Promise of Safekeeping : A Novel (9781101553954) (15 page)

At some point, she’d stopped listening to his story—and started listening to the story between the words. She saw his rapid blinking, his dilated pupils, his almost imperceptible fidgeting. It was only after she spoke that she realized she’d interrupted him.

“Will, what is it?” she asked. “What’s wrong?”

“What? Nothing.”

“Are you sure everything’s okay?”

“Why wouldn’t it be?”

She looked away from him, anchoring her gaze to the table before her. “I always do that. I’m sorry.”

“Tell me why you think something’s wrong.”

“Your breath. It’s more shallow than usual. Plus, you’re blinking more than six to eight times per minute.”

“You’re counting?”

“No. I can just tell.” She curled her fingers closed. “Is my being here making you nervous?”

Will sighed heavily. When she ventured to look at him again, she was taken aback by the firmness of his stare. “
You
don’t make me nervous, Lauren Matthews.”

She felt the blood rising to her face. Heat that had been tucked safely away, just out of her mind’s reach, now flashed sweet and sharp though her whole body. “Some people are uncomfortable around me. You know—because of the people-reading thing.”

“I’m not some people.”

“But you wouldn’t be the first guy who didn’t know quite what to do with me.”

“If you’ve met a guy who didn’t know what to do with you . . . ” His voice trailed off. He lifted the ice from her palm, put it back down again. There was grit in his voice when he spoke. “Fine. I admit it. I am nervous right now. I’m worried that I’ll hurt you. With the splinters.”

They were quiet a long moment. Lauren’s head was spinning. Her blood felt hot. Will’s shoulder pressed against hers, unrelenting contact. Her focus had narrowed to that single distracting spot. She cleared her throat. “Why don’t you have a wife and a brood of kids living here with you in this big house?”

He laughed a little. “So now you want answers.”

“I can guess them,” she teased.

“No need.” He lifted the ice from her palm, set it down on the
plate. “I was seeing someone for a while, off and on. But then we ended up more off than on. Which was okay by me.”

“What else?”

“Nothing else,” he said. He squeezed her hand; her skin tingled. “If the patient is properly anesthetized, I’m going to operate now.”

She tensed up.

“Don’t worry. I’ll be gentle.”

She laughed, and then she turned her head away, to look out the window and watch the cows across the street ruminating on their dinners. He began to work the slivers of wood out of her skin—a slight pinch and sting. She couldn’t bring herself to watch, but she knew from his focus and grip that he was efficient and not at all squeamish. When she tried to draw her hand back—an involuntary gesture—he clasped it more firmly. She tried not to wince.

“Ouch!”

“Sorry.” He eased his grip. “Having trouble with this one. It’s deep.”

“No worries,” she said, but her toes curled inside her shoes.

She sat quietly while he worked. She closed her eyes, gave in to the unpredictable sensations. When at last she heard the sound of the tweezers hitting the plate, she didn’t open her eyes right away. Beside her, Will made no move to get up. She felt him trace a slow line from the top of her middle finger all the way down to the heel of her palm. Heat—heavy and wet as a summer afternoon—burned through her. And when she opened her eyes, Will’s face filled her vision.

He, too, seemed to be caught in a question. But he didn’t lean forward, didn’t make good on the promise his eyes told. Instead, he recovered, curled his hand around her until her fingers were closed in a fist, and then he drew away. On the plate between them,
the ice cube had melted. He picked up the dish and carried it to the sink.

“That wasn’t so bad,” he said.

She barely heard him. Frustration was a tightening knot inside her. Will had wanted to kiss her—she’d wanted him to. But even though he might have been physically attracted to her, he didn’t
like
her enough to want to kiss her. The understanding stung far deeper than a splinter under her skin.

She pushed out her chair and went to her purse, which she’d dropped on the countertop when she came in. She pulled her phone from its designated pocket to glance at her new messages. To her dismay, there were none. She opened an e-mail she’d read earlier and perused it again.

“We have to put the dresser away,” she said as she scrolled through the images on her phone’s screen. “I’m assuming we’re bringing it into that old barn out back?”

“It’s okay. I don’t need your help. I can do it myself.”

“Why? What’s out there?”

“Nothing. A barn.”

She shrugged. “Okay. I really need to get back. I’m going out with Maisie tonight.”

He wiped his hands on a towel, then started across the room. His car keys had been hooked to a loop of his jeans with a carabiner; they jingled when he pulled them off. “Then what are we waiting for? I’m not keeping you prisoner here.”

“Will . . . 

He stopped in the doorway that led to the foyer.

“Can you ask Arlen if he’ll see me tomorrow?”

He glanced at the phone in her hand. “Work bothering you again?”

She nodded.

His sigh was both impatient and resigned. “I’ll ask him. Again. But—look—why don’t you write him a note or something? In your own words, so he’ll know what he’s expecting if he does agree to see you.”

“Thank you. I will.”

He pointed at her before he walked out of the room. “Next time we do this, you wear gloves,” he said.

When the mail carrier came to the antiques shop in the evening, the cardboard envelope she’d dropped on the counter had been stuffed full nearly to bursting. The woman, who had dark skin and darker, mirthful eyes, rapped her knuckles against the counter a few times and smiled. “Hey, Arlen. Looks like you got yourself some fans.”

He opened the envelope when she was gone, pulling the cardboard tab like the cord of a lawn mower. Among dozens of envelopes, big and small, a letter from his lawyer was inside. It was printed on soft cream paper. The language was thick as molasses and about as straightforward as a figure eight, but Arlen managed to piece out the basic meaning. The lawyer was sending photocopies of documents pertaining to Arlen’s application for compensation with the State of New York. He hoped to hear something soon. The lawyer knew Arlen needed the money (that he had
uncommon need for financial restitution, given the extremely damaging repercussions of an unjustifiable conviction
). But in the
meantime—this part Arlen understood with no problem—the law office had received some letters from the public, enclosed herein.

One by one, Arlen wedged a pen into the envelopes to open them. There were some drugstore cards scrawled with phrases of encouragement. A bundle of drawings done in crayon, children’s hands traced to look like birds. There was a sheet of lined paper written in the beautiful, flowing penmanship of a schoolteacher. Some were sealed with stickers, others with tape and fuzz.

He leafed through.

 . . . writing to let you know that I think it’s terrible what happened, and I’m using your case in my intro to criminal law class . . .

 . . . would think that this kind of thing is something out of the Dark Ages . . .

 . . . you’re an inspiration to us all . . .

 . . . enclosed please find a check for a collection taken up at our synagogue . . .

 . . . wishing you all the best . . .

At one point, Arlen had to stop. He couldn’t read the words. For more than a decade he’d thought he was forgotten; but here he was, remembered again.

One man, a student, was going to put Arlen’s story up on his Web site, and he wanted to know: did he have his facts straight? Arlen lowered his head and read:

Arlen put the paper down. He thought:
So this is how they’re gonna tell it.
It all looked so easy on paper. The tale needed a better ending—something more dramatic and meaningful than
He got out of prison: The End.
And while some part of him was glad that this student wanted to make his case into a banner against wrongful convictions everywhere, some other part of him didn’t want the story to be told at all. He wanted his life to be everything that was going to happen from here forward, not everything behind. But was that possible?

He gathered up the letters and tucked them back into the envelope. They barely fit. He went to the door, locked it and turned the sign, then climbed the creaky stairs to his apartment alone, the comforting voices of strangers in his mind.

When the sun set in Richmond, the alleyways darkened long before the avenues did, long before the windows of tall buildings stopped reflecting the melon haze of evening. Stoplights at intersections began to stand out brighter and brighter against the dusk, reds
growing redder, greens deepening. Good people and bad people and all the people in between stood waiting at bus stops for their ride home or sitting in traffic with their heads propped on their hands.

Lauren showered, cool water and hibiscus refreshing overheated skin. Evenings when she did not stay in to work were rare. But when she did manage a night out with friends, getting ready always verged on sacred—the last glance in the mirror, the fastening of buttons and clasps. She slipped on a black sundress made of cotton so soft and clingy it might have been ink. She hid the circles under her eyes with concealer, she darkened her lashes to a thick black, and she put on the reddest lipstick she could find in her bag.

She thought of Edward, then Will, then Edward again. She looked good and felt even better. She wished that Edward could see her like this, just so she could flaunt the fact that she didn’t need him and was going out for an evening without him. And she wished that Will could see her like this too, because maybe he wasn’t planning to put a move on her anytime soon, but she wanted to make it damn hard for him not to.

She picked up her earrings from the dresser, slipped them in.

She supposed it was natural to compare Edward and Will to each other, if only because they were so very different. Her interest in Edward had been easy, maybe even a little bit expected. It was perfectly ordinary and right that she should be attracted to a man like him: he was good-looking, powerful, moneyed, sure. He was all the things she was. Early on she’d felt that there was a kind of unspoken etiquette between them, rules to guide the dance of courtship, so that she knew what to do and he knew what to do, and there was never any doubt.

Unlike Will, Edward had never once asked her why she got into jury consulting, and she’d never thought to ask him why he practiced law. His admiration had not been easily won; though he
made a habit of charming everyone, he respected few. His high standards both terrified her and made her proud. But he’d never asked
why
she did what she did: it was Will who cared about that. Will, with his worn-out boots and soft heart.