The Wild Zone (12 page)

There was something about her, that was for sure, Tom thought now, pushing thoughts of Kristin from his mind. This was no time to be thinking about other women, he reminded himself. He had to focus on Lainey.

Maybe the next time she had to stop at a red light, he’d pull up beside her and suggest lunch. She was always complaining that they never went anywhere, that he never took her to nice places. Now was his chance to show her otherwise, to prove to her he could be as romantic, as caring, as the next guy.

Except the lights wouldn’t cooperate, turning green at each intersection just as she approached, almost as if they were doing it on purpose. Twenty minutes of green lights, he thought, shaking his head in disbelief. When did that ever happen? He had to stop her before she got home. Otherwise it would be too late. Her parents wouldn’t even let him talk to her on the phone. They certainly weren’t about to invite him in for lunch.

They were driving west along Southwest Eighth Street when Lainey suddenly stopped in the middle of the road, then backed expertly into an available space between two cars. “Not bad,” Tom noted, wondering what she was up to now. He continued on to the next corner, then pulled over to the curb and stopped, watching as Lainey got out of her car, fed the nearby meter, and disappeared inside a store. Which one? He was too far away to tell.

He left his car in a no-stopping zone and crossed the street, peeking into each storefront as he walked by. He passed several restaurants, a dry cleaner, and a shoe store. Was Lainey buying another pair of shoes? She only had, what—thirty pairs? All of them with flat heels. Old-lady shoes, he called them, urging her—how many times?—to get something sexy, something with stiletto heels and flirty ankle straps. The kind Kristin wore. Or Suzy, he thought, feeling a renewed surge of anger as he pictured her husband’s smug face leaning into his car window. “Dickhead,” he said, pulling open the door and entering the air-conditioned shoe store.

“Can I help you?” a salesgirl asked immediately. She smiled, and Tom wondered if she was flirting with him.

“Just looking,” he said, sensing immediately that Lainey wasn’t there but walking to the back of the store anyway, in case she was on her knees, looking through boxes.

He hated to leave the soothing arctic air of the store for the stifling tropics of the street, but he couldn’t afford to waste any more time. There was a nice-looking restaurant across the street. Was it possible Lainey had gone in there, that she was meeting someone for lunch? Who? Another man? Had she been seeing someone else all along? Was that the reason for this sudden desire to end their marriage? Damn it, he’d kill her before he let another man move into his house, be a father to his kids.

And then he saw it: Donatello’s Hair Salon.

Lainey went there every six weeks to have her hair cut and styled. She was always jabbering on about the guy who did her hair, calling him a genius and a miracle worker. So how come your hair always looks like crap? he’d been tempted to ask on more than one occasion.

He approached the front window, peeking through the black, cursive swirls of Donatello’s name into the interior of the salon, surprised to find the small place bustling. Lots of women looking for miracles, he was thinking as he pulled open the front door.

“Can I help you?” a young, spiky-haired brunette asked from behind the high reception counter. She gave him a wide smile that told Tom she wanted to sleep with him.

“Is Lainey Whitman here?” he asked, his voice low, his eyes skirting the perimeter of the salon. He didn’t have time to deal with her right now.

“She’s in the back, having her hair washed.” The girl pointed around a curved, aquamarine wall toward the back of the salon.

Tom followed the curve into the main room. There, half a dozen women wrapped in blue plastic capes sat in adjustable chairs in front of mirrored walls, being tended to by men with sharp objects in their hands and gun-shaped blowers at their clients’ heads.

“I don’t know what to do about her anymore,” a middle-aged woman was confiding to her hairdresser, a rotund young man with pink streaks in his short, dark hair. “All she eats is peanut butter and sushi. How healthy can that be?”

Do women really tell their hairdressers everything? Tom wondered, continuing to the very back of the salon. Did Lainey confide everything to Donatello? What exactly had she told him?

He almost didn’t see her. Instead he saw a row of aquamarine-colored sinks and a bored young man, his hands full of lather, his eyes glazed and staring at the far wall, as if in a trance, massaging the head of a woman who was reclining in her chair, eyes closed, her neck stretched back across the top of the sink, her jugular fully exposed, as if waiting for an executioner’s blade. The woman was Lainey, Tom realized, recognizing the bowling-pin legs protruding from the bottom of the aquamarine-colored cape. He stopped several feet away.

“Can I help you?” the young man asked, eyes opening, a Spanish accent twisting through the English words.

“Lainey,” Tom said, the word a command.

Lainey bolted up in the chair, her long, wet hair falling into her eyes and dripping lather onto the shoulders of the plastic cape. “What are you doing here?” She glanced warily from side to side, her eyes full of fear.

The look suited her, Tom thought. “We need to talk.”

“Not here. Not now.”

“Yes,” Tom said, widening his stance, making it clear he wasn’t going anywhere. “Right here. Right now.”

TWELVE

W
ILL
STOOD IN THE
doorway between the kitchen and the living room, his eyes darting between Suzy and his brother.

“What’s going on?” Kristin asked, standing midway between the two.

Jeff shrugged, not moving from his position by the front door. “Apparently the lady has something she’d like to say to Will.”

“I owe you an apology,” Suzy began.

“You don’t owe me anything,” Will countered quickly.

“I think I do.”

“Never argue when a woman is apologizing,” Jeff instructed him. “That day may never come again.”

“Smart-ass,” Kristin said.

“Which I believe is my cue to get back to work,” Jeff said. “Come on, Krissie. You can give me a ride.”

“Let me get my shoes.” Kristin disappeared into the bedroom, her ear on the room she’d just left. What was Suzy planning to say to Will? And more important, what was she doing with Jeff? She rifled around the bottom of her closet for her sandals, sliding her feet into them without bothering to undo their buckles, then grabbed her purse from the top of the dresser and returned to the living room. Everyone was frozen to the spot, staring at each other nervously, expectantly, like participants in a duel. “Okay, I’m ready.” She looked from Jeff to Suzy, and then to Will. “Okay, you guys. Don’t worry. Take your time. I won’t be back for a few hours.”

“I’m sorry. I don’t mean to kick you out of your apartment—”

“You aren’t. Honestly. I have a whole bunch of errands to run.” Kristin walked to the door. “Coming?” she asked Jeff as she stepped into the outside corridor.

“Right behind you, babe.”

“Jeff,” Suzy called out suddenly, stopping him.

Jeff turned around.

“Thank you,” she said.

“Anything to help a lady in distress.” Jeff’s eyes lingered on hers, penetrating right through her dark glasses. You know where to find me, his eyes told hers. Then he left the apartment, closing the door behind him.

“Distress?” Will asked.

“Figure of speech,” Suzy said after a moment’s pause. “How are you?”

“Me? I’m fine.” I’m shitty, he corrected himself silently. Not to mention confused as hell. “You?”

“I’m okay.”

“Just okay?”

She nodded. “It’s really hot out there today.”

“It’s Florida.”

“I guess.”

“Can I get you something cold to drink?” Will wished she’d take off her sunglasses. He found it disconcerting trying to carry on a conversation when he couldn’t see her eyes. What was she doing here? Had she really come to offer an apology? What had she been doing with Jeff? “Water? Juice? Soda?”

“Nothing. Thank you.”

“You’re sure?”

“Maybe some water.”

Will proceeded to the kitchen sink, his heart racing. What did she want from him? What was she expecting? Was she expecting anything?
What had she been doing with Jeff?

He poured her a glass of cold water from the tap, waiting until his hands stopped trembling before returning to the main room. Suzy hadn’t moved from her original position, her sunglasses still firmly in place, her oversize canvas purse dangling from her left hand, as if at any moment she might bolt from the premises. Will walked over, held out the glass of water for her to take.

“Thank you.”

“Have a seat.” He motioned toward the sofa.

“Thank you,” she said again, balancing on the sofa’s edge, as if afraid to get too comfortable, and sipping gently from her glass. “Water’s nice and cold.”

“Made it myself,” he joked. Then, “You caught me off guard. I didn’t think I’d ever see you again.”

“I wasn’t sure you’d want to,” she admitted, her head tilting up toward him. “Aren’t you going to sit down?”

Will sank down on the opposite end of the sofa, waited for her to continue.

“I’m sure you have all sorts of questions.”

“No,” he said. What were you doing with Jeff? he thought.

“Your brother mentioned where he worked the other day,” she offered, as if he’d voiced this thought out loud. “I went there to ask if he’d give you a message.”

“You don’t have to explain.”

“Please. I want to.”

“Look, I have as much explaining to do as you do. I’m the one who showed up in front of your house, unexpected and uninvited—”

“Are you married?” Suzy asked, cutting him off.

“What? No.”

“Then I’d say the onus is on me.”

“For what?”

“I should have told you.”

“Why?”

“Because I should have. I owed you at least that much.”

“You didn’t owe me anything. You were just being nice.”

“Nice? How do you figure that?”

“By playing along with Kristin, by going along with the bet.”

“It sounded like fun.” Suzy smiled, her lips turning down at the corners instead of up. “We had a good time, didn’t we?”

“We did,” Will agreed.

“Did you know your friend was going to follow me home?”

“What? No,” Will said quickly. “And he’s not my friend.”

“I’m glad.”

“He’s an idiot,” Will told her. “A real loose cannon. Apparently he’d been following us around all night.”

“Too bad we didn’t give him more of a show.”

Will’s eyes shot to hers, although he couldn’t see past the dark glasses. What was she saying? That she was sorry she’d pulled away after only one kiss, that she was interested in more, that that was the real reason she was here: not to apologize for not telling him she was married, but because she was sorry for not following through? If only I could see her eyes, he thought, wishing he understood women better. If a magic genie had suddenly appeared to offer him one wish, that’s what it would be, he was thinking, remembering the joke Jeff had told at the bar. “Why don’t you take those things off,” he said finally, reaching for her glasses.

She pulled back. “It’s probably better if I keep them on.”

“Why?” Will pulled them gently from her face. “Oh, God,” he said, the glasses dropping into his lap as his eyes swept across the myriad of bruises dotting Suzy’s otherwise pale complexion. They pulsed at him like strobe lights, a flash of fading purple here, a hint of dull yellow there. “He did this to you,” he said without needing to be told.

“No. I fell.”

“You didn’t fall.”

“It was an accident with a neighbor’s dog. My feet got tangled up in the leash.”

“Is that what you told Jeff?”

She lowered her head. “He didn’t believe me either.”

Will’s fingers were shaking as he reached out to touch her cheek. “How could anyone do this?”

“It’s all right. I’m all right.”

“This is my fault,” he said.

“This has nothing to do with you.”

“If we hadn’t shown up on your doorstep, like a bunch of stupid teenagers . . .”

“It wouldn’t have mattered.”

“What are you saying?”

“Nothing.”

“Are you saying he’s done this to you before?”

“This was
my
doing,” Suzy insisted.

“How do you figure that?”

“I goad him.”

“You goad him,” Will repeated incredulously.

“I should never have gone to the Wild Zone. I knew how risky it was.”

“What do you mean ‘risky’?”

“Bars are strictly off-limits when Dave’s away.”

“What?”

“Normally I go with Dave when he has to attend a conference out of town,” she explained, talking more to herself now than to Will, as if trying to understand what had happened. “But this time he said he was going to be so busy all week with meetings and lectures—he’s a doctor—and there was no point in my being cooped up in a hotel room all week by myself, that I might as well stay home, get a few things looked after around the house. And I’m usually so bored at those medical conventions. I was really looking forward to having time to myself, going for a walk on the beach, going into some of those cute little shops along the ocean. I never should have gone into the Wild Zone. For sure, I never should have gone back more than once. I don’t know what I was thinking. I guess I thought Dave wouldn’t find out. He wasn’t supposed to be back until Saturday. But he left right after his last meeting on Friday night, drove all the way from Tampa without stopping, just to be with me. Only I wasn’t there.”

“You were with me,” Will stated, feeling sick to his stomach. When he’d left her, he’d all but floated home. He’d been asleep on this very sofa, dreaming of long, soft, tender kisses while she was being beaten to a bloody pulp.

“It was the most fun I’ve had in I don’t know how long.”

“I don’t understand. Why do you stay with him? You don’t have kids. Do you?” Will asked sheepishly, suddenly realizing how little he actually knew about her.

She smiled. The smile accentuated the small scratch at the corner of her upper lip, a scratch he hadn’t even noticed before. “No, I don’t have any children. I also don’t have a choice.”

“Of course you have a choice,” Will argued. “You can leave him, you can report him to the police, you can—”

“I can’t,” she said simply.

“Why not?”

“He’ll kill me,” she said, simpler still.

“No, he won’t. He’s just a bully, a—”

“He’ll kill me,” she said again. “Please. I can’t stay much longer. Can we please talk about something else?”

“You want to talk about something else?” Will asked helplessly, his head spinning.

“What do you think of Miami?” she asked brightly, as if this was the most natural of questions.

“What?”

“Please, Will. Can we just pretend to be a normal couple? Boy meets girl. That kind of thing. For a few minutes, before I have to go?”

Tears filled her eyes, and Will felt his own eyes moistening. He looked away. Why do things always have to be so complicated? he was thinking. Maybe Kristin and Jeff had the right idea after all. Keep things as simple as possible. No expectations, no recriminations. “I think Miami’s great,” he said. “A little hot, but . . .”

“It’s Florida,” she said, completing the thought, with a shy chuckle. “I guess it’s a lot different than New Jersey.”

“Actually I’m from Buffalo. I just went to school in New Jersey.”

“I’ve never been to either.”

“Buffalo’s okay,” he said, continuing the pretense. “I mean, I know it’s popular to badmouth the city, but I always liked it there. It was a pretty cool place to grow up.”

“You had a happy childhood,” she stated more than asked.

“You didn’t?”

“We were always moving, so I never really settled in anywhere. It was hard to make friends. I was always the new girl. Just when I’d start to get comfortable, we’d take off again.” She raised her glass of water to her lips, then returned it to her lap without taking a sip. “So, what did you want to be when you were a little boy?” she asked, suddenly shifting gears. “Don’t tell me you wanted to be a philosopher.”

He laughed. “No. I wanted to be a fireman. Don’t all little boys want to be firemen when they grow up?”

“I don’t know. Do they?”

“I did. Jeff did,” Will added, remembering Jeff pleading for a fireman’s costume one Halloween, a request that was denied.

“And you wanted to be Jeff,” Suzy said.

“I guess I did.” Still do, he thought. “What about you?”

“I never wanted to be Jeff.”

Will smiled. “What
did
you want to be?”

“When I was little, I wanted to be a ballerina.”

“Of course.”

“When I was a little older, I changed my mind, decided I was going to be a fashion designer.”

“What changed your mind?”

My father’s fist, Suzy thought. “No talent,” she said out loud.

“When I was a teenager, I wanted to be a rock star,” Will confessed.

“Singer or lead guitar?”

“Drummer.”

Suzy laughed. “Get out.”

“Seriously. I was very gung-ho, as I was about everything in those days. Very,
very
intense. I actually talked my parents into buying me this incredibly expensive set of drums, and I used to bang on those damn things morning, noon, and night, drive everybody crazy . . .”

“And?”

“And then one day someone took my drumsticks and punched holes through the tops of all my drums. They were completely ruined.”

“Jeff?”

“No,” Will said. “Although that’s what everyone thought. But it wasn’t Jeff.”

“Who was it?”

Will took a deep breath, released it slowly. It scraped painfully along the side of his windpipe. “It was me,” he admitted.

“You ruined your own drum set?”

“I couldn’t stand it anymore. Talk about having no talent!” He laughed. “And I was sick of taking lessons, sick of practicing, sick of never getting any better, of pretending to enjoy it. But my parents had spent all this money, right? I couldn’t just give it up. And then one afternoon, I come home from school, my parents are out, and there’s Jeff sitting in my bedroom, beating on my drums. And he was great. Perfect. It was effortless for him. Just like everything was. And I don’t know. I just snapped. I yelled at him to get out of my room, not to touch my things ever again, standard little-brother shit, and next thing you know, I’m slashing at those drums like some monster in a horror flick. Of course, my parents blamed Jeff. And I was too much of a chickenshit to tell them otherwise.”

“Jeff never said anything?”

“What for? He knew they’d never believe him.”

“So you just let him take the fall?”

Will hung his head. He was suddenly twelve years old again, crying in the privacy of his room. Why had he told her that story? He’d never confessed his shame to anyone before. “They never gave him anything, you know. Not like me. ‘The Chosen One,’ Jeff used to call me. And he was right. I was my parents’ golden boy. My mother’s pride and joy. Whatever I wanted, she made sure I got. Drum sets, basketballs, private schools, money for Princeton.” He rubbed his forehead. “Jeff was like Cinderella, the kid nobody wanted. He had to beg for every scrap. And he had too much pride for that. He wasn’t going to put up with it any longer than he had to.”

“What happened?”

“He took off for Miami, dropped out of college after a couple of semesters, joined the army, became a personal trainer. He keeps in touch with his sister, Ellie,” Will explained, answering the question on Suzy’s face. “She’s how I knew where to find him.”