The Smart One (29 page)

Five weeks later, as I sat on the hood of my car waiting for the moving truck to come, I held tight to my new cell phone. This time, I wasn’t going to take any chances. I was moving out—getting a new place, a new number, a new area code. I’d need this phone.

I glanced down the street, past the activity at the Waxmans’ house, where another moving truck was parked at the curb. Alicia Goodwin waved and caught my eye. Beyond her, inside the dark maw of the truck’s interior, I could see stacked cartons, an emerald green sofa, a table turned upside down like a dead beetle—everything the Goodwins were moving in to their new home.

“How’s it going?” I called.

Alicia said something to one of the moving men and then jogged over to me.

“I guess you’re all packed,” she said, when she reached me.

“Just waiting for the Allied truck.”

“You’re feeling okay about all this?”

I nodded and smiled. “It’s the right decision.” I used my hand as a sun visor and glanced toward what I would
never stop thinking of as the Waxmans’ house. “Where’s Teddy?”

“Inside, bossing the men around.”

I laughed. “Good for him.”

“Will you be sure to say good-bye before you leave?”

“I will,” I said, but jumped off the car and gave her a hug, just in case. “Anyway, I’ll see you when I visit my folks.”

She squeezed my hand and went back to what she was doing.

It hadn’t been very long since Sam had died and we found out that Lydia wasn’t the woman in the drum, but so much had changed since then.

It turned out that Lydia had been living in relative peace since she left the Waxmans’ house over twenty years ago. I say “relative” peace, because she harbored a dark secret in her heart that didn’t stop haunting her until she heard on the radio that Sam Waxman was dead.

It seemed that Lydia had accidentally witnessed the aftermath of Sam’s deed. She was in the backyard weeding Sam’s garden when she heard a terrible commotion inside. A woman screamed, a door slammed. Lydia ran in through the mudroom, stopping to grab a baseball bat for safety. There was no one in the house so she went into the garage, where she saw Sam holding the lifeless body of a young woman she had remembered meeting. It was Halina, a sweet young girl from his factory. Sam was dragging her onto a tarp, and her face was covered in blood. Lydia screamed in fright, and held up the bat, quite sure that Sam would have killed her too if she didn’t defend herself. As it was, he threatened to come after her if she ever told a living soul, and she believed him. She fled immediately. And even though she went from working for a family in Connecticut to becoming a practical nurse at a hospital in Westchester—eventually marrying a
radiology technician and having a family of her own—she kept her word.

“I was a coward,” she said to us that day in my parents’ living room, her accent softened from years of speaking English. “I’m so sorry. But I feared for my safety and my children’s.”

Crying, I threw my arms around her and told her it was okay. I was so happy she was alive.

Renee had become so hysterical at the sight of Lydia that my parents brought her back to her house to get some rest. Marc, not wanting the children exposed to the drama of the situation, took them out back to play. So it was just Joey, Clare, Kenny, and me with Miller and Lydia.

“What made you come forward now?” Clare asked.

“I heard on the radio that Sam has been killed, so I called the police right away. I wanted them to know, and so I told the truth at last. I saw. He killed that poor girl. I can never forget. There was so much blood. And then…when I came in with the bat, he dropped her to the floor like trash. I dream sometimes about that sound when she hit.” She covered her ears as if she could hear it still.

“You poor thing!” Clare said.

Miller explained that when he spoke to Lydia and learned that she lived just over the bridge in Westchester, he decided that he would drive there and get her as soon as Joey was out of the woods. “I knew you would all want to see her,” he said.

By that point, Clare and I had both hugged her and blubbered and hugged her some more. Only Kenny kept his distance. I think the shock of discovering Lydia was alive was more than he could bear. It was so much to take in at once—his father’s death, and now this. But when I glanced over at him standing next to the chair his mother had vacated, I saw something I never expected to see. Kenny was crying.

Lydia put her arms out. She was crying too. “Oh, my dear boy,” she said, and they hugged.

One by one, Lydia asked each of us about our lives. She wanted to know more about Kenny’s career and Clare’s children. She was happy to know that Joey planned to devote her life to helping people find their way.

“If I can’t be a cantor,” Joey said in her slow, breathy whisper, “I’ll find something else. I know there’s a path for me.”

“And the drugs?” Lydia said in that direct way she always had.

Joey looked down for a moment. “Addicts are supposed to tell you that’s a day-to-day choice, and I guess it is. But right now I can’t imagine I’ll ever take that risk again. God gave me this gift of a second chance for a reason.”

Miller put his arm around her and kissed the top of her head.

“You two make a couple?” Lydia asked, and I held my breath, waiting to hear what they would say and how Kenny would react.

Miller took Joey’s hand and kissed it. “Yes,” he said. “We make a couple.”

Lydia smiled, and Kenny’s expression was inscrutable. Finally, I couldn’t take it anymore. “What about you two?” I said, pointing from Joey to Kenny.

Joey laughed, which came out sounding more like a cough. “There’s nothing going on between me and Kenny.”

“But you said—”

Joey bit her lip. “I did, didn’t I? I thought by now you would have figured out I was lying. You’re supposed to be the smart one.”

“You were lying?”

“What did she tell you?” Kenny asked.

“She told me you two were sleeping together.”

“Why would you say that?” Kenny asked.

“I just…,” Joey began. “It seemed like a good idea at the time. Bev, you were in such denial about your feelings for Kenny that I thought you needed a jolt. I wanted you to realize you were in love with him.”

“And you thought telling me you fucked him would do the trick?”

“Did it work?”

Yes,
I thought, but couldn’t say it in front of everyone. Kenny was still furious with me for sleeping with Leo and for embarrassing him in front of Letterman. How could I confess my feelings in this room and publicly humiliate myself? I looked down, focusing on the red shoes Clare had bought for me.

“You didn’t answer the question,” Kenny said.

“Aren’t you mad at me?” I asked him.

“I was.”

“You’re not now?”

“Bev, I get mad all the time. It’s my cross to bear. But I come to my senses eventually.”

I nodded and backed away. Kenny and I might have had some unfinished business to resolve, but I wasn’t going to have some teary love scene with him in front of everyone, especially since any feelings between us were now moot. I was leaving, and that was final.

A short while later, Miller announced that he needed to get Lydia home, and so, after much hugging and kissing and promises to keep in touch, they departed. That left just Clare, Joey, Kenny, and me in the living room, and I realized it was time to announce my news. I told them the offer from Las Vegas had come through and I accepted.

“You can’t be serious,” Joey said. “You’re leaving?”

I lowered myself into a chair. “It’s done. I signed the contract and mailed it off.”

Clare pushed a chair forward until it was facing mine and sat. “Can’t you change your mind?”

“Are you going to make us beg?” Kenny said.

“I want you to understand,” I said to him, “I’m not running away from you. I’m running away from…” I stopped and looked at my sisters, whose eyes were so tender I couldn’t finish the sentence. Was I really running away from them? They loved me so much it felt like my heart was swaddled with their warmth. “I don’t know anymore,” I said. “I have a headache.”

Kenny stood and addressed my sisters. “Bev is under the impression you see her as a loser. That’s why she’s leaving. She thinks you sit around waiting for her to fail.”

“What can we do to convince you that’s not true?” Joey said.

“She knows you love her,” Kenny said. “She’s just scared.”

“Scared of what?” Clare asked.

The three of them looked at me and my whole stupid career flashed in front of my eyes. My failure as an artist, a photographer’s assistant, a junior graphic designer, an assistant studio manager, a freelance illustrator, etc. My failure as a wife, a daughter, a sister.

“I can’t keep doing this,” I said.

“Doing what?”

“Failing.”

“We all fall down sometimes,” Joey said. “But it’s pretty great when the people who love you are there to pick you up.”

“All I
do
is fall,” I said.

“Is that why you’re leaving?” Clare said. “Because you’re so sure you’re going to fail again that you’re embarrassed?”

I looked at Clare, stunned. Could she possibly be right? And if she wasn’t, why did I feel like I’d been kicked in the
chest? I realized, then, that it wasn’t
their
opinion of me I was running from, it was my own. I was so sure I would fail again that I wanted to run away so that I could do it in private.
I
was the one who thought I was a loser. Clare held a box of tissues in front of me, and I realized there were tears spilling down my cheek. I wiped my face and blew my nose, then I looked down, fixing my stare on my shiny red shoes. I wondered what magic might happen if I closed my eyes and clicked my heels three times. But I knew. I’d open them and be sitting right here with these people who loved me. I looked from Joey to Clare to Kenny and I realized that running away would make sense only if I didn’t love them back with everything I had. And I was much too smart for that.

At last the moving truck pulled in front of my house and a man with a clipboard stepped down from the cab.

“Bloomrosen?” he said.

I jumped off the hood of the car. “That’s me.”

“We’re taking you to East Seventy-seventh in Manhattan?”

Kenny had pulled some strings and found me a reasonable sublet on the Upper East Side. He had moved in to a gorgeous prewar on the West Side, and it was already clear that the whole idea of taking my own apartment was more of an emotional crutch than a practical necessity, as I was spending most of my nights at his place. Still, I convinced myself that the East Side address offered an easier subway commute to my job as an art teacher in Queens, which I’d be starting any day. It only took one phone call to Principal Perez to explain that I was very sorry but I’d changed my mind, and she should tear up my contract. She wished me luck, and said that if I ever decided to move to Las Vegas, she’d probably be able to find a place for me in her school.

Later, when the last of my things were being loaded into the truck and it was time for me to lock up the house, I decided to
do one last thing and give the Goodwins the spare key I had. I went into the kitchen and reached for the green ceramic froggy cup I had made in second grade. I was distracted, though, and accidentally knocked it to the floor, where it shattered.

I kneeled down to pick up the pieces, as well as the loose spare keys that had been stored inside. To my surprise, among them was a small key with an orange ring—the type that would open the padlock on a storage unit. I guessed either Sam or Renee had given it to my parents for safekeeping and forgotten about it.

One of moving men appeared at the door. “We’re ready to leave,” he said. “Do you want to follow us?”

“Go on ahead,” I said. “I have a stop to make. My sisters are at the apartment—they’ll let you in.”

I drove over to the storage facility, excited to find that shoebox so I could give it to Kenny as a surprise gift. He’d be so happy to see those old cards and letters from Lydia, especially now that he knew she was alive and well.

It was an indoor self-storage facility that had giant corridors lined with what looked like orange garage doors, each with its own padlock. When I reached the Waxmans’ unit, I put the key in the lock and turned it. The U-shaped shackle pulled out easily, and I stooped to grab the door by the bottom and push it up.

The room, which smelled faintly of disinfectant, was tidily organized. Against the back wall was an upholstered chair with a small table next to it. If it weren’t for the old television resting on the seat, it would have looked like an inviting spot for visitors. On the left there were odds and ends like a floor lamp, a large bulletin board, curtain rods, framed prints, and a folding table. On the right were file boxes and other cartons, carefully labeled. Three of them said “Kenny” in black marker, and I was confident I’d find the shoebox in one of those.

They were in the far corner of the room, and I had to push the small table out of the way to get to them. I noticed that there was an envelope on the table, held in place by a glass paperweight. There was something handwritten on the envelope, so I picked it up and read what it said:
Renee Waxman—Please open in the event of my death
.

Had Renee written her own obituary? It seemed such an odd thing for her to do. And why would she have left it here instead of in her home? Still, it wasn’t my business. I put it back on the table, placed the paperweight where I had found it, and pulled out the cartons I wanted to search.

The first box I opened contained report cards, notebooks, and drawings from Kenny’s childhood. I glanced at a few of the report cards, enjoying the teachers’ comments. One said,
Kenny is a bright young man with an active imagination. He needs to work on keeping his jokes to himself when others are talking
. I smiled and closed the carton, pushing it back against the wall. The next box had the detritus of his team-sports days, including things it made no sense to save, like old shin guards and baseball mitts. There was a shoebox in the bottom of that one, and I pulled it out. Pay dirt. Inside were the yellowing cards and letters Lydia had written to him. I took it out and placed it on the table, then closed the carton and stacked it against the wall.

I put the shoebox under my arm and walked out. Before pulling the door shut, I stopped, thinking about that mysterious envelope.

I walked back inside and picked it up, turning it over to examine the seal. Sure enough, the old glue had given way, and I could easily slide the letter out without anyone ever knowing.

I lifted the television off the chair and set it on the floor so I could sit. Then I took out the letter, and read.

Stunned, I sat there, absorbing the contents of the letter. Had Renee Waxman really killed Halina, or had Sam tricked her into thinking she had? If I gave the letter to the police, would they be able to perform forensics to determine if it was really the fall that had caused her death?

And what would it mean for Renee if I brought the letter forward? In one scenario, she goes on trial and goes to jail. In the other, she learns that’s she’s innocent, but that the man she had loved and believed in all these years had taken advantage of her in the most evil way imaginable. Perhaps it would be best just to leave the letter here in this storage space and pretend I never saw it.

I turned the letter over again and again, trying to decide what to do. I don’t know how much time went by, but when I finally stood, my knees felt stiff. Had it been minutes? Hours? My sisters were back at my apartment waiting for me, and I was lost in time.

I folded the letter and placed it back in the envelope. Then I laid it on top of the shoebox, and carried them both out with me. I didn’t yet know whether I would bring it to the police, but I wouldn’t decide alone.