The Last Good Night (19 page)

And still, I did not move.

 

I
WAS SUPPOSED
to meet Jack by the gate at seven o'clock.

At 6:55, I ventured out. Garner and Astrid were watching television in the living room. They hardly looked up as I passed.

There was no one about. The fronds of palms cast long shadows across the courtyard. The only noise came from the rattling of cicadas' wings rising and falling in waves. I walked quickly to the pool area where the gray metal switch box sat mounted on the rotting redwood fence. I needed to turn the lights on before I left. In my haste, I didn't see the pile of bricks that Garner had left there, the remains of one of his forgotten projects. My big toe rammed into them. Pain shot through my foot to the core of my spine. I bent down, cursing as I massaged my toe. As soon as I could, I straightened up, flipped the switch, and hurried back through the courtyard.

The ochre curtains of the few rented rooms were illuminated with the flickering of television screens. The path was a matte gray, leading out to black road. I paused just beyond the office door and took a deep breath. The air, though swollen with humidity, was a relief after the hours locked inside.

I was at the end of the path when the door to room 110 swung open.

Frank Xavier stepped into my way. “Taking a stroll?” he asked.

I looked up. His right eye had three dark freckles on the retina.

“I always like evening walks myself,” he said. “Do you want some company?”

“No. I'm meeting someone.”

“I bet you are.”

I saw Jack driving up. He honked once and I ran to the car before Xavier could say another word.

“Who was that you were talking to?” Jack asked as we took off.

“No one, just a guest.”

He nodded.

“Do you mind if we go to the Hamburger Haven before we go to the island?” he asked. “I'm starving.”

“Sure.”

 

T
HE NEON LIGHT
of the diner shone on the table between us, illuminating archipelagos of ancient grease.

I watched Jack eat a cheeseburger and listened as he spoke of—what?

The new leather suitcase his parents had given him, course selections, the sheets he had bought for the apartment, our apartment.

Tonight, his optimism and his certainty seemed so alien.

“Are you all right?” he asked as he finished his dinner.

“Yes. Why?”

“You seem, I don't know, distracted.”

“Just tired,” I said.

He smiled, nodded, kissed me, and I shut my eyes, for a moment I just shut my eyes.

 

X
AVIER WAS WAITING
for me when Jack dropped me off just after midnight.

He met me on the pavement.

“So you have a boyfriend now,” he said.

I quickly glanced back to the road. Jack was gone.

Xavier took a step closer and touched my hair. “Do you charge him, too?”

I began to walk away from him but he grabbed me and pulled me back.

“You're too good for me now? With your pretty boy? Pretty boys don't understand you,” he said.

“He understands me just fine.”

“Not the way I do. I know just who you are.”

I glared at him. “I don't do that anymore.”

He laughed, twisting my arm as he pulled me closer. “Girls like you don't change.”

As I tried to wriggle away I saw the light go on in Mrs. Patrick's room. She was standing in the window, watching us.

“What would your boyfriend think if he knew what we'd been up to?” Xavier whispered in my ear. “You think he'd still take you to the prom?”

He tightened his grasp on my arm, yanking it behind my back until I felt a sharp tunnel of pain sear up to my shoulder.

“Let me go.”

“Yeah, me and your boyfriend should have ourselves a little talk,” Xavier said. “Maybe I'll invite him in for a beer next time he comes to pick you up.”

“You wouldn't do that.”

“Oh no? Then come in with me, Marta. Don't give me a hard time.”

“Leave me alone.”

“Don't fuck with me,” he said. “Come on, Marta,” he said, “don't make this difficult. No one wants a scene.”

The curtains of Mrs. Patrick's parted further.

“Yeah, your boyfriend and I could have a real interesting conversation,” Xavier said as he pulled me to the door.

 

T
HE ROOM WAS
brightly lit.

On the table, I saw that he had ropes again, already cut, waiting.

“You remember?” he asked, smiling.

I didn't move.

He came over and began to unbutton my shirt.

His hands were larger, more callused, than Jack's. His body heavier, less agile.

That was what I thought about, at least at first. How this feels different from Jack.

There are all different ways to lose yourself, and I tried this. Clinical, curious, a cataloging of parts and pressures.

I stayed completely still.

But I didn't lose myself this time, I didn't lose myself at all.

I was there, pinned beneath him, trapped.

This time, it was hell, only hell.

I felt the ropes tighten about my wrists, my ankles.

He rubbed the tip of his cock against my clitoris, back and forth, back and forth. His breath was hot in my ears.

“You want it, don't you?” he said. “Tell me. Tell me you want it.”

His fingers were inside me now.

He entered me just a hair's breadth, then withdrew. “Tell me,” he said. His fingers moved round and round. “Tell me.” Round and round.

But I didn't.

Angry, he rammed into me.

I thought about the way Jack's cock quivered within me, a single shudder, after he came.

 

W
HEN IT WAS
over, I walked silently, carrying my sandals, to the end of the docks.

The water lapped against the wooden poles as I dangled my feet above the black water. It was still hot, and swarms of mosquitoes and gnats clustered on my arms, my neck. No one had barbecues anymore, no one sat outside, there were too many bugs.

A pelican was standing on the nearest pole, its beady eyes staring out at the glassy surface below. Fred, we called him, the Breezeway's friendly pelican Fred, Astrid proclaimed to guests hungry for local color.

I closed my eyes, exhaled deeply.

Inside, it was all an open gash.

I pressed my fingernails into the edges of my scalp, digging them in further and further until that was all there was, that pure eradicating pain as I dragged them down my forehead. I thought of clawing my own face off, literally clawing at my skin until my flesh hung in ragged bloody clumps from my sharpened nails.

 

W
HEN
J
ACK CALLED
the next morning to say he had to help with inventory at the store and wouldn't be able to see me until later that evening, I was relieved. It would give me longer to get clean. “I'll call you later,” he said, “and let you know what time I'll be done. Okay? Okay?” he asked again.

“Yes.”

I went into the bathroom and locked the door. The hot water of the shower pounded into me, hotter and hotter, scalding me, but it was still not hot enough to burn away what lay inside.

I spent the rest of the morning at the front desk while Astrid
went food shopping. Looking out of the window, I saw Xavier go to the pool, swim laps, sun himself, leave. I saw Garner bent over the lawn mower, his face streaked with grease, his naked sagging stomach, brown as tobacco, flapping over the waistband of his Bermuda shorts. And Mrs. Patrick sitting at a table in the shade, staring out at the river.

Jack called back to say that he would pick me up at 8:15.

 

A
T
8:10, I looked in the mirror one last time, daubed makeup on my forehead to cover the scratch marks, and walked through the office. Astrid and Garner were in the kitchen, leaving their dirty dinner dishes on the counter while they rummaged for dessert. I closed the screen door quietly behind me and walked quickly to the pool to flip on the lights before going to meet Jack.

I didn't see Xavier, lying flat on one of the plastic lounge chairs, waiting for me.

“Where are you going?” he asked, rising.

“Out.”

“Without me?” he teased.

I ignored him.

“I'd miss you,” he said.

He grabbed my arm and pulled me to him. “Why don't you just stay in tonight?” His breath reeked of alcohol.

“You fucking asshole,” I said. “Let me go.”

He laughed and pulled me tighter.

Xavier's free hand slithered into my blouse and wrapped around my breast, pinching my nipple so painfully I had to bite my lip not to cry out.

I tried to wriggle free of him but he tightened his hold. His eyes were gleaming. He was enjoying himself, enjoying the game.

“Don't you think we'd have fun?” he asked. “More fun than you'd have with that rod-ass boyfriend of yours.”

“Leave him out of this,” I muttered.

“I will if you will,” he said. His hand was going up my skirt now, pulling at my panties.

“Stop it.” I tried desperately to pull his hand away. “Get away from me.”

He gave me one great forceful lurch and I began to fall, breaking it with my right hand on the pile of bricks by the fence.

But he followed me, grabbed me, would not let me go. I felt his rough forefinger working through my underwear, reaching my flesh. His other hand was wrapped around my throat. “Don't touch me, you bastard. I'll scream if you do.”

“Go ahead, scream. But tell me, how are you going to explain the money? How are you going to explain my good friend Lewis Harmon? Huh, Marta?” He laughed. “Oh, I'm going to touch you all right.”

My fingers wrapped around the brick.

“Nothing you can do about that,” he said. His hand dug deeper into me, in and in.

 

I
CAN STILL
see it, still feel it, my arm rising in slow motion with the brick, and then coming down, swooping through the night air.

The contact. Hard, and then soft.

 

I
DID NOT
see Jack running through the courtyard.

I only saw Xavier's head, a rivulet of blood running down his forehead.

His body was flaccid, his eyes vacant.

And then there was Jack, standing beside me, looking from Xavier to me.

Slowly, I pulled my gaze away from Frank Xavier's body lying at my feet. “Oh God, what did I do?”

“I saw what happened,” Jack said. “I saw what he was trying to do to you.”

We both turned when we saw a light go on and Mrs. Patrick step out of her room.

“What's going on out here?” Mrs. Patrick called out.

Jack looked at me, and then he turned away. “There's been an accident,” he said. “Call the police.”

“That was no accident,” Mrs. Patrick replied. “I saw those two. I know what they were up to.”

“Help me, Jack. Please. Help me,” I whispered.

“The man slipped,” Jack yelled back to her. “We were having a fight and he slipped. Now, please, call an ambulance.”

I looked down. Xavier's eyes were unfocused, completely still.

“Go in and get yourself cleaned up,” Jack said.

I couldn't move.

“Go on.” He gave me a push in the direction of the office.

I ran past Astrid and Garner and locked my bedroom door. My hand was shaking, but when I looked down, there was no blood on it, no evidence.

Outside, I heard sounds. Voices. A blur of voices.

His hand in the folds of my skin. “Oh, I'm going to touch you, all right.”

The voices were gaining in momentum, rising.

Xavier's laugh. “Nothing you can do about that.” His fingers tightening about my throat.

I had only wanted him to take his hand away, had only wanted him to stop, to finally stop.

Jack's face, his eyes, expecting an explanation I could never give him.

I turned frantically about. In an instant, I opened my top drawer, grabbed the money I had stashed there and thrust it into my pocket.

I unlocked my bedroom door. The apartment was silent, empty. Everything, everyone was outside, waiting for me.

I headed out the back door, and ran along the path behind the motel.

I cut through the neighbor's yard and kept on running.

I stopped once, half a block away, and turned around.

In the white glare of the headlights, I saw Astrid and Garner standing in the road watching as Xavier was loaded into an ambulance.

I saw Jack being led to the police car.

I looked at them all a moment more, and then I ran.

T
HERE HAD BEEN
no word from Jack, no face in the light, no signal, since my visit to his hotel room a week ago.

I found myself looking for him from the window of the town car as I drove to work, out of the corner of my eye in crowded restaurants at lunch, in the black air of the studio as I did the news.

I listened for him in every ringing telephone, leaning into the split-second before the other person's voice began.

I should have been relieved by his silence, his absence.

But I wasn't.

 

I
BLINKED AND
returned to the papers on my desk. The debut of
In Step
was just two weeks away and I was still trying to grasp the minutiae of the ever-changing boundaries in the Balkans for my interview with the secretary of state.

It was almost noon when I sensed the air in the newsroom change.

I lifted my head up, looked through the glass walls that separated my office from the main newsroom, and saw others doing the same, raising their faces, sniffing. The crackling started in the far corner, where the voices over the police band radios had gone up an octave as they hurried over the ends of sentences. It radiated out through the room, a sputtering energy, wordless at first, shapeless, just nerves, senses—
something is happening
. I felt it creep beneath my door, those first tentacles of an event, a story, pulling me from my desk to the newsroom where it completely filled the air. It is, despite the denials, what every newsperson lives for.

I grabbed Susan Mahoney as she darted by. “What's going on?”

“I was just coming to get you.” Her eyes skidded off of mine to the clocks, the maps, and then back.

“What is it?”

“An explosion,” Susan said.

“Where?”

“Federal building in New Orleans.”

“Terrorists?”

“Maybe.”

“Casualties?”

“Three unconfirmed. We're breaking in on regular programming. Get ready to go on-air in four minutes. Perry will meet you in the studio. Where the fuck is Quinn?”

“Isn't he in his office?”

“No. And he's not answering his beeper. Oh God, I just remembered, he's supposed to be giving a speech to that ‘Fairness in Media' group this morning. Just get going, okay?”

I rushed to the studio, where Al was directing the cameramen and scurrying about, checking lights, microphones, and TelePrompTers. “This is it,” he said. “The main event.”

I sat down at the desk and plugged in my earpiece, listening to the latest reports while I hurriedly scribbled notes. In a
minute, Perry rushed in with her bag of tricks. She tucked a piece of paper toweling about the neck of my blouse and began to work on my face. I could feel her putting extra concealing cream on the black circles beneath my eyes. There was no talk of boyfriends this time, of sales at Bloomingdale's or the sexual proclivities of various ethnic groups. We were both silent.

We all knew that this was the test that all of the more mundane broadcasts led up to. This was the time to see if it had paid off, the relationship you built with viewers night after night, hoping to establish enough trust so that you'd be the one they turned to during emergencies for information, for assurance, for continuity.

This was the time, too, to see how you performed, without the carefully scripted copy, without the net. The newspapers always printed the ratings of each news department the day after any disaster, and gave much copy space to critiquing our performances. It is one of the most important things the network executives figure into their mysterious equations when it comes time to decide who will stay and who will go.

Perry combed my hair a little bit flatter, a little bit smaller than usual. It would be unseemly to appear too glamorous when reporting about dismemberment and death.

Over the loudspeaker we heard, “Sixty seconds to cut-in.”

The crew was positioning the cameras to hide the empty chair by my side.

Perry put down her brushes, quickly appraised her work, and yanked off the toweling that had been protecting my clothes. “Good luck.”

“Thanks.”

“And twenty seconds…and ten…and go.”

The light went on and I read the hastily written copy slapped in front of me. “At eleven-thirty-two this morning, an explosion went off at the federal building in downtown New Orleans.” I looked into the camera, through it. “There are unconfirmed re
ports that witnesses saw a jeep drive up right before the blast.” I cut to Fred Jarred, our local affiliate's reporter in the street. “Fred, what can you tell us?”

There was a moment of silence while Jarred, his forefinger pressed to his ear, his eyes nervously roaming the screen, missed his cue. I held my breath and only exhaled, relieved, when he finally kicked in. “Laura, as you can see, rescue efforts are in full swing. There may be as many as seventy people still inside. We have no word yet on their condition.” The screen filled with images of the tattered building facade and men and women with blood-splattered faces being pulled from the wreckage.

“Is there any word on the casualties, Fred?”

“All we know so far is that there are three unconfirmed dead. Two women and a man.”

I heard Susan speaking into my ear, prompting me about what questions to ask, filling me in on information as it came to her that I could relay ten seconds later into the camera. “Fred, we're going to go to Belinda Kirk, who's standing with Orlando Samuels, the New Orleans chief of police. Belinda, go ahead.”

I was surprised and pleased when Susan whispered Belinda's name to me. We had worked together in Burlington, and had an easy camaraderie. We'd lost touch, but I was glad to find her again, working in a bigger market and looking well. While she grilled the chief for information, I studied the fresh wire reports that were being rushed in front of me.

“Thank you, Belinda,” I said when she was done. “I wonder if I might have a word with the chief. Sir, what about reports of a jeep that was said to have driven up right before the blast?”

“We're looking into that, Laura.”

“Can you tell us anything about the drivers?” In my ear, Susan was telling me to ask about their appearance, if they were dark-skinned, possibly Middle Easterners? “Did they appear to be foreign?” I asked.

“That would be highly speculative to state at this moment,” Samuels answered testily. “Excuse me, but I must get back to the scene.”

“Of course. Thank you, Chief Samuels. We'll go now to Hank Parson for some background on the federal building.”

With the cameras on Parson for a minute, Belinda and I spoke.

“Hey, girlfriend,” she said.

“Good to see you.”

“Likewise. You've been on my mind.”

“Yeah, sure,” I joked.

“Honey, you've been on a lot of people's minds lately. Congratulations.”

“Thanks.”

“Now I can tell everyone I knew you when.”

“Give me a break.”

“No really. This woman, what's her name, Harrison? from
Vanity Fair
called last week asking about you.”

“They're doing a profile.”

“Well, aren't we hot shit?”

“What did she ask?”

“The usual,” Kirk said. “Who you fucked, who you fucked over. I told her I'd fax her a ten-page list. Just kidding. Listen, I gotta run, the fire chief just got here.” She ended our connection before I could say goodbye.

I stared down at the desk, wondering just how good a reporter Harrison would prove to be.

“Laura,” Susan prodded. “Laura, pay attention.”

As soon as the light indicated I was back on, I informed the viewers of the latest information. “We've just gotten word on the casualties. The two women are alive in critical condition. We have one confirmed casualty. A boy, ten or eleven years old. No name has been released yet. We're going to go to Gerald Nolan now at
St. Barnabas Hospital. Gerald, what can you tell us?” I asked.

“Laura, as you can guess, the emergency rooms are packed. One minute. Here she comes now. We believe this is the mother of the boy who was just pronounced dead. Ma'am? Ma'am?”

The cameras panned over an enormous woman rushing past the cameras. Her face, beneath a frazzle of jet-black hair, was contorted by horror and disbelief, her eyes glazed with shock. It was far too early for grief. The cameras didn't leave her until she disappeared inside the hospital doors.

Nolan grabbed a doctor. “Sir, what can you tell us about the casualties you're seeing?”

For the next twenty minutes, I continued playing relay between the reporters on the street frantically nabbing whatever officials they could round up, and the information that was coming over the wires. It was a treacherous and consuming juggling act, and the realization that a child was dead, someone's child, barely pierced my adrenaline. I knew that it would find me later. It always did.

Within an hour, all seventy people had been evacuated. After wild rumors, most of which I did not report but some of which I did—that it was the Iranians, the I.R.A., or our own rightwing terrorists—a fourth report surfaced that it was some sort of a gas explosion. No one's fault, except maybe the government's. It was their building, after all.

The decision was made to go back to regularly scheduled programming. Dreadful as the explosion was, it was not quite the cataclysmic event it had first seemed. The death count wasn't high enough, there was no sexy motive. “We'll keep you updated throughout the day on any further developments,” I promised the viewers. “And of course, join us at six-thirty for all the latest information.” I looked gravely into the camera for another three seconds and then we were off.

I unhooked my mike and took a deep breath.

“Good job,” Susan said just before I unplugged my earpiece.

I walked back through the newsroom, where people looked up briefly from their computers and nodded their approval.

 

Q
UINN WAS IN
my office waiting for me.

I sat down warily and waited.

“Nice job,” he said.

“Thanks.”

“So there was no jeep after all, huh?”

“No.”

“No terrorists? No ‘foreigners'?”

“No.”

“Too bad. Anyone could have made the same mistake.”

He stared at me for a long and silent moment. And then he rose and left without another word.

 

M
Y BLOOD WAS
still pumping in a rapid sputtering rhythm, unable to slow, to steady.

It hits gradually, but completely, the power of witnessing the rawest moments of other people's lives, the randomness and ease with which they can be blown apart. I keep it at bay, all of us do, while we report. I'm not sure if this is a character flaw or a talent. But even for us, it is impossible to keep it at bay forever. There have been reporters who turn to drink, and others who quit suddenly to join the Peace Corps. There are those who become so brittle that nothing can penetrate the crust, and others who turn maudlin. No one ever really escapes the lesson taught again and again: how very fragile the strings are that tie our lives together, no matter how much we gild and knot them, trying to secure the connections.

I called Dora to check on Sophie.

I called David.

And then I called the Hotel Angelica. “Room six fifty-eight, please.”

I heard the call being put through, then three rings.

“Hello?” Jack's voice was chafed but soft. Close. “Hello?”

I pressed the receiver tight to my ear.

“Hello?” he said again. I heard him swallow. “Marta?”

I placed the receiver carefully back on the hook.

 

A
N HOUR LATER,
Carla buzzed to tell me Berkman wanted to see me.

“What's this business about foreigners?” he asked before I had a chance to sit down.

Susan was standing by the window. She said nothing, certainly not that I had asked the question at her behest. I glanced at her and then back to Berkman.

“Do you have any idea how many letters we're going to get?” he continued. “Let me make this clear to you. We do not report unsubstantiated rumors on the air.”

“I'm sorry.”

“Yes, well.” He looked down and shuffled some papers about. “You did okay otherwise.”

“Thank you.”

He looked back at me. “I want you to call the Townsends.” The Townsends were the parents of the little boy who died. “See if they'll talk.”

“Don't you think I should wait a day or two?”

“Do you think Diane will wait? Do you think Barbara or Dan are going to wait?”

I wasn't sure if the assignment was a reward for my reporting or a penance. Anyway, I had no choice. It is what we do.

I went back to my office and put in the first of what were to be twenty or thirty attempts to get through on the Townsends' constantly busy line.

The only call I took all afternoon was Jerry's.

“What's wrong, Laura?” he asked.

“What do you mean?”

“I've never minced words and I'm not about to start now. Something's wrong. I can feel it. It's creeping onto the air.”

“Berkman was pleased with my performance.”

“Did he say that?”

“Well not exactly. But…”

“I see. Well, I'm not only talking about this afternoon.”

“What have you heard?” I asked.

“Nothing. Not in so many words. It's just a feeling, a sense. Call it a smell.” Jerry's sense of smell was what made him one of the best agents in the business. I knew when it had gone my way, when I'd had the imperceptible sweet scent of a comer, and I knew too that once it turned there was little I would be able to do to bring it back. Hard work, even talent, rarely make a difference once there is an odor of disappointment about you.

“You just don't seem yourself lately,” Jerry said.