The Guest Room(35)
And yet in the smallest hours of the night he couldn’t stop thinking about Alexandra: who she was and how in the name of God she had wound up in that bedroom, too. He tried to imagine her shooting the second Russian later that night, but it was hard. He guessed she had. But she seemed too (and he understood the irony of the word, but that in no way diminished its rightness in his mind) innocent. He knew he would never see her again.
In some ways, he found the New York Times article more painful to read than the ones in the tabloids, because the reporter simply laid out the facts as he understood them. At least the New York Post had alliteration in their front-page headline: STRIPPERS GO PSYCHO. (The accompanying image was a stock photo of a woman’s thighs and seductively bent knees in a garter and stockings.) All of the newspapers ran pictures of the front of his house. The Post described it as the smallest house on a street full of mansions, and Richard took umbrage with the statement, even though he knew it was true. He also knew it was ridiculous to care; he had far greater concerns than the importunate needs of his ego. The Times had quotes from his lawyer, the police, and their neighbors. The Post had these, too, but they had also interviewed a schoolteacher Kristin worked with.
He thought of what his father had said to him last night when, finally, he had returned his parents’ calls: This is what happens when you think with your little head instead of your big one, Richard. Jesus, I expect this sort of thing from your brother. Not from you.
Reflexively he’d snapped back, You expect people to get stabbed and shot around Philip? Seriously? Is that what you expect from Philip?
But his mother, who had been on the line, too, calmly observed that his father was only referring to the generally adolescent lack of judgment that sometimes marked Philip’s decisions.
Occasionally Richard had gotten up in the night and gazed out the window, as he had hours earlier before going to bed. If he stared long enough, the lights would lull him into a momentary stupor. Then the serrated skyline would strike him like a piranha’s open mouth, and he would remember where he was and why he was there.
He sighed. He’d ordered up a pot of coffee, but nothing to eat. He was going to call Kristin in a couple of minutes, when he was sure she was awake, and see if he could come…not home…but to his mother-in-law’s and spend Sunday night there. When he had first gotten dressed, he had been quietly confident that she would acquiesce; he was less sure now that he had read the stories in the papers. At the moment, he wasn’t even convinced that she would allow him to join them for breakfast or brunch.
…
Kristin tried to peruse the stories without conveying any emotion, but it was difficult: the more she read, the sadder she grew. And, yes, angrier, too. They were toxic, and she could feel her blood pressure rising. Her only comment to her mother—at least over a breakfast of coffee and croissants in the Manhattan apartment kitchen—had been that Dina Renzi sounded very competent. Though, she added after a moment, she hoped the attorney’s capabilities would never really matter.
“Why is that, dear?” her mother asked. “I don’t understand.”
“Because I am hoping Richard won’t need her for more than”—and here she held up the section of the Times—“this. For public relations.”
It surprised her that she found the newspaper coverage far more chilling than the local news the night before, or even her home’s brief cameo on CNN. The videos were predictable, and she felt she had seen exactly this sort of footage a hundred times before: the beautiful woman with a winning smile, a perfect nose, and expertly coiffed hair standing with a microphone before a suburban home that, hours earlier, had been the site of a domestic cataclysm. There was the cut to a police detective—in this case a woman her husband had already described for her, Patricia Bryant—who was professional and polite and revealed almost nothing. Without a trace of irony her mother had remarked that the house looked nice, especially the black gum trees lining the slate walkway. She was nodding with approval when she shared how much she liked the trees’ purple foliage.
“Is Richard coming back today?” she asked her daughter now.
Kristin was about to rub the bridge of her nose; she stopped herself when she saw the newsprint on her fingertips. “No.”
“Will you go to him?”
“Will I go to him? Mother, you make it sound like he’s a wounded warrior who needs his selfless wife.”
“I didn’t mean that at all. I was simply wondering if you were going to meet him someplace to talk.” Her mother didn’t sound defensive; she sounded reasonable. Kristin realized that she herself sounded far less rational.
“We can talk on the phone,” she answered. “And I am sure we will.”
“Good.”
“I’m not going to do anything drastic. I promise.”
“I know you won’t.”
And perhaps it was her mother’s simple equanimity, but suddenly Kristin felt very much a child herself—once more a shamed schoolgirl or rejected girlfriend in need of a little mother’s love. “I will just be so embarrassed when I’m back at school tomorrow. When I’m in the teachers’ lounge and the classroom,” she said, and her voice broke ever so slightly. “How will I face everybody? I feel so…so violated. I feel humiliated.”
Her mother reached across the small circular kitchen table and tenderly, albeit awkwardly, embraced her. She put her hands on her daughter’s shoulders and upper back and ran her fingers gently over her linen blouse. Kristin bowed her head against her mother and asked, “How could he do this to us?” And then, much to her surprise, she was crying, her whole body spasming with her sobs. She was vaguely aware that her mother’s gray cashmere sweater was growing wet from her tears and her nose, but she couldn’t stop herself and she didn’t care.