The Other Widow (9 page)

She calls it back. Her hand shakes as she pours hot milk into a cup with cocoa clinging to its sides. “I can do this,” she says aloud. And then again, “I can do this! I am brave.” She hopes her brain believes what she does not believe, as she's lately read it does. She's tried to cut out phrases like
I'm dying for a grilled cheese sandwich,
since she's also read the brain is very literal.

“Hello?” A woman's voice. A familiar voice.

“Viv?”

“Yep. I'm back,” her friend says. “I got a job in Boston. I tried to call you this weekend, but I wasn't sure I had the right number. Your message doesn't actually say who you are.”

“I know. I've got to fix that.” The generic message is because of Karen, really—so she wouldn't know who Dorrie was if she stumbled across Joe's burner phone.

Viv relocated to Vermont months before, and they had barely spoken after she left. There were two or three faint phone calls, with Viv shouting something about living in a dead zone with spotty cell connection before she'd faded off into a round of static. Her name is actually Vivian, but with her New Orleans childhood, her huge violet eyes, and background in theater, Viv suits her better. “I have some clients in the city,” she says now. “Four on Beacon Hill. Living rooms.” Viv works in interior design.

“I am really glad you're back!” Dorrie says. “And so glad you weren't—” She takes a sip of her hot chocolate.

“What?”

“It's a long story. There was an accident,” she says. “I was involved in a terrible, hor
rend
ous accident, and someone died.”

“Oh my God! Who?”

“Joe,” Dorrie says, “but I don't really want to talk about it. At least not right now.”

“Okay,” Viv says. “But, my God, Dorrie. Are you all right?”

“Not really. In fact, I've never actually
been
less all right.”

“Can you meet for dinner? Tomorrow? I'm staying at the Copley Square Hotel—courtesy of my clients, can you believe it?—so we could just eat there if you can get away.”

“Seven?”

“Perfect,” Viv says. “See you in the lobby.”

Dorrie glances at her watch. “Shit. I'm really late. Can we continue this on my—?”

“Go,” Viv says. “I'll see you at the Copley.” And with a tiny click, she's gone.

Dorrie opens the front door and glances out at the sky. She'll take the train if it looks like snow, but there is only wind, the clop-clop of pinecones rolling down the drive. Somewhere a dog barks.

She pulls her coat out of the hall closet and on impulse grabs the ugly coat she'd worn the night Joe died. She'll take it to the office and leave it there on the last hook. She doesn't want it in her house, can't bear to have it here, a constant reminder. Every time she opens the closet door, a part of her is catapulted back to the night of the accident.

She pulls her hat down over her forehead—a new hat she picked up for the funeral to hide her healing cut, the telltale scar. A jaunty, velvet one that sets off the dark green of her eyes and totally belies her mood. She locks the front door behind her and half-walks, half-slides down the slick driveway. Safely in her front seat, she scans the street for a dark car with one headlight before she eases her foot off the brake and rolls down the driveway. She straightens her hat in the rearview mirror and wonders if that night on Newbury will dictate all her future actions and reactions. Or will it fade? Will it, like the gash on her forehead, fold itself back inside the skin of her former life?

There's no hurry, now, to get to work. The atmosphere is gloomy at the office, dark since Joe's death, despite Jeananne's constant chatter and Lola's temp replacement, who never even met Joe, despite being overwhelmed with trying to catch up with clients and training with Francine. Despite all this, Joe's absence is a constant ache. His voice, his laughter haunt the halls and linger in the doorways. Without his booming voice, his humor, the atmosphere of gaiety he brought to work, the office is a hushed and dreary place. He's taken all the lightness with him. There's only Edward now.

She pulls up at a long red light on Boylston. Cars are lined along the street, and Dorrie's mind wanders back to the first time she ever saw Joe, when he took her hand in the lobby of Home Runs and held on just a second longer than he had to. He was standing in the doorway with water dripping from his trench coat when she came in, shaking a large van Gogh umbrella that nearly always jammed.

“Joe Lindsay.” He'd walked toward her with his hand extended, and she'd noticed he had striking eyes. Blue. An odd blue. Like the sky. “Welcome to Home Runs, Dorreen.” He'd held on to her hand, as if he'd forgotten he had it, and she'd pulled it back, finally.

“Oh,” he'd said. “Sorry.”

Dorrie punched at her stubborn umbrella, got it closed. “It's fine,” she said. “I have two. And it's Dorrie, by the way,” she'd said as her umbrella popped back open, filling the small entryway.

“Dorrie then.” He'd smiled at the huge sunflowers, the broken metal ribs. “Nice umbrella.”

Often days or weeks went by without her seeing him. She found she was a little disappointed when he wasn't at the office, that she was painfully aware of both his presence and his absence, and that she found a reason to walk down the hall whenever he was there.

When she'd been working at Home Runs for a few months, he'd asked her to lunch—a basement tea shop on Charles near Tremont. Its windows were like flat cat's eyes that peered across the sidewalk at street level and Dorrie passed it three times in her nervousness, pushing finally through the door to find Joe already inside. She'd watched him for a minute from the doorway, watched the slouched, spent look of him, the way his hands sat empty on the table.

“Sorry.” She sat down across from him.

He glanced at his watch. “I thought maybe you'd forgotten.”

They'd ordered, chatted about work, but it was stilted, strained. The waiter arrived at last, set their orders down with a smile. The place was filling up with customers; a small line formed near the door.

“Sorry again to be so late. I couldn't actually—” She'd made a little dismissive gesture. Her bangle bracelets clinked and clanged.

“I guess it is a little out of the way.” His eyes were dark in the faint light slanting in from the window.

“It's just that it's a little underground. And the sign was— I didn't see the sign.”

“They are discreet,” he told her, smiling.

“There is a thin line,” Dorrie said, “between discretion and bankruptcy.”

“Ah, but discretion is the better part of valor.”

“Or marriage?”

He didn't answer.

“Wow,” she'd said, picking at her salad. “This tuna is really good!”

He smiled.

“I've heard good things about you,” he said when they'd nearly finished with their food. He'd wiped his mouth and leaned back from the table. “You have a flair for dealing with people. The few times I've heard you on the phone with customers . . . You're really good.”

She'd nodded. A piece of lettuce lodged between her teeth. “Thanks,” she'd managed, finally. “I'm a trained actress, so . . .” She'd made a flip-flop gesture with her hand. “Selling . . . acting.”

He looked at her, squinted. “I can see that,” he said. “I can see you on a stage.” He'd sighed, a long, deep sigh. “I very much wanted to be an actor myself when I was young.” He stared out toward the window. “Even went to acting school for a while.” His voice shook slightly. “Had to drop out, though, to support—to support my . . .” He'd stopped, cleared his throat.

“I'm so sorry.” Dorrie had leaned forward. “I didn't mean to upset you by bringing back—”

He'd grinned. “Gotcha.”

“You were acting? Just
then
?”

“Couldn't resist.”

“Not bad,” she'd said. “Not bad at all.
Mean,
but not
bad
.”

“Anyway,” he said, serious again. “You'd be dealing much more with the clients. Sometimes you'd meet with them, give them suggestions. I can show you how to do virtual renovations. Tuesdays you'll do on-site visits—sit in their living rooms, drink their coffee, meet their kids, try to get a feel for who they are, what might work for them. A little traveling from time to time, but I'll try to keep you in the Boston area. When you're done, you're finished for the day. Doable?”

She hadn't answered. She'd turned to look at a slitted window, a thin line of light. “I'm sorry, but I don't think so, Mr. Lindsay,” she'd said in a voice barely above a whisper. “I appreciate your thinking of me . . .” She'd begun to move around in her seat, collecting her bag. She'd run her fingers through her hair and managed a small smile. Her bottom lip trembled, but only slightly. “Really. I do thank you. And thank you so much for this.” She'd nodded toward the table. “Lunch. It was delicious. Really.” She'd begun to stand up. He'd looked at her. Shocked.

“Touché,” she'd said, tossing her head sideways in a dramatic gesture, throwing her silky scarf across her shoulder. “Seriously. “Yes. It's doable. At least I think so.”

“Damn,” he said. “You
are
good!”

For dessert, the waiter wheeled a tray of pastries to their table—pies and cakes and croissants and puffy, cream-filled things. “We'll have this,” Joe said, “and one of those.” She remembers how his fingers shook, the silence filled with air, the waiter's footsteps light as snow, the scents of teas, the flowered cups, the easy way he spoke. She could have stayed for hours.

His hand was light against her back, steering her as they left. She heard the scrape of her chair across the wood grains of the floor, noticed the bright light coming in the window, the clatter of dishes at the nearby tables, the sharp edges of Tremont. She remembers the bones in his face, the lines, the small, flat, broken spot at the top of his nose, the fierce blue of his eyes. They'd stood in the doorway, half in, half out.

Somewhere, she thinks, there's a picture of the two of them. It was in the spring at a street festival in Cambridge. A beautiful day, warm and breezy, after a long winter. It was on a Tuesday. She hopes he ripped it up, but she knows he didn't. It was too perfect—the picture, the day.

Dorrie turns slowly onto Summer Street. Vigilant, on edge, she pulls her car in to the garage. The renovated building has its issues—an outdated radiator that gasps like an iron lung, the huge, high spaces that, in winter, stop the offices from ever really getting warm—but at least there's a garage.

She gets out of her car and the closing of the door booms in the silence. She walks quickly toward the elevator. Even here out of the wind, the air stings her face, numbs her skin. She stops in front of Joe's old parking space with his name still on the sign.
Joe Lindsay, Owner
. She touches his name with her fingertips, a ritual she performs on days she drives in to work, out of reverence or regret.

Joe was traveling a lot after that first lunch, and when he came back, she thought he seemed more distant than before. Weeks passed before they went to lunch again—a month, nearly to the day. They met at a seafood restaurant, where pictures of fishermen dotted the walls. Dorrie ordered clam chowder, dabbed at it, feeling more nervous this time than the last. There was more at stake. “So.” She'd slurped down a spoonful of the chowder. Delicious. Fresh. “Would your wife mind you having lunch with me?”

“Not sure,” he said. “Probably.”

“Do you have— Are you very . . . close?”

“Not extraordinarily close. Why?”

“No reason. I just thought if she was still
jealous
of you after all these years—that's a good sign, isn't it? I mean, that level of emotional involvement. That's a
good
thing, right, in a marriage?”

He shrugged. “Is it?”

“Probably.”

They ate in silence.

“Would you be?” she asked. “Jealous, I mean. Of your wife.”

He stopped eating, his fork poised in the air in front of him, lobster and butter dripping from the tines. “Yes,” he said, and he frowned. “But not about a lunch.”

“So,” Dorrie had said after a few seconds. “She might think there was something fishy going on?”

Joe looked up. “What? Sorry?”

“Fishy? The lobster? The clams?”

“Oh,” he said. “Very funny.”

“You're not so good at this. I'd better scale down.”

“Ouch. Can you stop now?”

“Not
reel
-y.”

“Okay,” he'd said. “You got me. Hook, line, and sinker.”

She sighs, glances at her watch. She's late.
I love you, Joe,
she says inside her head, and looks down at the level cement. Something stains the gray dullness of the parking spot, making it darker in one place than the others. She squats down. She scrubs at it with a Kleenex, but it's sunk inside the concrete like blood, this puddle of oil.

She feels someone behind her, watching her. There is something out of place, a footstep or the tiniest disturbance of air. She stands up and nearly sprints across the garage to the elevator. The light is bad here. It's almost dark—a huge shadowy space with flickering, erratic lights. She pushes the elevator button with a shaking hand, pushes it again and again, stabbing at it with her fingers, as, on the other side of the garage, the exit door opens and closes with the raucous echo of a squeaky hinge.

X

DORRIE

D
orrie isn't ready for the insurance investigator when the woman knocks on the outside of her open office door. “Got a minute?” She takes a small step over the threshold.