The Smart One (25 page)

“This is what God could have done if He’d had money.”

That’s what the famous wit George S. Kaufman had said to wealthy playwright Moss Hart when he beheld the exotic trees, lush plants, and colorful flowers of his collaborator’s exquisitely landscaped property. He could just as well have said it about Clare’s backyard, where the late afternoon sun cast long shadows across the designer stonework patio and onto the carefully manicured lawn, so verdant it was practically teal.

As if that weren’t enough, the weather predictions for that afternoon had been right. By the time I found myself on Clare’s property for the barbecue, the sky was a rich shade of late-day blue, the air temperature was Martha Stewart perfect, and the sun was welcoming the impending dusk with bright joy. If you listened carefully, you could practically hear it singing that “Wonderful World” song Louis Armstrong made famous. Oh, yeah.

When I arrived carrying the two ten-pound bags of ice Clare had requested and heard a sparrow in the dogwood tree joining in the festivities by singing its tiny little heart out, it was almost more than I could bear.

“Can’t you do anything about that damned bird?” I said as I thrust the bags at Clare.

“You’re in a lovely mood.”

Her sarcasm was warranted. My mood was foul. I hadn’t had a moment’s peace since I ran from the restaurant in shame.

“Pour yourself a glass of wine,” Clare said, pointing to a shaded section of the yard where a self-serve bar had been set up on a piece of wrought-iron furniture specifically designed for the function.

“Don’t you need some help?” I asked. “You look so busy.”

“My guests aren’t permitted to help, you know that. Besides, Marta is back from South America.”

“Central
America,” I blurted.

Clare rolled her eyes. “Maybe you should have two glasses of wine,” she said, and went into the house.

A chilled bottle of Chablis stood sweating on the bar, and I poured myself a large glass before approaching Clare’s husband, who smiled from behind a stainless-steel barbecue grill that was roughly the same size as my old apartment. At the far end of the yard, the children were running around, involved in some complicated game with a large orange disk that kept getting stuck in the trees. Most of the adults were either seated around the yet-to-be-lit fire pit or at a large table in the middle of the patio.

I peered over Marc’s shoulder. On one section of the grill there was a row of chicken cutlets with perfect diagonal char lines. On the other side there were several fat burgers, two of which had large dollops of blue cheese melting down their sides. I started to salivate. The greasy meat patties taunted me, daring me to choose one of them over the prim white chicken breasts. It would, I knew, be stupid to go for the burger just because I was depressed. I never had Clare’s hippy
proportions, but I wasn’t immune to gaining belly fat, and this was the just the kind of food that would settle into my gut and make me feel even worse.
Chicken
, I thought, go for the chicken.

“Jade is looking for you,” Marc said.

“Jade?”

“Said she has a hilarious story she wants to tell you.”

I grabbed a paper plate and held it out. “Let me have one of those blue cheese burgers.”

Balancing the meaty sandwich on my plate, I made a beeline for the buffet table where the condiments were situated and squirted an obscene amount of ketchup on my burger. I could have sat down at the table to eat like a civilized person, but I wanted to enjoy my feast in animalistic solitude. I took an enormous, ravenous bite. Ketchup, hamburger juice, and melted blue cheese oozed out of the bun and onto my hands. I was in pig heaven, and in the midst of licking the decadent liquid mess off my right wrist when Jade approached.

“There you are!” she said, way louder than she needed to.

I put the plate down and sucked my fingertips. “Hi, Jade.” She wore a diaphanous sundress, patterned in swirls of swimming-pool blues and aquas, over a clingy white slip. It looked perfectly tailored to her perfect body, and I imagined it cost more than my last vacation.

“Is your friend Leo coming?” she asked, smoothing the fabric over her hips.

“Meeting me here in a little while.”

“I have a hilarious story I wanted to tell the two of you.”

I didn’t want to hear her hilarious story. I wanted to go back to eating my burger alone. “We’ll come find you when he gets here—”

“You know what? I’ll just tell you now. What the hell, right? Life is short.”

I glanced around. Was there no one who could save me? I picked up my burger and took another bite.

“Okay, so I stopped at Blackwell’s on the way here, today,” she began. “You know Blackwell’s, right?”

My mouth was full, so I just shook my head.

“You never heard of Blackwells? Oh, Bev, it’s the best bakery on the North Shore. Very expensive. Very, very. But you get what you pay for, right? Anyway, they have the
tiniest
parking lot and my car is
huge
. It’s a Hummer.”

“Naturally,” I said, not surprised that Jade drove the biggest, showiest, most obnoxious, gas-guzzling, socially irresponsible car on the planet.

“It’s out of this
world
,” she said. “I know it’s not everyone’s cup of tea, but what can you do?” She grabbed my arm for emphasis, which made me want to growl; she was awfully close to my food.

“So anyway,” she continued, “I stopped at Blackwell’s to get these darling little French pastries they have because I
knew
Clare would love them. I mean,
I
don’t eat pastries, but they’re
so
pretty.” She looked at my burger and I thought I saw saliva pooling beneath her lip. I angled my body away, trying as hard as I could to be subtle about it.

“Anyways, I’m trying to leave the parking lot and this blonde in a Hummer that’s the same model as mine—only hers is bright yellow, which looked
ridiculous
with her hair—was driving down this narrow lane in the opposite direction. She wanted the spot I was passing but I couldn’t move because she was in my way. So she signals me to back up and I’m like, no,
you
back up. And she’s like, no,
you
back up. So I fold my arms because I’m like, I’ve got all day, sweetheart. So get this. She picks up a
book
to show me that
she’s
got all day, and she starts reading it right there in her front seat in the middle of the lot!”

“Gee,” I said, and took another bite of my burger, hoping her story would be over soon.

“I wish I had a book with me too, because it would have been so cool if I had started reading. But I had my cell phone, at least, so I held it up to show her, and then I called my sister and just started yakking and laughing and telling her how stupid the woman’s hair looked with her yellow Hummer. Finally, she starts to inch forward and I’m like, where the hell is she going? She gets closer and closer to me like she’s going to literally
push
my Hummer out of the way to get into the spot!”

I swallowed. “Where’s Norman Schwarzkopf when you need him, right?”

“What?”

“General Schwarzkopf? Desert Storm?” Nothing registered. “I just meant it was like two tanks having a skirmish.”

Jade clapped in delight. “Skirmish! What a great word. Yes, that’s exactly what it was—a skirmish.”

“So what did you do?” I asked.

“I backed up. What else could I do?
She
might not care if her car got dented, but
I
sure as hell don’t want to have to drive around in a scratched-up Hummer. I have my pride.”

“You didn’t need a general after all,” I said. “You knew exactly when to retreat.”

“Retreat? Oh, I don’t consider it a retreat.
She
was the one who was willing to dent her car.
I
behaved like a civilized person. As far as I’m concerned, I won, she lost.”

“You don’t think she’s saying the same thing to
her
friends right now?”

Jade waved away my comment with a flick of her wrist. “You think too much.”

Someone’s got to pick up the slack
, I thought, and shoved the rest of my blue cheese burger into my mouth, not realizing
that it was just a bit too much to handle in one bite. I covered my mouth with my hand as I struggled to chew.

Fortunately, Jade was looking right past me. Suddenly, her eyes came to life. “He’s
here
!”

“Woo weer?”
I said.

“Leo!”

“Weo?”
I picked up a napkin and wiped my hands and face. I had chosen this barbecue as the perfect opportunity to let Clare know about me and Leo so she would move on and forget about the idea of having an affair with him. I wanted to go to him immediately. “Excuse me,” I said to Jade.

“I’ll let you two have some alone time,” she whispered. “But don’t forget to share, okay?” She wagged her finger at me. “He’s not a cheeseburger!” She squealed with laughter and walked away.

I greeted Leo with a kiss and linked arms with him, promenading around the yard as I told him about the conversation with Jade. The whole time, I kept my eye out for Clare, hoping she witnessed the intimacy. At last I saw her in the far corner by the hydrangeas, chatting with one of her guests. She was too deep in conversation to see us, so I brought Leo over to say hello.

At the sight of us, she looked stricken. But she recovered quickly and gave Leo a peck on the cheek.

“How nice to see you,” she said to him.

“I hope you don’t mind that I invited him,” I said.

Clare forced a smile. “Of course not. Have you met my friend Harlan? He’s the one who teaches my Modern American Lit class.”

We made small talk for a few minutes, and then Leo and I excused ourselves. As we walked away, Clare called out as if something just occurred to her. “Oh, Leo! There’s some
thing I want to chat with you about later, when you have the chance.”

“Sure,” he said, trying to act casual. But their eyes met in a way that told me he knew exactly what she wanted to discuss.

I was glad to see that Clare had invited Teddy and Alicia Goodwin, and after Leo went to the buffet table and piled a plate high with two pieces of barbecued chicken, one cheeseburger, one scoop each of macaroni salad and coleslaw, some grilled vegetables, a shrimp skewer, and an ear of corn, we took a seat at the table with them.

I asked the Goodwins if they’d made any progress toward getting an engineer into the Waxman house for an evaluation, and they told me the appointment was set. I imagined that if all went well, they’d be bidding on the house before too long.

Somehow, they had managed to hear back from Renee despite my phone conversation with Sam having gotten me exactly nowhere. It didn’t even get me any closer to seeing Lydia’s handwriting. Sam was either confused about that supposed combination lock or intentionally sending me on a wild goose chase. After dropping me at the train station, Leo had headed over to the storage facility by himself. Alas, he reported that the door had a padlock requiring a key. We were no closer to finding that shoebox than we ever were.

“I hope the house works out for you,” I said to the Goodwins.

Teddy told me he had even more good news, but when I asked what it was, he was cagey, and said he’d be making an announcement later.

As dusk moved in, the air began to cool, and I wondered why Joey hadn’t arrived. I didn’t want to spoil the party by getting Clare nervous, so I kept my mouth shut about it. Meanwhile, Marc got the blaze started in the fire pit, and the children gathered round. He showed them how to thread marshmallows onto sticks and toast them, while Clare brought out a tray of chocolate bars and graham crackers to they could make s’mores.

I thought I heard Joey’s voice and turned to see her entering the backyard. She was holding the hand of a man who had his back to me as he shut the gate behind them. He didn’t have to turn around for me to know who it was.

Kenny.

Of course. It made perfect sense that he would run into her arms after I had hurt him and then rubbed salt in the wound by humiliating him in front of David Letterman. Still, seeing them together was as excruciating as that day in high school when I swung open the door of her bedroom to see if she had taken my nail polish remover again, only to discover the two of them naked on top of her lime bedspread. This time, though, I deserved it.

“You okay, dear?” Alicia Goodwin asked me. “You look pale.”

“I’ll be right back,” I said, and slipped into the house.

Inside, I stood in a dark corner of the den by the back door and watched as Joey and Kenny made their way over to the table, where Alicia and Teddy greeted them. They laughed and chatted for a few moments, and I held my breath waiting to see if Kenny put his arm around Joey…or if she grabbed for his ass.

Before that could happen, Clare approached them and lis
tened intently to something Teddy had to say. Then she nodded and called out to the whole party, “Can I have everyone’s attention? Our friend Teddy Goodwin has an announcement he’d like to share with everyone.”

The crowd turned from all corners of the yard to face Teddy as he climbed on top of a low wooden table behind the fire pit. Kenny and Joey moved in closer. Teddy began to speak.

“As many of you know, I’ve been writing songs for years without any success, despite my connections in the music business. But now, thanks to the help of my golden-voiced friend here,” he paused and pointed to my little sister, “that’s about to change. Joey was kind enough to record a song I wrote several years ago called ‘Craving You.’ I had the opportunity to play the recording for the A and R guy at Ingenuity Records and I’m happy to say that he wants to buy it!”

The crowd broke into applause, while several people called out their congratulations. Alicia smiled and beamed.

“Wait,” Teddy said, trying to get the group to settle down. “There’s more.”

“Tell!” Joey shouted.

“Well, it has to do with you,” Teddy said to her. “The guy was blown away by your voice. He said you’re twice the singer you were back when you recorded ‘Tiger Attack,’ and he wants to sign you. Joey, it’s your chance for a comeback, with a major label behind you.”

Teddy grinned, expecting a huge reaction, and all heads turned toward Joey. Despite the misgivings she had expressed over re-launching her career, I thought for sure this news would exhilarate her. This was huge, practically a guarantee that she would be a rock star again.

I couldn’t see Joey’s face, but her body language said it all. She was, quite literally, unmoved.

“Well, Joey?” Teddy said. “What do you think?”

She shrugged. “Thanks anyway.”

“What?”

“Not interested.” Joey leaned down, picked up a stick, and threaded a marshmallow onto it.

“Why not?” Teddy was incredulous.

“I have other plans.” She moved closer to the flames and held her marshmallow over it.

Kenny folded his arms, and I got the impression he knew all about her other plans. It gave me a very bad feeling.

“What other plans?” Teddy said. “You mean with another label?”

Joey twirled her stick over the fire and pulled it out. The marshmallow was ablaze and she blew on it. “I love it when they’re burnt like this.”

Kenny approached and put his hand on her shoulder, then whispered something to her and she laughed. I think I could have handled just about any other reaction. But seeing them share a private joke was more intimate than I could bear, and I turned away. It was time for me to leave.

Upset as I was, I didn’t want to leave without giving Dylan his birthday present. I hadn’t seen him in the backyard during Teddy’s speech, so I looked around the house for him. As I was climbing back up the basement steps, two boys ran into the kitchen to get another bag of marshmallows, and I asked them if they’d seen him.

“I think he took off on his bike,” one of them said.

“His bike?”

He shrugged, and the two of them dashed through the door into the backyard.

I went out the front of the house, and sure enough the door to the garage was wide open and Dylan’s bicycle was missing. What was that kid doing riding around by himself at night? I trotted to the end of the driveway and looked in both direc
tions. No Dylan. I didn’t want to panic, but this wasn’t good. I jumped in my car to look for him.

I drove around the block, and then the next block and the next. I looped back and started the same thing in the other direction. Worst-case scenarios were nudging their way into my consciousness, and I knew that if I didn’t find him very soon I’d have to alert Clare and Marc.

At last I thought I saw something in the distance. A boy sat on a curb, his bike lying in the street in front of him. His face was in his hands.

“Dyl?” I said, as I slammed my car door.

He tilted his head just enough to see that it was me.

“You all right?” I said when I got closer.

He shook his head without looking up. I sat down next to him and put my hand on his back. I could feel the ridges of his spine through his T-shirt. He’d been such a fat baby, with no neck and sumo thighs, that the transformation was dramatic. At two he was still a bit of a dumpling. By three he was so lean Clare had trouble finding pants that would stay up. Now, on his eleventh birthday, he was starting to add sinew to his bony frame, and it made me realize how fleeting these days were. Another summer or two and he wouldn’t even think of himself as a kid anymore.

“Did you get hurt?” I asked.

He nodded.

“You fell off your bike?”

He nodded again.

“Let me see.”

He lifted his head, and in the dim light I could see that he had cut his chin. I picked up his hands and turned them over. He had scraped his palms where he had caught himself falling. The worst, though, was a cut on the side of his knee, which bled profusely.

I took off my terrycloth sweater and used it to wipe the blood from his leg. Then I used it to make a tourniquet.

“That might need stitches,” I said. “Let’s get you home and cleaned up and we’ll have a better idea.”

“I’m not going home,” he said.

“Why not?”

He folded his arms on his knees and put his head down. He sniffled.

“Did you have a fight with one of your friends?”

He shook his head.

“You can tell me,” I said.

“I can’t.”

“Okay,” I said, “but I have to wash your cuts so you don’t get an infection. C’mon.” I gently pulled on his arm to get him to stand, and he let me lead him to the car. I threaded his bike into my trunk, which I had to leave wide open as I drove slowly back to the house.

He didn’t want to see anyone, so I surreptitiously steered him to the upstairs bathroom, where I washed out his wounds. I gave him a clean washcloth and told him to press it hard against the cut on his leg.

“If we can’t get it to stop bleeding you’re going to have to go to the hospital. It should probably get stitched anyway or you’ll have a nasty scar.”

He sat on the closed toilet lid and applied pressure to his leg. “I don’t care,” he said.

Voices from the backyard carried upstairs and through the window. I heard Marc calling his name.

“Dylan, please tell me what happened. You’ll feel so much better.”

He looked away, trying not to cry. My heart broke in half.

“They’re probably going to have cake soon,” I said.

He shrugged.

“I hope it’s chocolate,” I said.

“It is.”

“Your mom let you see it?”

A dark mist passed over his face. His jaw clamped shut.

“Dylan?”

His face contorted into a grimace. I reached over and touched his hand. He whispered something I couldn’t hear.

“What?”

“She
kissed
that guy.”

“Your mom?”

“Ethan said he was faster than me, so we raced around the house and I saw them—on the side by the big tree. It was dark, but I saw.” He took the washcloth off his knee. “I think it stopped bleeding.”

I dabbed at the wound, which was starting to clot. “Dylan,” I said, as I put antibiotic ointment on the cut and covered it with a large bandage, my hands shaking, “who did she kiss?”

He stood. “My dad is calling me.”

I thought about pressing him for an answer, but didn’t want to exacerbate his trauma. “Go on,” I said, messing his hair.

I stayed in the bathroom for a few minutes, then went down the stairs thinking about what I might have to do to shake some sense into my knuckleheaded sister. Before reaching the landing, I heard voices coming from the den. I stopped and listened. I couldn’t make out the dialogue, but one voice was a man’s, and the other was Clare’s.

I held my breath and walked as quietly as I could so I would surprise them. As I approached, I saw that the room was mostly dark, but there was no doubt who the two figures were—Clare and Leo. She was in the middle of taking her shirt off, pulling it up over her head.

“Clare!” I screamed.

She yanked the shirt away from her face and looked at me. “Bev?”

“What are you doing!” I tried to lower my voice and gain some control, but my heart was beating madly.

“Nothing.”

“Nothing?”

She looked at Leo. “Should we tell her?”

“May as well,” he said.

I felt a surge of adrenaline that made me want to strangle someone, but I couldn’t decide whose throat to lunge for. What on earth was wrong with these two? How could they be so casual about this?

“Leo got me a position with Goode Earth Habitats,” Clare said.

“What?”

“He told me they’re starting to build some homes in the Bronx and could use volunteers.”

“Volunteers?”

“They need people with her design skills,” Leo said.

“Isn’t it great, Bev?” she said. “It’s chance for me to be useful. I’ll be designing homes on a budget, helping underprivileged families. I’m so excited!”

Clare shook out the green T-shirt she had just taken off and turned it right side out. She held it up to show me the organization’s logo. I realized that she still wore her black halter top. She had simply been trying the T-shirt on over it.

I rubbed on my forehead. “Listen, I’m not a fool, and I’m not falling for this.”

“What are you talking about?” Leo asked.

“Dylan saw you two! He saw you kissing on the side of the house!”

Clare’s face went white.

“Kissing?” Leo said. “I never kissed Clare.”

“Liar!” I think there may have been froth forming at the corners of my mouth.

Leo looked at Clare. “What is she talking about?”

My sister put her face in her hands.

I glared at Leo. “Don’t play dumb.”

“It wasn’t him,” Clare said.

I studied Leo’s face, but couldn’t detect a single molecule of deceit.

“Then who did you kiss?” I asked Clare.

She fell into a chair and started to sob.

“Who!” I demanded.

She took an audible breath. “Hammerman!”

“But Leo
is
Hammerman.”

“Who’s Hammerman?” said Leo.

I looked at Clare and then back at Leo. His expression remained guileless. “
Uh…
I’m beginning to wonder that myself,” I said.

“Harlan,” Clare said. “Harlan Hammerman. My lit professor. He’s an old friend—we went to college together.”

“Harlan? That guy you introduced me to?”

Leo put his hand on my shoulder. “I think I’d better go,” he said, and dashed from the room like it was on fire.

I sat down across from Clare, reeling. “I thought it was Leo. I slept with him to…oh, God.”

“You don’t have to worry, Bev. It’s over. After we kissed he said he couldn’t, he wouldn’t. He left. I’ll probably never see him again.” Tears spilled down her cheeks. “My heart is broken.”

Was she kidding? Dylan caught her in the act and she was concerned with her
own
heart?

“Wake up,” I said. “Your
kid
is broken. What’s more important?”

She took a jagged breath and covered her mouth, as if
she was just taking in the enormity of her mistake. “I really screwed up.”

“You really did.”

“Dylan,” she said, her eyes registering fear. “My baby!”