Dead Boyfriends (7 page)

 

When people ask where I'm from, I answer St. Paul. If the question comes from someone who actually lives in St. Paul, I tell them I'm from Merriam Park and they know immediately what I'm talking about. True, I actually live in the suburbs. When I came into my money I bought a house for my father and me that I thought was in St. Paul's St. Anthony Park neighborhood, only to discover too late that I was on the wrong side of the street, that I had accidentally moved to Falcon Heights. Still, I'll always be a Merriam Park boy at heart.

St. Paul is a city of neighborhoods. There are seventeen in all not counting the neighborhoods within neighborhoods that are loosely defined by parks and churches, and the attitudes of the people who live in them can best be described as parochial. Take the Greater Eastside, an island between Interstate 35E and the City of Maplewood. It's a neighborhood of working-class people and immigrants who tend to stay close to home. The big joke there is that the city ends at Lexington Parkway, which cuts St. Paul roughly in half, because no Eastsider has any reason to go farther west. At the same time, you have the folks who live in the Macalester-Groveland neighborhood, just west of Lexington Parkway. They believe they're the intellectual and cultural center of the city for no better reason than that three liberal arts colleges—Macalester, St. Thomas, and St. Catherine—just happen to be located within its boundaries. And if you think these people like each other, you haven't been around for one of our more hotly contested mayoral races.

As for Merriam Park, it was developed in about 1885 by John Merriam as a commuter suburb since at the time it was located midway between what was then downtown St. Paul and Minneapolis. It attracted upper-middle-class residents because he insisted that every house built there cost at least $1,500. Many of those homes are still standing. So is Longfellow School, where I chipped a tooth falling off a playground slide, and Merriam Park Community Center, where I discovered
hockey, baseball, and girls, not necessarily in that order. As for our attitude toward St. Paul's other sixteen neighborhoods, it's simple: If we ignore them, maybe they'll go away.

I had two more drinks at Rickie's—which, by the way, is located in the Summit Hill neighborhood—and drove to Bobby Dunston's house. Bobby lives directly across from Merriam Park Community Center in a home that he and Shelby bought from Bobby's parents when they retired, the house Bobby grew up in. I knew it as well as my own childhood home, an old Colonial with an open wraparound porch. Despite the heat, Bobby and Shelby were sitting on the porch when I drove up, sipping lemonade, looking like an old married couple in a Norman Rockwell painting.

We tend to lose our friends as we grow older. Without the glue of shared experiences—school, sports, the job—they drift away despite our best intentions to hold them close. Instead, we turn to family. Only I had no family, unless you count an aunt and uncle who send me Christmas cards from Colorado and a few distant cousins I've met maybe twice in the past three and a half decades. Bobby, Shelby, and their daughters were my family and my heirs.

I parked and made my way up the sidewalk. As I reached the porch Bobby said, “How's the Audi running?”

“Okay, but it hasn't been the same since the snowplow ran me off the highway.”

“At least the insurance company paid for the damages.”

Bobby was on his feet. I shook his hand.

“Those damages, sure, but they wouldn't pay to fix the bullet holes.”

“I can't believe your policy didn't cover that.”

Shelby was also standing. She winced at the word “bullets,” but then she always was a worrier. I hugged her and kissed her cheek.

“Where were you the other day?” she asked. “The girls wanted to go over to your house and play with the ducks.”

“Listen. You guys have a key. You're welcome to come over anytime. Feed the ducks. Feed yourselves. Use the mini-donut and sno-cone machines. Hell, if you're alone, use one of the bedrooms.”

“Camp Rushmore McKenzie,” said Bobby.

“Exactly what I'm saying. Same with the cabin up north. What's mine is yours.”

They were both sitting now, and Shelby was pouring fresh-squeezed lemonade into an extra glass as if she had been expecting me. The sun was setting and it was growing cooler, but it was still hot enough for a man to sweat even while seated on a porch railing. Bobby and Shelby were both wearing shorts and T-shirts. Bobby's swore allegiance to the St. Paul Saints minor league baseball team, while Shelby's featured the logo of Buddy Guy's Legends, a blues club in Chicago. Bobby had taken her there in the spring while I babysat their two daughters.

“Where are the kids?” I asked.

As if on cue, Victoria and Katie appeared at a living room window that opened onto the porch just behind their mother's shoulder.

“McKenzie,” they called through the screen.

“How're my girls?”

“Did you bring us something?” they asked in unison.

“Not this trip.”

They both made disappointed noises, and I said, “Sorry.”

“Is it because Mom threatened your life last time?” asked Victoria.

“You have to admit ten pounds of Tootsie Rolls is kind of excessive.”

“It isn't,” said Katie.

“Mom has been doling them out a few at a time for good behavior like we were prisoners in a Russian gulag,” Victoria said.

“A gulag?”

“You know. Like where they kept Solzhenitsyn.”

“How old are you again?”

“She's no fun,” Katie insisted.

“Who?”

“Mom. Gol, McKenzie.”

“Your mother was a lot of fun when I first met her.”

“She was young then,” Victoria said. “Now she's really old.”

“That's it,” Shelby announced. “The spankings will now commence.”

“Oh puhleez, mother,” Victoria said.

Shelby's eyes bore down hard on her daughter.

Victoria said, “I think I'll go upstairs and read.”

“Good idea,” Shelby said.

“Good night, all.”

Victoria left the window. Katie followed her deep into the house.

Shelby sighed significantly.

“Victoria's almost a teenager,” she said.

“Don't you just love that?” Bobby said.

“Have you ever spanked your children?” I asked.

“The threat of violence is usually sufficient, and when it's not, Bobby pulls his gun.”

Bobby held up his hand, three fingers curled into his palm, his index finger extended, his thumb back, and made a clicking noise with his tongue.

“I can see how that might keep order.”

“So, McKenzie,” Bobby said. “I heard you were arrested the other day.”

“Taken into custody, but not booked.”

“Important difference.”

“You heard this—how?”

“I had a conversation with an Anoka cop named Jerry Moorhead.”

“No kidding. Why'd he call you?”

“He didn't. He knew a guy in the department. Moorhead asked about you, the officer knew we were tight, so I got the call. He was impressed that you had a friend who was a lieutenant in homicide.”

“Aren't we all?”

“He was also impressed when I told him what a sterling example of law enforcement you were until you decided to take the price for Teach-well and live a life of undeserved luxury.”

“What do you mean, undeserved?”

“He wants to arrange a sit-down, Mac. Buy you a few drinks.”

“Does he?”

“That's what he said.”

“I wonder why.”

“The man made a mistake, he wants to apologize. What's the big deal?”

“Does he want to apologize because he was wrong or because he wants to get me out of his hair?”

“What are you talking about?”

“The woman Moorhead's deputy slapped around, they're trying to jam her up on what looks like a bogus murder charge. I told her lawyer that I'd look into it.”

“Ahh geez,” said Shelby. “Not again.”

“What?”

“Why do you always get involved in these things?” she asked me. “If you're bored, go shopping.”

We'd had this conversation before, and truth be told, I always came off looking silly defending myself. I decided to change the subject.

“Besides, is Moorhead going to call Nina, apologize to her? I was supposed to take her to that damn charity ball the other night, but I couldn't because I was in jail, so she went with some other guy and guess what? They have a date tonight.”

“A date?” said Shelby.

“They went to dinner, la-de-da.”

“How do you know?”

“I was over there.”

“At Nina's?”

“No. At Rickie's. He picked her up at her place of business, do you believe that? Didn't even have the courtesy to call for her at home. The jerk.”

“How do you know he's a jerk?”

“He's an architect. He wears glasses. His name is Daniel.”

“Sounds like a jerk to me,” said Bobby.

“If he wasn't a nice guy, Nina wouldn't date him,” said Shelby.

“Oh, I don't know. She dates McKenzie.”

“Way to stick up for me, Bobby,” I said. “You're a real pal.”

“Anytime.”

“It's probably for the best,” I said. “I should be moving on anyway.”

Shelby stood abruptly, balled her hands into fists, and pressed them against her hips. She looked down at me and spoke without blinking.

“Don't. You. Dare.”

“What?”

“Don't you dare. Every time you become involved with a woman you do this.”

“Do what?”

“You start looking for something, anything, as an excuse to break up. ‘Just didn't work out, time to move on'—you always say that.”

“I do not.”

“Always.”

“Na-uh.”

“You want a list? Should we start with Annie?”

“Whatever happened to her?” Bobby asked.

“She. Married. Someone. Else.”

“Oh.”

“Well, what am I supposed to do?” I asked. “Nina's dating this guy. . .”

“An architect,” said Bobby.

“You can start by apologizing for standing her up,” she told me.

“I did.”

“Do it again.”

“But it wasn't my fault.”

“It. Doesn't. Matter.”

“It really doesn't,” said Bobby. “I've apologized to Shelby for a lot of things that weren't my fault, and . . .”

Shelby gave him that look. You know the one I mean. Bobby turned and stared past the porch toward Merriam Park as if there were something out there that was suddenly very interesting.

“McKenzie,” Shelby said. “She's the best of them. Mary Beth, Annie, Judy, Theresa, Robin, Kirsten—Nina is the best of them.”

“No, you're the best of them.”

“Balderdash.”

“Balderdash?”

“I'm just the excuse you use. You pretend to be in love with your best friend's wife, and since you can't have her, you won't marry anyone. ‘Pity me, the poor lonely bachelor.' It's balderdash.”

“There's that word again.”

“If I were suddenly free—if Bobby got hit by a truck tomorrow—it'd be the same ol' thing. Just didn't work out, time to move on.”

I looked at Bobby.

“It's true,” he said. “If it wasn't, I would have blown your brains out back when we were in college.”

“It's fear of commitment,” Shelby said. “That's what we're talking about.”

“Balderdash.”

Shelby looked at me as if I were nuts.

“You said it first,” I reminded her.

“We're trying to cut down on the cursing because of the girls.”

“Yeah, but do you really want your kids to go around saying balderdash?”

Shelby refused to be distracted.

“She's the best of all the women you've known, McKenzie,” she said. “She really is.”

“I know.”

“We'll make Moorhead buy drinks at Nina's place,” Bobby said. “He can apologize to her at the same time. Whaddya say?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Bobby, the dream came back.”

“The dream? The shotgun dream?”

“It came back when I was in jail and then again last night.”

“I thought you were done with that.”

“So did I.”

“You were supposed to get therapy,” Shelby said.

“I did.”

“You went three times and then you quit—pronounced yourself cured and started dating the therapist.”

“Dr. Jillian DeMarais. She was a babe.”

“She was a bitch,” said Bobby.

“Nonetheless.”

“McKenzie, the dream,” said Shelby.

“It doesn't freak me out,” I told her. “It wakes me up sometimes, but it's not like I can't sleep or I'm afraid to sleep. I don't shake, rattle, or roll—I can still function. It's just a dream. Like the one I used to have about not being able to find the classroom during finals. It'll go away just like it did before. Don't worry about it.”

“What if it doesn't go away?”

“It will.”

“You have to see someone, seriously this time.”

“Not a bad idea,” said Bobby. “It wouldn't hurt.”

“I'd have to be nuts to go to a psychiatrist,” I said.

No one laughed at the joke.

Lemonade was sipped.

Silent moments passed.

“What are you going to do?” Bobby asked.

“About what?”

“About Moorhead,” Bobby said.

“About Nina,” Shelby said.

They looked at each other. Shelby scowled and said, “First things first.” Bobby surrendered without firing a shot.

“About Nina,” Shelby repeated.

“I'll apologize. Again. I'll try to win her back. Will that make you happy?”

Shelby smiled like it would.