Somebody Else's Daughter (41 page)

She held up a pair of scissors and wiggled her eyebrows menacingly and said, in her regular voice, “Do you trust me?”

He looked at her carefully. “Yes, I trust you.” In fact, she was the first woman he had ever fully trusted.

“Good.” She kissed him again and when their lips came apart he repeated her question.

She looked at his face, her hand on his cheek. “Yes,” she said. “I totally trust you.”

He brought her chin down and kissed her. “Good.”

She stood back up. “You are ready, ya?”

“Ya,” he said. And then she picked up the scissors and cut off his beard.

Instinctively, his hand went up to feel the fur that was no longer there. He felt a little worried. But Claire was confident. Like an artist, she stood back appraising her work. “Better already,” she said.

Then she took the can of shaving cream and shook it up—she was enjoying herself immensely—her power over him—her breasts in his face as she sprayed a creamy pile into her hand and patted it on his cheeks. It was turning him on. He gripped her waist, pulling down her boxer shorts, suddenly curious to know if it was possible to shave and fuck at the same time.

It just might be, he thought.

“Look at you,” she said later. “You're gorgeous.”

She handed him the mirror. Reflected there, he saw his old self, his father's square chin, his mother's wide cheekbones. His face had been beaten up over time, the beard had hidden some of the lines. He'd been hiding behind it for too long. He was glad to be rid of it.

He caught Claire staring at him like a long-lost relative. She couldn't seem to keep her hands off him. They stayed in bed all morning, finally stumbling downstairs at one o'clock to find Teddy eating lunch. "Man, what happened to you?”

"I got a shave.”

“You look naked.” Teddy looked at him. “How does it feel?”

“Smooth.”

“You look different, man. Younger.”

“Same old me,” he said.

Teddy wanted to go snowboarding and Nate offered to take him. With years of practicing on a skateboard, Teddy was an avid snow-boarder. Nate had learned to ski as a small child, when his father would take him to Killington every Christmas. They rented a small chalet there. It was the only time Nate could remember his father actually being proud of him. The slopes were crowded with tourists who'd come up for the day. There was a long lift line. He heard a lot of New York accents. Riding on the chairlift, Teddy seemed anxious to talk and when he asked Nate if he'd ever been with a prostitute, Nate understood that the boy's sudden urge to go skiing was about more than getting his exercise.

“Not intentionally,” Nate said. “Not that I know of.”

“What do you mean?”

“When I was younger, I did some stupid stuff. Drugs. I slept with a lot of women.”

“I know this girl,” he said uncertainly. “She may be a prostitute.” He warily glanced at Nate, who translated the admission:
She's a prostitute.

“We did it, you know? We had sex. I just wanted to see what it was like.”

It wasn't Nate's place to start lecturing the boy on the risks of sleeping with a prostitute. “Why are you telling me this?”

“She's into drugs,” he said. “I don't trust her.”

“Are you doing drugs, Teddy?”

“No, but Willa is.” He blurted it out, as though he'd been holding it in for a long time. “I'm kind of worried about her.”

Nate felt himself tightening his grip on the handrail. He looked down at the ground and suddenly felt dizzy. “What kind of drugs?”

“Meth. The girl, her name's Pearl, turned her on to it.” Teddy explained how Willa had met the girl at Sunrise House. “I tried to ask Willa about it, but she won't talk to me. I think she hates me.”

“I doubt that.”

“I thought she loved me.” He looked at him.

“Maybe she does. Hate and love get tangled up sometimes.”

“I want to make her stop,” Teddy said. “I want to—” But he couldn't finish, it was time to get off the lift and within seconds Teddy was halfway down the mountain. Nate went after him, but he wasn't a daredevil like the boy. It was very icy; he wanted to take his time. And all the way down, he couldn't shake the feeling that he'd left something behind.

The next morning, he went into school early to finish reading the journals. He was anxious to see if Willa had mentioned anything about the drugs. He couldn't help feeling responsible, as if there were some genetic reason for her wanting the meth, as though the hunger for it ran in her blood.

Pulling onto campus, into the empty faculty lot, he noticed a young woman sitting on a bench outside the main office. It was nearly seven and the place was deserted, but in less than an hour the buses would arrive. Nate had never seen the girl before, but she was young—too old to be a student—but pretty close. She sat there waiting, it seemed, for someone, and she was smoking. There was a no-smoking rule on campus. She had on a white coat, some sort of fake rabbit, and a skirt without stockings, her white calves shaking slightly in the cold, unsuitable white pumps on her feet. Nate went over to her. “Hello?”

“Hello.” He detected an accent. She grinned, showing off a grim set of teeth.

“Can I help you with something?”

She dragged on her cigarette, squinting in the smoke. “Maybe.”

“You're not supposed to smoke, there's a rule.”

“There's nobody here.”

“Not now, but soon. The buses will start pulling in.”

She shrugged and put it out, twisting the butt into the bottom of her shoe.

“Are you waiting for someone?”

She showed him a newspaper advertisement. “Greer Harding.”

“I see.”

“There is job,” she said. “I want to clean.”

“It's cold. Do you want to wait in my office?”

“No, I wait here.”

“Are you sure?”

“She is nice lady?”

“Ms. Harding?” Nate hesitated. “You could say that.”

“She will give me job?”

“Yes, I think so,” he said, wanting to reassure her.

She folded her arms over her chest. “I will wait. It's okay.”

He left her there and went into Walden House and took the stack of journals off the shelf and began with Willa's:

Willa didn't come to school that day and Nate felt at a loss. Against his better judgment, he drove over to their house after school. Pulling up the long driveway, his mind reeled back to that day full of rain. It had been like a dream, he recalled, with the windows all fogged up. Nothing had seemed real.

He parked and walked to the door. It was a wide door from another century, painted a glossy black. He used the brass knocker. Joe Golding opened it. His face was cold, and for a moment Nate thought he'd recognized him. Instead, he shook his hand. “You shaved,” he said.

“Yeah.”

Joe looked at him again with that same cold expression.

“Teddy told me about the drugs,” Nate said.

“She's in her room. We had to lock her in.”

They stood for a moment in the foyer. Nate could hear her upstairs like a caged animal, throwing things against her door.

“Is there anything I can do?” Nate asked.

“No,” Joe said, his eyes hooded, dark. “She'll be all right.”

It was not his place to be here, Nate realized. Whatever was going on with Willa was none of his business. “If you need anything . . .”

Joe nodded his thanks and closed the door.

In the truck, Nate had a memory of Cat, sitting on the floor of their apartment, sick. They hadn't been able to score; they didn't have any cash. Her body shook. She cried out, she wept for it. He had to talk her through it. It wasn't easy. She hit him, she bound herself up in his arms. He had tried to contain her like some kind of watery creature. Finally, as the sun was coming in, they'd fallen asleep. When he'd woken later, he saw what she'd done to him, his body mottled with bruises.

On the front lawn of Larkin's place, a group of kids were making a snowman. Nate was glad to be home. He pulled into the back and parked in the old carriage house. It occurred to him that he wasn't well, he was covered with sweat. He thought he might have a fever. He went up to the apartment, hearing his neighbor's somber cello, and poured himself a drink. He lay on the couch, drinking, watching the snowflakes drift outside the windows. He realized he'd begun to cry.

The phone rang, but he refused to answer it, even though he knew it was Claire. He could hear her voice on the machine, begging him to pick up. But he could not bring himself to talk to her. He could feel himself slipping into a familiar dark place, dark as a grave and cold, where nothing lived.

41

In her face,
was a fitting expression for the girl, because everywhere Maggie went, that's who she saw. Dressed in a white cleaning uniform, a nurselike shift that buttoned down the front, and old white tennis shoes, the girl was the image of an ardent employee. With her stringy hair pulled back in a ponytail, she would wander around with her duster, her face flushed, her lips wet. There was no sign of any pregnancy, the girl was thin as a straight pin. Maggie walked in on her one afternoon in the girls' lavatory, smoking. She flicked the cigarette into the toilet, then dropped to her knees and started scrubbing. They did not speak to each other. Maggie had complained to Greer, saying that the girl was rude, insolent, but Greer had countered, “She's very thorough. She hardly speaks English! I don't know what you're talking about.
And
she's cheaper than the cleaning service. Besides,” Greer added with relish, “Jack wants her.”

“I don't know why you're doing this to us,” Maggie hissed at him.

“Look,” he said, giving her a wrinkled smile. “She needs help. Maybe the job will improve her circumstances.” The expression on his face was familiar, one he wore to church or reserved for his favorite charities. Maggie wanted to slap it right off his face.

“She is not a charity, Jack.”

His face darkened and in the fleeting moment she detected a smidgen of empathy.

The girl had figured out how to be a nuisance. Perhaps she'd decided that if she harassed them enough she'd actually get something for her trouble. She'd call the house at all hours of the day and night, either sobbing or giggling into the phone. Just last night, the phone woke her at four in the morning. Maggie picked it up and heard people in the background, noises that conjured in her mind the atmosphere of a bar—the girl's voice sounded raspy and worn. “Is Jack there?” she said.