A Shiver of Wonder (9 page)

David smiled. “I just might do that. Thanks,
Bill.”

“Yuh. See ya.” Bill headed toward the
lobby.

Johnson was already several feet beyond
David when the tug of the leash prompted his master to follow.

David’s first conversation with Janice had
occurred on a cool Sunday morning, seven months before in October.
He’d been sitting on a bench in the courtyard, reading the
newspaper. Johnson had been chasing a bee. The latch had clicked,
and she’d stepped inside. Johnson had immediately bounded over, and
Janice had knelt, arms opened wide to allow him all the access he
desired.

“Hi, puppy,” she’d cooed. “Hi, you
beautiful, beautiful dog.”

Whether it was the words or Janice allowing
herself to be licked everywhere, Johnson had been taken with her.
And this warmth had not diminished with time.

“Hi,” Janice had said to David when she
eventually rose. “Do you mind if I sit here a bit, too?”

“Not at all,” David replied. His newspaper
was still up, but he gave it a shake and carefully folded it onto
his lap. “Nice day.”

She nodded as she sat down across from him.
“Yep. Don’t know why I never come out here. I always forget this
place is here.”

David recognized her – he’d certainly passed
by her enough times since he’d moved in – but had no idea what her
name was. Her face owned the hardened, distrustful look of a
working girl that had seen it all and just wanted to be left the
hell alone, but her body appeared delicate, almost elfin. She was
short, barely touching five feet. And her hair was a natural bright
blond, usually pulled into a ponytail that jounced when she walked,
giving her that air of casual femininity that could drive men
crazy. Today, it was hanging loose about her shoulders.

“You’re in F, right?” she asked. Her voice
was soft, unassured.

“Yes. You’re 1D,” he replied.

“That I am. Are you Dave?”

“David. David Wilcott.”

She shrugged. “Apologies, David. Bill’s told
me about you, but I can’t ever remember who’s who. I’m Janice.”

“J. Templeton,” David smiled. She shot him
an odd look. “It’s what’s on your mailbox,” he added, a touch
sheepishly.

She half smiled, and then her eyes roamed
the garden, taking in the gaunt bushes and the few limp roses that
were still clinging to life. “It was nicer before,” she stated.

“It was pretty lush until a couple weeks
ago,” he answered. “Cold weather hit, everything began to
shrivel.”

“Doesn’t that bother you?” she asked,
pointing to the fountain. “At night. You must be able to hear it
from your bedroom.” Her glance touched David’s bedroom window
before meeting his eyes again.

“Doesn’t bother me. Sometimes Bill turns it
off, sometimes he forgets. But I like it when it’s quiet, and I
also like the sound of the water.”

“Easy to please. Must be nice,” she said,
almost dismissively. Her eyes began to wander again.

David was ready to take up his paper once
more when she asked, “Do you know what time it is?”

He leaned to the side so he could pull his
watch out of a pocket. “Eleven fifteen.”

But Janice had emitted a giggle, an honest,
ringing peal of amusement.

“What?” David said, smiling himself.

“I don’t think I’ve seen someone pull a
watch out to check the time in years. Nowadays it’s always a
phone.” Her hands flew up. “Sorry, sorry, I’m totally not makin’
fun of you.”

“I’m not upset,” he grinned. “I try to use
technology as little as possible. Except for work, where I have
to.”

Her eyes followed his hand as he returned
the watch to his pocket. “I left to take a walk about an hour ago,”
she said. “I forgot my phone, but didn’t want to bang back in to
get it. My boyfriend’s inside, sleepin’ last night off, and he gets
testy if I wake him up before he’s ready.”

David kept his expression neutral; the idea
of sleeping past eleven on any day, even a Sunday, seemed
impossible.

“He works nights,” Janice added quietly,
almost as though she had read David’s thoughts.

And this is how nearly all of the
conversations between David and Janice went. Standard pleasantries,
innocuous statements, mild disclosures. She would step into the
courtyard while he was there every few weeks, they’d talk, and then
she would leave. Never once did she set foot in David’s apartment,
never once was a line crossed when he was in hers.

Janice did eventually talk about Heck. She
had to. An array of red and purple welts on her arms kept catching
David’s eye as her long sleeves betrayed her, slipping down as she
reached for glasses for their Cokes, sneaking upwards as she sat at
her kitchen counter, elbows worrying the faded beige tiles.

“Sorry,” she said after a particularly long
awkward silence. “Sometimes, I… things just happen to me.”

“It’s not the first time I’ve noticed,” he
returned gently.

She nodded. “Yeah. Well, I tend to say the
wrong things sometimes. I can’t seem to stop from…” She met his
gaze directly. “Did Bill tell you about it?”

David shook his head. “Nope. Bill’s pretty
quiet. If he’d said anything, I probably would’ve brought it up.
But… I’ve seen marks on you before. Two months ago, you were
wearing a ton of makeup on one cheek. We were outside; it was easy
to see the bruising underneath. Janice, you don’t have to accept
this.”

She looked away. “You don’t know anything,
David. Best to keep it that way.”

“But can’t you…” His question faltered.

She was biting her lip, staring across the
room at nothing. “I didn’t want you to find out. I didn’t want you
lookin’ at me the same way as others who know look at me.”

“Have I looked at you any different the last
couple of months?”

Janice remained inert for several long
seconds. And then she answered, her voice thick: “No.”

“Well,” David said, “I don’t. I won’t. And
this isn’t… it isn’t anything I’ll talk about with anyone,
Janice.”

She nodded. “I was gonna ask you for that,
but you beat me to it.”

David took a quick, careful breath. “I don’t
know, maybe that isn’t the best way to phrase that,” he replied,
immediately regretting his attempt at humor.

Janice stared at him then, almost laughing,
almost crying. “Not funny,” she scolded as her face turned beet red
from the effort of not reacting. “Cute, but not funny.”

Theirs was an odd relationship, yet at the
same time a very normal one. Neighbors and acquaintances who shared
bits and pieces of their lives, temporarily relieving stress while
never having to fully interact outside of the Rainbow Arms. Heck
knew that David and Janice talked, but didn’t care so long as it
didn’t interfere with him. Genevieve was
not
so thrilled;
she couldn’t comprehend what the two of them could possibly find in
common to discuss.

Heck thought they talked about dogs and the
other residents of the building. Genevieve
knew
that their
friendship had attained a far greater depth than that, and hated
that Janice could open herself up to David, never mind the vice
versa.

Awkward, awkward. But on the very few
occasions that Genevieve and Janice had met, the two women had
ignored one another. Not so much because of jealousy, but because
of an innate distrust each had for the other’s type.

David had been perfectly fine with this. It
made things easier. And no reason needed to be more complicated
than that.

Sunday morning brought an early alarm clock,
a brisk shower, and breakfast eaten on the run.

David, however, left all of that to
Genevieve. He accepted her brief kiss goodbye, rose to let Johnson
out of the spare room, and then the two of them snoozed another two
and a half hours until nine.

He’d been late for dinner the night before.
Only fifteen minutes, but Genevieve hadn’t been pleased. The wine
he’d picked out at the middlebrow liquor store on Dr. Longworth
Avenue hadn’t been good enough to atone for his sin of
unpunctuality.

By nine thirty, he and Johnson were ambling
south, his backpack bulging with the clothes he’d worn for
dinner.

“What do you want to do today, boy?” David
asked.

Johnson glanced at him, but didn’t offer any
suggestions.

“Public square? You want to try the Frisbee
again?”

Johnson continued to trot along, content for
the moment, with no definitive thoughts regarding the rest of the
day.

David shrugged, and they turned right on
Smithfield. The evening hadn’t been a total disaster, at least.
He’d thought long and hard en route to Genevieve’s, and had come to
the conclusion that no good could come from bringing up his second
confrontation with Detective Ormsby. Not only was there the Todd
connection, but since so many of his questions had been focused on
Janice… David could only imagine what Genevieve would make of
that!

Johnson veered left onto Sixth Street ahead
of him. After nearly sixteen months of sporadically following this
route, he knew the drill.

The day was cooler than Saturday had been,
and the streets were quieter. A few children were outside playing
in front yards, but nary an adult was about. Sunday morning. Only
ministers and bakers truly
had
to work on a Sunday
morning.

David recalled entire weekends disappearing
in a vortex of work not so long ago. Work, and then some serious
play at night. How had he become that person? Or had that actually
been who he was before he moved to Shady Grove?

And look at what all that hard work had
earned him: nothing! Nothing, and more nothing.

But as the pair turned right on Piston, half
a block from the Rainbow Arms, David felt disgusted with himself.
How could he consider what he had to be nothing? He and Johnson had
everything they needed: a home, a beautiful town in which to live,
his Grandpa, their friends. A girlfriend who genuinely seemed to
like him, at least most of the time. Perhaps Abby had been correct,
and Genevieve really was trying to get it right, over and over
again. Molding David and herself into the duo she felt they could
be,
knew
they could be. Breaking things off temporarily so
she could regroup, and gather herself with fresh energy so that
they could try again and become better, more durable, stronger as a
couple.

As he and Johnson stepped past the mailboxes
in the lobby, David realized that he wanted it to be so. He
yearned
for the two of them to survive the constant
skirmishes and face-offs. He loved Genevieve, and desired nothing
more than for her to love him.

He had headed straight for the apartment
door, but Johnson had other ideas. The dog was halfway down the
passageway to the courtyard before David even got his key out.

“What is it, boy?” he called out. There was
no reply, so David followed him around the corner. Johnson was
standing by the gate, not pawing at it, but clearly determined to
go inside. He glanced back at David, then at the gate again.

“Okay, okay.” David strode forward. “You
could have chased any number of bugs on the way here, though.”

He opened the latch, and they stepped
inside. Clair was there, seated cross-legged on the bench directly
across from David’s favorite.

“Hi,” he said as Johnson did indeed go
running after something. “What are you doing here all by
yourself?”

She smiled. “Same as you. Not much. It’s a
nice day, so I thought I would sit outside.”

David nodded. And then he walked to his
bench. He set the backpack down before deliberately sitting
himself. “How do you know so much?” he asked, the words emerging
more brusquely than he’d intended.

Clair gazed at him, her smile still in
place. The water in the fountain tumbled, Johnson’s jaw snapped as
he leaped to grab a gnat, a light breeze feathered through the
flowering bushes in the courtyard.

“What do you mean?” she asked
ingenuously.

David took in her outfit: a dark blue jumper
over a white blouse with a ruffled collar. He could just catch the
black and white of her saddle shoes underneath two gently scraped
knees. Was he truly questioning a little girl as though she had
performed some criminal act? He wasn’t Detective Ormsby!

He softened his tone. “I guess it always
seems like… like you say things to people that don’t make sense.
And yet they do make sense. Sort of. Later, I suppose.” He shook
his head. “And
yes
, I understand that what I’m saying right
now doesn’t make much sense.” He met her eyes. “Why did you tell
Janice that she should visit her mother last week?”

Clair uncrossed her legs, and began to swing
them. “Why do you want to know?” she asked, her voice light.

David breathed out, wondering just what he
was hoping to accomplish here. And where was Mrs. Rushen? “It just
seems like an amazing coincidence – ” Careful, careful… “ – that
you told Janice to go see her mother, and then Janice’s boyfriend
was killed while she was out of town.”

But to David, the words he was speaking
sounded idiotic. How could Clair possibly understand what he was
getting at? And what could she know of abusers, of alibis and
adults?

Her expression hadn’t changed. “Did Janice
tell you I said that?” she asked.

His eyes narrowed. It was a good question.
“No. I… I heard it from someone who… who overheard you.” He felt
worse than an idiot, he was coming across like a busybody
moron!

“Bill is the only one who could have told
you that.” Her voice was clear, her tone not accusative.

“How do you know?”

She gestured toward the gate that led to the
common area. “Only someone standing behind there could have heard
what Janice or I said.” Her legs were still swinging, swinging,
swinging. “I don’t mind. Bill and you are friends. He can tell you
anything he wants. I know he thinks I’m strange, and I told you he
doesn’t trust me. But I don’t mind any of that, either.”