The Other Widow (25 page)

Sure,
she texts back.
Eight o'clock?
And he says yes.
Perfect.
Maggie sticks her phone in her bag.
You can do this,
she tells herself.
Hell
.
You made it back from Iraq in one piece, more or less. You can handle a quick drink with a cute guy.

She'll head home early to change clothes and come to work first thing in the morning, try to make a dent in the claims stacked up on her desk. She's spent so much time on the Lindsay death. And then today, at Ian's shop—dawdling, her mother would say
. You were dawdling, Maggie. Dawdling with that boy.

She takes her time getting ready, putting her hair up and then down, changing outfits, changing lipsticks. She looks in the mirror, leans in close, her lips pouted, turns up the radio to cancel out unbidden thoughts that cross her mind.
Those poor boys
.
Those poor boys, dead.

She glances at her watch. She hasn't much time. She's running a little late—all this obsessing on her hair. She turns off the radio, slides into her coat, and triple-locks the front door on her way out.

Hank is already at the diner when Maggie scrunches into the booth across from him.

“Ordering?” He reaches for the menu on the table.

“Naw,” she says. “You go ahead, though. I've got somewhere to go after.”

“Yeah? A date? You really got it goin' on there, girl.”

“Thanks,” she says. “So why'm I here?”

“So Carlos,” Hank says. “He's leaving to be a state trooper in Vermont. Go figure, eh? His wife's family wants her closer, now she's got the baby.”

“They looking to replace him?”

“I'm thinking they might,” Hank says. “And that's just in our district. Word is the whole department's hiring.”

“So when's Carlos leaving?”

Hank shakes his head. “I'm not sure. It's soon, though. That's why I wanted to give you a heads-up. Just in case you've had enough of the insurance business. I know you love your job and all.” He stretches, leans back in the booth, winks.

“Right.” Maggie looks at her watch. “Listen,” she says. “I gotta go, Hank. Thanks for the heads-up.” She grabs her purse and slides out of the booth as Hank turns his attention back to the open menu on the table.

“Hey, Mag,” he says. “You look great. Seriously.”

“Thanks. And thanks again for the—you know—the heads-up.” Maggie straightens her coat. She will definitely put in for Carlos's job. She'll download an application and fill it out when she gets home tonight. She'll keep it to herself. But she will do it.

She starts her car and pulls off the curb to the street. Decides to take a different route. If she's lucky—if she hurries—she could still be on time. She checks her face in the rearview mirror, her pale face, her smoky-lidded eyes, forces a smile. “Yeah,” she says. “You still got it.”

Traffic is bad but she's seen it worse. She shouldn't be more than a few minutes late. She knows the place—been there once or twice. Not recently, but recently enough to know how to get there, where to park. She noses along Boylston and it crosses her mind they should have planned to meet somewhere besides a bar. Coffee instead of beer. Or, no. Not coffee. Tea. Hot chocolate. She smiles. Right. She's just pulling alongside Starbucks when she sees her. The clothes are weird. Still, there's something in the way she stands, the way she moves toward the window, the way she peeks inside. It looks like—
Dorrie?
What the hell is she doing, slinking around, peeking inside windows?

She laughs. Dorrie. How did she ever pull off having an affair? And with her
boss,
no less? Maggie feels herself relax a little. Some thin, taut string that runs along her bones begins to give. She starts to speed up as the traffic moves ahead, and then she sees him. Him or her. A figure. She sees someone so covered up by clothing, she has no idea what the person looks like. It's a weird match to Dorrie, with the heavy puffy coat, the knit hat covering half the face. Whoever it is stands behind Dorrie, just at the edge of the sidewalk, clearly watching her. Stalking her.

Maggie's passed them now. She's driven too far forward.

“Dorrie!” she yells, and the figure bolts suddenly to the left. “Dorrie!” she yells again, and Dorrie turns, finally, squints into the street as the figure moves back up the sidewalk, farther out of reach, and there is nothing Maggie can do—no place to pull against the curb, no place to even stop, except for just that second. “Hurry!” She beckons Dorrie to her car and unlocks the passenger-side door. “Get in! Quick!”

XXX

DORRIE

D
orrie climbs into Brennan's old Land Rover and fastens her seat belt. Riding in cars with virtual strangers is not her favorite thing to do, especially since the accident, when getting in the car with anyone makes her grit her teeth and look around for trees.

“Why am I here?”

“Good question,” Brennan says, with her usual dry humor. She looks different, though, really pretty.

“Awesome outfit,” Dorrie says.

“Thanks.” Brennan thumbs a quick text to someone while they're still stuck in the middle of Boylston Street. “So what were you doing back there?”

“Oh.” Dorrie glances out the window. “I was meeting a friend,” she says. “It wasn't definite, though. She wasn't sure she could make it. Babysitter problems. You know how that is.”

“No,” Brennan says. “Not really.”

Dorrie takes off her hat, runs her hands across her hair. “Anyway, I was just checking. If she wasn't in there, I thought I'd head on home.”

“So instead of just calling her, you made a trip all the way back to town to see if your friend was in Starbucks?”

Dorrie forces a jolly little laugh. Waves her arm in the air. Bracelets clang in the cold car. Audrey Hepburn in
Breakfast at Tiffany's
. “No. Of course not. No,” she says, and she is both thrilled and disgusted that she's learned to lie so easily. “I was in town anyway. It was a tentative coffee. How about you? What are we—um—doing?”

“There was somebody following you. Puffy sort of coat. Jacket, maybe. I couldn't see the face.”

“Oh,” Dorrie says. “Shit. Where?”

“Behind you. And to the left.”

“In a car or—”

Brennan shakes her head. “On foot.”

“Well. Wow. Thanks, Brennan. Lucky you were here,” Dorrie says. “Wait. Why
are
you here?”

“Actually,” Brennan says, but she doesn't say anything else. Her cheeks are flushed.

“Ohhh. A guy?”

“I have a date.”

“Well, what are you waiting for?” Dorrie says. “Go!” She unstraps her seat belt, but the car is moving, so she fastens it again and sits back.

“I can't just leave you,” Brennan says. “Whoever was in that lame outfit was clearly stalking you. And speaking of lame outfits, what the hell are you
wearing
?”

“What?
This
old thing? Dorrie laughs. “Sometimes we leave extra coats at work. That's why Jeananne was wearing that stupid—” She lets her voice trail off, tries to hide her feet, those awful cowboy boots. “Really, Brennan. Go. Meet your friend!”

“Can't do that. You could be in danger. I told you.”

“I'll be careful. Promise. In fact, I'll let you drop me at the train,” she says and Brennan's car slows to turn toward the Back Bay station.

“This one work?”

“Perfect.” Dorrie leans against the heavy door. It's like a tank, Brennan's car. A fortress. Maybe she should buy a used Land Rover, give her car to Samuel. “Enjoy your date,” she says over her shoulder. “And, Brennan. Really. Thank you.”

“Keep an eye out,” Brennan says, “while you're in the station,” and Dorrie nods. She isn't sure exactly what to keep an eye out
for
—whoever was behind her could have ditched the puffy coat. Still, she scans the street, the sidewalks, the nearby storefronts before she heads inside. The train is just pulling in and Dorrie slides into a crowded car, stuffed with bodies that hide her own.

The lights flicker on and off, the car lurches to the side and then back too far the other way before it straightens itself out, rumbles down the track. She reaches up to take off Samuel's old black hat but she decides to leave it on—no reason not to. Around her, people read, swaying against the straps, grabbing for poles when the train lurches suddenly around a corner. No one stands out. She looks at her reflection in the window across the aisle and thinks that in her current outfit she might pass for a man. She hopes so. A very short man, but that happens. Most likely, whoever was behind her couldn't know for certain who she was, although Brennan recognized her right away. But Brennan knows her. And, anyway, Brennan was a cop. In fact, she seems to still be one, at least to think like one, and Dorrie wonders why she ever left the force.

Her mind wanders to the other night, to making love with Samuel. It was like old times, she thinks, almost like, and she remembers all those years ago, their tiny room downtown, the fifth-floor walk-up, making love as dinner burned to ashes on the stove. They can't go back—she knows they can't. She knows it in her mind, but in her heart she wonders sometimes, hopes sometimes.

It's freezing on the street outside the station, and Dorrie hurries along in the mud-colored boots she found buried among other old discarded shoes in the hall closet. She walks as fast as they allow, these clumpy, webby things that pinch her toes.

She fumbles with the key in the front lock and then the new dead bolt that Samuel's just installed, huffs on her fingers, numb and clumsy. She really has to buy some gloves—and she's unpleasantly reminded of the lone black one in the garage. She shakes her head. She'll think about that later, get that sorted out. There has to be an explanation.

“I'm back!” she yells from the doorway, the tiny room they call a foyer, with a coatrack and a square of floor. She crumples up the overcoat and ditches the old boots in the back of the closet, spots the girls in the living room. The TV blares. Finally Lily looks up. Mia waves.

“That was quick.” A commercial chirps on and Lily gets up to forage through the kitchen, comes back to the living room with an aging box of chocolate chip cookies from Whole Foods. “How'd it go?”

Dorrie shrugs. “Those cookies might be stale,” she points out, but Lily rolls her eyes.

“How would we even know?” she says. “They're so fortified.” Mia giggles. Dorrie looks around.

“Where's your dad?”

“He went out, too. He left right after you did.”

Dorrie walks over to the window and glances at the driveway. “Huh,” she says. “I didn't even notice his car was gone. Did he say where he was going?”

“Yeah.” Lily's back in front of the TV. “A meeting, he said.”

Dorrie looks at her watch. If he left right after she did, Samuel must have gone to an eight o'clock meeting, which means it would let out at nine. Say fifteen minutes to shoot the breeze with people afterward and then another fifteen minutes to get home. He won't be back until nine thirty at the earliest. She'll wait for him, she thinks. She'll make some decaf, put some stale cookies on a plate. Or, no. Forget the cookies.

So what's he doing pulling up in the driveway now, at five minutes to nine?

She meets him in the foyer and catches him before he reaches the hall closet. She watches him take off his coat, shaking off the bits of snow before he hangs it up and shuts the closet door.

“No hat?” Dorrie stands in front of him. Samuel looks away.

“Hi, girls,” he calls. He looks back at his wife, standing with her arms folded over her chest, blocking his path to the living room. “Hat?” He looks confused. “What hat?”

“It's cold,” Dorrie says. “It's freezing. Why don't you have a hat?”

Samuel doesn't answer at first. He looks over her shoulder at the TV as if he's watching
Dancing with the Stars.
“Well, Dorrie,” he says, “I didn't wear one. But thanks for your concern.”

“And why are you home?”

“I happen to
live
—”

“
Now,
I mean. So early.”

“Why are
you
home so early?”

“I finished with the rehearsal.”

“And I finished with my meeting,” Samuel says. “So what's your point?”

“AA meetings last more than half an hour,” Dorrie says.

“Not if only two members show up and say everything they have to say in twenty minutes,” Samuel mumbles, and he nudges his way past her to the kitchen.

XXXI

MAGGIE

M
aggie parks and turns on the inside light so she can fix her hair in the rearview mirror. She feels calmer. The escapade with Dorrie made her almost forget about her first-date jitters. She bends forward, repairs her lipstick, glances at the text from Lucas.
I'm here.

Client rescue
, she texts Lucas back.
Be there ASAP.

What was Dorrie really doing? Her story about the friend was obviously a lie. A bad one at that. Dorrie seems to be covering up all sorts of things, and, really, Maggie can totally see why she'd want to keep her affair with her boss hidden, the fact that she was with him when he died. Adultery is a tricky thing. Innocent people often get hurt—people on the outskirts, like Dorrie's husband, and—a daughter, Maggie thinks she said. And Karen, of course, although she's probably known for some time about her husband's affair, even if she didn't know exactly who the woman was. Wives always know these things, Maggie thinks, wives and girlfriends. They pick up on subtle differences—a new haircut, a new shirt, a sudden interest in fitness. And then there are the far less subtle things—perfume, or soap, shampoo—something that the husband might not think about or even realize was there. But his wife would.