Dream Lover (9 page)

“Come sit on the veranda. I’ll get us something to drink. I am anxious to hear why you think he wouldn’t be comfortable here.” Pam showed Melissa the way to the veranda and then went back into the house to get refreshments. While she was preparing their drinks, Pam decided that her approach regarding the AIDS matter would be to blame everything on the health department. She arranged a tray of ice-filled glasses, a pitcher of lemonade, and a plate of cookies: a civilized snack for an odd couple.

“You don’t have to tell me anything about you and Jack,” Pam said, hoping just the opposite. “I am just making an assumption because I remember you being at different functions. I don’t know if Jack always included his girlfriends in our family functions, but I remember you. I remember you at the funeral. Something told me I needed to contact you,” Pam said.

“Yesterday I was visited by interviewers from the Department of Health and they informed me that when Jack died, blood was drawn and they tested him for HIV. He tested positive.” Pam was watching Melissa, who was sitting up very straight, looking at Pam. She had decided not to reveal anything about her own health. She assumed Jack told his girlfriends that he didn’t sleep with Pam anymore, so she would hold on to that little bit of dignity if she was able. “That is all I want to say to you. If you did sleep with him, get tested for HIV.”

Melissa thought of her fear of being ill lately, her concern that she needed to see a doctor. But HIV? “I stopped sleeping with him two years ago. And we stopped having any kind of sex when he started to see Sandra.”

She knew about Sandra?
Once again Pam asked herself,
Where the hell was I?
Pam felt her heart continue to beat in spite of the pain. She was glad that the young woman could tell her the truth; it was satisfying some of her curiosity. She didn’t want to say or do anything negative because she didn’t want Melissa to stop that train of thought. She wanted her to keep being honest.

“It looks like he might have been infected for a long time. You should get yourself tested.” Pam reached over and patted her hand.

Melissa couldn’t believe it, and she finally said so. “I can’t believe Jack had AIDS and he slept with me without warning me. I can’t believe it.”

Pam was looking out at the ocean. “I feel the same way. I don’t expect you to say anything to me. I just wanted you to know. I have that responsibility because I remembered you and that you came to Jack’s funeral. I wasn’t aware of his affairs then, but recently, when I found out about his HIV status, I became suspicious that he’d had an affair with you. Knowing that, I had the responsibility to tell you. I didn’t want you to get that kind of news cold turkey from the health department. It’s evident that you meant something to him. Because of that, because he cared about you, I have that responsibility to you. I don’t even know what that means yet, but I feel something toward you.”

Melissa looked away from Pam and looked out at the water. “You don’t owe me anything. You don’t have any responsibility at all. I don’t feel anything for you. I’m going to leave now. Will you take me back to the train?” Melissa’s response stunned Pam.
I stepped out of my comfort zone to contact one of Jack’s sexual partners and this was all she had to say in return?
Feeling her blood pressure rising, Pam wanted to reach forward and slap the young woman across her face. No wonder she had allowed an affair with a married man old enough to be her father!

They got up from the veranda and Pam got her purse and keys. On the way out to the car, Pam ignored her intuition to leave Melissa alone and decided to expose a little more. “Sandra got to the hospital before I did when Jack died. She was called first. I met her in the hospital. Because of that, she and I have ties. Because of Jack, we are almost related. We can talk about Jack together, things no one else would know. We can talk about the way he made us feel, like there was no one else in the world as important. If you ever feel like you need to connect in that way, you can call anytime.”

Melissa couldn’t believe Pam was saying this because she knew she would never need to talk to her again. “Don’t you realize your husband couldn’t have loved you? Loved you yet treated you like that? Fucking other women? Not just me. Not just Sandra. I don’t want to go into what I know about Jack. I feel no responsibility to those other women. They brought it on themselves. You and Sandra getting together to talk about how special Jack made you feel is a laugh! Oh, Jesus Christ! Are you kidding me?”

Pam let her guard down and started laughing along with Melissa. Melissa was shocked. She expected the woman to haul off and smack her silly. Instead, she was agreeing with her.

“It does seem that way, doesn’t it? But I know that he loved me. As much as he was capable of loving, he loved me. He might have loved Sandra, and he might have loved you and how many other women. Maybe he just had a huge capacity for love. Until he loved Sandra—and I never told her this—I never felt a lack in our relationship. I knew he wasn’t giving me everything that he could. My sister says that my head is in the clouds. ‘Get your head out of the clouds.’ And you know what? She was right. I had my head in the clouds.” She pulled up to the train and was happy the conversation had come to an end. She may have revealed too much.

“Do you have it?” Melissa asked as they pulled into the station parking lot.

“I thought your impression was that Jack didn’t have sex with me,” Pam said “That we didn’t sleep together anymore. Anyway, I just found out he had it yesterday, remember?”

“I guess that answers my question.” Melissa got out of the car without saying good-bye.

But Pam wanted to say one more thing to her. She rolled down her window and called after Melissa. The young woman walked back to the car. She was on the verge of tears. “Will you let me know what happens?” Pam asked.

“Why? What’s the point?” Melissa was suspicious of Jack’s wife, but more fearful of slipping into the realm of needing her. She didn’t want to need her.

“Why?” Pam repeated. “Because I care about you. Tell me I’m an ass, that you understand why a man like Jack would be unfaithful to someone like me. I am an ass! But I’m a caring one.”

Melissa tried to squelch laughter, but it was too strong. She laughed aloud. “Well then, I am an ass, too. Jack made asses of all of us.” She leaned in on the car door, sticking her arm through the window opening to shake Pam’s hand. “Actually, the truth is that he was an ass, and we were just normal women wanting love.” She laughed again. “I read that in a book by Dr. Phil.”

Pam smiled at her, a pleasant, empty smile. They said good-bye and Pam pulled away from the train station entrance. Mentally and emotionally exhausted, Pam had tried to engage Melissa in ways that she’d never with Sandra and Marie. But she hadn’t gained much information. She was sorry Melissa hadn’t said more about her relationship with Jack. Pam had figured out that Jack had many women, and Melissa had confirmed it. But more details than she really wanted to know would come later, much later.

9

B
etty James and Maggie Daniel parted ways when they returned to the office from their interview with Pam Smith in Babylon. Dee gave Cindy Thomasini’s phone number to Betty and Maggie left to meet with Marie Fabian, Pam Smith’s sister, at her apartment in Hell’s Kitchen. Maggie would then take the ferry home to New Jersey. It would be a perfect way to end the day.

Marie left work early to get home and straighten up her apartment. She was a wreck. It was okay to meet with the health department, but now she feared that she would get into trouble if she divulged the name of the man with whom she was sleeping currently. She wanted to tell him first, let him hear it from her. They’d had unprotected sex a few times. Did that guarantee that he would get it?

Why did she screw him when she knew she was sick? She really liked the man and he was bound to be pissed off at her. Oh Lord, why’d she do it? She wanted to go on as if nothing was wrong, as if she hadn’t done anything bad. She decided to lie, then. She would tell the health department that she hadn’t slept with anyone, that she didn’t know anyone who had slept with Jack. She would exercise her right to privacy. They couldn’t do anything to her, could they?

When Maggie got there, Marie didn’t offer her a seat. They stood by the door that opened into the living room, which offered a view of the Hudson River and the city of Weehawken beyond. Maggie gasped when she saw the view.
What did this woman, who was nearly her age, do for a living to afford a place with a view like this?

“I just have a few questions to ask you. Can we sit down somewhere?” Maggie saw Marie glance at the dining area, as if contemplating whether she should invite her to sit, when she sensed a change in Marie.

“You know, I really don’t have anything to say. If my doctor has notified you that I have HIV, then so be it. I have it. But that is all I want to say. There is nothing else to tell.” Marie walked to the door and removed the chain. “Sorry you came all this way for nothing.”

Maggie thanked her and left, not feeling hostile or angry; her ferry was right down the street at the river’s edge and she would be home in less than a half an hour. She was worried about the woman’s truthfulness. But there was nothing she could do or say about it. She started walking down the hill, headed for her ride home.

Marie’s hands were shaking. She couldn’t base a relationship with Steve Marks on lies. Jack had done it, and had been successful at it, but look what happened to him. What was happening to her? She had been on a collision course; having unprotected sex was only one thing. She hadn’t taken her meds, was drinking to excess, and had quit eating. She knew she was going down a steep path of self-destruction. But her death wouldn’t be the only outcome; she had Steve Marks’s mortality to worry about.

Marie was going to lie and tell him that the health department had just notified her, but she thought through the scenario. If he called them, he’d find out that she had lied. She struggled with this all night. By omitting the truth, by exposing him to HIV, she had done the unforgivable. And the thing that really backfired on her was that she liked him! After he had stalked her and bugged her at work, it turned out there was a ton of chemistry between them.

She called him after work the next evening after avoiding him all day. She had decided not to make excuses. She was crazy, he had pursued her, and she had not thought of the consequences. The Department of Health had visited to question her about her partners and she thought of him, knowing that she owed him the information so he could get tested right away. There was silence. And then, the unexpected. He started screaming at her like a crazy man.

“You stupid cunt!” he yelled into the phone. “What the fuck did you do? Did you give me AIDS? You goddamned bitch, I should have known! If I have it, if you gave it to me, you’re dead! You realize that, right? I’ll fucking kill you!” He hung up.

She stood in her bedroom with the phone still at her ear for several minutes, waiting to move until her heart rate slowed down enough that she wasn’t in the stroke zone. What was she going to do? She thought she had better leave town; time to flee to Babylon! She threw some clothes into a bag, grabbed her wallet and keys, and left five minutes after he’d hung up. Even if he’d been at the bar up the street when she’d called, it would take him longer than that to reach her. She drove out of the garage and onto Thirty-fourth Street like a demon possessed, frightened that Steve would do as he said and kill her. She found herself chanting, “Don’t let him have HIV, don’t let him have HIV,” faster and faster until it sounded like “Doughn lettem av H ivy.” By the time she got to the bridge, she was laughing!

“
Yeah, God, doughn lettem!”
she yelled. “
Oh fuck!”
And then she made the mistake of looking in her rearview mirror and there was Steve Marks, tailgating her Honda, riding the bumper and going for the kill. She could see his watery blue eyes, bugged out of their sockets, and his purple face. She decided at the last minute that getting on the bridge and being stuck on the expressway with a maniac trying to run her off the road was not smart. She pulled off the ramp, into the coffee shop parking lot. She made sure her doors were locked and then she called 911. When the dispatcher answered, she screamed, “He’s going to kill me! I’m in the parking lot of the coffee shop under the bridge! Help me!” Suddenly, Steve was at her window with a rock in his hand, slamming it against the glass, screaming, “Get out of the goddamned car! You’re dead meat!” He must have said that ten times, jumping up on the hood and flinging himself at her. Finally, strangers from the coffee shop came to her rescue and pulled him off her car. She looked around at the men struggling with him and said, “Fuck it, I’m outta here,” and gunned the engine, squealing tires kicking dust and gravel into the faces of her rescuers, and she got back on the bridge ramp, heading toward Long Island. She’d make Pam call Andy, the cop, and see if he could help her in some way. Andy had tried to date Pam but it was too soon after Jack died. He still stayed in touch with her. Marie knew that she would not be staying in Manhattan for a while, at least until Steve Marks calmed down.