Looking for Laura, page 30
“I should think so. If he was young enough to need a baby-sitter he was too young to be a daddy.”
“No, I mean he told Helen before I was born. Helen said he used to visit her and her husband when he moved here. She said Daddy was like an extra son or something, and she thought he was so nice. And I look just like him.”
“You do look a lot like him,” Sally agreed. “Did he keep visiting Helen after you were born?”
“No, ’cuz then Daddy had me. And you.”
Sally bet he was happier about the former than the latter. He had loved Rosie. And God knew, Sally had tried to be a good wife for him. She’d tried to make him happy.
Another wave of guilt washed over her. She was weary of worrying about what had gone wrong in her marriage, where she’d failed, where Paul had failed, how unfairly the happiness had been distributed between them. The hell with Laura. The hell with the knife. Life went on.
“You’re turning into a prune,” she warned Rosie as she lifted the drain plug. In less than a half hour, Rosie would be in her pajamas, under her blanket, protected by her dream catcher as she sank into sleep. And then Sally could join Todd, and cuddle up to him on the couch, and fight with him over the remote control for a while. And then they could tiptoe upstairs and close themselves up inside her bedroom and make love.
That was more important than missing knives and mystery girlfriends. Life went on, and Sally was ready to go on with it. She was ready to forget about what had gone wrong and focus on what was going right.
She didn’t feel fragile anymore. She didn’t feel like pouting and looking ugly. A few important things were going very right in her life. What had gone wrong was history, over and done with. Maybe it just didn’t matter anymore.
Nineteen
“I have to show you something,” Tina said.
A week ago, Sally might have greeted this statement with heart-thumping dread. But she wasn’t who she’d been a week ago. She’d shed her bitterness and anger like a cicada molting its shell and had emerged…well, a happier cicada.
Maybe sex in and of itself was therapeutic, but she happened to think love might also have something to do with her transformation. She ought to have been petrified about falling in love—with Todd Sloane, of all people—but she wasn’t. She was careful enough not to use the I word around him, but she was willing to use it around herself.
God, he was incredible. Whether he was on top or underneath, kneeling on the floor with her pulled to the edge of the bed so he could make her come with his mouth or standing while she was perched on her dresser, her legs tight around his waist…If Sally were the type of woman given to blushing, she’d be as red as a stop sign just thinking about the hours she and Todd had spent alone together.
But it wasn’t just sex. She was in love, and life was good. Behind the rain clouds drooping low in the sky and leaking onto Main Street, the sun was shining. She had enough joy in her life to forget about her pocketknife.
She also had enough joy in her life to smile at Tina and say, “What do you have to show me?”
Tina scanned the tables. They were occupied by the usual assortment of customers: Officer Bronowski gnawing uncharacteristically on a bagel, the writer in black drugging himself with espresso, a couple of kaffeeklatschers perking up their morning with date-nut bread and cappuccino. No one seemed in drastic need of attention, so when Tina motioned with her head toward the kitchen, Sally nodded and followed her down the counter.
Tina’s expression was eerily radiant. Sally should have taken that as an omen, but she was in such a buoyant mood she didn’t want to brace herself for the worst, not even when Tina hoisted up her Winfield College T-shirt, stretched down the cup of her bra and displayed her tattooed breast.
It said EDWARD.
Sally grimaced. “What did you do?”
“It was easy,” Tina bragged. “I used some foundation to cover the line in the H, and then I added the other lines with a pen. It was real easy to turn the O into a D.”
“But…EDWARD?”
“Well, everybody calls him Eddie, but you can’t change Howard into Eddie so easily.”
Eddie? Pawing through her muddled memory of the past weekend, she recalled Tina babbling to her about some cute staff guy from the Valley News. “Is Eddie that newspaper person?”
Tina issued an infatuated sigh. “We went to this club Saturday night…”
“You didn’t drink, did you?”
“Sally.” Tina rolled her eyes.
“You’re underage. And when you go out drinking you could wind up pregnant.” It had happened to her, even though she hadn’t been drunk the night she’d conceived Rosie. Or any other night she’d gone out with Paul. But the underlying lesson was important. She’d imbibed wine with him when she was only twenty, and she’d gotten knocked up.
“Well, I’m not pregnant. I didn’t even take off my shirt. I wouldn’t until I was sure I could get rid of the HO. It looks good, doesn’t it?” She modeled her breast, turning from side to side in the overhead light. “I’ve got to be sure the foundation won’t come off if he kisses me. Or the ink. I mean, it would be really gross if he wound up with black lips and my breast smudged back into Howard.”
“It would indeed.”
“But we’re not up to that yet. I was just trying this out to see. I mean, my life isn’t over, Sally. Even if Howard goes to Dartmouth, my life isn’t over.”
Not as long as she had a supply of Edwards she could date. Getting rid of the HO might be easier than finding more Edwards.
“Hello?” A familiar voice rolled toward them with the force of a sonic boom.
Sally hurried out of the kitchen to discover Helen hovering at the counter. Unlike the last time Sally had seen her—at her house Saturday afternoon—today she was groomed down to the last precise strand of hair, her outfit stodgy but impeccable and her jewelry tasteful to the point of banality. She looked like a model in a Gould’s Department Store circular.
Had Todd told his mother that he and Sally were involved? She doubted it. The whole thing was too new, too embryonic. Surely that wasn’t the reason Helen had come to the café.
“Hey, Helen,” Tina said, grinning sheepishly and turning to Sally. “Helen brought Rosie here Saturday morning. Greta had made blueberry scones, so your daughter made a pig of herself.”
“Blueberry scones are her favorite,” Sally said, then smiled at Helen. “Don’t tell me you love this place so much you can’t stay away on your days off.”
“I’m not here to work,” Helen said. “I’m here for coffee. Actually, a bunch of coffees. See what they’ve turned me into at the newspaper? I’m an errand girl.”
Sally laughed. “How many coffees?”
“Let me see…” She pulled a square of paper out of the pocket of her blazer and held it at arm’s length, squinting to read what it said. “Todd wants a jumbo of ‘normal coffee.’ I think that means nothing flavored. Gloria wants a small decaf, light, with sugar. Eddie wants—”
“Eddie?” Tina’s eyes flickered to brightness like a fluorescent lamp.
“Eddie Lesher. I understand he stopped by here on my recommendation—and now he’s hooked.”
“He’s hooked?” Tina’s eyes flickered again. “How come he didn’t come in to get his own coffee?”
“He’s on assignment this morning. Covering a long-range planning committee meeting on traffic tie-ups at Main and East. All right, he’d like—”
“On assignment.” Tina gave another swooning sigh. “That sounds so cool. I’ll get his coffee.”
“I didn’t tell you what he wanted yet.”
“That’s okay. I know.” Tina plucked a large to-go cup from the stack and carried it to the coffee urns, eager to fulfill the order for her new, conveniently named darling.
“She’s in love,” Helen clucked softly. “I can always tell. I pick up vibrations. Madame Constanza has nothing on me.” She stared directly into Sally’s eyes, but apparently she wasn’t picking up any vibrations from her, because all she said was, “Stuart wants a flavored with skim milk and Nutrasweet. I think that’s everybody—oh, except for me. I’ll take a jumbo cup of mocha java.”
Sally unfolded a cardboard tray. “That’s quite an order.”
“I never should have opened my mouth. Now that I’ve told everyone at the paper about this place, nobody wants to drink the in-house stuff.”
“I should give you a finder’s fee,” Sally joked.
“No need. My payment is your daughter teaching me how to use a computer. Did you know I’m surfing the Net now?”
“Really?”
“Well, not exactly surfing. Dog-paddling. But there’s a Web site where you can buy discount airline tickets. I found some wonderful, inexpensive flights to Hilton Head. Walter and I are going to go down there in June. Todd thinks it’ll be romantic.”
“I’m sure it will.” Sally held her breath, waiting to see if Helen was going to pick up vibrations now that she’d introduced the subject of romance.
If Helen sensed anything, she chose not to comment on it. “I had a good time with that daughter of yours,” she said as Sally busied herself filling cups with various coffees.
“She had a good time with you, too.” Sally snapped a lid on a cup, penned Decaf on it and wedged it into the tray. Thinking about how good a time Rosie had had with Helen awakened a memory in Sally’s mind. She tried to ignore it. It related to the past, and she had resolved to put the past away and remain focused on the present.
But that relic of the past clung like a burr to her brain, refusing to let go of her. She fixed Todd’s coffee, picturing his face, recalling the warmth of his hands on her, the heat of his body, the snide remark he’d made about her earrings—she’d been wearing her lightning-bolt ones, which she thought were pretty tame. He’d said they were sharp enough to skewer him, and only a man hater would wear earrings like that, to which she’d responded that she happened to be quite selective in her misanthropy, so the correct phrase should be a particular man hater, or an individual hater, or maybe just a Todd hater—and he’d declared that for his own physical well-being he was simply going to have to keep his head away from her ears, which was when he dragged her to the edge of the mattress and knelt on the floor…
Her cheeks started burning again.
“What?” Helen asked. If she was ever going to get any vibrations about Sally, now would be the time. But she seemed totally oblivious.
“I was just thinking,” Sally said, knowing she had to say something. “Rosie told me the two of you talked about Paul.”
Helen looked concerned. “Is that a problem? I wouldn’t have mentioned him if it depressed Rosie. But she seemed so upbeat, and I thought she might want to hear about him, since I knew him from his days as Todd’s roommate at Columbia and all.”
“No, that’s okay. She does like to talk about him. I guess it keeps him alive for her.”
“Good.” Helen pressed her hand to her chest and bit her lip. “I’d hate to upset her.”
“You didn’t.” Sally ran her thumbs gently around the lid on Todd’s cup, snapping it secure. She ordered herself not to ask anything more—but the question slipped out, anyway. “Rosie said you talked about Todd’s baby-sitter. He never mentioned a baby-sitter to me.”
“Oh, that.” Helen chuckled. “Rosie was all caught up in the subject of baby-sitters—perfectly reasonable under the circumstances—and I told her about Paul’s. He’d mentioned her once at a party, years ago—a bunch of newspaper people, some of our political friends, Todd and his wife, and Paul. We were all fairly lubricated, and we got to talking about first love and puppy love. As I recall, Denise—that was Todd’s wife—got very snippy because Todd remembered so much about the first girl he’d ever fallen in love with. Someone from high school, I don’t remember who. Denise stormed off and Todd had to go find her and make up with her. It was a ridiculous spat. He socialized with an awful lot of girls in high school. I never asked for details. His father explained birth control to him, and we left it at that.”
Sally smiled. This was interesting. Someday she’d have to ask Todd about all his high-school sweethearts.
But right now the subject was Paul. “What does that have to do with Paul’s baby-sitter?”
“Paul confessed that she was his first love. I guess he must have been about seven, and she was in her early teens—thirteen or fourteen. Anyway, he was passionately in love with her, he said. She used to give him chocolate chip cookies and run her fingers through his hair, and he was smitten. Laura. Oh, he went on and on about Laura.”
Laura.
Pure coincidence, Sally told herself. There were millions of Lauras in the world. She and Todd had hunted down two candidates for Paul’s Laura, and neither of them had been the right one. Surely a teenager who’d baby-sat for Paul when he’d been a bratty little kid wouldn’t be the right one, either.
That was all it was—a coincidence. Some deeply implanted association, so that when he’d met the Laura who had become his mistress, the name had resonated inside him on a subconscious level. Who knew—if he’d met a woman named Bertha, he might not have embarked with her on an affair so torrid it included discussions on existentialism and the gift of Sally’s knife.
Nothing but a coincidence.
And now she was going to put the entire matter out of her mind, because living in the past, nursing grudges and regrets, didn’t suit her. She wanted to move forward, to live the rest of her life, to stop seething over past betrayals and deceptions, to chirp like a happy cicada.
She wasn’t going to think about Paul’s Laura, ever again.
Todd slid the ham and Swiss omelette onto a plate and carried it to the table. Others might not think beer went well with omelettes, but Todd believed the combination was perfect.
Besides, he’d started the evening with beer, and he didn’t like to change beverages in midstream.
He’d gone down to the Chelsea after work today and played a couple of racks of pool with an old buddy of his from his high-school days. Emery was the best auto mechanic in Winfield, and one of the two best pool players from their graduating class, Todd being the other. So they’d split two games of eight ball, drunk a few beers and discussed their fifteenth high-school reunion. Betting on pool was boring, but betting on which of their classmates would show up bald, which would show up fat and which would show up rich and slick kept them amused. They’d both agreed that if prizes were handed out at the reunion, Patty Pleckart would win the prize for class curmudgeon.
He found it necessary to spend time away from Sally. As it was, he thought about her far too much. He saw her two or three nights a week plus weekends, and those nights he stayed away from her he wound up dreaming about her. She had him under a spell.
Granted, it was a terrific spell, one he was in no rush to break. He’d never before met a woman he had so much fun arguing with. When he’d been the editor of his high-school newspaper, he used to run a column called “Pro & Con,” in which two writers—usually one other writer and himself—would consider an issue from opposite sides. “Pro & Con: Should the President be Impeached?” “Pro & Con: Is Bill Gates a Handmaiden of Satan?” “Pro & Con: Should Winfield Have a Leash Law?”
He’d loved arguing, as long as his opponent was worthy. A good sword-clashing debate pumped him up and turned him on. And Sally was the worthiest opponent he’d ever had—or at least, the worthiest opponent who looked better naked than dressed.
He could get attached to her. Deeply committed. And maybe in time…well, maybe. But he was too old to lose his head over a woman. He’d done that once and he’d survived, but divorce wasn’t one of those activities that got better with practice, and he had no intention of rushing into something that might not work.
Besides, she was Paul’s widow. She’d married his best friend—that lying bastard.
Determined not to think about her tonight, he thumbed through his most recent model-kit catalog while he ate. It was time to order a new kit, something to keep him occupied on those evenings he wasn’t at Sally’s house, waiting with forced patience until Rosie went to sleep so he and Sally could move their arguments to the bedroom. On page seventeen he discovered a kit for a classic Dusenberry. Not his usual kind of model, but all those details—the running boards, the elaborate grille, the movable windshield wipers—would offer a reasonable distraction.
He wondered if Rosie would enjoy building a model car. He wouldn’t trust her with a tube of epoxy, but he could buy her a beginner kit, with simple pieces that snapped together without glue. He and Rosie could work side by side, right here in the kitchen. They’d put on some Jimi Hendrix, crank up the volume and build cars together. She might enjoy it.
And there he was, indirectly thinking about Sally again. Thinking about himself as some kind of surrogate father for Rosie, for Christ’s sake. He didn’t want to be Rosie’s father, although God knew she deserved a more honest father than the one she’d started out with.
The phone rang. He scooped a forkful of omelette into his mouth, then tilted back on the rear legs of his chair until he could reach the phone on the wall behind him. He lifted the hand unit, swallowed, straightened his chair and said, “Yeah?”
“Todd? It’s Sally.”
A burst of warmth flowered open in his chest at the sound of her voice. When he’d been married to Denise, hearing her voice hadn’t given him that strange sensation, a combination of joy and panic, protectiveness and susceptibility.
He tried to keep his voice free of complicated emotions. “Hey, Sally. What’s up?”
She didn’t say anything for a minute. His smile waned and he reached for his beer. The sweaty brown glass felt too cold against his palm, but he took a quick slug of the stuff—which tasted too cold. The spot in his chest that had been burning cooled off, too.
“Sally?”
“I have to tell you something,” she said.
Oh, God. She couldn’t be pregnant. He’d been really careful about that. Even if she hadn’t learned from her past mistake—which wasn’t to imply Rosie was a mistake, but she sure hadn’t been part of anyone’s life plan—Todd had learned from it.
