Dina Santorelli (27 page)

"Did
you get a second opinion?"

"Yes,
but the second doctor said the same thing. My bro..." Jamie hesitated.

"Your
brother?" Bailino finished. "Edward?"

"Yeah.
He said that I should get another opinion, but after two, I just didn't have it
in me."

"Maybe
it was his fault, your husband's."

"Ha!"
The sound came out louder than Jamie had meant it to. She remembered the look
on Bob's face when Jamie had suggested that very same thing. "He said that was
impossible. He claims he had a girlfriend in high school who he'd gotten
pregnant."

"Is
that so?"

"Yeah.
She had an abortion."

"Do
we have confirmation of that?"

Jamie
didn't answer. She was thinking about Bob's face as he described the story of
the conception. In his basement. How uninhibited she was, the girl—a crack,
Jamie knew, at her—and how it had been the most exciting sexual time of his
life. When recalling his past sexual exploits, Jamie half-expected Bob to rip
open his shirt and beat his chest like a gorilla.

"Sweetheart?"

Jamie
was startled. "I'm sorry?"

"Did
you ask her?"

"Ask
her?" Jamie repeated. "Who? Bob's girlfriend? I don't even know her."

"Maybe
someone else knocked her up."

Jamie
smiled thinking about the insinuation. Even suggesting something like that
would be viewed by Bob as an attempt to take away his mojo. "It doesn't matter
anyway." Jamie didn't want to talk anymore and closed her eyes. "It's for the
best."

Bailino
rustled a little under the blankets and then his hand was on her shoulder.

"Why
did you marry someone you didn't love?" he asked.

Jamie's
eyes opened wide. One way or another, it was going to be a long night.

***

Under normal circumstances,
college senior Robert Scott never would have given sophomore Jamie Carter the
time of day. With his sights set on a legal career and having just been
accepted to New York University's School of Law, he was plotting his impending
takeover of the world—one case, and woman, at a time. Who among him could boast
a 3.96 GPA—a ranking that had landed him the number two spot in his graduating
class of 1,200 students—while never, once, having missed a happy hour in four
years? Being interviewed for the school newspaper,
The Chronicle
, for
being one of only two students in the state to be named a Bankman Charles
fellow, the recipient of a prestigious public service fellowship, was only the
beginning of what Bob knew would be a long line of media accolades.

Jamie,
student affairs reporter for
The Chronicle
, despised Bob the moment
she'd met him. He was arrogant and boorish, commenting on what great legs she
had the moment they'd shaken hands, followed by the requisite wink and nudge of
the elbow that Jamie would learn was a Bob Scott trademark. Noticing the camera
hanging around her neck, Bob had somehow finagled her to take five photos of
him at various angles, including one with Jamie herself: "You can say, 'I knew
him when…,'" he said with a wink and a nudge.

Afterwards,
they were sitting at the student center for an interview that Jamie had
surmised would take about ten minutes; they were there for nearly forty-five.
After a half hour of detailing his "working class" upbringing in upscale Dix
Hills and ignoring Jamie's questions, he finally wrapped things up with his
life philosophies. "It's all about the people," he'd said. "Devoting my life to
those who can't understand the legal system, providing a voice for those who
can't fight for themselves..." Jamie had stopped listening after Bob had said
"intensive purposes" instead of "intents and purposes."

Jamie
hadn't taken her tape recorder with her—something that had disappointed Bob
immensely—because not much space was being given to the story, which was
running on the Student Stars page with five similar articles. In fact, the
article was considered pretty cursory—the editor sent Jamie out on these
assignments as a feel-good effort to flatter the high-achieving students, but
after meeting Bob, Jamie realized that such a token was unnecessary. There
wasn't much more hot air a human head could tolerate.

"You
know, my brother is studying prelaw here too," she said, putting her notebook
into her backpack.

"Really?"
Bob said, uninterested, chewing the rest of his Hostess cupcake. "Maybe I know
him. What's his name?"

"Edward.
Edward Carter."

Bob
stopped chewing. "Edward Carter..." he said, half to himself. "Hmmm... the
name rings a bell. I think we might have a few classes together."

"Oh,
yeah. Well, nice meeting you," Jamie said, sticking out her hand.

Bob
took it, but instead of shaking it, he bent down and kissed it.

"The
pleasure was all mine," he said. "Perhaps we'll run into each other again."

"Perhaps."
Jamie pulled her hand away and left the student center.

As
Bob watched her go, the name
Edward Carter
hung over him like a shroud.
He knew the name very well. Edward Carter, who had interned at Weng Felter in
DC last summer and had turned down a full scholarship to Georgetown so he could
continue his studies locally and care for his sick mother. Edward Carter, who'd
Heimliched Mrs. Phelps, the old legal secretary in Compton Hall, two semesters
ago and prevented her from choking on a chicken bone. His picture still hung on
the admissions-office wall. Edward Carter, GPA 3.98. Edward Carter, class valedictorian.

***

"He pursued me like he did
those fellowships," Jamie said. "He and Edward both went to NYU and somehow he
started hanging around more. And he..."

"Won
you over?" Bailino asked.

"No,
not really. It's just that my mother was sick... She'd had a round of chemo
while Edward and I were at Hofstra, and then she seemed to get better, or maybe
we just wanted her to get better, but for a few years things were pretty good.
That was at the time Bob was hanging around."

"Your
mother wanted you to marry him?"

"No,
the ironic thing is my mom didn't even like Bob. But as she began to get sick
again a year or two later, Bob asked me to marry him. Why he asked, I'm not
even sure. We had become, you know, friendly, but marriage? I wasn't doing much
socializing at the time, and he was just... there." Jamie adjusted herself
under the blanket. "I hadn't really given it much thought, but when I mentioned
it to my mother, I saw a gleam in her eye. She loved weddings. Always had. I
thought a wedding would get her mind off things and help her to be happy, and I
could worry about the divorce later. I don't really care much about weddings
and all that."

"I
thought it was every girl's dream to have a big wedding."

"Not
mine." Jamie remembered standing there on the altar feeling miserable and like
a fraud before her friends and family and how when the priest had asked if
there was "anyone here who had any reason why these two should not wed," she
had caught Edward's eye for just the briefest of moments, but neither one of
them made a peep.

"Truth
is, I'd be happy getting married in Vegas with an Elvis impersonator as my
witness. But I knew that my mom would love the planning of a big wedding and
getting all pretty and dressed up. And it worked for a while. She was getting
better..."

Jamie
let out a tiny sniffle. After eight years, the wounds associated with her
mother's death had never healed.

"It's
okay. You don't have to say anymore."

But
the words seemed to be pouring out in a rush. "She died of lung cancer," Jamie
said. "She never smoked a day in her life. Underwent chemo. Lost her hair.
Underwent it again. Radiation. The whole thing. Dragging her into
Sloan-Kettering when all she wanted to do was sleep. And when she died, I
couldn't breathe. Edward and I had to clean out her apartment. Her bedroom
closet had tons of dresses in it that she had bought over the years for
a
special day
. They still had the tags on them. She died three weeks before
the wedding. Bob was there, and I latched onto him, onto something... someone
familiar. I still married him, why? I don't know. To do something. To finish
what I'd started. To prove that I was okay. To make my mother happy, because
she was always worried about me. To move forward, even if it was in the wrong
direction. It really was... never about Bob. Or maybe it was never about me."

Jamie
took a deep breath. "We tried hard to have kids, but it just didn't happen. I
blamed myself, the fact that I didn't love him. And the more it didn't happen,
the angrier and more distant Bob got until our marriage became a... Not that it
ever was..." She wiped a tear. "I became a fixture at my brother's house. Trish
was just popping out kids, one after the other. With ease. They weren't even
trying. Then I lost my job, and he left, and I went back to live with my
brother. In the apartment downstairs, where my mom... Well, I'm starting over
again. Or at least I'm trying to."

"Why
didn't you leave him? Bob? If that had been the plan?"

"I
don't know." Jamie had the sensation that she had been floating underwater and
was suddenly coming up for air. It was as if Bailino had opened a dam that had
been holding back years of repressed memories, and she had gotten swept up in
the flood. She felt embarrassed, and disoriented.

"You
really don't know?" Bailino asked. Jamie felt him inching closer in the
darkness.

She
thought of Bob in those weeks after her mother had died, of how he had enjoyed
being the knight in shining armor, comforting Jamie in her hour of need, how he
relished his role as Jamie's protector, her hero. Jamie breathed deeply and
turned toward Bailino.

"Because
I'm weak. Because I was scared. Because I felt old and used up. Maybe because,
after all those years," she paused, "I didn't think anyone else would want me."

"Because
you're loyal."

Bailino
stroked her cheek and pulled Jamie toward him as his hand slipped under her
shirt.

"You're
not wearing a bra," he said. "Good girl."

Reynaldo's small iron mailbox
was crammed with mail, and it took several minutes to worm his finger inside
and yank out a thick, plastic-wrapped magazine that had been jammed in by the
mail carrier. He looked at the glossy—it was the May issue of
Penthouse
addressed to Pedro Rodriguez—and then pulled out the rest of the mail and went
into his house.

The
worn, musty smell overpowered him as he entered the living room and tossed his
keys on the hall table. Had he had more time, he would run the house fan for a
while to circulate the stale air, but he promised his Aunt Ro that he would
hurry back. He had wanted to take her with him, but she preferred to stay home
and rest. He hated leaving her alone, but he needed to get some clothing and
personal items so he could stay with her until Friday when his cousins would
arrive. He surveyed the room. It looked as weathered and old looking as Aunt
Ro's place
. I live like an old woman
, he thought. A light film of dust
covered all the high shelves and knickknacks, and there was a long pull in the
brown carpeting, over by the television, that seemed to get longer every time
he vacuumed. The faded brown wall paneling near the light switch was still
cracked where Ricardo had jammed it with his fist after a fight with his father
ten years ago. Reynaldo had meant to fix it over the years—he had meant to take
care of a lot of things—but forgot to or lost interest. The truth was, he
hardly noticed them anymore—as each day passed, they blended more and more into
the background of his life. And Reynaldo often felt like he was disappearing
along with them.

A
quiet
tap, tap, tap
that sounded like a small rodent came from the
kitchen. Reynaldo peeked in the direction of the noise coming from the ceiling.
An orange latex balloon was floating across the room near the window, blown
ever so gently by what must have been a soft draft coming in through a crack in
the window seal. Written on the balloon in Sharpie was "Happy Birthday, Rey."

Reynaldo
had brought the balloon home last Friday from the garage following a small
party his brothers had thrown for him to celebrate his forty-second birthday.
He had hoped the day would just pass by without any fanfare, as he did all his
birthdays, but Pedro told him that Aunt Ro would not allow it. The balloon
bobbed up and down along the corner of the ceiling as if it were trying to
escape through a vent. Reynaldo was surprised that there was enough helium to
keep it afloat all this time. He had meant to pop it or release it to the
clouds, but couldn't bring himself to do it. It was nice to have movement in
the house other than his own. On Monday, he had awoken to a string dangling
above his nose. Monday night, when he got home from work, the balloon had been
in the bathroom, near the showerhead. Now it was in the kitchen. Reynaldo
thought of his mother, floating around the house, watching over him.

There
was a knock at the door. When Reynaldo opened it, Mrs. Lapinski was standing
there, although it took Reynaldo a moment to place her. She was wearing tight
spandex bike shorts and a cotton tank top, the loose kind that exposes a
woman's bra straps on the side, and she held a water bottle in her hand. A
bicycle was leaning against the wooden fence.

"Hi,"
she said.

"Hi."
Reynaldo looked at the bicycle. "Is there something wrong with your car?"

"No,
the car's fine," she said. "You did a great job with it, as always. I was
looking for you this evening at the garage, but your brothers said you hadn't
been there all day. I just wanted to stop by and... see if you wanted to join
me for a bike ride. May I come in?"

"Actually,
I..."