Little Girls(94)

“I’m going to be eleven next month.”

“That’s still pretty young.”

Susan said, “I want Daddy to come back.”





Chapter 30


It was still dark when Ted awoke Friday morning. Moments ticked by before he realized he was back in his own bed in his own house in Hartford. He lay there for a while, smelling the familiar smells, while the room slowly brightened with the dawn. He was grounded enough to recognize that this might not be his bedroom for very long. This might not be his house.

He had spent the drive yesterday replaying not only the argument with Laurie, but the events in his life that had led to that argument. Not just the affair with Marney—how careless he had been in hindsight—but his overall approach to his relationship with Laurie. How many hours had be spent moody and despondent because of his floundering writing career? How many conversations had he dominated with his bellyaching? In hindsight, it was a wonder that she hadn’t left him sooner, and taken Susan with her.

Thinking of Susan made his face burn. Would Laurie really leave him? Would she take Susan and disappear?

That’s impossible. Where would they go?

What if she stayed in that house in Maryland? What if Laurie and Susan never came back?

He got up, pulled on his running gear, and was outside jogging along Tamarack Street just as the early morning sun threw reddish spears through the trees to the east. The street climbed toward a grade in the hillside. The houses there were grandiose—all brick fronts, marble porches, balconies atop the porticos—and it was still early enough in the morning to see people climbing into SUVs, BMWs, and Mercedes for their morning commutes. By the time he reached the park at the end of Tamarack, he was firmly back in the working middle-class neck of the neighborhood. The park itself was nothing but a weedy basketball court. On the next street over, a row of Ryder trucks stood in the parking lot of a rental facility. Beyond the facility, the spire of St. Mark’s rose up against a still-dark sky.

Back at the house, he showered for a good forty-five minutes. He made himself breakfast with whatever was still edible in the refrigerator—eggs, toast, grapefruit juice, a few grapes that had already started to wither and looked unappetizingly like some small mammal’s testicles. He was calm while he cooked and while coffee brewed in the gurgling stainless-steel machine. But when he sat down to eat, he found his calmness—along with his appetite—had deserted him. In his chest, his heart thudded furiously against his sternum. His pulse hadn’t slowed down since he’d come back from his run. Heart attack? That would be poetic—his first morning alone and he drops dead with no one around to call the paramedics. Brilliant.

He dumped the food down the garbage disposal, forced down the grapefruit juice, grimaced. On the refrigerator, Susan’s artwork made his heart hurt. At some point, he found himself holding the portable phone. He dialed Laurie’s cell number, placed the phone to his ear, listened to it ring. When it went to voice mail, he hung up.

Something didn’t feel right.





He arrived at Rao’s a half hour early for the meeting. There were tables outside and it was already promising to be a nice day, but he didn’t feel like waiting around to be seated. He went directly inside to the bar. There was an attractive girl in a man’s white shirt trolling back and forth behind the bar. A male bar-back with a bald pate and severe black eyes stacked soapy glasses on a spongy green mat beside a stainless-steel sink.

He ordered a Laphroaig from the bartender, then drummed his fingers restlessly on the bar top. The drink arrived and it smelled like a fire pit. He tossed it down, felt his intestines backfire like an old Plymouth, then ordered another. He had his cell phone out and was staring at it as if confused by its existence when the second drink arrived. Ultimately, he dialed Laurie’s cell phone number again. He had no speech prepared, didn’t know what to say. He simply felt awful about how he had left things with her. She had been hit with too much over the past forty-eight hours and she had been hanging on by a thread even before that. He shouldn’t have left them home alone.

The phone rang a few times and then went to voice mail. He disconnected, then hit redial. This time, it went straight to voice mail without ringing.

“Goddamn it.”

Steve Markham arrived a few minutes later and sat on the stool next to him. “Christ, you look nervous,” Markham said.

“Hey, Steve. Good to see you.” Ted checked his wristwatch.

“Relax, will you?” Markham said, clapping Ted on the back. He ordered a vodka and cranberry from the bartender. “The meeting will go fine. In fact, we’ve got some time to relax. Fish’s agent called. He’s running about an hour late.”

“Christ,” Ted said. “An hour?”

“What’s wrong? You’ve got someplace else to be? You look too thin, by the way. How’s things going in Virginia?”

“Maryland.”

“Wherever. Laurie doing okay?”

Ted emptied his second drink and set the glass down hard on the bar. His hand was shaking. “You know, Steve, she’s not. Not really.” He sat up straight, looking around the restaurant. “This was a mistake,” he said.

Markham frowned. “The hell are you talking about? You’ve been begging for a sit-down with Fish ever since you started on the project.”