She Loves Me Not (9 page)

Rose watches him settle himself at the table across from Hitch, who's spooning sugar into his coffee. How
wrong
it seems, suddenly, to have these two men here, in her kitchen, where Sam hasn't been in over a year.

It would be different if he were here with them, sitting at the table in his Saturday flannel shirt, drinking coffee and joining the conversation about lumber or whatever it is they're discussing. But if Sam were here, perhaps Peter and Hitch wouldn't be. Maybe Leslie wouldn't be rushing into marriage to a man she's only known a few months.

And maybe Leslie's right about Hitch—maybe he wouldn't be popping in so often. Maybe he's here because he's interested in her. Hitch is a great guy, but . . .

But what?

Face the facts, Rose. Sam is gone.

You're not just alone; you're lonely.

“Will I be in your way if I stick around to work on the shelves this afternoon, Rose?”

“Not at all,” she tells Peter, pushing aside her unsettling thoughts. “In fact, I may go out and get groceries while you're—”

“Groceries?” Leslie wrinkles her nose. “That doesn't sound like much fun. Why don't you indulge yourself for a change, Rose? Go get a manicure or something? Or come with me and Jenna to the mall?”

“Or you can come along with us to the movies if you want,” Hitch speaks up.

“Are you kidding? If you guys had kids you'd know that grocery shopping without two of them underfoot
is
self-indulgent.”

“In that case, knock yourself out.” Leslie takes a glass from the cupboard and runs cold water at the sink. “But I can't promise you that Jenna and I won't be stopping for manicures during
our
self-indulgent afternoon.”

“Oh, Leslie, I don't know. The last time you—”

“This time I swear I'll let her get pastel polish only,” Leslie promises, joining the men at the table with her glass of water.

Peter raises an eyebrow. “Pastel polish? As opposed to . . . ?”

“Black.”

“It wasn't black, Rose,” Leslie protests. “More a silvery gray.”

“It was black.”

They laugh about it; the conversation meanders amiably.

But Rose is merely going through the motions. Because when she glances toward the window at the gray sky, wondering if it might snow after all, she suddenly remembers something.

The footprints in the snow.

The footprints she was convinced belonged to the meter reader.

Now she isn't so sure.

S
aturday nights are the most difficult, David Brookman concludes, staring moodily into his second glass of single malt scotch.

It was on a Saturday night that he met Angela, a Saturday night that he married her, and a Saturday night that he saw her with
him.

He lifts his glass to his lips to sip the amber liquid but swallows too much: a gulp that burns his throat all the way down. He barely notices, focused on a recollection of the anguished moment when his suspicions were confirmed and he saw her coming out of a dive on St. Mark's Place with another man.

Yes, St. Mark's Place, of all places, and she looked every bit the Village bohemian, wearing jeans and sandals, her newly shorn, highlighted hair falling into her eyes as she laughed at something her companion was saying. David's veins were a simmering cauldron as he watched the other man reach out to brush her hair back at her temples. The casual intimacy of the gesture assured him that this was no first-time dalliance.

When he resorted to following her downtown that night, he was hoping against hope that she was meeting a female friend, or, when her cab ventured into the heart of the Village, perhaps one of the men she'd met through her AIDS charity work.

Later, he would try to convince himself that he knew all along what he would find; that it was no shattering surprise. That he never really trusted her from the moment he met her at that party in Quogue, the party to which she had never been invited. She liked to tease him that she was just a Jersey girl there to land a wealthy husband, and voila! David Brookman swept her off her feet, and vice versa.

But the truth was, he did trust her. And it went against everything he had learned, growing up in the dual Brookman households, one on Park Avenue and one on Fifth. He was the product of his mother's first marriage and his father's second. There were half-siblings and step-siblings; men he called “uncle” who eventually became stepfathers, shadowy mistresses who were transformed into stepmothers, but only for a while.

Maybe David should have seen Angela for what she was right from the start.

His parents certainly did. Neither of them liked her. They considered her beneath the Brookmans. They accused him of marrying her simply to spite them.

And maybe, in retrospect, that was true. Maybe Angela was his way of rebelling. After all, he did everything else properly. He wore the clothes they chose for him, he went to the schools they had attended, he socialized with the sons and dated the daughters of their friends . . .

Until Angela.

Maybe he should have been prepared to find her gazing into another man's eyes on St. Mark's Place on that warm May evening.

Maybe he should have confronted her right there on the sidewalk.

But he didn't.

Brookmans don't cause scenes.

In the end, he never came face-to-face with her lover. For all those months that he kept his discovery to himself, he fantasized about finding the guy and beating him to a pulp. But he never did.

Angela ended the affair—or so she claimed—in the weeks before her death. David never knew who he was. It occurred to him, after her funeral, that he might have been there, among the mourners, but at the time, David didn't have the presence of mind to scan the crowd. And anyway, why would he? Angela was gone.

But gradually, when his initial shock subsided, David came to realize that her lover was still out there, still anonymous, perhaps smugly believing that her husband never even knew; perhaps grief-stricken, consumed by his own intimate recollections of David's wife.

Somehow, all of that makes David's grief that much more bitter. He was cheated out of the chance to—

“David? David Brookman?”

He looks up from his scotch to see a complete stranger standing before him, clad in what Angela once referred to as “the uniform.” Saturday night in this dimly lit club on the Upper East Side calls for khaki slacks, a chambray shirt with an open collar, and a navy Brooks Brothers blazer. Only the initials on his jacket's gold monogrammed buttons set David apart from the newcomer.

“I'm sorry . . . have we met?”

“Dennis Carrington. I was a year behind you at MIT.”

“Oh, right. Dennis.” He's drawing a blank. “How are you?”

“Good, good.” The man rests an elbow on the bar and motions for the bartender to come over. David lifts the glass to his lips again.

“Listen, I was sorry to hear about your wife.”

This time, he chokes on the acrid gulp of scotch.

Dennis Carrington looks flustered. “I'm sorry. I didn't mean to upset you. I just—I read about it in the papers when it happened, and . . .”

David nods. Of course. The papers.

The entire world read about the Snow Angel's death in the papers. By the time they finished with her, she was a heroine, an icon, a saint.

“It was wonderful, what you did,” Dennis goes on awkwardly. “After you had her, uh . . .”

“Unplugged?” The word is brittle.

“Look, I didn't mean to—”

“It's okay.” David rises from the bar stool and throws down some bills.

“Why don't you let me buy you a drink?”

“No, thank you. I have to get home. Good night.”

He makes his way through a haze of pipe and cigar tobacco, past countless other scotch-drinking men in their Brooks Brothers blazers with monogrammed buttons. The few women in the mix are wearing silk and pearls, mutely sipping white wine and looking as though they'd rather be anywhere else.

Angela would have hated this place, David thinks, as he tips the coat-check girl, who greets him by name.

She'd have found it incredibly dull. But she wouldn't have admitted it. No, she'd have been here in her silk and pearls, sipping wine and hovering at his elbow, pretending to belong in this crowd, to be one of them.

And all the while, would she have been thinking of
him?
Of the man who brushed her hair back from her eyes? Hair that was all wrong on her, in David's opinion. With her dark brows and olive skin, she looked unnatural as a blonde.

How many times, since that Saturday night on St. Mark's Place, has he wondered if she cut and dyed her hair for her lover?

It was just another unexpected change amidst myriad more subtle ones that last summer and fall. She took to listening to pop music instead of the classical she claimed to enjoy when she met him. She stopped eating red meat; she bought a juicer and concocted strange-colored beverages; she took up Pilates at the gym.

For her March birthday, when he “kidnapped” her one morning and surprised her with an impromptu trip to Barbados on a weekend when he was supposed to be working, she faltered before feigning pleasure. And she excused herself to go to the ladies' room several times at the airport. He followed her and saw her duck into a private corner, dialing her cell phone.

David later realized she was trying to reach
him,
to cancel whatever plans they might have had.

Perhaps it was partly his own fault. If he hadn't spent so much time working; if he had been more attentive, less preoccupied . . .

She might not have fallen in love with somebody else.

But she'd still be dead.

So what, in the end, is the difference?

Either way, he'd still be alone, and miserable on this gloomy Saturday night in February.

The difference, he reminds himself grimly as he steps out onto Third Avenue, turning up his collar against the icy blast, is that she'd still belong to David. Even in death.

Chapter
Five

O
n Sunday
morning, Christine leaves Ben sleeping soundly in the bedroom—and the faucet
dripping steadily in the bathroom tub—and goes out into the freezing rain to
eight-thirty mass at Blessed Trinity church three blocks away. She can't help
feeling guilty as she slips into a back pew. This is just the second time she's
set foot in Blessed Trinity since they moved to town, and she's only here
because she has a selfish prayer.

As the elderly priest drones on in an endless
homily about forgiveness, Christine silently closes her eyes and begs God to
send her a child.

A child will change everything. A child, she is
certain, will bring joy to her lonely days, will transform her increasingly
taciturn husband into a loving family man.

God answered her prayers once before. Last year,
when she discovered the lump in her breast that proved to be a malignant tumor,
she turned in desperation to the religion she relinquished when she married out
of the faith.

Guilty now that the return to her Catholic roots
lasted just long enough for her to receive a clean bill of health, Christine
closes her eyes and promises God that this time, she won't stray. If she is
blessed with motherhood, she'll christen the baby and raise it Catholic. Surely
Ben won't mind. He hasn't set foot in a synagogue since his bar mitzvah.

When Christine opens her eyes, she sees that a
steady stream of parishioners fills the aisle to receive communion. Her gaze
falls on a familiar face.

It's her neighbor, Rose Larrabee. Christine almost
didn't recognize her here, with her dark shoulder-length hair pulled straight
back from her face in a wide clip at the base of her neck. The severe style
renders her features gaunt; her posture exudes a fragile weariness.

Glimpsed from a distance through a windowpane, Rose
has always appeared healthier and younger than she does now. She must be around
Christine's age—perhaps in her early thirties—but she looks like she's been
through hell.

I should be a good neighbor
and ask her if there's anything I can do for her,
Christine decides,
watching Rose disappear behind a pillar on the aisle.

Five minutes later, as the organist plays “Now
Thank We All Our God,” Christine buttons the long cashmere wool dress coat she
hasn't worn since her working days in the city. She steps into the aisle. Her
stomach flutters a bit at the sight of a drowsy infant resting on its mother's
shoulder just in front of her.

Maybe next year at this
time . . .

Please, God.

She smiles at the sleepy-eyed baby, who looks
startled. Uh-oh. The child scrunches his face as though he's about to burst into
tears.

Dismayed, Christine looks away and glimpses Rose
Larrabee a few steps behind her. Her head is bent as she dips her fingers into a
font of holy water and crosses herself.

Christine steps out into the cold February air and
waits until Rose draws nearer. She notes the nubby spots on her neighbor's
beige-colored coat and the faint scuff marks on the unfashionably rounded toes
of her brown boots. Money must be tight in the Larrabee household.

“Rose . . . ?” Christine touches her
arm.

The other woman looks blank for a moment, before
the recognition dawns.

“Oh, hi. Christine, right? You live next door? I
haven't seen much of you since you moved in.”

“I've seen you coming and going with your kids, but
it's been too cold for me to stick my head out and say hello.”

Too cold to stick your head
out? What kind of lame excuse is that?

“Maybe we can go grab a cup of coffee or something
across the street at the diner,” Christine adds hastily. “That is, if you don't
have to run back home to the kids?”

“Actually, they spent the night with my
sister-in-law. She insisted. She thought I needed some time to myself.”

“I'll bet that was nice for you,” Christine tells
her, thinking that she would gladly trade away her own endless solitude. Ben
spent last night complaining about how lousy he was feeling and working in his
upstairs office while she repeatedly surfed the measly few local television
channels in a futile search for something to watch.

Rose shrugs. “It was restful. I dozed off at eight
o'clock watching television and slept straight through till this morning. It was
good to catch up on sleep, but . . .”

“You miss the kids? Let me guess . . .
can't live with 'em, can't live without 'em, right?”

“That's pretty much it.”

The wind gusts off the bay, tinged with the dank
smell of the sea. Christine tucks her hands into her pockets, wishing she had
remembered her gloves. The rain has stopped but the salt air still feels raw and
wet, colder than before.

“So do you want to get some coffee?” she asks Rose,
who looks at her watch, then nods.

“Sure. I have about an hour before Leslie is
supposed to bring the kids back home. I usually don't make it to mass this
early. It's impossible to get out the door with the two of them before noon on a
weekend. Do you usually come alone?”

“I usually don't come at all, but
. . .”

But I'm bargaining with God
again.

“O
kay,
guys, what do you want for breakfast?” Leslie rests her elbows on the laminate
breakfast bar, her chin in her hands, and regards the pint-sized siblings parked
on the pulled-out couch in front of her television set.

Only Leo looks up, and only long enough to suggest,
“Candy?” before refocusing his gaze on Cartoon Network.

“Candy,” Leslie echoes, shaking her head. “I had to
ask.”

She yawns, wondering what Peter is doing. He rarely
sleeps in when he's here, but maybe at home it's different. Maybe he's still in
bed.

She glances at the clock. Hmm. At nine-thirty? No
way.

She reaches for the phone. Maybe he can pick up
some bagels and come over. They left their plans for today up in the air when
they parted last night.

Normally, Peter would sleep here and they would
spend Sunday morning together.

When Leslie returned from her outing yesterday with
Jenna, she found Rose wrestling with a wailing, miserable Leo. It seemed Hitch
had brought him to a movie, pumped him full of candy, and dropped him off before
rushing off to fix somebody's pipe that had sprung a leak—at which point Leo
threw a tantrum and begged to stay with Hitch.

“It's snowing here,”
he
yelled at Rose.
“You said we could go on our
sweds.”

Glancing from her sister-in-law's fatigued
expression to her red-faced nephew to her eye-rolling niece, Leslie
spontaneously said,
“I have an idea. I'll take the kids to
my place for a sleepover.”

Cheers erupted from the kids. Rose tried to
protest, then quickly gave in. Peter wrapped up his work on the shelves for the
evening, and took everyone out for pizza before dropping Leslie and the little
ones at her place.

“Have fun.”
He kissed
her briefly on the cheek.
“I'll miss you.”

“You're not staying?”
she asked, dismayed.

He eyed Jenna and Leo.
“I
don't think that would be right, do you ? I mean . . . we're not
married yet. And anyway, there's no room.”

Now, as the phone rings on the other end of the
line, Leslie finds herself wishing she had insisted that Peter stay anyway. She
isn't accustomed to waking without him beside her, and last night was oddly
lonely despite the children sleeping on either side of her in her queen-sized
bed.

There's no answer at his place. She tries Rose, but
she's not home either. Or maybe she's still sleeping. Leslie hopes she's still
sleeping. She debates paging her sister-in-law, knowing she wears Sam's old
pager every time she leaves the house when the kids aren't with her, but decides
to wait until later.

Instead, she dials Peter's cell phone. He answers
on the third ring, in his truck.

“Are you on your way here, I hope? I can use some
bagels and”—she peers into the fridge. Not much here besides condiments, a stick
of butter, bottled water, and two cartons containing her skim milk and Peter's
coffee creamer—“and some cream cheese. And whole milk, too. Or at least, two
percent.”

“I was going to call and tell you I'd meet you over
at Rose's,” he says. “I have to pick up more nails at Home Depot.”

“Rose isn't home.”

“That's okay. She gave me the spare key
yesterday.”

“Really?” Leslie shuts the fridge. “I already have
a key to her place.”

“I know, but it was when you were gone and she was
on her way out to go grocery shopping. I told her I might run out to the
hardware store and she said she didn't want me to leave the house unlocked.”

“I told you, that anonymous admirer of hers is
freaking her out. And I'd be willing to bet that it's—”

Conscious, suddenly, of the children within
earshot, she clamps her mouth shut. Leo, especially, adores Hitch. He talked
about him all night. It breaks Leslie's heart that her brother's son is so
hungry for a male role model.

“You'd be willing to bet that it's what?” Peter
prods in her ear.

“Nothing. So I'll meet you at Rose's. We'll get
breakfast on the way. Do you want anything?”

“Nah, I ate earlier.”

She smiles. “Earlier? How much earlier?”

“You know me. Around six-thirty.”

“Well, tomorrow morning you'd better plan on
sleeping a little later,” Leslie says. “And don't forget we're going to go look
at cars for me.”

“Les, you're fading. Can you hear me?”

“I can hear you just fine.”

“I'm losing you, babe. I'll see you at Rose's.”

He hangs up.

“Aunt Wes-wee? Got any choco-wat?”

She looks down to see Leo standing there in his
footie pajamas.

“How about if I make you some . . . uh,
chocolate toast?”

His face lights up. “What's that? It sounds good.
Is it good?”

I
have no idea,
she thinks, opening a cabinet. She
pulls out some powdered chocolate drink mix Peter bought, and what's left of a
slightly stale loaf of bread.

“How do you make it?” Leo asks.

She smiles, taking out the sugar bowl as an
afterthought. “It's a secret recipe. Sort of like cinnamon toast.”

“On-wee it's choco-watee.”

“Right. It's chocolatey.”

“Can we call Uncle Hitch and tell him to come over
to have some?”

“Nah, not today,” she says. “But Uncle Peter will
be waiting for us at your house, okay?”

Leo ponders this. “Petah's my uncle, too?”

“Well, not yet. But he's going to be married to me
so he's going to be your uncle very soon. Your real uncle.”

“Gweat! That's one, two uncles.”

“Well, Uncle Hitch isn't really your uncle, Leo. He
was a very good friend of your daddy's when they were little boys.”

“And when they were big men, too.”

She considers this. Hitch more or less vanished
from Laurel Bay for the decade he was in the army. Presumably, Sam kept in touch
with him throughout those years, but he rarely mentioned him to Leslie. Or maybe
he did, and she didn't pay much attention.

Now, she can't help a twinge of resentment as she
considers the fact that Hitch might be interested in replacing her brother in
Rose's life. Sam should be here. Nobody can take his place.

But you don't want Rose to
spend the rest of her life alone.

Of course not. But this just . . . it
feels too soon. And the unsigned valentine, the
chocolates . . .

That's not romantic, and it's not what Rose needs
right now.

“Aunt Wes-wee?”

She looks down at Leo's solemn little face.

“Yes, sweetie?”

“Can you tell me more stowies about my daddy when
he was a witto boy?”

A lump rises in her throat. At bedtime last night,
after she taught them several nursery rhymes she and Sam used to sing when they
were little, she told them Daddy stories in the dark until they fell asleep. Of
course, she embellished a little, and Sam always came off heroically. But that's
what he was to Leslie, and that's what he was to his children. A hero.

“Sure, Leo,” she tells the little boy who looks so
much like his father did at that age. Sandy hair, green eyes, freckles across
the bridge of his nose. He's the picture of Sam. “I'll tell you Daddy stories
while we make the toast.”

“Tell the one about how he saves the puppy who got
caught in the bwambwee bushes by the beach. I wish my daddy was still around in
case Cupid ever gets stuck in bwambwee bushes. Do you think anjos can save dogs?
And people?”

The unexpected question brings tears to her eyes.
“Sure, Sam. Angels can save dogs and people.”

“I'm Weo! Wememb-o? Not Sam. Sam was Daddy.”

She ruffles his hair. “Sorry, kiddo. Of course
you're Leo. Okay, it was a sunny summer day and your daddy and I were at the
beach with Grandma . . .”

“M
ore
coffee, ladies?”

“I'd better not. I should get home,” Rose
regretfully tells Christine, seated across the booth from her.

“None for me either. Just the check,” Christine
tells the waitress, who nods and drifts back behind the counter with her
half-full coffeepot.

Christine Kirkmayer has been a pleasant surprise,
Rose thinks, spreading another bit of concord grape jelly on her last triangle
of toast. She looks up at the pretty, round-faced blonde on the other side of
the table. Christine reminds her of Jenna, somehow, though with her pale
complexion, light blue eyes, wavy hair, and all-around chubbiness, she looks
nothing like her. But she seems to exude a warm, little-girl enthusiasm that
Rose finds especially appealing on this dreary Sunday morning.