Together Alone Page 4

  Emily couldn’t argue with that. Still. “You really don’t need any of it, Celeste.”

  “But I want it. And when the swelling’s gone down and the stitches are out, I’m having streaks put in my hair.”

  “Gray ones like mine?” Kay cracked, though Emily was hard put to differentiate between sandy and gray in Kay’s hair.

  “Blonde ones,” Celeste said. “I’m going with a lighter brown as a base color and blond streaks. Lighter is younger. Except for you, Emily. You always look sixteen.”

  Emily’s sable-colored hair was thick and glossy, blunt-cut an inch below her earlobe. Two minutes with a blowdryer and the ends curled under. She had worn it that way since she was, well, sixteen.

  “And after my hair is done,” Celeste announced, “I’m buying clothes.”

  “New jeans?”

  “Only if they have gold studs running up and down the legs, and even then, only if there’s a matching top that buttons down to here.” She pointed to a spot below her breasts, then added in an undertone, “Or unbuttons. Whichever.”

  “That isn’t you,” Kay said.

  “Why not? Why can’t I change?”

  “Why would you want to?”

  “Because I’m bored with me.”

  Emily was wary. “Where are we headed, here?”

  Celeste grinned. “Men. I’m starting to date.”

  “Celeste,” Kay chided, “you already date.”

  “I go to dinner or a movie with friends who happen to be male. I wouldn’t call them dates.”

  Emily humored her. “If those weren’t dates, how will these be dates?”

  “They’ll be romantic, for one thing. I’m putting an ad in the paper.”

  “You aren’t.”

  “Celeste.”

  “I am. I want wine and roses and music and poetry. And sex.”

  “Not healthy,” Emily warned. “Things have changed since we were kids.”

  “Physical needs haven’t. Mine’s been on hold for seventeen years. A few more, and I’ll be too old to care. The way I see it, it’s now or never.”

  “Are you looking for a husband?” Emily asked in search of a method to the madness.

  Celeste made a face. “Are you kidding? And let Jackson off the alimony hook? No way. I want some fun. That’s all.”

  Kay folded a rasher of bacon into her mouth. Emily pushed a blueberry around with her spoon.

  “You guys disapprove,” Celeste said.

  Emily set down the spoon. “Putting an ad in the paper is dangerous. You won’t know what you’re getting. The personals are an invitation for crazy men to prey on lonely women.”

  “What if I put an ad in a reputable publication, like something for Harvard alums.”

  “You didn’t go to Harvard.”

  “So?”

  “So, someone responding might not have gone, either.”

  “Come on, Emily. There are ways to cull out the bad ones. I’ve researched this. Trust me. And anyway,” she said more smugly, “if you guys help me cull out the bad ones, I can’t go wrong.”

  “Whoa,” Kay said, “do you know what John would say if he heard you were doing this? Do you know what he would say if he thought I was helping you?”

  Emily agreed. “The idea of this makes me uncomfortable.”

  “That’s because you’re married. If you’d been single like me all these years, you’d be excited. Come on, you two. I’ve been good. I waited for a winner to waltz into town, and when he didn’t, I settled for driving the church van on Saturday nights. Dawn is gone now, so it’s not like I’m setting a bad example.”

  “But the personals?”

  “Well, look, what are my alternatives? You know this town as well as I do. There aren’t any eligible men here, at least not any with spirit, and I want spirit.”

  “John hired a new man,” Kay offered. “He just got here.”

  “No good. Our uniforms stink. Now, if our guys wore jodphurs and helmets, and rode motorcycles like the Staties—”

  “This guy won’t be in uniform. He’s a detective. From Manhattan.”

  Emily hadn’t heard anything about a new man on the force. “A detective? Is he here on a special assignment?”

  “No. We lost one of ours to the FBI. John is simply appointing a replacement.”

  “From Manhattan?” Celeste asked. “Is he single?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “How old?”

  “Early forties.”

  “What’s wrong with him?”

  Kay laughed. “What do you mean, what’s wrong with him?”

  “If he’s in his early forties and still single—”

  “Who do you think your ad will attract?” Emily asked, still upset by that idea, but Celeste wasn’t done with Kay.

  “If he’s in his early forties and still single, and he’s leaving New York City for a place like this, something must be wrong with him. He must be up on charges of misconduct. Or he’s burned out. The last thing I need is a has-been.”

  “He isn’t a has-been,” Kay insisted. “John says he’s at the top of his field.”

  “Then why did he leave New York?”

  “Because his wife was killed in a hit-and-run accident, and he has a young child to raise, and he didn’t think he could handle doing that in New York.”

  “How awful,” Emily said, imagining well the havoc in his life. “How old is the child?”

  “Little. Under two.”

  “How awful.”

  “I’ll say,” said Celeste. “Hell, I’ve just gotten my freedom. I’d be crazy to get involved with a man with a child.”

  Emily felt a stab of annoyance. “If he’s just come off the death of his wife, and he’s changed jobs and moved to a strange place for the sake of his daughter, I doubt he’d want to be involved with you, either.”

  “Gee, thanks.”

  She let out a breath. “You know what I mean, Celeste. Anyway, you’re right. He isn’t thinking freedom the way you are. Score one for him. You make me very nervous.”

  “Not to worry,” she said. “The surgery’s being done Thursday. Will you guys visit me?”

  “Come Thursday, I’m a career woman again,” Kay reminded her. “It’ll have to be after school.”

  “And you, lady of leisure?” Celeste asked Emily.

  Emily smiled. “Lady of leisure. Cute.”

  “Well, aren’t you?”

  “No more so than before. There are things around the house that I’ve been putting off until Jill left.”

  “Don’t touch Jill’s things,” Kay advised.

  “I don’t dare. She was very clear on that.”

  “Well, she’s right. The books say kids need to know that their personal space is secure.”

  “It’s just her closet. It’s a mess.”

  “No matter. When she comes home the first time, everything should be exactly as it was when she left.”

  Emily sighed. “Fine. I won’t touch hers, but there are other closets to clean. And the basement. And I want to repaper the bathrooms.”

  “Let Doug do that,” Celeste said.

  “When? I’m the one with the time.”

  “I think you should do another book,” Kay decided. “Does your editor still call?”

  “Every few months, but just to talk. We’re friends.”

  I read the note she sent along with that bottle of champagne. She loved working with you. She didn’t need to say that.”

  “Okay, so we got along, but that doesn’t mean she wants another book, and even if she did, what would I write about?”

  “Open the newspaper,” Celeste suggested. “Pick a crime.”

  “True crime is hot,” Kay added.

  But Emily shook her head. It wasn’t only Doug’s pride that kept her from looking for work. “I really do want to fix up the house. And when that’s done, I’ll tackle the room above the garage.” She would be busy for months.

  “You really are renting it out?” Celeste
asked.

  “The space is just going to waste.”

  “Talk about inviting strangers into your life.”

  “We could use the money.”

  “For God’s sake, Emily, you aren’t indigent.”

  “Jill’s school bills make Doug nervous.”

  “Yet he won’t let you work?” Kay asked. “I don’t understand him.”

  “He knew this day was coming,” Celeste complained. “He should have had her tuition all stashed away.”

  “How could he do that?” Emily asked. “We’ve always used his income to live on.” She defended Doug out of habit, though she was annoyed herself. They lived frugally. His business had grown steadily. She didn’t understand why they were so strapped.

  But if the money wasn’t there, it wasn’t there. She sighed. “It’s only the room above the garage. It won’t be so bad.” With a sheepish smile and a one-shouldered shrug, she said, “It might actually be nice. Beat the silence. You know?”

  three

  IT WAS A SILENCE FILLED WITH VOICES SHE couldn’t hear, an eerie quiet barely breeched by the smooth slur of the jazz sax wafting from the stereo in the den. She turned up the volume and listened, with the small of her back to the doorjamb and her arms crossed. Closing her eyes, she let the beat take her away.

  But not for long, never for long. This was where she needed to be.

  Peeling her spine from the wood, she began an aimless wandering from room to room. Earlier, she had talked with Jill, who was on her way to a dorm dinner and sounded excited, and with Doug, who was on his way to a client meeting and sounded rushed. She had heated the beef stew Myra delivered. She had watched the evening news. She had folded Jill’s freshly laundered sheets—there was a line to be drawn on the leave-her-room-alone rule—and put them back on the bed.

  After arranging the pillows neatly at its head, she had stood for a while holding Cat. Its fur was matted and its whiskers sparse, one eye gone, its tail shredded. She remembered reading The Velveteen Rabbit dozens of times, with Jill close by her side and Cat close by Jill’s. No doubt about it, Cat was as loved as that rabbit.

  Surprising, that she had left it home. Kids brought stuffed pets to college. Hadn’t Jill’s roommate—“she’s so cool, Mom”—brought two? Then again, if Jill wanted her room at home preserved, there was no better watchdog than Cat. So Emily had gently placed it on the pillows, making sure that its time-worn body was securely propped.

  She went down the hall now, past one closed door, the bathroom, and the bedroom she shared with Doug, to the stairs. The runner was worn. Emily remembered when it had been new. The thought made her feel old herself, absurd, given that she was barely forty. But she didn’t have children at home anymore, which meant that she was, in theory, semiretired, which was an awful thought. She had always been highly directed.

  Discouraged, she sank into the living room sofa. It, too, was worn, though not worth recovering. She and Doug didn’t entertain often. He wasn’t home enough.

  She sighed as her gaze settled on the mantel. She picked out photos from the crowd there, recalling when each had been taken, and the memories kept her company for a time. Then they faded, and she was alone.

  She thought of taking a bath. She had rarely had time for that, raising Jill. Or she could read a book. She had a stack on the dresser, four good ones to choose from.

  The windows were open to the late-August night, to the chirrup of the crickets and the slurp of the pond. Earlier, there had been the drone of a lawn mower, done now, though the scent of cut grass hung thick in the humid air.

  Sitting in the dark of night, so quiet and still, she felt as though her life had come to a screeching halt. In quick succession she had been daughter, student, wife, and mother.

  What was she now? A wife without a husband? A mother without a child?

  But Doug would be home at the end of the week. And she talked with Jill on the phone.

  Rising from the sofa, she rubbed her damp palms together and peered out the window. She tried to see if anyone was coming, but the night was too dense to see anything from here, so she straightened her T-shirt behind the overall shorts that hung loose from her shoulders, stepped into a pair of sneakers, and slipped out the door.

  The neighborhood was still. From the front gate, she looked down the chain of neat picket fences. No two segments were exactly alike in style, height, or state of repair, but they coalesced to form a ghostly trail that beckoned in the inert night air.

  She started down the street, leaving behind Myra’s house with its tiny nightlight glowing from an upstairs window, then the Wilsons’, the LeJeunes’, and the Hinkleys’. She studied the shadows as she walked—front yards, side yards, wooded thickets between—but nothing moved, nothing cried.

  At the end of China Pond Road, she turned right onto Walker, then left onto Sycamore until she came to LaGrange, where, at the high stone wall of the Berlo estate, she turned right again. A light mist had begun to fall, but her feet knew the way and weren’t stopping. Her eyes slipped between the elegant old Victorians she passed. She counted down as she had, pushing carriages so long ago—eight, seven, six, five—until she passed the last house and reached the corner.

  To her right, on the next block, was the hulk of the fire station, and tucked beside it, like a holstered weapon, the police station. She passed it by, then passed two blocks of stores. At the curb, heart pounding, she stopped.

  The post office was ahead, a pretty brick building that glittered in the mist, with a parking lot so roomy and open as to invite patrons to visit, and beyond the post office and the block of stores used by all yet considered no man’s land, was Grannick’s college half.

  Turn back, came a cry from inside, but her feet wouldn’t move. She was riveted to the sight of the students who, even in the mist, came from the campus for a late night cappucino or pizza.

  With a cry of raw envy and an even deeper sorrow, she whirled around and half-ran, half-walked back in the direction from which she’d come. She distracted herself by ticking off the stores she passed, one after another, one block, then the next. She was approaching the police station when a cruiser came from behind her and drew to a stop just ahead. She slowed as she reached it, then, with a breathless little sigh, stopped.

  “Hi, sweetheart,” came a kindly voice from the driver’s window.

  “Hi, John.”

  “Out for a walk?”

  She tucked her hands behind the bib of her overalls, looked out across the street, and shrugged. “Guess so.”

  “Startin’ to sprinkle,” he said in that same kindly voice, more friend than cop, more father than friend. “Climb in. I’ll give you a lift home.”

  Brushing the dampness from her eyes, she rounded the cruiser and slid into the front seat. Once they were on their way, she said, “It was too quiet at home. It made me think.”

  He drove slowly down the street. The wipers arced intermittently, allowing for a blurring before reality came clear.

  “Hard, with the girls gone,” he said.

  “Mmm. The days before they left were so busy. Now, nothing.”

  “Where’s Doug?”

  “Chicago.”

  “When’ll he be home?”

  “Thursday night.” The cruiser turned left off LaGrange at the Berlo estate, onto Sycamore. John studied the road ahead. Emily studied him. He wasn’t in uniform. “Why are you out so late?” she asked. He normally worked days, leaving nightly rounds to his deputies. “Is something wrong?”

  “No.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “I was restless. My place was quiet, too.”

  “What’s Kay doing?”

  “Reading.”

  Emily smiled fondly. “I shouldn’t have asked.”

  John made a right onto Walker and drove along at an exemplary pace. “She likes to read. Says it’s important. For school.”

  Kay had a successful career. Emily didn’t envy it exactly. But there was something to be said for
having a whole other life. “She’s very good at what she does.”

  “Huh.” He turned left onto China Pond and cruised until he reached the house at the end on the right.

  Self-conscious now that she was safely home, Emily said, “Thanks, John. I’m glad I didn’t have to walk all the way home.”

  “You’d have got wet.”

  “Probably.”

  “Think of that next time. Better still, call us next time. We’ll meet you halfway.”

  “Not if Kay’s reading.”

  “Then I’ll meet you myself.”

  “I really am okay,” she insisted. “I don’t want you worrying about me.”

  “If not you, who, now that Marilee’s gone?”

  Emily opened her mouth to argue, but the words didn’t come. The truth was that she treasured his watchfulness.

  Leaning across the seat, she kissed his cheek. Then she slid out of the car, closed the door, and ran through the drizzle to the house.

  Kay called first thing Tuesday morning. “John said he gave you a lift last night. Are you all right?”

  “I’m fine,” Emily said. It was a new day. She felt better.

  “Want me to come over?”

  “No need. Things just crowded in. But I’m okay now.”

  “When’s Doug due home?”

  “Thursday night. I want to do some baking, actually.”

  “Strawberry-rhubarb pie.”

  “How did you guess?”

  “It’s the first one of yours I ever tasted. Doug’s favorite. You were making it for him way back when. Hey, I have some shopping to do before school starts. Why don’t you make your pie, then come with me. We’ll do lunch.”

  “I’d better stick around here, in case Jill calls.”

  “Did she say she would?”

  “No, but I’d hate her to get the machine and think that I’m suddenly out running around now that she’s gone. I want her to know I’m here if she needs me.”

  Kay was quiet for a minute before saying a soft, “Don’t do this to yourself, Emily. Jill will love school.”

  Emily anchored nervous fingers on a fistful of the huge T-shirt she wore. “I hope so. But I worry.”

  “So do I. More about you than the girls. You need to get out of that house.”