Turtle Moon (17 page)

It's a white colonial with green shutters, actually quite pretty, and although it was several steps down from her Uncle Jack's house in Kings Point, Lucy is astounded to see how large it is, how well kept since her departure, almost as if her presence had made the shutters fall off their hinges and crabgrass sprout up along the brick path to the door.

It's cool here in the mornings; Lucy had forgotten that. The air is blue and fresh, and you can hear dogs barking in the fenced backyards.

Lucy pays the driver and collects her suitcase and purse, but after the taxi has made a U-turn and disappeared she is still standing on the brick path. Someone has planted a new rose bed, and by June there will be huge pink roses lining the walkway. From the moment she left, Lucy erased bits and pieces of this house, until it had become no bigger than a toy she could hold in the palm of her hand. But here it still stands, rooted and sturdy with its red brick chimney. At the front door, Lucy puts her suitcase down on the white wooden bench she once mail-ordered from Smith & Hawken, then runs a hand through her hair.

She had to spend the night in Atlanta, where she curled up in a plastic chair and slept fitfully, and now the front of her hair stands straight up, as though she's had a bad scare. She has brought almost nothing with her; her suitcase is filled with tank tops and jeans.

It is possible that she may not even have brought a comb.

She knocks twice, and it's a while before the lock slides open and Evan appears at the door. She's woken him, and standing there in his blue robe, he's sleepy and confused. He's a good-looking man, tall, with the same thick, fair hair as Keith and a face so open it hides nothing, not even the fact that for a moment he doesn't recognize his ex-wife.

"Lucy," he says finally. All the color has drained from his face and he doesn't open the screen door. "What happened? Where's Keith?"

"He's fine," Lucy says. It's so much easier if you take a deep breath before you begin to lie. "He went to a friend's and didn't bother to tell me.

You know how he is," she adds when Evan looks doubtful.

"You came here to tell me that instead of phoning?" Evan says.

"Actually, I came for the reunion," Lucy says. If she didn't have this cover story, she would have to invent one; the truth would only reignite Evan's desire for custody.

Along the street, some of the automatic sprinklers have switched on; there's the sound of water spraying and the scent of rich earth.

"You're here for the reunion?" Evan says, more confused than ever.

"You didn't call me to let me know Keith was all right. I thought he'd been kidnapped. I haven't been using the phone in case a ransom call came through. I haven't left the house in case Keith appeared at the door."

"I'm sorry," Lucy says, for more than he'll ever know.

"I have a right to know these things," Evan says.

"I mean, Christ, I'm not some outsider."

Lucy swallows hard. "I agree."

"Where exactly was he all this time?"

Lucy tilts her face upward; the pulse in her throat is throbbing. If Julian Cash were here, he'd know she was lying.

"At his friend Laddy's."

"Jesus," Evan says. "All that worry. Something's seriously wrong here, Lucy. It really is."

"Why does this sound like you think it's my fault?" Lucy asks.

"Because he's unhappy."

"Well, that's nothing new, is it?" Lucy shoots back. "He's been unhappy since the day he was born, and that was before I had a chance to screw him up.

"I didn't mean that," Evan says.

"Look, do you think I could come inside?" Lucy asks.

"Maybe it's good that you're here," Evan says, still speaking to her through the screen door. "We need to talk seriously about Keith. I didn't want to hurt your feelings, but ever since winter vacation I've been getting letters from him. He's been calling me collect. He wants to come home."

Lucy stares at the man she married when she was twenty-one, when her hair was still so long it reached her waist, when she thought she had all the time in the world.

"For good," he says.

She had forgotten you could actually get a chill here early in the mornings. It's so unlike Florida, where the heat doesn't bother to wait until a decent hour to strike.

"I'd really like some coffee," Lucy says.

"Coffee?" Evan says. Here?"

It was never that difficult to win an argument with Evan; he was far too kindhearted to go for blood.

"I sat in Atlanta all night." But still he doesn't open the door.

"You don't want me inside," Lucy says flatly.

A woman's voice calls tentatively from the hallway. "Evan?"

Lucy is embarrassed to discover that she's never once thought of or imagined Evan with another woman; she didn't feel proprietary about him even back when they were married, so she's not at all certain why she suddenly feels so uncomfortable. Evan looks completely distressed, as though he'd like one or both or all of them to disappear into a puff of smoke.

"It's okay," Lucy tells Evan through the screen door. "You're allowed."

"Look, Lucy, I think you should call before you do something like this."

The woman appears behind Evan; she's dressed but still sleepy. Her hair hasn't been brushed yet.

"Evan?" she says when she sees Lucy out on the front porch.

The woman has long dark hair, and Lucy can tell, right away, that she's younger, possibly by as much as ten years.

"You remember my wife," Evan says to the woman. He turns back to Lucy, flustered. "Melissa Garber," he reminds her. "Kindergarten."

Lucy sees that the dark-haired woman was indeed Keith's kindergarten teacher. They'd had endless conferences about Keith's misbehavior, even back then. Melissa came up with the idea of making him the permanent hamster monitor, to build his self-esteem and sense of responsibility, but it hadn't worked. He'd continued destroying the library corner and stealing pocketfuls of Legos, and Lucy had had the damned hamsters to care for over every school vacation.

"Right," Lucy says. "Melissa. Miss Garber, right?" she says to Evan.

What Lucy can't help wondering, as Evan finally opens the door and leads her into the kitchen and Melissa excuses herself, is how long this has been going on, whether it was already starting all those years back, during their parent-teacher conferences. It hits her, all in a rush, that she may not have been the only one who was unhappy in their marriage-a possibility she has never once considered before.

"It's very strange to be here," Lucy says. She is sitting at the kitchen table watching Evan fumble with the coffee grinder.

"It's very strange to have you here," Evan admits, and they both have to laugh.

"So you don't mind if I stay for a few days?"

Lucy says once Evan's got the coffee going.

"A few days?"

"You keep repeating everything I say, only when you say it it sounds like I've committed some sort of criminal offense."

"What about going to Jack and Naomi's?" Evan suggests.

"You're not serious?"

"Actually, I saw him a few weeks ago. He said they hadn't heard from you once since you moved."

"Look, "I stay in the guest room," Lucy says.

"I promise I won't bother your girlfriend."

Evan frowns as he hands Lucy her coffee. She remembers these mugs; she bought them in Bennington, Vermont.

"I wish you wouldn't call her that," Evan says.

"What do you want me to call her?" Lucy asks.

"Miss Garber?"

Evan is so uncomfortable that he turns his back to her, exactly as he used to whenever he didn't want to fight.

"All right," Lucy says. "If you let me stay I'll talk to you about Keith." She doesn't mention that she won't tell him a single bit of truth, but she feels justified in that, since in only a few hours she'll know the identity of her murdered neighbor, information she feels is powerful enough to clear Keith of any charges against him.

"I'll discuss it calmly," Lucy promises.

"You'll consider letting him come back?" Evan says.

She can't stand to be with Keith, she does nothing but argue with him, she's not even certain she likes him very much, yet her hands instantly begin to sweat.

"I said I'll talk," Lucy hedges. "I'm willing to do that."

Evan has come to sit across from her at the table. He has something of a grin on his face.

"What happened to your hair?"

Lucy fluffs up her bangs. "Is it awful?" she asks.

"It's very unusual." Evan smiles.

"Oh, great. Thanks. You never liked anything I did with my hair."

"That's not true," Evan says. "Exactly."

Melissa has been standing in the doorway. She has a quilted tote bag over her shoulder, flIled with the clothes she's hurriedly collected from the bedroom.

"You don't have to leave because of me," Lucy tells her, although she's not sure if she means it.

Melissa looks uncertainly at Evan. He was never much good at awkward moments; Lucy sees now it's because he's too honest to attempt false cheer.

"No. I'll go." Melissa waits a moment to see if anyone is about to stop her. "How's Keith?" she asks Lucy when nobody does.

"Great," Lucy says. All he needed was to be switched into a decent school system."

It's a cruel and untrue thing to say, and they all know it.

"I'm sorry," Lucy says. "I'm just exhausted. I have to go lie down,"

she tells Evan.

"Here?" Melissa says.

Lucy plans to rest for only a few minutes, but once she stretches out on the living room couch, which she bought on sale at Bloomingdale's one Labor Day weekend, she falls into a deep sleep.

When she wakes, the living room is dark, and she bolts from the couch, frightened, unsure of where she is. Even when she turns on the light, she's confused. She had not remembered owning so many things: good china and silverware, lithographs and thick wool rugs, woven to last a hundred years. She goes outside, even though it's already dusk, too late to go to Salvuki's. Instead, Lucy walks down Easterbrook Lane, past lawns so deep and green it almost seems like midnight.

When Lucy first came to Great Neck, after her parents' deaths, she was mesmerized by all the greenery; she felt as if she could go to sleep for a very long time, lulled by the mockingbirds and the mourning doves. It's happening to her all over again; it's an effort just to walk half a block. She used to take this route with Keith in his stroller, and now she sees a boy about his age, maybe one of his old friends, she can't tell at this distance, dribbling a basketball as he heads for a neighbor's house, a springer spaniel behind him, lunging for the ball each time it hits the concrete. Lucy can see the boy is wearing the hundred-twenty-dollar Nikes that Keith has begged for, sneakers Lucy wouldn't buy him even if she could afford to. The Nikes are clean and white, and they'll probably stay that way till the boy has outgrown them and been given another pair.

Evan is waiting for her when she gets back to the house. He's brought a pizza, which they wolf down together in silence. They're used to doing this; they spent most of the last year of their marriage avoiding conversation.

"Are you sure you're all right?" Evan asks when Lucy insists she has to go up to bed at a quarter after eight.

"Jet lag," Lucy says, though it's nowhere near the truth.

She keeps thinking about the way Keith looked as she peered through the window of Miss Giles's house. In the early-morning light, his hair seemed blonder, he was leaner than before, all sharp angles. He looked like a stranger, a boy found in the woods, covered with bramble scratches, but dressed in clean clothes, and safe in that kitchen where there was cinnamon sugar to sprinkle over the cereal.

When she's not thinking of Keith, when she's not careful, she imagines Julian Cash, and each time she does she feels edgy, and nothing can cure that but sleep. Up in the guest bedroom there is a yellow bedspread Lucy doesn't remember, no doubt chosen by Melissa, since Lucy has always disliked bright colors in bedrooms. Lucy sleeps in her clothes, her arms wrapped around herself. By the time she wakes in the morning, Melissa's car is already idling at the curb.

"She doesn't trust me," Lucy tells Evan down in the kitchen.

Evan lifts the window shade and waves to Melissa. "She has nothing to worry about," he says. "You know what I mean," he adds when he sees the look on Lucy's face.

"I know exactly what you mean," Lucy says.

"Since she's picking you up, can you lend me your car?"

Evan grudgingly hands over his keys, and when Lucy gets dressed and goes out to the garage, she understands why he hesitated. He has a brandnew red Celica convertible. He's always wanted a convertible, and Lucy appreciates that he would trust her with it, especially in the shape she 5 in.

She heads straight to Middle Neck Road, the main shopping district of town, and she's lucky enough to find a parking space just two blocks up from Salvuki's. When Lucy moved here all the girls wanted Capezio ballet slippers, whether they were dancers or not, and the boys wore loafers and high-topped sneakers or, occasionally, well-polished Frye boots. Her Aunt Naomi bought Lucy her first pair of Capezios, thin pink slippers that didn't make a sound when she walked and made her size-eight feet seem as delicate as one of the roses that will soon open beside Evan's front door. As she locks up the Celica, Lucy realizes that she still has a key to that door in her purse. She just never would have thought of using it. Even when she lived there, especially toward the end, she felt as though she were breaking and entering each time she brought the groceries home.

She has that same feeling walking into Salvuki's, even though there is still a pot of coffee at the front desk, and a tray of flaky croissants. The air here always smells like coconut shampoo, which costs twelve dollars a bottle and never seemed to get your hair truly clean. This is where Lucy had her hair cut off to shoulder length just before her wedding, and then she wept all night long, even though her Aunt Naomi assured her that a married woman shouldn't have all that hair.