Tell me you love me.
Today is Mother’s Day, a holiday that will not be celebratedby the Pagone family this year. There are obvious reasons. Having the family tothis home is out of the question. The house is like a prison both literally andfiguratively. Nor is there any conceivable reason for celebrating anythingtoday.
Good reasons, both of them. But the truth is that Allisoncan’t summon the strength for a facade, anyway. Not another one.
In a little while she finds that the grocery store is not asbusy as it typically would be on a Sunday. Before the recent turn of events,Allison had frequented an upscale grocer, not because of its exclusivity, butbecause it was the only store in this part of the city with some of the exoticingredients she often sought. And they knew her, because she shopped often,preferring fresh food. But since her arrest, she has noticed the discomfort invirtually every acquaintance. The averted glances, the awkward silences. It’sgotten to the point where she avoids them as much as they avoid her. So now sheshops at a chain store, where she is relatively unknown. Say that much for thecity. One in a million is actually an understatement. It provides her relativefreedom.
Very relative. She has to stay within five miles of her homeat all times, a condition of her bond. She had to get permission to get a tirechanged last week.
She carries a small basket and places a few vegetables init. She eats meat, used to love it, but these days the idea of being acarnivore seems ironic. She walks past the bakery, past the butcher, toward thedrugstore. There is a small coffee shop in the corner, the grocery chain’sattempt at modernization. She finds Larry Evans reading a newspaper at a smalltable. Two steaming paper cups of black coffee sit on the table. He looks overhis glasses at her and smiles. She recognizes it for what it is, not ahappy-go-lucky grin but an attempt at warmth. Not very many people smile atAllison Pagone these days.
“How you holding up?” he asks.
She puts down the groceries and sits across from him. “Howdo I look like I’m holding up?”
He sets down the newspaper. “Honestly?”
She sighs. “Don’t start lying to me now, Larry. You’re theonly one I can trust.”
“You look tired. Did you sleep at all?”
He’s being honest, if not entirely forthcoming; he isomitting a few other adjectives. Allison has forced herself to look in themirror lately. She has seen the damage.
Larry flicks at his hair. He is dishwater blond, has arugged, lined face. He has a good-sized frame, not a body-builder but a guy whokeeps in shape. He hasn’t shaved today; his facial hair is darker than the hairon top of his head. She would probably find him handsome under othercircumstances-very, very different circumstances.
She takes a sip of the coffee, steaming hot on her tongue.Something nutty, she assumes. Cinnamon hazelnut, she guesses, then looks overat the small chalkboard next to the counter, where the coffee of the day isrevealed in colored chalk:
“You look like someone who’s conceding defeat,” he says.“And I don’t like that. I don’t get it, Allison. I just don’t get you.”
“What’s not to get? I’m going to be convicted.” She avertsher eyes. She looks at the other shoppers, immediately envying their carefreelives. An employee is pushing turkey sausage, pierced with toothpicks, onshoppers. The next aisle down, it’s hummus, about ten different kinds offeredwith pita chips. Little kids hanging on carts, women moving seriously throughthe aisles. They don’t know anything about serious. She would change placeswith any of them.
“That doesn’t have to-”
“Oh, don’t deny it, Larry. Please,” she adds, more softly.
He reaches for her, then recoils. “What happened to yourhand?”
Allison holds up her right hand, wrapped in gauze. “Lost afight with a wineglass.”
Larry peers into her eyes. “You sure you’re okay?”
She nods. “I’ll be fine as long as you don’t tell me I’mgoing to win my case.”
Larry looks away, exhales with disgust. “Did you even showyour lawyer what I found?” he asks. “Did you think at all about all that stuffI found? You show that to a judge and you’ll be acquitted-”
“Look.” Allison scoots her chair from the table, holds herhands up. “Look. I’m not going to debate you, Larry. Okay?”
Larry watches her. She can only imagine the package she’spresenting today. She showered before coming but she’s still a train wreck inevery way. She almost caused an accident on the way to this store. Her eyes areheavy from sleep deprivation and worry. Her stomach is in knots, having beendeprived of food for more than twenty-four hours.
“Please don’t tell me that things look grand,” she says.“They have me all over Sam’s house. They have that damn alibi. And they haveme, the day before, barging into his office like some deranged maniac-”
She stops herself as Larry’s look softens.
“Kind of like now,” she says. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay, it’s okay.” Larry has played the advocate inthis relationship. Originally a biographer, now a reporter bent on showing thatAllison did not kill Sam Dillon. But he has always been good about this. Asmuch as he has tried to help Allison’s defense, shown an unwavering belief inher cause, fought his exasperation at her unwillingness to use hisassistance-always, he has deferred to her, the woman on trial for her life.
“You’ve tried to help me, Larry. I know that. And I hopeI’ve given you enough material back.”
“You’ve been great.”
“I don’t know about great, but-” She runs her hands over herface. “The book you’re writing, Larry? Please go easy on my family. That’s whatI came here to ask.”
Larry’s smile is eclipsed, his expression hardening justlike that. “You want me to be quiet about what I know.”
“Larry, this book is going to sell no matter what. ‘ByAllison Pagone, as told to Larry Evans.’ You’ll get a great print run. Juststick to the basics. You don’t need the sensationalist stuff.”
“So?” He opens his hands. “You want me to back off what Iknow.”
“You don’t ‘know’ anything, Larry.”
Larry Evans shifts in his chair, directs a finger at thetable. “I know you didn’t kill Sam Dillon,” he says.
“Stop saying that. You don’t know that.”
“Then I believe it. And I think you’re protecting someone.”
Allison looks around helplessly. She recognizes her lack ofleverage.
“What’s happened?” he asks. “Where’d the fighter go? Why areyou giving up all of a sudden? What’s happened since the last time I talked toyou, that now you’re acting so resigned to defeat?”
She looks into his eyes briefly. He is challenging her. Butshe will not tell him.
“Promise me you’ll be fair to my family.” She recognizesthat, from Larry’s perspective, she has no bargaining position here. She willnot be able to enforce any promise. Allison gets to her feet, takes a moment togain her equilibrium. She picks up the basket of vegetables, stares at them asif they are hazardous materials, and drops the basket.
“Tell me what happened,” Larry pleads. “Something’shappened. I can tell. New evidence or something?”
“Something,” she says to him. “Look-thanks for everything.For being there.”
Larry reaches for her hand. “Allison, tell me. Maybe I canhelp.”
“I can’t tell you.” She withdraws her hand. “I–I can’t.”
She goes home, the only place she is allowed to go. The drycleaner’s is a permissible stop as well, but it’s closed on Sundays, and shehas no cleaning there, anyway. She sits outside on her patio, looking over hergarden, at the rusted play-set where Jessica used to swing and slide and climbwith such energy and unmitigated delight, and remembers the vicarious enjoymentshe derived from her daughter’s simplest acts.
She thinks of Sam Dillon. One evening in particular,mid-January of this year. Dinner, his idea, at a little Italian place, a realhole in the wall with the most perfect garlic bread she’d ever tasted. A smallroom with ten tables, a red-checkered tablecloth, the smells of olive oil andsausage and garlic mingling. She remembers the way he looked at her.
There are things you don’t know, he said to her.
She leaves the patio and takes the phone in the living room.She drops onto the couch and dials the numbers.
