Let Me Whisper in Your Ear (7 page)

“You happy?” Crawford asked.

“Fine,” replied Laura.

Now, if the former president did die over the next ten days, as he very well could, his demise would be reported on the KEY Television Network, as it should be, by the
Evening Headlines
anchor—even if she was two hundred miles away from the Broadcast Center, vacationing with her daughter in Rhode Island.

Eliza Blake unclipped her microphone.

“Doesn't doing these obits all the time get to you?” she asked.

Laura shrugged. “Not really. In fact, I kind of enjoy them. The fact that the person warrants a network obituary means that he or she has led an extraordinary life. I enjoy doing the research. I always learn things I didn't know.”

Eliza nodded. “Any common thread?”

Laura stopped to consider the question.

“Yes,” she answered. “Without exception, each subject I've done has had very difficult periods in his or her life. Each has dealt with tough times and gotten through, persevered and, most often, prevailed.”

Eliza smiled brightly. “I like that. And on that upbeat note—I wish you happy holidays and I'm off with Janie to visit my parents for Christmas. What are your plans, Laura? You aren't working, I hope.”

“No, thank God. I have Christmas off this year. I'm going out to New Jersey to spend the day with my father.”

16

Christmas Eve

T
HE ATMOSPHERE AT
KEY News
on Christmas Eve was festive. Someone had draped strings of colored lights around the ceiling of the Bulletin Center and the largest desk in the room had been cleared to make way for a spread of cakes, cookies and Mike Schultz's wife's baklava. The news world was quiet on the day before the anniversary of Christ's birth and Laura and her co-workers spent a good deal of time joking around, asking each other what their plans were for the holiday, and commiserating with the goats who had to work.

Laura tried to get some work done on the Yearender. She felt she was in pretty good shape for getting the project completed on time, so she decided to duck out of work a little early. She was eager to get to the Bronners'.

Not wanting to be tied down to bus schedules, she had decided to splurge and rent a car for two days. Her presents for the Bronners were already in the trunk. So she left the KEY Broadcast Center and headed directly for the Lincoln Tunnel and New Jersey. As she emerged from the tunnel, the winter sky was already darkening. Her foot itched on the accelerator. She wanted to get there before the first star appeared.

This is my favorite part of Christmas,
she thought.
The part that I most look forward to.
For a moment she felt guilty, wishing she most wanted to spend time with her father. That was how it should be. But it wasn't.

The relationship with Emmett was a complicated one. She loved him, to be sure. But the years spent worrying about her father and living in constant anxiety over what he might do next had taken their toll. She never went to see her father without some dread. Would he be sober? Angry? Depressed?

The Bronners, on the other hand, always welcomed her as family. She knew, because she was not related by blood, she did not have to deal with emotional baggage and issues that would be involved if she actually had been part of the family. She could go to their home and just enjoy the charming, tradition-filled Christmas Eve celebration.

Laura found a parking spot on the corner of Lafayette and Palisades Avenues. As she unloaded the packages from the trunk, she realized that she was just across the street from what had once been the site of Palisades Amusement Park and blocks away from where the remains of Tommy Cruz had been discovered. She walked up Lafayette toward the Bronners' house and, as a blast of winter wind bit at her face, she reminded herself to ask Maxine and Alan if they remembered anything from the time the Cruz child disappeared. Climbing the steps to the Bronners' wreath-bedecked front door, she looked up to the sky and saw a star.

“You made it! Just in time!” Maxine greeted Laura with open arms. “Come in, come in.”

The familiar smells of the Bronner Christmas wafted from the kitchen. No meat would be served at dinner. There would be pickled herring, and trout stuffed with apples, mushrooms, onions and celery. A meatless hunter's stew with sauerkraut and yellow peas simmered on the stove, minutes away from being served with noodles and poppy seeds. And, of course, there would be Laura's favorite
pierogi,
those Polish dumplings stuffed with potatoes and cheese.

As the Bronners called out their welcomes, Laura placed her presents under the Christmas tree, its boughs laden with angels, stars, candy and glittering tinsel. She took off her coat and revealed a new red form-fitting dress she had just bought as a Christmas present to herself.

“Laura, you look wonderful!” Maxine exclaimed.

“So do you, Mrs. Bronner. You never change.”

Maxine laughed. “Laura, how many times have I told you to call me Maxine? And I wish that were so, dear heart. But time is marching on.”

“Looking at you, you'd never know it,” said Laura. “You look the same as you did when I walked into your third-grade class. And I guess that's why I will always think of you as Mrs. Bronner. But I'll try to remember to call you Maxine.”

“Lady Clairol helps a lot, I guess.” Maxine shrugged, pulling a strand of dark brown hair behind her ear.

Alan Bronner put his arm around his wife. “You're absolutely right, Laura. Max is as pretty as the day I met her, or should I say, the day I dialed that wrong number. That was the luckiest day of my life.”

They all knew the story of how Maxine and Alan had first “connected.” Alan had actually been calling another girl and had mistakenly dialed a different number. Maxine Dzieskanowski answered. The two had clicked. At first the relationship was conducted entirely on the telephone. When Alan finally asked her for a date, Maxine met a ponytailed young man with a patch on the crotch of his jeans at her front door. The young man went on to start a basement computer company—a company that grew to employ thirty-five people at offices in Mahwah. The Bronners could easily have moved from Cliffside Park to a bigger house in a more affluent New Jersey suburb. But they chose to stay where they were, their ties to the community very strong.

“Come on, everybody. It's time for the
Wigilia,
” called Maxine. The
optalek
was broken, the meal savored amid warm conversation and laughter. When Maxine brought out dessert—warm, heart-shaped honey spice cake, a compote of dried fruit, nut pudding and a poppyseed coffee cake—Laura groaned.

“I can't eat one more thing.”

But she filled her plate anyway.

After dinner, Maxine sat down at the piano in the living room. Playing since she was five years old, she was an accomplished pianist. Laura joined in with the others and sang Christmas songs enthusiastically. Then they opened presents.

Laura sat next to Maxine on the upholstered love seat in the corner of the room, watching and enjoying the oohs and aahs as the gifts were opened.

“So how are things at
KEY News,
Laura?”

“Actually, things are going pretty well.”

“Still doing the obituaries?”

“Yes. But I'm trying to get a new job, at
Hourglass.
”

Maxine's eyes widened. “Oh, Laura, that would be wonderful for you! We watch that show every week. It's terrific.”

Laura nodded. “I've come up with an idea for a segment that the executive producer really likes.”

Maxine waited.

“Palisades Amusement Park and the death of Tommy Cruz.”

Maxine's face darkened.

“What's wrong?”

Maxine shook her head. “That was a terrible, tragic time. I remember the search for that little boy. It seemed to go on forever. Day after day, week after week, they found nothing. I remember Tommy's best friend Ricky Potenza had a nervous breakdown, poor child. He was never the same. The family eventually moved away, but I still get a Christmas card from his mother.”

Maxine looked away for a moment, seeming to collect herself.

“Gradually, the hubbub died down,” she continued. “But for the Cruzes, the nightmare went on and on, all these years. To this day, when I see Felipe in church or bump into Marta at the supermarket, I don't know what to say to them. I hope now, at least, there is some closure for them.”

“Yes and no,” said Laura. “The police are opening up the investigation again.”

“I'd think the trail would be dead after all these years.”

17

Christmas Day

N
OT WANTING TO
spend the night at her father's house after dinner with the Bronners, Laura drove back into Manhattan and slept at her own apartment.

On Christmas morning, she was putting her gaily wrapped gifts for her father into a red Bloomingdale's shopping bag to carry with her back out to New Jersey when her apartment telephone rang.

“Merry Christmas,” whispered the voice.

“Francheska?”

“Uh-hum.”

“Why are you whispering?”

“I'm not alone.”

“Oh, God,” Laura groaned. “Is Len there?”

“He's lying right beside me. Fast asleep.”

“I'm going to throw up. Christmas morning, and he's in bed with you? When his wife and kids are home in Westchester? Slimeball. When are you going to get rid of that animal?”

“Oh, come on, Laura,” Francheska pleaded. “Don't nag me. Not today. It's Christmas.”

“All right.” Laura sighed, resigned for the moment to her friend and former roommate's situation. “But just tell me one thing. How does he manage it? I mean, what reason did he give his wife for not being home this morning to open the presents from Santa?”

“He's a doctor, remember?”

“Oh, yeah, I forgot,” Laura replied sarcastically. “Another ‘emergency' at the hospital. Big hotshot plastic surgeon. It's pathetic. And I don't care what you say, Fran, Mrs. Costello has
got
to suspect something. Either that or she's the dumbest woman in Scarsdale.”

“Going out to see Emmett?” Francheska whispered, changing the subject.

“Yes. And I wish you'd come with me. Emmett would be happy to see you. He loves you, you know, and he's making your favorite, prime rib. Come on. It's Christmas, Francheska. I don't want you to be in the city all alone after Dr. Wonderful leaves.”

“Thanks, honey. The thought of spending some time down in your dad's basement playing with the park is really tempting. If I change my mind, I know where to find you.

“Hey, I've got to go,” she whispered hurriedly. “He's starting to wake up.”

As she heard the phone go dead, Laura wished she'd had time to tell her friend that her cheating lover had called Gwyneth Gilpatric the other night.

18

T
HE AROMA OF
roasting beef greeted Laura as she let herself into her father's half of the two-family house on Grant Avenue. There was no one there to greet her in either the small living/ dining-room combination or the tiny kitchen. She struggled with the large, heavy box she carried, along with the shopping bag filled with gifts. She laid everything on the floor.

“Pop?” she called. “I'm home.”

“Down here, Munk.”

Of course, that's where he would be,
she thought. The basement was his favorite place in the house.

Stuffing her gloves into the pocket of her coat, she hung it in the closet next to the front door. Laura carried the box and the Bloomingdale's bag over toward the tabletop Christmas tree Emmett had set up on top of the television console. Her father had threaded a strand of colored lights through the branches of the miniature fir and he had hung the ornaments he treasured most: Laura's artwork done over her school years. A butterfly with a clothespin body and tissue-paper wings, a caterpillar fashioned from a cardboard egg carton and some green pipe-cleaner antennae, a tiny wreath of strung macaroni sprayed gold.

Laura smiled at Emmett's sentimentality. He'd had his parental failings over the years, but in his own way, she supposed, he had tried to be both mother and father.

She arranged her presents on the floor in front of the television and was glad that she'd ignored their rule of keeping down the holiday spending. She'd brought a half dozen boxes wrapped in red-and-green plaid and tied with shiny silver bows, containing things that Emmett would never buy for himself. There was one small box and Laura carried it with her as she walked though the kitchen to the basement door.

“Pop?”

As she descended the old wooden steps, she heard the sound she'd heard over and over again since her childhood. The Palisades Park theme song tinkled from the basement below.

Some grown men had train sets, some played with miniature battlefield scenes and moved their battalions of soldiers through the various stages of combat. Laura's father had painstakingly fashioned a diminutive Palisades Amusement Park, the place where he had worked for the summers that, he said, were among the most memorable of his life.

It was all there, amazingly constructed to scale. The carousel with the tiniest hand-carved horses; the saltwater pool that Emmett filled with an eyedropper; the Sky Ride's teeny cars that dangled from a thin wire thread; the tiny angry black gorilla that stood menacingly guarding the Jungleland ride; the really miniature, miniature golf course. Every attraction and amusement of the legendary park was represented in Emmett's basement world.

After her mother died, Laura and her dad spent hours together working on the park. Laura loved to listen to Emmett's stories about the rides, contests and music that brought people from all walks of life streaming through the gates. Her father had seen Jackie Kennedy with Caroline and John-John eating ice-cream cones, and Walter Cronkite and his daughter driving the Antique Cars. A movie star named Debbie Reynolds announced her engagement to a singer named Eddie Fisher at the park, though the marriage didn't last, Emmett always remarked, shaking his head. Elizabeth Taylor stole Eddie away from Debbie. It was very sad.