"Everywhere That Mary Went" - читать интересную книгу автора (Scottoline Lisa)

18

Iwake up with my cheek on Ned’s chest and his arms linked loosely around me. His freckled skin feels cool, and his chest, almost hairless, looks smooth and perfect. I move slowly, not wanting to wake him, and let my eyes wander over the four walls of his bedroom, which are almost as familiar by now as my own. The walls are covered with a seemingly endless series of sailing photographs, taken at locales I’ve heard about but never seen. Wellfleet. Bar Harbor. Newport.

I turn over as carefully, and rest my head on the meaty part of Ned’s forearm. It brings me eye level with the desk of a very hard-working lawyer. Legal pads are neatly piled there, as are photocopied cases, highlighted with pink and yellow marker. A coffee can holds a bunch of sharpened pencils. There’s a file box of index cards, with homemade dividers starting withAPPEALABILITY and going straight through toZENITH CASE (EVIDENTIARY ISSUES). Next to the card file is a photo of a boat that Ned sails on weekends on the Schuylkill.

I pull the sheet up to my shoulders and hug it to my breast. I figure it’s midmorning, judging from the bright sun in the window. It must be Sunday. I know it’s not Saturday, because I spent much of Saturday in tears, telling Ned all about Brent. He listened patiently and kindly. He kept me in aspirin and water and even went to my apartment to fetch some clean clothes. I called Jack on Saturday too, but he was too miserable to talk. He gave the phone to a friend, who told me there would be a memorial service for Brent on Sunday night.

Saturday evening Ned and I ate Raisin Bran for dinner and went back to bed. We slept like spoons until the middle of the night, when I felt him stirring. I remember him fumbling gently behind me. I reached for him, but he felt cold and slick.

“It’s a condom,” he whispered. “I’m crazy about you, but I’m not crazy.”

Then I turned over to face him, half asleep and half awake. We made love again, slowly and quietly in the still darkness, and I felt as far away from everything as I’ve ever felt. It was time-out-of-time for us both, I think. Just the two of us, moving there together. Moving into each other.

We slept until dawn, when Ned disappeared downstairs into the kitchen to get us breakfast. He returned with aHammond’s World Atlas heaped with American cheese, white bread, and a plastic bottle of seltzer water. We talked while we ate. Then I called my mother and told her the news about Brent. She insisted on coming to the memorial service, to pay her respects to Brent’s family. I didn’t tell her Brent had been estranged from his family since the day he told them he was gay. Nor did I tell her I’d been standing next to Brent when he was killed.

My eyes fall on Ned’s answering machine. There are no messages showing, which means Judy didn’t call back while we were asleep. I called her from the hospital as soon as it happened, but she wasn’t home. It seemed odd, because I remember her telling me that Kurt would be in New York for the weekend and she’d be free. I even tried reaching her up there, with no luck. I left a bunch of messages on her machine at home and also on the voice mail at work. I asked her to call me at Ned’s but didn’t say why.

It feels wrong that Judy doesn’t know yet. I get out of bed to call her from the downstairs phone, so I don’t wake Ned. I look back at him; he’s sound asleep. I ease my bare feet onto a cotton dhurrie rug and tiptoe out of the room. I stop in the bathroom first. The room is immaculate; the man is either compulsively neat or has a lot of penance to do. The sink sparkles, and there’s no toothpaste glommed onto its sides like in my sink. In fact, there’s nothing sitting on the rim of the sink at all-no razor, aftershave, or toothpaste. Where does he keep it all? I look up at the medicine cabinet. Its mirror reflects a very nosy woman.

No. It’s none of my business.

I rinse off my face with some warm water, but there’s no soap in sight. I check the shower stall, but there’s none there either. Where is the fucking soap? I decide not to make a Fourth Amendment issue of it and open the medicine cabinet.

What I find inside startles me.

Pills. Lots of pills. In brown plastic bottles and clear ones, too. I recognize none of their names. Imipramine. Nortriptyline. Nardil. I pick up one of the bottles as quietly as possible and read its label quickly.

NED WATERS-ONE TABLET AT BEDTIME-HALCION.

Halcion. It sounds familiar. I remember something about George Bush being on it for jet lag. I replace the bottle and pick up another.

NED WATERS-ONE CAPSULE EVERY MORNING-PROZAC.

Prozac, I’ve heard of. An antidepressant. A controversial antidepressant. Isn’t Prozac the one that makes people do crazy things? As I replace the bottle, the capsules inside it rattle slightly. What is all this stuff? Why is Ned taking Prozac?

“Mary? Where are you?” Ned calls out, from inside the bedroom.

I close the medicine chest hastily and grab an oxford shirt from the doorknob. I slip it on and pad into the bedroom.

“There you are,” he says with a lazy grin. He turns over and extends a hand to me. I walk over, and he pulls me to a sitting position on the bed. I study his face. His eyes are a little puffy from sleep, but he looks like himself. Is he on Prozac now? Is it time for his next dose?

“Do I look that bad?” He sits up and smooths his ruffled hair with a flat hand.

“No. You look fine.”

He flops back down, making a snow angel in the white sheets. “Good. I feel fine. I feel better than fine. I feel happy!” He grabs my hand and kisses the inside of it. “All because of you.”

Yesterday I would have been touched by the sentiment, but now I question it. Why this sudden exuberance? Is it a side effect of the Prozac, or the reason he’s on it in the first place? What are those other pills he’s taking?

“Hey, you’re supposed to say something nice back to me.” He pouts in an exaggerated way.

“Why is it that when handsome men make faces they still look handsome?”

“I don’t know, you’ll have to ask a handsome man. But not dressed like that. Now gimme back my shirt.” He pulls me to him and flips me over with ease. In a flash I’ve tumbled to the messy comforter, and he’s above me.

“Hey! How’d you do that?”

“I wrestled in school.” He kisses me suddenly, with feeling. I find myself responding, though with less ardor than before. I can’t stop thinking about what’s in the medicine chest. Maybe I don’t know him as well as I thought. I pull away.

“I have to call Judy.”

“She hasn’t called?” he asks with a frown.

“No.”

He sits back on his haunches and pulls me up easily by my hand. “If you don’t reach her, we can go down to her house and look around. Doesn’t she live in town?”

“Yes. Olde City.”

“That’s easy enough. My car’s downstairs.”

“You park on the street?”

“No, this house has a garage.”

“Let me try her again.”

Ned rubs his eyes and stretches. “I’m awake. You hungry, sweetheart? You want anything?”

“Maybe. After I call her.”

He touches my cheek, gently. “How are you doing?”

“I feel better today. More normal.”

“Good. It’s gonna be tough telling Judy, isn’t it? You three were pretty close.”

I nod.

“I’ll go take a shower and give you some privacy, okay?”

“Thanks.”

“You want to come with me? Think of all the water we’d save.” He leans over and gives me a kiss. I can feel the urgency behind it, his need for more, but I keep thinking of the row of bottles. I feel myself tense up. Ned feels it too. “Is something the matter?”

I don’t know what to say. I want to be straight with him, but I shouldn’t have gone into the medicine cabinet. None of it is my business, even the fact that he’s taking medication. “Uh, it’s nothing.”

“It doesn’t look like nothing. It doesn’t feel like nothing.” He releases me and looks me in the eye. “You having regrets?”

“No.”

“What then?”

“It’s none of my business.”

“You’re sleeping with me. If it’s about me, it’s your business.” He cocks his head slightly.

“Well, then.” I clear my throat.

“That bad, huh?”

It’s hard to face him. His eyes are so bright, and they smile when he does, showing the barest trace of crow’s feet. I love crow’s feet. On other people. “Okay, here’s my confession. I wanted to wash my face, and I couldn’t find the soap. So I went in the medicine chest. I’m sorry, but I couldn’t help seeing.”

His face is a blank. “Seeing what?”

I look at him; he seems so earnest. I don’t want to hurt him. He’s been nothing but good to me.

“My Clearasil?”

“No. The bottles. The pills.”

“Ohhhhh,” he says, with a slow sigh, deflating on the spot.

“It doesn’t matter to me. It’s not that I hold it against you or anything. It’s just that…”

His green eyes flicker with hurt. “Just that what?”

“I was surprised, I guess. You seem so fine to me, Ned, you really do. But then I open up the medicine chest and there’s a Rite-Aid in there. What do you need those pills for? You’re fine. Aren’t you?”

“What if I wasn’t? Then you leave?”

A fair question. I’m not sure I know the answer.

“Forget it, Mary. You want to understand, right?”

“Right.”

“Well, once I did need those meds. All of them. But I don’t need them anymore. I’m better now. Over it. If you look at the bottles, the dates are years old.”

“Okay.” I feel relieved. What I’ve been seeing are his real emotions, not some drug-induced elation.

He draws the comforter around his waist. “You want to hear the whole story?”

“Yes.”

“I don’t know where to begin. Wait a minute.” He screws up his face in thought. “Once upon a time, I was very depressed. I didn’t even know it, in the beginning. I’d been depressed for so long, I thought it was my personality. I was never really able to stay close to anyone, especially a woman. That’s why I was so reserved on our first date. I was too busy figuring out how to act.”

“Youwere kind of quiet.”

“Nicely put,” he says, with a weak smile. “I spent most of my adult life being kind of quiet. All it got me was alone-and gossiped about. Then I hit bottom, a couple of years ago, at work. Nothing interested me. I had no energy for anything, even sailing. I could hardly get out of bed to start the day. I started missing work. I don’t know if you noticed.” He glances at me.

“Not really.”

“No one did, except my secretary. She thought I was a tomcat.” He laughs, ironically. “I was a mess. I just lost it. Lost my way. A nervous breakdown, my mother called it, but that’s a dumb term. Technically, I had a major depressive episode, according to the DSM. That’s closer to it.”

“DSM?”

“Diagnostic something-or-other Manual. You want to read all about me? I used to know my page number, but I forget now.” He gets up as if to leave the room, but I grab his hand.

“Forget the book. Tell me the story.”

He settles back down. “Where was I? Oh, yes. God, I feel like I’m on Sally Jessy.”

“Sally Jessy?”

“Morning TV. A big hit with depressed people.” He smiles. “Anyway, to make a long story short, it was my mother who got me help. Drove into town, pulled me out of bed, and stuck me in the car. She did the job. She got me to a shrink, Dr. Kate. Little Dr. Kate. You’d like her.” He laughs softly and seems to warm up.

“Yeah?”

“She’s great. Pretty. Tough. Like you.” Suddenly his eyes look strained. “I would have killed myself if it hadn’t been for her, I know it. I thought about it enough. All the time, in fact.” He looks at me, seeming to check my reaction.

I hope my face doesn’t show the shock I feel.

“The first session, I sat there on thisIKEA couch she has, and the first thing out of her mouth is, ‘No wonder you’re depressed, you smell like shit.’” He laughs.

“That’s not very nice.”

“I didn’t need very nice. I needed a kick in the pants. I needed to understand myself and my family. I went into therapy with her. Every day. Sometimes twice a day, at lunch and after work. She started me on meds, which ones I don’t remember, but they didn’t help. We tried a few others until we got to Prozac-it was new at the time. It worked well-and Halcion, to help me sleep. I could never sleep. Christ, I was a mess.” A strand of silky hair falls over his face, and he brushes it away quickly.

“It sounds hard.”

“It was. But it was a while ago, and I lived through it. I’ve thought about throwing the meds away, but they remind me of where I was. Of how far I’ve come. Kate says I’m supposed to be proud of that. Make an affirmation, every morning.” He rolls his eyes. “Can you see it? Me, facing a mirror, saying to myself, ‘I’m proud of you, Ned. I’m proud of you, Ned’.” He bursts into laughter. “I don’t think so.”

“I’m proud of you, Ned.”

He laughs. “I’m proud of you, Mary.”

“No, I mean it. Iam proud of you.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“So you’re not going to pack?”

I shake my head. It’s hard to speak. I feel so much for him.

His green eyes narrow like a cat’s in the sun. “Even though I’m not as cool as you thought?”

“You’re cooler than I thought.”

“Oh, therapy is cool, huh?”

“Yeah. It’s the nineties. Decade of the Democrats.”

“Right.” He laughs. “Then you won’t mind that I still see Kate.”

“You do?”

“Three times a week, at lunchtime. Her office is like home now, only better. I always hated my house. My father’s house, I should say.”

“What’s the story with your father? You were going to tell me.”

“He’s a tyrant. He thinks he’s God. He ran our house like he runs Masterson. Produce or you’re out of here!” Ned’s tone turns suddenly angry. Beneath the anger I can hear the hurt.

“Is that why you haven’t talked to him in so long?”

“I haven’t talked to him since the day I had to keep him from strangling my mother. For changing a seating arrangement without his permission.”

“My God.”

“Nice guy, huh?”

“Did that happen a lot? That he’d be violent, I mean.”

“I was away at school, so I didn’t see it. I knew it was happening, though.” He leans back on his hands. “Denial is a funny thing. You’re in this place where you know but you don’t know. You’re keeping secrets from yourself. I think that’s what my trust fund’s for. He screwed me up, but at least he gave me the means to figure out how.” He laughs, but it sounds empty this time.

“Why do you think your father wanted to meet me?”

“I bet he knows we went out the other night. I think he keeps tabs on me.”

I sit up straight, slowly. I remember the look on his father’s face when he stormed into the glass-walled conference room, his fury barely held in check. It’s not hard to believe that he’d be violent with his wife. Or even that he could kill. “You mean he follows you? Or has you followed?”

Ned looks stricken as he makes the connection. “What are you saying? You think he killed Brent? You think he’s trying to killyou?”

“Do you?”

“Why would he?”

“So that you can make partner at Stalling. To assure your position.”

“No. No, I can’t imagine that. It’s inconceivable. Uh-uh.” He shakes his head.

“But you said he keeps tabs on you.”

“Not that way. I think he hears things, finds out the gossip. I don’t think he follows me around. No way.”

“Are you sure, Ned? If you’re not, we should give his name to the police.”

“Mary, he’s my father, for Christ’s sake. Let me talk to him first.”

“You want to? After fifteen years?”

“Yes. Just give me a couple of days and I’ll talk to him. If I have any suspicions at all, we’ll call the cops. I’m not going to take any chances with your safety, you know that.”

The telephone rings suddenly. Ned reaches past me to the night table and picks it up. “Hello? Sure, Judy. She’s right here.” He covers the receiver with his hand. “I’ll take that shower.”

I nod, and he hands me the phone. As he gets up, the comforter falls away. He walks to the closet without a second thought to his nakedness. A man thing.

Judy starts talking before I even have the phone to my ear. “Mary, what’s the matter? What are you doing at Ned’s?”

“I’ve been trying to reach you since Friday night. Where were you?”

Ned takes his bathrobe from a hook on his closet door and leaves the bedroom.

“It’s a long story,” she says. “My brother was going to Princeton, and I had to…forget it. What’s going on with you? What are you doing at Ned’s, of all places? I just got your messages.”

“It’s bad news, Judy. Very bad.” I swallow hard.

“What?”

“Is Kurt around? Are you alone?” From the bathroom, I hear the metallic scrape of the shower curtain on its rod and the sound of water turned on.

“He’s in New York, but he should be home any minute. Why are you at Ned’s-in themorning?”

“I’ll explain later. Judy, listen.”

I take a deep breath. I have to tell her about Brent. It reminds me of when I had to tell her about Mike. My parents had called her from the hospital, but she wasn’t home. I reached her later with the news. It was awful. I could barely speak; she could barely speak. She practically moved into my apartment. Judy, more than anyone, got me through the funeral.

“Mary? What’s going on?”

I tell her the whole story, and that I think it was the same car that’s been following me. All she says, over and over, is, “Oh, my God. Oh, my God.” Her voice sounds faint and tinny on the other end of the line.

“Do you think he suffered?” she asks finally.

I remember Brent’s face and the agonized expression on it when the car plowed into him. There’s no reason to tell Judy that. “I don’t know.”

“Poor Brent. Poor, poor Brent. Oh, my God.”

The water shuts off in the shower. I hear Ned banging around in the bathroom.

“What are you doing at Ned’s?”

“I came here. I thought he did it.”

“So why are you still there? Brent is killed and you’re at Ned’s?”

“It’s not him, Judy.”

“I can’t believe you. What are you doing?”

I hear Ned scrubbing his teeth, humming to himself tunelessly.

“He’s been wonderful to me, Judy. He-”

“You’re fucking Ned Waters? Mary, is that what you’re doing?” She sounds angry.

“It’s not like-”

“You’re in danger, Mary! We don’t know anything about him. He has every reason to try and hurt you.”

Ned switches off the water in the bathroom, and I hear him walking toward the bedroom. His off-key hum has segued into an off-key march.H.M.S. Pinafore, as sung by a coyote.

“He’d never do that, Judy.”

“But Mary!”

Ned appears in the doorway to the bedroom, bundled up in a thick terry robe. His wet hair is spiky and uncombed; his beard is slightly stubbly. He balls up a damp towel and shoots it at a wicker hamper across the room. It goes in, barely, and he grins at me.

“Don’t worry, Jude. I’m fine.”

“Is he right there? You can’t talk, can you.”

“Not exactly.”

“I think you should get out of there.”

“I’m fine, Jude. You can call here if you need to. Whenever you need to.”

Ned sits down on the bed behind me. I feel his hands on my back, still warm from the shower.

“But what if it’s him?” Judy says.

“I’m fine. I really am.”

Ned massages my shoulders, pressing into them from behind. His touch is firm, insistent. I can feel the tightness in my muscles begin to disappear.

“You’re making a big mistake, Mary.”

“Believe me, I’m okay.”

He applies more pressure, and his fingers knead the top of my shoulders. I move my neck from side to side, and it loosens up.

“We’ll talk tonight. Look for me before the service.”

“Good. Take care.” I hang up. I wish she wouldn’t worry about me with Ned. My shoulders are warm and tingly underneath his hands.

“How does that feel?” Ned asks softly.

“Terrific.”

“So Judy’s worried about you.”

“Uh-huh.”

“She thinks I’m the bad guy.”

“Honestly, yes.”

“I thought so.”

“I’ll talk to her.”

“Therapy 101. You can’t control what people think.”

“Lawyering 101. Yes, you can.”

He laughs. “Close your eyes, sweetheart.”

I close my eyes and concentrate on the gentle kneading motion of his fingers on my shoulders.

“Let your head relax. Let it fall forward.”

So I do, like a rag doll, as his hands work their way to my neck. He takes it slow, inch by inch. It reminds me of the way he made love to me, in the darkness. He didn’t rush anything. He felt it, that’s why.

“Everything’s gonna be all right, Mary,” he says quietly.

I almost believe him.