Beyond Midnight (26 page)

"
Leave the poor man be.
"

"
What
'
s the prize?
"
came a voice from behind them.

Both heads swung in unison. Nat Byrne, book in hand, was standing in the doorway to the kitchen, an amused smile on his face. It was anyone
'
s guess how much he
'
d heard.

Becky had the decency to blush; but that didn
'
t last long. Warming to the idea of a sale, she said promptly,
"
First prize is a propane barbecue and a resin patio set. Six chairs and a picnic-sized table with adjustable feet, and two little tables. And an umbrella in your choice of three colors, either solid or stripes. With a base, of course. And nothing will ever need painting!
"

Nat nodded, suitably impressed. Helen pictured the plastic chairs in the exquisitely understated elegance of his brick-walled garden with its ancient vines and weeping specimen trees, and had to repress a shudder.

"
Since I don
'
t have time to paint,
"
Nat said with a deadpan face,
"
I guess I
'
d better buy a couple of tickets. How much?
"

"
Five dollars each. By
'
a couple,
'
do you mean two or do you mean three?
"
asked Becky, hawking shamelessly.

He smiled again.
"
Say, three.
"

He reached into his suit jacket and took out a slender billfold. Besides a Platinum credit card or two, Helen doubted that it held much. No photographs, no unfiled receipts. Just the essentials to get through situations like these.

He handed Becky a twenty. She said,
"
Oh, sorry, I don
'
t have any change.
"

"
Let
'
s call it four tickets and we
'
ll be even, then,
"
he said with a wry look.

"
Rebecca!
"
her mother said sharply.
"
Bring me my bag. I
'
ll find the the change.
"

"
Mother—we already have a deal. Thanks, Mr. Byrne. I
'
ll get the tickets for you,
"
Becky said, and she bounced out of the kitchen.

Nat turned to Helen and said,
"
Remind me to offer her a job when she graduates. She
'
d make a helluva broker.
"

"
She
'
s never been shy,
"
Helen noted dryly.

"
Is that what Russ is?
"

So Nat had noticed the short shrift he
'
d got from her son. But then, he
'
d have to have been in a coma not to. Helen turned away to retrieve a couple of mugs from the cupboard.
"
You know how boys are at that age,
"
she said vaguely.

"
I thought I did, having been one myself,
"
Nat answered.
"
But I don
'
t remember the
...
hostility.
"

Helen winced, then turned to him and said in an upbeat but lowered voice,
"
It
'
s all a front, really. Behind that tough-guy facade is a soft little marshmallow.
"

She filled one mug, then set it on a wooden tray along with cream and sugar as Nat pondered her words. He surprised her with his next question:
"
Do you date much?
"

"
For goodness
'
sakes, why do you ask?
"
she said in a ridiculously carefree voice. In the meantime she misjudged the distance between the coffee decanter and the second mug, smacking the glass on the rim of the cup. The decanter didn
'
t shatter, but the crack made it unusable. New decanter: twenty dollars. Now they were even.

"
Okay, it
'
s none of my business,
"
he admitted.
"I just thought that maybe ...
you know
...
he wasn
'
t crazy about having father-age figures around. That he might have a problem with it.
"

"
None that I know of,
"
she said, which was true, as far as it went. She hadn
'
t dated at all. How could she know how Russell would react? She added softly,
"
You
'
re only borrowing a book, Nat.
"

He was embarrassed by the implicit reproach.
"
You
'
re right, you
'
re right. Too much Oedipal theory. It
'
s your fault,
"
he said, rallying.
"
You
'
re the one who lent me the books.
"

She laughed at that and the moment passed. After that she took him back to her sitting room, the most private room in the house. It was Helen
'
s sanctuary, a place where generally she was left undisturbed.

Or not. Before they had taken two sips of coffee, before they had decided on an arbitrary topic of conversation, Becky was back with the raffle tickets.

"
Here they are,
"
she said, thrusting them at him.
"
The drawing is in three weeks.
"

He took them and slid them into his wallet.
"
Would it be impolite to ask who benefits?
"
he asked gravely.

"
No, it wouldn
'
t be impolite,
"
said Becky, giggling. She plopped down on the big tufted hassock that sat between the deep-cushioned chairs that held her mother and him.

"
It
'
s for the soccer team,
"
she explained.
"
We need new uniforms and jackets and stuff
...
and, like, one of the girls has a dad who owns a hardware store, and he agreed to donate the prizes. We thought it would be easier than a bake sale. Nobody knows how to bake.
"

"
More
'
s the pity,
"
said Helen to her daughter
'
s back.
"
It would give you something to do evenings.
"

But Becky wasn
'
t taking the hint. She wanted to talk, and talk she did—about the team
'
s record, about the team
'
s chances, about the team
'
s last and best game. After that she felt at ease enough to tell Nat all about the injury she suffered a year earlier when someone kicked her—absolutely accidentally—in the kidney. But now all the doctor
'
s restrictions were off and she was back to being a goalie again. And she baby-sat when she wasn
'
t playing soccer or meeting with the French Club or prowling the malls. She was really a
very
busy person.

Except tonight. Nat, having drunk his coffee, stood up at the first instant that could reasonably be considered a pause and thanked Helen for the book and for the coffee, and then beat it.

Helen was, to put it mildly, in a state. She had raised her daughter to be po
li
ter than that. She marched through the front hail back to the sitting room where Becky was sitting, still on the hassock, with her head in her hands. Becky looked up when her mother came in.

"
Mom! Why didn
'
t you stop me? It was like, I couldn
'
t shut up. I started and then I just kept going. He made me feel so nervous! I could die. I could just. . . die.
"
She dropped her head back onto her hands.

Preempted of her lecture, Helen said,
"
It
'
s probably because we don
'
t often have visitors who
'
re so cute.
"

Becky moaned.
"
Do you think he heard me?
"

"
I think his daughter in
Switzerland
heard you.
"

"
Don
'
t
say
that!
"

Helen ended up by feeling sorry for her inexperienced, impressionable daughter. Putting aside her own feeling of being robbed of a treat, she said,
"
I guarantee that he didn
'
t notice you were acting goofy. You sounded just like any other sixteen-year-old. Just don
'
t do it again. After all, normally you sound like an eighteen-year-old.
"

It was the right thing to say. Reassured that on her worst day she was still a cut above average, Becky kissed her mother and went to her room, probably to record the entire humiliation in her diary.

And later, when Helen was in her nightgown and almost
asleep, Becky knocked softly on the door and came inside and sat in the dark on her mother
'
s bed.

"
So why did he come, if not for the book?
"
she whispered.

"
He came for the book.
"

"
No, really, Mom. You two acted like old friends.
"

"
Friends! How could you possibly tell? We hardly got a word in edgewise.
"

"
But when you did. You just seemed to know each other. To trust each other.
"

Which is exactly how Helen had felt.
"
I
...
suppose it
'
s because we have Katie
'
s interests in common,
"
she said, hedging.

"
Is that how it is when you meet someone right? You feel like old friends without hardly knowing each other?
"

"
Becky.
"
Helen reached for her daughter
'
s hand in the dark, and then she sighed.
"
Yes, honey. That
'
s something how it would be like.
"

"
Is that how it was when you met Dad?
"

"
Oh,
well,
with your dad it was entirely different.
"

"
Different, how?
"

"
For one thing, he was available,
"
Helen said, smiling.

"
Mr. Byrne is available.
"

"
Mr. Byrne is in mourning.
"

"
He didn
'
t look in mourning. He looked perfectly normal.
"

"
Men don
'
t show their grief the way women do.
"

"
Maybe they don
'
t grieve the way women do.
"

"
Maybe.
"

"
Maybe they don
'
t grieve at all.
"

It was a startling hypothesis from one so young.

"
I suppose the cruel ones don
'
t,
"
Helen admitted.
"
The cold ones. The con-men—
"

"
And the murderers. The serial killers.
"

"
Now we
'
re talking nonsense. My point is, Mr. Byrne came by because he wants to be a better father. Not be
cause—"