Goodnight Nobody (11 page)

Back in the car, I turned on the heater, gripped the steering wheel hard until my hands stopped shaking, and did a few neck rolls. Once my heart had stopped pounding, I pulled out Sophie's notebook and wrote down what I remembered from the picture and the postcard. Then I flipped to a blank page and wrote, "Asking questions. Looking around." What had Kitty wanted to know? What was she doing in the city three days a week? And who had she been before she'd met Philip, had her babies, and turned into the most formidably perfect mother in Upchurch?

Thirteen

I parked the minivan in the garage and stuck my head into the living room. The kids were playing cheater's Candy Land, and Janie was slumped on the couch. Her pink silk blouse was untucked and missing two buttons, and her low-riding jeans had a rip on the cuff.

"Thanks for watching them," I said, then took a closer look. "Are you all right?"

"Little bastards zipped me in their tent," Janie said, pushing herself upright and running her hands through her tangled hair.

I glared at my children. "Did you guys do that?"

Sophie giggled. Sam and Jack stared at the game board.

"Say you're sorry."

"Sorry," they chorused, as Janie waved their apology away and staggered toward the stairs. "May...need...transfusion. Never...having...kids." So much for my plan of loading everyone in the van and driving to the pay phone to call Evan again. I sent all three of the kids to the Uncooperative Corner and got to work on dinner--fish sticks and frozen sweet-potato fries on a baking sheet in the oven, frozen peas and carrots bubbling away on the stove. Sam and Jack watched me from their perch, arguing over which one of them would get the red plate, and I spent five minutes going through my cabinets until I'd located a second red plate, at which point they both decided they wanted white plates instead. Sophie turned up her nose at her meal until I dug a jar of wasabi sauce and pickled ginger out of the refrigerator, gave her a set of chopsticks, and told her it was deep-fried sushi.

At eight thirty, when Janie and all three kids were sleeping, I fixed myself a plate of fish sticks and sweet-potato fries and poured Chardonnay into a plastic cup. I set my dinner on the coffee table, pulled the Hello Kitty notebook out of my purse, and curled up to read. "We are together now." What did that mean? Who was the brunette in the picture, and could I plausibly arrange a trip to Montauk to find out?

When I opened my eyes again, it was ten o'clock. There was a pair of wheeled suitcases leaning next to the front door, and my husband--tall and thin and intense, with a shadow along his cheeks and his tie pulled askew--was nuzzling my neck. "Do you know there's a strange woman passed out in the guest room?"

"Your lucky day," I said, yawning.

"Don't get up," he whispered, kissing my neck again. I ran my hands over his thick black hair, touched his face lightly, then traced his belt buckle with one fingertip. Janie and the kids were sleeping, or at least quiet, the washing machines and dishwasher were running, which would mask any telltale grunts or sighs, we were both awake, and I wasn't having my period, so yes, there was a chance we could have sex for the first time in...I thought back. And back. And back some more. Yikes. What if I'd forgotten how?

"I felt terrible I couldn't be here for you," he said. Not so terrible that he didn't have an erection pulsing behind the fly of his pinstriped pants. I yawned again, then eased his zipper down. "It must have been awful."

"It was scary," I said, as he slid his hands under my tight sweater. "And they haven't arrested anyone yet, I went to see Philip Cavanaugh, and..."

"Oh. Oh, baby." He'd unhooked my bra and had one hand squeezing each of my breasts. First the left one, then the right one, then both at the same time, like he was comparison shopping. I sucked in my breath.

"She was a ghostwriter," I said as he yanked off my pants.

"Touch me," he panted, taking my right hand and pressing it against the front of his pants, in case I was confused about where he wanted to be touched.

"For Laura Lynn Baird, you know, that scary-looking, blond--" He pressed his lips against mine, whether out of passion or a desire to shut me up, I wasn't sure. I kissed him back as he straightened up and put his hand on my neck. The pressure was light but undeniable. I sighed, bent down, and fell to.

"Oh, God," he gasped. "Oh, God, Kate, that's so good."

I bobbed my head up and down with my hands on his hips. "You know," he gasped, "I heard something about Phil Cavanaugh once."

"Mmph?"

"Some woman. Him and some woman. Oh, God, don't stop."

I lifted my head and took a quick breath. "When?"

"Last summer," he said. His head was lolling back against the couch pillows. "The guy who told me--Denny Simon, from the bank, remember?--he said they were hot and heavy last summer. Oh, God, like that. Just like that."

Last summer,
I thought as Ben lifted me back onto the couch.
Interesting.

"Anne something. Or Nan something. Or--Kate," Ben said, tugging my sweater over my head, popping off two of the buttons. "I need to be inside you." The buttons pinged on the floor, and I made a mental note to retrieve them before we went up to bed. Sophie and Jack knew enough to put strange objects into their mouths, but Sam wasn't a hundred percent yet, and I'd already made one trip to the emergency room this month when he'd stuffed a dried cranberry up his nose.

Ben slid his hand up my thigh. I closed my eyes.

"Oh. Oh." Not the sitter, then, but Anne or Nan somebody. And maybe the sitter too. I had to admire Phil's energy. Then I wondered if it had been payback. Maybe Kitty had been trysting in New York when she was supposed to be ghostwriting, and while the Kitty was away...

"Oh," I gasped as he eased my legs apart. "Oh, honey, wait. My diaphragm..."

"I'll pull out," he panted.

The last time I'd fallen for that one, we'd had Sam and Jack nine months later. "It'll just take a second." He groaned but sat back on the couch. I wrapped the afghan around my waist and raced up the stairs. The diaphragm was where I'd left it, in the medicine cabinet, and I felt encouraged: at least it wasn't visibly dusty. I found a half-full tube of spermicide, squirted a double layer around the edge, then filled the diaphragm itself with the clear goop.
Better safe than sorry,
I thought, one foot on the toilet seat. I eased the diaphragm in, picked up the afghan, and scurried back downstairs, where my husband sat. He'd taken off his shirt and tie and his pale body was completely naked except for black socks and a copy of
The Economist
in his lap. I flung the magazine aside, ran my hands through the sparse black hair on his chest, and settled myself on top of him, thinking that it was sort of like riding a bike: no matter how long it had been, you never forgot how.

"Oh," he sighed. "Oh."

"Don't talk," I said, rocking my hips and pressing my fingers against his lips.

"Why not?" he asked, taking my index finger between his teeth and biting down lightly.

I grabbed his shoulders and closed my eyes. "Because it's interfering with my ability to pretend you're that cute doctor on
ER.
"

"Very funny," he said, rolling me onto my back. I sighed at how good I felt, how complete. It was, I realized, the first time since I'd found Kitty's body that I hadn't been completely occupied with thoughts of the murder. And of course, with that thought, I began to think about Kitty and Philip again. Ben's breathing speeded up. I clutched at his back. "Oh, God!" he said in a strangled whisper. He bit his lip to keep from crying out, and his hands dug into my hips as he shuddered.

"See," I said, wriggling out from underneath him a few seconds later, "good things happen when you come home from work when I'm still awake."

He rested his sweaty cheek against mine. "I know. And I'm sorry. It's been so long."

"I think Chevy Chase's talk show lasted longer than you did." I curled up in a corner of the couch, still flushed and breathing hard.

"You can do better," he said, pulling me against him. I felt him smile against my cheek as he wrapped his long, thin legs around my not so long, not so thin ones.

"Al Sharpton's presidential campaign?"

"Al Sharpton's campaign actually lasted quite a while," he informed me, easing me onto my back and stroking slowly between my legs. "His legitimate hopes of attaining the presidency may have been short-lived, but the campaign went on forever."

"Don't stop," I murmured as my eyes slipped shut. It felt so good, so good...

"Mommy?"

"Mommy's busy," my husband called over the back of the couch.
Too late,
I thought, wrapping the afghan around me and getting unsteadily to my feet. Nothing kills the mood quite like a four-year-old who can't sleep.

"Mommy, Sam says he needs a drink of water," Sophie said, stepping down the stairs. "But I told him, 'No water after bedtime because then you'll wet the bed.' But then Sam said..." She peered at the diamonds of bare flesh that peeped through the holes of the afghan. "Where are your underpants?"

"Hang on a minute, Soph," I said, tucking the afghan more tightly around my bare legs, then lifting her in my arms. "See you soon," I whispered to Ben. But by the time Sam had been given his water and escorted to and from the bathroom and Sophie had been lullabied back to sleep, my husband was passed out in his boxer shorts, snoring on top of the quilt.

My rotten luck. I brushed my teeth, folded my afghan, and looked longingly at the shower. It was late, and I'd be exhausted in the morning, but I was still too turned on to sleep.

With three kids and no time, I'd gotten masturbation down to a science. A fast science, I thought, five minutes later, as I leaned against the wet tiled walls, panting and shuddering, with the hand-held nozzle thrashing like a possessed snake where I'd dropped it on the shower floor. It was sad, I decided, as I turned off the water, but I'd probably had more fun with the shower than with Ben. In fact, I was pretty sure that since we'd moved to Upchurch, most of my orgasms had been of the DIY variety: an indictment of suburban living if ever there was one. Were there any married couples with children who still had fulfilling sex lives? Or were all of these perfect Upchurch mommies secretly like me, feeling like they were just playing a part, like they'd wandered into some stranger's bedroom farce, sleeping with their husbands occasionally, lusting after the hunky Little People's Music instructor obsessively, and still falling asleep thinking of their exes?

Fourteen

"Tell me there's no hope," I'd begged my best friend on a Monday morning as Janie and I sat at our battered metal desks at
New York Night.
Our work space was overflowing with the day's newspapers, the week's tabloids, and dozens of promotional tchochkes (coffee mugs, T-shirts, a stuffed pig that squealed a movie title when you squeezed its belly).

"Can't," she said crisply, hitting enter and send and shipping off some staff writer's latest opus--six hundred words on celebrities who had sex in public bathrooms. "There's always hope."

"Like what? Michelle could lose all her limbs in an industrial accident? Even if she was just a torso, she'd still be better looking than me. Even if she was just a head."

"Not true," Janie said. "Although she would be considerably more portable. And again, I remind you: A, you're beautiful, and B, physical beauty is both fleeting and not the point here. The point is Michelle's unattainability and, I suspect, Evan's deep-seated fear of commitment, which has manifested itself as an engagement to a woman who's never going to actually walk down the aisle with him."

I stared at her. "You think she's going to dump him?"

Janie opened her mouth, shut it, then shook her head sadly. "I give up," she said.

I sighed, then rested my head against my own keyboard and started banging it gently against the keys. Nobody seemed to notice. The music editor didn't miss a word in his conversation; Sandra the book critic didn't look up from the manuscript she was scowling at. Five minutes later, Polly cruised by and dropped a photograph on my computer keyboard. "You're up," she said.

I studied the photograph. It was slated to run on our back page, which, in the very height of wit, was called the "Back Page" and always featured a celebrity caught picking a wedgie or scratching indelicately in his or her hindquarters. This week's picture was of a cluster of a dozen drunk-looking people, one with his hand obligingly down the back of his pants, plus girls in jeans and stilettos dancing on the table. My job would be to figure out who everyone was and write a witty yet accurate caption.
Okay,
I thought, squinting at the faces. Rapper, rapper, model, model, celebrity, publicist, celebrity publicist...My heart stuttered in my chest. There was an elbow in the picture, an elbow and a little bit of arm. The side of a hip, a flash of cheek, and a headful of long red hair.

I knew that arm. I knew that hair. Hadn't I spent months fantasizing that their owner would perish in a tragic accident, leaving me a clear field to console and, eventually, marry her fiance?

"Hey, Polly," I called, struggling to keep my voice steady. "When was this shot?"

"Last night," she yelled back. "At the Mercer Kitchen."

I bent back over the picture with my pulse thudding in my ears. Michelle was supposed to be out of town. That's what Evan had told us. Up in New Hampshire, paddling a canoe and climbing mountains for an outdoor gear catalogue. I straightened up, heading toward the back of the newsroom, where the photographers worked, with the picture in my hand. "Was this cropped?" I asked. Pay dirt. The uncropped version of the shot, which the photographer obligingly printed for me, revealed that skinny, ivory-colored arm was looped firmly around the waist of a handsome man with chin-length dark brown hair. The man was nuzzling the redhead's neck, and he was most assuredly not Evan McKenna.

I racewalked over to Janie's desk and brandished the picture in her face. "Look," I told her. "Look at this."

She looked. "God," she murmured. "You'd think one of his three publicists would tell him not to scratch his ass in public."

"Not the rapper," I said, pointing. "Here. This arm. Right there. Who's that?"

She stared at me. "Oh, fun! Is this like Where's Waldo for adults or something?"

"Look," I said again, and showed her the uncropped version of the picture. Janie studied it carefully. "Oh, my," she said. "Oh, dear." She put the picture aside and walked me back to my desk. "Okay, you need to listen to me."

But I couldn't. I was jittery, bouncing on the balls of my feet. "She's cheating on him!" I said. "And when he finds out...and they break up..."

Janie shook her head. "How's he going to find out?" she asked.

I looked at her. I hadn't thought this part through. "I'll tell him?" I guessed.

"No, you won't. You ever heard the expression 'Don't shoot the messenger'?"

I nodded.

"You know who you are if you tell him? You're the messenger." She pressed her hands together and cocked her index fingers up at my heart. "Bang, bang."

"But...but someone has to tell him. We can't let him marry someone who's cheating on him!"

Janie shook her head sadly and pressed her freshly lipsticked lips together. "Not our job," she said.

"So what do we do?"

She picked up the photograph and tapped its edge on her desk. "We wait," she finally said. "We consider the possibility that he might already know."

I started to shake my head. "Why would he stay with someone who was cheating on him?"

"Remember what I told you. It's the thrill of the chase. The unattainable." She considered. "And let's not forget the make-up sex."

I pulled the picture out of her hands and studied it carefully. Maybe I was wrong. Lots of girls had thin hips and red hair. Even if that skinny arm was attached to Michelle, the fact that she was back in New York, unbeknownst to her boyfriend, and at a party with another guy didn't necessarily mean anything, although it certainly strongly suggested it. But maybe she'd just come home early. Maybe Evan knew all about it. Maybe it was no big deal. Still, I had to be sure.

"Nope, sorry, she's still up in New Hampshire," Evan said, when I called and asked whether his intended might be available to help me pick out an outfit for a product launch party. "I could give you her cell phone." "Thanks," I said, and hung up.

Ten minutes later I was on the phone with Michelle's agency, telling them that I was calling from
New York Night
and that we were doing a photo spread on new trends in lingerie. "I've got a blonde and a brunette, just need a redhead," I said. "About five ten, a size four--"

"Four?" the booker asked, sounding skeptical.

"Two!" I said. "Oh, and, um, I don't know quite how to put this, but we're not looking for a rocket scientist. The last shoot we did, the model wouldn't stop talking about some Thomas Pynchon book she'd just read."

"Five ten, size two, not a genius," recited the booker. "I'll messenger you half a dozen cards this afternoon."

"That's great. And the shoot's tomorrow morning, so whoever you send, they have to be available and in New York now."

"Got it," she said, and hung up. An hour later I was flipping through a stack of tall, gorgeous, available, nonbibliophilic redheads. Michelle was card number three.

Calm,
I told myself, even though I was sweating and flushed and starting to get a headache. I washed down three Advil with a swig of warm coffee as Janie sent the words "Don't be the messenger!" over to my screen nineteen times.

My next step was figuring out who Mr. Wavy Hair was. A phone call to the publicist in the picture answered that. "Travis Marx. He's the Pantene man."

The whole day was starting to feel a little unreal. "Beg your pardon?"

"Pantene shampoo and conditioner? He's their hair model. Mr. Pantene. Best follicles in the business. Why? You guys want to book him?"

"Maybe someday," I said. "Who's his agent?" I swallowed more coffee and made two more phone calls. The gullible agent was all too happy to give me the Pantene man's home address, ostensibly so I could send him clippings of ads that had appeared in
New York Night.
Then it was time to hit the pavement.

In the months since he'd revealed his work as an investigator, Evan had occasionally solicited our help. He'd show up at our front door on Saturday morning in jeans and a baseball cap with a notebook in his hands. "I need you in the lobby of the Algonquin," he'd say, handing me a pair of sunglasses and a man's photograph. "This charming fellow says he's spending his Saturdays doing volunteer work in a soup kitchen. The soon-to-be-ex-wife isn't so sure." I'd sit in the lobby, sipping Diet Cokes and looking for the man, and when the man checked in, glancing furtively over his shoulder, hands trembling as he pulled a wad of bills from his pocket, I'd snap a few pictures, call Evan on his cell phone, and we'd go out for brunch.

Or "Equinox," he'd say. "I can't believe he found a way to work even less," Janie complained, but eventually we'd pull on workout gear (oversized sweatpants in my case, skintight Lycra in Janie's) and gossip on the treadmills until a woman allegedly suffering from whiplash and herniated disks showed up in a hot pink unitard for high impact aerobics. Or "Dalton." That day he'd arrived up at the offices of
New York Night
at lunchtime with a plastic bag containing a corned beef sandwich, saddle shoes, and a plaid skirt. "You're looking for a girl named..." He consulted his notebook and scowled. "Lockhart. Ugh. Why do rich people give their kids such stupid names? Anyhow. The nanny's supposed to meet her; Mom thinks she's been letting Lockhart take the subway home by herself."

I fingered the skirt dubiously, imagining my winter white thighs underneath it. "Couldn't I just pretend to be one of the mothers?"

"You could," said Evan, grinning at me, eyes sparkling beneath his thick eyebrows. "But that would be a lot less amusing for me." So I ate the sandwich and slipped into the bathroom. ("Do I even want to ask?" Janie inquired as she smoothed on another coat of mascara.) Thirty minutes later I was hanging around outside the school. At three-fifteen little Lockhart breezed past me, a backpack almost as big as she was bouncing on her scrawny shoulders, and headed for the subway, sans nanny.

I thought about asking him why Michelle couldn't help him, why she couldn't be the one on the treadmill, or in the lobby, or in the plaid skirt outside the school. But the answer was obvious. Michelle was the kind of woman you'd notice and remember. As for me, it turned out that I had a talent for invisibility, developed over years of living with Reina. I knew how to melt into the shadows, how to stand quietly in a corner, how to pull up a newspaper and make myself completely inconspicuous. Just say the magic words--
My beautiful daughter, Katerina
--and I'd be gone.

At five o'clock that night I slid the photograph of Michelle and the Pantene Man into an envelope and presented myself at the midtown offices of a car rental company. By six I was parked across from a limestone building on the Upper East Side, slumped behind the wheel of a nondescript Neon, staring at the door to Mr. Pantene's apartment. I had a knitted cap pulled low over my forehead, my winter coat to keep me warm, and I was provisioned with a turkey and cheese sandwich and a bag of chips, two bottles of water, a disposable camera, and an empty plastic pitcher in which to pee, should that become necessary.

It didn't. I was ready to wait for hours--all through the night if I had to--but this one was an easy layup, a home run, a touchdown. At nine o'clock that night Michelle and Travis came sauntering down the street, arm in arm, heads thrown back, laughing. She wore a short black-and-white-striped dress that whipped around her perfect thighs and no hat or coat or mittens, in spite of the cold. Maybe she had guilt to keep her warm. Mr. Pantene wore an everyhipster's black turtleneck sweater and black jeans. I watched as Travis held the door open and Michelle whispered something in his ear before slipping inside. I snapped pictures of everything, including his hand lingering at her hip.

Two hours later I'd had two sets of prints developed, dropped off the car, and made my way back to our apartment. Janie was waiting for me with a bowl of popcorn and a stiff vodka and grapefruit juice.

"All true," I said, sliding the photographs across the kitchen counter.

"You can't tell him," she said.

"I wasn't--"

"You can't, Kate. Here." She handed me the glass. "Drink." She led me to the couch. "Sit. Reflect on what I've told you. Bide your time." I nodded numbly and sipped my drink. "If it's meant to be, it'll be."

"And if not?"

Janie shrugged, slid the photos into a drawer and gave me a kind smile. "You'll always have me."

Janie and I had big plans for New Year's Eve, honed through weeks of planning and discussion. Fancy restaurants were too crowded, takeout was too pathetic, and the one time I'd accompanied her to Sy's place to ring in the new year, I'd felt so out of place (not to mention roughly twice the size and infinitely more broke than the other female attendees) that I'd befriended the coat check girl and spent the entire night helping her hang and retrieve furs.

So this year we were going to Big Wong in Chinatown for Peking duck and dumpling soup. After dinner, we'd go to the Lo Kee Inn on Mott Street and sing karaoke until the ball dropped in Times Square. "With your voice and my choreography, we'll probably get a record deal!" Janie said. (I'd agreed to learn her dance steps but had drawn the line at donning a Tina Turner wig.) After much hesitation, I'd called Evan the week before to invite him. "Sounds like fun," he said, but he and Michelle had plans: dinner and dancing at Windows on the World.

"Have a good time," I'd told him. Janie and I backed up all of our computer files and called our parents to wish them a happy New Year. Then Janie pulled me into her bedroom and handed me a pink sweater and a pair of sparkly high-heeled, hot pink sandals. "You know what my New Year's resolution is? To get you laid."

I frowned at the sweater. "Can't you just decide to lose ten pounds like everyone else?"

She shook her head. "I'm already perfect," she said and pushed the shoes into my hands. "Sy lent me his car and driver."

I pulled the sweater over my head, remembering how the last time Sy had lent her something (specifically, use of his Miami Beach condo for a weekend), Sy hadn't actually known about it until after the fact.

"No, really! I asked him!" she said, steering me toward the bathroom.