Cold Springs(42)

If Ann's building program finally succeeded, she might turn things around, head the school until she retired, leave a permanent legacy. Otherwise, she had given her entire professional life to Laurel Heights. What would she have to show?

Norma also had less altruistic reasons for helping.

When she thought about jackhammers breaking up the playground, bulldozers plowing a muddy path up the side of the hill, trampling the azaleas and hydrangeas that had been there for eighty years—she felt a dark satisfaction, the same satisfaction she felt sitting up at night, in her bathroom, counting sleeping pills in her palm, wishing she possessed her daughter's courage.

She couldn't end her life. It wasn't in her nature. But she could bury her memories of Laurel Heights—raze the place that had gobbled up all of her ex-husband's time, ruined her marriage, failed Katherine so miserably. She could help replace it with something clean and huge, empty of history, just like her house.

It started to rain as she turned on Greenwich. Red-faced tourists huffed up the hill, their cameras wrapped in plastic bags, Bay Guardian newspapers wilting over their heads. The Rastafarian flower seller who sometimes gave Norma free roses was hastily loading bouquets from the sidewalk into his van.

When she saw the black BMW in front of her house, her heart developed a caffeine flutter.

She pulled into the driveway.

John came out her front door, smiling into her headlights.

She shouldn't have been surprised. John and Ann both had keys. Mallory, too—for that matter. Hadn't she made it clear to all of them—this was their home as well as hers? She wanted them in her life. She wanted to be neutral ground, a conduit through which they could interact.

And today was Wednesday—her night for dinner with John. But that shouldn't have been until later, and they usually met at a restaurant.

So what was he doing here?

At least Pérez didn't seem to be with him. That's one thing she had put her foot down about—John was never to bring that man to her home.

Pérez scared her on some instinctive level. She knew he was Mexican, but his military bearing, his cruel eyes, brought back too many childhood nightmares, stories her grandfather would tell her about Castro's soldiers.

She pulled her satchel out of the car, tossed it to John. “You were cleaning house for me, I hope?”

Despite the smile, he looked tired, angry, as if he'd just gotten through yelling at someone. “Like you need housecleaning. Five years, Ms. Reyes—when are you going to move in?”

She punched his arm. “What are you doing here?”

“Come and see.”

Inside, candles on the dining table. A takeout Chinese dinner—white paper boxes, chopsticks, an uncorked bottle of Chardonnay. The doors of the back deck were open on the rainy evening. The Bay glowed below, the soft neon of the city illuminating the wake of the Sausalito ferry.

Music was playing—not John's favorite classical. He knew that would remind her too much of Chadwick. He'd picked Los Lobos, La Pistola y el Corazón—music she'd once daydreamed to. She must have told John she loved this album. She should have been flattered he remembered.

But the music brought back memories of the bougainvillea out her old kitchen window, Katherine playing in the backyard, Chadwick grading papers at the yellow Formica table, massaging her ankle with his toes. She swallowed back her sadness. “I hope we're talking Szechwan.”

“Only four-pepper items.”

“Ay, qué buena. What's the occasion?”

He pulled out her chair, poured her some wine. Only after she'd sat, allowed him to serve her some chicken and peanuts, did he say, “I'm apologizing.”

“For what?”

“Mallory being taken away. You knew. You didn't tell me.”

Norma felt heat collecting in her cheeks.

“It's okay,” John said. “I was mad all week. Then I realized—Ann put you in a hell of a position. You couldn't betray her confidence. Wouldn't be fair of me to expect that, would it? Just promise—if I ever put you in a bind like that, force you to choose between us, you'll tell me. Okay?”

Norma took a shaky breath.

Something bothered her. Behind the diplomatic, carefully rehearsed words, John seemed . . . hungry. Grasping.

“I'm sorry,” she said. “If it helps, I told her she was crazy.”

“Mallory's my child, too. Yet I'm allowed no say in this?”

His smile seemed dangerously thin.

Norma thought about the night of the auction, John and Chadwick sparring drunk in the school playground—how ridiculous they'd looked. It never would've occurred to her to be scared of John Zedman.

Then again, she'd never been scared of anything with Chadwick. As mild-mannered as he was—come on, you'd have to be nuts to challenge a guy that big. That feeling of safety, of immunity from danger—she'd taken it totally for granted until she became single again.

Now, alone with John, she felt a little shiver of fear up her spine, even though she knew that was absurd. The guy was one of her oldest friends.

She speared a chunk of chicken, nudged the fleck of red pepper off it. The food was too spicy even for her. It wasn't much of a meal, or an apology. More like a gourmet punishment.

“I thought you forgave me,” she told John.