Next week, Dominic had assured them, next week he’d show them how to disarm a knife-wielding or gun-toting attacker. Great, Jess thought now, crossing the road. Something to look forward to.
She saw him as soon as she turned the corner onto Orchard Street. He was coming down her front steps, the collar of his bomber jacket turned up against the cold.
She stopped, not sure whether to continue or whether to turn on her heels and run as fast as she could in the other direction. Recognizing danger and getting away from it came first on the list of priorities, she had been taught. Running was what worked most often for most women.
She didn’t run. She just stood there, stood waiting in the middle of the sidewalk until he turned and saw her, stood there while he walked toward her, stood there as he reached for her, drew her into his arms.
“We need to talk,” Adam said.
“I grew up in Springfield,” he was saying, leaning across the small table of the Italian restaurant they had gone to their first evening together. It was still early. The restaurant was almost empty. Carla hovered nearby, although she made no move to approach them, as if she understood there were things that needed to be said before anyone could even think of food. “I think I already told you that I’m an only child,” Adam continued. “My family is quite well-off. My father is a psychiatrist,” he said, and laughed softly, “so you weren’t so far off the mark when you asked me when I’d given up psychiatry for selling shoes. I guess some things are in the genes.
“My mother is an art consultant. She has a thriving little business she runs out of their house. A very large house I might add, filled with expensive antiques and modern paintings. I grew up with the best of everything. I learned to expect the best of everything. I thought I was entitled to the best of everything.
He stopped. Jess watched his hands fold and unfold on the top of the table. “‘Things always came pretty easily for me: school, grades, girls. Everything I wanted, I more or less got. And for a long time I wanted a girl named Susan Cunningham. She was pretty and popular and as spoiled as I was. Her father is H. R. Cunningham, if you know anything about the construction business.”
Jess shook her head, focusing on his mouth as he spoke.
“Anyway, I wanted her, I set my sights on her, and I married her. Needless to say, since we are now divorced, it was not a marriage made in heaven. We didn’t have a thing in common except we both liked looking in the mirror. What can I say? We were two very self-absorbed people who thought everything we did and said deserved a round of applause. When we didn’t get it, we pouted and argued and generally made life miserable for each other.
“The only thing we did right was Beth.”
Jess looked from his mouth to his eyes, but Adam quickly looked away. “Beth?”
“Our daughter.”
“You have a daughter? You said …”
“I know what I said. It wasn’t the truth.”
“Go on,” Jess directed softly, holding her breath.
“Beth was born a few years after we got married, and she was the sweetest little thing you ever saw. She looked like a china doll, one of those porcelain figurines that are so beautiful and so delicate you’re almost afraid to touch them. Here,” he said, shaking hands fumbling for the wallet in his pocket, removing a small color photograph of a blond, smiling, little girl in a white dress with bright red smocking across the top.
“She’s lovely,” Jess agreed, trying to still his hand with her own.
“She’s dead,” Adam said, returning the picture to his wallet, stuffing the wallet back into the pocket of his jeans.
“What? My God! How? When?”
Adam looked across the table at Jess, but his eyes were unfocused and Jess knew he didn’t see her. When he spoke again, his voice was strained, distant, as if he was speaking to her from some faraway place. “She was six years old. My marriage was pretty much over. Susan claimed I was married to my work; I claimed she was married to hers. We both claimed that neither one of us spent enough time with our daughter. We were both right.
“Anyway, my father could see what was going on and he suggested counseling, and we tried it for a while, but our hearts weren’t really in it. Her parents could see what was going on too, but their approach was a little different. Instead of therapy, they bought us a cruise to the Bahamas. They thought that if we could just spend a few weeks alone together, maybe we could sort through our differences. They offered to take care of Beth. We said okay, what the hell, why not?
“Beth didn’t want us to go. Kids sense when things aren’t right, and I guess she was afraid that if we left, one of us might not come back, I don’t know.” He stared toward the door, saying nothing for several seconds. “Anyway, she started having tantrums, stomachaches, that sort of thing. The morning we were leaving, she complained about a stiff neck. We didn’t pay too much attention. She’d been complaining about one thing or another for days. We just figured it was her way of trying to get us to stay home. We
took her temperature, but she didn’t have a fever, and Susan’s parents assured us that they’d take good care of her, whisk her off to the doctor at the first sign of any real problems. So we left on our cruise.
“That night she developed a slight fever. Susan’s parents called the doctor, who told them to give Beth a couple of Children’s Tylenol and bring her to his office in the morning if she wasn’t any better. By the middle of the night, her fever had spiked to almost a hundred and five and she was delirious. My father-in-law bundled her up and took her to the hospital, but it was too late. She was dead before morning.
“Meningitis,” Adam said, answering the question in Jess’s eyes.
“My God, how awful.”
“They called us on the ship, arranged for us to get home, but of course, there was no home. The only thing that had been keeping us together was gone. We tried grief counseling, but we were far too angry with each other for it to work. Basically, we didn’t want it to work. We wanted to blame each other. We wanted what happened to be somebody’s fault.
“I thought of suing the doctor, but we had no case. I even thought of suing my in-laws. Instead, I sued for divorce. And then I ran. Gave up my job, gave up my house, gave up everything. What does anything mean anyway when you lose a child? So I took off. Came to the big city. Got a job selling men’s ties at Carson, Pirie, Scott & Company. Then I discovered women’s shoes and the rest is history.”
He looked from Jess to the door to the table and back to Jess. “I met a lot of women but I stayed clear of any involvements. I flirted; I played games; I sold lots of shoes. But no
way would you catch me drifting into another relationship. No sir. Who needs that kind of heartache?
“And then you walked into the store, and you were banging the heel of that shoe into the palm of your hand so hard it was only a matter of time before one or the other broke. And I looked at you, and I looked into your eyes, and I thought, this person is as wounded inside as I am.”
Jess felt tears fill her eyes and looked briefly away.
“I wasn’t going to call you,” he continued, his voice drawing her eyes back to his. “The last thing I was looking for was to get involved in somebody else’s problems, although, who knows, maybe that’s exactly what I was looking for. At least that’s what my father would probably say. Maybe it was just time, I don’t know. But when those damn boots came in, I knew I had to see you again. And so I called and asked you out, although I kept telling myself it would be a one-shot deal. I certainly had no intention of calling you again.
“But I kept finding myself at your door.
“And all this past week, I’ve been thinking about you, and that even though you told me not to come back that I had to see you, and I haven’t sold a single goddamn pair of shoes. …”
Jess found herself laughing and crying at the same time. “And your parents?” she asked.
“I haven’t seen them since I left Springfield.”
“That must be very hard on you.”
He looked surprised. “Most people would have said hard on
them
, but yes, it’s been hard on me too,” he admitted.
“Then why do it?”
“I guess I just haven’t been ready to face them,” he said. “I speak to them occasionally. They’re trying to understand,
give me the time and space I need, but, you’re right, I guess it doesn’t make much sense anymore. Just that you get into patterns. Dangerous patterns sometimes.”
“You didn’t sell shoes back in Springfield, did you?” she asked, knowing the answer but asking anyway.
He shook his head.
“What did you do?”
“You don’t want to know.”
“I have this awful feeling I already do,” she stated. “You’re a lawyer, aren’t you?”
He nodded guiltily. “I wanted to tell you, but I kept thinking that since I wasn’t going to call you again, what difference did it make?”
“And there I went on and on about the law, about how the legal system works. …”
“I loved it. It was like a refresher course. It made me realize how much I’ve missed the practice of law. Your enthusiasm is contagious. And you’re a great teacher.”
“I feel like such an idiot.”
“I’m the only idiot at this table,” he corrected her.
“What kind of law did you practice?” She started laughing even before she heard his answer.
“Criminal,” came the expected response.
“Of course.”
Jess rubbed her forehead, thinking she should have run when she had the chance.
“I really never intended to lie to you,” he reiterated. “I just never thought it would get this far.”
“How far is it?” Jess asked.
“Far enough for me to know I didn’t want to lose you. Far enough for me to think you deserved to know the
truth. Far enough for me to think I’m falling in love,” he said softly.
“Tell me about your daughter,” Jess said, reaching across the table and taking his hands in hers.
“What can I say?” he asked, his voice shaking.
“Tell me some of the nice things you remember.”
There was a long pause. Carla approached, then caught the look in Jess’s eye and backed away.
“I remember when she was four years old, and she was all excited because it was her birthday the next day,” Adam began. “Susan had bought her a new party dress and she couldn’t wait to wear it. She’d invited a bunch of kids over for a party, and we’d arranged for a magician and all that stuff you do at kids’ parties. Anyway, we went to bed. I’m sound asleep, and all of a sudden I feel this gentle tap on my arm, and I opened my eyes, and there was Beth standing there looking at me. And I said, ‘What is it, sweetie?’ And she said in this very excited little voice, ‘It’s my birthday.’ And I said, ‘Yes it is, but go back to bed now, honey, it’s three o’clock in the morning.’ And she said. ‘Oh, I thought it was time to get up. I got all dressed and everything.’ And there she was, she’d put on her party dress all by herself, and her shoes and her white frilly socks, and she was standing there all ready to go at three o’clock in the morning, and I remember thinking how wonderful it was to be that excited about something. And I got up and I walked her beck to her room, and she got back into her pajamas, and I tucked her into bed, and she fell right off to sleep.”
“I love that story,” Jess told him.
Adam smiled, tears forming in the corners of his eyes.
“One time at nursery school, she must have been all of
three, she told me there was this little boy who was bothering her in class, that he was calling her names and she didn’t like it. So I asked her what names the little boy was calling her, and she said, in this sweet, innocent little voice, ‘He calls me a fucker and a sucker.’”
Jess burst out laughing.
“Yes, that was my reaction too, I’m afraid,” Adam said, laughing now as well. “And of course, that only encouraged her. And she looked at me with those enormous brown eyes and said, ‘Will you come to school with me today, Daddy? Will you tell him not to call me a fucker and a sucker again?’ ”
“And did you?”
“I told her I was sure she could handle the little bugger all by herself. And I guess she must have, because we never heard about him again.”
“You sound like you were a good daddy.”
“I like to think I was.”
“Were you a good lawyer?” Jess asked after a pause.
“Springfield’s finest.”
“Ever think of going back to it?”
“To Springfield, never.”
“To the law.”
He paused, signaled for Carla, who hesitated, then approached cautiously. “We’ll have the special pizza and two glasses of Chianti, please.”
Carla nodded her approval, then left without speaking.
“You didn’t answer my question,” Jess reminded him.
“Do I ever think about going back to the law?” he repeated, measuring out each word. “Yes, I think about it.”
“Would you do it?”
“I don’t know. Maybe. My knees are getting a little tired of the shoe business. Maybe if an inspiring case came along, I might be persuaded. Who knows?”
Carla brought their drinks to the table. Jess immediately lifted her glass in the air, clicking it against Adam’s.
“To sweet memories,” she said.
“To sweet memories,” he agreed.
As soon as they got to her apartment, she knew something was wrong.
Jess stood frozen outside her door, waiting, listening.
“What’s the matter?” Adam asked.
“Can you hear that?” she asked.
“I hear your radio, if that’s what you mean. Don’t you usually leave it on for the bird?”
“Not that loud.”
Adam said nothing as Jess twisted her key in the lock, gently pushing open the door.
“My God, it’s freezing in here,” Jess exclaimed immediately, seeing her antique ivory lace curtains billowing into the air.
“Did you leave the window open?”
“No,” Jess said, hurrying toward the window and bringing it quickly shut. The curtains collapsed around her, covering her face like a shroud, as the music swelled. Opera, she realized, shaking off the curtains as she would a giant spider’s web, and rushing to the stereo, turning the music down.
Carmen
. “The Toreador Song.”
“Maybe we should call the police,” Adam was saying.