Break and Enter (29 page)

“I have no excuse, Janice. It’s just that—”

“I’m glad you called, Peter.”

“I miss you. That’s not a helpful thing to say so abruptly, but I have to say it. I miss us.” Would she acknowledge John Apple? “Janice, sometimes I wish we had done it differently.”

“Sometimes,” she responded, her voice slurry and confessional, more intimate than he could have hoped for, “I think about us being together again. It’s like we’re going along still
connected,
just not
together.
Like you’re right next to me.”

“I’d like to still be right next to you, Janice…. You’re the one I wanted—”

“Hey,” she said happily, “let’s have dinner tonight.”

“Where?”

Where they usually ate on their anniversary. Quiet and dark, impeccable and fantastically expensive. The French waiters watched like statues from the corner of the room and made you feel catastrophically ill-mannered. But he liked the anniversary symbolism and, like any trial
attorney, knew to quit when he was ahead. The answer was yes and he’d make the reservation.

Later, readying to leave, he asked his mother if he could take home a couple of light bulbs.

“Of course,” she said.

“Actually, I need more than a couple, Mom.”

“Take whatever you need.” She smiled.

He kissed her and held her shoulders with both hands so that she would look straight at him.

“I’ll see you Monday morning, Mom, after the big bad surgery that everybody is terribly afraid to discuss because it scares them, which they don’t like to admit to anybody, least of all themselves.”

His mother looked at him with love, eyes wet.

“That’s unfair.” She smiled tearfully. “And you know it.”

WALKING FROM THE SUBWAY
to Delancey Street, carrying the light bulbs stuffed in the pockets of his wool coat, he believed he had good reason to hope. He cleaned the living room and kitchen and replaced the burned-out bulbs on both floors—there was a genuine satisfaction in restoring normalcy. If Janice came back to the house, she would feel comfortable if the place was in order; she would think he wanted her back for other than housekeeping purposes, which was true. The mail had continued to pile up, so he attended to that, too, setting the bills on his desk, tossing out the junk. Phil Mastrude had sent a letter outlining the steps he was taking. Peter left the rest of the mail on the hall table. Then, like an athlete preparing for a big game, he forced himself to lie down and take a ninety-minute nap. When he woke he shaved, inspected his face. Was he getting heavier and more tired-looking? He showered, finished Janice’s shampoo, and stepped out steamy and relaxed. In the bedroom, he replayed his answering machine for the first time in a day.

“Peter? Cassandra. It’s Friday afternoon and I think it’s time for a little diversion, don’t you?” Her voice lilted out of the answering machine, assuming more than it should. Did she see sex the way some people viewed drugs? There seemed an improvident eagerness in Cassandra
that suggested some undernourished aspect of her personality. The other night, as she whispered obscenely into his ear, he had wondered if she actually remembered who was on top of her. She was one of those rare women who moaned while her partner was still on the other side of the room.

“Your line’s busy at work,” Cassandra’s voice continued, “and I have to go into a meeting for the rest of the day, so I thought I’d leave a message here. There’s a party Sunday night. I’ve been invited and told I should bring”—whatever poor sap is currently dicking you, he thought—“you. Talk to you soon.”

No, you won’t, he thought, I’m bringing my wife home tonight. He erased the phone messages. He removed all obvious signs of Cassandra, every cigarette butt. He vacuumed the rug in case she had left some distinguishing shoe mark; women, he knew, saw things men could not, and this reminded him that Cassandra had left the diaphragm in a tissue upstairs. The tissue had dried and hardened. He washed and returned the diaphragm to its original spot. He put new sheets on the bed and washed the old ones, not knowing what Janice might be able to smell; he threw open the windows to the winter cold and aired the house. He checked the bathroom drains for hair, under the bed for panties or stockings. He wondered if Cassandra had done the dishes. He checked, and she had. The silverware in the dishwasher rack was arranged by forks, knives, and spoons. He removed them. Janice knew he just shoved them in any old way. When Cassandra had made toast recently, she had carefully put the twisty piece of plastic around the bread wrapper. This, too, he removed. He vacuumed the bedroom a second time, and searched on his hands and knees for—what? A foreign brand of toothpaste, a hair, a kind of bobbypin Janice didn’t use? Women see everything. He wiped down surfaces for fingerprints, though of course they couldn’t be seen. An eyebrow pencil, an earring stud—and the game would be lost. What he needed was the mobile crime detection unit. And what he really needed was for them to find a little bit of Johnetta Henry’s blood on Wayman Carothers’s coat. That wasn’t too much to ask.

Done with cleaning, he considered what to wear. Janice liked him to look his best, so he pulled out his last fresh suit, the blue one she bought him two Christmases ago, a clean shirt, and red tie. If he drove the Ford,
that would give them two cars, reinforce their separation. If, however, he took a taxi to the restaurant, then the issue of her driving him home had to be considered. He checked his wallet—he’d use the American Express—made sure a light was on, locked the front door, and left.

By the time the cab dropped him before the restaurant awning, he had decided that spending over a hundred and fifty dollars for dinner was ludicrous, a crime. Then he saw Janice. She was waiting for him just inside, wearing the tight blue dress she knew he liked and her pearl necklace, a gift from his mother. She wore new shoes and her hair was up in a French braid.

“There’s my date,” he said to her after coming inside. Her eyes were excited, willing to play. He wondered if her mood was due to John Apple. He could cut that fruit in two and get different answers: One, Janice was bright and perky because Apple’s attentions to her put her in a more confident position in respect to Peter, or perhaps, two—something he could never ask—things had gone sour with Apple and Janice was becoming more accommodating.

They ordered dinner and a bottle of wine. He told her about his mother’s upcoming surgery. Janice smiled sadly.

“She’s the mother I lost.”

“I know. I always knew that.”

“We picked out my wedding dress together. It was—”

“It was,” he interrupted boldly, “a full-length, off-the-shoulder, lace wedding dress, with tiny hooks in the back, size six. It had to be let out just a bit in the bust”—he tossed back his wine—“and the dress and alteration cost a total of five hundred and sixty-six 1983 Reagan dollars.”

Janice looked away, distracted.

“You know these things about me no one else will ever know.”

“Of course I do,” he responded, sensing the opportunity. “I know where the three fillings are in your teeth, not that that’s such a wonderful detail. I know you rode a camel at the circus when you were six. You were hit by a car when you were riding your bike on your fifteenth birthday, and the driver was a fat, hysterical woman in her fifties. I know your left ankle aches in wet weather as a result. You sleep on your stomach and always have. And,
of course,
you peed in the cat box in the bathroom when you were three years old.”

“That was an experiment.” She tasted her food. He waved at the waiter for another bottle.

“I know that you are one of the very few people who can tie a maraschino cherry stem in a knot using only your tongue and teeth. What else? Your mother never would explain why the dates on her birth certificate and her driver’s license didn’t match. I know you’re a better driver than me and most men. I know—”

“Peter, I don’t like the way you figured out where I live.” The tone shifted; he should have realized Janice would want to scold him. “Snooping around there was pretty sleazy.”

“I’m a desperate man. That is said in truth, not in jest.”

“What did you do, go in the bedroom and read my journal?”

“I went in there, but there was no time for that.”

“You would have,” she asserted.

“Probably,” he laughed.

“Well, I was pretty upset. My lawyer is, too.”

“Berger predicted you’d get somebody tough like him.”

“Berger never liked me.”

“Sure he did,” Peter said with a full mouth.

“He said I was the kind of woman men loved but didn’t like.”

“I like you, and I love you.”

She wasn’t interested in this response. “So often men are only interested in women who present a
challenge.
If a woman is simply decent and loving, the man will tire of her. I see it at work. These women are trapped in patterns. No matter who they talk to, they still go back to their abusive man. Or
another
abusive man. It’s what they
know
.” She squinted and tapped her head. “Their
universe
includes a man like that.”

They ate quietly. He wondered if the evening could be redeemed. Janice, he noticed, was enjoying her wine again, tasting it against her lips with her tongue, and, after the main course was cleared, when he ordered a third bottle with dessert, she smiled at him, sharing an unspoken secret.

“Well?” Her eyes were bright, her voice soft now.

“I can’t decide. Part of me wants to take you home with me tonight, and part of me thinks it will only cause trouble.”

“I feel that way, too.”

They looked at each other.

“You seeing anyone?” Peter risked.

“Jealous?” Janice tasted her chocolate torte.

“Of course,” he said quietly.

“It’s too soon. You should know that about me.”

He grunted credibly, amazed at the smoothness of their lies. He would not be depressed by it, however.

“You?” She looked up. “I’d imagine you’d get pretty itchy pretty quickly.”

“I itch.”

“Sure,” she teased, her tongue on her bottom lip.

He leaned forward. His head felt loose on his neck. Janice, he saw, was completely drunk.

“I’m crazy about you, you know.”

“How crazy?”

“I’ve got deep reserves of affection for you, stored in fifty-five-gallon barrel drums.”

She laughed and pretended to scowl.

“No, it’s true. A big warehouse near the river. I’ve got a man running a forklift twenty-four hours a day, stacking drums up to the ceiling. Rows ten high and five hundred long.”

“His name, please, for our records.”

“Joe Cupid. He has lavender eyes and a tattoo on his chest, a wild riot of roses.” That actually described a rape defendant he prosecuted several years back, but Janice didn’t know that. “He was trained and handpicked for the job.”

“Stop. It’s not fun anymore. You’re making fun of me.”

“I’ll stop, Janice,” he said quickly to erase the moment.

They were quiet for a minute.

“I don’t want any kind of answer now,” he began. “Just think about what I’m going to say.” The wine filled him with hope. “This is the proposition: You move back into the house. I quit my job now—”

“In the midst of this big case?”

“Yessiree Bob, and we go somewhere, anywhere. I’ll get some quiet work, something with reasonable hours, and we’ll start having a family. We’ve got about five years left to have a family, Janice. You’ll be a great
mother. I’ve always said that to you. We have a lot of things to work out, and I’d just like another chance to work on them. I mean, Jesus, Janice, it’s been so many years together and you’re my life, you know what I mean? We grew up together, Janice. We were
kids
when we met. I’ll be honest with you—I can’t throw all that away. A person can’t throw away everything. Any psychiatrist will tell you that. I’m going a little crazy without you, Janice, I’m doing things—”

“What
have
you been doing?” she said, worry in her voice.

He remembered the nude, still form of Johnetta Henry. He did not want to know why he was thinking of her.

“What are we going to do?” Janice asked.

“Let me say what I was going to say.” Peter had heard an open door in her voice. “I want you to consider coming back. Like I said, I’d get a different job, we’d move somewhere out of the city if you want, or stay. You could start having those kids, the whole deal. Damn it, why can’t we have a hell of a good shot at it? We’re the kind of people who should be able to make a go of something like this. Aren’t you a little burnt out on dealing with all these other people’s problems? I am. I don’t think of myself as the same as the average guy out there, getting a divorce when the first problem pops up.”

“I used to imagine you holding a little dark-haired girl in your arms,” Janice interrupted happily. “I used to think about things like that.”

“Well, keep thinking about them,” he said softly. “They’re damn good things to think about.”

“You tip the waiter?” she asked.

“Thirty percent.”

“Peter,” she scolded happily.

“I’ve had a great night. I’m thankful.”

She handed him the car keys. “You drive.”

In her Subaru—the license of which was recorded on some computer file within Vinnie’s empire—he flipped on the heater and rummaged through the cassette box, pulled out an old James Taylor tape, and popped it in the machine. Sweet Baby James crooned songs of love and suffering and loyalty. He drove slowly, conscious of how drunk he was—they had killed the third bottle with Janice going heavy. It was easy to get a DWI, and the papers invariably picked up on city officials caught drunk. He
timed the green lights on Market Street. Bulky specters of men stood on billowing steam grates, silhouetted before the bright glass lobbies of the office buildings. They didn’t scare him—they could all go to hell, or to the piss-stenched, rat-infested tunnels under the subway, which was the same thing. Tonight he was warm. Janice held his free hand.

“Hey, you,” she murmured. He watched a flashing police car cross two blocks ahead and slowed. Janice pushed her forehead into his shoulder. “Why do I love you?”