Restoration: A Novel (Contemporary / Women's Fiction) (2 page)

They usually didn’t want any of that.  They just wanted to
sleep with her.

She looked up, hoping the seat across from her was empty;
that Ben had disappeared, taken his opportunity to abandon her or at least come
to his senses and acknowledged that the surface was the very best part of her. 
After all, it was her exterior that turned heads and led men to want to get
inside of her physically, not emotionally.

But he was still there, stoically watching her.

“She had a life most would envy: married to a successful
doctor, three children and a beautiful home,” Tess said.  “Then, one day she
chucked it all away to devote her life to an animal disguised as a man.”  She
stopped and appeared stunned, as if these facts were new to her.

“For years, I blamed my father.  He was always at the
hospital.  He’s a pediatric cardiologist.  People from all over the country
bring their children to him.  While he was busy saving lives, ours were being
ruined.  When I was younger, I’d intentionally work up a rage against him, playing
the ‘what if’ game.  What if he’d been home more?  What if he’d sent her
flowers more often?  What if he’d been a mechanic instead of a heart surgeon?”

“What’s she like?”

“I don’t know what she’s like now, but once she was great
fun.”  Tess paused.  A smile crept over her lips.  “She used to take me on
these wild shopping sprees to these ritzy boutiques.  We’d be escorted into a
private suite where they’d dote on us.  They’d serve me juice and treats and
her champagne.  She’d pretend not to notice while I poured a splash of
champagne into my juice glass.  I’d stuff myself with the most delicious
chocolates and cookies I’d ever tasted, while my mother tried on outfits,
whirling around in front of the mirrors like Cinderella.  She always asked,
‘What do you think, Tess, do you think Daddy will like it?’

“I thought she was the most beautiful woman in the world;
of course Daddy would like it.  He’d love it.  He’d be blind not to.  But he
didn’t always notice or at least compliment her as profusely as she would’ve
liked or needed.  He wasn’t cold to her or anything like that, but I guess what
he gave just wasn’t enough.

“She looked for ways to carve out more time with him. 
When his office manager went on maternity leave, my mother convinced my father
to allow her to take over the office for a few months.  When he agreed, she
went shopping for a new wardrobe and bought a briefcase.  She was looking
forward to it, but after one week she’d managed to alienate his entire staff. 
She dictated how they were to schedule his time, wouldn’t allow emergency
appointments and completely turned their procedures upside down. 

“She thought she was doing my father a huge favor,
protecting him from working himself to death, as she would say.  She expected
him to be grateful; instead, he relieved her of her temporary assignment.  I
suppose you could say he fired her.  It was an ugly scene at home.

“My mother’s best friend from college introduced her to
Randall Wright.  I guess that’s what friends are for.”  Tess smirked, watching
her fingers slide up and down the champagne flute stem.  “Lydia was the
Pinellas County public defender.  I guess she saw my mother with her nest
emptying and entering middle age with too much time on her hands, so she
encouraged her to volunteer with the public defender’s office. 

“After college, my mother never pursued a career.  Her
husband and children were her career, but the older we got the less we needed
her.  It’s the way of the world, but I still remember feeling guilty when I
started choosing my friends over my mother.

“She loved it at the public defender’s office.  I suppose
she felt useful and appreciated.  That’s where she met Wright.  Handsome and
charming is how the media always described him.  I never saw him as either. 
He’d been linked to at least seven murders stretching from St. Louis to St.
Pete.  Lydia was defending him for the strangulation murders of two coeds in
St. Petersburg.  Whatever charm he’d used to lure women to their deaths he used
on my mother. 

“And as they say, the rest is history.  You can read all
about it soon, at least from her point of view.  My sister tells me our mother
is busy finishing a book.  She has a publisher committed to it and everything. 
I asked my sister to try persuading her against it.  That’s all I need, our
story out there in print again.”

“Have you asked her yourself?”

“Ask her myself?  That would presuppose a relationship. 
For years after my parent’s divorce, my mother and I had one; dysfunctional as
it was, it was still something.  But I haven’t spoken to her since my last year
of college.”  Tess stared off into space beyond his shoulder.  “Five years
now.”

“That’s a long time.”

“I miss her.”  Tess’s voice wavered.  She steadied
herself, and when she spoke again her voice was controlled and without
emotion.  “I miss her, but I made the decision that I couldn’t have anything to
do with her until Wright was dead.”

Ben glanced at her fingers still fiddling with the crystal
stem.  “I’m sorry.” 

“How was that for soul baring?  Satisfied?”

He opened his mouth as if to say something, then pursed
his lips and shook his head.

Her eyes widened suddenly.  “You won’t tell anyone, will
you?”

Her panicked question caught him off guard, and he sat
stiffly against his chair back.

“Promise me!” she demanded.

“Tess, what is this?  Why would I tell anyone?”

“You’re a reporter!” she said, as if that should explain
it all to him.

“I’m a writer.  An art critic.”

“You write for a newspaper.”

“Yes.  So?”

“Shit!”  She glanced around the restaurant, assessing the people
at nearby tables.  How much had they heard?

“Tess?  What are you so afraid of?”

“I’m sitting here talking to a goddamn newspaper man!”

“And?”

“Do you know the field day the newspapers had writing
about Randall Wright and my mother?  ‘Doctor’s wife falls for serial
killer’—does it get any juicier than that?”

Ben studied her, saying nothing to ease her fears.  “I
guess you’ll just have to trust me,” he said finally.  “But you don’t do that
very well, do you?”

“It’s a learned behavior,” she replied.  “After everything
I just told you, you’re sitting there so composed.”

He shrugged.  “It’s a learned behavior.”  He waited until
her gaze rested on his before asking, “Is this how you chased off the others
before me?”

“I’ve never told anyone else.”  She looked down abruptly,
rearranged the napkin in her lap, then reached for her champagne and nearly
toppled the glass as her fingers fumbled for the flute.  Ben grabbed the
wobbling glass by its stem.

“God, I hate champagne glasses,” she snapped.  “They’re
too damn top-heavy.  Tumblers are much more practical.  And why do they call
them tumblers when they’re the sturdiest drinking glasses of all?”

Ben withdrew his hand from the glass and leaned back in
his chair.  “Thank you, Tess.”

“Thank you?”  Her eyes darted about the table, desperate
for something to focus on.  “You should be running for the door.”

“You sound almost disappointed that I’m not.”

“Well, this
is
our fifth date.”  She forced a smile
to lighten the mood.  “I always test a man’s resolve to continue the
relationship after five dates.”

“Um, I see.”

In his voice, she heard him calling her on bullshit again,
but he was too polite to utter the accusing phrase.  She stabbed at a ribbon of
calamari with her fork.

“Just look at this place: pricey menu, everything à la
carte and white linen tablecloths.  If this is how I’m celebrating his death
warrant being signed, can you imagine the party I’ll throw once Randall Wright
is dead?” 

She held up a piece of calamari and twirled it on her
fork.

 “Would a party in Times Square be over the top?  I was
thinking about hiring someone to emcee the whole thing; to do a countdown right
up to the moment they fill the bastard’s veins with poison.  Imagine that
tacky, beautiful crystal ball lighting up right after Wright takes his last
breath.”

“There you go again,” Ben said.

“Don’t I get any credit?  I went off of the high dive,
head first.”

“All right, I’ll give you a C.”

“A C!  You’re a hard grader.  What do I need to do to get
an A?”

A smirk lifted the right corner of Ben’s lip.  That side
of his face always carried more of the burden of his bemused expression.  It
was one of many subtle quirks she was noticing about him.

“Don’t drop out.  Finish the course.”

***

Tess crossed the threshold into her apartment and sighed. 
Her sofa tempted her in the darkness.  She considered forgoing her bedtime
ritual and just collapsing on it.  As she flicked on the lights, her apartment
embraced her with its comforting familiarity.  No matter where she
lived—Atlanta, Chicago and now New York—she created a sanctuary from the
dizzying swarm of people in those cities.

Manhattan was the crown jewel of them all.  She loved the
anonymity that eight million strangers surrounding her provided.  In the chaos
of a city of perpetual motion, she’d hewed out an island of tranquility in an
old brownstone in the Chelsea district. 

Her favorite things greeted her and grounded her:
paintings with swatches of color streaking across the canvas, wooden statues
carved in Africa, a Victorian fainting couch, a tan leather sofa and loveseat,
coffee and end tables made of wood and iron and graced with delicate crystal
and porcelain figures.  One of the movers who delivered her sofa described her
décor as a collision between Ernest Hemingway and the Queen of England.

The three paintings decorating the living room’s back wall
were additions she’d only recently gotten the nerve to hang.  Until last month,
they’d made the nomad’s journey from city to city, then been hidden in the back
of closets.  They were a cloistered part of her past and a reminder of her
wrecked dream.

Although they were always with her, she missed them,
missed the person she was becoming when she’d created them.  Like a splinter
slowly and painfully working its way to the surface, they’d recently worked
their way back into her life. 

As Randall Wright’s appeals ran out and he came closer to
his date with the executioner, the more comfortable she became in her own skin
again.  It seemed she’d been shedding parts of herself for years until the
person she’d evolved into looked nothing like she’d have imagined herself to be
when she was just a girl.

For the first time since Wright had intruded into her
life, the world held promise.  Even her chance meeting of Ben seemed to confirm
that.

She shrugged out of her coat and tossed it over the back
of the sofa.  On her way to the bathroom, she reached across the end table and
hit her answering machine’s replay button.

“This call is for Tess Olsen.  This is Doctor Rosenthal’s
office calling to remind you that you have an appointment tomorrow morning at
nine with the dental hygienist.”  BEEP.

“Tess…Tess, sweetheart.  Are you there?  If you’re there,
please pick up.”

Tess leaned out of the bathroom, her toothbrush frozen in
her mouth.   

“Tess, it’s your mother.  Oh Tess, I think they’re finally
going to go through with it this time.”  Her mother’s voice cracked.  The
digital recording made it sound like her mother was standing in the living room
dabbing her moist eyes and rubbing her sniffling nose.

“What am I going to do without him?  Please, call me,
darling.  I can’t believe this is happening.  I never believed this day would
come.  I knew it was possible, but I prayed it wouldn’t happen.  Where is the
justice in this…”

BEEP.  The answering machine timed out, slicing off the
rest of her words. 

Tess stood still and waited to hear her mother continuing
her lament in the next message.  The machine beeped again, signaling that her
mother’s had been the last message.  Tess ducked back into the bathroom, spat
her mouthful of toothpaste into the sink, and paused over the white porcelain
until the nausea brewing in her passed.

“Shit!” she hissed.  Then, she hurried out of the bathroom
and yanked the phone jack wire from the wall. 

Her mother had found her.  After only eight months, she’d
found her.  And if she’d found her, Wright wouldn’t be far behind.  Tess would
hear from him soon.  It was inevitable.

The next morning, Tess’ mouth was tender where the dental
hygienist had politely but persistently scraped, picked and flossed.  She
wondered what drew people to a profession that required spending the bulk of
their work days staring into someone’s mouth. 

As she walked along the busy sidewalk in Chelsea to her
job, she massaged her gum line with her tongue.  She was grateful for her own
career restoring art.  Except for some European cities, there wasn’t a better
place to be an art conservator than in New York City, and there was no better studio
than Mazzaro Brothers Studios, Inc. Headquartered in Florence, Italy, and with
branches in New York, London, Paris and Rome, the company had a worldwide
reputation. 

The studio where she worked was located in the heart of
Chelsea.  During the district’s  renaissance in the 1980s and 1990s,
established artists, purveyors of art, conservators and the clichéd starving
artists who were priced out of Greenwich Village moved in and converted
warehouses and garages into studios and exhibition galleries. 

Single-family brownstones and modern apartments shared the
same streets, giving them an eclectic flavor.  Other streets seemed untouched
by time.  Turn a corner, strip away the modern clothing and automobiles and
this was the New York City of the 1900s, when thousands of immigrants streamed
through Ellis Island and into the America she’d seen in sepia-toned
photographs.