Goodnight Blackbird (8 page)

D
arren trailed behind Miriam Huntsmeyer as she barged through the house, pointing out things that had to be done. "Too much clutter. All this junk has to be put in storage.... Why the hell is this light flickering? Get these drapes to the cleaners, they're filthy...."

Most of her suggestions involved decluttering. "Make it look like a room at the Holiday Inn! Simple, clean and bland."

"Shall I put a mint on the pillow?"

"They don't do that at the Holiday Inn. Ritz-Carlton, maybe. I stayed there once, you know. Realtors' conference. There was a man." Her harsh, slightly bloodshot eyes grew introspective for a moment. "He loved me like no man has ever loved me before. Jesus, what's with this linoleum? It's hideous."

"It's the same linoleum that was here when you sold me this dump."

"Oh, how can you lie like that? Pull it. Put in some tile...."

The phone rang and Darren attended to it while Miriam scribbled notes and opened cabinets.

"Hi," Jacqueline said. "How are you?" Her voice sounded dull and hoarse, as if she had spent several hours screaming.

Darren started to ask if she was okay but the phone line crackled with impenetrable static before going completely dead.

He was acutely aware of the house around him. He tried to feel the presence that had infected the place but he sensed nothing out of the ordinary—no electrical charge in the air, no inexplicable cold drafts. The refrigerator hummed. The warm evening breeze sighed through the open kitchen windows.

"Miriam, let me borrow your cell for a minute."

"What's wrong with your phone?"

"Just let me borrow it for a sec."

She tossed him her cell phone. "How come you don't have a cell? My God, you're the last man in the country without a cell."

"It's a statement of principle." Out in the driveway, Darren dialed Jacqueline's number. The setting sun reflected savage fire off his windows.

"Sorry about that," he said when she picked up. "Phone problems."

"Do you think it's... you know?"

"I don't know. Are you okay? You sound funny."

"I just wanted someone to talk to. I'm not having a very good week."

"What's wrong?"

It was several seconds before Jacqueline answered. "I got fired yesterday." She chuckled without humor. "And Kevin's going ahead with a divorce. I'm going to lose this place."

"Jacqueline, what's your address?"

Twenty minutes later, Darren was cruising down her street in Beachwood, looking for the right house number. The houses on the street were not mansions but you knew you were in the presence of money. Some of the lots were twice the size of Darren's, and he took note of many exotic, colorful Asian trees and roofs made of Spanish mission tiles. Orthodontists lived here, as did young lawyers and guys who owned dry cleaning chains.

Darren found Jacqueline's ranch and pulled in. When she didn't answer his knock, he wandered around to the back and found her sitting on the grass by the empty pool. In the gathering dimness, the whiteness of the pool's tiles seemed to emit a feeble glow.

"Tell me what happened," he said.

She did. Like a young girl, she sat there hugging her knees. There was a paperback by her feet—
We Wake Eternally: A Medium Speaks to the Other Side
, by Michael Percival. In the sky above, a half-moon played hide-and-seek among wisps of lavender clouds. "I probably shouldn't have called you," Jacqueline said. "I barely know you and there's nothing you can do. I was just feeling needy."

Darren hunkered down beside her. "Are you sure there's no way you can get your job back?"

"It would be pretty difficult. Doesn't matter how good a worker I was. You create a hostile work environment, it just causes all kinds of headaches that management doesn't want to deal with. Besides, I just don't want to be there with all those girls. It's funny. Before all this, they were just annoying. But all of a sudden I just couldn't stomach it." She glanced at him. "It's a nervous breakdown, isn't it? What I'm going through."

"I've never much liked that phrase. It's too nebulous. And way too bleak. It's like the word 'cancer.' You hear that and you think the worst. But some cancers are treatable."

"You think what I'm suffering from is treatable?"

"Yes."

She laughed.

"I'm serious," Darren said. "Let's start with your job situation. You get on unemployment for a while. That'll keep the wolf from the door for a few weeks. Then, if you haven't found a decent job, I can get you in at my company. We're supposed to revamp the technical manuals for most of our product lines by next June. Lots of writing and editing. I usually get saddled with some of it but I'm gonna have enough to do with updating our marketing materials. It won't be a lot of money. But it'll be something." The idea had come to him on the drive over and it gave him a shameful little thrill. It was an opportunity for him to feel gallant, like a knight rescuing a distressed princess. He remembered what he had told her that night in the supermarket:
I'd like to matter to someone. Not just a little, but a lot
. He wondered if that was altruism or just narcissism.

Now that he had seen her house and her upper-crust neighborhood, though, his job offer sounded pathetic. Like offering an aspirin to someone with a gunshot wound to the chest.

Jacqueline reached out and squeezed his fingers. "You're sweet. But it's not going to be enough."

"Then maybe you're going to have to think about telling Kevin. About why you want to keep the house."

"You don't think he'll feel betrayed I didn't tell him earlier?"

"He may," Darren said. "In fact, I'd say it's likely."

"And if he doesn't feel betrayed he might just think I'm psychotic. After losing my job like this, he'd have a pretty good case."

"That's a risk too. But I think he deserves to know now. He lost a daughter too."

Jacqueline gazed at the pool, which reminded Darren of the gaping hole left after a tooth has been pulled. "I was on the swim team in high school," she said. "Varsity. I used to love swimming. The pool was one of the reasons we got this place. If I had been into flying Kevin would have probably put in a runway. He would have done just about anything for me."

"He sounds like a good man."

She flicked a bit of dirt into the pool. "If I could go back in time, I would have joined the chess club. No little girl ever died when queen takes knight."

"What happened wasn't your fault."

"Well, God Himself could give me a sworn affidavit to that effect and it probably wouldn't change how I feel."

Darren was silent. He flicked a pebble into the pool.

Jacqueline stood and brushed off her slacks. "Could I ask you to do something for me?"

"Like what?"

"Would you stay the night with me?"

He looked at her.

"It's not sexual," she said. "I'm just less likely to fall apart if I have someone here."

"A designated warm body."

"I guess I should have phrased it a little better."

He stood. "I thought nighttime was when... you know."

"She came last night." Jacqueline looked toward the warm yellow glow of her living room lights beyond the patio door. "I felt her. So maybe she'll take tonight off." She started playing with her hair, and Darren saw that her fingers were trembling. "You know, if I could just tell her I'm sorry...." Her lower lip quivered, and then she winced, her face collapsing in abject grief like a Southern California house being pulled down a hill in a mudslide.

Darren put his arm around her and she melted into him, grabbing handfuls of his shirt. The intensity of her despair unnerved him. Do wounds like these ever heal? Or was that only possible with life's micro-tragedies, like being passed over for a promotion or busting up with your girlfriend? The micro-tragedies were the only ones Darren had ever experienced—and for that he was glad. He hoped he never had to understand grief, real grief.

He resisted the temptation to whisper all the usual empty clichés, all of them variations on
don't worry, it'll be all right
, because he really didn't know if things would be all right again. Those asinine words of his echoed in his brain like a gunshot:
I just want to matter to someone
. Very often you matter the most to someone when they don't have anything else, when the wrecking ball has knocked everything else down.

He led her back indoors and made her some coffee which she did not touch, and when he prepared to crash out on the couch she took his hand and led him into the bedroom. It touched him how she refused to break contact with him, holding onto his hand like a blind man gripping his cane. Who am I to this woman, he wondered as he lay with her, fully clothed, holding her crumpled figure. An acquaintance? A friend? Maybe this night meant they had become something else to each other, something too subtle to fit under clumsy words like
acquaintance
,
friend
,
lover
.

She took his hand and placed it on her breast, and she was right, it wasn't sexual. It was probably some primal desire to draw some of his warmth and energy into herself. He could feel her racing, unsteady heart. Darren thought of a wounded animal looking for a warm, safe place to die.

There was something terrifyingly intimate about feeling the beating of another person's heart. Darren thought that in a way it was even more intimate than sex. It felt neither good nor bad. It just felt... humbling. This was what all our lives amounted to when everything had been stripped away, he thought, this modest, persistent rhythm.

He did not sleep much, but that was all right. Around dawn, as the darkness in the room gave way to a sickly grey dimness, he allowed himself to kiss her on the cheek. She did not stir. She slept on.

J
acqueline awoke to strange sounds and smells. The sounds: Darren talking to someone on the phone in the living room. The smells: scrambled eggs and toast. It had been a long time since her mornings had been overloaded with such sensory stimuli.

She found him in the kitchen, dividing the eggs onto two plates.

"Hi," she said. For some reason she felt nervous in his presence. Ashamed.

He poured her a small glass of grapefruit juice. "Hope you don't mind all this. I'll clean up."

"I usually don't eat breakfast," she said. Or lunch and dinner, she nearly added.

"Then there'll be more for me." He put the pan in the sink. "Eat something. Even if it's just toast."

"Thank you for staying with me."

"Eat. Then get dressed."

"Why?" She already had her day planned out—several hours in a fetal position,
Oprah
, then several more hours in a fetal position.

"First, we're gonna go down and get you signed up for unemployment. Not the most fun thing in the world to do, so I figure it's best to do it with a buddy. Second—do you like baseball?"

"Not a big sports fan."

"Good. Neither am I. We'll just stay for an inning or so."

Because the Indians were busy stinking up their division, you could just walk up and buy a ticket at game time. In some instances you could have most of a section to yourself. Today there was a rare weekday afternoon game, and it was a brilliant, sunny summer day. Even though sports bored the crap out of her, Jacqueline was surprised at the twinge of pleasure she felt. She felt like a little girl being taken to her first ballgame by her dad.

The real purpose of their trip, Darren told her on the ramp to the upper deck, was so she could meet Rich Oliphant, one of the vice presidents of Northeast Aerospace. He was in the Terrace Club, the upscale glass-enclosed restaurant built into the upper deck of Progressive Field. Oliphant was reading
The Wall Street Journal
and paying no attention to the game as he munched a Caesar salad, a glass of white wine by his plate. With his deep tan and thick shock of white hair, he reminded Jacqueline of an artist's conception of a five-term Southern senator.

"Darren. Playing hooky, I see. Hope you weren't counting on that raise this year."

"This is the woman I told you about, Jacqueline LaPierre."

She glanced at Darren, impressed that he remembered her maiden name. She shook Oliphant's hand, still unclear as to what was going on.

Oliphant gestured them into seats and insisted they at least order some drinks if they wouldn't share lunch with him. "So," Oliphant said, "I believe Darren's told you about our need for a writer and editor for our technical junk?"

"This is a job interview?"

"The most informal kind," Oliphant said, sipping his wine. "Darren tells me you have four years at Datascape Research and are no stranger to business writing. How come you left your job?"

Before she could answer, Darren said, "She lost her cool with a girl there who was wasting company time and affecting Jacqueline's ability to meet a deadline. Management picked sides." Darren gave her a quick, pointed glance that seemed to say,
They'd find out anyway.

There was a twinkle of amusement in Oliphant's eyes. "Lovely and tempestuous. There are worse combinations." He studied her for a moment, then seemed to make a decision. He described the editorial duties she would be responsible for, then told Jacqueline that if she could start by the middle of August it would be terrific. She would be an independent contractor and could work at home if she so desired, and if she did well prepping their technical manuals, "we'll look into getting you settled in with us on a permanent basis, if you're interested."

Jacqueline was so off her game she could only murmur something that sounded like "thank you."

Oliphant looked at Darren. "May as well tell you this now. Confidential. You know we've been having cash flow issues since we lost those Boeing contracts. Well, we've been talking to Goodman Technologies. There's a good chance they'll make an offer for us and save our butts. I wanted you to know in case any reporters ambush you. Just tell them no comment for now."

"Goodman has a habit of stripping companies down to the bone, you know."

Oliphant looked grim. "If we keep on without capital there won't even be the bones left, Darren."

A few minutes later, as Jacqueline and Darren strolled around the main concourse, she said, "Why did you have to go and do that? I'm in no condition for a job interview."

"Would you have gone through it otherwise?"

"Did you ever stop to think that I might not be interested in the job?"

"Then you don't have to take it."

Jacqueline stared at him, not sure what her dominant emotion was at the moment. Her head was a potpourri of feelings—a little anger, a little humiliation, a pinch of frustration.

"I just didn't want you to become paralyzed," Darren said as the meager crowd in the stands mustered a roar as Cleveland got a hit. "I didn't want you to collapse in on yourself. I've done that a couple times. Particularly after my divorce. You need to see there is hope out there. There are opportunities. You can build your life up again."

"I appreciate what you're doing, but I told you that it's still not going to be enough for me to keep the house."

"Have you considered that it might not be the house you really want?"

She stared at him.

"That book you were reading last night," Darren said. "
We Wake Eternally
. I noticed a couple others like it in your bedroom. Maybe what you want most is a chance to talk to her again. So you can tell her what you need to tell her, and she can tell you that it wasn't your fault. Then you can let the house go and start concentrating on living the rest of your life."

Jacqueline felt an almost instinctive need to disagree with him. You don't know anything about me, she nearly said, you're not my shrink.

"How am I supposed to talk to her?" she asked at last. They had stopped in front of a concession stand. "I can't afford it. I looked up Michael Percival online and it costs a fortune for one of his readings. And he's all the way in Florida, and I don't have the money—"

"I've booked you for the evening of Wednesday, October 14. Six p.m. You and Kevin."

She felt her eyes bulge and her mouth fall open like a kicked-in door. She mouthed the word
how
.

"The back of his book had his contact information," Darren said. "His people said this was the earliest date he had available. If you think I'm overstepping my bounds, you can go ahead and cancel. But I hope you won't."

"Darren, I can't let you—it's too much—"

"If I couldn't have afforded it, I wouldn't have done it. So don't worry about that. All I need to know is if this will help you."

Jacqueline felt as if she were on the verge of tears again. Why didn't she feel grateful? At first she thought it must be her dented pride—once again she was the helpless little girl who has to rely on a strong man to take the reins of her runaway life. Since she'd gone back to work after Michelle's death, she had gotten a lot of satisfaction out of not being beholden to anyone.

So yes, her pride was hurt. But that didn't fully explain the sense of dread she felt. It startled her when Darren suddenly articulated some of that dread:

"Are you afraid she really will blame you for her death? If you got the chance to communicate with her?"

It took an exceptionally long time for her to say, "Yes."

"What happened was an accident. I know you've probably heard that a thousand times by now. But the reason you've heard it that many times is because it's true, not because people are just lying to you to make you feel better. And do you think she'd manifest the way she does if she was angry with you?"

"I don't know."

"Yes, you do. You were a good mother, Jacqueline. She loves you."

He ordered them both soft pretzels and Pepsis, and they sat at a plastic picnic table in the concourse. She ate little, feeling subdued and exhausted. Soon, though, a hesitant smile twitched at the corners of her mouth, and something akin to excitement and—dare she even admit it?—hope flared briefly in her stomach.

Tonight your life begins again.

The smile seemed to want to stay on her face, and even though she had no interest in baseball she suggested that they sit in the stands and watch the game. She found herself clapping whenever Cleveland got a hit, and she even rose to her feet like everyone else when Grady Sizemore belted a home run in the sixth. She had trouble seeing the field because of the bright sun and the tears in her eyes.