Love Is Red (31 page)

We sit on a park bench and watch the people go by. Some teenagers sit on the grass, all denim and laughter; there is the inevitable guitar but nothing too terrible. For once the Hare Krishnas aren't singing. There are pigeons fighting over half a roll. People stroll. A girl and a guy take pictures with old-fashioned cameras. I turn to my companion.

“How are you holding up, frozen-yogurt-wise?”

His solemn brown eyes regard me for a moment, and then he goes back to meticulously licking round and round the side of his cone to make it even and not drip. He nods.

“It's good?”

“It's good.”

“Good.” I close my eyes for just a moment, lean back, allow myself to listen to the city around us.

A breeze blows, scuttling the twigs, a paper cup; somewhere a small dog barks; cars honk but sound almost amiable. It's easy to believe in the world at the tail end of a Sunday afternoon while eating frozen yogurt. I open my eyes as a young couple, midtwenties, walk by hand in hand, talking, laughing.

Instinctively I put my hand up and feel the faintest presence underneath my shirt, where it still hangs.
Katherine, will you wear this, now and forever?

“Kat?”

“Yes, hon?” I sit up, look at him. “What's up?”

“Want a taste?” He proffers his cone.

I know what this means. When I was four years old ice cream was sacred, not to be shared with anyone, or hardly anyone. I must have looked really sad just then.

“Thank you so much!” I take a tiny taste. Still, the amount of sugar is enough to light up a city. “Wow! That's sweet.”

“Want another one?”

“I'm okay. Thanks, love.”

I yawn. It's been a long day. I was up at seven and on the train. Reading the Sunday paper I saw my story slip to page sixteen. Again I gave silent thanks for the governor who had come so chivalrously into my life to take the brunt of the media.

Thank you, Governor, for your insatiable appetites, for your penchant for underage girls, for your taste in leather whips, diapers, and cocaine. While I feel terrible for your wife and family, I promise that I will vote for you in the next election. If you're kicked out I'll send you a fruit basket, something to say thank you.

It is Sunday and the train is on its off-peak schedule, so there was time to go over the documents again, to make sure I've signed all the places I needed to sign. The pages sent by the lawyers, and the New York State Office of Children and Family Services and the courts and the IRS all working it out so Katherine Anne Emerson can become the legal guardian of Lucas Theodore Bowers.

Most single women should take out a life insurance policy, but many don't. I never did. However, nonsmoking, in excellent health and her early thirties, single working mother Andrea Bowers did.

I could have told them, though, that Andrea was always careful, always meticulous when it came to her financial
life. Always paid the rent on time, split the utilities, paid her taxes early, saved and was frugal, not cheap, but man, she was careful.

And in this case Lucas will be well provided for.

There is a stipulation that a large portion of the insurance payout must be put away for college, which I am happy with, and the rest is left to the legal guardian's discretion, which turns out to be mine.

In just three weeks the system has become all speed and efficiency; after all it's for the good of the child and honoring the final wishes of the parent. It probably has nothing to do with the fact that when the attractive young woman who defended herself against the infamous killer known as the Sickle Man, and who became the city's and America's and most likely the world's darling, was prevented from being able to care for her murdered friend's adorable orphaned child, she threatened to become vocal on talk shows and in the media, and perhaps she did have the potential to make things extremely uncomfortable for everyone involved.

Take care of him, Katherine.

Or maybe it is for the good of the child.

Regardless I was there, ringing the doorbell of this tired-looking suburban house, and I heard him running with a cry of:

“Kat!”

He was finally in my arms and squeezing me tight and tight around the neck.

“Kat! Kat!”

Andrea, I will.

On the ride back we were silent, looking out of the window,
lulled by the motion of the train, by the station names receding. It seems somehow that we both want distance between that place and us until we know that we've truly escaped, until we are ready to speak.

And there is so much to talk about and so much to do that I am completely overwhelmed. That's why we're eating frozen yogurt in the park. First things first, one step at a time.

Now, as Lucas concentrates on licking the sides of his cone, I can ask. “So what happened to Mrs. Kaskow? She seemed . . . kind of strange when we said good-bye.”

She had been more than that; white-faced, tight-lipped. His bag had been packed, standing ready at the door. “Good-bye, have a good journey,” then closing the door fast, clicking the lock.

“She scared. She scared of me when I told her those things.” He is matter-of-fact, just stating a truth.

The police were reluctant to tell us, but we eventually we found out.

Mrs. Kaskow was the anonymous tipster who informed first the New York detectives and then the local sheriff's department in Vermont. “She must really care about you,” said one cop, shaking his head. “She was
determined
that we send somebody out here.” Sael had nodded, grim-faced, but I knew who was really behind it.

Now I have to ask. “What things?”

“Momma and this other girl came.”

“Girl, not a lady?”

“No, she was teenager, she had metal bracelets on her teeth.” He bares his teeth at me.

“Braces? Okay, go on.”

“And they say that I needed to wake her and tell her to call the police to tell them to go find you.”

He had stood at the side of her bed. The cabin address had been scrawled in a childish crayoned hand.

“What did she say?”

“She was real mad. She told me to go back to bed if I didn't want a spanking.”

“What did you do?”

“They said that if she said no, I had to tell her that her sister Mindy said, ‘Remember the summer with Uncle Nicky and the pool.'”

What the hell does that mean?
“What did she do?”

“She turned on the light and look at me and she got very scared like she seen a monster and shaking and she said, ‘It's a joke, how do you know that, you can't know that, no one knows about that, you can't know that, why are you doing this to me?'

“Then I told her that Mindy say, ‘Tell Lalabelle that a promise is a promise. Tell her I say she has to call.'”

So Cheryl Kaskow was a Lalabelle once.
“And she called?”

But now Lucas can't stop; the words tumble out. “Kat, she was crying and crying, she told me to go to bed and called me a bad name.” He looks down.

“You felt bad?”

He nods. “She say I was a freak. She screamed at me to get out of her room. ‘Get out of here, you freak.'” He looks up. “Why did she say those things? Why was she so mad with me?”

You killed him, you bitch, you fucking bitch, you killed him, you killed him, you fucking psycho bitch, you killed—

“Oh, honey, you're not a freak. I'm sorry she called you that. She was just a little scared. Sometimes we sound mad and say mean things, but we're not, we're just scared.”

You psycho, you fucking stabbed him, you stabbed him, why, you bitch, you crazy bitch—

He nods but doesn't meet my eye. His lip is trembling.

“Hey, look at me.”

Finally he looks up.

“I'm sorry you made her scared, but you had to get her to call because I needed help. Your momma and Mindy knew that. You had to help me and I'm very, very proud of you.”

“Kat, the pretend man, is he gone now?”

“Yes, babe, he is.”

“Good. He was bad.”

“Well, it's complicated.” I can feel my throat close a little; tears prick at my lids.

“But he hurted the ladies and my momma.”

Can I tell you a secret? I have not been David for a while now.

“Yes, that part of him was very bad.”

“He won't come back?”

“No, babe, he's not coming back.”

He looks at me a moment longer and then nods. “Okay.”

“So, there's a lot of new things coming up for us.”

“Like what?”

I try to sound casual. “I was thinking, how about a new school, how do you feel about that?”

I've been really worried about this. I want him to have the security of a place he knows, but there he'll always be seen as the child of one of the victims. The looks, the talk—he needs a fresh start. Let people draw their own conclusions when they see us. They don't have to know anything.

“Okay.”

“Not worried?”

“No. Mrs. Ryder was kind of mean.”

“Well, I guess she also got a little scared.” I take a breath, plunge on. “Lucas, maybe it's a good idea not to tell people about the ladies.”

He smiles, shakes his head. “But the ladies aren't here now.”

That's a mercy at any rate.
“Well, maybe with . . . stuff like that you can tell me first? Okay?”

“Okay.”

“And guess what the other new thing is?”

“What?”

“We're going to be moving.”

This gets his attention. “With a truck?”

I laugh at this reaction. “There might be a truck involved. Why?”

“My friend Caleb's family moved and he said there was a huge truck bigger than T-Rex!”

“Wow, that's pretty big. I don't know if our truck will be that big. I guess we'll see.”

“Where are we going to live?”

“Where do you want to live?”

“Somewhere where I can have my own room.”

“I think we can manage that. What else?”

“And my crayons.”

“Okay.”

“And a fireman's pole.”

“Why?”

“So that when we need to go somewhere and you call, ‘Lucas, come down and have your breakfast!' I can just slide down the pole!”

“Well, we'll certainly keep it in mind when we're looking. Anything else?”

“Kat?”

“Yeah?”

He looks nervous now. This makes me nervous. I don't want to think about what Lucas is capable of asking me, what I'll be forced to answer.

Are you sure the pretend man is gone? Why can't we live with my momma? What if the ladies come back?

I brace myself.

“Can we get a dog?”

“A dog?”

“Yeah, can we?”

The relief makes me feel a little high. Actually a dog would be pretty nice. “Why not?”

“Yay!” He bounces up and down, does a happy dance, singing, wiggling all over, and shaking his little butt. “A dog! A dog! A dog!”

It's completely adorable and hilarious. I start laughing. “I just wish you'd be a
little
more excited.”

“Oh!” A sudden thought has just occurred to him. He stops. Looks at me worried again. “Kat?”

“Lucas?”

“Would a dog be bad for the baby?”

I look at him. A car horn blats, the guitar plays, and the teenagers' laughter sounds muted and far away.

“What baby?”

“The baby who's coming, the one you're going to have.”

It has only been a feeling. It could have been stress; there could have been a million reasons why I've been late. I haven't even bought the test yet.

I force myself to keep my voice calm, to speak carefully. “The baby that's coming, you know about that, huh?”

“I guess maybe a dog would hurt it.”

Already he's preparing himself for disappointment, trying to be a big boy, trying to be strong. I look at him. He looks back, all of four years old, brown eyes anxiously watching me, waiting for my answer.

“No, Lucas,” I say at last, “I don't think a dog would hurt the baby.”

His anxious look melts away, his whole face lights up with a smile. He puts his small, slightly sticky hand on mine and confides his final secret into my ear in the warm late afternoon.

“I'm going to call him Noodle.”

He hadn't even wanted to take the extra course in the first place. “Photography using darkrooms?” he asked. “Really?”

“Every little bit helps,” his friend Ian had said. “Try out everything—colleges love that kind of crap.”

It hadn't been too bad at that. The instructor, Phil, used to be something of a big deal, took pictures of some pretty famous people back in the day. It was generally understood that as long as you didn't get him started on light because he'd probably come in his pants, he was cool enough.

It was about two weeks into the course that she had sat down next to him and asked if he was wearing his Yankees cap ironically.

“No,” he had said, surprised.

“Good,” she had said, “irony is so last year,” and smiled.

Her name was Lorna. She had one side of her head shaved, though she could put her hair over it, and a small stud in her lip and a gummy bear tattoo on her right upper arm. He thought she was beautiful and unlike anyone he'd ever met, fiercely opinionated and funny. He'd been too terrified to ask
her out on a date. She'd probably laugh in his face if he suggested movies and dinner.

He didn't remember who had suggested they go to the small park in Union Square for their assignment, but now they were here. Lorna had wanted to take pictures of the tourists reacting to the Hare Krishnas singing and dancing and tripping out. Only the Hare Krishnas weren't there. “Typical,” Lorna said. “Well, let's see what else we can find, now we're here.”

There had been a homeless person sitting a few yards away from a wealthy-looking woman with several shopping bags at her elegantly sandaled feet, sunglasses on, talking on her cell phone, but Lorna wasn't having it. “Been done a million times before,” she said. However, she had perked up at the sight of the pigeons fighting over a bread roll near a sleeping Rastafarian. “Not bad!” She began to take pictures.

He took a few and then saw them sitting just a few yards over.

He liked the play of light, the way they were sitting together, independent but comfortable. The little kid was downright cute and the woman was striking. She had a familiar quality,
something
—he couldn't put a finger on it.

He nudged Lorna. She took in the scene, the woman and little boy sitting on the bench, underneath the trees, the golden light, the ice cream cone, the sense of peace, and dismissed it with a shake. “
Total
Hallmark.” She yawned and went back to the pigeons and the Rastafarian.

He looked again and without thinking, or even adjusting his lens, turned and pressed the button.

Click.

Later down in the darkroom, dimly red and chemical-smelling, they took turns fishing at the pictures, and sure enough there
was something cool about seeing the image rise and appear, like an old-timey magic trick.

He figured Phil was right. You had to go a little old school to truly understand and appreciate photography.

He was standing, staring at the picture, when Lorna came up behind him.

“What?” she asked. “What is it?” Then she had looked herself.

“Not my kind of thing,” she conceded at last, “but I like the way you got the woman with the short hair all kind of glowing and out of focus. How'd you do that?”

“Don't know,” he said, still staring. She looked, shrugged, and then started putting the equipment away.

The woman and the little boy sitting on the park bench, eating ice cream, holding hands—all that he remembered. The white chick glowing and smeary in a cool way, as if he had managed to overexpose only her, somehow, but that's not what bothered him. It was the other woman he didn't remember. But there she was, black and thin and attractive, standing a little to the side of the bench, her hand lightly resting on the top.

Lorna called his name. “Some of us are going to Cort's for some beers! Wanna come?”

The woman in the picture was looking down on the two who sat on the bench with a wistful look, half smiling. It was a strange sort of smile, sad and proud all at the same time.

“Mike?”

“Coming,” he called as he ran up the stairs.

“Geez, what took you so long?” But she said it with a smile.

“Sorry,” he said, returning her smile as they started off down the street.

Ultimately Lorna was right, he decided. Apart from the exposed quality of the woman on the bench, there was nothing really special about the scene after all. But that was okay; there were plenty of other pictures to choose from. He wasn't going to think about it anymore. All that mattered was that he was out with the girl of his dreams and the night was still young.