Mrs. Kimble (22 page)

T
he next thing should not have happened.

It was a Tuesday morning, her first day off in weeks. Dinah should have been at home in bed, sleeping until noon. Instead she made a special trip downtown to pick up her paycheck, afraid of bouncing the check she’d written the locksmith. And that morning, crossing the alley next to Emile’s, she was struck by a car.

The bumper hit her at knee level; her foot landed on a dark patch of ice. The car braked sharply; a horn sounded. She slid gracelessly to the pavement.

The car door opened. “Are you all right?” the driver called out.

She was more embarrassed than hurt; her heavy down jacket had cushioned her fall. A small crowd had gathered; the contents of her pocketbook—keys, loose change, hairbrush—lay scattered around her on the sidewalk.

“I’m fine,” she said, sweeping the coins into her purse. “I slipped on the ice.”

The man got out of his car and offered his hand.

“Thank you,” she said as he helped her to her feet. Then she looked up into the brilliant blue eyes of Reverend Kimble.

“Dinah?” he said. “Good Lord, it really is you.”

“Reverend Kimble?” Her cheeks burned; she wished she had put on makeup.

“Are you all right?”

“I think so.” Her heart beat furiously. “I can’t believe it’s you.”

“In the flesh.” He smiled. “I saw you in the restaurant the other day. I knew it had to be you.”

Her cheeks burned. Of course it was me, she thought. Who else has a map of Minnesota on her face? She pushed the thought away.

“I just had lunch there,” he said. “I was asking about you.”

“You were?”

A horn sounded, a delivery truck idling in the alleyway.

“I should move my car,” he said.

“Of course.” She took a step and stumbled; a sharp pain shot up her right shin. He grasped her elbow to steady her.

“It’s my ankle,” she said. “I must have twisted it.”

“Lean on me,” he said, sliding his arm around her waist. “I’ll take you to the hospital.”

T
HEY WAITED
in the emergency room of Sacred Heart Hospital, an overheated corridor loud with bustle, the steamy hiss of radiators. Periodically the doors sprang open and a stretcher wheeled in, flushing the room with cold. They waited a long time, but Dinah didn’t mind; she could have sat there for hours listening to him talk. He’d been in Washington two years, developing commercial properties: two office towers, a hotel. She pretended
surprise, though she already knew this from the hostess. The rest of that conversation—his asking the hostess for a date—she preferred not to think about.

“Enough about me,” he said finally. “What are you up to these days? Husband? Children?”

“God, no.” Dinah felt herself blush.

“Of course,” said Kimble. “Plenty of time for that later.”

“I guess so.” She smiled, red-faced. “What about you? You never remarried?” She had noticed his hands: no wedding band.

“My second wife died,” he said. “I’m a widower now.”

Dinah nodded mutely. Her mother would know how to respond; she was fluent in the language of condolences and congratulations, perfectly at ease at weddings and funerals. Dinah had always dismissed such talk as superficial. She wished, now, that she’d paid attention.

“How are the kids?” she asked. “Charlie and Jody. They must be teenagers now.”

“I suppose so,” said Kimble. “It’s hard to believe.”

“Do they still live in Richmond?”

“I don’t think so.” He shifted in his chair. “Last I heard, their mother had taken them to live in the country, but they may have moved since. We aren’t what you’d call a close family.”

“That’s too bad,” said Dinah. She supposed it was. One of the sous-chefs was divorced, but never spoke of it. Other than that she didn’t know any divorced people.

A nurse appeared pushing a wheelchair. “Dinah Whitacre? The doctor will see you now.”

“I’ll come with you,” said Kimble.

Dinah got quickly to her feet. A breathtaking pain shot up her
leg. “Jesus,” she hissed. Then blushed, remembering he’d been a minister.

The nurse took her arm and guided her to the wheelchair; pain radiated up her leg. They rolled down the hall and into an examining room, Kimble following close behind. A doctor in green operating scrubs extended his hand. He stared intently at her birthmark, as if that were the emergency.

“It’s my ankle,” she said flatly. “I fell on the ice and sprained my ankle.”

“Gotcha,” he said, still staring at her face. He pulled up a wheeled stool and rolled up her pant leg. “Does this hurt?” He pressed gently at her ankle. She cried out in pain.

“I guess that’s a yes,” he said.

She looked down at her foot. “What is it? A sprain?”

“I doubt it. We’ll have to take some X rays, of course, but I’m pretty sure your ankle is broken.”

Dinah closed her eyes. Sweat ran down her forehead; she felt suddenly ill. “Broken?”

“Yes. We’ll have to set the bone and put you in a cast. And of course you’ll have to stay off it for a while. Are you a student?”

“I work in a restaurant.”

“Not for the next couple of months, you don’t.”

Dinah leaned forward in the wheelchair, head in her hands. She thought of the hill she climbed every night from the bus stop; the steep stairs leading to her apartment; fourteen hours a day on her feet in the kitchen. Her life left no room for illness or injury; she’d never even owned a car. She had always taken her independence for granted, never seeing how fragile it was.

“Don’t worry. It looks like a nice clean break.” The doctor
stared again at her face. “That’s quite a hemangioma you’ve got. I’ve never seen one quite like it.”

Heat spread over her face and chest. She was intensely aware of Reverend Kimble watching her.

“What did you call it?” she asked.

“Hemangioma. It means the blood vessels in the skin are very dense and twisted.” The doctor leaned close to her, squinting. “I’ve seen these marks before, but none this severe. Has it ever been treated?”

“No,” said Dinah.

“A colleague of mine at Georgetown is leading a study you might be interested in. He’s gotten some terrific results using a device called an argon laser.” The doctor stood. “I’ll be right back. I’m going to see about getting you some X rays.”

Dinah nodded, trying not to cry. She thought of lying alone in her empty house, footsteps on the stairs, strange men forcing the door. How she would protect herself when she couldn’t even run.

Kimble sat on the doctor’s stool. “Are you all right?”

“I can’t take two months off from work,” she said. “My boss will have a fit. He’ll probably fire me.”

“Because you’re injured?” He frowned. “That doesn’t seem fair. Can’t someone else do your job for a while?”

“It’s hard to explain,” she said. “It’s not like a regular job. And my apartment—” She stopped. Tears came and she let them, too tired to hold them back.

“Here,” said Kimble, offering a handkerchief. The gesture struck her as quaint, something her father would have done. No one her age would carry a handkerchief.

“This is so embarrassing,” she said, choking.

“Don’t be silly.” He took her hand in both of his. “I nearly ran
you over. It’s my fault you’re in this mess. Naturally I’ll take care of you.”

“There’s nothing you can do.”

“Nonsense. You’ll need money, a place to stay. It’s the least I can do.”

She stared at him. His hands were long and cool; she wished she could place them on her flushed cheeks, all the parts of her that burned with shame.

“Oh, no,” she said. “I can’t let you do that.”

“Of course you can.” He squeezed her hand. “You just concentrate on getting better. I’ll take care of the rest.”

Dinah handed back the handkerchief.

“Keep it,” said Kimble.

She tucked the soggy thing into her pocket. A fresh wave of blushes covered her cheeks.

“I just had a thought,” he said. “Since you’re going to be home recuperating anyway, why not do something about this?” He touched his cheek. “Maybe have that procedure the doctor was talking about.”

Her face burned. “It probably costs a fortune.”

“Don’t worry about that,” said Kimble.

The doctor returned, followed by a nurse. “All set. Let’s wheel you down to X ray.”

Dinah’s heart pounded. “That friend of yours,” she said. “The one who’s doing the study. Do you think he could help me?”

“Maybe so,” said the doctor. “I can put you in touch with him, if you like.”

Dinah’s ankle throbbed; beneath her down jacket her turtleneck was soaked with sweat. Again Kimble squeezed her hand.

“Yes,” she said. “I’d like that very much.”

A
t the time it meant nothing to her: another black-tie dinner at a downtown hotel, another night of tedious speeches and polite chitchat. Dinah had no idea she’d return to that night in her memory, re-create it fifty, a hundred times, as if the recollection held some sign she ought to have seen, some prefiguration of what would later happen. That night she noticed only that the room was too warm, the food a bit heavy; that everyone around her was growing slowly drunk on an indifferent cabernet. In those respects it was an evening like countless others. In fifteen years of marriage, she’d accompanied Ken to many such affairs; at least once a month she was on display, trotted out like a prize mare at a county fair.

They’d been photographed twice outside the hotel: Ken joking with the photographer, Dinah smiling between chattering teeth. The next morning she’d see herself in the paper—tall, pale-haired; her bare shoulders lean and sculpted. The caption would identify her only as his wife; this would irritate her, though what else was there to say? Wife, mother of his teenage son; envy of his aging business associates, who kissed her unnecessarily each time they
met and occasionally cornered her for a drunken embrace. Dinah was thirty-nine but appeared younger; Ken was sixty-five and looked it: too thin, his skin leathery from jogging in the sun. He enjoyed the raised eyebrows when they appeared together in public, the sly smiles of well-dressed men. Dinah did not. She felt like the punch line to a dirty joke.

There were three hundred people in the grand ballroom that night: chairmen of boards, prominent black clergymen, wealthy Washington couples, white-skinned and white-haired. She’d counted them between the salad and the surf and turf. At five hundred dollars a head, it was a nice haul for the Single Candle Foundation, the charity that had named Ken its Man of the Year. With them at the head table sat the secretary of housing and urban development, congressmen from Maryland and Virginia, the mayors of Washington and Richmond and Baltimore. Sitting across from the mayors, Ken talked more than he ate. Dinah eyed his untouched lobster tail; if they were dining alone, she’d steal it from his plate. The lobster was tender and succulent, sweet as butter; but Ken turned up his nose at seafood. The only fish he’d eat was tuna from a can.

“My lovely wife grew up in Richmond,” he told one of the mayors, giving Dinah a squeeze. “You can see why I feel indebted to the town.” He reached into his jacket for a business card and scrawled something on the back of it. “Call me in the morning. I’m in the office by seven.”

Dessert appeared, a slice of apple pie drizzled with caramel sauce. The filling was nicely tart, the golden crust exemplary. Lard, Dinah thought approvingly: the secret to a flaky crust. She glanced at Ken—he had high cholesterol and should be warned—but
couldn’t catch his eye. It wouldn’t matter. He obsessed over his weight; he rarely touched dessert.

“How can you eat like that and look like that?” asked the secretary’s wife, a sausage-shaped woman in a green satin casing.

“I can’t help it,” said Dinah. “I’m always hungry.”

Coffee was served; the speeches began. First came the mayors, the congressmen; then the Reverend Elmore Blanks, pastor of the Southeast AME Zionist church.

“My opening act,” Ken whispered, leaning close to Dinah.

Reverend Blanks was a squat man with a booming voice; with evangelical zeal he touted the accomplishments of the Homes Project, the nonprofit company Ken Kimble had founded. For nearly five years he’d bought foreclosed properties in burned-out neighborhoods, restored the houses, then resold them to poor families at reasonable prices. Reverend Blanks praised the determination of these families, their persistence in the face of adversity, their willingness to hope against hope. Then he introduced the Man of the Year.

The room crackled with applause as Ken took the stage. He adjusted the mike to his height and waited for the room to quiet.

“I am somewhat embarrassed to be standing before you tonight.” His voice was quiet and serious, empty of theatrics. “I have not led an exceptional life.”

Here we go, Dinah thought. Simple Midwestern values.

“I was raised in a hardworking family with simple Midwestern values,” he continued. “My parents weren’t sophisticated people, but they gave me the tools to accomplish whatever I set out to do in life.

“I chose to sell real estate—not a bad way of making a living, but not an especially noble way either.”

He stopped and scanned the crowd, his eyes passing over the silver heads.

“I have never lain awake at nights listening to gunfire, fearful for the lives of my children.”

His voice grew louder.

“I have never tried to raise a family in a violent neighborhood, where drugs are sold
on every corner
.”

He rapped the podium for emphasis. Under the table Dinah did likewise, her right fist silent against her left palm.

“So I’m not going to talk any more about myself. Instead I’m going to introduce you to some folks who have fought the hard fight and won.”

He pointed to the back of the room, a sweeping gesture of his long arm. At a table in the corner was a black family: a young woman, two little boys, and an old lady.

“Meet Charmaine Watkins,” he said.

The woman got to her feet with effort. She was dark-skinned, with cherry-red hair. She looked nine months pregnant.

“Miz Watkins and her family live in a newly refurbished row house in southeast Washington, in a neighborhood where no one has lived in their own private residence in thirty-three years. The Watkinses are in that house as a result of her own courage and character, not because of anything I’ve done. So if you want to honor somebody tonight, how about honoring them.”

The applause was thunderous.

“Thank you,” he said.

I
T WAS TEN-THIRTY
when the banquet wrapped up, a half hour later before Ken shook all the hands offered to him. He and
Dinah walked toward the parking garage down the block. He handed her the keys. His night vision was poor; he disliked driving after dark.

She backed his Lincoln Town Car out of the tight space. It was ridiculous for city driving, a sluggish boat that required a space and a half on most streets and couldn’t be parked at all in Georgetown; but Ken liked big cars.

She turned onto New Hampshire Avenue and cut northeast through the city. Ken reclined his seat and in a moment began to snore. He was up at five every day, on the treadmill by five-fifteen. He slept the deep sleep of a farmhand, a man with a clear conscience. She glanced across the seat at him, his long forehead illuminated by the streetlights. Though his face was gaunt, running had kept him trim and vigorous; at sixty-five he moved with an athlete’s grace. Only his teeth had failed him. Several times that summer she’d answered calls from his dentist’s office, reminding him of upcoming appointments. Then one day he’d come home with shiny white dentures. He never said a word about them. She pretended not to notice.

She turned off the highway into Great Falls, Virginia. Their house loomed in the distance, a cavernous Tudor at the end of a cul-de-sac. A large house, with five bedrooms and six baths; too large for a family with just one child. When she turned into the wide driveway, Ken awakened with a gasp. He always woke that way, his eyes wide and startled, as if he’d been caught in a compromising act.

“We’re home,” she said.

They went inside. The house was dark but Dinah sensed that their son was awake. Brendan was a nocturnal creature; he went to bed at eleven as directed, but she knew it was only an act, that late
at night he listened to music on his headphones or crept silently around the house.

There was a strip of light beneath his bedroom door. Dinah knocked softly and waited. She opened the door a crack. Brendan sat on the floor staring at the television, the volume turned low.

“Hi,” she said.

“Hey,” he answered, his lips barely moving. His flannel shirt hung open; underneath it a black T-shirt stretched tight across his belly. A late-night talk show flickered on the screen.

“Sorry we’re late,” said Dinah. “The speeches ran long.”

Brendan ran a hand through his hair. He had a terrible haircut, long on top and shaved nearly bald on the sides, as if he’d had recent brain surgery.
You paid for that?
Ken had asked when she brought Brendan home from the salon.

It’s just hair,
she’d answered, though she hated the style too.
It’ll grow back.

Brendan changed the channel to a music video. A bare-chested rap singer shook his fingers at the camera. Behind him women cavorted in a swimming pool.

“I talked to your headmaster,” she said. Brendan had failed Spanish and math for the semester; unless he made up the classes over the summer he’d have to repeat ninth grade. “You don’t have to go to summer school. You can get a tutor instead.”

“Forget it,” he said. “I’d rather go to summer school.”

“Okay. I’ll call the realtor in the morning.” They’d rented a beach house in the Outer Banks for all of July. “She can find us a place for August instead.”

“Don’t bother.” Finally he looked at her. “I don’t want to go anyway.” He turned back to the screen, his gray eyes bleary and unblinking.

“Get some sleep,” she said softly. “We’ll talk about it in the morning.”

She closed the door and rubbed her eyes, exhausted; talking with her son had that effect on her. He’s a teenager, she told herself, remembering her own miserable adolescence; but the thought did not comfort her. He’d be a teenager for another five years. She wasn’t sure she’d survive it.

She slipped off her shoes and tiptoed to the bathroom, where she dabbed her face with cold cream. The foundation and powder melted away; underneath it, the right side of her face was an angry pink, like a bad sunburn. It was all that remained of the purple stain. Ken had paid for the argon laser treatments before they were married; it was, she later realized, a part of their courtship. Only after the six treatments did they become lovers.

She wiped off the cream and examined her skin. Recently, for her thirty-ninth birthday, he’d offered to pay for more treatments. He’d read about a new technique in the
Post
and asked a doctor friend about it. Apparently a new gadget, the pulse-dye laser, could eliminate the discoloration of Dinah’s skin.

“Look at this,” he’d told her, showing her the article. He pointed to the Before photo. “Her birthmark was even worse than yours. And look at her now.” He left the clipping on her dressing table; Dinah tucked it away in a drawer. Two months later she still hadn’t seen a doctor.

She went into the bedroom and unzipped her silk dress, one Ken had recently bought her. He kept her sizes on a card in his Rolodex; before each big event he came home with a department store box. The dresses were always bare and slinky, styles she wouldn’t choose for herself; but Dinah didn’t object. She detested shopping. If she vetoed his choice, she’d have to buy something herself.

She draped the dress over a chair. Ken lay still in the king-size bed, hands crossed over his chest. Early in their marriage it had bothered her, how they never touched while they slept. Now she couldn’t imagine it otherwise.

She slid under the covers. In a moment his cold hand found her thigh.

“You’re awake,” she said.

“Too keyed up to sleep. Miz Watkins and her struggling family.” He chuckled. “Was it too much?”

“I guess it had the desired effect.”

His hand slid under her T-shirt. She was expecting it; after parading her around in public he usually made a grab at her. Unless, of course, she had her period. Then he wouldn’t touch her with gloves on.

He fingered a slow circle around her nipple. He never kissed her anymore, not since the teeth. She understood. Still, the hand was too abrupt for her. She resisted the urge to shrug it away.

S
HE WAS
thirty-nine years old, a woman living with her choices. She had married a successful man; she had borne him a child. These seemed to be the last things that would ever happen to her.

She led a comfortable life. Each morning she dropped Brendan off at his private school. Afterward she played tennis; she was a top-seeded Masters player at their club in Reston. She had a magnificent garden, help with the house if she wanted it (she didn’t). Yet sometimes—while cooking dinner, or driving home from the club after a match—she imagined what could have been. How her life might have turned out if she and Ken had never met.

She had never returned to Emile’s kitchen. Her ankle had healed slowly, badly; agonizing months of painkillers and physical therapy. Ken had done everything to help: sold her house in Glover Park at a slight profit, offered her the first floor of a town house he owned in Georgetown, rent-free for as long as she needed it. By the time her ankle healed, they were engaged.

They were married by a judge on the island of St. Thomas, a thousand miles away from anyone who knew them. Dinah’s parents disapproved of the marriage; their absence was a relief. She wore flowers in her hair, a nervous but happy bride.

A single photo exists of their wedding, a snapshot taken by the judge’s wife. In it they stand shoulder to shoulder in front of the courthouse, Ken in a pale suit, Dinah in a white sundress, her hair braided by a woman who sold trinkets on the beach. She’d just finished her laser treatments; in the photo her skin looks perfectly smooth. She didn’t know it, but she was a beautiful woman.