I take Bernice to Riker’s Island to see her son, Bill, every Wednesday. He is in denial. He won’t admit he did anything wrong! Although he would like to blame me for his incarceration, I really didn’t have much to do with it. It’s true that the original complaint was mine, I guess. The police showed me stills of him from surveillance video taken on the train as he approached Jack, and then rifled his jacket for the wallet and left the train. I did identify him. But holding a knife to my mother’s throat? I fail to see how I had anything to do with that! All I did was shoot him in the elbow. It was clearly in defense of my mother. He is an interesting character, that Bill. I’m glad he isn’t one of my problems. It’s the females to whom I feel that I have an obligation. Those who were hurt by my husband. There is an entire legion of us. I should form a club.
I was so certain that Jack loved me. I made excuses for his behavior, even took the blame myself at first. I was too busy, didn’t want to do the things he did, gave him too much space. The truth is that I probably am guilty of all of those things. I hate to golf or play tennis, but he loved them. He played with Marie until the children were big enough to learn. He was an avid theater-goer. The theater and movies bore me to tears. I felt trapped there. Jack liked action movies and heavy stories, depressing stuff like
Schindler’s List
. I am sorry, but if I have to be away from my comfortable house and the ocean, it had better be to see something that will bring some joy to my life.
He also loved going to the symphony and the ballet. When we lived in the city, I went with him faithfully, to every single performance. His family was a longtime supporter of the arts in the city and I think he felt responsible for attending. I love music and dancing if I am participating! Take me to any club in the Village for live music and I am a happy camper. Jack would never! Now I know it was probably because we would run into someone down there that he was sleeping with.
So much makes sense to me now; things that were said after he died, for instance. At least three people told me that Jack felt that he was going to die soon. Why? Well, dummy, because he had AIDS! He was sick. And he knew it. I plan to get a copy of his autopsy report before the week is up. I don’t think Jack came inside of me most of the times that we made love, or, more appropriately, had sex. The times he did were messier. Sorry for this disgusting confession. I know, what a disjointed way to look at it; why the hell didn’t he just own up to it and keep me safe? I will never know. One thing is certain, Jack was a coward. Oh, it hurts me to say that. I do want to remain loyal to him. There was so much that was good about Jack! I go back and forth like this continuously; he loves me, he loves me not, he loves me, he loves me not.
He was larger than life. Wherever we went, and I mean from the smallest hole-in-the-wall dive to the fanciest restaurant in town, Jack commanded respect, and he gave it back in return. From the president of the Stock Exchange to the driver of a Central Park horse and carriage, he treated everyone the same. I never saw Jack talk down to another human being. He was a softy when it came to animals and children. Jack couldn’t watch television except for the Weather Channel because the news upset him to tears most of the time. Now, of course, I wonder if he wasn’t just suffering from depression like the rest of us. It’s clear to me now that he was mentally ill.
We were treated like royalty wherever we went when we lived in the city. After we moved to Babylon, he made a name for himself here, as well. I will never say this to another soul, but I get very nervous when I think about his involvement in local youth sporting groups. I think something would have come out by now if he had compromised himself in any way. Wouldn’t it have? Our kids were involved in all the different teams, and I find it very unlikely that he would do anything to hurt or embarrass our children. I feel very strongly that I am right about this.
His looks got him so much attention. I felt like I had married a movie star the way people looked at him. I bet he and Sandra attracted a lot of stares, too. That makes me sad. I think it was easier knowing about Sandra when I loved my husband and thought he had once loved me. Knowing that she was just another body in his retinue of bodies is very upsetting to me. Having her in my life now doesn’t bring the same comfort it did right after his death. When I first met her, I thought,
It figures that he would love her, look at her. I love her!
Now I realize that he may have loved her more than he loved the others, but she started out as a piece of ass. Having Melissa and Maryanne tell me that he loved Sandra really cheapens it. They weren’t much more than prostitutes, in my opinion. He paid them off each month. Did he really care that much about them? Two thousand a month is hardly a fortune. I know there had to be others. Sandra found seven envelopes, each containing one hundred twenty-dollar bills. At first, I thought it was the money for his mother, but now I believe that he was paying seven women. I know of two; there are five more. I don’t know how I am going to find out who they are, but I am going to try my darnedest!
O
n Friday, Marie and Carolyn boxed up the files to be shipped back to Lang, Smith and Romney. Marie would be taking the presentation downtown. She made an appointment with Sandra for one o’clock and left the office at twelve-thirty. Of course, she couldn’t get a cab, so she ended up taking the train. Her purse, containing the list of women’s names, kept bumping against her leg with each shake of the train. She hadn’t yet made her mind up what she would do with it. Would she give it to Pam? Burn it? Or would it be wiser to give it to Sandra? Marie couldn’t help the teensiest flutter of glee; it would serve Sandra right to know what Marie suspected, that they were but two of a large group of women that Jack had been with.
The visits to the beach by Jack’s former lovers had not yet been divulged to Marie. Pam held on to some information out of respect for her children.
The entire world didn’t need to know everything, did it?
Marie had never heard of Melissa or Maryanne or Alyssa. She was in the dark about Cindy Thomasini, too. So unbeknownst to Marie, Jack’s women had slowly started to come out of the shadows. The list wouldn’t be a big surprise to Pam or Sandra except for its length.
The subway stopped at the Wall Street Station and Marie was pushed out of the train with the rest of the riders, clutching her purse with the list of names to her chest while she held the precious presentation file carelessly under her arm. The jostling continued as the mass of people moved as one unit up the stairs and out onto the street.
“Goddamnit!” Marie yelled to no one. She hated this part of the city more than the one she lived and worked in; it looked like a vibrant, dynamic place, but it was just as boring as Hell’s Kitchen. She fought the lunch-hour crowds to make her way to Jack’s building, up the steps, and into the foyer, and didn’t relax until she was on the elevator going up. When it stopped on Jack’s floor and the door opened, she breathed a sigh of relief. The receptionist told her to have a seat while she called Sandra, but Marie was too antsy to sit.
“You can go back,” she told Marie. Walking to Sandra’s office didn’t excite her as it once had; would she ever forget the implications of this office, or would it be part of her thought process forever? It was part of the wages of sin, she decided.
You make a mistake and it tortures you the rest of your life.
Sandra opened the door and stood aside to allow Marie to enter. Marie’s eyes went right to Sandra’s midsection.
I wonder if she is even pregnant?
Marie thought.
“I guess traffic was bad?” Sandra asked with a frown.
“I couldn’t get a cab. The train was awful, as usual. I don’t know how people can stand being down here. The sun has been shining all day and it’s as dark as a cave here.”
The bitch had better not complain about me being ten minutes late
, Marie thought. “Where do you want me to lay this out?” She looked around the room for a place to put the file folder.
“It should be fairly self-explanatory. There is really no need to go into an in-depth presentation.” Sandra wasn’t in the mood to have her afternoon taken over by Marie and her theatrics.
“It really isn’t. Self-explanatory, that is. I won’t take up much of your time, but I do want to show you what we did. It meant something to Jack, and I want the last thing he gave me to do to be honored in some way.” Marie was shocked at her own patience with Sandra, when punching her face in with a fist was really what she desired to do.
“It’s not necessary, Marie.” Sandra was not going to be pushed around. She was in a foul mood as it was. “I’ve had a rough morning and don’t think that we need to make more of this project than it was meant to be. Peter didn’t even know anything about it,” Sandra lied.
“It’s a wonderful development. You’ll see. Just give me a few minutes. I mean, what did you think I was coming down here for anyway?” She shoved some papers over on Sandra’s desk and started to pull graphs and charts out, and some photos.
Sandra wanted to jump forward and tear the paper out of Marie’s hand, but she controlled herself. “Don’t mess up my piles! Those papers are in order!” Sandra took the paper Marie just moved and put it back where it had been. “Here, give me the file,” she said loudly, putting out her hand toward to Marie. “If you are going to make such a big deal out of this, let’s go into the conference room.” She stomped out of her office without looking back after she grabbed the file.
Marie just shrugged, baffled as to what Sandra thought the purpose of the trip was if not to make a presentation.
Why hadn’t she offered the use of the conference room in the first place?
Sandra opened the door and threw the file folder on the table. Marie calmly walked to the table, opened the folder, and began placing the charts and photos in an order that made sense. Then she began her speech, highlighting the benefits of the development to the community, what the advantages would be for the tenants who lived there, and ultimately, the financial gain the developers would realize by following the advice set forth in the proposal. When she was finished with the statistical information, Marie added what she thought would be the most important feature of the plan: Jack’s original goal to preserve the history and origins of the neighborhood while improving the services to the area. He had been criticized in the past for gentrifying an area, and avoiding ill will had been important to him this time around. She felt satisfied that she would have made Jack proud. She began sorting through the charts and photos to get them back in some kind of order before she put them away when she looked up at Sandra. She was sitting back in the chair, hands folded across her stomach. It was evident that she was moved by something, probably the references to Jack, Marie thought.
“Well, what do you think?” she asked Sandra.
“Very nice. Let me ask you something, though. Why’d you think that after all the time that has passed, we would even be interested in this? It doesn’t make any sense to me. Jack gave you the job six months ago, and now, over three months after he dies, you show up with it. What do you think my responsibility to you is?” Sandra had a hard look on her face, one Marie had seen before.
“You have no responsibility to me at all. But Lang owes the company I work for about four hundred hours of employee time. You’ll be billed. I have the invoices from the messenger company Jack used to ship the file cabinet of crap over to us back in March, and copies of all the communication between him and me regarding his expectations. All we did was collate the information Lang gathered.” Marie picked up the file. “The cabinet is on its way back here, by the way. This is your copy of the presentation; I have one at my office,” she said, handing the file to Sandra. She walked out without saying good-bye, fairly certain that she wouldn’t be seeing Miss Benson again, Jack’s baby notwithstanding. The sheath of papers folded in her purse continued to taunt her with their names, but she made the decision that Sandra Benson wouldn’t be getting her hands on it. The names belonged to her sister, Jack’s wife. Marie walked out into the reception area with her head up, happy for the first time in a while. She thought that maybe she would be okay after all in spite of all the pain she had caused others and her own broken heart. All summer she had felt awful about the way she had betrayed her sister, and although what she did would always be an issue that would lurk under the surface, she was moving on. The knowledge of Sandra and of other women in Jack’s life would only be stumbling blocks to her well-being if she allowed it. Sandra was really only one of the names. Pam had given her an importance she didn’t deserve. Marie would try to follow Pam’s example, however. Pam had been nothing but gracious and forgiving to everyone who had hurt her.
Marie was walking along, looking up at buildings and half-heartedly looking for a cab when she heard her name being called. “Oh fuck,” she said. She turned around and there was Sandra, jogging along to catch up with her. She waited, thinking Sandra might want to pick a fight out here in public and Marie was ready. She even flexed her fists for effect.
“Marie, thanks. Whew! I’m out of shape. Thanks for waiting.” Sandra was out breath. They stepped aside, out of the way of the other pedestrians. Marie didn’t say anything. She waited for Sandra to get on with it, resisting the urge to look at her phone to check the time.
“I’m sorry for what I said back there. Chalk it up to bad manners, or pregnancy. I’m not trying to make excuses, honestly. Of course, you’ll be paid. It was awful of me to insinuate otherwise. Shake?” She held out her hand to Marie. Marie took it and gently shook her hand.
“I was ready to box, but you do have a disadvantage,” Marie said.
“And why is that?” Sandra retorted.
“You’re sane,” Marie replied, and walked away from her. She looked back and smiled warmly at Sandra, who was standing on the corner of Broadway and Wall Street, clearly confused.
“I don’t get it,” Sandra said. Marie looked up at Trinity Church and thought,
What a lovely building.
The ancient brownstone was stained almost black, its ornate medieval Gothic Revival ornamentation out of place in the hodgepodge of mid-century architecture downtown. She closed her eyes for just a second, taking a deep breath.
I’m sorry I said I hated it down here.
Marie didn’t turn around to see if Sandra was still standing there. She let her have the last word. It felt good.