In Memoriam (25 page)

That was Emily’s mantra. “Don’t just sit around wasting your time. Do something. Read a book, get a hobby, walk the neighbor’s dog.
Anything
but sit around.” She thought it would be fun to have a glass of wine in the evening like other couples did, but when she discovered it relaxed her, she never did it again. “I can relax when I’m dead,” she said. “I want to do too much with my life to waste it sitting around being mellow all night.” So that put the kibosh on the wine idea.

Yes, Pam was the exact opposite. She said so herself, that she could die tomorrow and not have one thing left to do. She was pretty and easy to talk to, but he wasn’t sure there was much there. They’d enjoyed talking the night before because they’d consumed enough wine for six people. He was strongly attracted to her, and then she dropped the bomb that she had AIDS and that they wouldn’t be intimate until they were married. Jason started laughing; she had to have been drunk. He hoped she’d forgotten their conversation.

Returning to Jeff’s after forty-five minutes, he checked his phone before getting into the shower and saw that she’d called and left a message. “Hi, thanks again for last night. I have a family issue that I need to deal with this morning, so I’m asking for a rain check for breakfast. Talk to you soon!”

Exhaling, Jason had to admit he was relieved. Maybe she had regrets about sharing so much intimate information, too.

“Sorry, Em,” he said to the ceiling, feeling disloyal. “I’ll make it up to you.” He picked up the phone and called Emily’s best friend.

~ ~ ~

After Lisa finished nursing Marcus, she put him back in his bassinet. Dan was still in the bathroom, so she’d use the time to have a little employer to employee chat with Daniela. Megan was in the highchair, having breakfast, and Daniela was sitting across from her.

“Hey, baby,” Lisa said, kissing the top of Megan’s head. “Daniela, just so there’s no misunderstanding, stay away from my husband. If he comes around to chat, leave the room.” The nanny was red-faced, embarrassed. She started to stammer, but Lisa wasn’t having it.

“If you get defensive, you can leave now. I’ll treat you well and pay you a living wage just to play with my daughter, but my husband is one hundred percent off-limits. He’ll try to engage you, so I’m leaving it up to you to be in control. If you fail to do as I ask, you’ll be dismissed with no notice or severance pay. Do you understand me?”

Daniela was shocked, trying to decide if she should agree with Lisa or tell her to go to hell. In seconds, memories of past employers who expected her to clean their houses and more flitted through her mind. All this woman was asking her to do was avoid her creepy husband. She could do it. “I understand you,” she replied.

“I’ll have a contract drawn up for you to sign,” she said, turning to leave, running back up the stairs. Dan was just coming out of the bathroom. “I’ve instructed the nanny to give you a wide berth or get fired, so leave her alone.”

Dan couldn’t believe what he just heard. “You did what?”

“You heard me, Dan. Leave the nanny alone. She isn’t there to build your ego or amuse you. I’ve told her to stay away from you or I fire her. As a matter of fact, I’m calling my mom’s neighbor to draw up a contract for her that includes that clause.”

Dan was at a crossroad. He understood that he was responsible for Lisa overreacting, but he didn’t think he could tolerate her supervising every move he made. “Lisa, you’re being completely unreasonable.”

Lisa jumped in front of him, scaring him. “I don’t think so, Dan! You meet another woman for a beer the same day I give birth to your son. Then, after I tell you in no uncertain terms that it is not acceptable for you to do so, you continue speaking to her on the phone and meeting her in public.”

He backed away from her with his hands up in a posture of submission. But she wasn’t having it, her voice getting louder.

“You’ve already said it won’t happen again, and it did. And standing in the kitchen with a sheet wrapped around you isn’t appropriate, either. Don’t do it again!”

The baby started to cry, the mewing cries of a newborn.

“Now you’ve done it,” she said, bursting into tears. “Get the hell out. I’m so sick of you right now I don’t care what you do.” Exhausted, she went to the bassinet and gently rocked Marcus until he calmed down. She thought she heard voices coming from the kitchen; Gladys and Ed had made good time. If they heard the fight, she didn’t care.

Dan dressed in the closet and left without saying good-bye.

Lisa stood in the window and watched him pull his Porsche out of the garage. “That stupid damn car,” she said. “Great family car, Dan.” Getting back into bed, she prayed Gladys wouldn’t come up.
Karma, Lisa,
her mother’s voice whispered.
You are getting what you deserve.
Curled up on her side, Lisa cried herself to sleep.

~ ~ ~

Pam spent the morning with Bernice and Nelda. Since her pacemaker insertion, Bernice was like a different woman. She’d easily lost ten years. Her spry enthusiasm for life wore off on Nelda, and the two of them could hardly be contained.

“What are we going to do today? I can’t bear the thought of sitting around the house,” Bernice said.

“What do you want to do?” Pam asked. “What would you do if you were still in the city?”

“On a day like this, I’d go to the Museum of Art. Then I’d have lunch in the café.”

“Order a car and go,” Pam said. “Annabelle can be your chaperone in case you feel like running down to Atlantic City.”

“Oh lord, that would be the last place on earth I’d go.”

“I’d kill to go to A.C.,” Nelda said, entering the kitchen. “Let’s do it.” They bickered for a while, and they decided they were going to the city for Bernice.

“Pam, would it be okay if we spent the whole weekend there?” Bernice asked. “At Jack’s? We can go to Atlantic City for Nelda tomorrow.”

Pam hesitated. What would be the harm? The apartment was empty since Brent’s murder. Annabelle packed up Brent’s belongings to ship to Babylon; Pam couldn’t bear the thought of doing it. “What does Annabelle think? All the work will fall on her shoulders.” But it was fine with her. She looked forward to spending a beautiful weekend in the city.

“I bet there are tickets to a play around here, too,” Pam said, riffling through a pile of mail.

A weekend alone with the ladies occupied, Pam decided to call Jason again. She hadn’t heard from him after she left the message. He answered on the first ring.

“Is the crisis over?” he asked.

“Oh, yes. The ladies wanted to spend the weekend in the city, and it took a little organization. Would you still like to get together?”

He hesitated, sending a heat wave through Pam. “I am so sorry. When you cancelled, I assumed it was for the day, so I’ve made other plans.”

Pam felt so embarrassed she had difficulty speaking. Catching her breath, she wanted to hang up the phone instead. “Oh, I’m so disappointed,” she said honestly. “And so embarrassed. I thought we had real intimacy last night. At least it felt real at the time. I guess for you, not so much.” Embarrassment cruised through her body.
What the hell?

“I guess I’m not used to so much sharing so soon,” he said.

“Oh, you mean about AIDS,” Pam said, snickering.
Dah.
“Well, better get it out in the open just so this sort of thing doesn’t happen
after
I’ve gotten involved. And I was right again.”

“No, I don’t mean that. Look, I’m afraid, okay? I told you I don’t date much. I just like to keep things simple and friendly.”

“I get it,” Pam said. “No worries, okay? Enjoy your day.” She didn’t wait for him to say good-bye before she hung up.

Feeling sick, she wondered why she kept making the same mistakes. Going to get more coffee, she immediately felt better. She
didn’t
make a mistake. She was honest with him, and he couldn’t take it. Or didn’t want it. And she’d prevented getting involved with someone who didn’t really
want
involvement, like Dan, or Andy. She was just a pretty, empty face to Jack and to the other men, nothing more than a friend to Grocery Store Dave. What kind of man would it take to really see who she was? He’d have to be tough, that was for sure.

Going out to the veranda again, she put her coffee down on the table just as Jason appeared at the door. Hesitating, she wondered if she could turn around and go back in the house or if he’d seen her. She got the answer when he waved and pointed at the handle.

“Can I come in?” he asked.

Pam walked to the door,
I thought you had another date?
on the tip of her tongue. Smiling, she opened up with, “Of course! Come in.” Waiting for him to get on with it, the awkward silence grew.

“I was able to reach my friend and make excuses. Would you still like to spend the day with me?”

“We could do that,” she answered, an uncommitted reply if there ever was one. “What’d you have in mind?”

He listed an array of activities that she could choose from, but only one stood out: a flea market in Queens.

“Are you serious?” she asked, trying not to jump up and down. “I’d
love
to go.” So the previous concerns they had, worries about AIDS and intimacy and drinking too much the night before were forgotten, and the lure of the bargain called.

“You like flea-marketing?” he asked.

“Are you kidding me? I
love
it!”

They’d found their common ground, after all.

Part II:
In Memoriam

Chapter 24

Labor Day crept up on Pam without warning after the best summer she could remember having in a very long time. Maybe as good a summer as when the children were young and Jack was alive and Marie spent the entire season with her at the beach.

This summer was a summer of fun: the introduction to a new city, going to Philadelphia with Jason and exploring the antiques shops along Germantown Avenue up into Chestnut Hill, Sunday meetings with him at the Quaker Meetinghouse, antiquing out on the Main Line and in Lancaster.

It was a summer of love for Jeff Babcock and Ted Dale, and for Natalie Borg and Ben Lawson. He was the chief of police she met at Ted’s cabin upstate but dumped when he and Ashton didn’t get along.

Even Dan and Lisa found love again for a while, at least the kind of love Dan understood after Lisa’s six-week postpartum celibacy was over and Cara Ellison was no longer a threat.

And it was love for Pam and Jason, real love, deep, loyal, passionate,
I can’t live without you
love. They fought when it was appropriate and made up when it was right. They made love, slow and gentle and in the dark, old people’s love, Pam thought, that didn’t embarrass her or make her want more plastic surgery. Jason was appalled she’d put her body through such barbaric procedures in the past. He cried when he made love to her the first time, and she thought it was touching and rather sad, knowing it was a combination of joy that he’d found someone to love again and sadness that his wife was dead.

Pam didn’t think of Jack once all summer. It wasn’t until something happened in late August that brought it all up to the surface again: Jack, his lies, Brent’s death. She’d forgotten all about Dan’s betrayal of her because on the scale of importance, it didn’t rank at all.

Pam was having coffee on the veranda on a Friday morning, waiting to hear from Jason when Lisa called, crying.
What now?
Pam thought. It had been relatively peaceful in Smithtown with little drama coming from the Chua household. Lisa had confided in Pam again that she was exhausted from having to scrutinize every move Dan made, but she thought it was working.

Now this. “Cara Ellison is pregnant with Dan’s baby! Dan had to tell me because she’s threatening to come here and kill me.”

Waking up to feed Marcus Friday morning, she saw that Dan wasn’t next to her. Too tired to run after him this time, she stayed in bed to nurse. His voice came from the den, loud at first and then softer, whispering. In minutes he’d come back to their room, looking ashen and sweaty.

“We have to talk,” he said, sitting on the edge of the bed, Lisa looking like an angel, her hair down around her shoulders, his child at her breast. “I don’t even know where to begin.”

“Let me start for you. Cara’s calling you again.”

“Yes,” he replied. “That’s part of it. I’m sorry I hurt you, Lisa. I’m sorry I ever let her into our lives. The truth is, she’s pregnant.”

Leaning forward, Lisa grabbed his arm. “She’s pregnant with your baby?”

He nodded his head.

Dan got up and started to pace, Lisa watching him, incredulous. “I wish it wasn’t true. The timing is about right. Of course, I’ll have a paternity test.”

Lisa thought of Cara Ellison’s long legs wrapped around her husband. Or worse, Cara straddling him. She wanted him to leave so she could play those visuals over and over again in her head. It would help her when the time came to divorce him.

“Why are you telling me now? How far along is she?”

“She says she’s three months.”

“Dan, Marcus is three months. When did you sleep with her? The day the baby was born?”

“Not quite,” he said. “It happened that week. I’m sorry.”

Lisa thought of the birthing room,
sweaty face, blood smeared all over her thighs, the smell of her own body waste. Why’d she insist that he see her in that condition? No wonder he ran to perfect Cara’s bed.

“I don’t have any excuse. I had to tell you because she’s threatening me. She says she’ll come here and kill you if I don’t leave you and go to her.”

Lisa had burst out laughing, so loud little Marcus jumped. “Oh! Is that right? Well, well, well. Cara always manages to get her way. Go to the police, Dan. You go, or I’m going to.”

“This kind of news will ruin my practice, Lisa. I want to try to resolve it privately.”

Stunned that he would put his law practice above her safety, Lisa disengaged the baby’s mouth from her body and put him back in the bassinet.
He’s going to need to go to the bigger crib soon
, she thought ridiculously. Life would go on whether Cara Ellison had a baby or not. Marcus’s sibling. She left her lovely breast out on purpose to prove something to Dan. This was
her
house. He was
her
husband. She was not going to allow that bitch to intimidate her.