Kiss Her Goodbye (10 page)

Jen leans closer.

Not from here, either.

She leaning toward the window, closer and closer until her face is almost pressed against the glass.

That's when she spots the figure standing below, just beyond the pool of yellow light cast by the street lamp overhead.

Startled, Jen squints into the darkness beyond the window, her heart pounding.

Somebody is there, watching her.

Or is he?

When Jen blinks, the spot is empty.

Either she was seeing things, or the lurker spotted her and scuttled off into the night.

Jen spins and hurries toward the door, opening her mouth to call for her father.

Then she stops short, remembering.

She can't tell him. Not after what happened last weekend when she was babysitting. No way will he agree to let her go back to the Gattinskis if she tells him this. He'll think she's a baby.

And maybe she is.

A big fat baby with an overactive imagination. Why does this keep happening to her? Last week, she was convinced she was being followed home from the Gattinskis for no reason whatsoever. Is she losing her mind?

But it isn't just me
, she remembers. Erin saw somebody, too. And so did Amber and Rachel. At the soccer game. Or so they said.

For all Jen knows, Erin was just trying to spook her. But why would she do that? Just to be mean? Not Erin. She's not like that.

Slowly, Jen returns to the window and leans against the pane, gazing down into the street below.

Nobody is there.

Of course not.

Nobody ever was, Jen tells herself firmly, reaching within for confidence that refuses to settle as she stares out into the blackness.

Thursday afternoon, Kathleen steps through the unlocked back door to find the house spotless—and empty.

After setting down several bags from Wegmans and a folder containing her notes from this morning's meeting with her father's doctor, she dials Maeve's cell phone.

“Kathleen! I was just about to call you. Are you home?”

“I'm not sure.” Kathleen walks across the shining tile floor in the kitchen. “The address is right, but this place is unrecognizable.”

“I told you she was good,” Maeve says with a laugh. “Do you want to hire her?”

“Definitely. I just have to check with Matt.”

And if last night's agreeable mood is any indication, her husband will have no problem with it. She fully expected him to argue when she climbed into bed and approached him about letting Jen keep her babysitting job, but to her surprise, he was amenable. So amenable that when she thanked him and rolled over to go to sleep, he rolled alongside her and nuzzled the back of her neck.

A lackluster marital sex life might not be revived overnight, but they sure came close, Kathleen remembers with a smile.

“That's great,” Maeve says, and it takes a moment for Kathleen to realize she's talking about the cleaning lady.

“Yeah, she really did do a good job.” Kathleen runs her hands over the polished chrome of the kitchen faucet and inhales the sterile herbal scent of Windex and 409. “When you see her, thank her.”

“You didn't see her?”

“No, I haven't been home all day. I had to be at the nursing home first thing.”

“I forgot. How did that go?”

Kathleen sighs. “The doctor thinks it's Parkinson's. They have to do more tests.”

“That sucks.”

Used to Maeve's bluntness—and, after taking hours to digest it, to accept the tentative diagnosis—Kathleen says only, “It does, but he's close to eighty years old, Maeve. Something's going to get him sooner or later.”

“Your mother was a lot younger than he is, wasn't she?” Maeve asks.

“Twenty years younger. Why?”

“I'm still dating Mo. He's growing on me, but I can't get over the fact that he's so old. I think younger men are more my style.”

“Younger as in our age?”

“Younger as in younger.” Maeve laughs. “A couple of fraternity boys checked me out at the gym today.”

“Maeve . . . fraternity boys? That's just. . .” Kathleen shakes her head, laughing.

“It's flattering. Men that age are in their sexual prime, and so are we, Kathleen.”

Again, Kathleen's thoughts flit back to last night in bed with Matt. Why don't they make love more often? Why hasn't she initiated it lately? She's been so damned tired, so overwhelmed . . .

But look at the house now. Spic and span, and Matt said he's bringing home pizza for dinner. There's nothing for her to do but put up her feet and wait until the kids get off the bus.

She thanks Maeve again for the cleaning lady. “Give me her number and I'll call and ask if she wants to come every week, okay?”

“I knew you were going to say that. Smart woman.” Maeve gives her the number, then hangs up.

As Kathleen dials Sissy's number, she realizes she forgot to ask Maeve how much she charges. Oh, well. How much can it be?

After four rings, an answering machine picks up.

“Hi, Sissy, this is Kathleen Carmody. You did a wonderful job cleaning for me today, and I'm wondering if you can come every week? Please give me a call.”

She leaves her number, then replaces the receiver in its cradle, noticing that the fingerprint smudges have been removed from the wall and light switch nearby. She makes her way through the house, pleased to see that the hardwoods and the windows are gleaming; not a trace of dust anywhere, not even on the leaves of the philodendron in the dining room. In the living room, the magazines are arranged on the coffee table in a perfect arc. The runner on the hall stairs bears vacuum marks, and the second floor smells of furniture polish and bathroom disinfectant. All of the windows are cracked to let fresh air in, and the bedroom and bathroom doors have been left ajar.

Having grown up in a house where all doors were kept closed, even on empty rooms, Kathleen has found the habit hard to break, to the point where Matt and the kids have adopted it, too.

Now, she finds herself appreciating the invigorating cross breeze wafting through the upstairs hall, and the light spilling into the usually dark corridor.

Kathleen pauses in the doorway of Jen's room, gazing at the ruffled white eyelet coverlet and curtains, the childhood classics lining the bookshelves, the collection of stuffed animals heaped on the bed. The room could belong to a girl a decade younger, she realizes with a pang.

When they moved, Jen asked if she could get a new bedspread and curtains.

“But these are almost new,” Kathleen remembers telling her daughter. “I just bought them for you last year.”

Jen didn't argue. She never used to argue. Not back then.

I should have let her pick out her own stuff
, Kathleen thinks, stepping into the room and running her hand over the white ruffles at the window.
I never asked her what she likes. I just went out to Marshall Field's and bought these girly things.

Erin's room, she recalls, is done in tones of bright orange and green and purple, with geometric patterns, painted walls, and retro blond wood furniture Maeve ordered from one of those upscale household chain stores. Jen thought it was cool; Kathleen thought it was incredibly ugly: a throwback to the seventies-style stuff that cluttered her father's house before the tag sale where he sold it all for pocket change.

Now, as she looks around Jen's traditional bedroom, she tries to see it through her daughter's eyes—and her daughter's friends' eyes.

Maybe we can update the curtains and coverlet
, Kathleen concludes, realizing they're somewhat frou-frou. And Matt will probably be willing to paint the walls.

But not orange, like Erin's. Kathleen draws the line at orange.

Satisfied with her new resolve, she steps back out into the hallway just as the phone rings. She hurries to pick up the extension in her bedroom, hoping that, this time, the receiver is where it belongs.

It is. Either Jen is learning to put it back after she uses it, or the wonderfully efficient Sissy found it and returned it to its cradle.

Kathleen notes the absence of wrinkles in her freshly made bed as she perches on the edge with the phone, saying, “Hello?”

For the first few moments, her voice is greeted by silence.

Then she hears it.

The distinct sound of a baby crying.

“Hello?”

The cries grow louder.

A chill slips down Kathleen's spine.

“Who is this?” she demands, her hand trembling as she presses the receiver against her ear.

The only reply is a click, and then a dial tone.

Shaking, her breath coming in shallow gusts, Kathleen lowers the receiver.

She runs downstairs to the kitchen, where the Caller ID box is hooked up to the phone, and checks the digital window to see where the last call came from.

It had to be a wrong number, she tries to tell herself. There wasn't anything ominous about it.

Just a wrong number, and nothing more.

 

 

“Hey, you! Where are you going so fast?”

Jen turns around to see Robby leaning on the low cement wall in front of the school, his thumbs hooked in the front pocket of his faded jeans. The sun casts auburn highlights in his unruly dark hair. For some ungodly reason she finds herself wanting to run her fingers through it.

“I have to get on the bus,” she tells him.

“Why?”

She laughs nervously, gesturing around them at the hordes of chattering students streaming out of the school. “Because it's, um, time to go home.”

He shrugs. “Is there a law that says you have to take the bus?”

Uh-oh.

Rather than answer his question, she offers, “Erin had to stay after.”

“Yeah, I know. She got caught skipping gym, right?”

Jen nods.

“You ever skip any classes?”

“Me? No!”

Did you have to sound so horrified?
She notes his amused expression.
Way to go, Jen. Nothing like coming across as a prissy strait lace.

She says hastily, “I mean, I never have, but . . .”

“But you plan to?” His grin broadens.

“Sure.”

Robby kicks off the wall with one black boot and leans close to her, both hands jammed into his pockets now. “Yeah? Let me know when you're ready, okay?”

“Ready . . . ?”

“To cut a class. We'll skip together.”

He makes it sound so . . . erotic. Jen's breath catches in her throat. She forces herself to exhale, to inhale. She can smell smoke clinging to his blue plaid flannel shirt and jean jacket: cigarettes and woodsmoke, an odd and intoxicating blend of decadence and the outdoors.

“Where . . . where would we go?” she dares to ask, though she doesn't dare to meet his dark gaze. “You know . . . if we skipped.”

“You can decide. I'm easy. I'll go anywhere.”

She looks from his boots to his face and finds him grinning at her.

“Whatever.” She does her best to emulate Erin's coolly noncommital attitude, wishing she had gum to snap or—or a cigarette to exhale.

Not that she's ever smoked in her life . . . or intends to. Smoking is stupid.

And Robby . . . well, she always figured Robby was stupid as well.

Not anymore. Something about the way he's suddenly noticing her, talking to her, makes Jen wish she were capable of her friends' flippant nonchalance.

“Want a ride home?” he asks.

“Now?”

“Isn't that where you're going?” he asks with a languid grin.

“I was going to get on the bus.”

“And the bus would take you home. Right?”

“No, just, um, to the bus stop.”

He actually laughs. But not at her. Not with her, either, because she's not laughing. No, she's just standing here feeling like an utter idiot and wondering why she's tongue-tied talking to her best friend's sort-of boyfriend, and why he's bothering to talk to her at all.

“Well,” Robby says, quirking a black brow, “I'd take you right to your front door.”

“Yeah, and my mother would freak.”

“What, she doesn't want you hanging out with older guys?”

“I doubt it.”

“So tell her I'm younger. Tell her I'm seven, but I'm very mature for my age.” He laughs at his own joke.

This time, Jen laughs, too.

“So you want a ride?” he asks, grin fading, eyes taken over by an expression that makes Jen's lower belly cartwheel.

“I can't.”

He shrugs.

“Not today, anyway,” she adds as he prepares to walk away.

He looks intrigued. “Tomorrow?”

It's her turn to shrug. “Maybe,” she says, as close to coy as she's capable of being.

She turns and heads toward the waiting yellow bus, wondering what the hell she's doing. She can't get a ride home from Robby. Her parents will kill her.

But only if they find out
, she tells herself as she climbs up the steps, acutely aware of Robby watching her from a distance.

Totally oblivious to the fact that he's not the only one.

 

 

“Lucy?”

At the sound of her name, she spins slowly toward the booth in the far corner of the coffee shop, and there he is.

Fourteen years fall away in an instant.

His hair is still golden—that's the first thing she notices. Still golden, unless he's dying it.

Her hand goes to her own head, to the salt-and-pepper waves she hasn't bothered to color in years.

She regrets that as she cautiously walks toward him. Regrets a lot of things, actually; far more important things. But right now, letting her hair go gray at such a young age is all she can think of.

He stands as she comes closer, and she sees that he's as lanky as he was back then. She wonders if he'll order the double bacon cheeseburger he always got when they came here, unless it was a Friday during Lent. It was the beer-battered fish fry then, with french fries
and
onion rings.

How he could eat, Lucy remembers, almost smiling despite her reason for being here. The man had a ravenous appetite.

Especially for her.

She feels her cheeks growing warm as she arrives in front of him, glad he can't know what she's thinking.

“Lucy. You look exactly the same.” He reaches across the table, across fourteen painful years, to clasp her hands just as he used to.

“No, I don't,” she protests, embarrassed. “But you do.”

It isn't a polite lie, not the way it was when he said it. Aside from the fine network of wrinkles around his eyes, he looks just as he did the last time she saw him.

“Sit down, Lucy. I can't believe you're really here.”

She marvels that he manages to sound as though this reunion were his own idea, and not hers. As though it's something they discussed in advance, when the truth is, she hasn't heard his voice since he told her goodbye, and she believed, on that tragic day, that it was forever.