George Pelecanos (16 page)

Eight hundred thousand dollars.
She couldn't buy a decent three-bedroom for that amount, not in this
neighborhood, not even in the suburbs. There, the schools would be free, at
least, but the Dutton School probably mattered more to Sally than it did to the
children. It had become the center of her social life since Peter left, a place
where she was made to feel essential.
Essential and adored,
one of the parents who helped out without becoming a fearsome buttinsky or
know-it-all.

"How
long do I have to figure this out?" she asked Frankenny.

"The
balloon comes due in four months. But the way things are going, you'll be
better off locking in sooner rather than later. Greenspan looked funny the last
time the Fed met."

"Funny?"

"Constipated, like.
As if
his sphincter was the only thing keeping the rates down."

"Kenny,"
she said with mock reproach, her instinctive reaction to a man's crude joke, no
matter how dull and silly. Already, her mind was miles away, flying through the
streets of her neighborhood, trying to think who might help her. There was a
father who came to Sam's baseball games, often straight from work, only to end
up on his cell, rattling off percentages. He must be in real estate.

"I
own a title company," Alan Mason said.
"Which, I have to say,
is like owning a mint these days.
The money just keeps coming. Even with
the housing supply tight as it is, people always want to refinance. Rates go
down, they want in. Rates squeak up, they panic."

"If
only I had thought to talk to you three years ago," Sally said, twisting the
stalk of a gone-to-seed dandelion in her hand. They were standing along the
first base line, the better to see both their sons--Sam, adorable if inept in
right field, and Alan's Duncan, a wiry first baseman who pounded his glove with
great authority, although he had yet to catch a single throw.

"The
thing is--" Alan stopped as the batter made contact with the ball, driving it
toward the second baseman, who tossed it to Duncan for the out. There was a
moment of suspense as Duncan bobbled it a bit, but he held on.

"Good
play, son!" Alan said and clapped, then looked around. "I didn't violate the
vocalization rule, did I?"

"You
were perfect," Sally assured him. The league in which their sons played did, in
fact, have strict rules about parents' behavior, including guidelines on how to
cheer properly--with enthusiasm, but without aggression. It was a fine line.

"Where
was I? Oh, your dilemma. The thing is, I can hook you up with someone who can
help you find the best deal, but you might want to consider taking action
against your lawyer. He could be disbarred for what he did, or at least
reprimanded.
Clearly a conflict of interest."

"True,
but that won't help me in the long run." She sighed,
then
exhaled on the dandelion head, blowing away the fluff.

"Did
you make a wish?" Alan asked. He wasn't handsome, not even close. He looked
like Ichabod Crane, tall and thin, with a pointy nose and no chin.

"I
did," Sally said with mock solemnity.

"For what?"

"Ah,
if you tell, they don't come true." She met his eyes, just for a
moment,
let Alan Mason think that he was her heart's desire.

Later
that night, her children asleep, a glass of white wine at her side, she plugged
figures into various mortgage calculators on the Internet, as if a different
site might come up with a different answer. She charted her budget on
Quicken--if she traded the Porsche for a Prius, if she stopped buying organic
produce at Whole Foods, if she persuaded Molly to drop ballet, if Sam didn't go
to camp. But there were not enough sacrifices in the world to cover the looming
shortfall in their monthly bills. They would have to give up everything to keep
the house--eating, driving, heat and electricity.

And
even if she did find the money, found a way to make it work, her world was
still shrinking around her. When Peter first left, it had been almost a relief
to be free of him, grouchy and cruel as he had become in midlife. She had been
glad for an excuse to avoid parties as well. Now that she was divorced, the
husbands steered clear of her; a suddenly single woman was the most unstable
molecule of all in their social set. But Alan Mason's gaze, beady as it was,
had reminded her how nice it was to be admired, how she had enjoyed being
everyone's favorite confidante once upon a time, how she had liked the hands
pressed to her bare spine, the friendly pinch on her ass.

She
should marry again. It was simple as that. She left the Internet's mortgage
calculators for its even more numerous matchmakers, but the world she glimpsed
was terrifying, worse than the porn she had once found cached on Peter's
laptop, the first telltale sign of the trouble that was to come. She was so old
by the standards enumerated in these online wish lists. Worse, she had
children, and ad after ad specified that would just not do. She looked at the
balding, pudgy men, read their demands--no kids, no fatties, no over-forties--and
realized they held the power to dictate the terms. No, she would not subject
herself to such humiliation. Besides, Internet matches required writing, not
listening. In a forum where she could not nod and laugh and gaze
sympathetically, Sally was at a disadvantage. Typing "LOL" in a chat room
simply didn't have the same impact.

Now,
a man with his own
children, that
would be ideal. A
widower or a divorce who happened to have custody, rare as that was. She
mentally ran through the Dutton School directory, then pulled it from the shelf
and skimmed it. No, no, no--all the families she knew were disgustingly intact,
the divorced and reblended ones even tighter than those who had stayed with
their original mates. Didn't anyone die anymore? Couldn't the killers and drug
dealers who kept the rest of Washington in the upper tier of homicide rates
come up to Northwest every now and then, take out a housewife or two?

Why
not?

* *
*

In
a school
renown for dowdy mothers, Lynette Mason was one of
the dowdiest, gone to seed in the way only a truly preppy woman can. She had
leathery skin and a Prince Valiant haircut, which she sheared back from her
face with a grosgrain ribbon headband. Her laugh was a loud, annoying bray and
if someone failed to join in her merriment, she clapped the person on the back
as if trying to dislodge a lump of food. On this particular Thursday afternoon,
Lynette stood on the sidewalk, speaking animatedly to one of the teachers,
punching the poor woman at intervals. Sally, waiting her turn in the car pool
lane, thought how easily a foot could slip, how an accelerator could jam. The SUV
would surge
forward,
Lynette would be pinned against
the column by the school's front door.
So sad, but no one's
fault, right?

No,
Sally loved the school too much to do that. Besides, an accident would take out
Ms. Grayson as well, and she was an irreplaceable resource when it came to
getting Dutton's graduates into the best colleges. Sally would need her when
Molly and Sam were older.

Four
months, according to her accountant. She had four months. Maybe Peter would
die; he carried enough life insurance to pay off the mortgage, with plenty left
over for the children's education. No, she would never get that lucky. Stymied,
she continued to make small talk with Alan Mason at baseball games, but began
to befriend Lynette as well, lavishing even more attention on her in order to
deflect any suspicions about Sally's kindness to Alan. Lynette was almost
pathetically grateful for Sally's attention, adopting her with the fervor that
adolescent girls bring to new friendships. Women appreciate good listeners,
too, and Sally nodded and smiled--over lunch, over tea, and, once 5 o'clock came
around, glasses of wine. Lynette had quite a bit to say, the usual litany of
complaints. Alan worked all the time. There was zero romance in their marriage.
She might as well be a single mom--"Not that a single mom is a bad thing to be,"
she squealed, clapping a palm over her large, unlipsticked mouth.

"You're
a single mom without any of the advantages," Sally said, pouring her another
glass of wine. Drive home drunk. What do I care?

"There
are advantages, aren't there?" Lynette leaned forward and lowered her voice,
although Molly was at a friend's and Sam was up in his room with Lynette's
Duncan, playing the SIMS. "No one ever says that, but it's true."

"Sure.
As long as you have the money to sustain the standard of living you had, being
single is great."

"How
do you do that?"
Asked with specificity, as if Lynette
believed that Sally had managed just that trick.
Sally, who had long ago
learned the value of the non-reply, raised her eyebrows and smiled serenely,
secretly.

"I
think Alan cheats on me," Lynette blurted out.

"I
would leave a man who did that to me."

Lynette
shook her head. "Not until the kids are grown and gone.
Maybe
then.
But I'll be so old. Who would want me then?"

Who
would want you now?

"Do
what you have to do." Another meaningless response, perfected over the years.
Yet no one ever seemed to notice how empty Sally's sentiments were, how vapid.
She had thought it was just men who were fooled so easily, but it was turning
out that women were equally foolish.

"Alan
and I never have sex anymore."

"That's
not uncommon," Sally said. "All marriages have their ups and downs."

"I
love your house." Logical sequences of thought had never been Lynette's
strength, but this conversation was abrupt and odd even by her standards. "I
love you."

Lynette
put a short stubby hand over Sally's, who fought the instinctive impulse to
yank her own away. Instead, it was Lynette who pulled back in misery and
confusion.

"I
don't mean that way," she said, staring into her wine glass, already half
empty.

Sally
took a deep breath. If this were a man, at a party, she would have laughed
lightly and accused him of being a terrible tease. To Lynette, she said: "Why
not?"

Lynette
put her hand back over Sally's. "You mean--?"

Sally
thought quickly. No matter how far Sam and Duncan disappeared into their
computer world, she could not risk taking Lynette to the master bedroom. She
had a hunch that Lynette would be loud. But she also believed that this was her
only opportunity. In fact, Lynette would shun her after today. She would cut
Sally off
completely,
ruining any chance she had of
luring Alan away from her. She would have to see this through, or start over
with another couple.

"There's
a room, over our garage. It used to be Peter's study. He took most of the
things, but there's still a sofa there."

She
grabbed the bottle of wine and her glass. She was going to need to be a little
drunk, too, to get through this. Then again, who was less attractive in the
large scheme of things, Alan or Lynette? Who would be more grateful, more
giving? Who would be more easily controlled? She was about to find out.

Lynette
may not have been in love when she blurted out that sentiment in Sally's
kitchen, but she was within a week. Lynette being Lynette, it was a loud,
unsubtle love, both behind closed doors and out in public, and Sally had to
chide her about the latter, school her in the basics of covert behavior, remind
her not to stare with those cowlike eyes, or try to monopolize Sally at public
events, especially when Alan was present. They dropped their children at school
at 8:30 and Lynette showed up at Sally's house promptly at 8:45, bearing skim
milk lattes and scones. Lynette's idea of the perfect day, as it turned out,
was to share a quick latte upon arriving,
then
bury
her head between Sally's legs until 11 a.m., when she surfaced for the Hot
Topics segment on The View. Then it was back to devouring Sally, with time-outs
for back rubs and baths. Lynette's large, eager mouth turned out to have its
uses. Plus, she asked for only the most token attention in return, which Sally
provided largely through a hand-held massage tool from The Sharper Image.

Best
of all, Lynette insisted that, as much as she loved Sally, she could never,
ever leave Alan, not until the children were grown and out of the home. She
warned Sally of this repeatedly, and Sally would nod sadly, resignedly. "I'll
settle for the little bit I can have," she said, stroking Lynette's Prince
Valiant bob.

"If
Alan ever finds out--" Lynette said glumly.

"He
won't," Sally assured her. "Not if we're careful. There.
No--there."
Just as her attention drifted away in conversation, she found it drifting now,
floating toward an idea, only to be distracted by Lynette's insistent touch.
Later.
She would figure everything out later.

"You're
not going to believe this," Sally told Lynette at the beginning of their third
week together, during one of the commercial breaks on The View. "Peter found
out about us."