Always You (3 page)

To the left of the pool Chiara noticed something new—well, new to her, given that she hadn’t visited the park in awhile. Where there had once been a stand of evergreens stood a second playground to balance the one that had always existed to the right of the wading pool. The right side playground was for older children while the left side, with its shorter, fatter slides, squat merry-go-round and seesaw, and swings outfitted with safety bars was clearly for toddlers. The red reclining baby swings drew Chiara’s eye. Even though the swings held fluffy blankets of undisturbed snow, Chiara had no trouble picturing a tiny baby bundled up and strapped into the seat for a glorious ride in the shade of the interlocked canopies of giant oaks and elms. Shaking that image free from her brain, Chiara moved on.

She came to the wide cobbled road separating the north side of the park from the south, and she spent a moment gazing at the Turkish pavilion under which she and John Mahoney had once pretended to be guardians of the cave hiding Ali Baba’s treasure.

She skirted outside the nimbus of light provided by a pair of iron lampposts on either side of the road as she crossed it, and then she disappeared behind a thick wall of well-manicured yew bushes.

Pausing, she took the time to savor the sight before her. She loved Tower Grove Park, and before her stood the ruins, one of the reasons why.

She never felt that she was truly home until she’d visited the ruins. The scene was more beautiful than she could have hoped, certainly more so than she remembered. The big willows, their feathery branches glistening with ice and snow, stood still in the windless night as they hung over the big reflecting pool with the stone fountain.

Turned off for the season, the fountain was the centerpiece of the pool, which was so full of snow Chiara couldn’t distinguish the brick-lined drop-off from the even ground surrounding it.

Snow began to fall steadily and softly, and so quietly that Chiara had the feeling that she’d stepped into a postcard of the park in winter.

She broke out of her reverie to circle to the incomplete stone wall edging the far side of the reflecting pool. The wall, built from bricks salvaged from the demolition of the Lindell Hotel over a century ago, was the mock ruin that had given the area its name. Chiara automatically went to the archway in the wall and counted three bricks in and four bricks down. She had to kick away a good foot of snow to find the brick with the chink, which marked the “hidey hole,” the secret mailbox that she and John Mahoney had dug out two decades ago.

The hidey hole had been created during one of their more elaborate childhood adventures, a game called Runaway to the Railroad, which had been inspired by a fifth-grade school assignment about St. Louis abolitionist Mary Meachum, a free black woman who hatched a plan to help nine runaway slaves flee the slave state of Missouri across the Mississippi River into free Illinois. John had portrayed one of the slaves, with Chiara in the role of Meachum.

John, who knew a thing or two about being treated like a captive, had thrown himself into the part with such vigor that Sybille Hasse—who’d been minding her own business sucking on a Pixy Stick before Chiara drafted her to play the role of the St. Louis sheriff who’d foiled Meachum’s plan—had fled the park in tears after being directed to turn John over to slave catchers, played by twin brothers Roy and Randy Cates.

Roy and Randy, their identical blue eyes flashing, their duplicate blonde, bowl-cut hairdos swinging, had looked like bookends as they’d wrestled a struggling John into wrist shackles made of Chiara’s knee socks.

Mrs. Hasse later made a visit to Abby Winters, which had forced Chiara and John to file away Runaway to the Railroad with their other banned favorites: The William Tell Game, The Electric People Game, and The Cannibal Game.

They’d grown older and abandoned their imaginary pursuits for more intimate games at the ruins, but Chiara and John had never outgrown the hidey hole. As had been her habit through the years, Chiara eagerly pulled out the heavy blonde brick and stuck her mittened hand into the hole. She broke into her first smile in over a week when she withdrew a tiny white box tied with white satin ribbon.

She and John would exchange Christmas gifts properly later, so she didn’t expect anything extravagant as she pulled the ribbon free from the box. She lifted the tiny lid and laughed out loud when she saw a tiny stack of four postage-stamp sized chocolates.

The treats were frozen solid, but that didn’t stop Chiara from hastily undressing one of them and popping it into her mouth. The taste of rich dark chocolate flavored with anise coated her tongue and filled her with warmth. For years, she and John had communicated through gumballs, shoestring licorice, Bazooka Joe comics, oddly colored stones and whatever else they thought would be of interest to each other. Chuckling, Chiara replaced the brick, thanking her lucky stars that John’s taste in hidey hole trinkets had matured, just as he had.

She felt a little guilty, though. She was so consumed with her feelings about Zhou, she hadn’t thought to bring an offering for John. Her last visit to the ruins had been in June, when she’d popped into town for two days to meet newborn Niema. John had left a tiny piece of beach glass for her, a keepsake he’d collected during a weekend they’d spent in St. Kitts. Chiara had left nothing for him, and despite that, he’d gone and filled the hole in anticipation of her Christmas visit.

The park was a favorite spot of all the Winters girls. But for Chiara, John was the reason the ruins were so special.

Chiara used her foot to kick the snow back in front of the secret brick, and she thought about the sunny day she first met John Mahoney. Every Sunday, her Grandma Claire would send her, Kyla and Cady to Magnolia Baptist Church for the mid-day service, and every Sunday, fifteen-year-old Cady would steer her younger sisters left, into Tower Grove Park, instead of right, into the church.

After pooling the offering meant for the church, they would go to the 7-Eleven on Morganford and buy Razzles and Slurpees, then go to the ruins. Usually, Cady would lie in the shade of a linden tree reading whatever book she was currently in, while eleven-year-old Kyla danced about the sun-bleached stones, lost in one of her fantasies about charming princes. At eight, Chiara was content to sit at the edge of the reflecting pool, weaving crowns made of dandelions, or making leaf tents for the caterpillars she caught.

The best Sundays were the ones when all three sisters played together, when Cady forgot to be a moody, bossy teenager and Kyla allowed them to share her colorful imaginings.

The ruins didn’t belong to them, but they’d been accustomed to having the place to themselves on Sundays. On the day they discovered John Mahoney, the pastor’s grandson, sitting on the wall as though awaiting their arrival, they’d each felt a sense of dread. For Chiara, who was in the same class as John at school, that dread had been mixed with fury.

“What are you doing here?” she’d demanded of the scrawny little brown boy in his austere black suit. His hazel-grey eyes twinkling, he’d said nothing as he watched Cady and Kyla withdraw to the opposite side of the ruins.

“I’m playing with you,” John had told her.

Rolling her eyes, Chiara had stalked back to her sisters. But under John’s friendly stare, it had been impossible to get back into the swing of their game. Every Sunday thereafter, John would sit on the wall, most of the time arriving before Chiara and her sisters, and all he would do was sit on the wall, sweating in his Sunday suit.

Everything changed the day Cady directed her sisters in an adventure inspired by her latest read,
The Three Musketeers
. She’d had no problem casting the roles of Porthos and Artemis, but she’d only managed to confuse herself trying to play both Athos and D’Artagnan.

“Hey you,” Cady had called to the sweaty boy on the wall. “Do you want to be a Musketeer?”

Before Cady’s inquiry was complete, John had leaped from the wall with a battle cry of “All for one and one for all!” And from that moment on, their drafted D’Artagnan had truly become their fourth Musketeer. It wasn’t until months later that Chiara learned how much John’s participation in their Sunday activities had cost him.

Where John was a wildly enthusiastic participant in their Sunday play dates, on Mondays, at school, he would keep to himself. While Chiara was bossing as many kids as she could in games of Freeze Tag and Four-Square during recess, John would retreat to the big sweet gum tree in the farthest corner of the schoolyard. From a distance, he would watch Chiara’s games, and she in turn would peep at him, wondering how he could be so animated and imaginative at the park and such a dud at school.

The first day she joined him under the sweet gum tree was the last time she ever played at recess. She’d approached him at the tree close to the end of their second grade year. John had sat with his knees pulled up to his chin and his arms circled around his knees. He’d hidden his face in the hollow formed by his arms, but Chiara could still hear him sniffling.

“What’s the matter with you?” she’d asked as indifferently as she could.

“My back hurts,” John had said, his voice congested with tears.

“Did you hurt it yesterday at the park?”

Without lifting his head, John shook it.

Chiara’s eyes moved over him, seeing nothing out of the ordinary until her gaze landed on the short sleeves of his St. Louis Cardinals T-shirt. The skin of his right arm, just at the edge of his cuff, was striped with painful looking red welts.

“You got a whippin’ yesterday?” Chiara had asked in horror.

“My mother whips me every Sunday,” John had confessed into his arms.

“What for?” Chiara had demanded angrily. “What’d you do?”

“I go to the park.”

Chiara hadn’t known how to respond, other than to sit close to John and bark at any child who dared come near them. The next Sunday when John showed up at the park, he and Chiara played with their usual abandon, but also with a sense of defiance that made their games more enjoyable. And on Monday, when John retreated into his own world of hurt, Chiara willingly kept him company.

She pulled herself from the ancient memory that remained ever fresh in her heart and mind and tucked the remaining chocolates into her pocket. In coming to the ruins, she’d realized what would truly make her feel better in the aftermath of Zhou’s death. Quickening her step, she made her way back to John’s house.

Chiara had purchased the mukluks because she liked the way they looked, but as she crept around the Mahoney house, careful to remain close to the line of evergreens, Chiara was thankful for their stealth properties. The same qualities that enabled Yup’ik hunters to move about undetected allowed Chiara to hunt in secret too. Only her prey had two legs rather than four.

She peeped into the windows, ducking quickly whenever anyone turned his or her gaze her way. The Mahoney living room was large, with vaulted ceilings and wide, open spaces. It was probably twice the size of her mother’s, which had been packed with family and friends.

She moved on to the next set of windows, those belonging to the dining room. Tables draped in white linen and topped with Almadine’s fine silver lined one long wall. Gleaming Versailles-styled chafing dishes steamed atop the tables, and Chiara’s stomach grumbled when she eyed a five-tiered tower of sterling silver platters heavy with pastries covered in chocolate shavings, powdered sugar, colorful icings and glazed fruit. There was enough food to feed the entire neighborhood, yet Chiara could count only ten or eleven people in the house.

One person stepped up to the dessert tower. He wore tailored grey slacks and a sleek black lamb’s wool sweater the same dark hue as his neat afro. The sweater fit him perfectly, nicely highlighting his broad chest and shoulders and complementing the warmth of his pecan skin. Having given him the sweater a year ago, Chiara knew from experience that the sweater was as soft as it looked.

She took off one of her mittens and softly tapped her fingernails against the window.

The man swung his head from the assortment of éclairs and turned toward the window. Chiara had been looking at John Mahoney’s face for more than twenty years. She knew every line, every plane, every hollow and every quirk of expression. Yet when he turned her way, his brows slightly knitted in curiosity; Chiara was struck dumb by his beauty.

Men weren’t supposed to be beautiful, but John couldn’t accurately be described any other way. He’d been a good head shorter than she until eighth grade, when he returned from a six-week summer bible camp twenty pounds thinner and four inches taller than Chiara. Through high school his slender frame had filled out with muscle built from playing soccer, baseball and running track.

He’d become a real heartthrob at Hamilton-Foxx High with his trademark head of wild curls. The longer John’s hair grew, the looser the curls became, and girls—teachers, even—couldn’t keep their hands off it, despite glares and threats of violence from Chiara.

It was Cady who’d taken one look at John’s out-of-control hairdo and dubbed him Mahofro, a name that had stuck once Chiara delivered it to the rest of the student body.

John had allowed Chiara to shear him prior to the start of their freshman year at George Washington University, and he’d kept the same neat look ever since. As many times as she’d passed her hands over his soft, fragrant curls, looking at him now Chiara couldn’t wait to get her hands on him again.

John’s gaze traveled in her direction, but he was looking too high. Chiara exhaled a puff of air on the windowpane, producing a blank canvas of condensation. She used her fingertip to write !YEH on the glass. John’s eyes instantly went to the message. His fine, full mouth drew into a tiny smile, but he made no other outward sign that he’d seen her. He set down his dessert plate. Chiara furiously shook her head, and John caught her meaning. He took his plate with him and exited into the living room. Chiara had to press her cheek up to the glass to follow his progress. He spoke a few words to someone near the stairwell before he backed a step up the stairs, then turned and bolted up and out of sight.

* * *

Cecile Brunner’s thorny young vines had been cut back for the winter. Her oldest, thickest vines provided lots of sturdy hand and footholds free of thorns for Chiara to shimmy up the trellis. As she neared the roof overhanging the front porch, John’s window opened. Chiara launched herself up and into his waiting arms and allowed him to help her into his room.

“The fact that it’s Christmas Eve won’t stop my mother from shooting you if she catches you here,” John said. His dire warning was accompanied by a smile that took the last of the chill from Chiara’s heart. Without a word, she locked her arms around his neck and pressed her body into his, absorbing as much of his warmth as she could.

John’s arms moved into her coat to embrace her, his hands strong and comforting at her back and waist. “I heard about Zhou. I’m sorry.”

Chiara’s eyes stung, but for the time being, she had no more tears to cry. “It was all over the news in Chicago and Mr. Grayson sent out a company-wide e-mail about it. I still can’t believe he’s gone.”

John sighed heavily, and Chiara felt herself move along with his body. “You never know what’s going on with people,” he said into the top of her head. “Everything can look fine on the surface, but underneath it might be all rotten and ugly.”

She drew away from him and picked at the plate of desserts he’d brought up. “You sound like your mother. ‘Everything may be all lush and green on top, but underneath you have worms sucking on filth and decay.’ ”

“I didn’t say that,” John gently corrected. “You know that’s not what I meant.” He reached for her.

Chiara let him take her hand and walk her to the narrow bed he’d slept on for most of his childhood. He sat her on the stiff mattress, which was covered in a frothy pinkish-white Chenille duvet that was a far cry from the western and space age motifs John had favored as a boy.

“Zhou was the real deal,” Chiara insisted, her voice tightening. “What you saw was what he was. Did he ever strike you as the type who needed tranquilizers and sleep aids?”

“No, but maybe it was the medication that kept him on such an even keel.” John helped Chiara out of her coat and draped it over the straight back of his mother’s office chair. “You and Zhou were close, but I’m sure he drew the line at discussing his mental health issues with you.”

Chiara scooted farther onto the bed to rest against the backboard. She drew one foot up to the duvet.

“Nice boots,” John chuckled. “Is your woolly mammoth parked outside?”

“I love these boots.” Chiara stretched out a leg and examined her big, furry foot. “I could do jumping jacks up here in these and Almadine would never know it.”

John cleared his throat, his eyes tracing the length of Chiara’s leg. She wore form-fitting white pants and a matching mock turtleneck. White was Chiara’s best color, and she looked like a snow princess lounging on his old bed. The cold had put rosy kisses on the honey-brown plumps of her cheeks. If not for the sadness dulling the dark of her big pretty eyes, he would have crawled onto the bed with her, pulled the candy-colored duvet over them, and replaced the kiss of the cold with kisses of his own. Knowing exactly what she needed, John sat beside her and curled an arm around her.

Chiara readily nestled into his side, grateful for his solidness and concern. Her eyes moved over the gold-flocked wallpaper and blinding white moldings Almadine had installed after John left home. She didn’t have to try hard to see the room as it had been during John’s adolescence, when posters of planets and distant galaxies covered the walls, darkening the room to the point where Almadine referred to it as “John’s cave.” The hardwood floor, now covered with a plush pinkish-white carpet, had been a minefield of telltale squeaks. Even now when she had first entered his room, her feet had remembered where to step to keep the floor from betraying her presence.

Almadine had kept John’s old narrow twin, but she’d converted it into a day bed. John’s body was much taller and wider than it had been when he’d last lain in the bed, and his masculinity overwhelmed the extreme girliness of the room.

“What are you thinking about?” John asked.

“Work,” Chiara answered. “Mr. Grayson was acting really odd before I left. Odder than usual.”

“Yeah, he’s a weird cat,” John agreed with a yawn.

Chiara tipped her face up to his. “Sleepy?”

“My mother’s prayer meeting was more boring than usual this year. Granddaddy opened the meeting with a sermon about keeping Christ’s birthday holy.”

“Christ was born in March, not December. How come we don’t keep that day in March holy?”

“December, March, it doesn’t matter,” John said. “My grandfather keeps every day holy.”

“Did your mom invite Mrs. Coopersmith?” Chiara chuckled.

“No, they haven’t recovered from their last falling out. My mother’s not the forgiving type to begin with, and when Mrs. Coopersmith told her that she liked Kyla’s cookbook, my mother hit the roof.”

“Why? Just because my sister wrote a good book?”

“My mother hates that your family is so successful,” John said.

“No, she hates us, period,” Chiara clarified. An old anger began to stew deep in Chiara’s chest. Almadine Mahoney, from the first moment she’d met Chiara, had decided that she didn’t like her. In retrospect, Chiara realized that Almadine wouldn’t have liked any girl who’d shown an interest in John or his brother George. But when Mrs. Mahoney began actively searching for reasons to turn John against her, Chiara gave up on any attempt to earn the woman’s respect or admiration.

“To this day she doesn’t believe that my father was killed covering a story in the Middle East,” Chiara said. “She thinks he ran off with some other woman. Remember when she came to school for our fifth-grade play? She took one look at Cady, Kyla and me and had the nerve to ask me if my sisters and I had the same father.”

She drew her face into a severe scowl and pinched her voice into a parody of Almadine’s and said, “ ‘Your sister Cady is so much yellower than you, and your sister Kyla has a much thinner build. You’re half-sisters, aren’t you?’ ” Using her own angry voice, Chiara added, “I didn’t even know what a half-sister was, so I said ‘I don’t know,’ like some dumbass.”

John curled her deeper into an embrace. “Don’t let memories of my mother’s bad behavior upset you now.” He chuckled darkly. “She’s going to have something bigger to rage about soon enough. Save your strength for that.”

Chiara harrumphed. Inside, she wished that she could tell Almadine off once and for all.

“How are you feeling?” John tenderly stroked her arm through the warm knit jersey of her turtleneck. “Have you told your family about us yet?”

“I haven’t told anyone. I think Mr. Grayson thinks I’m hiding something, though. Right before I left, he sent me an e-mail saying that he was personally overseeing the inspection of the inventory, receipts and financial transactions made by me and Zhou on this last sales trip.”

“Yes, I know,” John said. “There’s not much that happens at USITI that the information systems department doesn’t know. We’re the electronic mailroom of the whole company. We know who’s getting fired, who’s getting hired, and who’s getting pegged for an internal investigation.”

“Why didn’t you call and tell me that Zhou and I were being audited internally?”

“Mr. Grayson calls for internal audits of financials and e-mail accounts all the time. They’re the technological equivalent of random drug tests. You and Zhou were overdue for an audit. You’re not hiding anything, are you?” John teased.

“Of course not.”

“Well, that’s why I didn’t tell you. I didn’t think it was a big deal. According to the scope of the audit, Mr. Grayson is more interested in Zhou than in you.”

“Even so, I swear, that man can smell a secret.”

“He couldn’t smell Zhou’s,” John pointed out.

“I told you,” Chiara insisted. “Zhou was not using drugs. I would have known. He was distraught about something in Tokyo, and he’d had a little too much booze, but he wasn’t strung out or high. He was upset, and he never told me why.

“Who knows, maybe that was the secret he was keeping from me,” Chiara reluctantly considered. “Maybe he did have a problem with prescription drugs. It’s not like we weren’t exposed to samples from just about every pharmaceutical manufacturer in North America and Asia.”

John brushed his lips across Chiara’s crown. “Everyone has secrets, Chi.”

“What’s yours, John?”

“Same as yours, baby,” he smiled softly.

“May I assume that you haven’t shared your secret with Almadine?”

John winced on a sharp intake of breath. “Hell, no. I’ve got enough to figure out without my mother screeching about hellfire and white-hot pitchforks poking at my private parts.”

“Is there a problem with the new office?” Chiara draped one leg over John’s and turned her hip into him, bringing her thigh closer to John’s aforementioned parts. “You’re the wonder boy of USITI’s information systems. Mr. Grayson wouldn’t have put you in charge of establishing the St. Louis hub if he thought you couldn’t handle it.”

“I’ve got USITI covered. I’m going to Chicago right after New Year’s to give Mr. Grayson my December status report.” He leaned over Chiara, reaching past her to the walnut end table supporting a squat brass lamp. “It’s this I can’t figure out.” He grabbed a square of black paper about the size of a credit card and placed it in Chiara’s hand. “You got me, baby.”

Chiara examined the tiny black paper and saw that it was actually an envelope bearing a broken USITI security seal. She opened it and shook out a clear plastic card bearing a greenish-black square of silicon thinner and smaller than a standard stamp. She drew in a loud breath, releasing it on a shudder. Cold dread bloomed in her fingertips and spread inward until it clutched at her heart, making it difficult for her to breathe. “Th-This is USITI property,” she stammered. “Mr. Grayson…Zhou must have…how did you get this?”

John sat up and turned a bit sideways to fully face her. “It was in the hidey hole last week,” he explained, his forehead drawn in taut lines of concern. “What is it, Chiara?”

“It’s a master chip,” she told him, her voice cracking. Her head swam with nausea as sick understanding moved through her. Closing the chip in her fist, she stood up and anxiously paced the floor, mindless of the creaky areas beneath the carpet. Hands on her hips, she bent her knees and leaned forward. “I think I’m going to be sick.”