Custody (29 page)

It was Carmen’s day off. Alone in the kitchen, Tessa filled a bowl to the top with cereal, doused it with milk, and ate in a kind of rapture, staring at nothing, thinking nothing, just shoveling the food into her mouth in a robotic way that would make her mother furious.

Almost immediately she felt better, and braver. She checked the clock: her mother had been gone only fifteen minutes.

She padded into the den and curled up on the sofa with the remote control in her hand. She was never allowed to watch television when her mother wasn’t home. But it was Sunday morning—how bad could it be? She cruised through the channels: news, political commentators, talk shows, blah blah blah. Country western music. Cartoons for little kids.
Clueless
.

Clueless!
Happiness jolted her. This was her favorite movie of all time, even though her mother said it was not age-appropriate. If her mother had her way, Tessa would watch nothing more sophisticated than Mary-Kate and Ashley movies. But Tessa had seen
Clueless
several times at her friends’ homes. Beryl’s older sister owned the video and watched it repeatedly. It was awesome fun. The clothes were so cool, the girls so totally confident. Alicia Silverstone was beautiful, and her life was so easy! Her mother had died during a liposuction operation, leaving her alone in a huge house with her father and a maid a lot like Carmen. Not to mention that cute ex-stepbrother.

“We divorce wives, not children,” Cher’s father said now.

Tessa was hypnotized.

The streets were wide and clear as Anne drove out to the Framingham mall. She parked in a lot near Borders and walked into the Starbucks coffee shop. Keeping her dark glasses on, she looked around. She wore her hair tucked up, completely hidden, beneath a wide-brimmed straw hat, and a loose white linen dress, and sandals. No one glanced at her twice, not even the young man at a table in the corner, engrossed in what looked very much like a comic book.

Glen Phipps was thirty years old, but looked ten years younger. Thin, nearly cadaverous, he adored costuming himself, which, combined with his sly intelligence, made him a perfect
private investigator.

Today he wore combat pants, scuffed shit-kicker leather boots, and a black T-shirt with an NRA emblem on the back. He’d been completely bald the last time she met with him, a buff gay male bulging with muscles and dripping with jewelry, but now his hair was grown to about an inch in length and shorn into a bristling military brush cut. He’d taken off his earrings and removed the gold cap he sometimes wore on a front tooth. He looked tough. He looked unapproachable.

Anne crossed quickly to his table and sat down.

“Hey,” Glen said, his sweet smile completely wrecking his tough image. “Good to see you. How are you? Want me to get you something? A cup of coffee?”

“Please. Black.”

Off he went with a masculine stride to fetch the coffee. She surveyed the room from behind her glasses and was reassured that no one had any interest in her or him. Still, her thumb found its way to the invisible spot on her dress, just above her knee, and began its rubbing.

Glen returned, set a plastic foam cup in front of her, and sat down. “Okay. What’s up?”

“We have our court date. September fifth.”

“Almost exactly a month from now.”

“Right. I want you to start surveilling Randall again.”

“Sure, if you want me to. But I told you, ever since he filed for divorce, he’s been a good boy.”

“That was almost a year ago. I know Randall. He needs … sex.”

“Most of us do, you know.”

“Are you working for me or not?”

“Sorry. I just … Any suggestions where I should start?”

“The usual: the hospital, his office, his home.”

“Is he teaching again this semester?”

“No. He wants the court to think he’s got the time to take care of Tessa.”

“Still living in the same apartment?”

“As far as I know. He hasn’t informed me of a move, and Tessa hasn’t said anything about a change. He’s been taking her out to his father’s farm near Concord more often than usual recently.”

“Any other changes in his routine?”

Anne looked down at the spot she was rubbing on her skirt and thought. “His mother died
two months ago. Tessa says he goes to visit her grave every Sunday morning.”

Reaching over, Glen gently put his hand on her arm and stopped its movement. “Mrs. Madison. Anne.”

Jerking her arm away, she demanded, “How dare you!”

“You need to know. That rubbing thing. It looks odd. It looks
neurotic
.”

She flinched. “My idiosyncrasies are not your concern.”

“You want me to help you get full custody of your daughter, don’t you?”

Her eyes filled with tears.

“I’m just saying, you need to control that. At least in front of a judge.”

“Yes, very well. I will.”

“Have you thought about seeing someone? A doctor?”

“You mean a psychiatrist? While I’m campaigning for a public position? Oh, I don’t think so.” Regaining her composure, Anne reached into her purse, pulled out an envelope, and tossed it on the table. “This should take care of your fee for the next thirty days. Follow him everywhere. All the time.”

“You got it.”

“I’ll need your report before September fifth.”

“Of course.”

“Thank you.” She rose.

“Thank
you
.” He rose, as well, courteously.

She strode from the shop, away from the pity in his eyes.

They lay together in the mauve hotel room, curled in each other’s arms. From beneath the hem of the curtains, and at the slender gap where they met, sunlight slipped through, providing a slight illumination by which they could see the outline of their bodies, the gleam of their eyes.

“Morgan,” he said.

“Mmm?” She was so exhausted, so satisfied, her body felt like honey.

“I can’t call you Morgan any longer. I want to know your real name. I want to know everything real about you.”

Lazily she considered this. “Are you sure?”

“Absolutely.” With the tips of his fingers he traced her neck, shoulder, arm, waist, hip. “I want to tell you everything about me. I want us to become genuine, honest, open to one another.” She turned toward him, nuzzled her face against his chest. She could hear the firm, determined beating of his heart. “But … I don’t want to ruin … this.”

“You think we’ll ruin it if we become real to one another?”

“I don’t know. Maybe.”

Gently he pushed her away from his chest so that he could look into her face. “All right. If we ruin it, what would happen? We’d stop seeing one another. You would marry your assertive Jason. I would finish the divorce and wander off into the world where I’d eventually find someone else, but no one, I’m sure, as right for me as you.”

She smiled, and tried to kiss him, but he held her away.

“But what if we
don’t
ruin it?” he asked. “What if we discover that we love each other, and want to be with each other, what then? Then you would have to break your engagement, for one thing. Is that what’s holding you back? Do you love Jason?”

Kelly twisted around, pulled the sheet up over her shoulders. “It’s cool in here.”

He reached down to pull the blanket up over them and snuggled spoon-style against her, waiting without speaking.

“I do love Jason,” she said at last. “In a way. I care for him, certainly. I wouldn’t want to hurt him. But that’s not what’s holding me back.”

“What, then?”

“What if I told you everything about me, and that made you stop wanting me?”

His laughter made her hair drift against her neck. “I don’t see that as anywhere near possible. But let’s start with some easy things. What’s your name?”

Still, she hesitated.

“All right. We’ll start with first names. My real name is Randall.”

“Randall.” She tasted it. “I never would have guessed that.”

“And your name?”

“Kelly.”

“And do you work, Kelly?”

Kelly chuckled. “Oh, dear, do I work? Oh, Randall”—she turned toward him, smiling—“yes, I do see you’re right. I mean, I know you’re a physician, and I assumed you understood I was … a professional person, but for all you know, I could be anything at all in the world!”

“And you are—”

She hedged. “A lawyer.”

“Good God. The last thing I would have suspected!” Randall shoved his pillow behind his back and sat up.

Kelly turned onto her stomach, looking up at him. “Because you think lawyers are all sharks? Hard, manipulative, vain, incapable of moral decisions?”

“I didn’t say that.”

“But you’re a little harsh on the subject.”

“That’s true.”

“I’m proud of being a lawyer.”

“Yes, I’m sure. What kind of law do you practice?”

“Family and probate. For three years I was with a firm specializing in divorce. Their client list was wealthy. When I felt safe financially, I moved to another law firm, also specializing in family matters but with a more varied clientele. I do a lot of
pro bono
work.”

“And you work for my ex-wife. You’ve been hired to enchant me.”

“That’s not funny.”

“No, I guess it’s not. Oh, man. Look at the time. I promised my daughter I’d pick her up at noon.” Grabbing her shoulders, Randall said, “Look, can I see you tonight? Tomorrow?”

“I have to go out of town this week, on business.”

“Next Sunday, then. At the cemetery.”

“Fine.”

“You know, there’s a lot I want to say to you. A lot I want to know about you.
Everything
.”

“I know. Me, too.”

“But we’ve got to go.” He looked tortured.

Kelly smiled at him. “I know. Let’s go.”

Randall threw himself from the bed and rushed into the bathroom. Kelly gathered her clothes, which were mostly in a pile by the door, and when Randall had finished with his shower, she took one herself, hastily dressed, then raced with him down the long corridor to the elevator and on out to the Jeep.

The traffic was heavier than it had been, the interior of the Jeep hotter, Randall’s need to hurry filling the space like a kind of pressure.

As he brought them to an abrupt stop at a red light, he asked, “Do you want children?”

“Well … yes.”

“Because I like children. I want more children. Not dozens. Not even four or five. But at least two or three.”

“Do you think a woman should stay home to care for the children?”

“To be honest, when they’re infants, yes, I do. For the first year. I don’t think a woman should give up her career. It’s not a matter of time so much as a matter of desire. I mean, my wife is a professional woman, and always has been, and that’s where her heart is. She has tried to be loving, but she doesn’t have that fierce passionate joy most women have for their children, and I don’t think it’s because Tessa’s adopted.”

“Your daughter’s adopted?”

“Well, in a way.” He turned onto the winding road leading to the Forest Hills gates and Kelly’s car. “It’s a long story, and complicated. I’ll tell you next week.” Sliding his Jeep next to Kelly’s Subaru, he said, “I’m sorry about this rush. If it were anyone else but Tessa, I’d cancel, but I can’t disappoint her.”

“Of course. I understand.”

Randall took Kelly’s face in his hands. “Next Sunday? Here?”

“Next Sunday. Here.”

He kissed her, roughly, with haste. Then Kelly stepped down from his high Jeep, on legs that were weak from lovemaking and amazement, into the hot bright world that had been suddenly and entirely transformed.