The Deep End (26 page)

“New key chain?”

“I lost my other set,” she tells him, fitting the key into the lock. “Can you imagine? I have all the locks changed and then I go and lose the stupid things. I thought I left them at Eve’s, but she swears I didn’t. She says her mother searched the entire house and couldn’t find them, so I don’t know. I had a locksmith over but he said it would cost a fortune to change all the locks again, especially with the deadbolts, and since there’s no way of telling whose keys they are, no address on them or anything, I decided not to bother. I have the alarm in case someone
ever tried to get in,” she adds reluctantly, pushing open the door and moving quickly to the alarm box in the front hallway, pressing down the appropriate buttons. The green light at the bottom of the box goes out, indicating the alarm has been turned off. “I’m nervous every time I do that,” she tells him.

“You do it very well,” he smiles. Joanne stares at him expectantly from the other side of the doorway. Was he going to kiss her good night? Should she let him? Is it all right to kiss on your first date when the date in question is your husband of twenty years? “I had a lovely evening, Joanne,” he says, transporting her back through time, and Joanne can see that he means it, that he is not saying this simply to make her feel good.

“So did I.”

“Thank you.”

“For what?”

“For listening. It appears I really needed someone to talk to.”

“I’m always here,” she tells him as a little voice inside her chants, that’s it, Joanne, play hard to get.

“I’d like to do it again,” he tells her, and Joanne is about to ask when, but stops herself. “I’ll call you.” He leans forward to kiss her lightly on the cheek.

I love you, she mouths silently after him as she watches him climb into his car and pull away from the curb.

It is almost ten o’clock when Joanne opens her eyes the next morning. It takes her several seconds to come fully awake, to remember that she is alone, that the girls are away at camp. They have probably already finished their breakfast and are busy in their morning activity by now,
she thinks, mildly curious as to what that activity is, wondering in the next instant what Paul is doing, whether he is awake yet. She has to stop herself from being too optimistic, from reading too much into the things he said last night. She must force herself to remember that Paul has told her he still isn’t ready to come home, that although he has admitted he loves her, that he enjoyed being with her, he still needs more time.

She sits up in bed and stretches, despite her admonitions feeling good about the future for the first time in months. Paul will come home, she tells herself, pulling off her covers and swinging her feet off the side of the bed. It’s just a question of time, and she will give him as much as he needs. In return, he has given her hope.

She walks to the bedroom window, aware of the slight stiffness in her joints as the sun beckons her from behind the curtains. Another nice day, she thinks, pulling back the curtain and staring into her back yard.

He is standing by the side of the pool. Tall, skinny, his curly dark hair reaching several inches past his shirt collar, his hands propped insolently on his waist, his back to her, he stands on the rose-colored flagstone he has helped to lay and stares down into the large empty pit he has helped to create. What is he doing here? she wonders, releasing her hold on the curtain and pulling her body back against the wall, feeling her breath heavy against her chest.

She runs immediately into her closet and pulls on a pair of baggy cotton pants, tucking the T-shirt she has slept in inside it, forgetting that she is braless until she is already halfway down the steps, seeing the outlines of her nipples bounce against the pale pink of her shirt. She
debates running back up the stairs, decides against it, and continues down the steps and into the kitchen, realizing only as she approaches the sliding glass door that she has no idea what she is going to do once she gets there. What exactly is she hurrying toward? Is she planning to confront this man? Is this some sort of showdown? Hey you, in my backyard, have you been calling me? Are you here to kill me? What are you doing here? Better still, what am
I
doing here?

She takes several steps back from the sliding glass door but it is too late. He has already seen her. He smiles at her from his position beside the pool. He is waiting for her, she realizes, to come to him. Slowly, as if in a trance, Joanne unlocks the Charley-bar and releases the lock at the side of the door. She slides the door open, realizing only in that instant exactly what she has done, remembering that she has forgotten to turn off the alarm, knowing that it is already too late. The alarm has begun its shrill shriek, racing through the neighborhood on its way to the nearest police station.

Joanne doesn’t know whether to feel angry or relieved. This is the third time she has set off a false alarm—this time she will be fined twenty-five dollars. But at least she’ll be alive to pay it, she thinks, growing bolder, stepping out onto the back porch to face her grinning adversary. Surely he wouldn’t be stupid enough to try anything now.

His grin widens as she approaches. “Forgot to shut it off?” he asks, though he obviously knows the answer.

“I turn it on every night before I go to bed,” she tells him—warns him? “What are you doing here?”

“I was driving by,” he answers easily, dropping his hands to his sides. “I thought I’d take a look and see if anything further had been done.”

“Not a thing.” Joanne wonders whether this conversation is really taking place. Possibly it is a dream. It has that quality, she thinks, the sirens wailing around her. She should go inside, she knows, and turn the alarm off. But it is her insurance and she decides to leave it on. The police will come now whether she shuts it off or not, and once again they will shake their heads at finding her alive.

“I feel real bad about that,” the man says, ignoring the alarm, not in any hurry to leave. “We were doing such a good job. I was feeling real proud of this one.” He looks around. “Don’t always feel that way. Sometimes the pools we install aren’t very interesting, the people got no imagination, but this one was a little different, with the boomerang and all at the deep end. I woulda liked to see it finished.”

“I take it Rogers Pools is still bankrupt?” Even as she says this, Joanne feels the silliness of her words. Why is she out here talking to this man? Why is he here? Was he really just driving by? Did he really just want to check on the pool’s condition?

“I don’t know anything about Rogers Pools,” he says. “I’m just a freelancer; I get contracted out to all sorts of different companies. Who knows, I might even be back here with some other outfit when you get around to finishing it. I hope so.” He winks. “Doesn’t look like you’ll get much use out of it this summer.” Once more, his eyes encompass his surroundings. Is he getting a better feel for the layout of the house? Joanne wonders. “Shame,” he continues, “they say it’s going to be a hot one.” He smiles and shows a mouth of crowded teeth. Joanne shifts uneasily in her bare feet, unwittingly drawing attention to them. “What happened to your toes?” he asked.

“I played tennis in shoes that were too small,” she tells him, almost convinced now that she is dreaming.

He looks at the sky and then shakes his head. “You should take better care of yourself,” he tells her. Seconds later, he is gone. It is another fifty minutes before the police arrive.

“Y
ou’re late,” Eve’s mother tells her as Joanne steps inside the front door of Eve’s house.

Joanne checks her watch. “Just five minutes,” she says, determined not to feel guilty. “Where’s Eve?”

“I sent her back upstairs to lie down.” The implication is unavoidable—why should Eve have to suffer because her friend is irresponsible?—but Joanne says nothing, having learned long ago that this is the best way to deal with Eve’s mother. “Eve,” her mother calls up the stairs, “your friend finally got here.”

“Really, Mother,” Eve exclaims as she appears on the steps, “don’t you think you’re being just a touch heavy-handed?”

“Sure, stick up for each other,” her mother says as Joanne and Eve exchange knowing glances. “And don’t give me those smiles that you think I can’t see,” she further admonishes as the two women disappear out the front door. “Drive carefully,” she calls after them.

“Oh, I forgot my
People
magazine,” Eve says as they climb into Joanne’s car. “You know how these doctors always make you wait with nothing to read but
Field and Stream.”

“Do you want to go back and get it?”

Eve regards her mother standing in the doorway, her small, squat frame a formidable barrier to the inside of the house. “I don’t think my poor frail body could take it.”

“How long is she staying this time?” Joanne pulls the car out of the driveway.

“I think until I either get better or pass on.” The two women laugh as Joanne pulls the car onto the street, seeing Eve’s mother wince from the doorway. “There, did you see that?”

“See what?”

“That slight stiffening of her shoulders, the pulling back of her lips, the brave smile through it all even though she obviously thinks you’re a terrible driver who’ll likely kill her baby before we’ve even turned the corner. I tell you that woman missed her calling.”

“She should have been an actress?”

“She should have been queen.”

“If you find her so upsetting, why don’t you just tell her to go back to her own apartment?”

Eve shrugs. “I don’t have the strength to argue with her anymore. And frankly, since she moved her luggage in two weeks ago, the house has never looked so clean. She cooks, she does the laundry, she even does windows! Good help is hard to find these days. And you can’t beat the price.”

“I don’t know,” Joanne observes, thinking that the price might be too high. “How does Brian feel about having her around all the time?”

“I think he’s relieved,” Eve says. “He doesn’t have to feel guilty about never being home himself. And when he does come home, there’s always a hot meal waiting
for him. I wouldn’t be surprised if, after I die, he marries my mother. Stranger things have happened, you know.”

“You’re not going to die.”

“That’s what everybody keeps telling me.”

“But you don’t believe them?”

“I believe what my body is telling me.” Joanne is about to say something reassuring when Eve stops her. “You remember Sylvia Resnick?” A vague image of a short blond girl smiles pleasantly at Joanne from the pages of their high school yearbook. “She was always a few pounds overweight and her blouses always looked like they hadn’t been washed in months.” Sylvia Resnick’s grin—the corners of her lips always managed to turn down when she was smiling—comes into sharp focus, her stringy hair and gray-white blouse locking firmly into place. Joanne nods remembrance. “She died.”

“What?”

“Yup. Thirty-nine years old. Four kids. Goes to a movie one night with her husband and suddenly keels over dead. Brain aneurysm.”

“When was this?”

“Few months ago. I heard it from Karen Palmer. She loves talking about stuff like that. I swear, I could see her smiling through the phone wires. ‘How are you feeling?’ she chirps, and in the same breath informs me that Sylvia Resnick dropped dead!”

Joanne says nothing, feeling momentarily stunned by the news and trying to make a connection between what has happened to Sylvia Resnick and what is happening to Eve. “I think if you had a brain aneurysm, someone would have discovered it by now.”

“I don’t think I have a brain aneurysm,” Eve says impatiently. “I’m just saying that you never know. I mean, one minute you’re fine, the next minute you’re dead. We’re at the age, you know, where things start to go wrong.”

“I’m sure you don’t have a brain aneurysm,” Joanne repeats, thinking she would like to talk about something else. It seems that all she and Eve talk about lately is the state of Eve’s health, which is understandable but a trifle wearying. “Do you have life insurance?” Joanne asks her suddenly.

“What makes you ask that?” Eve regards her warily, as if Joanne knows something she doesn’t.

“I took out a policy.”

“You did? Why?”

“I thought it was a good idea. If something were to happen to me …”

“Nothing’s going to happen to you,” Eve says, simultaneously dismissing this possibility and the direction in which the conversation is likely headed. Joanne has noticed that Eve doesn’t like to discuss the phone calls Joanne has been getting. She begins to fidget and her voice takes on an unpleasant edge. Joanne drops the topic, deciding not to tell Eve that she has included in her new insurance policy a clause for double indemnity. “The doctor who examined me for the policy said that I have a bit of blood in my urine,” she tells her instead, bringing the conversation indirectly back to the subject of Eve’s health. Blood in the urine is something that the doctors have also discovered in one of Eve’s many tests. “She said it was nothing,” Joanne elaborates. “She said that a lot of women have blood traces in the urine, depending on the time of month and everything.”

“Sure,” Eve replies cynically, “blame everything on the time of the month.” Eve stares distractedly out the side window. “I was reading in
People
about this guy who lost one leg to cancer. He’s running across North America …”

“Terry Fox?”

“No,” Eve mutters, “Terry Fox died years ago. This is another one. Actually there are a lot of them doing it these days. I have a vision of all these one-legged runners colliding across the highways of America.”

Joanne finds herself laughing at the rather grotesque image. “I guess some people cope better than others,” she observes, thinking in general terms.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” The tone of Eve’s question is sharp.

“Nothing,” Joanne answers honestly, taken aback by the sudden hostility in Eve’s voice. “I didn’t mean anything by it. It was just a comment.”

“Yeah, well you can keep those kind of comments to yourself.” Joanne feels tears spring to her eyes, as if Eve has slapped her across the face. “Sorry,” Eve apologizes immediately. “Christ, there I go again. Joanne, I’m sorry. Please don’t cry. I didn’t mean it. You know I didn’t mean it.”