When the Day of Evil Comes (5 page)

The ring was a copy of one my mother had seen when she and my dad were backpacking through some tiny town in Italy the summer before their senior year at the University of Texas in Austin. My father had it made before he proposed.

My parents were hippies then. They’d lived together in my dad’s van after they met in a sophomore philosophy class. I suspected they’d done the drugs that were so common at the time, though they never told me and I never asked. I do know they used to go listen to Janis Joplin at Threadgill’s and that they missed Woodstock because my dad was enrolling in med school. I don’t think my mother ever forgave him for that.

My brother was born three months after they married, and I came along eleven months later.

I grew up thinking John Lennon was deity. I’m still a huge fan, of course, but realized Jesus was further up in line when I was about nine, the year I became a Christian.

The ring had been purchased with my dad’s family money, a concession to the materialism they were supposedly
committed to avoiding. But my mom had liked that Italian ring, and my dad had really liked my mom. She hadn’t taken that ring off her finger since the day she said yes in 1969. Not when she was washing dishes or bathing my brother in their first crummy med-school apartment, not during their two years in the Peace Corps in Bolivia, not when she was pouring concrete for the foundation of their first house. And not even when they divorced three years ago after thirty-three years of marriage. She wore it even after that. She never told me why.

She did try to give it to me before she died. She really wanted me to have it. But I couldn’t deal with the weight of that ring—the burden of their optimism gone.

And when she died, the three of us—my dad, my brother, and I—all agreed wordlessly that she should be buried wearing it. We never even discussed it.

And here I was staring at it, two years after it had gone to her grave with her. I could almost feel her in the room. I put the ring back in the bag and picked up the phone.

My dad, once a Peace Corp volunteer and organic gardener—Mr. Peace, Love, and Macramé himself—had slowly morphed into one of the more successful heart surgeons in the country. He was famous, busy, wealthy, and completely impossible to reach, in spite of the cell phone and two pagers he carried. He taught cardiovascular something-or-other at the University of Texas Medical School in Houston and was always either lecturing people or cutting them open.

I decided to avoid the technological maze and called his secretary

“Janet,” I said. “Dylan.”

“Hon, I was just thinking about you.”

“You always say that when I call.”

“Well, I was,” she insisted.

“Is he in?” I asked. I already knew the answer.

She laughed. “Of course not. He’s in surgery.” I listened while she checked his schedule. “Mitral valve replacement. He went in at three. I’m guessing he’ll check in here in about a half hour. Someone else will close for him.”

Janet knew my father better than any of us ever had.

“He set a date yet?” I don’t know why I asked. Scratching some irritating little itch of curiosity.

“Thanksgiving weekend,” she said. “Now don’t get mad.”

Too late. Leave it to my father to plan his wedding on Thanksgiving weekend. I had no plans to attend anyway. I’d plan a ski trip or something.

“Kellee spending all his money planning it?”

“You know it. On the beach at Cabo San Lucas. They’re flying everyone down and putting them up at some spa hotel. Should be quite the shindig.”

Kellee-with-two-e’s was my dad’s scrub nurse. Half his age and silicone-enhanced. I detested her. My dad would never cop to it, but I was certain Kellee had come along before my parents split. The last spark of the long slow scorching of their marriage.

“Maybe it’ll rain,” I said hopefully.

“It never rains in Cabo,” Janet said. “Kellee chants that like a mantra.”

I changed the subject. “Hey, I’m hoping you can help me with something.”

“Anything,” Janet said.

“Do you have any idea where my dad buys jewelry? I’m trying to find out who made my mother’s wedding ring. I think he still uses the same guy. Some dude his family’s been using forever.”

Janet was already flipping through her Rolodex. “Got a pencil?”

I picked up a pen. “Ready,” I said, and wrote down the information. It was a Dallas phone number.

“Thanks, Janet. You’ve been a big help, as always.”

“You take care of yourself. Come see me,” she said.

I promised I would and hung up the phone.

Tibor Silverstein. No wonder I couldn’t remember the name. I dialed the number and got a quick answer.

“Tibor,” the man said.

“Uh, Mr. Silverstein?”

“What?” he demanded. Tibor Silverstein, apparently, was not a patient man.

“My name is Dylan Foster. I’m Phil Foster’s daughter.”

“Aach!” he said. “Why didn’t you say so?”

I thought I just had.

“What can I do for you, Phil Foster’s daughter?”

I explained that I wanted to talk to him about some jewelry and asked him if I could arrange a time to meet him. I might as well have asked him for one of his toes, pretty please, for the reluctance he displayed in giving up ten minutes for me. But we agreed on four o’clock the following afternoon. I wasn’t looking forward to the meeting. I didn’t need any more grouchy people in my life.

I hung up and went back to staring at the jewelry.

Actually I was alternating staring at the jewelry and staring out my kitchen window thinking about my mother, when I saw a car pull up. A faded blue Honda Accord. It looked like John Mulvaney’s car. John was a colleague of mine at the university.

I checked the Honda’s window decal. University of Wisconsin alumni sticker. It was John Mulvaney’s car, all right. How odd.

While I watched, John stepped out of the driver’s side, reached in and pulled his sport coat out of the backseat, and
hunched himself into it. I sighed as he marched to the front door and rang the bell.

I shoved the jewelry into the velvet bag and locked it hastily back in the buffet, and then hustled to answer the door.

I couldn’t imagine why in the world John Mulvaney was ringing my doorbell on a Thursday evening. John was sort of a fluffy fellow—a soft, white, extremely lumpy academic—who couldn’t make eye contact with a baby bunny We’d never seen each other, outside of work-related events, in the two years we’d been working together. I wasn’t even aware he knew where I lived.

I swung open the door.

“Hey, John,” I said. “How’s it going?”

John liked to be called Dr. Mulvaney, even by the other PhD’s. Some of them complied, throwing him a bone, I think, but he’d never gotten one “Dr. Mulvaney” out of me.

The poor man was sweating bricks. I couldn’t tell if it was the heat or the enormous amount of stress he seemed to be experiencing. But he just nodded at me and continued sweating. I thought he might pass out.

I reached for his arm. “Why don’t you come inside?” I said. “Let me fix you some iced tea. Or would you prefer a Coke or something?”

He coughed out the word “tea” and nodded.

I turned toward the kitchen, talking over my shoulder to him.

“This is a surprise,” I was saying. “I didn’t even know you knew my address.”

No answer.

I turned around to see that he wasn’t behind me. I walked back into the foyer. He was still standing by the front door, stuck to the same spot, staring at the ground.

“John?”

He looked up. “Huh?”

“Why don’t you come with me into the kitchen?” I said gently “Here, let me take your coat. It’s a hundred degrees out.”

I reached over and helped him take his sport coat off and hung it on the doorknob. I didn’t want to send any sort of “welcome guest” message by hanging it in the closet on an actual hanger. I don’t know why I bothered with the distinction. John wasn’t the type to catch that sort of subtlety.

I led him back into the kitchen and settled him onto a bar stool, then fussed around for a minute to produce the promised glass of iced tea, complete with mint leaves and a slice of lemon. My mother had taught me to be particular about such sundries.

John gulped about half the glass down while I settled in on another bar stool. I kept an empty stool between us. I figured we’d both prefer that.

“What’s up, John?”

He put his glass down and made an attempt to look me in the eye. He looked me in the chin instead, which was pretty good for him.

“Nothing in particular,” he said.

Thank the Maker John was a research psychologist and made no pretense at having clinical skills. Rarely had I known anyone so profoundly unequipped for personal interaction. He wasn’t married, I didn’t think. At least, I’d never noticed a wedding ring. Frankly, I couldn’t imagine he’d ever had a date. He was that shy.

I tried again. “Well, was there something you wanted to talk to me about?”

Blue eyes staring at my chin. “No, not really. I just …”

“Just what, John?”

“Just …”

“Yes?”

“Thought …”

“You thought what?”

“Thought it was better to be early,” he blurted. “I didn’t know how long it would take me to get here. With traffic.”

I found myself staring dumbly at his forehead. “Early? For what?”

“I thought we might go to The Grape. I hear it’s nice.”

The Grape is a romantic little spot in a groovy part of town. Fabulous mushroom soup. No way was I going to The Grape with John Mulvaney.

“You thought who might go to The Grape? You and me?”

Finally his eyes found mine. “Yes,” he said firmly. “At seven o’clock.” Eyes back to the chin.

I looked at the clock on the wall. It was 5:30.

“That’s an hour and a half from now.” I don’t know why I chose to tackle that particular point, there were so many to choose from.

“I thought it was better to be early,” he repeated.

“Early for what, John? Is there a faculty dinner tonight or something? I’m not sure what’s going on.”

“Should I go and then come back at seven?” he asked.

“Go where?” I said.

“Is there a Starbucks?”

Okay, rewind. “John, look at me.” His eyes made it up to my nose. “What are you talking about? I don’t understand what you’re doing here.”

“I’m here to pick you up.”

“For what?”

“Our date,” he said, and looked immediately down at his tea.

“Our date?” I tried not to sound aggravated. “We don’t have a date, John.”

“Is it tomorrow?”

“No,” I said. “There is no date. Not tonight and not tomorrow. I’m not sure where you got the idea that we were going out.” Maybe he was having a psychotic break or something.

“It was your idea.” He was defensive now, and I could tell he was horribly embarrassed.

I softened my tone. “John, I’m sorry about the mix-up. I appreciate the thought. Really I do, but I’m sure we don’t have a date tonight. I hope I haven’t somehow given you that impression.”

“Are you playing a joke on me?”

He looked like he was about to cry. Suddenly I could see his childhood, vividly. Pudgy shy boy, picked on by classmates. Laughed at by girls he admired from a distance. And always, always alone.

“John,” I said, “look at me. Look, at my eyes.” He managed to return my gaze with now-watery eyes. “John, I would never play a joke on you. I promise. This is just some sort of misunderstanding. What gave you the idea that I wanted to go on a date tonight?”

“The Day-timer,” he said. “I told you I needed a new one.”

I thought back to the day at the lake. John had received a leather Day-timer. It looked expensive. I didn’t remember him ever telling me he needed a new one. But all conversations with John were innocuous and centered around minutiae. He could have mentioned it half a dozen times and it wouldn’t have made an impression.

“You think the Day-timer was from me?”

“I know it was.” His embarrassment was turning to anger.

“Why would you think that?”

He got up and walked to the front door and out to his car, returning a moment later with the Day-timer. He flipped it open to today’s date and showed it to me.

There it was, in lavender ink, written in what looked to be my handwriting: “John, thanks for your friendship. Let’s get to know each other better. Pick me up at seven. Dylan.” A heart was drawn around the words.

I don’t own a lavender pen. I don’t draw hearts around notes to men. And I do not write flirty notes to John Mulvaney.

“John, I don’t know what to say. I didn’t write this.”

He grabbed the Day-timer from me and stared at the page.

“I promise.”

He continued to stare at the page, too humiliated even to meet my chin.

“Hey,” I said, “I’m really sorry. It’s just a misunderstanding.” The drums should have started rolling then, because all my sick, codependent rescuer tendencies kicked in. “Tell you what … I’m not up for The Grape, but why don’t we go get a burger at Jack’s? I’ll buy.”

“I don’t think so,” he said.

“Oh, come on. We’ve worked together for two years and we’ve never had a burger together. It’ll be fun. Have you ever been to Jack’s?”

He looked up at me. “No.”

“Greasy burgers, salty fries, and incredible chocolate malts. We can work on your heart attack.”

He allowed himself a little grin. “Okay.”

And so I spent the evening with John Mulvaney anyway. A mistake with repercussions far beyond a two-thousand calorie meal and one boring Thursday night.