Madeline Mann (3 page)

I assured her that I did, and that I'd be over by noon. Never mind that I had a stack of ideas I was supposed to flesh out for my editor by Monday morning. Perhaps I was avoiding my work, just as I had been avoiding Jack. Perhaps, though, it was something else that made me feel a certain urgency about Logan Lanford.

After I hung up the phone, I called my mom at work.

“Mom,” I said.

“Madeline, I'm very busy.” Since I knew this was true, I wasn't offended by her briskness. My father had told me the mayor was working poor Delia into an early grave. Of course, my father tends to be a bit protective, but working on a Saturday did seem like an imposition.

“I'm going to see Jamie Lanford.”

“Logan's wife? Why are you doing that?”

If Fritz hadn't told her, I certainly didn't want to go into it now. “Just to talk. She's very stressed out and she has two kids and I'm wondering what kind of care package I should bring,” I said. No one was better than Delia Mann at making impromptu care packages. Sick people, sad people, happy people, people with new jobs, new homes, new babies—they'd all received a basket from the Manns somewhere along the line. And it always looked splendid, done up with festive bows and happy wicker accents.

Now my mom was in her element and forgot that she was busy. “Lunch, of course,” she began. “You don't have any frozen stew or chili, do you?”

“No, Mom,” I answered drily. “You're the culinary whiz. In fact,
I
could use a care package, if you're in the mood. Anyway,” I added, hearing nothing but silence, “a bucket of chicken it is.”

“But not for you, Madeline—you're meeting us for brunch, aren't you?

I had forgotten this. “Right,” I agreed.

She sighed. “How old are the babies?”

“Uh, I think one is three or four and one is still a baby. Not an infant, but not walking.” That had been Fritz's impression, anyway.

“Mmmmm. Coloring book, box of crayons, jingly rattle. Apple juice boxes, butter cookies.”

“Well, geez, I'm not their fairy godmother. I'm on a writer's salary, for Pete's sake.”

“Someday people will do it for you. Besides, she is a friend of yours.”

“I barely know her,” I protested.

“She was in chorus with you.” Leave it to my mom to remember my memories for me.

“Yeah, you're right. Well, thanks, Mom. Hey, one more question. Why did Logan get fired by Mayor Paul?”

She sighed again. “Madeline, I don't know the whole story, and I don't like to go talking about the office to people.”

“I'm not people, I'm your daughter.”

“I don't want this in the paper.”

“I want to know what Logan did to get him fired, because he was my friend at one time.”

My mother's voice became hushed. “There was a rumor that there was some sort of interoffice romance. The mayor said he couldn't condone it. I didn't hear this firsthand, though.”

I stood with my mouth open for a moment. “But he's married,” I protested. “He has little kids.”

“It's unsubstantiated,” Mom said. “That's all I ever heard about it.”

Logan
and Jamie had an apartment in the Wellington, one of the nicer apartment buildings in Webley. It was near the center of town and was a fine example of the quaint, old-fashioned architecture that Webley boasted about in all of its literature. Centered between stately elms, the Wellington was one of the photographic landmarks on the town postcards in the drugstore.

When I rang Jamie's bell, it took her a while to respond. Her voice seemed quiet over the intercom, and I wondered if she'd been sleeping.

“Come on up,” she murmured, and I took the elevator to the third floor. Jack would have encouraged me to take the stairs.

I hadn't seen Jamie in at least eight years, but I could still tell that the woman who opened the door had changed drastically. While the high school Jamie had been prettily plump with peach-soft skin, this woman was too thin, and her face seemed dry. Her nose looked red, due perhaps to a cold or a bout of crying, and what I had remembered as sparkling, cheerful eyes now looked dully out of an expressionless face. Her hair, still yellow and silky, was now worn only shoulder length and was pulled back with a rubber band. I wondered if I'd been wrong about her being a cheerleader. This woman didn't look like she had a spunky bone in her body.

“Come on in,” she said softly. “I like your hair. You'd never know you weren't a blonde. I just got the baby to sleep, so we'll have to kind of keep it down. I sure don't want to deal with him if he wakes up too early.” She eyed me speculatively. “You have kids?”

“No. I'm not married,” I said.

“Oh … I thought Fritz said—”

“Fritz probably mentioned Jack. He's the guy I've been seeing. Anyway, I brought some food, and some stuff for the little ones.”

“That's so sweet. God, I'm starving.”

“Here,” I said, offering up the bucket of chicken.

She looked tempted to grab a piece but instead led me to her kitchenette, where she set down the container and dug out some paper plates and styrofoam cups.

“I already have a sinkful of dishes,” she said apologetically. She certainly did, I noted, as well as a house full of toys and scattered piles of laundry. Her living room was awash in books and Disney videos, and in the midst of those sat a boy of about four, who stared at us with his mouth open.

“Noah—food,” said his mother.

That got him in action. He tore into the kitchen and stood on a little stool in front of the sink to wash his hands.

“This is Madeline,” said Jamie. “She's a friend of Daddy's and mine from high school.”

Noah stared at me over his shoulder, and the water soaked the cuffs of his shirt. Jamie noticed, and she turned off the water with an abrupt gesture and a sigh. “Go get another shirt. And don't wake up Calvin, or you're getting him back to sleep.”

Noah trudged out of the kitchen, mumbling to himself like an old man. I went to the fridge to hunt for beverages and found only an echo inside. Trying not to look shocked, I took the apple juice boxes out of my bag and set four on the table. I unpacked the potatoes and coleslaw that had come with the chicken and steered Jamie to the table. “You start,” I said. “He'll be here in a minute.”

She did so. I felt a stab of intense anger at Logan as I watched her eat. The woman was hungry, which meant that her kids probably were too. “I ran out for some things yesterday,” she said apologetically. “I should have picked up food too. All I got was some dinner to go. I'm just not thinking, Madeline, I'm just not thinking. It's like I can't function.” Her eyes were very blue as they looked searchingly into mine, and I realized with a jolt that they were beautiful. A memory came to me, unbidden and ten years in the past.

Logan had started to date Jamie. He confided to me that he liked her one cold spring day as we waited for a bus home outside school. I remembered the way he stood over me in that proprietorial way that some teenage boys have, his dark hair hanging over his forehead, his hazel eyes merry under dark brows. “I like her, Mad. She's not you, babe, but who is? And you just want to be friends. So I think I'll pursue a blonde now. Jamie has the most amazing eyes, cornflower blue. Maybe someday we'll have blue-eyed babies,” he joked as he gauged my reaction. I peered down the street to see if the bus was coming. I was jealous, of course, as I always was when Logan talked about his conquests. It was true, though, that I didn't want to be one of them. Even in my attraction to my friend Logan, I understood the folly of falling for him, and I resisted. The longer I did so, the more appealing I think I became to him. Wanting what he couldn't have and all that. Logan usually got what he wanted. Sometimes he dated several girls at once, although he probably lied to them all. It really bugged me, the way he treated the girls at St. Roselle, but he was my friend: handsome, intelligent, musical, creative.

He had plenty of good qualities, which was why he never had a shortage of girlfriends.

I wished now, as I thought about Jamie's empty refrigerator, that I'd made more of a point of befriending her then, and warning her that Logan wasn't all he seemed. She probably found that out anyway. We both made the decision to let Logan get away with things. Eight years later we were both still dealing with it. My way of dealing with my growing awareness of Logan's selfishness, even at the age of seventeen, had been to distance myself from him. By the time we had both graduated from college, we'd become almost entirely out of touch, so that when I saw him in town or at my mom's office, it felt awkward, despite the occasional stab of nostalgia. We'd josh around halfheartedly, but we both understood that we lacked anything in common but our past.

Noah appeared in the doorway with a new shirt on his little body.

“Come here, honey. The nice lady brought us some lunch,” Jamie called.

Noah sailed to his chair, and Jamie filled his plate. Watching the boy eat made me feel like a UNICEF volunteer. I sat down with them and toyed with some mashed potatoes. I tried to broach the subject of Jamie's problem husband.

“So Logan gave you no idea—”

“He said he was going out for some diapers,” Jamie said tonelessly. “And the thing is, we really needed them.” She started to cry, but even that didn't stop her from eating. She wiped at her runny nose with a napkin in her left hand while she held her food in her right. “I had to take the boys out to get some the next day.”

I looked at Noah, who seemed more cheerful than his mother. He had already polished off his chicken leg. Not in a way that would satisfy my dad, who believed in munching a chicken bone until it gleamed in the light, but in a manner pretty impressive for a four-year-old boy. “I like chicken,” he said to me, kneeling on his chair for a better view of the table.

“I do too,” I responded. “I'll give you another piece, and I'll have one too, okay?” I pretended to make a plate for myself.

I refilled his plate, and he became almost merry. “Daddy went to see Quint,” he said.

“Oh?” I asked blankly.

“Quinn,” Jamie corrected. “Quinn Paley. A friend of Logan's in Saugatuck. Noah is convinced that Logan went to see him, which I suppose is a possibility. He's done it before.” Her voice was carefully toneless.

“You think Daddy went to Michigan?” I asked Noah.

He shrugged.

“Logan could be just about anywhere,” Jamie said bitterly. “He feels entitled to spoil himself.”

It was true that Logan was egocentric; at least he had been as a teen, and he'd sailed through high school on a series of deceptions. He had continued to lie to various girlfriends, arguing to me that this was his time to play the field but still pledging his fidelity to individuals because of the rewards it brought him. I didn't know his self-indulgent behavior would last into adulthood; I suppose I feared it, though.

He'd started dating Jamie in the spring of our senior year. I wondered vaguely what had made him commit to her above all the others. I wondered also if he still had affairs, especially in light of what my mother had told me.

Jamie was yelling at Noah. “Sit right in the chair, Noah. Sit right, or I'll take your plate.” The threat worked, and Noah stopped swaying in his seat.

The sound of a baby's crying floated into the kitchen.

“Shit,” Jamie said, shoving in a last forkful of slaw.

“You shouldn't swear,” Noah called after her sternly, his little face pulled into a disapproving frown that only emphasized its pudgy cuteness.

“Sorry!” Jamie yelled contritely over her shoulder. She disappeared into a back room.

“Your mommy's very busy around here, isn't she?” I asked Noah.

“Yeah. But I help her, so…” He held out his little greasy hands, one of which still clutched a chicken leg, as if to say, “The problem is solved.”

I looked around the cluttered room. “I almost forgot. I brought you something,” I told him.

In a shot, he was out of his chair and standing in front of me, verifying the idea that little kids have no concept of personal space. I could feel his breath on my face.

“What is it?” he asked.

First I helped him wash his hands again, making sure to roll up his sleeves. We returned to the table; I pulled my tote bag into my lap and retrieved the crayons and coloring book. Noah's eyes widened with surprise and pleasure.

“Thanks!” he said. “I could really use these!” He jogged over to the living room, kicking aside some toys so that he could lie on his tummy. “I have to do this before Cal wakes up. He eats crayons, which he shouldn't, because they're made of wack. And he breaks them, and he jumps on me,” he shared calmly as he began to shade in a clown's hair.

“He sounds energetic. Let's surprise your mom and tidy up this room,” I suggested. I got down on my knees and began sorting. This was partly an instinct born of living with a very tidy mother, and partly a nosy response. I wondered if there might be some clue here or there to Logan's whereabouts. All books went in one pile, all videos in another. I found a laundry basket in one corner and began tossing toys and superheroes in it. I folded a tiny pair of sweatpants and an adult pair of jeans and set them on the arm of the chair. I shelved the books and put the videos on top of the television. I picked up some random M&M’s nearby on the carpet while I glanced at the contents of a little desk in the corner. Without actually touching things, I could see that it mostly contained bills to be paid and some personal correspondence. I stood up and tossed the candy in a wastebasket.

Now Noah had the floor all to himself. I knelt down and walked on my knees until I reached his side. I watched him color.

“So your dad has a friend named Quinn?” I asked.

“Yeah,” he said to his book.

“What makes you think he went to see him?” I asked, following a hunch.

“Because that night he was mad. And I was watching him, and then he put me in his, um, lap.…” He was having trouble concentrating on me while he worked.

“What was he mad about?”

Noah selected a new crayon. “Mommy was mad at him, and that makes him mad. I know because he was squeezing me harder.”

“Was he hurting you?” I asked.