s like to be me.”

“No one,” Sydney said, “knows what it’s like to be anyone. Let’s go have cake. Happy birthday to me.”

Michelle followed her, wondering how this plump sixteen-year-old had gotten so wise.
No one knows what it’s like to be anyone.
Oh, she wasn’t so smart. She had probably overheard that, too. A line from a movie or a sitcom, maybe even
Blossom
.

March 16, 2012

I
f Sandy had been pressed to put a description to the Gelmans’ house in Garrison Forest, he might have said “fancy” or “interesting.” He readied those precise words because the lady of the house, who was leading him to the living room, struck him as someone who might solicit compliments, even from a stranger. The house wasn’t really to his taste, but he thought it was probably in good taste, although maybe not. Mainly, it had a decorated quality to it, a ruthless perfection that felt cold and off-putting. Even the one overtly personal touch, an enormous oil painting of a family that hung over the fireplace, seemed a little generic to him.

“Nice portrait,” he guessed.

“Thank you,” Lorraine Gelman said. “It makes me smile, every day. A lovely time in our lives. The boys were turning thirteen, Sydney was fifteen. I hate to say it because it sounds so proud-motherish, but I don’t think my sons ever had an awkward age.”

Awkward age
. Sandy noticed that Lorraine did not say the same of her daughter, who was plump and not quite pretty, even as rendered by brush-for-hire.

“How long ago was that?” Making conversation, trying to put her at ease. And maybe himself. Although Lorraine had agreed to talk to him alone, he was unclear if she had asked her husband’s advice about this meeting. And she kept stressing that she had
never
met Julie Saxony. Not even one time, she said, and she said it more than once, often the sign of a big whopping lie.

“Almost twenty-five years ago. My daughter is a lawyer in New York now, and the boys are in Chicago. All settled with children—well, Sydney has a partner, but we
adore
her. Adriana is the best daughter-in-law in the bunch.”

Sandy couldn’t help thinking, as he often did, about the things this woman took for granted—her home, her healthy children, now grandchildren. If Bobby had been normal, could Sandy have accepted a
partner
with this woman’s easy grace? He yearned to think so.

“Well,” he said, taking out his pad, signaling the beginning of the interview. “Julie Saxony.”

“As I told you, I never met her.”

“No, but you knew Felix.”

“Of course. He was my husband’s closest friend; I am Bambi’s best friend to this day. We were sort of forced on each other, through our husbands, but we’ve ended up being as close as the men, maybe closer. You know how that goes.”

Sandy didn’t, but he nodded. He and Mary hadn’t done that couple-dating-couple thing. They had socialized with people from his work and hers, but they hadn’t created that dynamic where the men talk about sports and the women talk about kids. That was Mary’s decision as much as his, another legacy from Bobby. Mary could deal with a lot, but she learned quickly that people didn’t want her to contribute to their happy chatter about their sons and daughters. When she talked about Bobby, it was almost as if she was one of those people who offered pet stories as a counterpoint to kid stories. Other people thought Bobby was a tragedy, that it was in bad taste to mention him in a discussion about normal kids. Mary, so naturally sociable, had pulled away from the world when she realized no one wanted her to talk about Bobby. Not even Sandy.

“Felix’s relationship with Julie was a pretty open secret, though?”

“I think it appears that way in hindsight.” Okay, that answer was as prepared as precut lumber. But then, she had known why he was coming to talk to her. “Felix was circumspect, all things considered. He always had girlfriends, from the first. I asked Bert never to speak of it to me because I didn’t want to feel as if I were keeping secrets from Bambi. And Felix managed to keep his worlds very separate—until he disappeared. Only then was he so uncharacteristically inconsiderate.”

“How so?”

“He put his coffee shop in Julie’s name. That made it public, created a record, something for the newspapers to chew on. And there was Bambi, left with nothing.”

“I know that’s the official story.”

“It’s the
true
story. Bambi has been living by hook or crook ever since Felix left. We all thought he would provide for her. But no arrangements were made. Or, if they were, the person he trusted was unscrupulous.”

“Who was that? The person he trusted, I mean.”

A flicker of the lawyer’s wife in her eyes, a pause to consider the words that followed. “I didn’t mean to imply that there was anyone. I can only tell you that
if
Felix did make plans for Bambi, he didn’t do a very good job of it. Bert and I have done what we can. Bambi and her girls are like family to us. There was a time when I hoped Michelle might even marry one of my boys, but she’s almost four years older than they are and that is an insurmountable gap when one is young.”

“You say Felix didn’t make any arrangements for his wife, but he made sure his bail bondsman wasn’t hurting.”

“Do you know that for a fact?” she countered. “Or is it more gossip, like the gossip that Felix found a way to provide for Bambi?”

He gave her his best grin. “You got me there. But, come on, Tubman’s awfully good-natured for someone who ate a one-hundred-thousand-dollar bond.”

“Good-natured now. Time heals even financial wounds. Did you enjoy your visit with him?”

“Ah, so you guys still talk?”

“He and Bert do. Tubman was not someone to whom I was close.” She appeared to suppress a shudder, which seemed a little melodramatic to Sandy. The guy had seemed nice enough to him. He sensed some snobbery at work. Funny to him because he wouldn’t wipe his ass with a defense attorney, but bail bondsmen were doing honest work, by and large, just cogs in the system.

“So he told your husband that I came by?”

“Yes, and Bert tells me everything.” There was an odd emphasis in that sentence, a stress on “me.” “They were so close, once. The three men. Felix’s disappearance—that was the beginning of the end. Then Tubman got married, and his wife made him drop all his old friends. She was never comfortable with our crowd. Churchy. Maybe a little anti-Semitic, to tell the truth, although I suppose I shouldn’t speak ill of the dead. Anyway, I know when Julie Saxony disappeared, Bert and Tubman couldn’t help thinking she had gone to Felix. Then, when her body was found—I don’t know how to explain this, but it made them terribly sad.”

“Sad?”

“They had this fantasy, see, Felix was with his lady friend, enjoying life. They thought
that
would be a happy ending.”

“For Felix.”

She favored him with a smile. “Whereas—I won’t say I was glad that Julie was dead, but I felt better for Bambi when the body was found. Because it was really hurtful to her, having people think that Felix had chosen Julie over her. Hard enough to have no money, but if Felix had sent for Julie—that would have been a betrayal.”

“Not the affair, during the marriage?”

She nodded as if to concede a point. “A different kind of betrayal, then. Look, lots of men do what Felix did.”

“Including your husband?”

“Oh, no. Not Bert. Do you know Bert doesn’t even really understand how good-looking he is? Women are forever throwing themselves at him and he doesn’t even realize it.”

I bet,
Sandy thought. Although, come to think of it, there had never been a lot of gossip about Bert Gelman, and that courthouse crowd gossiped like old biddies.

“What about Tubby?”

“What about him?”

“Was he, well, envious of Felix? For the relationship with Julie? I can’t help thinking he might have had a little thing for her.”

“Tubman.
Tubman
.” Lorraine Gelman had clearly never considered this idea before. But she was willing to consider it now, which was part of the reason that Sandy had wanted to talk to a woman. Women were natural-born murder police in some ways, at least if a case turned on love shit.

“I mean, he found her, right? Spotted her in a drugstore, took her to his friend’s place.”

“I guess so. But Tubman had a girl at the time.”

“I thought you said that was later?”

“No, he
married
later. After Felix disappeared.”
Disappeared
. She kept using that word. As if it weren’t quite Felix’s fault that he ran away while appealing his conviction. “Before, he dated a girl. A friend of Julie Saxony’s. Susie something.”

“A friend. You mean another stripper?”

“Yes. We did not socialize—I’m sorry if that sounds snobbish.” Why was she apologizing to him? Did she equate strippers with cops? “But even if I had been comfortable, Felix would never have stood for Bert and me to spend time with one of Julie’s friends. No overlap between the two worlds. Someone who knew Julie could never be around Bambi.”

“But Tubby knew her. And probably your husband, Bert. Right?”

“Men are different. It was the women who had to be kept separate. The worlds. Felix’s daughters, to this day—they don’t really understand that he actually owned the Variety. They think he had an office there, nothing more. It’s a selective bit of revisionism, and I think Bambi’s entitled to it.”

“So how did
you
know about the girlfriend? If you never socialized, I mean.”

Lorraine’s smile was polite and practiced, social but not exactly fake. Not exactly. “Tubman threw a party, sort of a holiday open house, and she presided over it, playing the part of hostess. Felix refused to go, even alone—Felix was smart that way. Whereas Bert is naïve in some things. He didn’t realize the girlfriend would be there. She was so tiny—I don’t think she was five feet tall. The two of them together—I’m sorry, but everyone wondered how he didn’t crush her. Anyway, I was trapped talking to her for what seemed like hours. She wore a green velvet floor-length gown. I’ll never forget that. She looked like a teeny-tiny Christmas tree. She even wore red ornament earrings.”

Lorraine shook her head at the memory, clearly still appalled by Tubman’s girlfriend.

“But just because he had a girl—does that mean he didn’t have a thing for Julie? He discovered her, right?”

“Discovered. You make her sound like a starlet. He saw a pretty girl in a drugstore and told her that she could make more money. You know, most women wouldn’t have done that. That tells you a lot about Julie Saxony’s character right there. She wasn’t going to work at a drugstore if she could make more money dancing naked. And she wasn’t going to settle for dancing naked if she could get the boss.”

Sandy couldn’t help thinking about the chef, who had defended Julie for dancing in an outfit not much different from a modern bathing suit. Men and women saw some stuff differently.

“Are you saying she expected Felix to marry her?”

“Expected? I don’t know if she was that stupid, but it was what she wanted.”

“How can you say that with such certitude if you didn’t know her?”

“Because Tubman’s little girl, the one in the hostess gown, told me so. She told me that Julie was so determined to marry Felix that she had converted. Can you imagine? I almost felt sorry for her when I heard that. She was really very naïve.”

“Naïve.” Lorraine had used that word before. Yes, about her husband. Sandy always paid attention to the words people repeated. Lorraine Gelman thought being naïve was one of the worst things a person could be.

“When was this?”

“Let’s see—Felix hadn’t left yet, so . . . ’74? ’75? I remember I wore a Diane von Furstenberg wrap dress.”

Big help that.

“Do you remember her name?”

“Oh, dear—well, Tubman would, you should really ask him. I mean, we spoke for only a little bit.”

“You said it was hours.”

“I said it
seemed
like hours. In terms of the toll it took, the boredom. But it was just the one time. Susie—
Susie
—I can’t summon a last name. I’m sorry, I don’t feel I’ve been any help at all.”

“Oh, no, you have.” At least she hadn’t shot his idea down. Tubman had dated another stripper, a friend of Julie’s. Tubby had married a woman who took him away from the old gang—but not until after Felix disappeared. Had he made a play for Julie? Had he been entrusted to take care of Bambi, then given the money to Julie in hopes that she would reward him by loving him back? Going from the manager of the Coffee Pot Shoppe to an upscale B and B seemed like an unlikely journey, even over a decade.

He thanked Lorraine for her time, searched for a compliment for her house, feeling himself somewhat lacking in this department. “Your home is really impressive,” he said at last. Not a lie, it definitely made an impression.

If you knew
Susie
—the line stuck in his head on the drive home, like a hamster going around and around in a wheel. Sandy was pretty sure he did know Susie. He walked through the door of his house, not even bothering to hang up his coat and hat, niceties that he observed as a tribute to Mary, who cared so about niceties, who argued every day that the little things mattered. Hanging up coats, making beds, cleaning the kitchen at night. Everything had to be perfect, because of their son who could never be perfect, not even close.

He looked back through the original file. Yes, there it was: Susan Borden had been the housekeeper at Julie’s B and B, but she had been on vacation the week that Julie disappeared. The Havre de Grace police had interviewed her, but it was a pretty say-nothing witness sheet, and the Baltimore detectives hadn’t even bothered with her fifteen years later.

Could be a coincidence, this Susan Borden and Lorraine Gelman’s Susie. Common as a name could be and it wasn’t even the same name, not precisely. But Sandy knew they were one and the same.
Not
a hunch. Not a feeling. Knowledge, honed by practice. Sandy had failed as a restaurateur. He had failed as a father. He had failed his wife when he failed as a father, although she had never called him on it, to her dying day. Literally, to her dying day. Not a word of reproach, not a hint of resentment, but he was less in her eyes for his weakness. The man who had swept her off her feet on their first date, carried her home, promised in word and deed to take care of her always, had failed. He wanted to be larger than life to her, wanted her to look at him as she had that day, eyes shining with excitement. That man died when Bobby was diagnosed. He just didn’t know how to be a father to a kid like that. Truth is, maybe he wouldn’t have known how to be a father to any kid.