The Smart One (17 page)

“I know,” I said. “That’s why what I did was much worse. I knew exactly what I was doing. It was…Machiavellian.”

“But you weren’t doing it to hurt her. You were doing it to protect her.” Joey rose and opened the cabinet where we kept the breakfast cereal.

“Still. What kind of person does something like this? It’s…am I evil?”

She pulled out a box of Honey Nut Cheerios and brought it to the table. “Of course not,” she said, shoving her hand into the box.

“Clare will think so. It’s going to drive her to the brink. It was cruel.” Clare had a way of crying that tore at my soul. Imagining that I caused her pain on purpose was excruciating.

“Bev, you’re being awfully hard on yourself. You think you’re supposed to be above making stupid, emotional decisions, but you’re not. Intellect has nothing to do with the heart. And yours has been broken for so long you don’t even realize it.” She dropped a handful of cereal into her mouth.

“What does that mean?”

She dusted her hands on her pants. “It’s human nature to replay the events in our lives that have caused us the most pain.”

The coffeemaker started whirring. It sputtered and water began to drip through the grinds.

“You studying psychology or something?” I asked.

“The recovery process. Sometimes we go pretty deep. Anyway, I have to leave.”

“Aren’t you staying for coffee?”

“Can’t.” She kissed my forehead. “You’ll work it out. I have faith in you.”

That made one of us.

I avoided calling Clare that whole day, and when Leo came by at night, I decided to drown my guilt in hormones. We or
dered a pizza, and got so worked up while waiting for it to be delivered that we had sex on the kitchen table.

We were just pulling our clothes back on when the phone rang. I assumed it was the delivery man calling to say he couldn’t find the address, but I was wrong. It was my father, and he sounded upset.

““Is everything okay?” I said, as I tucked in my shirt.

“Fortunately, they have some excellent hospitals in this area, so you don’t have to worry.”

My father’s cryptic communication about a dire emergency was almost too much for me to take. Why couldn’t he ever just get to the point?

“Who’s in the hospital!” I snapped.

“Your mother.”

The only advantage to flying from the oppressive humidity of New York in the summer to the oppressive humidity of Florida in the summer is that you don’t have to worry about winter coats jamming those overhead bins. I slid my travel bag right in and pushed the door shut until it clicked. Joy.

I took my seat by the window and belted myself in, hoping I wouldn’t get a chatty seatmate. I wasn’t in the mood for small talk with a stranger.

My father had told me that my mother passed out in the Waxmans’ kitchen while making him a slice of toast. Arrhythmia, he had said. Something about nodes in the heart not sending the right signals. By the time he called me she had been thoroughly tested, and except for this circuitry glitch, her heart was healthy. Apparently, it just needed an electrical jolt now and then to keep it running, and so they were putting in a pacemaker and were trying to get her onto the schedule for surgery tomorrow.

Dad assured me Mom’s life wasn’t in danger and that I didn’t need to make the trip. But I figured that if my mother was as healthy as he said, they wouldn’t have scheduled the surgery so fast. I booked a flight for the next morning. Clare,
of course, had the kids and couldn’t leave, and Joey’s rehab program required daily attendance, so it was just me.

A young woman hooked up to an iPod sat down next to me and I breathed a sigh of relief. She’d have no interest in talking to a boring old gal like me when she had her music to keep her company. I gave her a half smile and turned my face to the window.

At take-off, I watched as the ground below us disappeared beneath a haze of white. Then I pulled down my tray and put my paperback on it, but a couple of paragraphs in I got too drowsy to go on. My night with Leo hadn’t afforded me much sleep, and I desperately needed a nap. It was a bumpy flight, and I fell into a very light slumber—the kind of semi-consciousness that allows the captain’s announcements and other interruptions to break through.

A short while later I heard a flight attendant taking drink orders and opened my eyes. The girl next to me ordered a Diet Coke, loudly, without taking off her earphones. I asked for coffee and the flight attendant said someone else would be coming through with hot beverages.

“Thanks,” I said, and half grinned at my seatmate just so she wouldn’t think I was rude. But oh dear God, it was like I had dropped a box of Mentos into her Diet Coke. She pulled her earphones off.

“I know it’s like totally retarded to drink soda in the morning? But, like, I could never get used to coffee? And caffeine’s caffeine, right? Now I’m like a total Diet Coke addict. My friends call me a coke fiend.” She laughed at her joke.

“We’d probably all be better off with orange juice,” I said with a smile. I picked up my paperback to hide behind, but the girl looked at the cover and gasped.

“Are you reading Neil Gaiman? Oh my God! My roommate
loves
him. My roommate from college? We’re not roommates
now because it’s summer but we’ll room together again in the fall? At Binghamton? God, I should call her and tell her the person sitting next to me is reading Neil Gaiman. But we’re not allowed to use our cell phones on the plane, are we? Until we land? But oh my God, I
have to
call her. I think it’s going to be a while before you get your coffee? They’re like all the way down at the end of the aisle? I think I have gum in my purse. Do you want gum? God, my purse is a
mess
. Did you see her hair? The flight attendant’s? I mean the color? That kind of very blond blond with no highlights? My roommate dyed her hair that color just before school ended. Like what do you call that? Almost platinum, right? So retro. I’m thinking of getting highlights. But like, chunky?”

And so it went for the rest of the flight. By the time we landed I was having trouble having a coherent thought that didn’t seem to end with a question mark. If these people would like move? I could get my bag? From the overhead bin?

I had told my father not to bother meeting me at the airport, as I’d planned to rent a car and meet him at the hospital. But when I exited the gate, I heard someone call my name and looked up.

“Kenny,” I said, shaking my head to mask the jolt of joy that shot through me like I’d been defibrillated. “You didn’t have to come get me.”

“Shut up, you idiot.” He gave me such a long hug I didn’t think he was ever going to let go. “I’m glad you’re here,” he said, and then finally released me.

He smelled divine, freshly shaved. And he looked beautiful, of course, but there was a tension around his eyes that I hadn’t seen before.

“You okay?” I asked.

“I am now.” That smile.

Despite what I had said, I was glad he came. There’s something about being met at the gate in an airport that makes you feel like you matter in this world. He took my bag and led me to the exit.

Transplanted Floridians will insist that their summers aren’t any hotter than New York’s, but as soon as we exited the terminal, I knew I wasn’t in Long Island anymore. The atmosphere was wet, thick, and furnace-hot.

“Swamp air,” I remarked.

“Swamp air?” Kenny echoed. “I think they’re in Terminal Two.”

By the time we crossed the road and walked the length of the long parking lot to his car, I was sticky with sweat, and the interior of his rental car made it even worse.

“Ugh,”
I said. “Couldn’t you park in shade?”

“No worries,” he said. “Once I get this baby on the highway for ten minutes, it’ll be a frigid eighty-two in here.”

The car was too uncomfortable for me to think about the fact that I was alone with Kenny again. My whole focus was on trying to get some air between my clothes and my skin to bring my body temperature down.

“You booked a room at the Marriott?” he asked.

Kenny was staying at a hotel because my folks were in the spare room at his parents’ house. The night before I had called to find out the name of the place so I could make a reservation there. He had told me there was plenty of room in his bed, but I’d just spent the night with Leo and the whole thing just felt too slutty. Besides, I was going to Florida to be there for my mother, not to carry on with Kenny Waxman.

Kenny asked if I wanted to stop at the hotel for a shower before going to the hospital. I pictured showing up in my mother’s antiseptic hospital room grungy and damp with sweat, and told him I thought I’d better.

He clicked on the radio and I told him I’d heard from my father that Sam was in the same hospital as my mom.

“Is he okay?” I asked.

“Fine,” Kenny said as he tuned past static to find a station.

“Then why are they keeping him?”

He stopped tuning when he found an oldies station playing the Stones’ “Sympathy for the Devil.” “Nothing major,” he said. “My theory is that as his age, the more tests you run, the more things you find. His blood sugar is borderline, his cholesterol is high, and he has tachycardia.”

“Tachycardia?”

“Rapid heart rate.”

I tsked. “I know what it
means
. I just thought older people had
slow
heartbeats.”

“They do, except when the police are closing in to arrest them for murder. Then their pulse picks right up.”

I wasn’t going to judge Kenny for using humor as a defense mechanism. Why should I? He was going through so much, and if it helped him cope, it was a handy tool.

“Have you been visiting him?” I asked.

“Yeah, sure. In between rounds of golf with O.J. and Robert Blake, I make chitchat with my dad.”

Okay, so he was getting a bit sarcastic with me. I wasn’t going to make an issue of it.

I turned the air conditioning vent to face me and was blasted with lukewarm air.

“What about the key to the storage unit?” I said. “You were going to try to find out where he hid it.”

“That’s been less than successful,” he said. “I spent half the conversation trying to remind him that he even
has
a storage unit. If he has any idea where the key is, he’s not talking.”

“You think it’s an act?”

“Either that or he’s made a decision to let go of his faculties so he doesn’t have to deal with anything. But I’m not inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt.”

I sat quietly for a minute, trying to think of something helpful to say. Finally, I asked if he had spoken to Alicia Goodwin about his father.

“Why would I?”

“She’s a psychologist. I thought she might have some insights.”

He took his eyes off the road to look at me. “Please tell me you’re kidding.”

“Why would I be kidding?”

“C’mon. You’re testing me, aren’t you?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I insisted.

“You’re telling me Alicia Goodwin is a
shrink
, and you expect me to accept this without making a joke?”

I laughed in spite of myself.

“Where does she work?” he asked. “A halfway house?”

“Kenny,” I chided.

“Does she specialize in patients with a
short
attention span?”

“Stop.”

“Or people with a
low
libido?”

“Enough!”

“When someone makes a referral, do they say, ‘I have little patience for you’?”

“Are you done?”

“I’m just teasing,” he said. “I think it’s great that she’s a therapist. Teddy must be proud of her. I’ll bet he loves to show her off at parties.” Kenny cleared his throat and imitated Teddy’s voice, “Have you met the little woman?”

I appreciated that he wanted to make me laugh, but I was getting uncomfortable. His PC button may have been stuck in
the off position, but I felt guilty laughing at Alicia, who had been so kind to me after I passed out.

“Sorry,” he said. “Sometimes it’s like trying to quiet a case of the hiccups.”

When we got to the lobby of the hotel, I veered to the right toward the front desk, and Kenny, who was carrying my bag by the shoulder strap, went to the left.

“Elevators are this way,” he said.

“I have to check in.”

“Your room won’t be ready—check-in’s not until four. You can shower in mine.”

I squinted at him and stopped in my tracks. Was I being set up? Was this Kenny’s way of getting me naked in a locked room? I felt too sweaty and disgusting to even think about it. Besides, how could I do that when my mother was in a hospital bed waiting for me?

When Kenny saw my hesitation he sighed. “Take it easy, champ. I wasn’t planning on jumping your bones when you were on your way to visit your mother in the hospital.” He hiked the bag up on his shoulder and headed toward the elevator. “I was going to save that for later.”

The hotel lobby was well air-conditioned, and by the time we reached the elevator my perspiration had dried and I’d caught a chill. Kenny pushed the button for his floor and I rubbed down my upper arms against the goose bumps.

“You’re cold now?” he asked.

“I’m fine.”

The elevator doors slid shut, sealing the two of us in there alone, and I felt the air change, as if the ions were dancing invisibly around us, electrifying the atmosphere. My entire body felt the charge, which sensitized my nerve endings. The slightest touch, I knew, would spark a storm. I kept my eyes off Kenny, staring down at the floor, but felt his heat and smelled
his aftershave. I had no control over my own thoughts, and I imagined him pushing me against the wall and pressing his body against mine.

“This way,” he said, when the elevator doors opened.

I took a deep breath, let it out slowly, and followed him. Regardless of his promise, I knew that once we got into his room all bets were off, and that he’d start pawing me the second he shut the door.

He pulled a key card from his pocket and slid it into the door slot. A little green light flashed and Kenny pressed on the door lever and pushed it open, standing back while he held it for me.

“Thank you,” I said, sidling past him.

The room had that pleasant hotel smell of faint air freshener, and the decor was contemporary and orderly. There was a king-sized bed in the middle, with an armoire and television facing it. On the other side of the bed, nearer the window, was a small sofa and coffee table. Opposite that was a small writing desk with a T-shirt draped over the chair. Kenny’s sneakers were under it.

“Do you want me to put this in the bathroom?” Kenny asked, holding up my bag.

So he was really going to be a gentleman and not lunge at me? I was so surprised I didn’t answer right away.

“Yes? No?” he said.

“
Uh,
sure.”

I locked the bathroom and decided to take a quick shower so I wouldn’t be tempted to think about Kenny on the other side of that door while I was naked. But by the time I soaped myself up, all bets were off. I imagined him picking the lock and letting himself in. I closed my eyes and tried to put clothes on him, but they kept dissolving. And then there he was—naked, and hard as wood. Suddenly it wasn’t me soaping my
body, but him, his hands everywhere. He’d put his mouth on mine and kiss me while he reached around and grabbed my slippery ass. I’d feel him enter me slowly, gently, while I grabbed onto his broad back.

There was a loud bang on the bathroom door.

“Bev?” Kenny shouted. “I’m running downstairs for a soda. You want one?”

“No, thanks.”

“Okay, I’ll be back in a minute.”

I finished my shower and dried off, and then I availed myself of the tiny bottle of complimentary body lotion. I wrapped myself in one of the big plush towels and pulled the makeup kit from my travel bag. I just wanted to put on a little blush and mascara, but the mirror was fogged, so I opened the bathroom door to let out the steam. Kenny had returned already. He was sitting on the bed with his back to me, drinking a diet soda and talking on his cell phone. He seemed kind of agitated.

I left the door open while I applied my makeup, occasionally glancing at him in the mirror as I tried to hear what he was saying. The bathroom fan made it impossible. That is, until he stood, flipped his phone shut, and shouted, “Goddamn it!”

“What’s the matter?” I asked, coming out of the bathroom and holding tight to the towel wrapped around me.