Little Death by the Sea (11 page)

“Thank you for that vote of—“

“And quit pissing around. Here I am worried
sick about Darla and I have to worry about you too because you
haven’t got brains enough to stay inside behind locked doors when
the city’s crawling with maniacs and psychos. I swear, I feel like
the whole world is squatting right on my shoulders, you know?”

“Gerry, I’m sorry—“

“Don’t be sorry. Be smarter. Please. I worry
about everything, you know? I mean, give me a break, Maggie. I
would greatly appreciate it.”

“Okay, okay.” She stood up to leave. “Gerry,
it’s not all that important you know.” She waved her hand to take
in the office. “I mean, it’s not worth having a stroke over.”

“Five minutes. The conference room. And...I
am glad your sister’s back.”

She sighed, picked up her briefcase and
walked to his doorway. She turned to look at him but he wouldn’t
meet her eyes. She thought about calling Darla later. Maybe Darla
could give her a better idea of what was going on with him.

She turned and walked down the corridor to
her office and, pushing the door open with her hip, was startled to
find Patti sitting at her desk.

“Hello, this is a surprise.” Maggie forced a
smile. She wanted to oust the woman from her swivel chair and spend
her five-minute grace period getting a mug of coffee. That didn’t
seem likely now.

“Hey, Maggie, I wondered if you have a
minute.”

“The same as you,” Maggie dumped her
briefcase on the desk. “Five of them.”

“Oh, yeah, right. Well, I wondered if you
might have some time to talk with me about a...situation I’ve got.
Maybe you could give me some advice on how to handle it.”

“Really?” Maggie thought the whole morning
was beginning to feel very surreal. “Well, sure, what can I do for
you, Patti?” She perched on the edge of her desk, hoping it was
hint enough to the media director to relinquish Maggie’s chair but
not feeling aggressive enough to come right out and ask her to
move.

“It’s a guy.” Patti blushed mildly and
smiled.

Maggie was surprised. It hadn’t occurred to
her that Dr. Stump might have another a softer, less snide side to
her.

“He’s very special and I’m hoping he will
become a more permanent fixture in my life.”

Maggie should have guessed Stump wouldn’t
have a normal affair of the heart. It already sounded less like a
love affair and more like she was shopping for a towel rack.

“That’s great, Patti. What seems to be the
problem?”

“How do I get him out of neutral gear? I
mean, he seems content to keep things as they are. That is
unacceptable to me.” She shrugged and smiled again. “I want more
from him.”

“Hmmmm.” Maggie shifted uncomfortably on the
desk edge. “That’s hard, Patti. I’m not sure you can force
someone’s hand, so to speak. How long have you known this guy?”

“About six months. We’ve gotten pretty
close.”

“Do you, like, want to marry him? Is that
what we’re talking about here?”

“Marriage would be agreeable,” Patti said,
smiling almost shyly. “Very agreeable.”

“Well, in that case, I’d just tell him what
you want.” Maggie hopped down from the desk corner and began to
pick out the materials she would need for the meeting. “I mean, you
have rights in this relationship too. Just say: ‘I’m hoping this
leads to marriage. That’s what I’m looking for with you.’ And then
see how he reacts.”

Patti stood up slowly.

“Right, well, thanks, Maggie,” she said
coldly.

“I mean, does that help?” Why did the woman
always make her feel so tense?

“What do you think, Maggie? A man who is
acting reluctant to forward a stagnant relationship? I’m to torch
the whole project by pushing him to the point where he has no
alternative but to reject me? What sort of help do you think that
qualifies as?”

Maggie reddened and gathered up her notebook
and schedules. Why did the cow ask her in the first place?

“Well, look, I’m sorry you don’t like my
advice. But that’s what I’d do,” she said defensively.

“Sure you would, Maggie.” The smile had
returned to Patti’s lips but it was not a nice one.

2

“I cannot believe you went out last
night!”

Maggie pushed her half-eaten lunch away from
her on her desk.

“I’ve already been through this, Brownie,”
she said.

“Not with me, you haven’t! I could throttle
you, Maggie. Do you have any idea—“

“Well, what about you!? Some help you’d have
been if I had gotten mugged. I called you at eleven-thirty last
night and you weren’t even home yet. On a Tuesday evening!”

“I didn’t go home last night.”

“Oh, really? All night?”

“Goddamn it, Maggie—“

“Oh, well, I’m sure it’s none of my
business.”

“Maggie, I’d like to strangle you! Will you
just tell me what the hell happened last night?”

“Well, if you’d calm down for a minute, I’d
tell you.”

“There was a murder committed yesterday! In
your neighborhood. Are you totally insane? Should I talk to your
father about the wisdom of letting you have responsibility for
yourself? Are you not old enough to have your own apartment?”

“I’m hanging up now.”

“No, don’t! Just...look, just tell me what
happened, okay?”

“If you’ll shut up for five minutes, I
will.”

“I’ll shut up. Talk.”

“Okay. Gerard Dubois called last night around
ten o’clock—“

“Oh my God...”

“...and said I had to come up with five
thousand dollars immediately or he’d make trouble about Nicole. I
couldn’t have him going to the police, Brownie!”

“Are you crazy? He’s probably a convicted
felon back in France! He’d no sooner go to the police over here
than—“

“Well, then he might call up my mother or
something! He could harass us, Brownie. Do you want to hear my
story or not?”

“Go on.”

“So I got the money from my Dad.”

“Did you tell your fath—“

“No, no, no, but I think he figured it out
what I wanted the money for.”

“Jesus! And he didn’t stop you?”

“Well, maybe he’s just not as good a father
as you’d be, Brownie.”

“All right, all right, I’m sorry, go on.”

“So I met Gerard at the parking lot over at
Lenox Square...and don’t tell me the woman was murdered right
across the road because I already read all about it, now what’s
done is done. I gave him the money and he gave me Elise. That’s
all.”

“I see. How does Elise look?”

“She looks fine, thanks for asking.”

“Maggie, don’t be a pain in the ass. Forgive
me for caring about you. I’d like to come over tonight, or will
y’all be at Brymsley?”

“No, we’re not going over until the weekend.”
Maggie paused for a moment. “But you can come over tonight if you
want.” What was there about competition that made a man seem just
that much more interesting?

“I’ll be there at eight.”

“Make it nine, could you? I’m
clothes-shopping for Elise after work. And we’ll have already
eaten.”

“Fine. Nine, then.”

“Sorry about the squabble.”

“Yeah, me too. Bye.”

Maggie hung up the phone and stared at it.
Something, besides the obvious, did not feel right about that phone
conversation and she wasn’t sure exactly what.

A layout of the ad she’d written yesterday
lay on her desk where the art director, Pokey, had dropped it
earlier. It was for a client who owned a plant nursery. Maggie
noticed she must have dripped coffee on the edge of the
presentation board. The colors blurred in a muddy version of the
originals, displaying dark fronds of blue and aqua instead of
green, pink terra-cotta pots and yellow blossoms. The colors
mingled pleasantly, companionably, quite inoffensively, it seemed
to Maggie, and she found herself wondering if the art director
would even notice the change. Knowing the volatile Pokey, he would
notice to the tune of a very dramatic coronary, probably in a
reception room full of waiting clients.

Maggie stood up and stretched, working the
knots out of her neck by rolling it from side to side and letting
it flop—chin down onto her chest—as she’d done hundreds of times
before during the cool-down segment of her gym workouts. She had
been trying to get Elspeth to try aerobics for the benefits of
stress relief.

She talked with her mother earlier that
morning for a report on Nicole’s first time at a local Mother’s
Morning Out program. According to Elspeth, it had not gone badly
nor well. Nicole, true to form, sat on the sidelines neither
observing nor pretending not to observe. Elspeth had stayed the
whole morning, which Maggie thought rather defeated the purpose of
a Mother’s morning out, and had taken the child home just before
lunch. (“I think she made real progress, dear.”)

It was all Maggie could do not to tell her
mother that Nicole’s mother would soon be there to help put things
right. But she had promised Elise she would wait. She had, however,
begun to wonder if perhaps Gerry weren’t right. It could be an
awful shock, just springing Elise on them out of the blue. Perhaps
she would talk to Elise tonight about a phone conversation with
them first. If Elise would just talk to them on the phone, then
they needn’t see her in her present condition until she was
ready.

Satisfied with this plan, Maggie put a call
into Elise. She waited for ten rings before hanging up. She had
talked with her about two hours ago and knew that Elise was
spending most of the day sleeping. That’s fine, she thought,
looking at her watch. It was two thirty. She would talk with her
this evening. And in the meantime, as much rest as possible was the
best remedy for Elise. She imagined her mother’s face animated by
rapture at reclaiming her daughter. She saw her father, with tears
of unrestrained joy as he embraced his youngest girl. Maggie felt a
thrill run through her. How many times in one’s life could you
actually anticipate the happiest of all moments to be lived? For,
surely, that is what Saturday will be for her unsuspecting mother
and father, Maggie thought.

The letter had come to her office.
Tissue-thin, nothing more than a wafer of paper. Addressed to
her.

From Laurent.

Maggie maneuvered her Mitsubishi out of the
Lenox Square parking lot, deliberately avoiding the side of the
mall where she’d met with Gerard the night before. She inserted a
“Traveling Wilbury’s” cassette tape in her tape player and turned
the volume down low.

Dierdre had brought in the mail that
afternoon, grumpily dumped two industry magazines, a flutter of
portfolio postcards, and a computer software catalog onto her desk,
before pulling out the aqua-blue air mail envelope and placing it
squarely in front of Maggie. “It’s come. Merry Christmas."

Just a few crippled words, which Maggie had
memorized.
My God! It had been nearly five months!
No
explanation as to why he hadn’t written earlier, no comment as to
the fact that so much time had passed between them, just

“
Maggie,

I miss you very much and think of you now. I
think, too, that I will see you in a little time. Very soon, ma
cherie. Remember Laurent loves you.

Laurent Dernier
”

As Maggie drove down Peachtree Street toward
her apartment, she leaned over her Macy’s department store
purchases to reach for the letter again. “I think, too, that I will
see you in a little time.” Did that mean he was coming to Atlanta
soon? The unfortunate English was just choppy enough and she was
just insecure enough on the status of things between them, that she
wasn’t at all confident that he was promising to see her soon.
Perhaps he was going to suggest she come back to Cannes? She tucked
the letter into her handbag in the passenger seat. Why does he say
‘and think of you now’? Is that just bad English, or is he some
place special that’s now made him think of being with her? Has he
returned to Cannes, perhaps, after a long trip and now he’s
reminded of her? She rubbed her eyes tiredly.

It didn’t matter. He’d written her. Finally.
She might not be a French Fling after all.

She parked the car in the back parking area
of her apartment building and looked up at the darkened structure.
Smack in the middle of fashionable, trendy Buckhead, The Parthenon
was a throw-back to another era. It was one of the main reasons
Maggie loved it so much. A huge, looming edifice, it looked more
like a haunted castle or even a mausoleum than a honeycomb of
modern apartment units. It was made of rugged, gloomy stonework
instead of the burnished woods and pastel stuccos that typified the
architecture of the neighborhood. Somber and out of step with its
surroundings, it had been an area landmark for over eighty years.
The Parthenon was that curious mix of something so wrong for its
eco-climate and cultural setting that it was perversely viewed as a
resounding success. It was “cool” to live at The Parthenon. It was
the acceptably weird thing to do. Maggie had felt a small sliver of
pride in thinking that Elise would be impressed that she, Maggie,
hadn’t picked the typical digs, the eclectic, color-coordinated
tastefulness of an upscale apartment complex, but had gone for
something so artsy and off-beat. It hadn’t occurred to her that
maybe Elise was too sick to care where Maggie had chosen to
live.

She raked her parcels together in one hand
and hooked her purse strap with the other. The parking lot was dark
with only a half dozen cars in it. One inadequate street lamp
peered dimly from the corner of Peachtree Road and Wilson Avenue.
At least sixty yards from the dark parking area, the lamp only
served to throw elongated, murky shadows at Maggie as she got out
of her car.

Maggie allowed herself a nervous glance over
her shoulder as she locked her car and hurried up the sidewalk to
the front of the building.