Authors: John Saul
Then, out of the corner of her eyes, she saw Andrea Costanza, sitting alone at the end of a sofa, her face reflecting none of the joy Caroline saw wherever else she looked. Threading her way through the crowd, Caroline sat down next to her.
“Okay, give,” she said. “What’s wrong?”
Andrea jumped as if she hadn’t been aware Caroline was even there. “Nothing,” she said a little too quickly.
“It’s got to be something,” Caroline pressed. “You look more like you’re at a funeral than a wedding.”
“Oh, God, I’m sorry,” Andrea said. “It’s just that—” She hesitated, then shook her head. “It’s nothing. It’s really nothing at all. I’m sure you and Tony will be very happy.”
Caroline looked straight into her eyes. “But you’re not happy for me.”
Andrea shrugged. “I’m sorry. I’m sure it’s just me.” She forced a smile then. “Maybe Bev is right—maybe I’m just jealous because now you’ve had half a dozen husbands between the three of you, and I haven’t even had one.”
Caroline shook her head. “It’s not that. It’s Tony. You still don’t like him.”
“I don’t dislike him,” Andrea began, but Caroline shook her head.
“Not disliking him isn’t the same thing as liking him.”
“What can I say?” Andrea asked, sighing. “It’s probably nothing—it’s just that—” Almost against her will, her gaze shifted toward Rebecca Mayhew. Though Alicia Albion had assured her that the girl was getting better, it seemed to Andrea that nothing had changed at all; in fact, if anything, Rebecca looked slightly paler and thinner than she had last spring. And that, she knew, was what was bothering her. That, and the whole creepy feeling of the building Caroline was about to move into. But what should she say? Should she tell Caroline how worried she was about Rebecca? Why? What could it possibly have to do with Caroline? She made up her mind, and finally spoke. “It
is
nothing,” she said. “And this is your wedding, and I should be happy for you, and if you’re happy, then so am I.” She stood up. “So lead me to the champagne. Let’s celebrate.”
But before they could even signal a waiter, a voice rose above the babble of voices that filled the room.
Ryan’s voice.
“I’m not your son!” he was shouting. “You’re not my father and you never will be!” As the bedroom door slammed the crowd fell silent, and Caroline felt every eye in the room suddenly watching her.
It’ll be all right,
she told herself as she hurried toward the bedroom to find out what had gone wrong.
It’s got to be all right.
Then she was in the bedroom, and Ryan was glaring angrily at her.
“I hate him,” the boy said. “I hate him, and I’ll always hate him.”
Going to her son, Caroline wrapped her arms around him and held him close. “Oh, honey, don’t say that. Tony loves you. He loves all of us.”
Though Ryan said nothing, Caroline felt him stiffen in her arms, and knew he didn’t believe what she’d just said. But still, it would be all right.
She would make it all right.
CHAPTER 10
Andrea Costanza’s fingers had been drumming on the top of her desk for nearly half an hour, and though she herself was barely conscious of it, the occupants of every other cubicle in her vicinity were quickly going crazy. It was finally Nathan Rosenberg, whose desk faced Andrea’s and was separated from hers by nothing more than a five-foot metal divider, who decided he’d had enough. Rising from his chair, he moved around the end of his desk and peered over the divider. Sure enough, Andrea was staring off into space, her right hand resting on the desk, her fingers beating out a steady tattoo. “Enough with the drums, already,” he said.
Andrea, startled by the sudden interruption of her thoughts, jumped, and the drumming abruptly halted.
A cheer rose from the surrounding cubicles, and Andrea looked up guiltily. “Oh, God, I’ve got to learn to break that habit,” she said. “But I don’t even know I’m doing it.”
“You do it whenever you’re worried,” Nathan told her. “So what are you worried about?”
Andrea sighed. “Rebecca Mayhew.”
Nathan rolled his eyes. “Ah, poor Rebecca, who has nothing but a fabulous apartment on Central Park West, and foster parents who love her more than my parents ever even thought of loving me. I can understand why you’re concerned.”
Andrea ignored his sarcasm. “That’s the trouble. I keep getting the feeling that there’s something wrong.” She cocked her head. “Have you ever been in The Rockwell?”
“Oh, of course.” Nathan replied. “Virginia Estherbrook invites me for cocktails all the time.” He shook his head. “Jesus, Andrea. Why would I have ever been in that building?”
“Well, it’s weird,” Andrea sighed. “You know what a sick building is, right?”
“Sure. I used to work in one way downtown. A big high-rise where all the windows were hermetically sealed so you couldn’t get any fresh air at all. Then something got in the air conditioner, and everyone started getting sick.”
“But it only happens with new buildings, doesn’t it?”
Nathan spread his hands helplessly. “Do I look like an engineer? I suppose it could happen with any building. Why?”
“I saw Rebecca yesterday, and—” She hesitated, then shrugged. “Oh, it’s probably nothing.”
Nathan came around from his own cubicle and dropped into the chair in the corner of Andrea’s. “If you’re worried, it’s something. So tell me what’s going on.”
“Well, that’s the whole thing. Nothing’s going on. At least nothing I can put my finger on. Rebecca’s crazy about the Albions, and they’re just as crazy about her. But there’s something weird about the whole building, and Rebecca seems like she’s sick all the time.”
Nathan’s left eyebrow lifted skeptically. “ ‘All the time?’ ” he repeated. “Define, please.”
“Well, when I saw her at the end of spring, she was in bed with some kind of flu. And yesterday, she looked peaked, like she still had it.”
“Or another case of it.”
Andrea tipped her head, but not quite in concession. “It’s possible. That’s one of the things I keep telling myself. But she just doesn’t look healthy.”
“Not healthy, how?”
“Too thin—wan.”
Nathan Rosenberg crossed his arms across his chest. “Okay, Andrea, come clean. With all the kids in this city who are living in slums with foster parents who only put up with them to get the money every month, why are you worried about Rebecca Mayhew, who has fallen into the honey pot? For most kids, obesity is the problem, not thinness. And ‘wan’? It sounds like something out of a Victorian novel. What’s really bothering you?”
Andrea started to drum her fingers on the desktop again, then caught herself. “I told you—I don’t know. Everything seems a little off.” One by one, she ticked off everything about the building she didn’t like, from the lobby to the elevator, to the worn carpets and peeling paint.
“Which only means they have a cheap board, who won’t keep the place up,” Nathan Rosenberg countered.
“It’s not just the building. There’s Mrs. Albion, and the doctor, and the neighbors, and—”
Rosenberg held up a hand to stem the tide of words. “Whoa! The doctor? What doctor?”
“His name’s Humphries,” Andrea replied. “I’ve seen him twice. The first time was last spring, at the Albions. He was coming in just as I was leaving, and he gave me the strangest look. I mean, he’d never even met me, and he looked at me like I was some kind of—I don’t know—enemy, I guess.”
“He came to the Albions?” Rosenberg asked. “They found a doctor who makes house calls?” He grinned. “Now you’re talking weird!”
“Well, it was weird,” Andrea insisted. “Apparently he lives in the building, so I guess it’s not so strange he’d make a house call. But the thing is, I can’t find any hospital in New York where he has privileges, and I can’t find him listed in the phone book, either.”
“Maybe he’s retired, and he was just doing them a favor?”
“If he’s retired and gave up his license, then he can’t practice, favor or no favor.”
“So what do you want to do, take the girl away because the foster parents called a doctor when she was sick?”
Andrea glared at him. “No, I don’t want to do that. But I just have a feeling something’s not right, and I want to know what.”
Rosenberg’s eyes met hers. “Why do I have the feeling there’s still something you’re not telling me?”
Andrea was silent for several seconds, but finally nodded. “There’s also my best friend,” she said. “My friend Caroline, that I went to college with?” Nate Rosenberg nodded. “She got married yesterday. To a guy who lives in The Rockwell.”
Rosenberg uttered a low whistle. “Sounds like she made a good catch.”
“I told her to dump him. Well, not exactly dump him, but when she first told me about him, I told her not to date him. Obviously, she didn’t pay any attention to me.”
“And why should she? Do you know something about this guy? Does he have something to do with Rebecca Mayhew?”
Andrea shook her head. “That’s the thing—it’s just a feeling I have. Nothing concrete. But as soon as my friend gets back from her honeymoon—she and her kids are moving in.”
Rosenberg put on an exaggerated expression of horror. “Now I see why you’re so worried. I mean, imagine—moving in with your husband after you get married! What a shocker!”
Andrea threw her pencil at him. “Will you stop that?”
“All right, all right,” Nate replied, holding up his hands as if to fend off anything else she might throw. “I’ll tell you what I’ll do. You go out for dinner with me tonight, and I’ll see what I can find on this guy—what did you say his name is? Humphrey?”
“Humph
ries
,” Andrea corrected, and spelled it out for him.
“And the guy your friend married. What’s his name?”
“Fleming. Anthony Fleming.”
Nate Rosenberg added the second name to the note he’d made of the spelling of the doctor’s name, then returned to his own cubicle, and a moment later was sitting at the keyboard of his computer, tapping rapidly.
As she tried to concentrate on some case other than Rebecca Mayhew’s, Andrea wondered if her drumming on her desktop with her fingers was as annoying as the rapid tap of Nate Rosenberg’s keyboard tapping. Deciding it probably was, she also decided to break herself of the habit. But a moment later, as she began pondering what to do about a two-year-old boy with a mother who claimed he was ‘incorrigible,’ her fingers once again began to drum.
“So here’s the deal,” Nathan Rosenberg told her that night as they sat across from each other in a little restaurant on Amsterdam. “Theodore Humphries is a doctor, but he’s not an M.D. He’s an osteopath and a homeopath, which makes him less than popular at most of the hospitals I know of.”
“But he’s licensed to practice medicine?”
“Absolutely,” Rosenberg replied. “In fact, I just might go to him myself. Our family doctor was an osteopath when I was a kid, and if she wasn’t so far out on Long Island, I’d still go to her.”
“But he’s not a medical doctor,” Andrea pressed.
Rosenberg shrugged. “Depends on your definition. The M.D.s used to hate the D.O.s. In California, they once tried to put them out of business entirely. But just because the A.M.A. doesn’t like them doesn’t make them bad doctors. It’s just a different philosophy of medicine. And as for homeopathy, there are a whole lot of people who believe in it, and even more that don’t.”
“Which means?”
“Which means that medicine is just like everything else—you figure out what works for you, and go with it. In this country, we like the medical model of germs and drugs. Other places like acupuncture, or herbalism, or all kinds of other models.”
Andrea gazed at him. “So it doesn’t bother you that the Albions aren’t using a real doctor for Rebecca?”
“Weren’t you listening? He
is
a real doctor. Just not an M.D.”
“What about Anthony Fleming?” Andrea asked, knowing Nate Rosenberg well enough to know that arguing over the validity of Dr. Humphries’ credentials would get nowhere.
“Not much. He has an investment firm down on West Fifty-third. That’s about it.”
“What about his former wife?” Andrea countered. “Where is she?”
Nate frowned. “What former wife? I didn’t find anything about a former wife.”
Andrea’s eyes rolled. “What did you do, look him up in the yellow pages? I know there was a wife—Caroline told me. And a couple of kids, I think.”
Nate Rosenberg spread his hands helplessly. “All I can tell you is what I found—according to his credit records, he’s golden. Only carries a couple of credit cards, and pays them off every month. No debt.”
“Not even on the place in The Rockwell?”
“Not that I could find. And no mention of a wife or kids.”
“That doesn’t make any sense,” Andrea said.
“What if he didn’t marry the woman? What if they just lived together?” He chuckled at the look of disappointment on Andrea’s face. “Jesus, Andrea, I think you would have been happier if I’d told you your best friend married a mass murderer.”
Andrea laughed ruefully. “Am I that bad?”
“Not bad at all,” Nate replied. “But I have to say, in this case I think you’re looking for trouble where there isn’t any.”
“Maybe I am,” Andrea sighed. But even as she spoke the words, she knew she didn’t believe them.
CHAPTER 11
There was a soft rap at the door, which then opened just far enough for Rebecca to see Alicia Albion’s eye peek in.
“It’s all right, Aunt Alicia. I’m up.”
Pushed by Alicia’s shoulder, the door opened wider and Alicia backed in, carrying a tray with both hands. Even from her chair by the window, Rebecca could smell the aroma of a fresh cinnamon bun, and as Alicia turned around, she could see steam curling from the spout of the silver teapot that Alicia always used—and that Rebecca was always afraid she’d drop. So far she hadn’t, but anyone could tell just by looking at it that it must be very valuable.
“It’s just an old teapot,” Alicia had assured her the first time she’d brought it in and Rebecca had refused to touch it. “If it’s survived this long, I suspect you won’t hurt it even if you drop it. It was made to be used, not just to be admired.”
So Rebecca had gingerly picked it up, clutching its handle so tightly her knuckles turned white, and using her other hand to hold the top on, the way she’d seen Alicia do.
“Miss Delamond made the cinnamon roll,” Alicia said as she set the tray on the table next to Rebecca’s chair. “Doesn’t it look yummy?”
“Is she still here?” Rebecca asked, eyeing the cinnamon roll uncertainly. Even though Miss Delamond’s cinnamon rolls always smelled wonderful, there was a funny—almost bitter—taste to them that always made Rebecca feel slightly nauseous. Still, it was better to feel a little sick than to hurt Miss Delamond’s feelings, so she took a bite of the steaming bun.
Alicia shook her head. “Her sister’s not feeling very well this morning. But she says if you like this, there are lots more where it came from.” Alicia settled onto the straightbacked chair on the other side of the table, poured Rebecca a cup of tea, then eyed her critically. “I do believe you’re looking better this morning,” she pronounced. “Did you take the remedy Dr. Humphries left for you?”
Rebecca nodded. “I feel a lot better. I’ll bet by tomorrow I feel good enough to go to the park.”
“Wouldn’t that be nice.” Alicia glanced out the window. Across the street, the summer foliage was starting to look slightly faded and droopy under the late August heat, and the people in the park seemed to be moving in slow motion. Rebecca’s room was still comfortably cool though, and as Alicia picked up the worn copy of
Anne of Green Gables
that she and Rebecca had been reading during the last two weeks, she was almost glad that Rebecca wasn’t feeling quite good enough to go outside yet. “So where were we?” she asked, opening the book. “Ah, here we are. Chapter thirty-seven: The Reaper Whose Name Is Death. ‘Matthew, Matthew, what is the matter? Matthew, are you sick?’ ” But before she could read any more, Rebecca interrupted her.
“Don’t,” the little girl said. “I don’t like this chapter.”
Alicia frowned. “But you don’t even know what happens yet.”
“Matthew dies,” Rebecca replied. “I read it last night, after I went to bed. It made me sad—I kept thinking that Matthew was Uncle Max, and I started crying.”
Alicia set the book aside. “But it’s only a story, Rebecca.”
“I know. But it’s so awful that people have to die. If you or Uncle Max—” Her voice faltered, and her eyes glistened with tears.
“Now don’t you worry,” Alicia assured her. “We’re not going to die. Not Uncle Max, or me, or anyone else who cares about you.” She picked up the book again. “I’ll tell you what—we’ll just go right on to the next chapter. All right?”
But suddenly Rebecca wasn’t paying attention at all. Instead she was out of her chair and at the window, struggling to pull it up. “They’re here!” she said, fumbling at the latch. “Aunt Alicia, they’re here!”
“Who?” Alicia asked, dropping the book back on the table and rising to her feet.
“Laurie! Laurie and Ryan! They’re back!” Finally getting the window unlatched, she pulled it up and leaned out. “Laurie!” she called. “Laurie! Up here!”
“Rebecca, be careful!” Alicia cried, grabbing the girl around the waist and pulling her back inside.
“Can I go down and see Laurie?” she pleaded. “Please?”
Alicia hesitated only a second. “Of course you can,” she said. “But don’t stay too long—they’ll want to get settled.”
Tony Fleming was just unlocking the door to the duplex on the fifth floor when Rebecca Mayhew came flying down the stairs. “Laurie! You’re back! How was it? What was Mustique like? You have to tell me everything! Oh, I can’t even imagine being somewhere like that.”
“What about the rest of us?” Tony asked. “Don’t we even get a hello?”
Rebecca flushed with embarrassment. “I’m sorry, Mr. Fleming—I didn’t mean to be rude. Hello, Mrs. Fleming. Hi, Ryan.” But even before anyone could reply, she’d turned back to Laurie. “Can I see your room?”
Laurie hesitated. It was only the third time she’d ever been in her stepfather’s huge apartment, and the first since the wedding, when they’d all spent the night at the Plaza, then flown down to the Caribbean Sea the next morning, to the house Tony had rented for them on a little island named Mustique. The house, a yellow Victorian cottage with white gingerbread trim and one whole wall open to the sea, had its own saltwater swimming pool, a private beach, a cook, a maid, and a gardener. For two whole weeks, all they had done was lie around the pool, snorkel off the beach, or go to one of the other beaches to play in the surf. Her head was still swimming with images of the palm trees and bougainvillea that covered the little island and now that she was back in the city where everything should have been familiar, everything was as different as it had been on Mustique. Instead of going back to the apartment on 76th Street, they had come straight to Central Park West.
“Aren’t we going home?” Ryan had asked when the limousine that picked them up at the airport had turned on 71st instead of going on up to 77th.
“We’re going to our new home,” her mother had explained. “Don’t you remember? That’s why we packed up everything before the wedding. We had everything moved while we were gone. Someone else lives in our old apartment now.”
As the limo pulled to a stop in front of The Rockwell and Ryan peered nervously out the window at its dark façade, Laurie had hardly been able to keep from laughing out loud, so clear was it that he was remembering all the stories she and her friends had told him over the years. “Scared to go in?” she’d taunted him. “Afraid the troll might get you?”
That got her a glare from her mother, but Tony had just laughed. “I always thought Rodney was strange. Now I know why.”
But even though she’d teased Ryan about the stories, the truth was that she, too, was feeling more nervous about moving into her stepfather’s apartment than she was willing to admit, and now that she was standing outside the door to her new home, she also realized that she didn’t even know where her room was.
As if reading her mind, Tony tilted his head toward the wide staircase in the apartment’s foyer that led to the second floor. “Upstairs, then all the way down the hall. The door on the right.”
Laurie, grinning at Rebecca, turned to her mother. “Is it all right?”
“Of course it’s all right,” Caroline replied. “But take your suitcase, okay?”
With both of them hanging onto Laurie’s suitcase, the two girls started up the stairs, and when they got to the enormous landing—big enough to hold a sofa and two easy chairs—Rebecca gazed around at the floor-to-ceiling bookcases and the wheeled oak ladder, attached to a brass rail at the top, that could be slid along the wall to allow easy access to even the highest of the bookshelves. “This place is huge,” she whispered. “It’s at least twice as big as Aunt Alicia and Uncle Max’s.”
They moved down the long, wide hallway and finally came to the last door on the right. As Laurie pushed it open, Rebecca squealed with excitement. “It’s right underneath my room. We can pass stuff back and forth in a basket on a rope!”
But Laurie barely even heard her, for she was staring at the room in utter disbelief. It was huge—nearly twenty feet square, with a ceiling that was at least three times as high as Laurie was tall. A brass-and-crystal chandelier hung over the center of the room, and a four-poster bed—heavily hung with velvet curtains—stood against one of the walls. When she punched the old-fashioned button to turn the chandelier on, barely enough light emerged from its bulbs to cut the gloom in the immense chamber, and what little light there was seemed to get soaked up by the dark flocked wallpaper that had once covered the walls, but was now curling at the seams to expose mildewy-looking plaster beneath.
When Laurie reached out and touched the curled wallpaper, it cracked beneath her finger, and a little bit of the plaster crumbled away.
Other than the bed, the furniture in the room was from the old apartment. Her dresser, that had looked so large in her room at home, now crouched against the far wall, looking small and forlorn, almost as if it was embarrassed to be in such a huge room.
Her desk and chair were there, too, looking just as lonely as the dresser.
When she opened the closet all her clothes were there, but instead of filling the huge space, they barely occupied a quarter of it. And her shoes filled only one of the six tiers of compartments that were built into one end of the wardrobe.
Though all of her things were there, and the room was far bigger than anything she’d ever dreamed of, Laurie Evans felt like crying.