Four of a Kind (16 page)

“I heard you yelling,” said Stephanie, moseying toward Robin at the window. To look for the defenestrated toast?

Robin slammed the window shut. “It’s cold in here,” she said, shivering exaggeratedly.

The girl nodded ambiguously at Robin, still suspicious. The expression on her daughter’s face was too reminiscent of Robin’s mother’s disapproving scowl. Robin felt the same offense (“how dare she not trust me?”) all the while smugly aware that she’d been guilty of everything her mother—and daughter—had accused her of, and more.

“Kiss me,” said Stephanie, reaching for her mother.

Robin felt the rip in her heart muscle. This was a Catch-22 (Caught-22?). If she kissed Stephanie, the girl would smell her cigarette breath and know Robin had lied (bad). If Robin refused to kiss her daughter, Stephanie’s feelings would be hurt and/or the girl would assume Robin refused to kiss her so she wouldn’t smell the smoke (worse).

When did kids get so freaking sneaky?

Was ten the new forty?

“Just go to bed,” said Robin, turning Stephanie around, and pushing her out of the kitchen and down the hallway toward her bedroom. Along the way, Robin excused herself into the bathroom, and rinsed with mouthwash. When she went into Stephanie’s room, the girl held out her arms for a hug and kiss.

Now Robin could give it. She hugged her daughter tight, and kissed her a dozen times all over the girl’s face.

“Your hair smells like smoke,” said Stephanie.

“Give it a rest,” admonished Robin.

“Swear to me you don’t smoke. Cigarettes kill people. You should see the pictures of black lungs they showed us at school.”

“I swear,” said Robin.

“What were you saying when I came into the kitchen?” asked the girl, snuggling into her pillow.

“That I burned the toast.”

“On the phone,” said Stephanie. “About one night a million years ago.”

“Nothing,” said Robin. “Grown-up stuff.”

One more kiss good night. Then Robin left Stephanie’s room, and returned to the kitchen. She put a slice of bread in the toaster and turned it up to Dark.

Ten minutes after
that
, Robin threw a square of charred toast out the kitchen window, just in case Stephanie looked for it in the morning.

Harvey Wilson was currently unmarried. He was divorced, no kids. These simple facts pleased Robin as she examined the wealth of information Alicia and Carla had unearthed about her impregnator. She was quite impressed by the Googling, actually. Starting with his name, approximate age, and address, her friends acquired Harvey’s phone number. With these few vitals, information about him was as accessible as a hot dog stand. Employment history, announcements (wedding), legal filings (divorce), credit history—and, most interestingly, a year’s worth of postings at www.urbanoffroad.com, his blog. Apparently, there was a thriving subculture of New Yorkers who rode bicycles obsessively and exclusively. Harvey was an aficionado of dirt biking on the mean streets. The blog had advertisers, too, for bike shops and gear. According to Alicia’s Web research, urbanoffroad.com got 10,000 unique hits
per day
. Surely, a few of those followers weren’t bike messengers.

Along with maps, bulletin boards, general biking enthusiast info, and events, Harvey posted photos of himself and his friends on their bikes, in group shots or solo portraits, during the day and at night,
rain, shine, fog, in helmets and reflective jackets and heavy chains around their waists. Regardless of the weather conditions, the people in the photos all looked happy and healthy. The profile picture—Harvey in black bike pants (package: impossible to judge) and a red jacket—looked like the same man Robin remembered. He hadn’t aged much.

Despite the blog’s deadly content (Robin wasn’t much of an athlete, and had sworn off bikes for life as an eighty-five-pound first-grader), she made a new habit of reading his archives after putting Stephanie to bed. Occasionally, Harvey veered off track, and wrote a few paragraphs about his personal life, including some broad-stroke comments about a short marriage. Some women’s names popped up here and there. Girlfriends? Friends? The names often changed. In his postdivorce dating life, Harvey had been riding the same grueling cycle of anticipation and disappointment that Robin had endured.

Alas, riding his bike and blogging about it did not pay Harvey’s bills. He had a peripatetic career history of half a dozen office jobs in the last ten years. From what Alicia and Carla had dug up, he’d worked at a marketing company (the job he’d had when Robin met him), a public relations company, an ad agency (which Alicia had never heard of), a headhunter firm, the headquarters of a clothing retail store. As of two years ago, he’d been a store manager at the Union Square Barnes & Noble. Bikes and books. That was his life. And babes, too, most likely young hard-bodied athletic women.

Robin marveled at how many fans/friends had left comments on his posts. Where had all those buddies been on New Year’s Eve at the turn of the century? Hadn’t he said he was new to New York? Or had Robin just remembered it that way? Had he acquired pals at his jobs? He’d effortlessly befriended her in three minutes. Perhaps establishing connections was a particular talent of his, one Robin sorely lacked. And what about maintaining contacts? He got divorced after only two years of marriage. What was the story there? He hadn’t appeared
to have found a replacement for his ex. Perhaps women bonded easily with Harvey as a friend—but only a friend.

It would be ridiculous to think that she would again connect with him romantically, if she could even call their millennial hump romantic. She’d scurried out of his place into the dark night like a fat rat. Did he remember her at all? And there was the little matter of not informing him that he had a daughter. Whenever she thought of Harvey over the years, Robin assumed he’d be grateful for his ignorance. But, having gotten superficially acquainted with the guy online, she suspected he might’ve enjoyed being a part of Stephanie’s life, taught her to ride a bike—which Robin had never done. He’d missed a lot, to be sure. How much more of Stephanie’s life would he miss? That was all up to Robin.

Telling no one—not even Alicia, Bess, and Carla, who asked her repeatedly, “Have you read the stuff?” “When are you going to call him?” “What’s your plan?”—Robin decided to act. She just had to get a look at him, if for the sole purpose of satisfying her curiosity.

It was mid-December, two weeks before Christmas. Robin took the number four train from Brooklyn Heights to Union Square station in Manhattan. The Barnes & Noble on 17th Street was a downtown oasis. Four floors, miles of aisles of books. Robin had been inside the haven a dozen times during Harvey’s tenure as store manager there. She’d never seen him. Or, if she had, she hadn’t recognized him. Maybe if she’d crashed into him and landed on top in a straddle, his face would’ve rung some bells.

She pushed through the doors, her throat dry and cheeks cold (December had turned nasty). She moseyed around the front tables, picking up a book here and there but not really looking at them. Her eyes were up, darting around the store, scanning for people with name tags on their shirts. Pre-Christmas, the store was frustratingly packed with customers, making her mission more difficult. Robin chastised herself for coming at midday, lunchtime. She should have known this was the shopping rush hour.

Milling around the information desk on the first floor, finding no one who resembled Harvey Wilson, in shape and gender, she took the elevator to the second floor. A lap from teen fiction to biographies proved futile. She checked the third floor. Zilch. Not a sign of Harvey at the fourth-floor help desk either.

What now? Her friends’ Google reconnaissance had been far more successful than her surveillance. Grumpy and feeling like she’d wasted her time (and let herself get overexcited with the thrill of the hunt), Robin decided to drown her disappointment in espresso. She got on line at the top floor café.

The line was, of course,
endless
, which Robin always took as a personal insult. She eavesdropped on the man and woman in front of her. From the back, he was tall, broad, dark-haired, and annoyingly chatty. The woman was petite, so young she was actually green—a chlorine blonde—and just as loquacious as the guy. They talked at the same time, not listening to each other as their words tumbled forth, making no sense but a lot of noise. When the girl turned profile, Robin noticed her Bluetooth earpiece. The guy also turned to look at the baked goods in the display case, and Robin saw his earpiece. They weren’t talking to each other at all, but into their gizmos. This was modern life. Too many people in a too-small space, moving at a crawl toward meaningless short-term gratification, disinterested in those around them. Everyone here, on line, in the store, in this frigging city, was totally oblivious.

Robin exhaled and then thought, “I’m old.” When had it happened? She was only thirty-seven, but she was just as haggard, angry, bitter, and bloodthirsty as Madame Defarge.

Would espresso help or hurt the sudden onset of rage? Did she really want it? Just as it was her turn to order, Robin decided to leave, save her dollars and sanity, and get the hell out of there. She turned around, zipped out of the café, and got on the elevator going down. On the next level, a trio of men stood on the metal plate where the elevator ended, literally blocking people as they tried to step off. Yet
another example, thought Robin, of the epidemic inconsideration. Nothing pissed her off like idiots selfishly blocking the flow of human traffic. Robin often heard herself mutter “Move it!” to kids at Brownstone who loitered in the middle of a busy stairwell or hovered in doorways, forcing other students to push through the clogged space. It was all about movement, this city, and when morons gummed up the works, Robin’s temper sizzled.

“Get out of the fucking way,” she seethed at the trio of men as she approached, actually checking one of them in the arm as she nudged her way around them.

He glared at her, his eyes narrow, angry, and Robin enjoyed the reaction. But then it changed. His eyes went wide, surprised, suspicious, doubtful, and then back to good, clean anger.

“Melanie Wilkes,” he said to her.

In a flash of recall, Robin remembered that she’d used that name the night she met and bedded Harvey Wilson, the very man fuming at her right now. She hadn’t recognized him without his helmet.

“Back from the plantation?” he asked.

The other two men—customers? co-workers?—drifted away. “I’m sorry,” said Robin, wondering why and what she was apologizing for.

“You
are
the woman I think you are?” he asked. “New Year’s Eve 1999?”

She couldn’t help blushing. Harvey was very direct—and confrontational. “Yes, I remember you. I’m a little surprised you recognized me.”

A woman with shopping bags stepped off the elevator and said, “Pardon me, you’re in the way.”

Robin snapped, “Mind your own business.”

Harvey frowned, and took Robin by the elbow, leading her three steps away. He said, “You do look different. But I never forget a face.”

“My face was a lot rounder then.”

“Same face,” he said. “The eyes are colder.”

Ouch
. “It is December,” she said.

He would have none of her banter. “Why Melanie Wilkes?” he asked. “Because you were gone with the wind?”

Exactly
, Robin thought. Her little joke-to-self.
Heh
. “No one who knew me back then recognizes me now. And we were … together … only that one night.”

“Partial night,” he said.

Robin was flummoxed by his bitterness. She’d assumed that, if she found him and he remembered her, he’d be embarrassed by her making contact. Or confused. Or flattered. But angry? She’d done him a favor by sneaking out. Like he’d want to wake up next to the biggest (literally) mistake of his sexual life? “It seemed polite to let myself out,” she said. “Really, I’m shocked you remember me.”

“You remember me,” he said.

Well, he
was
the father of her child. Looking at Harvey Wilson now, she could see the obvious resemblance to Stephanie. He’d given her daughter the full lips, the diamond-shaped face, the inquisitive brow. Stephanie was a beautiful girl, and her father was a handsome man. Solidly built. Good genes. Robin was glad to see this tall healthy male in front of her, knowing instinctually that he was physically sound and healthy with clear skin, bright hazel eyes, thick dark hair. The relief of his strong presence, knowing that Stephanie had inherited it, made Robin’s eyes moist. She rubbed them as if adjusting her vision.

She blinked at him a few times, and said, “You look well.”

Harvey nodded. “You’ve lost weight?”

She chuckled at the remark. The gross understatement might’ve been a dig, but it was too mild to inflict damage. Robin said, “Pound or two,” and tried to move the conversation forward. “Tell me about you”—she made a show of reading his name tag—“Harvey. What’ve you been doing all this time?”

“Working,” he said.

“Married?” she asked, even though she knew he wasn’t.

“Was,” he said, “to another woman who lied.”