Thorns of Truth (9 page)

Rose thought of Brian, how desperately in love she’d been at Drew’s age. What had it earned her besides a broken heart? If Max hadn’t come along then, she might not have found the courage to love again. It was Max who’d made her believe in second chances … who’d shown her that even a heart that seemed damaged beyond repair can be mended.…

She felt a sudden need to get away from this man, as fast and far as possible. There were no sappy love songs for women who read
The Wall Street Journal
, and moisturized with Night Repair. No encores, either.

And that was just fine with her. She needed to concentrate now on what was important: her children, and her work. With
Esposito
v.
St. Bartholomew’s
looming, she’d be lucky if she found the time to do her nails, and grab a half hour in the morning on the Stairmaster. Sex? Yeah, she dimly remembered what that was. But right now, the idea of even getting to know Eric—much less actually
sleeping
with him—seemed as remote and unlikely as a cruise to the Fiji Islands on a private yacht.

“I’d better go,” she told Eric. “I’ll see you next week.”

Tuesday of next week, at precisely one-thirty, Rose was stepping out of the elevator on the tenth floor of the West Broadway office building in which WQNA was located. She was buzzed through a set of plate-glass doors into a reception area paneled in pale oak, then escorted by a punk-haired blonde in a black miniskirt along a corridor lined with office cubicles the size of post-office boxes, each crammed to the ceiling with electronic equipment and snaking cables.

At last, Rose was ushered into a recording studio walled with carpet and tucked behind the Plexiglas-walled engineer’s booth. The room was small, just large enough to accommodate a table, two swivel chairs, and a pair of mikes mounted on flexible metal arms suspended over either end of the table. Eric, seated before one of the mikes, stood to greet her.

“Sorry it’s so cramped,” he apologized. “I feel like the old charlatan hiding behind the curtain in
Wizard of Oz
. Most of my guests expect a glitzier setup.”

“That’s the
last
thing I need,” she said, laughing. “I spent the whole morning in court, and right now all I want is to take off this jacket and kick back.” She felt ridiculously overdressed in her Isaac Mizrahi suit and pearls, like someone who’d wandered into the wrong hotel banquet room.

Eric himself looked the part of the relaxed radio personality, in navy corduroys and blue pinstriped shirt with the sleeves rolled up. Yet it was obvious he knew how to dress. Eric’s family was well off—he’d told her he’d gone to prep school, then Princeton. Only someone who’d been raised with money, she thought, would dare kick around in crew socks and scuffed Gucci loafers. Plus that hair of his—mussed, as if he’d just rolled out of bed, a dozen shades of blond and brown and gold all tossed together … It made her think of running barefoot over a sand dune on a warm summer evening.

At the same time, there was that edge she’d picked up on the other night. A vague restlessness just below the surface—as if he’d just come from somewhere and already couldn’t wait to leave. His blue eyes, on the other hand—given an almost naked look by the paleness of his brows and lashes—were disturbingly intense.

Rose gradually became aware that Eric was speaking to her.

“Liz Aikens and Shirley Cunningham, my other two guests, will be patched in via phone,” he was explaining. “You’ll be able to hear them through your headphones. And when you talk into the microphone, they’ll be able to hear you.”

As he was adjusting her mike, she had a sudden urge to slip a finger under the little wave of hair that curled over his collar. The skin on the back of his neck would be soft, she thought. As soft as—

She dropped her gaze, a flash of heat scalding her cheeks.

Mother of God. What rock had
that
crawled out from under? She hadn’t thought about making love to a man,
any
man, since Max died.

Seated across from Eric, with the mikes open and the tape rolling, Rose did her best to concentrate, to sound articulate and well informed. But, annoyingly, uncontrollably, her eyes would cut over to Eric, cataloguing and storing away the frayed Band-aid around one thumb; his top lip, which dipped in a cupid’s bow and made his bottom lip seem even fuller; a front tooth that slightly overlapped the one next to it. There was a tiny ink stain on his front pocket, like a period at the end of a sentence, where he’d absently stuck an uncapped pen … and in her mind she was once again seeing him in that coffee shop, scribbling her phone number on a napkin. Half-hoping he would call … and at the same time dreading what he’d say if he did.

Jesus, Rose, get a grip.

She leaned into the mike, bringing a hand to the headphones, which felt large and clumsy over her ears. “The laws
are
changing … but I agree with Liz: they’re not changing fast enough.” The words flowed easily, and Rose was surprised by how cool and collected she sounded. This wasn’t much different, really, from presenting a case in court. “Basically, it’s still a problem of perception. If the police officers responding to domestic calls don’t take them seriously, more wives like the one you just described will grab for a gun instead of the phone, and their abusive husbands will end up in the morgue … instead of behind bars, where they belong.”

“I wish mine
was
dead,” spoke a hard voice—the battered wife currently in hiding at the shelter run by Liz Aikens. What was her name again? Shirley. Yes, that was it.

“Believe me, Shirley, you wouldn’t want that.” Rose felt her professional veneer slipping, and heard the slight tremble in her voice. “Death is … well, there’s no turning back from it.”

“Yeah? That’s good. No more tiptoeing around the house wondering which bone he’s gonna break this time,” the woman replied with a harshness that was like biting down on tinfoil.

“Shirley, what are you feeling right now?” Eric moved in quickly, as adept as an orchestra conductor. “What do you want to say to those women out there who have no idea what it’s like?”

A brief pause, then: “It’s scary.”

“Scary in what way?” he pressed.

“Just … scary. Not only when he’s bein’ mean. What’s scary is how you get used to living like that. After a while, it seems almost
normal
.”

In her mind, Rose was seeing Marie’s bruised and swollen face, and remembering the times she’d visited her sister in the hospital. Nothing she could say ever seemed to get through to Marie, then one day she’d simply had enough—and walked out.

“Let’s talk a little bit about the role of alcohol in all this.” Eric switched to another tack. “Liz, in your experience, are abusive husbands often under the influence when they beat their wives?”

Bingo. He’d hit the nail on the head, launching the author into a diatribe on what was obviously her pet cause—getting judges to remand abusive husbands to rehab facilities in lieu of overcrowded jails. For the next ten minutes, Rose barely got a word in. Then, out of the corner of her eye, she caught sight of the burly redheaded engineer signaling to Eric from inside his Plexiglas booth—holding up two fingers. Only two minutes left. Rose blinked in surprise. Where had the hour gone?

When they were off the air, Eric swung aside the flexible metal arm on which his microphone was mounted, and leaned back in his chair with a knowing grin. “It felt more like five minutes, right? Most people have that reaction. Being on the air is like pedaling a bike downhill—unless you’re the one running the show.”

“You make it look so natural,” she said, genuinely impressed.

He shrugged. “I’ve had a lot of practice faking it.” Glancing at his wristwatch—Swiss Army, its leather band darkened with age—he asked, “Can I tempt you with a late lunch? I never eat before I go on the air.”

Rose realized she was starving. But there was no time, not even for a quick bite on the run. She had to be back in her office in fifteen minutes for her three o’clock.

“Can I take a raincheck? I’m running late as it is.” Rose felt both relieved and a little regretful. “In fact, I should call my secretary and let her know. Mind if I use your phone?”

But when she got through to her office, Mallory informed her that Mark Cannizzaro—of Cannizzaro, Palmer, and D’Amico, the firm representing Mrs. Esposito—had canceled. Damn. That would mean yet another delay, and might result in their trial date’s getting bumped ahead another week … or month.

At the same time, her empty stomach was demanding to be fed. And Eric … smiling at her, with those blue eyes of his that seemed to know more about her than he had any business knowing. Slouched against the door with one scuffed loafer crossed over the other, and a hand resting lightly on the knob—as if he’d known all along she’d have lunch with him.

He took her to a funky outdoor cafe, which turned out to be just what she was in the mood for. The weather was perfect: bright and clear, but not too hot. Under the shade of their Cinzano umbrella, with the sunlight winking off the wet rim of her iced-tea glass, Rose, for the first time in months, felt something close to contentment.

“You were great on the show,” Eric praised her. “Not just a lawyer giving legal advice—a woman reacting to another woman’s pain.”

Rose smiled grimly. “It
does
make me mad. My older sister was married to a guy like that. Her ex-husband would get smashed, then smash
her.
Pete finally stopped drinking—after serving ninety days for hospitalizing her with a ruptured kidney.”

Eric grimaced. “I guess your ex-brother-in-law won’t be getting any Christmas cards from you.”

“I never liked him in the first place. And after what he did to Marie … I give him credit for getting sober, but that doesn’t mean I’ll ever forgive him.” Rose was surprised by the bitterness she still felt, after all these years. Maybe it was because Marie, when they were growing up, in her own stingy, hardbitten way, had been the only one to look out for
her.
Even that time Marie had stolen from her—sneaking money from the secret bank account set up by Sylvie in Rose’s name—couldn’t erase that deep bond.

“If it makes you feel any better, we’re even harder on ourselves.”

It took a moment for the meaning of his words to sink in. Then Rose remembered: Eric was a recovering alcoholic.

For some reason, it didn’t disgust her. Quite the opposite. There was something … well …
dignified
about him. As if he’d had his own hell to pay, but made excuses to no one. And she couldn’t imagine him ever hitting a woman, even if he was drunk.

“How long have you been sober?” she asked.

“Five years.” His tone was matter-of-fact, with only the faintest suggestion of what it must have cost him.

“I’m sure it wasn’t easy.”

“It never is.”

“You don’t like talking about it, do you?”

“Talk’s cheap. Takes money to buy whiskey.” He smiled at his own joke—the kind of gallows humor Rose could appreciate—but his face, under the shade of the umbrella, was pensive.

She sat back with a sigh, playing with the straw from her iced tea. “I know what you mean. After my husband died, I got sick of listening to myself carry on. After a while, so did most of my friends. A woman in my grief group turned to me at one point and said, ‘Talking isn’t going to make it go away, you know.’ And she was right.” Rose crumpled the straw in her fist. “After that, I kept my mouth shut … and thought about ways to kill myself instead.”

She averted her eyes, feeling oddly naked, and imagined he could see right through her, down to where her heart thumped in heavy, hot dismay. Why had she told him that? After that scary scene with Iris, followed by Drew’s proposal, Eric would think their whole family was certifiable.

Rose glanced around her. The sidewalk in front of the restaurant, deep enough for at least a dozen tables, was fenced with high wooden planters spilling geraniums and bright impatiens. Lively reggae music pumped from overhead speakers. Yet the SoHo gallery types lunching with their black-clad artists in nose rings, however offbeat, couldn’t have begun to imagine the dark universe she occasionally inhabited.

“I used to think about killing myself, too.” Eric’s words were an echo coming back at her from the chilly cave of her thoughts—reassuring her that she was neither lost nor alone. Rose had to turn and look at him to be sure she’d heard correctly. Eric looked back at her, his gaze serious … and blessedly sane. “Every single day for the first year and a half,” he recalled with a small, mirthless smile. “Ironically, it was the only thing that kept me going.”

“How do you mean?” She leaned forward in fascination.

“My obituary,” he explained. “Knowing I wouldn’t be more than a paragraph buried at the bottom of the page. After I’d pissed away my entire career, it’s ironic, isn’t it, that in the end what saved me was my big fat ego?”

“My sister Clare, the nun, would see it differently. She’d say that God was saving you for something special.”

Eric nodded thoughtfully, and said, “I don’t know about God … but it’s amazing what can happen when you let go and stop believing it’s all up to you. When you finally realize it’s got nothing whatsoever to do with willpower.”

“That doesn’t make sense,” the lawyer in her objected. “If it’s not about free will and choice, how would anyone ever get sober?”

“Choice? Sure.” He leaned on his elbows; the light filtering through the canvas was grainy and golden on his face. “The choice is in letting go of the notion that you’re alone in all this. Embracing … a higher power, if you want to call it that. Not God necessarily, but the simplest form of faith. Trusting that, if you let go, someone or something will catch you.” He sat back. “Am I making any sense? Sometimes I get carried away.”

“I was brought up Catholic, the whole nine yards,” she confided. “Before I’d really learned how to read, I thought ‘sacred heart’ was ‘
scared
heart.’ It’s good to be reminded sometimes what religion is
supposed
to be about.”