Little Death by the Sea (7 page)

In spite of that, she was aware that a part
of her was gearing up to forget him, a thought that would’ve been
unthinkable at any time yesterday. Today, she let open a small
window of possibility that she might never hear from him again.

“Staff traffic meeting in the conference
room, please,” the public address system whispered in wall-rattling
tones. Their receptionist was new.

Slowly, Maggie gathered up her work diary and
the week’s photocopied schedule of jobs in-house and proceeded into
the conference room.

Selby and Parker, once Selby and Associates,
was a friendly little ad shop of ten employees and 1.2 million
dollars in billings. None of them were going to retire any time
soon on the fees of their clients but they were comfy for the
moment. Up until last year, Gerry had been just another copywriter,
like Maggie. But the death of their then president, a nefarious,
wheeler-dealer Australian by the name of Nigel Barnes, had left a
clear path for someone with guts and initiative to take over the
helm. So, with the bulk of his life savings and the support of his
wife, Darla, Gerry had stepped in to fill the void.

Gerry and Maggie sat down at the small
conference room table. Gerry nodded for Jenny to close the door as
she left. In addition to Gerry and Maggie in the conference room,
there was the agency art director, Bob Mason, the senior art
director, Pokey Lane, the media buyer, Dr. Patricia Stump, and the
traffic manager, Dierdre Potts.

Gerry, seated at the head of the table, began
the meeting by indicating that he wanted the meeting short, to the
point, and everyone back at work racking up those billable hours as
soon as possible.

“All right, Dierdre,” he said briskly. “What
have we got on schedule for the week?”

2

Gerard Dubois slammed the gear into place and
accelerated loudly up the steep incline. So, Elise’s sister has
been and gone, has she? He sped up the rough-stoned pavement that
skirted the little village of
Mandelieu
, narrowly missing an
old woman and her flower cart coming down the same road. She’s
taken her precious niece and vanished. Skulked off, like the thief
she is, thinking she had fooled Gerard Dubois! Thinking she had
cheated him of his own daughter. The arrogance of the bitch! To
believe that her American dollars could buy her anything she wants.
He would kill that bastard Englishman for his part in this. Shake
every centime out of him that he earned in the deal and then cut
his stinking English heart out of his breast with his own pen
knife.

3

“I’m afraid it’s going to take awhile.”
Elspeth Newberry spoke quietly into the phone, as if worried her
little granddaughter seated next to her could understand her words.
“She’s very unresponsive. Mostly just sits by herself and stares.
She doesn’t even seem to want a toy or a stuffed animal to cling
to.”

“What did the doctor say?” Maggie shifted the
phone receiver to her other ear and absently pushed the shift key
to bring the document she was working on back to the screen.

“He said she’s basically fine, a little
undernourished—“

“Surely he commented on her mental
state.”

“He recommended she be seen by someone.”

“Someone.”

“A psychiatrist.”

“He thinks she’s damaged goods.”

“Maggie, please. She’s been through a rough
few...well, her whole life has been rather unfortunate, I’m
sure.”

Maggie scrolled down on the letter she had
started to Laurent and leaned back in her swivel chair.

“So, if the doctor thinks she would benefit
from it, are you going to find someone?”

“I don’t know. I’d like to wait and see what
a stable home life and love will do for the child.”

“Could take years.”

“Maggie, you know I don’t believe—“

“I know, Mom. You don’t believe in
psychotherapy, but Nicole isn’t some shallow, self-absorbed
teenager who’s trying to rebel against her folks, or some bored
housewife who needs to have a nervous breakdown to get some
attention. She might be seriously ill.”

“She’s only five years old.”

“I don’t know what to say. The doctor
recommended—“

“We’re going to keep her with us for
awhile.”

“Mom! I’m not saying send her to a loony bin,
I’m saying—“:

“Margaret, I know what you’re saying and I am
saying that I am not convinced the child needs to be examined by a
psychiatrist just yet. Am I being clear?”

Maggie turned away from her computer and
glanced out her office window. The sky was a hard wash of blue-gray
with a battalion of puffed-wheat clouds moving quickly across it,
their edges heavy with the promise of rain. “How’s she been this
morning?” she asked.

“Well, she ate her cereal and she seemed to
like that. And she responded briefly to Butter. Now, I thought that
was a very good sign.”

Maggie tried to picture the child attempting
to play with the Newberry golden retriever. The image wouldn’t
gel.

“Responded how?”

“She looked at Butter. Butter bounded through
the dining room and Nicole turned her head and watched her for a
moment. It’s just going to take a while.”

“Do you get any sense of Elise in her?”

“What do you mean?”

“Come on, Mother, you know what I mean. Does
she feel like she’s Elise’s daughter to you?”

“Well, of course she does.”

Yeah, whacked-out and difficult
,
Maggie thought before she could stop herself.

“Well, anyway, keep me posted, okay? I’m sure
you’re right. Bit by bit, day by day she’s bound to start trusting
you and coming out more.”

“I’m sure of it. Will you be coming by for
dinner tonight, dear?”

“No, I’m seeing Brownie, but maybe tomorrow,
if that’s okay.”

“Tomorrow will be fine. Oh! I’m having your
father add another security system to the house and we want to talk
with you about adding one on your apartment too, Maggie.”

“I don’t need it, Mom.”

“I know you don’t, sweetheart. It’s not for
you, it’s for me and your father. We have trouble sleeping knowing
you’re in mortal danger.”

Maggie laughed and so did Elspeth.

“Come over tomorrow if you can. And don’t
worry about Nicole, Maggie. These things have a way of working
out.”

“I know, Mom. Love to Dad and Nicole.”

“I will, darling. Good-bye.”

“Bye.”

Maggie hung up and turned back to her
document on the screen. What had Gerard done to her? She sighed and
rested her fingers on the keyboard. Come to that, what had Elise
done to her?

Between poor Nicole and what was starting to
look like a Franco One-Night Stand, Maggie felt the beginnings of a
bone-wracking fatigue wash over her.
Would raising a handicapped
child in their twilight years serve to assuage the guilt her
parents felt about their younger daughter? Would it help them pay
enough dues for a good night’s sleep?
Maggie rubbed her eyes
wearily.

“Ready to talk about Hi-Jinks Kiddee Wear?”
Gerry poked his head in her office door, a pair of disposable
diapers pulled down over his face.

Maggie smiled and slowly gathered up her
notebook.

“Product testing?” she said as she followed
him into the conference room.

Chapter 5

1

The summer passed in Atlanta in a steamy
swelter of wilted magnolias and scorched traffic knots. Polo ponies
fainted from the heat in Alpharetta, church picnics never began
before sundown, and hundreds of the city’s children found
themselves in emergency rooms suffering from dehydration or heat
stroke.

The humidity was an amazing eighty percent or
more nearly every day, and this without a single drop of rainfall.
Roses shriveled up like insect husks draped on a fence, and the
Georgia Power electric company became richer still as air
conditioning units operated at full bore all over the city.

Darla watched the leotard-clad group of women
go through their paces, each with a long, fluorescent thong
cleaving their pert rear-ends. Darla tried to imagine doing an
aerobic workout with a piece of her clothing clamped uncomfortably
in this manner and found herself regarding the women with a whole
new respect. The music the women were dancing to in the large
gymnasium was loud and the words unintelligible to Darla. Their
leader, a trim young woman with hair pulled into a ponytail on the
top of her head like Pebbles Flintstone, bounced and kicked and
squealed her encouragement to the crowd. Her large breasts were
just barely restrained in her scant lycra leotard top. They were
the only part of her that jiggled, Darla noted.

“Sorry I’m late. Been waiting long?”

Darla jumped at the sound of Maggie’s voice
although she’d been waiting ten minutes and expected her.

“God, you’re edgy.” Maggie and Darla hugged
quickly. “I thought suburb living was supposed to be calming.”

“It is,” Darla agreed, hefting her gym bag to
her other shoulder. “It’s coming into town I find unnerving.”

“Oh,” Maggie made a face of understanding.
“Coming into Buckhead, huh?”

“Gerry just about shit when I told him where
I was meeting you.”

“I’m surprised he let you come.” Maggie led
the way to a set of empty lockers. She tossed down her duffel bag.
“He’s so paranoid about the crime in town these days.”

“We had words about it,” Darla admitted.
“Maybe it’d be best for my marriage if you and I agreed to have
lunch together someplace in Roswell or Smyrna next time,
Maggie.”

Maggie sat down on the bench in front of the
lockers and looked up at Darla. “Is that all that’s bothering you,
Darl?” she asked.

“It’s nothing,” Darla said. She placed her
bag down and began rummaging around inside it, extricating gym
clothes, deodorant, aerobic shoes and socks. “I’ll tell you about
it sometime when we’re both too bored with talking about everything
else first.”

Maggie continued to watch her friend.

“Really?” she said.

Darla stopped digging in her bag and looked
at Maggie.

“Really,” she emphasized. “Besides, it’s you
I want to hear about. What happened in France? Gerry said you met
someone.”

“I did meet someone but it turned out to be
nothing.” Maggie pulled off her slacks and folded them loosely
before placing them at the bottom of one of the lockers.

“How, nothing? Come on, Maggie, this is
Darla, right?”

“Yeah, I know. Well, okay.” Maggie held her
lycra biking shorts in one hand and looked at them as if doubting
the chances of squeezing into them. “He was one of the guys who
helped us get Nicole back. He and I had a thing.” She shrugged. “I
fell for him, Darla,” she said, tossing the shorts down and sitting
on the little metal bench. “He was so capable and kind. I wish I
could tell you. He was soothing to be around but also
exciting....and I fell for him. Really hard.”

“And you haven’t heard from him since you got
back.”

“It’s been nearly three months.”

“You really didn’t know him very long.”

“True.”

“Was his English very good?”

“Better than my French.”

“But y’all were able to communicate
okay?”

“We managed, I’d say, wouldn’t you,
Darla?”

“Oh, dear. Gerry hadn’t mentioned this part.
You mean you slept with him?”

“God, Gerry is such a prude. I guess he
thought he was protecting my reputation or something by not telling
his own wife?”

“You know Gerry.”

“Anyway, yes, I slept with him. It felt right
at the time.”

“And now it feels like you got used. I’m
sorry, Maggie.”

“Me, too. You know, Darla, I hate to forever
destroy the sophisticated image you probably had of me but I
haven’t slept with a lot of guys and none that I didn’t know pretty
well.”

“So he was special. I can understand that. I
don’t think the man who preaches the Baptist service at our church
would, but...”

“But this one just hit me hard, you know?”
Maggie pulled off her blouse and slipped a T-shirt on. “I mean,
where the hell am I going these days? I work ten hours a day, work
out in an all-women’s gym—for what, I might ask?--so I can continue
to look good in my Macy’s designer dresses to impress clients?”
Maggie pulled on her socks and aerobic shoes and began lacing them
up. Darla sat down next to her on the bench and put a hand out to
calm her.

“Hey,” she said. “It’s okay, Maggie. It’s not
all for nothing.”

“I want stuff that I don’t have, Darla,” she
said. “Stuff I don’t even see on the horizon, you know?
Husband-stuff, children-stuff, sharing my life with organisms other
than a cat kind of stuff.” She paused. “I don’t even own a
cat.”

“Sweetie, you’re just lonely. It’s not the
end of the world.”

“How long were you single before you met
Gerry?” Maggie asked.

“Me?”

“Yeah, really. How long were you on your own
before—“

“I didn’t get a chance to be on my own. I
envy you that, Maggie. I really do. I mean, you know for sure that
you can take care of yourself, all by yourself.”

Maggie shook her head and resumed lacing her
sneakers.

“It makes a good story, Darla,” she said.
“And I appreciate the effort, but you know as well as I do that it
takes no great brains or skill to buy your own groceries and get
the rent check into the apartment office on time. Living alone is
not that tricky. So, failing that,” Maggie stood up. “what other
reason can you think of to envy me?”

Darla leaned over and gave Maggie an
unexpected hug.

“I love you, Maggie,” she said.

Later that night, Maggie returned to her
darkened apartment on Peachtree Road. She flipped on the lights,
made herself an iced tea—knowing the caffeine would probably keep
her awake but not caring, kicked off her espadrilles and heaved
herself onto her couch. Her polo pullover was stained and she felt
the weariness of the hot day settle onto her shoulders. The
air-conditioner in her apartment hummed loudly, reassuringly. She
glanced up at the stark, high-tech wrought-iron clock on the living
room wall. A little after seven. She wished she’d stopped in for
dinner at Brymsley now. Wished she’d just showered there, changed
into something cool and crisp of Elise’s (her sister still had most
of her clothes in her old room, although, it was all in black or
checkered gray, hardly cool and crisp attire for a 102-degree
Atlanta evening) and just burrowed deep into the cozy recesses of
her family.