Midnight Voices (9 page)

She turned and swept through her entry hall into a cavernous living room, obviously expecting Caroline and Tony to follow. Tony picked up the vase to carry it inside, and as he passed she heard him whisper, “Act like you hate me. It’ll drive her crazy.”

But even having spent only five minutes with Tony Fleming, Caroline knew acting like she hated him would be utterly impossible.

CHAPTER 8

Mistake,
Caroline thought as she stepped through the door to Harry Cipriani’s the next day. But it was too late for second thoughts—Beverly Amondson and Rochelle Newman were already there, sitting side by side on a banquette where they could both face the room, and even as Caroline considered the possibility of slipping right back out the door again and scurrying up Fifth Avenue to disappear around the corner of 60th, she knew it was too late: Rochelle was already waving to her. As she approached the table, both women leaned forward and tipped their faces up to exchange the air kisses that would demonstrate their affection without marring their makeup, and as Caroline sat down, Beverly reached across the table to take one of Caroline’s hands in both her own.

“How
are
you?” Bev asked, her eyes fixing on Caroline’s, her face falling into an expression that Caroline assumed was intended to express genuine feelings. “Really?”

If you’d called in the last three months, you’d know,
Caroline thought. Why had she agreed to come? She glanced around the room. Most of the tables were occupied by businessmen of one sort or another, all of whom would be charging the enormously expensive lunch they were about to consume to their expense accounts, but three other tables were filled by groups of women who seemed to Caroline to look exactly like Bev and Rochelle, their perfectly understated—and perfectly tailored—clothing letting each other know that all was still secure in the world their husbands paid for.
Be fair,
Caroline chided herself. Bev and Rochelle had been her friends for years, and it was her own circumstances that had changed, not theirs. And besides, compared to Saturday, when she’d agreed to this lunch, things were suddenly looking a lot better.

“I’m actually starting to think I might survive,” she said as Andrea Costanza made her way across the room and seated herself on the chair the maître d’ was holding for her. “If I can stay ahead of the bill collectors for another couple of months, I just might make it. You won’t believe what’s been going on!” Dropping her voice and leaning forward slightly, Caroline began recounting everything that had happened since Saturday morning when she’d met Irene Delamond in the park right up until last night, when Tony Fleming had taken her and her kids out for dinner. Suddenly the air of sophistication Bev and Rochelle had been carefully displaying dropped away, and all four women could have been back in college whispering excitedly about a new boyfriend.

“Now let me get this straight,” Rochelle asked as Caroline finished. “This man lives in The Rockwell, and he likes Chinese food
and
your children?”

Caroline nodded.

“Marry him,” Rochelle pronounced.

But Beverly Amondson was shaking her head. “Too good to be true. Besides, aren’t you getting a little old for the ‘Oh, my God, we both love Chinese food’ bit?
Every
body likes Chinese food when they’re dating! And don’t men always pretend to like your children until they get in your pants?”

“Beverly!”

Beverly rolled her eyes at Rochelle’s shocked tone. “Oh, come on, Rochelle. It’s perfectly true, and you know it.”

“Well, even if it is, I still think Caroline should marry him.”

“Marry him?” Caroline protested. “I hardly even know him! He might not even call me again.”

“Well, if he does, hang up.”

Andrea Costanza’s words hung in the air, silencing the other three women, and it was finally Caroline herself who broke the silence. “Hang up?” she echoed. “What on earth are you talking about?”

“That building,” Andrea said, visibly shuddering.

“The building?” Rochelle Newman echoed. “You mean The Rockwell? It’s fabulous!”

But Andrea was shaking her head. “It’s creepy.” She turned to look at Caroline. “What was the apartment you were in like?”

Caroline shrugged. “It needs some work, but it’s going to be gorgeous when I’m done with it. She wants me to redo everything.”

“Why isn’t it gorgeous already?” Andrea asked archly. Now all three of her friends were staring at her. “Well, I’m sorry,” she said. “It’s just that—well, there’s this girl—one of my cases. She lives there with her foster parents, and every time I have to go there, I get the creeps.”

Caroline rolled her eyes. “Now you’re starting to sound like the kids.” When all three of her friends looked at her uncomprehendingly, she recounted the rumors the children in the neighborhood had been spreading among themselves. “Ryan even made me cross the street to keep from walking in front of it on Saturday.”

“Well, I don’t blame him,” Andrea said. “I’m telling you, the whole place gives me the willies.”

“The willies,” Beverly repeated. “That tells us a lot. So because you get ‘the willies’ in one apartment in a building, Caroline shouldn’t go out with someone who lives in another apartment?” Her eyes narrowed slightly. “If I didn’t know you better, I’d say you were jealous.”

“Jealous?” Andrea echoed. “Why on earth would I be jealous?”

“Maybe because you’d rather Caroline didn’t get a second husband before you’ve gotten a first?” Beverly asked. “Especially one who lives in a building where someone’s been kind enough to take in one of your poor little children.”

Andrea stiffened. “I’ve managed not to be jealous of you, Bev, while you’ve plowed through three husbands,” she replied. “In fact, if I felt anything while you were doing that, I think I’d identify it as pity, not jealousy.”

“Pity? For me?”

“More likely for your husbands,” Rochelle Newman said quickly, trying to defuse the situation before either of her friends said something they couldn’t back away from. Andrea and Beverly both seemed to be weighing their options, and it was finally Andrea who spoke, making a visible effort to let go of her anger as she made the decision to let the moment pass.

“Who knows?” she said, offering Beverly a smile that was obviously intended to be conciliatory even if it wasn’t quite successful. “Maybe you’re right.” She turned to Caroline. “And Bev is certainly right that my not liking the building is no reason for you not to date someone who lives there. I’m sorry I even brought it up.”

“What if she marries him?” Rochelle asked. “Will you go visit her?”

“Yes,” Andrea replied. “Of course I will.”

But she’d hesitated a moment too long before she spoke the words, and something in them didn’t ring true.

PART II

THE SECOND NIGHTMARE

Breathing.

It was barely audible, but he could hear it whispering in the darkness.

His own?

His brother’s?

He wasn’t sure.

He had no idea how long he’d been in the darkness. When he’d gone to sleep the last time—or at least what he thought was the last time—it hadn’t been completely dark. It had never been completely dark, at least not that he could remember. Always, there had been some kind of light. The night-light from when they were babies, first sleeping in the same crib, then in the twin beds that were as alike as they were.

Could he really remember sleeping in a crib?

Or was the memory just another one of the dreams that drifted out of the darkness?

The darkness . . . don’t give in to the darkness . . . remember the light. . . .

Even after the night-light was gone, after his mother had said he was too old for a night-light, there had still been the lights outside the windows. Wherever they’d lived, there’d always been some kind of light.

He could remember a streetlight, a glowing yellow globe at the top of a cement column. It hadn’t been right outside the window, but a little way down the block, so its light drifted up the wall across from his bed, and across half the ceiling.

Another room, where the only light came from headlights of cars passing in the street outside, sending shadows racing across his wall in an endless chase. Those shadows had brought bad dreams with them, dreams in which he was the quarry being chased, but it never mattered how hard or how fast he ran, he could never get away. But back then, back when there was still the light, he always awoke from the dream, always escaped from the nightmare back into the light.

The last room, where the light flooded in all night, from the white, bright streetlight, from the cars and trucks that droned down the street all night long, from the skyscrapers that loomed blocks away, even from the moon when it was the right time of the month.

Those were the lights that had brought the nightmares he’d finally gotten lost in.

The nightmares where he couldn’t run fast enough, where he always got caught and no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t escape from the torture that followed his capture, tortures that went on until he thought he was going to die.

Tortures where he could feel his life slipping away until he finally faded away into the blackness that closed around him. But even then the light would finally drive the dream away, except that after awhile he couldn’t really tell when he was dreaming, and when he was awake, because even when he was awake he could still feel his life slipping away.

Then had come the night when he hadn’t escaped the darkness at all.

By then the nightmares were coming so often that he was afraid to go to sleep, but it didn’t matter because no matter what he did, he always slipped into that horrible place from which there was no escape, surrounded by indistinct figures that poked and prodded at him, made every part of him hurt as if he was being stuck with a million needles, whispering among themselves, uttering words he could hardly hear, but that made him more fearful than if he’d heard a wolf howling outside his window.

Now he was trapped in the nightmare, and everything was backward, and it was the light he was afraid of, because now when the light came—any light at all—it brought the figures, and the voices, and the torture.

Was that what the breathing meant?

Were they nearby, and coming for him again?

He opened his mouth.

To call for help?

To beg for someone—anyone—to answer him?

But it made no difference, for no sound escaped his exhausted body.

The breathing came closer, and the sound of whispering voices swirled around him. His nerves began to tingle as he sensed the closeness of the tormentors, and he tried to make himself smaller, to shrink away from them.

A light—dazzlingly white—flashed on, and in the instant before the light blinded him as surely as the pitch blackness of a moment before, he saw the shapes.

The figures circled around him, edging closer.

Trembling hands ending in gnarled fingers reached toward him.

It’s a dream, he told himself. It’s only a dream, and I’ll wake up.

Wake up to the darkness?

He felt himself being lifted, raised from the hard bed on which he lay.

He was being carried now.

Carried to the torture room.

His mind cried out, but once again his exhausted body refused to obey the commands of his mind.

Now the figures were circled close around him, and the whispering voices grew louder and more excited.

For the first time, words emerged from the babble.

“Mine,” someone whispered. “I have a claim. It’s mine.”

The babble increased, and now the jagged nails were digging into his skin. He felt something press against his belly, something hard and sharp. Then he felt a slight popping sensation, and the pressure stopped, only to be replaced an instant later by something far worse.

A terrible pain, slashing upward from his belly, then downward. Almost as if—

He tried to push the thought away, but even as he tried to shut it out of his mind, the image came. It was as if he were hovering in the air, looking down at the carnage that was his own body:

His own body, slit open from his crotch to his throat.

Blood oozing from the gaping wound, trickling through his entrails.

His diaphragm, torn half away, twitching feebly as it tried to draw air into lungs that lay inert in the open cavity of his chest.

His heart, throbbing wildly, then slowing, its beating no longer rhythmic.

Stopping.

Stopping!

He was dying!

This time he was truly dying!

But it was only a dream! A nightmare from which he would awaken into—

The dark?

The terrible dark, where nothing, not even time itself, existed.

He could feel it now, feel the darkness gathering around him. The terrible image of his mutilated body was beginning to fade away, but from somewhere else—somewhere above him, a tiny point of light appeared.

A point that expanded and grew brighter, but was still far away.

He started toward the light, turning away from the terror and the darkness and the phantom figures.

He was running now, running as fast as he could, flying toward the light, a feeling of weightlessness buoying him, lifting him, raising him into the white brilliance.

The dream, the long nightmare from which there had seemed to be no escape was finally ending, and at last he was free.

Free to drift into eternity.

CHAPTER 9

I’m doing the right thing,
Caroline told herself.
I know I’m doing the right thing.
But even with her own reassuring words echoing in her mind, a nagging doubt still buzzed around her like a gnat, so tiny she could barely see it, but its near invisibility frustrating her efforts to banish it. She gazed at her reflection in the mirror, knowing the image she saw should reassure her. The creases of worry that had been forming between her eyebrows only a few short months ago were gone, and even without a trace of makeup, she looked almost as young now as she had at her wedding to Brad.

Brad.

That was part of it, of course. Even though he’d died less than a year ago, there were already days when she didn’t even think of him. Not many, but a few. But that was natural, wasn’t it? She was getting married today, so it was natural that she’d be thinking much more about Tony Fleming than about Brad Evans.

Then why did she feel vaguely guilty—somehow disloyal—about what she was doing? But she knew the answer to that, too. Part of it was simply the unexpectedness of it all. Until she’d met Tony the whole idea of getting married again hadn’t occurred to her. Even dating hadn’t been on her agenda, with the pain of Brad’s death still so fresh. But from the moment his hand had touched hers in the elevator of The Rockwell, she’d known something was going to happen. Still, she’d been on her guard, knowing that even though he seemed interested in her, the relationship probably wasn’t going to go anywhere.

But it turned out he really did like children, and his eyes always seemed to be sparkling with good humor, and even on that first night, when she’d invited him to stay for a glass of wine after the kids had gone to bed, she’d found herself pouring out her troubles to him more easily than she would have thought possible. When he’d told her she was worrying too much, that things had a way of working themselves out, she hadn’t quite believed him. And when Irene Delamond called her the next day and asked her if she’d be willing to help redo the entire apartment she shared with her sister, Caroline had been certain that Tony must have had a hand in it. But it didn’t really matter how she’d gotten the job—the commissions on the pieces Irene picked out that very afternoon had been enough to bring the rent current and pay off all the old bills.

Suddenly her job had become secure, and it quickly became obvious that she had a flair for seeing what would work together and what wouldn’t. Irene had eventually even agreed to part with the hideous vase that she had insisted was “perfect” only a few weeks earlier.

A pattern had quickly developed—Tony had found her in the park the next Saturday, watching Ryan play baseball, and wound up spending the day with her. They hadn’t really done much—but it had just been comfortable having him around. A couple of weekends later, when she’d had to attend an auction to help Irene choose a few pieces for her apartment, he’d volunteered to keep an eye on Ryan while he played baseball in the morning and soccer in the afternoon, joining the other weekend fathers almost as if Ryan was his own son, even though Ryan himself objected to the whole arrangement.

“Why does
he
have to be there?” Ryan had demanded as they’d been finishing up dinner in the same Chinese restaurant they’d first gone to a few weeks earlier. “He’s not my dad!”

“Ryan!” Caroline had begun. “There’s no need to be rude to—”

“Hey,” Tony had interrupted, apparently totally unfazed by Ryan’s outburst. “Ease up! He’s eleven years old, and doesn’t need a baby-sitter.” Then he’d winked at Ryan. “On the other hand, I have a feeling you’re stuck with me, unless you’d rather skip baseball and soccer entirely. Mothers worry too much, but sometimes there’s no arguing with them.”

The next weekend, when Ryan had put up a fuss about getting his hair cut, Tony had taken the boy’s side again. “Why would he want to go to a beauty parlor?” Once again he’d turned to Ryan. “How about I take you to my barber on Columbus?” Apparently deciding that a barber shop was better than a beauty parlor, even if it meant being with Tony, Ryan had gone along. But despite all Tony’s efforts, Ryan had remained wary of him, and when she’d told him they were getting married, there’d been an immediate storm.

A storm that had almost changed her mind.

Almost, but not quite.

“Of course Ryan’s going to object,” Beverly Amondson had told her. “What did you expect? He’s just turned eleven years old, and he misses his father. It’s not Tony Fleming he objects to—it’s anyone. He wants his mother to himself.”

It had almost been enough to dissuade Caroline, and when she’d talked to Tony about it, he had told her he understood exactly how she felt, and that whatever she decided wouldn’t change his feelings for her. “If we have to wait until he’s eighteen and goes off to college, then that’s what we’ll do. We’ll just figure out how to make this work.”

But it was Kevin Barnes who had finally made things clear to her. He took her out for lunch one day, and wasted no time with subtleties. “For God’s sake, Caroline, he’s perfect! If I weren’t so happy with Mark, I might just go after him myself. Just kidding,” he’d added as she’d threatened to throw a French fry at him. But then his expression had turned serious. “So what if Ryan doesn’t like him? Ryan will grow up and move on, a whole lot faster than either he or you thinks, and then where will you be? Do you really think Tony’s going to wait for you forever? And why should he, if it turns out you’re a wimp who lets an eleven-year-old kid dictate how you live your life? Believe me, darling, he’ll find someone else—and it won’t be because he doesn’t love you. He’s wants a wife, not a girlfriend, and you can’t expect him to wait around while you pander to Ryan.”

“It’s not pandering!” Caroline had objected, but Kevin had merely rolled his eyes.

“So maybe the word’s too strong. But think about it, okay? Just think about it.”

Which was exactly what she’d done, and in the end she’d decided that Kevin was right.

So this afternoon she and Tony were getting married in a suite at the Plaza Hotel, and in a few minutes she would be leaving the apartment for the last time.

Her eyes flicked to the spot on her vanity where Brad’s picture had always stood, his eyes watching her as she put on and took off her makeup. How many times in the months since he’d died had she sat here talking to him, knowing he couldn’t possibly answer her, but feeling as if his presence was still close. But after she’d made up her mind to marry Tony, she’d put the picture of Brad away, adding it to the collection of things she was keeping for Laurie and Ryan to have when they were grown up. But now, as she started putting on her makeup, she found herself talking to him one last time.

“Tell me I’m doing the right thing,” she whispered. “Tell me I’m not making a mistake.”

There was no answer.

Caroline hesitated one last time before opening the door that led to the living room of the suite in the Plaza. Even through the door she could smell the scent of the roses that had been arriving all day, bouquet after perfect bouquet, each one more lavish than the last. “You said you were allergic,” she’d said when she called Tony after the third delivery. “You told me not to order any flowers because they’d make you sneeze all the way through the ceremony.”

“And you believed me,” he’d replied. “Which just proves that you’re not very observant. Haven’t you ever noticed that I always stop to smell the roses in the park?”

By midafternoon, every available surface in the suite’s living room was filled with vases, and every delivery boy had arrived with detailed instructions on exactly where his vase was to be displayed. The pattern had quickly emerged: white roses at the end of the living room where the bedroom door was, then graduating through ever-deepening shades of pink, culminating in a huge burst of brilliant red at the far end of the room, where the ceremony would take place. Tony had chosen them all, turning what she’d thought was going to be a flowerless wedding into the kind of floral celebration she’d only dreamed about.

Glancing at herself one last time in the mirror on the back of the bedroom door, she reached out, turned the knob, and stepped into the living room. There was Tony, unbelievably handsome in his tuxedo, a crimson rose in his lapel, with Ryan standing next to him, identically dressed, looking almost like a miniature version of Tony himself, except that Tony was smiling while Ryan’s features were twisted into a dark scowl. Laurie was on the other side of Tony, in a dress that was a younger version of the one Caroline was wearing, but not identical. “It’s fine for you and Ryan to be dressed alike,” she’d told Tony when they were deciding on the clothes for the wedding. “But no woman wants to have someone else at her wedding dressed exactly the way she is. Besides, men always dress alike. For mothers and daughters, it’s way too cute.” But now, as she began moving toward Tony and her children, she wished she’d gone along with Tony’s idea. It wouldn’t have been cute at all—it would have been lovely. A moment later she was taking the hand that Tony was extending toward her, and the judge they’d asked to marry them was starting the brief service.

Then she was handing her bouquet—a spray of tiny roses whose colors mirrored every shade with which Tony had banked the room—to Laurie, and a moment later Tony was slipping the ring on her finger and she heard the judge softly speaking the words: “By the power vested in me by the State of New York, I now pronounce you husband and wife.”

Tony’s strong arms went around her, pulling her close, and a second later Ryan was tugging at her. Hugging her son, then her daughter, she finally straightened up and turned to gaze at the small crowd that had gathered to witness the ceremony.

Kevin Barnes and Mark Noble were right in front of her, Kevin beaming as if he’d engineered the whole thing himself. Claire Robinson was with them, and her smile looked almost genuine, though Caroline wasn’t certain whether it was happiness for her, or happiness at the prospect that she was about to meet half a dozen residents of The Rockwell, every one of them potential customers.

Beverly Amondson and Rochelle Newman were there with their husbands, along with Andrea Costanza, who was being escorted by a man who looked to be a little younger than Andrea, and might have been reasonably good-looking except for his sallow complexion and dandruff-specked shoulders.

On the other side of the room was Irene Delamond, along with a cluster of Tony’s other neighbors from The Rockwell.

Before Caroline could speak to anyone, Claire Robinson was beside her, leaning close as if to give Caroline one of the air kisses she despised. But instead, Claire whispered a little too loudly, “Is that Virginia Estherbrook over there? Introduce me, Caroline. You’ve simply
got
to introduce me.”

“Don’t you think you might congratulate my wife first, Claire?” Tony asked, his arm slipping protectively around Caroline.

For the first time that she could remember, Caroline saw Claire Robinson blush. Or at least she thought the faint reddening of Claire’s cheeks was a blush, though it was gone almost as soon as it appeared. “Why would I congratulate the woman who got the man I’d have grabbed for myself if I’d only seen him first?” Claire replied, executing a smooth recovery. But then she offered Caroline one of the dazzling smiles she usually reserved for her best customers. “But you know I congratulate you, and you know I wish you the best, and now, please, please, won’t someone introduce me to Virginia Estherbrook? I’ve seen her as Cleopatra, and Portia, and Amanda in
Private Lives
and God only knows what all else.”

“Virgie?” Tony called, and across the room the aging actress turned, then started toward Tony, Caroline, and Claire. The crowd opened for her as the Red Sea parted for Moses, and a moment later she was holding her hand out as if she expected someone to kiss the large ruby that glittered on one of her arthritic fingers.

“What a wonderful wedding,” she proclaimed, thrusting her hand into Tony’s. “It almost makes me want to try it one more time.” She turned to Caroline, beaming happily. “But you’ve already taken the only man I ever wanted that I couldn’t have, so I suppose I’ll live out what years I have left as a lonely old crone, drying up to blow away in a midwinter breeze. Is that a line from something? If it isn’t, it should be.” Finally she turned to Claire. “I don’t believe I know you.” Once again she extended the hand with the enormous ruby, and for a moment—just a moment—Caroline thought Claire Robinson might actually kiss it.

“I’m Claire Robinson,” Claire said. “You don’t know what a pleasure this is for me—I’ve been such a fan for so many years—”

Virginia Estherbrook’s smile cooled slightly. “Not that many years, I trust,” she said, her voice taking on a slightly frosty edge.

“Oh, I—I didn’t mean it that way,” Claire said quickly. “I just meant—I mean, when you played Lady Teazle—”

“I’m afraid that was Helen Hayes,” the actress cut in. She turned to Caroline. “Where on earth did you find this enchanting creature?” She paused just long enough for Claire to start relaxing, then: “I assume she must be one of yours, since she’s certainly not
our
sort.” The emphasis on the penultimate word was just enough to make Claire flinch.

“I’m sorry,” Claire began. “I didn’t mean to—”

But Virginia Estherbrook was already waving her words airily away. “I’m sure you didn’t. People like you never do mean to, do they? Not to worry, dear—all’s well that ends well. And that, my darlings, truly
is
a line from something, and I believe it sounds like an exit line.” Her eyes fixed once more on Claire, but this time she made no offer of her hand. “Charmed, my dear. I do hope I live long enough for you to see me again sometime.” She paused for a single beat, then pointedly added two more words: “On
stage
.” An instant later she was gone, fading into the crowd so quickly that it was almost as if she’d never been there at all.

“Oh, God,” Claire Robinson groaned. “I feel like an idiot!”

“Don’t worry about it,” Tony reassured her. “Virgie’s bark is a lot worse than her bite.” Suddenly the doors to the suite opened, and half a dozen waiters appeared, carrying trays of champagne and hors d’oeuvres, and the reception began in earnest. Caroline, with her children and her husband by her side, began moving through the room from one group to another. To her relief, everyone seemed to be mixing happily with everyone else. Laurie and Rebecca Mayhew had found each other, and were off in a corner by themselves, chattering the way only girls their age can, though Rebecca looked so pale that Caroline wondered how she could even sit up.