The Smart One (13 page)

“Are you sure? You look upset.”

“I do?”

“We can do this another time,” he said.

I looked at him, trying to figure out if he was giving me the brush off or if he was really just misreading me. “Why would I be upset?” I said.

“You’ve been through a lot lately. Clare told me you passed out cold when you found that body.”

“I did,” I said. “But that was days ago.”

“I can’t imagine what it must have been like.” He shuddered. “The closest I ever came to something like that was when my dog died. I was ten and I found him stiff. God, I was a wreck.”

“That must have been traumatic,” I said, remembering the summer our schnauzer, Stephanie, died. I was home from col
lege and working as a camp counselor. As I was getting ready to leave the house my mother asked me to take Stephanie in from the backyard. I opened the door and saw that she wasn’t on her tether. I glanced around and didn’t see her anywhere. I called her name but she didn’t come.

“She’s not out there,” I told my mom.

“She’s not?”

“Did you tether her?”

“No,” my mother said, biting her lip. “I was in a hurry and thought I’d just let her do her business and come right back in.”

I shuddered, remembering what happened to Stephanie the last time I let her roam free in the yard. We both walked outside and called her name.

“I don’t understand it,” my mother said. “I just let her out ten minutes ago. Where could she have gone?”

I walked behind the shed because it was the only spot in the yard you couldn’t see from the back porch. Stephanie was there, lying on her side, immobile. I rushed to her. She was alive, but barely. And instead of howling like she did that day when her leg got caught in the tether clip, she was quiet, panting in short breaths.

“Mom!” I screamed.

We rushed her to the vet, crying all the way. She wasn’t a young dog, but I wasn’t ready to lose her.

I sat in the back of the car cradling her in my lap as I whispered over and over, “You’re going to be okay, girl. I promise.” But when I put my hand in front of her mouth and her little tongue didn’t slip out and lick me, I wasn’t so sure.

“Please don’t let her die,” I said to Dr. Samalin, as he took her from my arms. She didn’t seem to be breathing by that point, and they made us stay in the waiting room as they tried to resuscitate her.

A short while later, the doctor came out with his head bowed. “I’m sorry,” he said. “She’s gone.”

I collapsed into my mother, not really paying much attention to what he said next. But later, when we told my father and sisters what had happened, I remembered that the doctor had said it was either heart failure or she had ingested something she wasn’t supposed to eat, like insecticide. There was no way of knowing without a necropsy, which we just couldn’t bear to do. And so we let the vet cremate her and were left to mourn together. The house never felt the same again after that.

“So,” Leo said, bringing his hands together, “how about Chinese?”

There aren’t many ten-minute activities as rejuvenating as the after-beach shower, and I was looking forward to this one even more than usual. I had sent Leo away, and wanted to stand under a steady stream of warm water far longer than was necessary, washing away the sand and grime and memories, getting clean, clean, clean, to emerge a fresh, new Beverly Bloomrosen. After about two minutes, however, the water turned tepid and then cold, so I washed my dirty self as fast as possible and got out, shivering. I dressed quickly and went into the basement to see if I could discern any problem with the hot water heater.

It didn’t take an expert to see that there was something wrong. The massive metal cylinder was sputtering and shaking, a steady stream of water pouring forth from a valve in the front onto the concrete floor of the basement.

“Shit.”

I ran to the valve but couldn’t find any way of shutting it off. A quick walk around the quivering machine didn’t offer any further clues, so I grabbed a bucket and put it under the spout, and then tried to remember if my father had ever told me where the shut-off valve for the water main was located.
I couldn’t find it in the basement or my memory banks. I picked up the phone and called Clare, who didn’t know either. But she said she’d come over and help me look for it so we wouldn’t have to bother Dad. Then I called the plumber whose magnetized business card was stuck on the refrigerator, and requested emergency service. They said it could be up to a few hours, and I got busy cleaning the water from the floor with towels and a mop.

By the time Clare got there, I had sopped up most it, and the hot water heater had stopped shaking and was only emitting a small trickle out of the spout. So we decided to just leave the bucket beneath it while we waited for the plumber to arrive.

Meanwhile, since Clare didn’t have to rush home, we ordered Chinese food and gave Joey a call to see if she was free or pulling one of her vanishing acts.

An hour later, the three of us sat in the kitchen passing around cartons while we chatted.

“So how was your date?” Clare asked me as she spooned brown rice onto her plate.

“Bev had a date?” Joey asked.

Clare opened the container of Hunan pork and sniffed it. “With my contractor.” She offered the carton to Joey. “Pork?”

Joey shook her head and reached for the egg foo young. “Cute?” she asked me.

I nodded.

“Get laid?”

“Hardly. He brought up dead dogs and I had meltdown thinking about Stephanie.”

“My baby sister,” Joey said, as if she had some kind of special right to the dog because she was the only one who didn’t have a little sister. I always felt that my bond with Stephanie
was the strongest and that she was, in fact,
my
dog. But I’ll concede that we all probably felt that way. She was a hell of a dog.

Clare shook her head. “She wasn’t even that old, poor thing.”

“Did we ever figure out what killed her?” Joey asked.

“Vet said she might have ingested something she shouldn’t have,” I reminded her.

Joey raised her eyebrows. “Where would Stephanie have
accidentally
found poison?”

“Maybe there was insecticide on the lawn or the trees,” Clare said.

“Or maybe she was murdered,” Joey said.

Clare frowned. “You’re joking, right?”

Joey shrugged and reached into her rice with chopsticks. “Remember how furious Waxman got when we let her run free in the yard?”

“And Mom
had
let her run loose that day,” I added, picturing how it might have happened. I imagined Stephanie squatting by the fence that divided our property from the Waxmans’. Sam could have been watching from his kitchen window as her urine seeped through the ground to his precious lawn. He might have had some rat poison he’d been saving since the day he maimed her with the tether clip when he was sure no one was looking. He could have walked to the corner of his yard with some hamburger laced with poison, and fed it to our sweet little dog, who would have been grateful for the treat. I could imagine her stubby tail wagging as her pink tongue pulled the poisoned food into her mouth.

“I can’t even think about this,” Clare said, putting her hands on her head as if she wanted to block it all out. Poor thing looked like she was about to melt into something goop
ier than the brown sauce Joey was spooning onto her egg foo young.

I turned to Joey and changed the subject. “Did you ever listen to that DVD from Teddy Goodwin?”

Joey said she did. “Better than I expected. Nice refrain, crazy bridge. Really not bad.” She shoveled a bite into her mouth. “You guys
have
to try this.”

I reached for the carton, put some onto my plate and passed it to Clare, who broke off no more than a square inch for herself.

“Anyway,” Joey continued, “I might record it for him, just as a favor to help him sell the song. I don’t know. I haven’t decided yet. Teddy’s going to see if he can get some musicians together so we can practice, see how it goes. I didn’t commit myself to anything.”

“Why not commit yourself?” I asked. “What’s the big deal?”

Joey shrugged and pointed to another carton. “Is that the General Tso’s?”

The doorbell rang and I rushed to answer it. It was the plumber, and I led him into the basement to show him the hot water heater.

He stared at it and scratched his belly, which hung over his belt, straining against the buttons of his dark shirt.

“I’ll have to check to be sure,” he said, “but most likely it’s the pressure valve.”

“What does that mean?”

“Valve’s supposed to open and shut automatically when the pressure builds up. But sometimes they break and the pressure just builds and builds.”

When I got back to the kitchen my sisters were watching the small television that was bracketed to the wall above the table. Clare dabbed the corners of her eyes with a napkin.

“Fires in California,” Joey explained when I sat down.

“Why are you crying?” I said to Clare as I picked up my fork.

She sniffed. “Those poor people. They lost
everything
.”

If it was anyone but Clare, I might have asked if she was PMS-ing. Because while I understand that it’s very tragic when people lose their homes, most of us can disassociate from the news enough to
think
it’s a tragedy but not actually
feel
it. I guessed she was crying as much about her own life as about the strangers losing their homes.

“Sucks,” Joey said, putting a forkful of brown rice in her mouth.

“Don’t be sarcastic,” Clare said. “These are real people, real families.”

“I wasn’t being sarcastic,” Joey insisted. “It
does
suck. But if you’re so heartbroken over it, why don’t you do something about it?”

“What makes you think I don’t? Marc and I give to the Red Cross every year. And since Katrina and the tsunami, we’ve been giving even more.”

“That’s a start,” Joey said.

“Oh, and I suppose you volunteer at a soup kitchen.”

“As a matter of fact, I do.”

This was news to me too, and I wondered if it was related to rehab. Perhaps they were encouraged to do volunteer work. Or maybe it was connected to some newfound spirituality, which I understood was a pretty common route for a lot of recovering addicts.

“When did this start?” I asked Joey.

“Couple months ago.”

“Look!” Clare blurted, pointing at the television. “The Waxmans’ house!”

Joey grabbed the remote and turned up the volume, just as
the image cut away from a video clip of the house on the day we discovered the body to a woman reporter in the studio, and we heard the tail end of what she said:

“…from several days ago. And today police revealed that while they haven’t yet identified the body in the drum, they have confirmed that it was a young woman, and that she was five months pregnant.”

After my sisters left I felt too wired to sleep, and decided a nice warm bath would do the trick, perhaps even make up for the cold shower I had to endure earlier. I lit some candles, lowered myself into the tub, and closed my eyes. I didn’t want to think about the young pregnant woman who had been murdered and stuffed into that drum. I certainly didn’t want to think that it was probably Lydia. I just wanted to drift someplace peaceful.

To distract myself, I moved my fingers between my legs, remembering the charge I had felt when Leo put his hand on my thigh in the car. I was getting excited, but the image was as slippery as a bar of soap. I reached for it again and again, until at last it became clear that the attraction had dissolved, replaced by a vision that wouldn’t be washed away.

Goddamn it, Kenny
, I thought,
get the hell out of my head
. But he wouldn’t. And so I let him into the bathtub with me, where he performed underwater feats that would make a sea monkey blush.

Afterward, I decided to finally try on the very short, very sheer white nightie Clare had insisted on buying for me at Victoria’s Secret. I told her it was an insane extravagance—
and that I had no intention of ever wearing it—but she maintained that giving me a present would cheer her up, and so I relented.

I slipped it on over my head and turned to face myself in my bedroom’s full-length mirror.

Okay then. This negligee was about as subtle as Patti LaBelle in concert. Maybe I just wasn’t used to looking at my own body sexually, but the diaphanous fabric seemed to create extra contrast between the light parts and the dark, so that my belly was softened in lace but my nipples and public hair rang out loud and clear. Leave it to Victoria’s Secret to create a nightie that makes you feel more naked than if you had nothing on.

I was looking at the price tag, deciding whether to return the thing, when I heard the doorbell chime three times in quick succession. It was eleven o’clock at night and I couldn’t imagine who would be at my house ringing so urgently. I grabbed my robe and hurried down the stairs.

“Who is it?” I called

“He did it,” came the voice from the outside. I opened the door.

“You’re drunk,” I said.

Kenny walked past me and went straight to the sofa. “Not as drunk as I seem,” he said, dropping into it. “Surely not as drunk as I’d like to be.”

“You heard it on the news, too?”

Kenny leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. I watched the veins in his hands engorge as blood traveled downward. His wrists and forearms became vascular too. Kenny’s shirtsleeves were rolled up and it struck me that I had always thought there was something sexy about that. I guessed it was the unconscious masculinity of that particular section of anatomical real estate. Lots of men had vanity about
their shoulders or biceps, but few considered the space from their elbows to their fingertips. It occurred to me that Kenny’s nails, while clean, weren’t manicured. Perhaps he wasn’t that L.A., after all.

“Motherfucker really did it, didn’t he?” he said. “Got her pregnant and killed her.”

I sat down next to him and gently patted his back. “Yes.”

“Did you know she used to sing to me when I brushed my teeth?”

“Lydia?”

“Some Hungarian song,” he said. “I wasn’t allowed to stop brushing until she was done.” He leaned back and covered his eyes with his hand. I got the sense that he was trying to remember the tune.

“You really think it’s her?” I asked.

“Don’t you?”

“I don’t want to believe it,” I said.

“I know.”

“Did you find the shoebox with her cards?”

“Not yet,” he said. “Renee put it in a storage facility with a bunch of other stuff, but I couldn’t find the key.”

I suggested coffee and he agreed. When I came back into the room with two steaming cups, Kenny seemed to be getting it together. I handed him a mug, tightened my bathrobe belt, and sat down next to him. It hadn’t escaped my notice that this was a familiar scene, and I didn’t want to think about whether it would end the same way as it did the last time—with him in bed with Joey.

“It’s like deja vu all over again,” he said. Even drunk, he could read my mind.

I nodded. He took a few sips of his coffee.

“I’m going to Florida,” he said. “I need to ask Sam face-to-face where that key is.”

We sat quietly for a few moments, sipping our coffee. I wondered if he was aware that our thighs were touching.

“When are you leaving?” I asked.

“In the morning.”

I leaned back, settling into the couch. It was late and despite the caffeine, I was tired. Kenny put his arm around me. I let myself relax into him and felt like I could stay that way all night. It occurred to me though, that he would have other ideas. God help me, I wanted to. But how could I set myself up for that kind of hurt again? I couldn’t. As long as he was in some way entangled with Joey, I couldn’t.

“Kenny,” I began, intending to make my position clear.

He kissed the top of my head and then tried to tilt my chin toward him. I didn’t budge.

“I can’t do this,” I said.

“Sure you can,” he said. “You lean your head back, I’ll lean my face forward.”

“You know what I mean.”

He let out a long breath and removed his arm from around my shoulder. “I’m not sleeping with Joey.”

“Yet.”

“Why don’t you get it, Bev? It’s not Joey, it’s you.”

“Stop.”

“It’s always been you. Ever since we were kids—”

“Oh, please. Please don’t start telling me I’m your Winnie Cooper.”

“You
are
my Winnie Cooper.”

I rolled my eyes. “I may vomit.”

“Don’t ever say ‘vomit’ to a drunk man.”

“Which is why we’re having this conversation to begin with—you’re drunk.”

“No. Well, maybe this much.” He illustrated a small amount with his thumb and forefinger.

I stood. “I’m going to bed. You can sleep here if you want. There are blankets and sheets in the linen closet.”

He rose, getting to his feet faster than I thought he’d be able to, and stood close enough to kiss me.

“I’ll drive you to the airport in the morning,” I began, but before I could finish, his lips were on mine. I didn’t mean to return the kiss but I did. My mouth just couldn’t help responding. I did, however, keep my arms straight down at my sides. There’d be no more than one kiss and then I’d go upstairs. Alone.

He moved the hair from my neck. “You’re perfect,” he whispered, which was exactly what he had said to me that night we were in high school, when the next thing he did was betray me. I took an awkward step back, not realizing my coffee cup was resting on my bathrobe belt. It tipped over and sent hot coffee down the lower half of my robe. I yelped in pain.

Kenny saw what happened and pulled off my robe as fast as he could.

“Are you okay?” he said, looking at my knee, which took the brunt of the hot liquid.

I touched it. Fortunately, the coffee wasn’t scalding hot, so my skin was only a bit tender. “I’m fine.”

“Are you—” he stopped abruptly. “Oh my God.”

I looked down and gasped, realizing I was standing there naked-er than naked in my slut-sheer negligee. I tried to grab a pillow from the couch to cover up and he wouldn’t let me.

“Please,” he said, staring at my body. “I could die in a plane crash tomorrow.”

I reached for my soiled robe and he threw it behind the couch. “Kenny,” I protested.

He held my arms down at my sides. “Were you expecting someone?”

“No, I…I was just trying it on. The tags are still…” I felt my face burning in shame. “I was going to return it.”

Kenny grabbed the tag and yanked it off in a blink-fast feat of prestidigitation.

“This thing was expensive!”

He pulled me close, his erection pressing against my crotch. He ran his hand from the outside of my thigh to the inside. He kissed me again.

“I’ll pay you for it,” he said.

I was outraged. “Pay me! What do I look like?”

“For the negligee.” He laughed and ran his finger gently over the lace covering my nipple. “But if you really want to get into some kinky role-play…”

“You really don’t have to pay for the negligee,” I said.

He kissed my neck, my favorite spot. Without thinking, I tilted my head to give him better access. He nibbled on my earlobe as his hand slid to my backside, pulling me closer to him.

“Yes, I do,” he said.

My breathing started to get faster. “You don’t. Really.”

He wrapped his fingers around one of the delicate ribbon straps and tore it off in one quick rip. The lacy fabric dropped, exposing my naked breast. “I do,” he said, kissing my nipple and sending a jolt of electricity straight to my already damp outlet. The effect was catastrophic. I was no longer in control. It was the point of no return.

“Let’s go upstairs,” I said, panting.

“No.”

“No?”

“We’ll do it right here.” He pulled off the negligee and pushed me onto the sofa. I was as wet as Jones Beach at high tide and wanted him inside me immediately. I helped him out of his clothes and into a condom with desperate speed, but he wouldn’t be rushed.

“Easy,” he said, and insisted on kissing and licking me until I was hyperventilating so hard I thought I might pass out.

“I’m not going to beg,” I said.

He smiled. “You might.”

He didn’t protest when I got him into a position where I thought
he
might wind up begging.

“Say ‘please,’” I said, as I flicked him with my tongue.

“I’ll say anything you want.”

I flicked him again. “That didn’t sound like ‘please.’”

“Please,” he said.

“What?”

“Please.
”

“Excuse me?” I said. “Not sure I heard you.”

He grabbed me by the shoulders, flipped me onto my back, and got on top. I opened my legs. He started to enter me but stopped. I waited. Nothing happened.

“Oh, I get it,” I said. “This is when I’m supposed to beg.”

“Only if you really want it.”

I grabbed his ass. “I do.”

“Excuse me?” he said, imitating my voice. “Not sure I heard you.”

“Please?”

“You’re going to have to do better than that.”

“Pretty please?”

He shook his head in disapproval.

I leaned toward his ear and in the softest whisper, told him what I did in the bathtub and how I’d been thinking about him. I went into exquisite detail about what I imagined he’d done to me.

And then he did.