Bad People (8 page)

“Really? I might be married.”

“You don’t wear a ring.” The skin on her ring finger where the band had been was still white.

“I might be a little older than you think I am.”

“I’m not even going to respond to that.”

“Just coffee, yeah?”

“No, forget coffee. Dinner. I will take you to dinner.”

“From lunch down to coffee and now all the way up to dinner. I’ll think about it, okay?”

“Great. I’ll be able to get in touch with you here.”

“You’re persistent aren’t you?”

Luke smiled.

“Oh Lord. Let me think.” She put her fingers in her hair. “You know. I think on second thought…”

Losing her. He made himself relax, ease off, then circle back around feigning indifference, then suddenly engaging again. Hard work, but he concentrated, he made his face vulnerable, irresistible, and kind. He made his voice chime with honesty. “Don’t say no. You’re about to, please don’t. Let’s do it for fun.”

“Fun?”

“Life should have more fun in it.”

“You know, I guess you are right about that.”

“Only a moment ago you were saying it’s about faith and trying new things.”

“We were talking about investing in real estate.”

“It’s all the same thing though. It’s all part of life

“You make a persuasive case—.” She stopped. “I just realized you don’t know my name.”

“You’re Connie Hart Wexler, says so on the flyer you gave me.”

“I go by Connie Wexler now.”

“Ah. Divorced,” he said working sympathy in.

She shook her head unconsciously and he wouldn’t have had to know the truth as intimately as he did to tell she was about to lie to him about it.

“Separated,” she said.

He allowed himself to believe it, and showed her that he believed it. If this was a porno and she was some older porn-goddess like Nina Hartley or Ginger Lynn her shorts would be at her ankles now. But this was even better than that, this was so real. She was hot and smart and she owned businesses and she wanted something. He felt the ceiling lift off the room, off his own head. All he had to do was find what she wanted and give it to her. One thing.

That simple.

He could have her.

Chapter 10: Connie

As she stood in the hall of the new condo in Meridian Valley on the night of her get-together with the young guy Luke, trying on outfits like a seventeen-year-old, Connie’s own seventeen year-old, Stephen-David, slipped by her on his own way out to his own evening engagement. He gave his mother not even so much as a side-glance. He must have forgotten something, because he went back, wordlessly again, to his bedroom. She called to him. He didn’t stop, so when he came back the other way again she stepped in front of him. He tried to sidestep her, so she moved and blocked him again.

“What?” he said.

She was holding two different earrings, one from each set that she’d narrowed it down to for now. She held them up to her ears, and gave him a “which one” look.

“You want
me
to tell you?” he said, his jaw slack with feigned stupidity, and real indifference.

“Do you have an opinion?”

“No.”

“You can’t try?”

“No.”

She clamped her hands closed, squeezed the earrings tight until the metal and the tiny delicate stones dug into her palms. “Thanks for your help,” she told him.

He stood there and watched her and she put one set of earrings on and dropped the other set on the hallway table. “Getting ready for a date and who’d have thought at your age.”

“Not funny. Are you angry with me?”

“Should I be?”

“Maybe. I don’t know.”

“I’m not so much.”

“Are you feeling boxed in here?”

“No. I’m mean you’ve got me sleeping in a room the size of my old room’s closet. But I deal. I’m a survivor.”

Connie and her son had been in the condo a month now, but it was not really big enough for them. She could have gotten a bigger place, but the tiny-ness appealed to her. Stephen-David would be leaving for college next year in any case. Then it would be her and only her, and she didn’t want to think of a big place all alone for herself, living like an old widow—which was what she was. So she bought the tiny place. “I think you hate me more for making you move in here than for anything else I’ve done since…”

“It’s not a thing I distress about. And the dating either. Weren’t you on your way to divorce?”

“Who?”

“Dad and you. You were, weren’t you?”

“No absolutely not. Why would you think that?”

Stephen-David shook his head.

“Did your father say that? Anything like that?”

“Sure, all the time,” her son sneered.

“That’s mean of you.”

“Why? You know I’m being sarcastic.”

“That’s precisely why it’s mean. Your sarcasm is hurtful to people and you need to be mindful of that. Your effect on people.”

“I’m only kidding.”

“That’s no excuse. And we were fine, your Dad and I?”

“Why did your voice go up at the end when you said that? Are you telling me, or are you
asking
me.”

“
Telling
you. My voice didn’t go up.”

“It seems like he’s been dead a couple years at least, doesn’t it?”

“No. I don’t know. In some ways it seems he isn’t gone at all.”

“Yet here you are, with lipstick on.”

“Okay, you want me to feel bad. I do now. Good job.”

“That’s not what I mean. Life goes on, that’s all. It’s weird.”

“It is weird. Maybe you don’t think I should be going out tonight with Luke.”

“Oh, ugh. Does he have to have a name?”

“Well he has one.”

“Luke and Connie.”

She felt herself blush.

“See, even you don’t like it,” said her son.

“It’s only a social thing. It’s not serious at all.”

“Why not?”

“Because it’s not. We’re not…compatible.”

“Are you going to do it?”

“Don’t talk to me like that! I’m not even thinking like that. That’s a helluva thing to say to your Mom. You’re right, I shouldn’t be doing this, and I certainly shouldn’t have given him a name to you. You’re right. He doesn’t have a name. He’s an acquaintance. I’m going out with him tonight and that is the end of it. It’s cordial. I’ve already decided not to see him again.”

“I don’t think you have really decided that. Why go through with it at all in that case. Just blow it off. If you weren’t interested in hooking up with him you would.”

“No I wouldn’t.”

“Why not?”

She snapped. “Because it isn’t polite!”

She made herself take a deep breath.

“Look. He and I are two grown-ups. We’re going to dinner. We’re not hooking up, or whatever you choose to call it. I don’t ask you those questions, I don’t ask you who you’re ‘hooking up’ with. I probably should.”

“You probably should.”

She paused. “Okay then. Should I?”

“Why are you so fascinated?”

“To help you, that’s all. Are you doing okay?”

“Of course. My whole life is in upheaval, my Father was murdered and my Mom thinks she’s Dina Lohan.”

“You do hate me,” she said. Her fear. It slipped out.

“No, but I don’t think you’d be out on the town with
Luke
,”—he cut quotes into air—”if you were even half as upset as you think you’re supposed to be. I’m probably as happy he’s dead as you are—”

She put her hands on him, grabbed his shoulders and shook him with a force she didn’t know she had in her. His mouth formed an
O
in shock. “You are
not
happy your Father is dead. No!”

He twisted out of her grip. “Get away from me, lady!”

“Don’t call me lady! I’m your Mother!”

“Then act like it. What is it with you, do you have to be the center of attention forever? Go away! I don’t want to deal with your earrings and your boyfriends. You make me so crazy!”

“You are seventeen. Other people will not always arrange their lives around you. It is very inconvenient for you that your father died. It’s very inconvenient for you that your mother happens to be still alive. Well, deal. Start dealing now, because it isn’t going to get any easier as you go along in life, kiddo.”

“Kiddo?”

“Yes. Kiddo.” He had laughed and she laughed involuntarily, despite her anger, at the stupid sound of the word.

“It’s such a cliché we’re living,” said Stephen-David. His face screwed itself up in agony. “An Afterschool Special. Don’t you get sick of everything?”

“Life is not a cliché when it happens to you. It’s just your life.”

“Wise words, wise woman.”

“What’s that from?”

“Huh?”

“A TV show or something? What do you mean,
wise woman
? Is that a term?”

“No. I don’t know. What are you talking about?”

“I don’t know. What are you talking about? I’m only trying to get through to you. To talk to you. Like we used to.”

“Like when?”

Like when! Like his whole life. Like when he was a little boy and still knew he needed her. She squeezed his wrist. “Go see your friends. Or do you have a date?”

“Date? Mom, kids don’t
date
. The only ‘dating’ around here is being done by you.”

“It isn’t a date.”

“Okay, so neither of us has a date. I guess we’re a couple of losers.”

“Don’t say that.”

“Joking. Come on.”

“I know it’s trendy to talk that way. To talk yourself down, and call yourself
loser
or
slacker
or I don’t know what. But words have meaning, Stephen-David. If you begin to call yourself a thing, then you begin to believe you are that thing. I guarantee that is true. Whoever you are going to be, it has to start from inside.”

“Wow. I didn’t even have to pay you to hear that speech. What do they charge for those weekends you do. A few benjamins a head?”

“Don’t say
benjamins
. You’re not a gangster. I’m well compensated. And you drive a very safe late-model hybrid, and you have a very fashionable wardrobe and most importantly you’re going to go to a good college, thank you very much.”

“I’m a hypocrite. Okay.”

“No. And again you’re talking yourself down. You think it is funny and you think it is cool, but it’ll work against you. Try it my way for a while, see if it doesn’t make a difference in how you feel. In how you treat other people.”

“Mom, I don’t think this is quite the teaching moment that you think it is.”

“Could you go twenty-four hours without imposing negativity on yourself? Even on a bet? Every time you have a negative thought tonight, or anytime until tomorrow night, could you turn it around? You can always go back to negativity tomorrow. What have you got to lose, a night of cynicism? Can you spare that?”

“You want me to lie? I’ll lie if you want. I’ll make it convincing.”

“No. Please don’t.”

“Okay, Mom. Good talk.” He looked her up and down. “You better get going. You’ll be late for your date.” And then he turned his back on her.

She heard the front door slam on his way out.
He’s upset
, she told herself. He needed a counselor. Maybe she did too. He’d gotten so cruel so suddenly.

The results would be back on her HIV test in a day or two. Waiting was hell. She and Robb hadn’t had sex more than a handful of times in the past year. She could very well be safe. She had only to hang on a few more days and she’d know. Then she could start getting on with life.

She looked at her jeans. Her figure. She wouldn’t have worn these jeans a month ago. She’d bought them today after agreeing to go through on this date. She was acting like a desperate freaked-out middle-aged woman. The dinner was going to be a huge mistake. She checked the time. Still only quarter to eight.

She found her phone and dialed the number on Luke’s home-printed business card. She’d catch him and tell him it was off. She’d say she tried to call earlier, and that she’d gotten held up someplace. Nothing she could do.

She dialed the first three digits and the doorbell rang. Not the downstairs building buzzer but the actual doorbell. That wasn’t so strange, the lobby door closed slowing and often people walked right in. A safe neighborhood. But it couldn’t be Luke this early. No. Impossible. Had to be a friend of Stephen-David’s who’d just missed him. Or Stephen-David himself, coming back in and having forgot his key.