The Deep End (30 page)

I don’t know how long this goes on, she told him. I guess as long as it takes.

The phone rings again. “Dr. Gold’s office.”

“Mrs. Hunter …”

“My God!” Joanne’s head shoots up. She should hang up, she thinks, but her hand is paralyzed and won’t budge.

“You’re looking good these days, Mrs. Hunter,” the raspy voice confides.

“How did you find me?” she whispers, trying to smile at a wide-eyed young girl whose unwanted attention her sudden moves have attracted.

“Oh, you’re easy to trace, Mrs. Hunter. The easiest one yet.”

“Leave me alone.” She moves her other hand to block her mouth.

“I have been leaving you alone. I just didn’t want you to think that I’d forgotten you, or lost interest in you … like your husband has. Isn’t that so, Mrs. Hunter? Hasn’t your husband found himself another love?”

Joanne slams the receiver back into its carriage.

“The pressure getting to you?” her boss asks, peeking his head around the corner, eyebrows raised.

“Crank call,” she tells him, trying to regain her composure. How has he found her?

“My wife’s been getting a bunch of those lately. I guess everybody gets them.”

“What kind has your wife been getting?” Joanne asks, curious.

“You want details?” He laughs. “The usual.” He bends toward her, his voice a hoarse whisper. “Nothing very original, the standard fuck-suck routine. Very boring. My wife likes kinky. What can I tell you? I’m a lucky man.” He looks around. “What happened to Mr. Personality?”

“I don’t know. I looked up and he was gone. His appointment isn’t for another hour.”

“That joke I told probably scared him off. I’ve got to learn some new ones. Where are the samples of benzoyl peroxide?”

“Second room, bottom shelf.”

“I looked there. Nothing.”

Joanne pushes back her chair and gets up, following the doctor into the second room off the narrow hallway and crossing past the examining table to the cabinet against the far wall. Kneeling down, her skirt hiking up past her knees, she opens the bottom drawer and rifles around inside for a few seconds. When she brings her hand out, it is filled with small sample packets of benzoyl peroxide.

“How’d I miss them?” he asks as she drops them into his hands.

“You have to open your eyes. Occasionally you even have to lift something up.”

“You sound like my wife. And she sounds like my mother.” He smiles. “But you have the nicest legs.”

“Ron, get back to work,” Joanne admonishes playfully. “Susan Dotson is waiting for you.”

“Oh yes, Susan Dotson, my favorite! She’s crazy about me.”

When Joanne returns to her desk, Simon Loomis is standing behind it, rifling through the pages of her appointment calendar.

“What are you doing?” she asks, caught off guard, her voice louder than she has intended.

“Just wanted to see if you were really as booked up as you keep telling everybody.” The boy backs away from her desk, his loose grin unapologetic. He takes a long sip from the Styrofoam cup Joanne now notices he is holding in his left hand.

Joanne glances across the top of her desk, trying to determine whether anything is missing. “I’d appreciate it if you’d stay on your side of the desk from now on,” she tells him curtly, as he takes another sip from the Styrofoam cup. Suddenly, as she watches, his hand begins to shake, and some coffee spills out onto his wrist.

“Ow, Jesus, that’s hot!” he yelps. “Why are you staring at me like that?” he demands, accusingly. “You think I stole something? I told you I was just checking …”

“Did you phone me?” she asks, her voice surprisingly steady. Would he be so bold, so cocky?

“Phone you? Of course I phoned you! How else would I get an appointment?”

“I don’t mean that. I mean
now.
Did you just phone me now?”

“What are you talking about? How could I phone you? I’m standing right in front of you.”

“I mean when you were out. When you went for coffee. You know what I mean.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. Why would I phone you? Is everybody crazy in this office? You got a doctor who thinks he’s a comedian, a receptionist who thinks people phone her when they’re standing right in front of her …”

“I asked you a question.”

“And I gave you an answer. Just what are you accusing me of?”

Joanne looks helplessly around the room. Everyone is staring at them. What is she doing? She doesn’t know this Simon Loomis and he doesn’t know her. Why would he be the one phoning her? Where would he get his information? “I’m sorry,” she says, lowering her body into her chair. “Have a seat. The doctor will be with you as soon as he can.” She looks back at her desk. Was anything missing?

“Think I’ll wait outside and come back later,” the boy tells her.

“Your appointment’s at three,” Joanne says without looking up.

“Thank you.” The sarcasm remains in the air as Joanne hears the door to the office close after him. She takes a deep breath before checking that he has really left, realizing that the pencil in her right hand is shaking and laying it down.

The phone rings. Again her eyes dart toward the door. Impossible, she thinks, he hasn’t had enough time.

“Dr. Gold’s office,” she says, holding her breath. “Oh, hello, Johnny. Oh, okay. How about …” She shuffles through her appointment book. “… How about the following week then? That’s right. Same time the following week. The thirteenth instead of the sixth. Okay. Have a good trip. ‘Bye.” She replaces the receiver, aware her hand is still trembling, her heart pounding. She bangs her fist against the side of her desk. “Damn,” she whispers. “I will not jump every time the phone rings. I will not.”

“Talking to yourself again?” Ron Gold asks, emerging from his examining room behind a still snarling Susan Dotson. “Make another appointment for Susan in eight
weeks. My mother always used to talk to herself,” he continues. “She used to say that whenever she wanted to talk to an intelligent person … you know the rest, your mother must have said it to you.”

Joanne laughs agreement.

“Mothers have a book of special sayings. They pass it back and forth. Who’s next?”

“Mrs. Pepplar.”

“Mrs. Pepplar? My favorite!” A tall, dark-haired woman of around fifty rises from her chair. “Right this way, Mrs. Pepplar.” Joanne hands Susan Dotson her new appointment card as Ron Gold and Mrs. Pepplar disappear down the narrow hallway.

“See you in eight weeks,” Joanne says to the young girl, who pockets the appointment card and exits. The room seems strangely quiet, although it is still filled with people. But they have gone back to their magazines and their own problems, probably having already forgotten the brief exchange they witnessed between Joanne and Simon Loomis. Would any of them be able to describe him for the police, should such a description be necessary? she wonders.

Joanne opens her purse, which she has stuffed underneath her desk, and finds the letters that Lulu has written, taking them out and reading them through quickly again: “Hi, Mom. Camp’s great. The food stinks. Kids in my cabin are okay except for one who thinks she’s a princess doing us all a big favor by joining us. Weather is great. Did I tell you the food stinks? SEND FOOD! I ripped my new T-shirt. Robin seems to be having a good time although we don’t communicate much. See you on visitors’ day. Much love. SEND FOOD!!! Love, Lulu. P.S. How are you? Love to Dad.”

“Love to Dad,” Joanne reads again, picking up the phone, pressing down quickly on the appropriate numbers before she can change her mind. “Paul Hunter,” she says, wondering if the receptionist still recognizes her voice. “Paul, it’s Joanne,” she says quickly when he comes on the line. She doesn’t want to take the chance that he might mistake her for somebody else.

“How are you?” He sounds glad to hear from her. “I was going to call you today.”

“Yes?”

“I had a letter from Lulu this morning,” he tells her.

“I had one too,” she says quickly so as to mask her disappointment that this might be the only reason he was planning to call. “Actually, I had three. They all came at once.”

“She seems to be enjoying herself—except for the food.”

“You got that message too?”

“We can bring her a few things when we go up, I guess. Nothing from Robin, I take it?”

“No. You neither?”

“No, but Lulu says she seems fine.”

“Yes,” Joanne smiles, “she wrote the same thing to me.” There is a pause.

“Are you at work?” he asks finally.

“Yes. It’s been very busy all day.”

“Here too. I should go …”

“Paul?”

“Yes?”

Joanne hesitates. What is she planning to say? “Would you like to come for dinner this weekend? Either Friday or Saturday night, whichever is more convenient.”

Even before she is finished with the sentence, Joanne can feel the discomfort on the other end of the line. “I’m sorry, I can’t,” he tells her quietly. “I’m going out of town for the weekend.”

“Oh.” Alone? I bet you aren’t going alone.

“But the following Sunday, of course, visitors’ day at camp …”

“Sure, that’s fine.”

“I’ll call you.”

Joanne hangs up before realizing she has forgotten to say goodbye.

Why is she here? Joanne wonders as she pulls her car into a vacant spot in the parking lot of Fresh Meadows Country Club. What is she going to do? She gets out of the car and proceeds around the side of the clubhouse to the tennis courts. It is almost six o’clock in the evening. Will he still be here? Why is she here?

The courts are filled. In the first court, two women are playing with a sureness that amazes Joanne. How do women get to be that sure? she wonders, focusing on their concentration, feeling their knees bend, the effortless strokes, the easy follow-through. “Out!” one of the women calls on a shot that is clearly in.

Joanne says nothing, her eyes traveling to the second court, mixed doubles of mixed ability, a husband chastising his wife over an unforced error. “If you’re going to hog every ball,” he is telling her, “at least get them over the net!”

Joanne walks behind the wire fence past the third court, where four women are wildly fumbling with the ball. None of the players is any good, she realizes, thinking that
she could easily fit into this group. They are laughing and having a good time, merrily missing one shot after another, not even bothering to keep score. “Get serious,” one woman keeps shouting, but she is laughing as hard as the rest, and Joanne surmises that this is as serious as it gets.

He is watching her from the last court, his eyes following her as she walks behind the wire fence. The basket of bright green balls rests beside his feet as he lifts one from the pile and hits it across the net at the young man he is coaching. “That’s it,” he calls out, “keep your eye on the ball. Don’t try so hard to hit winners every time. Concentrate on getting the ball over the net.” He acknowledges her presence invisibly. I’ll be with you in a minute, he tells her without saying a word, wait for me. Sure, Joanne thinks, giving her silent consent. Waiting is what I do best.

She sits down on a nearby bench and lets her eyes drift haphazardly from court to court, her mind a bright green tennis ball bouncing back and forth between now and earlier this afternoon. She hears Paul’s voice—I’m busy this weekend—sees Simon Loomis’s face—I’m back for my three o’clock appointment—recalls the look of concern that flashes across Ron’s face—You feeling okay? You’re not getting sick on me, are you? She hears the phone ring. Dr. Gold’s office.
Mrs. Hunter.
How did you find me? Oh, you’re easy to trace. I’m back for my three o’clock appointment. How did you find me? I’m going out of town for the weekend. You feeling okay?
Mrs. Hunter. Mrs. Hunter.

“Mrs. Hunter?”

“What?”

“Sorry,” Steve Henry is saying, his tanned body directly in front of hers, blocking the sun. “I didn’t mean to startle you.”

Joanne jumps to her feet. Why is she here? “Am I interrupting your lesson?” she asks.

“It’s over. I have a couple of minutes. I’m assuming it’s me you’re here to see.” It is as much a question as a statement.

“I have a job,” she tells him. Why is she telling him that? “That’s why I haven’t been around, why I had to cancel the last few lessons.”

“I give lessons until nine o’clock in the evening,” he tells her, smiling. Is he aware of her discomfort? “Is that why you’re here? Do you want to make an appointment for more lessons?” Joanne says nothing. Why
is
she here? “Mrs. Hunter?”

“Please call me Joanne,” she tells him, hearing another voice repeating her name.
Mrs. Hunter. Mrs. Hunter.
“I was wondering if you’d like to come for dinner this weekend,” she continues quickly. “Either Friday or Saturday night, if you’re free.” Joanne feels her heart sink into her feet. Why is she saying these things? Why is she asking him to dinner, for God’s sake? What is she doing here?

“I’d love to,” he answers. “Saturday night would be great.”

“I’m a good cook,” she informs him, and he smiles.

“I’d come even if you weren’t.”

“My address is …”

“I know your address.”

“You do?”

“It’s in the records,” he reminds her.

She nods. What is she doing here? Whatever possessed her to invite this man for dinner? Because I already asked my husband and he said he was busy! a little voice answers, and because there’s some lunatic out there who’s not going to give me a whole lot more time on this
earth, and damn it, I’m getting tired of waiting, why shouldn’t I invite this man for dinner? “What?” she almost shouts, realizing he has spoken.

“I asked you what time you’d like me?”

“Eight o’clock? Or are you still giving lessons then?”

“Not on Saturdays. Eight o’clock is fine.” She turns away, not sure what else to do. “Joanne,” he calls after her and she stops immediately. Has he changed his mind? “Your new job must agree with you. You look terrific.” She smiles. “See you Saturday.”

Joanne Hunter drives back to her home thinking that she must be crazy after all.

“I
’m early,” he says as she opens the front door and steps back to let him enter the well-lit foyer.