Compromising Positions (10 page)

“It won’t wash, dearie.”

I realized then that from the beginning, she had wanted no part of Mary Alice and her problem. The only reason she had agreed to help was that it ensured a graceful exit. I fired my last shot. “You can’t spend the rest of your life avoiding commitments. You can’t just label a situation tacky and boring and make it go away.”

“Take your psychoanalysis and ram it up your ass,” she answered.

She slammed the phone down a split second before I did, only because her reflexes are sharper. I sat in a kitchen chair, feeling heavy and depressed, as I always do after an argument. She’d never speak to me again. I’d be all alone. All I’d have was Bob. My parents, happy and retired on their high school teachers’ pensions in Arizona, could only love me from a distance. And now with Nancy gone too, I’d have to go it alone. She wouldn’t lend me her gold chains. All my half-articulated hopes, all my well-considered dissatisfactions, would have to be confided to Bob.

With that thought, I called her back. “Peace at any price.”

“Oh, Judith. Hi. Sorry I was such an old bitch.” I mumbled that it hadn’t bothered me. “Look,” she said, “I just realized I have a source in the police department. He probably won’t know anything, but I’ll give him a call just the same.”

“Who?” I asked, immensely relieved more about our truce than about her prospect.

“Remember Jim Hogan? Jim, from about two years ago. You know, Little Cupcake.”

Of course I remembered. Little Cupcake had been a radio-car patrolman who had first met Nancy when her burglar alarm accidentally went off. To apologize, she invited him in for a glass of wine, and by the end of the bottle they had formed a relationship that had lasted for about six months. It had been wonderfully convenient. He would cruise her block, making sure no cars were in her driveway, and then pull his car in and drive around to the back. They’d make love on her screened porch, so he could listen for calls on his car radio. I was never certain whether she had broken off with him out of tedium or at the prospect of a long, cold winter on the porch.

“Are you still friendly enough with him to do it?” I asked.

“Well, I haven’t seen him in ages, but I’m sure he’ll be glad to hear from me.” She said this with no self-consciousness, which I found absolutely remarkable. If I had ever had an affair, I would assume that after it was over I would either be forgotten, or if considered at all, it would be with a soupçon of contempt. But, then, Nancy had smooth, seemingly poreless skin and no stretch marks.

“Okay. Let me know what happens,” I said.

“I’ll call him first thing next week.”

“Can’t you do it today?”

“Judith, don’t push your luck.”

I took her suggestion and we said goodbye. If Little Cupcake was still assigned to the same precinct, he might have some information about the murder. I had no worry that Nancy would be able to extract whatever information he had. My only concern was that he was such a lousy cop that he wouldn’t care enough to listen to the gossip about the case.

It was almost time for me to fetch Joey, and I walked into the living room to retrieve my shoes. As I did, I noticed a large station wagon in the driveway. Its door slammed shut. And marching up the path, looking very grim, was Scotty Hughes.

I pulled open the door before she could ring the bell.

“Hello,” she said, trying unsuccessfully to smile. Her lips spread out, but her large teeth remained hidden behind them, as though she were doing an isometric facial exercise. “I’d like to apologize for walking out on you, leaving you without a lift home. It was rude. Inexcusable. I’m sorry.”

“That’s okay,” I replied graciously. “Come in. Please.”

“I can’t. Really. I have to get some position papers in order. We’re trying to save the wetlands.”

“I see.” I hadn’t known we had wetlands. It felt reassuring to realize that people like Scotty existed to save them. “Look, Scotty, I know this is really awkward—for both of us. I’m sorry, and as far as I’m concerned our little exchange never occurred.”

“I appreciate that,” she said cautiously.

“Well, I have to pick up Joey.”

“I see,” she replied. “I really don’t want to talk about Bruce Fleckstein. It was the one great mistake of my life.”

“Well,” I said reassuringly, “I’ve made some doozies in my life.” She stood there, looking sad and awkward. “Let bygones be bygones. Water under the bridge,” I murmured.

“He was so utterly charming at the beginning. And then so distant, so totally cold.”

“Oh,” I said.

“I couldn’t believe it was the same man. How could he act like that to me?”

“How did he act?” I asked.

“I really don’t think it’s any of your concern, Judith,” she snapped, and turned and marched back to her station wagon.

“Oh, well,” I sighed, and left to pick up Joey. The rest of the afternoon was serene enough. Bob called to say he’d be working late, so I took the children out for a pizza.

“You know what?” Kate demanded with a full mouth. “Mrs. Hamilton won’t let Wendy eat pizza because it’s junk food.”

When we arrived home, I decided to reinforce my guilt by calling Marilyn Tuccio. At that very moment, I thought, she’d be serving her family a savory, low-cholesterol chicken cacciatore, simmered in the tomato paste she had canned the previous fall.

“Hi,” I began, “I just wanted to check to see how you were. You had quite a day yesterday.”

“Well, today was no pleasure either. The police were here twice. The first time they wanted to know if I had my supermarket check.”

“What?”

“My supermarket check. I stopped off at the A&P after I went to Dr. Fleckstein’s office.”

“My God, Marilyn. Who the hell saves supermarket checks?”

“I do. I showed it to them.”

“Oh.” Someday I’ll learn that my habits are not the standards by which to judge the rest of humanity. “What did they want the second time?”

“Well, this awful detective with eyebrows about a foot thick came and started asking a lot of silly questions.” That must have been Ramirez. “Then he sort of sneered and asked if my husband had any famous relatives. I couldn’t figure out what he meant, so I told him no, but that Mike’s Uncle John was chief of neurosurgery at St. Vincent’s. Then all of a sudden I realized what this, this person, was asking me.”

“What?” I asked eagerly.

“He was asking me if Mike was connected with the Mafia. Just because we have an Italian name.”

“Wow.” I was reduced to monosyllables, not by the detective’s stupidity, but by the force of Marilyn’s anger.

“So I told him that I was nauseated by his filthy smears and to go to hell. I said ‘hell,’ Judith, and told him to get out of my house and fast.”

“Gee,” I said. “By the way, did you speak with a lawyer?”

“Well, after that little scene I certainly did. Helen Fields. The Assemblywoman. She has a practice over in Mineola. She said if the police want to talk to me, they’ll do it in her presence.” Helen Fields was a tough old politician, a Republican who made William Howard Taft look like a knee-jerk liberal.

“Did you mention anything to her about seeing Fleckstein and his nurse at the motel?”

“Yes. And she told me to tell it to the police.”

“And did you?”

“Not yet. But maybe I will.”

“Marilyn, I think you should.”

“This whole thing is ridiculous,” she said. “It’s not even worth thinking about.”

“Yes, it is,” I insisted, reaching over and opening a window. The air had become damp and frigid, a foreshadowing of snow to come. I took a deep breath and tried again. “Marilyn, if the police have it in their heads that you’re some sort of avenging angel or that all those doctors in Mike’s family are suddenly taking out contracts on Jewish dentists, you ought to realize they’re serious. Stupid, maybe, but serious.”

“I’ll think about it. But the whole thing is so ugly.”

“I know.”

It started snowing that night and continued into Friday. Five inches of fat, puffy snowflakes, and we spent Saturday making snowpeople with the children on the front lawn. A great, rotund snowman, looking like a Victorian father, a somewhat smaller snowwoman, equipped with a kerchief, sunglasses, and two healthy snowbreasts, and two small snowchildren with eternally vigilant raisin eyes. Sunday, my in-laws visited, my mother-in-law catering dinner, walking into the house with two Bergdorf’s shopping bags filled with foil-covered dishes, saying, “Judith, dear, today is your day to relax.”

And all weekend long, I reviewed the Fleckstein play, envisioning the characters—Bruce, Norma, Mary Alice, Dicky, Brenda, Scotty, Fay, et al.—parading before me, the director. All they needed was a script to give coherence to their existences, lines and gestures to illuminate their inner lives.

“Judith,” cooed Bob. “Judith. Come here.” It was Sunday night and he hadn’t put on his pajamas.

“What?” I asked.

“You were a thousand miles away,” he observed.

“Oh,” I said, realizing that having dimmed the bedroom lights, he was indeed serious. “I thought you were tired.”

“Not any more,” he whispered, his breath hot and damp in my ear. He grabbed my hand and placed it on his erection—in case I hadn’t noticed. “Does that feel tired to you?” I conceded that it felt extremely alert. “Unless you’re too tired,” he added bravely.

“No, of course not.” My usual I’m-not-in-the-mood signal is a mighty yawn as we ascend the stairs. At that moment, we achieve a tacit understanding and he heads for his pajama drawer. But that night, I was already at Orsini’s with Claymore, examining some fine points of criminal law over an icy glass of Lillet. Bob began biting my lower lip. It worked. I put my hand on his chest and moved it slowly southward.

“Mmmmm. Judith. Hey, why did you stop?” I stopped, I declared silently, because what happens if someone sees me with Claymore Katz and mentions something to you? Automatically, I started my hand moving again. “It feels so good,” he intoned. Would you think I was spending the afternoon making Claymore Katz feel good? That, of course, was patently ridiculous. Claymore had flabby thighs and a jiggly ass. But would that convince Bob? Or would he say, his blue eyes frosted with cold anger, “The lady doth protest too much, methinks.” And pack up, leaving me in Shorehaven, and move to a lovely apartment in the East Sixties and fall in love with a thin blond biochemist who got her Ph.D. at twenty-four.

“Bob,” I sighed. “I have to tell you something.”

“I know. Oh, honey, I know.”

He pushed me down onto the bed. I tried hard to concentrate on Bob’s tall, compact, beautiful body. It didn’t work. Nor, as he tried to pry my legs apart, would my Lamaze breathing techniques; he’d taken the course with me and would spot it at my first deep cleansing breath. My knees remained sandwiched together like a recalcitrant Oreo. “Not yet,” I whispered.

“Now. Please.”

“Just one second,” I pleaded, concentrating on finding someone on whom to focus, some wonderful, sensual man who would put a swing in my step and a zing in my labia. No one, just a series of faces, men I had known, men I would like to know, but all whizzing by as if on a too-fast film strip, with a voice-over by Bob saying, “Mmmmm.”

“Bob.”

“Don’t stop. Oh, God, don’t stop.”

In ten minutes, he was sound asleep. It took me another hour.

So, on Tuesday morning, I decided to face the issue boldly. “I’m going to the city today.”

“That’s nice,” he responded.

Enough boldness for one day. After he left, and before Mrs. Foster, the baby sitter, was due to arrive and eavesdrop, I called Mary Alice and told her about my appointment with Claymore.

“How can I possibly thank you, Judith? You know I’m an agnostic, but believe me, if there is a God, then He will bless you. Or should I say, She will bless you.”

“I haven’t even bought my train ticket yet, Mary Alice. I’ll call you tomorrow and tell you what happened.”

“Can’t you tell me tonight? I feel so terribly impotent, just sitting here. Impotent. What a strange word to choose. Impotent...”

“I don’t want Bob to hear our conversation. I think it’s better to keep him out of this, so I’m doing it on my own.”

“I thought the two of you had a very honest, open relationship.”

I assured her that it was as open as I could handle and made a date to see her the next morning at ten, this time at my house. I really didn’t like her, I thought. Then why was I spending the day as her agent? Not for Mary Alice, I realized. For me. To satisfy my own intense curiosity. To be somehow a part of the Fleckstein case, to position myself in the center of all those currents of passion and emotion and intrigue. And less than an hour later, I found myself in front of Orsini’s, ready to insert myself even deeper into the situation. But it was only twelve-fifteen, and nothing could happen until Clay arrived at one.

I strolled along Fifth Avenue. The snow that still frosted Shorehaven was gone in Manhattan, melted away by the intensity of city life. I peered into Valentino’s window. They had some gray silk blouses that one must possess to match one’s gray wool slacks and one’s peach and gray knit sweater. Soft and cool and rich and secure. Gucci, in a direct rebuke, had forsaken the calm, understated colors and was pushing red. Red silk, red wool, red suede. Red to go with one’s bright, multi-textured life.

“Hi,” said a voice next to me. I glanced away from the window, half expecting to see Claymore grinning at me. Instead, it was a stranger, a man about my age, a pleasant, ordinary-looking, brown-eyed stranger who wore a navy blue overcoat exactly like Bob’s. “Are you buying anything?” he asked. His smile was friendly.

“Are you selling anything?” I responded. His expression changed almost microscopically, only his eyes glazing over, the curtain descending to hide the human being; my four words had transmogrified me from a person to a piece of ass.

“What are you in the market for?” His voice thickened.

“Actually, I’m just window shopping,” I said, smiling at him. He looked a little confused. “I was just being facetious when I asked you what you were selling.”

“Oh, facetious. Do you work around here?”