The Easy Way Out (28 page)

“Sounds it.”

“I don't know if Tony mentioned it, but I've been looking into physician's assistant programs. Something with more challenge.”

I made an encouraging remark. Obviously she'd come in to discuss something other than her career, and I didn't know if it was shyness, uncertainty, or some rules of male-female communication I was unfamiliar with that prevented her from coming out with it. Everything in her perfect posture and averted eyes suggested anticipation. She reached up to her throat and started to finger her string of pearls—more likely fake pearls, if Tony had given them to her. Out of desperation, I began hitting the computer keys. I brought up the file on her trip and started telling her that everything was in order, which was the truth. But she didn't seem the least bit concerned about the plans and assured me that she hadn't come to check on
them, as if doing so would have been an insult. This narrowed the chances that she was here for a simple business transaction, and I felt myself sinking into dread. She had the pearls looped around her fingers, and she was still looking off, just over my shoulder. I leaned in toward her and tried to make eye contact. “Was there something you wanted to change or cancel?” With horror, I realized I was speaking in a soft, hushed voice, unconsciously imitating hers.

She looked down at her hands and laughed. “I guess there's a lot I'd like to change.”

I'd never heard even a single note of irony in her voice before, and I wasn't sure how I should respond. Gutlessly, I chose to ignore it. “Well, that's what I'm here for,” I said.

Sharon strolled into the back of my office, frowned at the collapsed bookcase, and lit a cigarette. I had the feeling she was about to make some outrageous comment, and I tried to motion for her to leave. Fortunately, she'd never met Loreen. “Well, guess what?” she challenged me. After Loreen's soft voice, Sharon's sounded like a subway train. “I have a date with your brother tomorrow night,” she shouted and walked out.

Loreen spun around in her seat, but Sharon was gone.

“That was my friend Sharon,” I said. I forced out a particularly unconvincing laugh, but when Loreen turned back to me, there were tears in her eyes. “Loreen,” I said, “she's talking about Ryan.”

She shook her head and squeezed her eyes shut, and two perfectly formed tears rolled down the smooth surface of her cheeks. “Don't mind me, Patrick. I'm under a lot of pressure these days. All the wedding plans and everything.”

This said, she hid her face in her hands, and her thin shoulders began to heave. I couldn't help but notice that all that blown-out hair didn't move an inch. It really is unfair that the status of victim is, on top of everything else, so damned unflattering to one's appearance. The intercom on my phone buzzed, but I ignored it. I reached out and took Loreen's bony wrist. I had to restrain myself from calling her “honey” when I asked if she was all right.

“I'm fine, I'm really fine. No kidding. I'm just under a lot of pressure.”

“I can imagine. I'll get you some Kleenex.”

“No, no. I have some right here.” She reached into the pocket of the jacket she'd hung over the back of her chair, took out a single sheet of tissue, blotted the tears under her eyes delicately, and
squeezed her nose. Then she folded the tissue as if it were a lawn napkin and dropped it into the wastebasket. “It contains aloe vera,” she said. “I have sensitive skin.”

The intercom had been buzzing insistently, and when it finally stopped, the room seemed silent. The Spanish restaurant next door had begun preparing lunch, and my cramped office was filled with a smell of garlic that was making me ravenously hungry. “Would you like to get some coffee?” I asked. “This isn't the most appealing place to talk, I know.”

She looked at her watch and shook her head. “I don't have time. I knew I shouldn't have come. I was afraid I'd end up doing something like this.” She lifted up her shoulders in a heroic fashion and picked what might have been a fleck of lint from the angora sweater. “Something's wrong, Patrick. I know it is. I'm not a genius, okay, but I'm not exactly a moron, like some people seem to think.”

“Tony?” I asked, as if there was any question.

She nodded. “I haven't seen him since Christmas. He calls less than once a week. I leave messages on that stupid machine of his, but I don't hear back. I even get the feeling your father knows something. He's been calling me a lot lately, checking to see how I'm doing. I mean, it's nice, but I didn't know I was engaged to him. Oh, and I got this.”

She pulled a postcard out of her purse and handed it to me. I quickly scanned the message on the back. “Can I read it?” I asked.

“Yeah. Read it and tell me if that sounds like something you send someone you're marrying in a couple of months.”

“‘Reenie, Stuck in New York on business. Tied up around the clock. No time to think. Incredible views from this place, but New York's a nightmare. Glad you're not here—you'd hate it. Miss ya. XX, T.'”

On the front of the card was a picture of the infamous hotel in Times Square.

True, he'd at least had the decency to tell her he was glad she wasn't there, but all things considered, I was appalled by the line about the “incredible views.” And he could at least have sent her a postcard of Grant's Tomb or Radio City Music Hall; anything but the hotel where he'd met his lover.

“Isn't that sweet, how he says he misses you,” I tried. “Tony's usually so secretive about his feelings.”

“Well, if he misses me so much, why doesn't he call?”

I was at a loss about what to do with my hands, so I started
playing with the postcard. It accidentally flew out of my fingers and over my shoulder, landing on the windowsill.

“Just leave it there,” Loreen said. “Maybe it'll blow out the window. If he's busy, he's busy, but he probably has time to get lunch, don't you think? It takes less time to pick up the phone than it does to write a postcard, even one with as little on it as this. And most of those fancy hotels even have phones in the bathroom. And he's not exactly broke. He could have taken the shuttle up for an evening.”

“Yes, well . . .”

I heard her catch her breath, and then tears started to roll down her cheeks again, in a steady flow. This silent, spontaneous flood was almost more than I could bear, but she was staring at me with her eyes open wide, and I felt locked into her pained, innocent gaze. If only her face hadn't been so carefully made up, or there were a chocolate stain on her sweater, or one of her long magenta nails were chipped, the whole outburst might not have seemed quite as sad. But there was no chance for that. Even her tissue was perfect.

“There's nobody I can talk to about this. You know, I never said this to anyone before, but my parents don't exactly love Tony.” She actually laughed. “Yeah, well, that's the understatement of the year. They haven't liked him from the start. So I can't talk to them, and I don't want to turn my friends against him, not before we're married. And anyway, I guess the real truth is I feel so ashamed.”

“Ashamed?”

“I mean, have I done something wrong, Patrick?”

“What could you have done wrong?”

“Sometimes I think everyone thinks I'm the kind of person who can't deal with bad news, like I'm going to kill myself or something. Well, believe me, Patrick, that's not me.”

I considered the options for a moment, swiveled my chair around, and looked out the tiny window behind my desk. “Loreen,” I said, “the fact is . . . the fact is, I was in New York a couple of weekends ago and I bumped into Tony. I was walking down the street and I bumped into him. How's that for a chance encounter?”

I turned back and looked at her. Her eyes were wide with curiosity, and she'd stopped crying. She pulled another tissue out of her jacket pocket and dabbed at her eyes once again and gave a rearranging push to her mass of hair, as if she expected Tony to walk into the office and she wanted to be certain she looked her best. Something in these prettying gestures made my heart sink. She was laying her own
heart open, putting her biggest flaw on display, the one that was destined to disrupt her life for an untold number of years, stunt her growth, and pull her down as reliably as the force of gravity.

Loreen Davis was in love with my younger brother.

I turned back toward the window. “He really looked like hell—overworked, exhausted. . . .”

Twenty-three

A
fter Loreen had left the office, my mind wouldn't stick on anyone's idiotic vacation plans, no matter how hard I tried to concentrate.

I called Tony's number in Chicago, but it was the middle of the day and of course he wasn't home. I thought about leaving a nasty message on his machine, saying that Loreen had come into my office and I'd accidentally told her I'd met him in New York, just to keep him guessing and make him sweat. But despite Loreen's hopeful look of love when I mentioned Tony's name, I found I couldn't really get angry with my brother.

The only call I took that morning was a Whole Catastrophe, and after listening to the customer for ten minutes, I told her I'd love to make reservations for her family's trip, but Disney World was being shut down by the Environmental Protection Agency and fined billions for destroying precious swampland in the lovely state of Florida. After lunch I told Fredrick I had to have my wisdom teeth pulled and would be out for the rest of the afternoon. I biked home, leapt into my Yugo, and sped out to the suburbs.

*   *   *

My parents and Ryan were hanging over the cash register at the back of O'Neil's, squabbling so loudly they didn't hear me enter.

“If you'd let me show you how to do it,” Ryan shouted, “I'd show you.”

My father gave him a shove. “Keep your hands off it. You'll break it, and there goes the whole investment.”

“Don't treat him like a child, Jimmy. It's possible he knows how to work it.”

“What's going on?” I asked.

They all looked up together.

“A miracle,” my father said, “just when we needed it.”

“Don't tell me you got fired,” Rita said.

“Fired?”

“Well, what else would you be doing here in the middle of the day?”

Ryan straightened up, grinning. He brushed a hank of hair off his forehead and hiked up his pants. “Did Sharon tell you we're going to a Celtics game tomorrow night?”

“As if Ryan isn't having enough problems right now, he needs to start going to basketball games with that woman. I didn't know they allowed bare feet in the Boston Garden.”

“Sandals,” I corrected.

“Bare feet, sandals. You can still see the toes, which is what I find so attractive. I don't suppose you know anything about cash registers, Patrick. They just delivered this one, and we can't figure out how to open it.”

“Isn't there a manual? Didn't they tell you how to use the thing?” I was sometimes exasperated by their inability to deal with the modern world, possibly because I was so bad at it myself.

“Some baldy came in here this morning and spent two hours giving a lecture,” my father said. “Your mother went into a coma after one minute, and I fell asleep after two. The machine does everything except what you want it to. Your mother's idea, by the way. What we need it for, I couldn't tell you.”

“For the future, Jimmy. Maybe you've heard of the future, progress, advancement? Well, welcome to the eighties, dear, or the nineties, or whatever decade this is.”

“So what are you doing out here anyway, Pat?” Ryan asked. “You want a beer? Take your jacket off and relax.”

I turned down the beer and tossed my jacket onto the glass counter. The jacket was black linen, a little too stylish for me, but I'd found it on sale at a used-clothing store and bought it, rationalizing that I needed a new image. Seeing it on the counter, next to all those ugly ties and hideous polyester shirts that were my heritage, I felt embarrassed for wearing it into the store.

“I don't like the look on your face,” Rita said. “Don't tell me you've got bad news.”

“I'm going to try and be very rational,” I said.

“Well, don't go out on a limb for our sakes, dear.”

I looked over at my parents and my older brother, huddled around the new cash register. Ryan was randomly pecking at the keys on the register, and every time he hit one, it beeped, as if to say, “Keep your hands off.” My father had on a strikingly ugly suit, and the collar of his shirt was hanging loose around his scrawny neck. What had been anger at their machinations all morning suddenly turned into uncertainty. But as I'd driven all that way and had already taken the afternoon off, I started in:

“You have to stop pushing this wedding. I told you Tony is in love with someone else. Loreen is a wreck, and she's going to get hurt. She's hurt already. I wouldn't be surprised if she had a nervous breakdown. She came to the agency today and asked me if something was wrong.”