This Glittering World (15 page)

A
half hour later, Ben pulled the U-Haul into the parking lot at Beaver Street Brewery and sat for a few minutes before cracking the window for Maude and opening the door. He was shaky, unsteady, as if he had the flu or a bad hangover.

When he got to Shadi’s, she had come out of the trailer and held both of her hands up, as if in surrender, shaking her head.

He’d gotten out of the truck, slammed the door, and gone to her, even as she backed away from him.

She shook her head over and over again.

“What’s the matter?” he said. “Shadi, what’s wrong?”

“You can’t be here,” she said. Her soft, deep voice cracked.

“I just wanted to talk to you about Ricky. About what happened that night. If Lucky goes to the police, then they can get that kid. Isn’t that what you want? He can’t get away with this.”

“Ben,”
Shadi said. Her voice was suddenly stern.

“I can make a statement about what I heard. And Lucky, if we can convince Lucky to talk, then they can arrest him, Mark Fitch.”

By then, Ben had come close enough to Shadi to touch her. She pressed both open palms against his chest and the mere contact, the simple pressure of her hands against his body, was enough to bring him to his knees.

“What’s the matter?” he said, feeling something hook into his heart like a fishing lure. Snagging and pulling, sharp and painful. “Shadi, what is it?”

“Sara,” she said. It was the first time she had said her name. It made Ben catch his breath.

Ben shook his head.
Sara. Sara.

“Sara
called
me, Ben. From your cell phone. And I thought it was you.”

Ben stepped back.
Sara.
She had seen the message. She’d
read
his messages. And she’d called Shadi.

“I thought it was
you,”
she said angrily, hitting him now even as he backed up. Her hands curled into fists and she hit him hard against the chest. “What are you doing to her, Ben? What are you doing to
me?”

“What did she say?” Ben asked softly.

“She didn’t say anything. I just kept saying your name, waiting for you to say something, and then I heard her crying.”

Now, at the Brewery, Ben locked the U-Haul and walked briskly across the parking lot, glancing quickly at the restaurant’s kitchen door, which was open. There were two guys sitting on buckets, smoking cigarettes. Neither one of them was Lucky. Ben took a deep breath and opened the front doors, the warm air coming at him in a rush. Enclosing him. He concentrated on every step. He couldn’t let Sara know that he knew what she’d done. If he did, she would know that he had gone to see Shadi. She would know that it wasn’t over.

He said to the hostess, “I’m meeting my fiancée and her friend?” and the words were bitter in his mouth.

And then he saw Melanie waving her over and Sara sitting at the table, smiling knowingly, expectantly, at him.

O
n opening day for Frank’s new dealership,
Ben’s
new dealership, Sara was up at five
A.M.
making pancakes in the kitchen. It was her first day at work too; she would be working the seven-to-three shift until the baby came. She had the radio on and was singing softly to some pop song. Ben came out of the bedroom bleary-eyed and still exhausted. He’d been tossing and turning all night, unable to get comfortable, disoriented by the new sounds, the new silence, of the house. Maude was also uneasy and refused to leave the foot of the bed, the sheets and blankets weighted down by her warm body.

They hadn’t talked about what happened, though what they each knew hung in the air between them like a ghost. But Sara had won, and she must have known this, because there was a certain smugness about her now, as she flipped the pancakes in the frying pan and put the syrup in the never-used microwave. She had busted him, and now, without a word exchanged between them, she had him completely under her thumb.

“Are you nervous for your first day?” she asked Ben.

He stretched and yawned, shook his head.

“Daddy’s going to be with you this week, right?”

She knew Frank would be there. And he couldn’t help but wonder if he would ever be alone again, or if what he had done now meant that someone would always, always be watching him.

“Yeah, he’s got to show me the ropes, I guess,” he said.

The microwave beeped and she pulled the hot syrup out. She handed him a plate stacked high with pancakes and bacon and pointed to a seat at the counter separating their dining area and the kitchen. There was a cup of coffee waiting there, a glass of juice.

“I’ll get spoiled if you keep this up,” he said, but his attempt to be lighthearted fell flat.

Sara frowned and came to him. She kissed him on the forehead and then on the lips. When she pulled back, she seemed to be waiting for his response.

“I love you, Ben Bailey,” she said, her voice quivering a little.

“You too,” he said and looked down at his plate. He could feel her eyes, could feel her expectation and disappointment. He lifted his face and looked at her. “I do,” he said. And he reached for her to come closer. He willed his arms around her, and as he did he felt, for the first time, the soft swell of her belly. Just the smallest bump, so small he might not have noticed it if he weren’t absolutely familiar with every nuance of her body.

She pulled away, satisfied it seemed, and he reached his hand out and touched her stomach. She looked down at his hand, hesitated, and then covered it with her own. She squeezed her eyes shut tight for a second and then opened them wide.

“Well,” she said and straightened herself up. She was wearing a pair of scrubs he’d never seen before. They were blue and littered with tiny little trucks and cars. She had brand-new white Crocs on with crisp white socks.

“Are you nervous?” he asked.

He tried to picture her working in the Oncology Department of the hospital and couldn’t. Her job at Dr. Newman’s was tame: checkups and shots, nothing worse than chicken pox and strep throat. The children here would be sick. Really sick. She assured him she was ready for this. That she was a nurse, a professional.

“I am,” she said. “Nervous. But it was time for a change.”

He nodded. “Are you going to eat?” he asked.

“Too queasy,” she answered. “I’ll get something at the hospital. And I’ll be back by four or so to make dinner.”

“Sounds good,” Ben said and wondered if she’d taken this shift to make sure he was never at the house alone.

The dealership was beautiful. Glossy and bright. The air conditioner blew cold air across the onyx floors, and everything gleamed.

“What do you think?” Frank asked.

“It’s gorgeous,” Ben said. “Really, I had no idea it would be so … so spectacular.”

Most of the cars on the showroom floor cost more than Ben had made in his entire working life.

The morning was spent orienting Ben to the facility and the staff. As far as he could tell, his job would be behind the scenes. There was a sales team, a finance team, a service team, and then the administrators. He was in charge of them all, though what this meant exactly was ambiguous. He had an office with a comfortable chair, a computer, and a view of Camelback Mountain. There was a water cooler in the corner that glug-glug-glugged and a flat-screen TV suspended from the wall like a dream. There were papers to process, databases to maintain, and calls to take. Frank rattled off his daily tasks and Ben scribbled furiously on a yellow legal pad.

By noon, his brain was full of information, overloaded with car talk.

“Let’s get some chow,” Frank said.

They got into Frank’s car and drove across the street to Chili’s, where the hostess winked and flirted. They ordered burgers and beers, and Frank wolfed down an entire basket of onion rings before Ben had even started his meal.

“You think this is going to work out for you, Dr. Bailey?” Frank asked.

“Frank, I really do appreciate this. I know it’s not my area of expertise, and you’re taking a real chance with me,” Ben said.

Frank stopped eating and wiped the corner of his mouth with his napkin. “As much as I love you, Ben, this isn’t about you, and you know it. Sara is my only daughter. She’s my baby. And she deserves to be happy,” he said. “If being with you, making a life with you, makes her happy, then I’m on board. And I will do whatever it takes to make sure that life is a good one. A comfortable one. I have no idea if you can do this job or not. And I have no idea if you’ll be happy working for me. But I do know that it’s
my
job to take care of my little girl. And this is the best way I know how.”

Ben nodded. And felt like a total shit.

“And if you can just hang in there, there are perks. Free lunch is one,” he said when he got the bill that had charged him only for the two beers. “And there are others. I’m thinking in particular about a certain vintage Mercedes I saw you looking at. You give me the old college try for a full year and it’s yours.”

Ben shook his head. “That’s not necessary, Frank.”

“Shut up,” Frank said. “Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth.”

The rest of the day went smoothly, and everyone Ben met was very friendly. He actually started thinking this job might not be so bad. It sure was a hell of a lot less exhausting than the bar, and not nearly as dirty. And unlike teaching, when he pulled out of the lot, he had no work to come home with him.

He was pretty sure this kind of job would not keep him up at night. And it was so far from the life he’d had in Flagstaff, it almost seemed like he’d woken up in someone else’s body. In someone else’s life.

He pulled into the driveway of the town house at six thirty. The sun had already gone down, and the air was cooler. He went into the front door and could smell marinara. Garlic and oregano.

“Sara?” he called, setting down the new attaché case Sara had bought him for Christmas. It was almost exactly like the one they’d wound up giving to George. He figured now she’d been planning all along to see what kind of bag he wanted by having him pick one out for her brother. Little did she know he had just picked the cheapest one after blowing fifty bucks on the drive-in speaker.

“I’m up here,” she said.

He slipped off his loafers and went up the stairwell to the bedroom. The door was closed. “Sara?”

“Just a minute.”

When she opened the door, he barely recognized her. She was wearing a dress and heels, her hair was down, and her eyes were made up. She smelled good too, the tea rose perfume she used to wear when they first met.

“You look so pretty,” he said.

She blushed a little. “Come with me,” she said, taking him by the hand and leading him back down the stairs and through the kitchen to the sliding doors. She pulled back the accordion shades and slid the door open.

When they bought the house, the only appealing thing about the property, for Ben, was the backyard and pool. He used to swim in high school and thought he might get back into shape doing laps in the morning before work.

Sara had clearly been busy since she got home. The outdoor table was covered in a pretty tablecloth, and the entire fence was strung with twinkling lights. There were candles floating in the pool, and soft music coming through the radio she’d brought outside. The table was set, and there were candles there too, and a bunch of heady-smelling roses cut from the bushes in the backyard and stuffed into a pickle jar.

“Take your tie off and sit down,” she said. “I’m going to give you the meal of your life.” She spun a little on her heel, smiling, and went back into the kitchen.

She had not only made homemade lasagna, but also picked up a bottle of Ruffino Chianti, the kind of wine they always ordered at Pasto in Flagstaff. The kind they were drinking the night he proposed.

“What is all this?” he said, squeezing her hand.

“Ben, I want to start over. I want everything to be new. I want …” she started but her voice was trembling. “I want you back.”

“Hey,” he said.

She leaned into him, and her tears soaked through his collared shirt to his shoulder.

“Hey, it’s okay. Sare … it’s okay.”

And there was that snag, that sharp hook. It punctured somewhere smack-dab in the middle of his chest and pulled.

“I’m sorry,” Sara said, laughing. “God, enough with the hormones already. Let’s eat.”

After dinner they left everything on the table, and Sara led Ben to the bedroom. In the cool, quiet white of the room, Ben made love to her for the first time in a month. And afterward, as they both caught their breaths and lay staring at the ceiling fan above them, Sara said, “There’s a little girl at the hospital. Emma. She’s five, and she has leukemia. But she is the brightest, happiest child I have ever seen.”

Ben rolled over to face her, propping himself up with his elbow.

“Her mother had to quit her job when she got sick. Then the dad left, and I get the feeling he’s not doing much by way of support. But her mom is the most optimistic person I have ever met. She’s at the hospital all day every day. She does puppet shows for the kids, and she reads to them. She brings in homemade cookies and today she helped some of them start a window box garden in the atrium. She’s really managed to make a home there for Emma.”

There was a tear rolling down her cheek.

“And all day while I was doing my rounds, I kept thinking about how lucky we are. That this baby is healthy. That we are healthy. That we have each other.” She turned to look at him. Her eyes were sad, wet. “I know this isn’t what you wanted, Ben. I know that. I’m not stupid. But I promise I’ll make a home for us. For the three of us.”

Ben reached and touched the tear that had snuck onto her earlobe. Then he leaned over and kissed it; it was cold and salty. Her neck still smelled of tea roses. Sara smiled.

“Hey,” she said, sitting up suddenly, hitting the pillow with her hand."I have an idea.”

“What is it?” he asked.

“Just come.”

The fence around their backyard was only six feet high; somebody could see in, and Ben was self-conscious as they climbed into the pool, still naked. The air was cooler than the water, and it felt good against his skin. They both floated on their backs, looking up at the sky. As the water filled his ears, he listened and could hear his heart beating in his temples and he thought about this life. About how clean and bright it was. About how shiny it all was. How golden.