Dear Daughter (35 page)

“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Renee said.

For a moment, I was almost offended—but then I saw that Leo was walking toward us.

“Tanner called,” he said. “Said you girls were getting into some kind of trouble.”

Kelley rolled her eyes. “If you’re going to blame someone, blame Renee.”

Renee pointed at me. “For once I’m not the bad influence—she is.”

“Should’ve known,” he said.

I raised my glass in his direction, drained it.

“Can you two get each other home?” he said. “It’s too cold to be stumbling around on your own.”

Renee scowled. “We’ve had like two drinks, dickhead.”

“Ignore her,” Kelley said. “We’ll be fine. Why don’t you take Rebecca back to the inn.”

I barely had time to shoot Kelley a dirty look before Leo grabbed me by my upper arm. He dragged me outside and sat me down on a bench. While I was putting on my coat, he spun around and went back inside.

“Wait, where are you going?”

He emerged just a few moments later; he had something in his hand. He came over, pulled back the collar of my sweater, and dumped a fistful of ice down my back.

I shot to my feet. “What the fuck!”

“Still seeing double?” he asked.

“Two of you? I shudder to think.”

He wiped his ice-cold hand across my face.

I pushed him away. “Enough! Jesus. I didn’t even have that much to drink.”

“Just making sure. You’re unpredictable enough when you’re sober.”

He tugged me to my feet and began to pull me down the street without another word.

The temperature was dropping. The wind rushed up through the couloir and sliced into my back, my neck, that crease between your ear and your skull, that fold of skin that’s as delicate as a bat’s wing. Soon the cold crept over the entire surface of my skull, and a distant part of me wondered how to calculate the distribution. Something to do with pi, surely. When I was eight my math tutor made me memorize as many digits of pi as I could—I stopped at twenty, but only because I was bored.

Once, during an interview with
Extra
, I pretended not to know the product of seven and eight.

I stumbled on the uneven pavement. Leo’s hand cupped my elbow.

“Careful,” he said.

When I looked up at him, I felt such a curious lack of exasperation that I wondered for the first time if maybe I actually was drunk. Slightly stunned, I let him drag me behind him, for once not feeling the need to guide our planchette to any particular letter on the Ouija board.

The inn appeared in front of us, and Leo pulled me up the stairs and through the door. I absently noted the lines and planes of Cora’s elegant furniture. I thought of my room upstairs, with its chiffonier and its escritoire and I clenched my jaw. There was too much pretty here. And that didn’t include me.

The radiator hissed; I slipped off my coat and let it slither to the ground.

Leo took the hint. He tugged at my sweater and I tumbled into him, my back against his chest, pressing the two of us against the door. His chest wasn’t that warm solid wall of teenage daydreams but more like that of a CPR dummy. It creaked a little as it compressed.

It had been ten years since I’d been so close to someone.

Something inside me shook loose. His proximity had started some sort of chemical reaction that was eating away at my better judgment. And so it was Leo’s fault, I told myself, that I decided not to step away, that when my hand fell from his shoulder it landed on his thigh and exerted just the slightest hint of pressure with my blunt, bitten nails. The denim of his jeans was rougher than I’d expected. Probably a cowboy sort of thing. Protection against tumbleweeds and accusations of metrosexuality.

The space between us gave me pause. For one crazy moment I wondered if I was a magnet that was about to be flipped, but then I remembered that I don’t believe in attraction—just utility. And Leo was as useful as anyone else in that town. I combed my fingers into his hair.

He set his lips next to my ear. “What are you doing?”

“Nothing smart,” I said.

His hand snaked around my waist, slipping under my sweater but over my shirt. I settled my head back against his shoulder.

He turned me around and backed me up against the front door, and I felt a moment of self-consciousness. The protruding edges of the door dug into the back of my pelvis, and when I kicked a leg up around his hip, my back didn’t arch so much as it did hinge. I watched his face for any of the signs of distaste that I, in another life, had so often exhibited, but the set of his mouth was inscrutable.

His forehead pressed against mine. His skin reminded me of those hot towels they begrudgingly give you in coach—not the soft cotton of business or first class, the rough terry cloth kind. But if you’ve been flying long enough, any heat is welcome, and you can always put the cloth over your eyes and pretend you’re somewhere else.

My eyes closed, my toes flexed, and maybe my lips were about to do something too.

A throat cleared.
Shit
—another guest in the salon. I hid my face behind Leo’s shoulder.

“Go away,” Leo snapped.

“You first.”

I put my hands on Leo’s shoulders and shoved him to the side. Then my arms dropped. And my heart stopped.

“Hello, Noah,” I said.

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

Noah stood in the doorway to the salon, rumpled as ever, his shirt sleeves shoved up haphazardly and his collar loosened. I was just as rumpled, I realized. I tugged down the hem of my shirt and jabbed Leo with a sharp elbow.

“Do you think we could have a minute?” I said to Leo.

“I don’t think so,” Leo said. “This is just getting interesting.”

I looked back at him, despite myself. “
Just
getting interesting?”

His eyes flicked down to my mouth and up again, and behind his curiosity, I could’ve sworn I saw something like triumph. I put my hand to my face—he’d tricked a true smile out of me. For a long time Noah was the only person who could make me do that.

The smile faded.

When I turned around to face Noah again, I could barely swallow my mouth was so dry. The expression on his face was like the last ripple of a rock as it sunk into a pond.

“I’m not talking to you while he’s here,” Noah said, and I flinched at his tone. It was something I hadn’t heard before. “Come on. That vicious little redhead set me up with some tea. As for you, Mr.—”

“Leo.”

“I assume you can let yourself out.”

When Noah looked at me his eyes didn’t move even the slightest bit in Leo’s direction, and when Noah didn’t see something, it ceased to exist.

I followed Noah into the kitchen, wiping my mouth with the back of my hand, almost forgetting Leo had ever even been there to begin with. I didn’t like what that said about me.

Noah set the kettle to boil and leaned against the counter. “So. Janie Jenkins. Back and better than ever.”

I ran a hand through the tangles in my hair—tangles that Noah knew had been put there by someone else. When I opened my mouth, I didn’t know what to say.

So once again I checked my Magic 8 Ball:
Sorry, sweetheart, not even I can help with this one.

The kettle whistled. Noah dropped his teabag in his cup with a messy splash. For someone with such an elegant mind he had surprisingly clumsy hands. He wiped up the spill with a dish towel much more thoroughly than was required.

“You always drink tea?” I asked.

“Of course I do,” he said.

“How did I not know that?”

“They don’t exactly keep Earl Grey on hand at the Santa Bonita Women’s Center.”

“Aren’t you going to ask me if I want any?”

“No.”

I hugged my arms to my chest.

“So,” he said, setting his mug on the table. “Are you going to explain why you felt the need to lie to me?”

I summoned up some cheek. “Any chance you could narrow it down a bit?”

“Let’s start with why you let me think you were going to Wisconsin.”

“I knew you’d tell me not to come here. But you were wrong—I know you never thought this would come to anything, but it
has
—”

“You mean you’ve found the person who killed your mother?”

“No, but—” My mouth snapped shut.

He waited patiently, knowing as well as I did that I didn’t have a satisfactory answer. But it wasn’t like I hadn’t accomplished anything at all, dammit.

“Look,” I said, “this is where my mother was from. And—I think it’s where my father’s from, too.”

“That makes you not guilty?”

I jerked back. “No,” I said, weakly. “The court ruling makes me not guilty.” It felt like my ribs were collapsing in on themselves one by one.

“You should leave,” he said. “You should let it go.”

I swiped at my eyes. “You don’t understand—”

“Shit,” he said, crossing the room and jerking me into his arms, tucking my head under his chin. I could have sworn his lips ghosted across my forehead, but it was possible the sensation was nothing more than an echo of a million pathetic daydreams.

“It’s good to see you,” I whispered.

“It’s good to see you, too.”

I closed my eyes and breathed him in.

Wait—

My hands came up and flexed against his chest. “How did you know I was here?”

“I figured it out when the press picked up on that truck you stole from that motel.”

I tilted my head back and looked up at him. Why did I get the sense that he hadn’t answered my question? “But that was three hundred miles away,” I said.

Before he could answer, the front door banged open. We pulled away from each other.

“Mr. Adams!” Cora said, her face lit up like one of her stupid fucking repro gaslight lamps. “Rue told me you’d checked in, and I just had to stop by and make sure you were all settled in.”

Noah inclined his head. “I am, thank you.”

She looked at his mug. “I’m glad you found the tea. I made sure to pick up the kind you liked so much the last time you were here.”

I put my hands on the counter behind me to keep from falling to the floor.

“Oh, Rebecca,” she said. “I didn’t see you there. You’ve met Mr. Adams, I see—he’s one of my favorite guests. I bet he could tell you more about the town than I could!”

I leveled my gaze on Noah. “Is that so?”

(Did you know that if you throw water out into space it boils first and then skips straight to ice? From gas to solid in seconds.)

Cora took a step back, her smile uncertain. “Well, then, you two have—fun now. I hope to see you both tomorrow night!” Cora backed out of the room. The door slammed behind her.

“Mr.
Adams
?” I said.

“I didn’t think Van Buren was gonna fly.”

He took a step toward me.

“Don’t even.”

His hands curled around something invisible.

“How long have you known about this place?” I asked.

“A few years,” he said.

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

(Why.
God
. What a thankless fucking word.)

“At the time? I wanted you to find some—I don’t know, peace?” he said.

“How did you find out?”

“I had access to something you didn’t: the Internet.”

My mouth dropped open. “Are you fucking kidding me? It was that easy?”

“Well, not quite. I had to take a few trips, do some digging. But it didn’t take long to figure out that ‘Tessa’ was your mother—certain people around here sure were happy to tell me all about her.” He paused. “I didn’t know your father was from here too.”

I stared at him. His eyes—they were such a deep brown and so enormously expressive. I’d always thought they belonged on someone else. A philosopher or a painter. One of those dancers who flexes his feet instead of pointing them. Anything but a lawyer. But that was my weakness when it came to Noah. I always wanted him to be something transcendent.

“How could you not tell me?” I asked.

“The last time you went through this, you almost didn’t make it. I didn’t want to risk that again.”

“That wasn’t your choice to make.”

“Well I’m giving you the choice now. I’m leaving tomorrow. Come with me.”

“No. I’m not finished.”

His expression hardened. “If you need additional incentive, I can always call the press.”

“You wouldn’t.”

“Why would you think that?”

Because ever since my mother died, you’re the only one who ever wanted me to think I was innocent.

Or so I thought.

I looked down at my hands. “Tell me the truth, Noah. Why did you really keep this from me?”

“Because you won’t find what you’re looking for.”

“Is that what you believe or what you know?”

He didn’t respond.

“Noah—”

“It’s what I used to think I knew,” he said. “But that was before I realized that you could lie to me, too.”

I could tell you what happened next, but a million poets have already come up with a billion ways to describe a broken heart. Why bother rehashing it here.

I KNEEL IN THE NIGHTS BEFORE TIGERS

Written by

Mary Gallagher & Petra Mahoney

Current Revisions by

Allen Kraft

March 3, 2004

INT. PRISON VISITING ROOM—DAY

Janie sits alone in an empty room. Confusion etched in every line of her body. Her spine curls into the curve of a question mark. Orange isn’t a good color on her.

She stares off into the distance and clings to her CIGARETTE as if it’s her last.

And it might be.

A GUARD opens the door. He ushers in NOAH WASHINGTON (early 30s, Southern accent, a fresh face but tired eyes). His expression is serious. Not to be trifled with.

He sits down.

NOAH

Miss Jenkins.

JANIE

(sardonic)

Mister Lawyer.

Noah, in the act of opening his BRIEFCASE, pauses.