Mansions Of The Dead (8 page)

Sweeney had assumed that all of the men in the class would be half in love with Jennifer, but she turned out to be wrong. It was Becca who seemed the feminine center of the class, Becca who, with her sunny shoulder-length blond hair and small, muscular body clad in fleece jackets and sweatpants, was the one who had flirted and been flirted with. At various times, Sweeney had caught Brad, Jaybee, and Raj all staring at her across the seminar table. Becca was a good student, though Sweeney had decided early on that her intelligence was a result of a lifetime of expensive schools rather than any innate brilliance. When Sweeney had wondered about what Brad and Becca’s relationship was, she had felt a little prick of resentment, that he was much smarter than she was and that he deserved better.

Jaybee was undeniably good-looking, with a roguish flop of dark
auburny hair and dark eyes that always seemed to be flirting. He was lazy, the only member of the seminar class whom Sweeney had ever had to talk to about late papers, but he was so charming that she found herself letting him get away with things that she’d never allow from someone like Ashley. This embarrassed her when she recognized it, and she tried not to think about it too much.

They were an odd little group, and while she knew that they socialized sometimes as a class, Sweeney suspected that with the exception of Brad, Becca, and Jaybee, they actually had other friends whom they lived with or went out with on weekends. The fact that they had become friends at all was just one of those strange accidents of college.

“So, how are you all doing?” she asked them.

No one said anything. Rajiv looked tired, his usually dapper getup downgraded to jeans and a Dartmouth sweatshirt.

Ashley looked up as though she were about to say something, but thought better of it. Her eyes were red and a bout of crying had eroded the banks of heavy mascara and eyeliner so that you could actually see her light amber eyes. In her grief she seemed younger and prettier.

Jennifer had decided to keep her emotions to herself. She looked up and met Sweeney’s eyes, then looked away, revealing nothing.

“Up until the minute I walked in, I was thinking I’d have class as usual,” Sweeney told them. “But I don’t feel like it and I don’t think you do either. Is there anything you want to talk about?”

No one said anything. When she looked around, she had the sense that they were afraid of her. Even Raj, who could usually be counted on for a smile in her direction, was stony, frozen in a kind of half-slouch, his head bent over his notebook, on which he was doodling small, seashell-shaped designs.

“It’s just kind of strange, with Brad and all,” Jennifer Jones said quietly.

“Have you ever had someone you knew well die before?” Sweeney asked, feeling like a shrink.

There was a long silence and then Jennifer said, “My grandmother.
Oh, and this girl I went to boarding school with who slashed her wrists in the locker room.”

Sweeney flinched.

“My grandfather died when I was six, but I didn’t really know him,” Ashley added. “And my twin sister died. In the womb. I was in there with her for two months. People say I didn’t really know her, but I can remember her. I remember trying to get her to wake up and she wouldn’t and she just kept staring at me with her cold, dead little eyes.”

Sweeney was struck dumb and Jennifer and Raj looked horrified. There was a long uncomfortable silence after which Ashley said, “Well, it’s true.”

Sweeney cleared her throat. “Okay, if you need to talk to anyone, if you’re feeling afraid or depressed or anything, you have my home number and I want you to feel free to call anytime. And don’t forget there are a ton of counselors who are ready to talk to you too. Okay?”

Afraid, they all nodded and she let them go.

DREW PUTNAM HAD BEEN
dreading seeing Pam all morning, and when he finally came out of the elevator and encountered her sitting at her desk, looking perky and for all the world like an exotic butterfly surrounded by the jungle of floral arrangements, he felt a flash of panic, an urge to do physical violence to the framed picture of her husband and son, the neat surface of her desk.

“Good morning, Pam,” he murmured, looking down at the ground as he passed by her desk on the way to his office. It seemed strange that everything should look exactly the way it had only three days before. But the office was as coolly elegant as ever, thanks to the $400 an hour decorator who’d done the place over last year. He had to admit that she’d known what she was doing. The offices of Putnam and Wise-craft—on the fourth floor of a financial district office building—called up an English lord’s personal library, all mahogany and richly upholstered furniture. The suite had been recarpeted in an elegant gray carpet that was the next best thing to hardwood floors and the walls were covered with original art, much of it from the family’s personal collection. Many of these paintings had been hanging on the walls of the law firm since the 1800s, and though the venue was entirely modern, part of why they’d chosen it, he had the sense that he always did of going
back into history. It was exactly what he hoped clients felt when they walked into the offices, a sense that Putnam and Wisecraft would always be there, would always be able to help. It was what he had told the interior decorator and he had to admit she’d gotten it just about right.

“Mr. Putnam.” Pam stared at him in openmouthed shock. “We didn’t think you’d be coming in . . . ”

“Could you hold all my calls, please,” he said, slipping out of his jacket and hanging it in the mahogany wardrobe just outside his office. “My brother and sister will be here a little bit later. Please show them in. And I’d like some coffee, please.”

She had half stood behind her desk and he felt a flash of annoyance at her colorful getup—a pink-patterned miniskirt and a too-tight lime green sweater. In the old days, when his grandfather had been in charge, the secretaries would have all worn somber black for a month or so. He noticed that her eye makeup was the exact same green as her top.

“Mr. Putnam,” she said. “I just wanted to say how sorry we all are. Everyone, we . . . ”

“Thank you, Pam.” Her sympathy was too much. He felt something loosening in him and he cut her off with his eyes, stepping into his office and shutting the door with a final “click.”

His office was immaculate, the desk a perfect geometric pattern of leather blotter, leather pen cup, and two leather-framed photographs, one of Melissa and one of the whole family a couple of years before Petey’s death. He put both photos facedown on the desk. He wanted to think and he felt as though he needed to be alone to do it.

A few minutes later there was a tentative knock, like a bird tapping against a tree. When he called out, “Come in,” Pam opened the door and made her way over to the desk with a tray containing a French press coffeemaker filled with steaming coffee, a mug, and a little pitcher of milk. She reminded him of a crab, walking sideways in her too-high heels while trying to stay out of his line of sight.

“Thank you, Pam,” he said, taking the tray from her and placing it on the coffee table. She looked as though she was going to say something
else, but he silenced her with his body language, turning his back to her and busying himself with the tray. A few seconds later he heard the soft click of the door.

When she was gone, he poured the coffee and leaned back into the couch, trying to lower his heart rate by counting down from ten the way the doctors had taught him.

“You’re thirty-four years old, Drew, and you’re twenty-five pounds overweight and about two years away from a heart attack if you don’t learn to relax a little. You’ve got to pinpoint where the stress is coming from in your life, perhaps through therapy or stress management classes, and work on eliminating it.”

“I don’t believe in therapy,” he’d said. “I’ll start jogging.”

He still remembered the cardiologist’s raised eyebrows as he’d written out a prescription for the heart meds.

“Six, five, four, three, two, one, calm,” he whispered quietly, then took a deep breath. His heart was still going like a rabbit’s.

Pam had put his mail in a white plastic postal service box on the floor beneath his desk, the way he liked it. He flipped quickly through the pile, but the only thing that interested him was the white cardboard tube. He pried off the plastic cap and extracted the tightly rolled design drawings for the Back Bay project. He had been waiting for them for weeks and he felt the little charge that he always did when looking at building plans for the first time. Everything looked in order. He’d show them to his contractor and then they’d get started on the inspections as soon as possible.

There was another knock on the door and without waiting for him to say anything, his sister came in.

“Jesus,” she said, picking up his mug of coffee and taking a swig. “That’s about the ugliest floral display I’ve seen since Grandfather’s funeral.” She was dressed in what seemed to be her uniform these days, a dark skirt and jacket combination with a plain silk blouse underneath. He wondered if she had gone out and bought twelve of them in different colors when she’d decided to run for office. Not enough to ask
her, though. He only had the energy to say words that absolutely had to be said.

“Cam,” he said, looking right at her. “We need to talk.”

She glanced at him quickly and he saw she was afraid. “I know,” she said. She looked toward the door. “Is it . . . ”

“It’s fine. I had it soundproofed when they did it over.”

They were both silent for a moment, listening to the hollow, soundproofed air.

“Has the press been all over you?”

“Not really,” she said. “We got a couple of calls about how it would affect my schedule. If there’s been anything else, they haven’t told me.”

“Good.” He hesitated, then said, “I went by your place last night. Where were you?”

Again, she looked afraid. “Oh, talking strategy with Lawrence.”

“It was midnight.” He raised his eyebrows and gave her a little grin, giving her a chance to make a joke out of it, admit she’d been out with someone. But instead she blushed.

“I must have been asleep and didn’t hear the door,” she said. “I was wiped.”

But your car was gone, he wanted to say. Your car wasn’t in front of the house. Instead he shrugged.

She paced to the other side of the room and he saw how unsettled she was. “Drew, what are we going to—?”

She was interrupted by another knock on the door and then Jack’s dark head peeking around it. He came in, carrying a huge bottle of noxious-looking green iced tea. He was wearing jeans and tan suede Birkenstocks and he had on a ripped T-shirt covered with red paint. He looked effortlessly handsome, the dark circles under his eyes adding to his bedroom-eyed appeal. Drew felt a pang of the jealousy he’d felt as a younger man when he’d bring women home and know that they’d rather be with Jack, know they were goners the second they saw him and picked up on his tortured artist vulnerability. To Jack’s credit, he had rarely taken the women up on what Drew was sure were explicit
come-ons. But it hadn’t mattered. Once they’d met Jack, Drew could predict with unerring accuracy the end of his own chances.

Melissa had been the first one who had seemed unimpressed with Jack’s good looks. But then by the time he met Melissa, Drew was starting to realize that looks really weren’t everything, that there was a certain aura that money and power conveyed as well.

“Hey,” Jack said, kissing Cammie on the cheek and nodding at Drew before going to sit down on the couch and taking a long drink from his iced tea. He’d been drinking the night before. Drew recognized the signs, his bloodshot eyes, the way he leaned carefully back on the couch as though he was afraid of bruising his skin.

“How’s Dad?” Jack asked.

“Okay, I guess,” Cammie said. “I offered to stay with him, but he said no.” She turned and went over to the window. “I don’t think we should leave him alone, but he wouldn’t let me stay. If you guys could just kind of check in a couple of times, see if he’s okay.”

“I’ll go by tonight,” Jack said.

“Good. Thanks.” She picked up the architectural drawings and looked at the black lines as though they were a map she needed to read, then put them down again on Drew’s desk.

“How’s Melissa handling all this?” she asked him.

“Fine, fine.” He didn’t want to talk about Melissa.

“You sure about that? This must be pretty awful for her.”

“I know that.”

“Drew, she’s fragile about this kind of stuff. I’m just saying.” She reached up to scratch her head, messing up her hair. Somehow, Cammie always managed to get bad haircuts.

“I know,” he snapped, then looked around at them, not sure what to say now.

They all spoke at once, then laughed nervously.

“Did either of you . . . ?”

“Did you . . . ?”

“What . . . ?”

“All right,” Drew said. “We need to talk.”