White Apples (17 page)

The first pill that she focused on had the word "Soup" written on it. Which was the name of her dog. The next said "Kracow." One had her mother's name on it. Another "Café" on one side, "Diglas" on the other. The place where they had met for their first date. Every object in Vincent's medicine cabinet had words written on it, every word pertaining to their relationship. A can of shaving cream. A bottle of Royal Water cologne. His orange toothbrush. Every single object had writing on it.

"He knew this was going to happen. He knew they were going to try and take you away from him. That's why he wrote on all those things." Coco was reflected in the mirror again, looking at Isabelle from the doorway.

"But how? How could he have known it was going to happen?" "I don't know, but some part of him did. And that part was very clever—he tricked them beautifully. There's your proof: He wrote single words about you that meant nothing to anyone but himself. I knew about some of them only because he told me. Like how much you two liked Kracow, and the name of your dog. Come with me. I'll show you something else."

This time Isabelle didn't hesitate to follow. When Coco offered the pack of matches and told her to go in the closet she went right in.

On her knees, she lit a match and asked what she should be looking for. "The left wall, down by his shoes. You can't miss it."

Swiveling as best she could on bare knees in the small space, Isabelle brought the flame toward the wall. Two seconds, three, and then she saw it just as the match burned down and out. Lighting another, she leaned eagerly forward.

Words, figures, and numbers covered a square space of about fifteen by fifteen feet above Vincent's carefully arranged shoes on the floor. Jammed together, this busy array of sketches, words, and personal hieroglyphics looked like the work of a possessed artist, an accomplished doodler, or a scientist working out some obscure for•mula. On a

wall in a closet with no light to see but whatever was brought to it. The display was fascinating and disturbing even to Isabelle, who was the only other person on earth who understood some of what it all meant. As she stared at it, many different things crossed her mind: the cave paintings at Lascaux in France, a pho•tograph she'd once seen of an Argentine prison cell covered from floor to ceiling with the graffiti of decades of prisoners. She thought of Vincent down on his knees in this cramped space, writing their history on the wall, knowing while he did it that soon it would be his only key to finding his way back to them.

When the second match flickered out she did not light another. Instead she slid the back of her hand across the wall, across his figures and drawings. The sketches and memories Vincent had cho•sen to put up there. She slid her hand across them tenderly, as if they were her lover's face. And she would have continued doing that if Coco hadn't asked,

"Who's Rez Sahara and the Twenty-five Mice?" Isabelle had seen that one too on the wall. But hearing the ridiculous name actually spoken made her smile in the dark. "One of Vincent's names for a rock group. He likes to make up names for imaginary groups. It's a silly thing he does. But Rez Sahara was my favorite; so he had it made into a

T-shirt and gave it to me. He said I could be their first groupie."

"It sounds dumb." Coco was just jealous. He'd never told her he made up names for rock groups. "It is dumb. That's why I love it."

"It's kind of dark in there. Do you plan on staying?"

Isabelle touched the wall again and felt such love for him. "I don't think I'm ever going to come out."

As they rode back across the city to the hospital, their cab stopped at a light in front of the railroad station. Ettrich looked at it and thought my life has jumped its track today and is plowing right the hell through a nearby field. Or something.

To begin with, he'd woken up next to a gorgeous stranger who spoke and acted as if they'd known each other for years. Breakfast had been chocolate cake (almost) naked in the bathroom. Then he discovered his car had been stolen from the garage. Then that lunacy over at Kitty's house, topped off by this absolutely unnecessary trip to the hospital. Ettrich loathed hospitals.

"Fucking de-
railed!"
he thought to himself and then announced because it felt good to say the words out loud. His eight-year-old son, Jack, turned from the window and calmly appraised him.

"Wha•d you say, Daddy?"

"Nothing important, Fighter-Man. How are you feeling?"

"Very hot, thank you." Turning back to the window, the boy pressed his nose and lips to the glass. If Kitty had been there she would have had a fit. Sternly she would have ordered him to take his face off there. But Ettrich didn't say that. Partly because he knew how good it felt to press hot skin against cold glass. Partly because anything his ex-wife said today was double anathema.

No matter how many times he did it, it always felt odd ringing the doorbell at his old house. As if he were pulling a silly prank on his old self. How many hundreds of times had he entered using that blue door, calling "Anybody here?" to whoever was around? Picking up the mail on the side table, smelling what was in the air, listening for the sounds of home. The kids shouting, Kitty singing, the TV or a radio on somewhere, the flip-flop of the dog rolling on its back on the braided rug in the sun. Home is the invisibles, the take-it-for-granteds. The tarnished brass hook where you hang your keys, the spot low on the white porch wall smudged a hundred times by bicycle tires. Things you know by heart, things you never pay at•tention to until
home
turns into the house where your ex-wife lives now with your kids. Then the place becomes a museum of what once was, full of off limits. Every time you enter now there is some kind of admission charge and new visiting hours. Signs might as well be posted everywhere saying don't do this, don't do that.
You
es•pecially, Vincent Ettrich. Only authorized personnel allowed in here.

So he peeked when and wherever he could; checked constantly to see what was different in his old home, what had the Kitty-dragon changed this time?

He pressed the doorbell and stepped way back, giving her much more room than needed when she opened up.

The door flew open an instant later, as if she'd been lying in wait for him on the other side. If they had still been married he would have made a joke about this, but no more. That sort of humor was long dead and buried between them. When they had contact now they were like two boxers halfway through a bout, sizing each other up from neutral corners, waiting for the bell to ring.

Kitty looked great. She'd cut her hair short and wore a new shade of dark, almost plum-colored lipstick. Ettrich's first impulse was to say she looked terrific but sometimes that kind of flattery backfired, especially these days. While he was racing it around his mind whether or not to give the compliment, she said, "It's his ear."

Ettrich was knocked off balance both by how fast the door had opened and her new look. So that all he heard Kitty say was, "It's Zizir." He thought who's Zizir? What kind of name is that? Neither of them knew many Arabs. And what did that have to do with Jack's being sick again?

"Who's Zizir?"

"What? What are you talking about?" Immediately Kitty's voice jumped to that
tone
again. He hated that tone.

Everything that had ruined their marriage had been his fault and he fully accepted the blame. However, he still detested the new spiteful tone her voice had developed since the divorce. It said that everything he was, everything he did and thought, was either stupid or despicable.

Lips tightened, he took a long deep breath through his nose. "I asked who's Zizir. That's what you just said, Kitty.

You said, 'It's Zizir.'"

She sneered. "No, Vincent, I said, 'It-is-his-ear.' Your son has another badly infected ear and he's running a temperature. Dr. Cap-shew is at the hospital now and said you should bring him over."

"Hello, Daddy." Little Jack walked around his mother's leg and stopped halfway between his parents.

Ettrich's heart smiled. Besides loving him, he really liked this kid a lot. "Hi, Spider Man. Mom says you're not feeling good."

"My ear, Dad. It's that stupid ear thing again." Jack Ettrich was a punching bag for childhood illnesses. Often it seemed like he had just gotten over one thing when another stepped in and took its place. Ear infections, tonsils, mumps, chicken pox, measles, German measles... The poor kid took the best shot from all of them and somehow managed to keep a sunny disposition.

The only thing that was a bit strange about the boy, although a quality Ettrich enjoyed very much, was Jack often spoke and acted like a little old man. At eight years old he was quiet, courtly, and thoughtful. "Please" and "thank you" sat in the front row of his vocabulary. Unlike most kids, he took forever to eat a candy bar because he slowly savored each nibble. If you asked him a question he often gave it long and serious thought before responding. He seldom cried but when he did it was Italian opera; it never failed to break your heart and impel you to do anything in your power to make things all right again. Ettrich had once read an article about a very rare disease called Progeria, which caused its victims to age ten years for every one they lived. Kids died of old age at nine. Sometimes he wondered if God had sprinkled a little Progeria over Jack's ingredients before putting him in the oven.

"Where's your car, Daddy?" Jack was up on his toes with a hand shading his eyes as he scanned the street in front of their house.

"Someone stole it this morning." "Wow, Daddy, they took your car?"

"That's absurd, Vincent. Who would want to steal that garbage truck?" "I don't know, Kitty.
Someone,
because someone did."

She crossed her arms. "I don't believe it. You probably forgot where you put it last night because you had other

things
on your mind, and now you think it's stolen."

"Kitty—" He wanted to answer that but knew even the slightest sand in his voice would launch her right into attack mode. He swal•lowed and looked at the boy. "You'd like me to take Jack to the doctor?"

"Yes. Dr. Capshew is at the hospital until twelve."

"But why can't we wait till after twelve and then I can take him to Capshew's office? It's two blocks from here and the hospital is like five miles across town."

"I think Daddy's right, Mom. I don't like the hospital; it smells weird."

Kitty didn't even deign to respond. "I have to take Carmen shopping for a leotard. Her dance class starts Monday and she's been pestering me all week to get it. How do you plan on getting to the hospital without a car?"

Ettrich pointed to the waiting taxi at the same time that name hit home. "Who is Carmen?"

The boy said with a note of disapproval in his high voice, "Stella. She doesn't like her name anymore and she wants to be called Carmen."

Stella was their daughter. It was also the name Ettrich and Kitty had, to their very great delight, discovered on their first date was the one both of them had always wanted to give a daughter.

"Carmen. That's interesting." Ettrich slid his hands into his trou•ser pockets and rocked back on his heels. "And you go along with that, Kitty?"

"Yes, why not? Carmen's a nice name."

Instead of answering, Ettrich whistled a few bars from the opera
Carmen.
He wasn't a good whistler.

Kitty touched Jack on the shoulder and told him to put his shoes on and get ready to leave. When he was gone she said, "Bring him right back here afterward."

"Okay." Although he normally loved hanging around with his kids, today this was fine with Ettrich. He had to go to the police about his car. He had to go home and figure out what to do with the stranger with the chocolate cake—

"I do not want you taking him to your apartment. Do you understand? I don't want Jack anywhere
near
there." She sounded like she was about to pop.

"Fine, Kitty. I'll bring him right back. Hospital-home-boom." There was nothing in his voice but okay. "Don't make fun of me, Vincent. Don't you do that."

He was dismayed. "I wasn't making fun of you. I only said I'll bring him right home."

"And do you know why I want you to bring him right home? Because I know she's in town. Someone saw you two last night at the airport. So are you happy, Vincent? Did I interrupt your morning frolic with this? Sorry if I did, but the

little chore just happens to be your sick son!"

"What the hell are you talking about?
Who's
in town? What do you mean, someone saw us last night?"

Kitty shook her head, never to be taken in again by this dis•honest man. Oh no, not her, not again. "Still trying that same old
shit,
huh, Vincent?" Her voice changed to deep and deeply stupid. ' 'Wud-dya mean, Kit-ty? I wasn't with another wo-man. Honest! How could you say that about me?' Bullshit, Vincent. Bullshit!"

"Are you crazy? What the hell are you talking about?"

Luckily their son reappeared at the door. He was wearing the jazzy sneakers Ettrich bought last week in Los Angeles when he was there on a business trip. Jack lifted one foot while wobbling on the other. "What do you think, Dad? How do they look?"

"Very cool. They're great on you."

Jack rushed forward and, jumping on Ettrich, threw his arms around his father's neck. "Jeez, you're getting so big. Pretty soon you'll do that and knock me over!"

Jack giggled and hugged tighter. Out of the corner of his eye, Ettrich saw Kitty working hard not to smile. A stitch of deep regret for what he had done to her and their relationship ran through his insides like a vicious cramp. Still holding Jack up, he walked away from her without looking again.

As hospitals went, this one was a beauty. It had opened three years before and won numerous awards for its ingenious use of space, light, and the open-air feeling it gave people. Everything inside the building was

state-of-the-art. The machines all looked like they should have been on a spaceship traveling toward Jupiter. Whenever Ettrich walked through the hospital and saw these gizmos he won•dered how could anyone die if they were hooked up to one of them? How could all those winking lights, pumping bellows, multiple LCD readouts... lose a patient? They looked so efficient and unwavering in their silent running—how could they fail? He'd asked Dr.