Promise Me (3 page)

M
yron arrived at Ali’s at seven
P
.
M
.

The Wilders lived in Kasselton, a town about fifteen minutes north of Livingston. Myron had gone through a strange ritual before leaving his house. Cologne or no cologne? That one was easy: no cologne. Tighty-whities or boxers? He chose something between the two, that hybrid that was either tight boxers or long tighties. Boxer briefs, the package said. And he chose them in gray. He wore a Banana Republic tan pullover with a black T-shirt underneath. The jeans were from the Gap. Slip-on loafers from the Tod’s outlet store adorned his size-fourteen feet. He couldn’t be more American Casual if he tried.

Ali opened the door. The lights behind her were low. She wore a black dress with a scooped front. Her hair was pinned back. Myron liked that. Most men, they liked it when the hair came down. Myron had always been a fan of keeping it off the face.

He stared at her for another moment and then said, “Whoa.”

“I thought you said you were smooth.”

“I’m holding back.”

“But why?”

“If I go all out in the smooth department,” Myron said, “women all over the tri-state area begin to disrobe. I need to harness the power.”

“Lucky for me then. Come on in.”

He had never made it past her foyer before. Ali walked to the kitchen. His stomach knotted. There were family photographs on the wall. Myron did a quick scan. He spotted Kevin’s face. He was in at least four different photographs. Myron didn’t want to stare, but his gaze got caught on an image of Erin. She was fishing with her dad. Her
smile was heartbreaking. Myron tried to picture the girl in his basement smiling like that, but it wouldn’t hold.

He looked back at Ali. Something crossed her face.

Myron sniffed the air. “What are you cooking?”

“I’m making Chicken Kiev.”

“Smells great.”

“You mind if we talk first?”

“Sure.”

They headed into the den. Myron tried to keep his head about him. He looked around for more pictures. There was a framed wedding photo. Ali’s hair was too big, he thought, but maybe that was the look then. He thought that she was prettier now. That happens with some women. There was also a photograph of five men in matching black tuxedos with bow ties. The groomsmen, Myron figured. Ali followed his gaze. She walked over and picked up the group shot.

“This one is Kevin’s brother,” she said, pointing to the man second on the right.

Myron nodded.

“The other men worked at Carson Wilkie with Kevin. They were his best friends.”

Myron said, “Were they—”

“All dead,” she said. “All married, all had children.”

The elephant in the room—it was as if all hands and fingers were suddenly pointing at it.

“You don’t have to do this,” Myron said.

“Yeah, Myron, I do.”

They sat down.

“When Claire first set us up,” she began, “I told her that you’d have to raise the subject of 9/11. Did she tell you that?”

“Yes.”

“But you didn’t.”

He opened his mouth, closed it, tried again. “How was I supposed to do that exactly? Hi, how are you, I hear you’re a 9/11 widow, do you want Italian or maybe Chinese?”

Ali nodded. “Fair enough.”

There was a grandfather clock in the corner, a huge ornate thing. It chose then to start chiming. Myron wondered where Ali had gotten it, where she had gotten everything in this house, how much of Kevin was watching them now, in this house, in
his
house.

“Kevin and I started dating when we were juniors in high school. We decided to take time off during our freshman year of college. I was going to NYU. He would be off at Wharton. It would be the mature thing to do. But when we came home for Thanksgiving, and we saw each other . . .” She shrugged. “I’ve never been with another man. Ever. There, I said it. I don’t know if we did it right or wrong. Isn’t that weird? I think we sorta learned together.”

Myron sat there. She was no more than a foot away from him. He wasn’t sure of the right move here—the story of his life. He put his hand close to hers. She picked it up and held it.

“I don’t know when I first realized I was ready to start dating. It took me longer than most of the widows. We talk about it, of course—the widows, I mean. We talk a lot. But one day I just said to myself, okay, now maybe it’s time. I told Claire. And when she suggested you, do you know what I thought?”

Myron shook his head.

“He’s out of my league, but maybe this will be fun. I thought—this is going to sound stupid and please remember I really didn’t know you at all—that you’d be a good transition.”

“Transition?”

“You know what I mean. You were a pro athlete. You probably had a lot of women. I thought maybe, well, it would be a fun fling. A physical thing. And then, afterwards, maybe I’d find someone nice. Does that make sense?”

“I think so,” Myron said. “You just wanted me for my body.”

“Pretty much, yeah.”

“I feel so cheap,” he said. “Or is it thrilled? Let’s go with thrilled.”

That made her smile. “Please don’t take offense.”

“No offense taken.” Then: “Hussy.”

She laughed. The sound was melodic.

“So what happened to your plan?” he asked.

“You weren’t what I expected.”

“That a good thing or bad?”

“I don’t know. You used to date Jessica Culver. I read that in a
People
magazine.”

“I did.”

“Was it serious?”

“Yes.”

“She’s a great writer.”

Myron nodded.

“She’s also stunning.”

“You’re stunning.”

“Not like that.”

He was going to argue, but he knew that it would sound too patronizing.

“When you asked me out, I figured that you were looking for something, I don’t know, different.”

“Different how?” he asked.

“Being a 9/11 widow,” she said. “The truth is, and I hate to admit this, but it gives me something of a warped celebrity.”

He did know. He thought about what Win had said, about that first thing that pops in your head when you hear her name.

“So I figured—again not knowing you, just knowing that you were this good-looking pro athlete who dates women who look like supermodels—I figured that I might be an interesting notch on the belt.”

“Because you were a 9/11 widow?”

“Yes.”

“That’s pretty sick.”

“Not really.”

“How’s that?”

“It’s like I said. There’s a weird sort of celebrity attached. People who wouldn’t give me the time of day suddenly wanted to meet me. It still happens. About a month ago, I started playing in this new tennis league at the Racket Club. One of the women—this rich snob who wouldn’t let me cut through her yard when we first moved to town—comes up to me and she’s making the poo-poo face.”

“The poo-poo face?”

“That’s what I call it. The poo-poo face. It looks like this.”

Ali demonstrated. She pursed her lips, frowned, and batted her eyes.

“You look like Donald Trump being sprayed with mace.”

“That’s the poo-poo face. I get it all the time since Kevin died. I don’t blame anyone. It’s natural. But this woman with the poo-poo face comes up to me and she takes both of my hands in hers and looks me in the eyes and has this whole earnest thing going on so that I want to scream, and she says, ‘Are you Ali Wilder? Oh, I so wanted to contact you. How are you doing?’ You get the point.”

“I do.”

She looked at him.

“What?”

“You’ve turned into the dating version of the poo-poo face.”

“I’m not sure I follow.”

“You keep telling me I’m beautiful.”

“You are.”

“You met me three times when I was married.”

Myron said nothing.

“Did you think I was beautiful then?”

“I try not to think that way about married women.”

“Do you even remember meeting me?”

“Not really, no.”

“And if I looked like Jessica Culver, even if I were married, you’d have remembered.”

She waited.

“What do you want me to say here, Ali?”

“Nothing. But it’s time to stop treating me like the poo-poo face. It doesn’t matter why you first started dating me. It matters why you’re here now.”

“Can I do that?”

“Do what?”

“Can I tell you why I’m here now?”

Ali swallowed and for the first time she looked unsure of herself. She made a go-ahead gesture with her hand.

He dove in. “I’m here because I really like you—because I may be
confused about a lot of things and maybe you’re making a good point about the poo-poo face, but the fact is, I’m here right now because I can’t stop thinking about you. I think about you all the time and when I do, I have this goofy smile on my face. It looks like this.” Now it was his turn to demonstrate. “So that’s why I’m here, okay?”

“That,” Ali said, trying to hold back a smile, “is a really good answer.”

He was about to crack wise, but he held back. With maturity comes restraint.

“Myron?”

“Yes?”

“I want you to kiss me. I want you to hold me. I want you to take me upstairs and make love to me. I want you to do it with no expectations because I don’t have any. I could dump you tomorrow and you could dump me. It doesn’t matter. But I’m not fragile. I’m not going to describe the hell of the past five years, but I’m stronger than you’ll ever know. If this relationship continues after tonight, you’re the one who’ll have to be strong, not me. This is a no-obligation offer. I know how valiant and noble you want to be. But I don’t want that. All I want tonight is you.”

Ali leaned toward him and kissed him on the lips. First gently then with more hunger. Myron felt a surge go through him.

She kissed him again. And Myron felt lost.

An hour later—or maybe it was only twenty minutes—Myron collapsed and rolled onto his back.

“Well?” Ali said.

“Wow.”

“Tell me more.”

“Let me catch my breath.”

Ali laughed, snuggled closer.

“My limbs,” he said. “I can’t feel my limbs.”

“Not a thing?”

“A little tingle maybe.”

“Not so little. And you were pretty good yourself.”

“As Woody Allen once said, I practice a lot when I’m alone.”

She put her head on his chest. His racing heart started to slow. He stared at the ceiling.

“Myron?”

“Yes.”

“He’ll never leave my life. He’ll never leave Erin and Jack either.”

“I know.”

“Most men can’t handle that.”

“I don’t know if I can either.”

She looked at him and smiled.

“What?”

“You’re being honest,” she said. “I like that.”

“No more poo-poo face?”

“Oh, I wiped that off twenty minutes ago.”

He pursed his lips, frowned, and batted his eyes. “But wait, it’s back.”

She put her head back on his chest.

“Myron?”

“Yes?”

“He’ll never leave my life,” she said. “But he’s not here now. Right now I think it’s just the two of us.”

O
n the third floor of St. Barnabas Medical Center, Essex County investigator Loren Muse rapped on a door that read edna skylar, md, geneticist.

A woman’s voice said, “Come in.”

Loren turned the knob and entered. Skylar stood. She was taller than Loren, but most people were. Skylar crossed the room, hand extended. They both offered up firm handshakes and plenty of eye contact. Edna Skylar nodded in a sisterhood way to her. Loren had seen it before. They were both in professions still dominated by men. That gave them a bond.

“Won’t you please have a seat?”

They both sat. Edna Skylar’s desk was immaculate. There were manila folders, but they were stacked without any papers peeking out. The office was standard issue, dominated by a picture window that offered up a wonderful view of a parking lot.

Dr. Skylar stared intently at Loren Muse. Loren didn’t like it. She waited a moment. Skylar kept staring.

Loren said, “Problem?”

Edna Skylar smiled. “Sorry, bad habit.”

“What’s that?”

“I look at faces.”

“Uh-huh.”

“It’s not important. Well, maybe it is. That’s how I got into this predicament.”

Loren wanted to get to it. “You told my boss that you have information on Katie Rochester?”

“How is Ed?”

“He’s good.”

She smiled warmly. “He’s a nice man.”

“Yeah,” Loren said, “a prince.”

“I’ve known him a long time.”

“He told me.”

“That’s why I called Ed. We had a long talk about the case.”

“Right,” Loren said. “And that’s why he sent me here.”

Edna Skylar looked off, out the window. Loren tried to guess her age. Mid-sixties probably, but she wore it well. Dr. Skylar was a handsome woman, short gray hair, high cheekbones, knew how to sport a beige suit without coming across as too butch or overly feminine.

“Dr. Skylar?”

“Could you tell me something about the case?”

“Excuse me?”

“Katie Rochester. Is she officially listed as missing?”

“I’m not sure how that’s relevant.”

Edna Skylar’s eyes moved slowly back to Loren Muse. “Do you think she met up with foul play—”

“I can’t really discuss that.”

“—or do you think she ran away? When I talked to Ed, he seemed pretty sure she was a runaway. She took money out of an ATM in midtown, he said. Her father is rather unsavory.”

“Prosecutor Steinberg told you all that?”

“He did.”

“So why are you asking me?”

“I know his take,” she said. “I want yours.”

Loren was about to protest some more, but Edna Skylar was again staring with too much intensity. She scanned Skylar’s desk for family photographs. There were none. She wondered what to make of that and decided nothing. Skylar was waiting.

“She’s eighteen years old,” Loren tried, treading carefully.

“I know that.”

“That makes her an adult.”

“I know that too. And what about the father? Do you think he abused her?”

Loren wondered how to play this. The truth was, she didn’t like the
father, hadn’t from the get-go. RICO said that Dominick Rochester was mobbed up and maybe that was part of it. But there was something to reading a person’s grief. On the one hand, everyone reacts differently. It was true that you really couldn’t tell guilt based on someone’s reaction. Some killers cried tears that’d put Pacino to shame. Others were beyond robotic. Same with the innocent. It was like this: You’re with a group of people, a grenade is thrown in the middle of the crowd, you never know who is going to dive on it and who is going to dive for cover.

That said, Katie Rochester’s father . . . there was something off about his grief. It was too fluid. It was like he was trying on different personas, seeing which one would look best for the public. And the mother. She had the whole shattered-eye thing going on, but had that come from devastation or resignation? It was hard to tell.

“We have no evidence of that,” Loren said in the most noncommittal tone she could muster.

Edna Skylar did not react.

“These questions,” Loren went on. “They’re a bit bizarre.”

“That’s because I’m still not sure what to do.”

“About?”

“If a crime has been committed, I want to help. But . . .”

“But?”

“I saw her.”

Loren Muse waited a beat, hoping she’d say more. She didn’t. “You saw Katie Rochester?”

“Yes.”

“When?”

“It’ll be three weeks on Saturday?”

“And you’re just telling us now?”

Edna Skylar was looking out at the parking lot again. The sun was setting, the rays slicing in through the venetian blinds. She looked older in that light.

“Dr. Skylar?”

“She asked me not to say anything.” Her gaze was still on the lot.

“Katie did?”

Still looking off, Edna Skylar nodded.

“You talked to her?”

“For a second maybe.”

“What did she say?”

“That I couldn’t tell anybody that I saw her.”

“And?”

“And that was it. A moment later she was gone.”

“Gone?”

“On a subway.”

The words came easier now. Edna Skylar told Loren the whole story, how she’d been studying faces while walking in New York, how she spotted the girl despite the appearance change, how she followed her down into the subway, how she’d vanished into the dark.

Loren wrote it all down, but fact was, this figured into what she’d believed from the beginning. The kid was a runaway. As Ed Steinberg had already told Skylar, there had been an ATM withdrawal at a Citibank in midtown near the time she vanished. Loren had seen the bank video. The face had been covered by a hood, but it was probably the Rochester girl. The father had clearly been on the over-strict side. That was how it always was with the runaways. The too-liberal parents, their kids often got hooked on drugs. The too-conservative, their kids were the runaways with the sex issues. Might be a stereotype to break it down like that, but Loren had seen very few cases that broke those rules.

She asked a few more follow-up questions. There was nothing that they could really do now. The girl was eighteen. There was no reason, from this description, to suspect foul play. On TV, the feds get involved and put a team on it. That doesn’t happen in real life.

But Loren felt a niggling at the base of her brain. Some would call it intuition. She hated that. Hunches . . . that didn’t really work either. She wondered what Ed Steinberg, her boss, would want to do. Nothing, probably. Their office was busy working with the U.S. Attorney on two cases, one involving a possible terrorist and the other a Newark politician on the take.

With their resources so limited, should they pursue what appeared to be an obvious runaway? It was a tough call.

“Why now?” Loren asked.

“What?”

“Three weeks, you didn’t say anything. What made you change your mind?”

“Do you have children, Investigator Muse?”

“No.”

“I do.”

Loren again looked at the desk, at the credenza, at the wall. No family pictures. No sign of children or grandchildren. Skylar smiled, as if she understood what Muse was doing.

“I was a lousy mother.”

“I’m not sure I understand.”

“I was, shall we say, laissez-faire. When in doubt, I’d let it go.”

Loren waited.

“That,” Edna Skylar said, “was a huge mistake.”

“I’m still not sure I understand.”

“Neither do I. But this time . . .” Her voice faded away. She swallowed, looked down at her hands before turning her gaze to Loren. “Just because everything looks okay, maybe it’s not. Maybe Katie Rochester needs help. Maybe this time I should do more than just let it go.”

The promise in the basement came back to haunt Myron at exactly 2:17 a.m.

Three weeks had passed. Myron was still dating Ali. It was the day of Esperanza’s wedding. Ali came as his date. Myron gave away the bride. Tom—real name Thomas James Bidwell III—was Win’s cousin. The wedding was small. Strangely enough, the groom’s family, charter members of the Daughters of the American Revolution, was not thrilled with Tom’s marriage to a Bronx-born Latina named Esperanza Diaz. Go figure.

“Funny,” Esperanza said.

“What’s that?”

“I always thought I’d marry for money, not love.” She checked herself in the mirror. “But here I am, marrying for love and getting money.”

“Irony is not dead.”

“Good thing. You’re going to Miami to see Rex?”

Rex Storton was an aging movie star they were repping. “I’m flying down tomorrow afternoon.”

Esperanza turned away from the mirror, spread her arms, and gave him a dazzling smile. “Well?”

She was a vision. Myron said, “Wow.”

“You think?”

“I think.”

“Come on then. Let’s get me hitched.”

“Let’s.”

“One thing first.” Esperanza pulled him aside. “I want you to be happy for me.”

“I am.”

“I’m not leaving you.”

“I know.”

Esperanza looked into his face. “We’re still best friends,” she said. “You understand that? You, me, Win, Big Cyndi. Nothing has changed.”

“Sure it has,” Myron said. “Everything has changed.”

“I love you, you know.”

“And I love you.”

She smiled again. Esperanza was always so damned beautiful. She had that whole peasant-blouse fantasy thing going on. But today, in that dress, the word
luminous
was simply too weak. She had been so wild, such a free spirit, had insisted that she would never settle down with one person like this. But here she was, with a baby, getting married. Even Esperanza had grown up.

“You’re right,” she said. “But things change, Myron. And you’ve always hated change.”

“Don’t start with that.”

“Look at you. You lived with your parents into your mid-thirties. You own your childhood home. You still spend most of your time with your college roommate, who, let’s face it, can’t change.”

He put up his hand. “I get the point.”

“Funny though.”

“What?”

“I always thought you’d be the first to get married,” she said.

“Me too.”

“Win, well, like I said, let’s not even go there. But you always fell in love so easily, especially with that bitch, Jessica.”

“Don’t call her that.”

“Whatever. Anyway, you were the one who bought the American dream—get married, have two-point-six kids, invites friends to barbecues in the backyard, the whole thing.”

“And you never did.”

Esperanza smiled. “Weren’t you the one who taught me,
Men tracht und Gott lacht
”?

“Man, I love it when you shiksas speak Yiddish.”

Esperanza put her hand through the crook of his arm. “That can be a good thing, you know.”

“I know.”

She took a deep breath. “Shall we?”

“You nervous?”

Esperanza looked at him. “Not even a little.”

“Then onward.”

Myron walked her down the aisle. He thought it would be a flattering formality, standing in for her late father, but when Myron gave Esperanza’s hand to Tom, when Tom smiled and shook his hand, Myron started to well up. He stepped back and sat down in the front row.

The wedding was not so much an eclectic mix as a wonderful collision. Win was Tom’s best man while Big Cyndi was Esperanza’s maid of honor. Big Cyndi, her former tag-team wrestling partner, was six-six and comfortably north of three hundred pounds. Her fists looked like canned hams. She had not been sure what to wear—a classic peach maid of honor dress or a black leather corset. Her compromise: peach leather with a fringed hem, sleeveless so as to display arms with the relative dimensions and consistency of marble columns on a Georgian mansion. Big Cyndi’s hair was done up in a mauve Mohawk and pinned on the top was a little bride-and-groom cake decoration.

When trying on the, uh, dress, Big Cyndi had spread her arms and twirled for Myron. Ocean tides altered course, and solar systems shifted. “What do you think?” she asked.

“Mauve with peach?”

“It’s very hip, Mr. Bolitar.”

She always called him
Mister
; Big Cyndi liked formality.

Tom and Esperanza exchanged vows in a quaint church. White poppies lined the pews. Tom’s side of the aisle was dressed in black and white—a sea of penguins. Esperanza’s side had so many colors, Crayola sent a scout. It looked like the Halloween parade in Greenwich Village. The organ played beautiful hymns. The choir sang like angels. The setting could not have been more serene.

For the reception, however, Esperanza and Tom wanted a change of pace. They rented out an S&M nightclub near Eleventh Avenue called Leather and Lust. Big Cyndi worked there as a bouncer and sometimes, very late at night, she took to the stage for an act that boggled the imagination.

Myron and Ali parked in a lot off the West Side Highway. They passed a twenty-four-hour porn shop called King David’s Slut Palace. The windows were soaped up. There was a big sign on the door that read now under new management.

“Whew.” Myron pointed to the sign. “It’s about time, don’t you think?”

Ali nodded. “The place had been so mismanaged before.”

When they ducked inside Leather and Lust, Ali walked around as though she were at the Louvre, squinting at the photos on the wall, checking out the devices, the costumes, the bondage material. She shook her head. “I am hopelessly naïve.”

“Not hopelessly,” Myron said.

Ali pointed at something black and long that resembled human intestines.

“What’s that?” she asked.

“Dang if I know.”

“Are you, uh, into . . . ?”

“Oh no.”

“Too bad,” Ali said. Then: “Kidding. So very much kidding.”

Their romance was progressing, but the reality of dating someone with young kids had set in. They hadn’t spent another full night together since that first. Myron had only offered up brief hellos to Erin and Jack since that party. They weren’t sure how fast or slow they
should go in their own relationship, but Ali was pretty adamant that they should go slow where it concerned the kids.

Ali had to leave early. Jack had a school project she’d promised to help him with. Myron walked her out, deciding to stay in the city for the night.