Bad Desire (40 page)

Canyon Valley Drive was quiet. There was seldom any traffic at this time of day, even on weekends. Porches stood empty. A muggy oppressiveness hung on the air, a penetrating heat that seeped through Sheila's clothes. The sidewalks and lawns sweltered. Two old pickup trucks were parked in her driveway, so Sheila pulled off the pavement at the front of the yard and turned off the ignition.

Under the relentless sun, the staff of gardeners the real estate agency had hired made little headway. Three of them were at work now on the front yard, Mexican-Indians, she guessed them to be. One rode a noisy power lawn mower, another clipped the hedge and the third was wielding a machete against weeds that had sprung up among the dwarf trees edging the property.

Sheila was wearing shorts and the skimpiest haltertop she owned but still the humidity saturated her skin. She didn't relish the men looking at her so she got out of the car, ran up the driveway to the house and darted around back. She realized at once that something had changed. The grottolike rose trellis had caved in. It lay collapsed in a widespread ruin across the backyard.

Sheila remembered how much Rachel had loved those red roses. And the honeysuckle next door. It climbed the neighbor's clapboards, sending out long wavy tendrils into the air, their pale yellow blossoms like frilly trumpets giving off the sweetest perfume. Sheila remembered when she was young enough to sneak up on her grandmother while she gardened, catching her around the waist. Rachel's craggy face lit up as Sheila swung her round and round in a dizzying circle, the honeysuckle falling over them as if from the sky. “Sheila, let me go!” she'd cry, “now let me go, honey!” At times these flashes of memory struck Sheila with such blinding force that she would find herself standing as if paralyzed, sudden tears in her eyes. She could almost feel, again, the two of them buried in yellow leaves, with Rachel grinning up at her. “Gramma, d'you give up?” she'd urge, “d'you? d'you?” Then the picture would fade, and when Sheila pressed her eyes shut and tried to bring it back, nothing was there. The starched white curtains on the kitchen windows, the taste of the cookies the two of them once had made—they were only mere suggestions of the woman who had lived and breathed. And they were so few.

The kitchen felt stale, forgotten; the cupboards were empty. Almost all the packing was done. The things that were left had been tagged with sale numbers by the auctioneer. Sheila tried to imagine her grandmother sitting in that chair by the table, but now it was impossible.

She thought, The old trellises fall, we die and go away. Nothing stays the same. What do I have left? What could I bring back if I tried? Was she good to me? Yes. Gramma was good to me and I miss her. And yet, even my closest friends can't take the sadness away. Only being with Henry helped. And now, oddly enough, Faith.

Taking the tablecloth off the table, she went out to the backyard. When she shook it out, the starlings flew up in a dark, frightened cloud. Once the garden had been carefully tended and well kept, but now it lay in weedy ruins. Going inside, Sheila looked at the clematis near the place where Rachel's body had been found that morning. Could it have been only four weeks ago? Again, she felt a moment of frozen fear while the scene of that fog-bound morning replayed vividly in her mind. She almost expected still to find something—a trace of blood or some other horrible reminder left behind. But there was nothing. Only the sandy brick walkways. She would never get used to the thought that her grandmother was murdered, never as long as she lived. A mosquito whined in her ear; Sheila slapped at it and blew a wisp of hair from her eyes. I'm afraid of so many things, she thought. Sometimes for no reason at all, she would feel her muscles tightening up and that cold, cold feeling begin.

She was still standing at the edge of the garden when the real estate agent arrived. Sheila signed the contracts quickly. The property was sold. The realtor had scheduled the closing in ten days, asking if that was suitable. Sheila shrugged and said it was, as if the fact that she would no longer own Rachel's home meant nothing to her. After the woman had gone, she sat there at the kitchen table, utterly immobilized by dread.

She wandered upstairs into the big bedroom where Rachel had slept. The bed still stood where it had been for a lifetime. When the door swung shut, Sheila was confronted with a sharp image of herself in the full-length mirror, eyes meeting eyes irresolutely. I'm not like her, she thought. I wish I were.

The dusty room, long unaired, closed around her. Sheila crossed the landing to her own room and was comforted by it. It, too, never changed. She still kept some of her things here, even a few changes of clothes. The mahogany bedstead stood exactly as it always had, with its cracked finish and its vague smell of linseed oil: the result of years of Rachel's polishing. The windows were closed, windows that let in the dawn every single day for the last seven years.

I like it here, she found herself thinking. But was that possible? She had always dreamed of getting away. The times she had actually been away—even if it was for nothing more than staying overnight at one of her friends—she had not missed this place at all. Now as she went about opening the windows and shaking the dust off the curtains, there was a hollow ache in her stomach, an emptiness.

Strange, she thought. How awfully strange.

She went out to the Karmann Ghia and came back carrying her dress in a clear plastic bag. The gardeners had gone, taking the noise with them. As the afternoon wore on, Sheila glanced repeatedly out the window, humming softly to herself, waiting for nightfall and thinking of Henry, hiding her nervousness in the dozens of unnecessary tasks she set for herself.

Sheila turned back the covers on her own bed and smelled the warm damp odor of the unused sheets. She slipped off her clothes and stretched out naked between the sheets, feeling their coolness surround her. She could feel the sadness of dusk in the air. Occasionally, in the stillness, she heard the lonesome barking of a dog. Distances were already beginning to recede.

She listened to the last sounds of the afternoon—sounds she had been hearing, it seemed, since that first evening when, as a ten-year-old, she came to live in this house. The crickets began to signal in the grass and the yelling of children playing down the street dwindled away. This time of day, the advent of night could be frightening to a child coming to a strange place; tonight it only made Sheila feel more and more alone. She heard the abrupt flurry of the starlings in flight, and for an instant she imagined the sky alive and trembling with their wings. Suddenly, she thought, What if I never see him again?

That was something she couldn't imagine.

And besides it was time to get ready. Sheila took a bath, rinsing her hair in vinegar to bring out its golden highlights; she painted her nails. Her anticipation grew; her eyes glowed with expectancy. She couldn't bear to think that she had to waste all this sweet urgency she was feeling on waiting. She wanted to go to him and cling to him and be with him. This is the worst, she realized, because I didn't know what it was like to be really in love with him before, but I do now. And how did it happen? Henry brought me back to life.

I've got to forget about Faith; I can't think about her.

Tonight Sheila would wear the new dress of rough amber silk. Its cut was impeccable; the soft skirt moved when she moved. Spreading it out on the bed, she sat in her underwear and stretched out her splendid long legs, running her fingers over them as she pulled on her nylons. She slipped into the dress and thought, I shouldn't have sold the house. I should've found a way to keep it. But I didn't. Whatever happens, I did it; I did it to be free for him.

She was running a comb through her hair when she remembered Rachel straightening the part for her just so, cupping and lifting her chin ever so gently, looking into her eyes all the while asking, “Now who's the prettiest girl in the world?”

With Faith at his side, Slater looked very sure of himself, standing at the gateway to the barbecue, greeting late arrivals and saying good-bye to the guests who left early. But inwardly his nerves were about to snap. The pressure had been on him now far too long. Except for the diamond, Reeves had no evidence, no case, nothing; yet the pressure went on and on.

But now he waited; there was nothing he could do but wait. The party was teeming with guests, and he had to subject himself to their flattery and small talk. Soon it would be over. All afternoon and into the evening, he wondered where Reeves was and what he was doing. He hadn't appeared at the barbecue; there had been no sign of him. No matter where you are, it's going to happen tonight. You're going to die, Reeves. Nobody can stop it.

It was a quarter to six and the string quartet had packed its instruments before Slater made his way to the master bedroom. He stripped out of his suit and pulled on a navy blue golf shirt and dark blue poplin trousers. Faith asked him if he knew how long he would be and he told her that his shift at the booth ran until ten-thirty but he might be tied up until after midnight.

He drove the Eldorado into the municipal garage attached to City Hall and parked in the space marked
RESERVED, MAYOR
. But instead of heading for the commons, he took the elevator up to the second floor of the garage. Around the first turn, the Jeep was parked among other cars, waiting for him exactly as he had left it. Satisfied that everything was in place, he turned, went down the stairs and outside.

People spoke to him as he crossed through the park and he answered. Night had settled in. Clouds raced northward, sweeping over the city. Minutes later, Slater entered the Chamber of Commerce booth at the entrance to the midway. The members of the city council were out in force, selling raffle tickets for a new Ford Taurus, the money to be used to build a new bandshell. Slater shook hands all around; he shook Reeves's hand. “Evening, Burris, how's it going?”

“Fine, Henry, how about yourself?”

Thirty yards away, the crowd at the street dance applauded the end of the first number. No one knows what I'm about to do, Slater thought. He stood next to Burris Reeves and smiled out across the crowd. Through the loudspeakers, the sound of the orchestra was reedy and thin, the vocalist unintelligible. Down the midway, children were knocking over bottles, breaking balloons with darts, shooting ducks. At a glance, Slater saw a merry-go-round, a Ferris wheel, octopus rides and caterpillars, a tunnel of love. Girls were screaming joyously. In the sticky heat, the smell of sex hung in the air like woodsmoke; men and women bumped against one another, brushed shoulders, rubbed hips, until the air was rank with it. Slater thought this was true every year. His eyes missed nothing, every muscle in his body alert, sensitive to the whirl of movement around him.

It surprised him how easy it was to carry on ordinary conversations, even when his throat was dry with nervousness. So he talked on but his mind did not veer from the task that still lay before him, what he knew he had to do. A woman said, “Excuse me, Mr. Slater.”

He said, “I'm sorry. But don't I know you?”

“Meredith Pannett,” the woman said. “Shame on you, Mayor Slater, I worked as a volunteer for you last fall.”

“Of course.” Slater's face broadened into a magnanimous smile. He held out his hand. “It's great to see you.”

Sheila got behind the steering wheel of the Karmann Ghia and started the engine. She looked at the large, square house flooded with streetlight as if seeing it for the last time, trying to imagine the place belonging to someone else. Never before had she been so acutely aware of time passing and of the changes that inevitably had come and were still to come. A gust of love for her grandmother came into her heart. Where do I fit in? she thought. What will become of me?

She turned into the driveway, backed out and sped down the winding lane. For Sheila, it was always a mysterious, thrilling feeling to be driving through the night. Within minutes, she was in the thick of things. All around her, drivers sat in their expensive cars, waiting for the light to change. Somewhere a bell was ringing, and grade school girls crossed through traffic in shorts and T-shirts, their tanned arms and legs quivering like deer. Sheila parked on a side street a few blocks away from the carnival lights and hurried from the car.

She could feel the danger she was bringing down upon the two of them. She had never defied him before, but tonight she couldn't help herself. She had to be close to him.

Sheila made her way through the crowd until finally she saw him. A week and a half had passed since she had spent any time with him and again she tried to rehearse what she would say and do. Act nonchalant, she told herself. Sheila knew exactly what she wanted, but not quite how to go about it. What should I say? I had the weirdest dream about you. No, too trite. Maybe: I don't know what got into me; I came into town so I thought maybe I would … She knew she couldn't very well say, This is a matter of life and death, although, to Sheila, it was.

I had to see you. I couldn't wait any longer
.

She arrived at a place ten feet in front of him with the crowd flowing both ways around her when she stopped, afraid to go on. How would Henry react? He would be surprised, naturally, but would he be happy? What exactly did she think she was doing? Sheila couldn't make sense of it, even to herself. Then she realized that she had been holding her breath all that time, and she gasped for air.

It was at that moment he saw her—her hair tumbling over her shoulders, her eyes moist with love and so blue they pierced his heart. His first thought was, How could I do without her for so long? His second, What's gotten into you? Don't you know what you're doing?

Slater watched her walk toward him, zigzagging through the crowd, her skirt shifting softly about her knees. As if oblivious to the attention she generated from the men around her, concentrating entirely on him, she looked shy and scared coming across the midway.