Best Friends Forever (39 page)

“I can’t drink…” I looked at the pamphlets in my hands. I didn’t know anything about having babies, or raising them. I’d have to get books. I’d have to check Wikipedia.

“We’l pretend you don’t know. Or you can have sparkling apple juice or some lame shit like that. Come on,” she said, “this place gives me the creeps.” She was stil holding my hands, and she looked at me, her face suddenly serious. “I didn’t real y want your baby.”

“I know, Val.”

“I want you to have everything you want. You’re my best friend,” said Val. The wind lifted her hair, and for a moment I imagined us as girls again, floating in the water, with our hair trailing like ribbons behind us. She held the car door open, and once again, as always, I was powerless to resist her. “Now come on. Get in. There are smal , expensive pieces of clothing waiting for us to buy them.

”

FIFTY-ONE

“She’s on the move,” said Hol y, leaning forward, practical y quivering, like a dog on point.

Her eyes were trained on the living room window; her breasts strained against the seat belt.

Jordan barely noticed. His own eyes were focused on Merry Armbruster’s front door. Merry Armbruster, Class of ’92, the one Christie Keogh said had spent her fifteenth reunion trying to convert her classmates in the parking lot…the one who, Jordan suspected, had been Daniel D.A., had gotten the wheels turning when he’d asked whether Dan had heard a real y moving grace…and when Jordan had cal ed Chip Mason, Chip had told him that Merry Armbruster had dropped Dan off at his place on Sunday morning, which meant, he figured, that Dan and Merry had spent the night together.

When the front door swung open, he braced himself for that lady from Misery, Kathy Bates with fire in her eyes and an ax in her hands. But the woman who walked out to her mailbox was barely five feet tal , axfree, and not even remotely menacing. She wore a zippered down coat that brushed the toes of her thick, insulated purple boots, the kind they’d cal ed moon boots back when Jordan was a kid.

He got out of the car with Hol y bounding behind him. “Ms. Armbruster?”

She squinted at them. “Yes?”

“We’d like to ask you a few questions about the high school reunion,” said Jordan. She tugged her hat against her hair.

“Come inside,” she said, and led them into the living room. Jordan and Hol y sat side by side on a sleek leather couch in front of a flat-screen TV that spanned most of the wal .

“That’s a big one,” Hol y said, pointing at the set.

Merry’s lips thinned. “It’s my parents’. This is their house.”

“Are they home?” asked Hol y.

She shook her head. “They are in Las Vegas.” She raised her chin. “‘ Wealth gotten by vanity shal be diminished: but he that gathereth by labour shal increase.’

Proverbs 13:11.”

“So they’re at a casino?” Hol y asked.

“What can I help you with?” Merry asked. Jordan leaned forward. “Did you happen to run into Daniel Swansea on Friday night?

”

For a minute, he thought that she wasn’t going to say anything—that she was going to press those thin lips together even more tightly, lift her pointy chin even higher, and refuse to answer, or tel him that she wasn’t talking without a lawyer. Instead, after a minute, she said,

“We prayed together.”

“Prayed for what?” asked Hol y.

Merry looked at them proudly. “He had a great sin upon his heart. But now he has repented of his wickedness. Now he walks in the light of the Lord and forgiveness. Now he sees…”

Jordan cut her off. “Ma’am, was he hurt the night you found him?”

“He was lost,” Merry said gently, a schoolteacher correcting a very young child.

“He was lost, but now is found. Was blind, but now he sees.”

Hol y looked at Jordan helplessly. Jordan thought for a minute, then got to his feet, pul ing a card out of his wal et and handing it to Merry. “Thank you for your help,” he said, imagining the expression that went along with Hol y’s gasp. “You’l be in touch if you need us?”

Merry tucked the card into her pocket.

“Take care,” said Jordan, and Merry replied,

“God bless,” and then locked her parents’

door behind them.

“So what now?” Hol y asked once the heater was on and their seat belts were fastened.

She squinted through the windshield, staring at the Armbrusters’

house. “We can’t do a search?” Hol y’s face suggested that she knew the answer to the question even before she’d asked it. “She did something to him. I just know she did.”

Jordan nodded. “I agree. But I’m not sure that what she did to him was wrong.” He paused, struggling for the words. “Maybe it was a corrective.” He thought of Dan Swansea, huddled in the handicapped cel , Dan Swansea saying I did a terrible thing. I know that now. “And there’s nothing else we can do. We’ve got no warrant, no grounds for an interview.”

“So that’s it?” Hol y cried. “She just gets away with it?”

“We’l keep an eye on her,” he promised.

“On both of them. If they ever slip again, we’l be ready.”

FIFTY-TWO

“You met someone,” said Sasha Devine. She looked Jordan up and down. “Is it that Adelaide person?”

He stared at her, open-mouthed. She met his look with a smile. “Maybe you’re not the only one with a smal , quiet place in your mind.”

He could only look at her, speechless.

“Fel for the suspect?” Sasha seemed amused. “Is she a good person?”

“I think so.”

“She’s back home, right?”

“I guess.” He shrugged. “I don’t know if she wants to see me.”

“Stop by,” Sasha suggested. “Bring her flowers or something. Ladies love the flowers.”

“I was going to arrest her,” Jordan said.

“Won’t that make things weird?” He left out the part about how he’d already been in her house; how he’d fal en down in front of her; how they’d kissed, which would, of course, only make things weirder and would not bode wel for his next performance evaluation.

Sasha shrugged. “I took one of my old boyfriends back after he cheated on me with my sister,” she said. “And gave us both chlamydia.” She made a face. “Bad example. Anyhow, I bet she’d be glad to see you.” Jordan wasn’t sure he agreed. “So what do you think, real y?”

Sasha asked. He knew what she was asking him: What happened to Daniel Swansea that night? Had Addie and Val gotten away with a crime?

“I think,” he said after a minute, “that Dan Swansea has mended his ways.” He thought some more. “I think that he was a guy whose ways needed mending.”

“Fair enough,” said Sasha.

Jordan got back into his car. Downtown, the foofy little candle-and-potpourri shop had gone out of business, replaced by a place cal ed In Bloom. There, he bought flowers, a bouquet of hot-pink tulips wrapped in pale-green crepe paper, out of season and insanely expensive. He fil ed his tank and washed his windows, and when he couldn’t stal any longer, he drove to Crescent Drive.

FIFTY-THREE

Addie didn’t answer his knocks. She didn’t respond when he rang the bel . When he punched in her number on his cel phone, her phone rang and rang until it went to voice mail, where a computerized voice invited him to leave a message, not sounding as if it cared much one way or another whether he did. Jordan hung up the phone, waited for five minutes, then started knocking again, cal ing “Police!” Final y he heard her voice, coming from the upstairs bedroom window.

“Jordan?” On her face, he saw what he’d seen in the photograph on her brother’s wal

—hope. Faint, but stil there. Then she turned away.

“Addie. Hey. I just want to talk.”

Her voice floated out the window. “There’s real y not much to talk about.”

“There’s everything to talk about. Come on, Addie. Please?”

For a minute, he was sure that she wouldn’t come down, that she’d leave him standing there with his tulips. Then the front door opened, and she was standing in front of him in black pants and a loose red top, with a towel in her hand and her hair—light brown, not blond—stil damp from the shower.

He stared at her. “Your hair’s different.”

She touched it shyly. “I decided I wasn’t meant to live life as a blonde.” She smoothed one hand over her shirt. “Valerie’s the blonde.”

He cleared his throat. “Did you guys have a safe trip home?”

“It was fine.”

“Are you…” He cleared his throat. “In Florida, your friend said you were sick.”

She smiled, then ducked her head. “I’m not sick. It was a misunderstanding. I’m fine.

I’m…”

From the top of the stairs, he heard someone cal “Addie?” As he watched, Val came down the stairs, barefoot in sweatpants, with a book in her hands. “Did you read this one yet?

You’re supposed to be eating kale. Like, crates of it. Or else your kid could have…” She bounded to the bottom of the staircase. Jordan recognized the book she was carrying from Patti’s shelf: What to Expect When You’re Expecting. “A neural-tube defect? What the hel is that?”

Jordan looked at Valerie, then back at Addie. “You’re pregnant?”

She blushed. “A little bit, yeah.”

Jordan’s head was spinning. “You…” He stared, remembering the condoms, and also Mrs. Bass’s insistence that she didn’t have a boyfriend. “Did you go to a sperm bank?”

“Something like that,” she said.

He made himself stop staring and tried to remember why he was there, what he’d meant to tel her. “I wanted to tel you I’m sorry. About…” His voice trailed off. He had no idea what to cal what had happened between them, no certainty of what he was sorry for except that he was indeed sorry.

“I appreciate that. Dan’s okay, right?”

Depends how you define “okay,” thought Jordan, remembering Dan curled on his side in the jail cel and Meredith Armbruster’s calm assertion that they had prayed together. “He’s fine.

But that’s the other reason I came. I wanted to make sure he hasn’t been bothering either one of you.”

Val’s face darkened. Addie’s hand crept back to her bel y. “No,” she said. “Should I be expecting him?”

“I don’t think so. I think he’s turned over a new leaf, or he’s trying to.”

Val snorted. Addie said nothing. The wind gusted, making the bare branches of the trees in her front yard shake. He saw Addie shiver, and he wished he could hold her, open up his jacket and tuck her tight against him. “Go inside,” Jordan said gruffly. “It’s cold out here.” He remembered the flowers and held them out to her. “These are for you.”

“Oh.” She took them and held them awkwardly in one hand, barely noticing as Val drifted discreetly back up the stairs.

“Thanks, they’re beautiful.”

“Addie, listen,” he said. “Do you think we could get together sometime? For a drink, or dinner, or something?” His heartbeat thundered in his ears, and his palms and armpits started to sweat.

She looked at him, her smile fading.

“You’ve been in my house,” she said. He didn’t answer. “You met my brother, I bet.”

He waited. “You chased me al the way down to Florida…”

“‘Chased’ is a little bit strong. It was pursuit.” He looked at her, straight-faced.

“Official police business.”

She narrowed her eyes. “You were showing people my picture. And it wasn’t even a good one. And we…” She ducked her head. That pretty flush was back, coloring her cheeks and her neck.

“Wel ,

that’s

just

standard

police

procedure. Didn’t I mention it the last time I was here? We do that with al our suspects.

First the kissing, then the arresting. The kissing calms them down.”

Her laughter had a lovely, musical sound. He went on. “I’m sorry about being in your house. But we did have some pretty compel ing circumstantial evidence. And your door was unlocked.”

“Was not.”

“Was too.”

“You had a key under your welcome mat.”

“That’s not the same thing.”

“Have dinner with me.”

She leaned against the side of the doorway and sighed, with one hand on her bel y. “It won’t work.”

“Is it because of the baby?” She didn’t answer. Jordan wiped his palms on the sides of his pants and plunged on. “My wife and I, my ex-wife, we couldn’t have kids. I always wanted them—she did, too—but…” He shut his mouth.

Addie shook her head again, looking as if she might cry. “I wish things were different. But I’m not brave.”

“You are.” He looked into her eyes, making her believe it. He was sweating everywhere, hands and armpits and behind his knees, knowing just how important this was and certain that he was going to screw it up somehow, the way he’d screwed everything up lately. “We’re good together. You know we are.”

She didn’t answer. She didn’t say yes, but she didn’t say no either. Jordan kept talking.

He wasn’t sure he could have stopped even if he’d wanted to. “Just a chance,” he said.

“That’s al I want.”

Addie shook her head. “The baby…” She paused, regrouped, and tried again. “The, um, father…”

She seemed about to say more when Jordan interrupted. “I don’t care about that. As long as it’s over.”

“Oh, it is so over.”

“Then that’s fine.”

She looked at him, standing there in the cold. For a long moment he was sure she was going to shake her head and shut the door. Instead, she exhaled slowly and looked at him, her face alight, smiling.

“Would you like to come inside?” she asked. She held the door open, and Jordan fol owed her into the warmth and the light. FIFTY-FOUR

“Can I just say how much I love this?”

Valerie asked. It was a ripe June afternoon. We were in the backyard, barefoot in shorts and T-shirts and canvas gloves, digging up a patch of grass in the backyard, where my mother had once had her garden.

“What, weeding?”

“No. Your whole setup.” She beamed at me. She’d tied her hair back in a bandanna.

“You.

!

Jordan.

The

baby.

It’s

so South Pacific

”

“People are going to think it’s weird.” I sank my spade into the dirt, then got up, setting my hands in the smal of my back and stretching. My due date was ten days away, and I was just starting to think through the logistics: how, in al probability, my daughter’s skin would be dark-er than mine and Jordan’s. Maybe they’d think she was adopted…or that I was the nanny.