“You calming?”
Beth’s voice came from somewhere. Into herlimp hands something warm was placed, and she felt Beth’s hands wrap herfingers around it. Liddy looked down at the mug of hot cocoa. She squeezed it.
“Mm-m. Thanks.”
“Can’t beat the two of them, hot cocoa andespecially the aquarium.” Beth plunked onto the couch behind Liddy; let out apained breath. “I swear by aquariums to relieve stress, they’re mesmerizing, rightup there with staring into a fire in the fireplace with glowing embers beneaththe logs. Only who in Manhattan has working fireplaces with glowing embers –who even has logs? Except for decoration…you burn your expensive-in-the-citylogs and then they’re gone, no woodshed. So for here aquariums win.”
“The bubbling sound alone...”
“Yeah, nice. Almost beats Valium.” Liddycould hear Beth plumping throw pillows, muttering that they’d been losing theirfeathers. Then Beth said, “Take deep, slow breaths, hear nothing but thebubbling. Emotional closeout! Everything must go! No pain or static allowed.”
“I’m going to start calling you Yoda.”
“Ha.”
Beth’s apartment was open, with few wallsand the long, turquoise-hued aquarium acting like a room divider. Very FengShui, really nice. Liddy had seen party guests gravitate to the aquarium,oohing and pointing and forgetting themselves. It was hard to wrench herselfaway but she did; finally left the chair she’d pulled up to the fish andreturned with her cocoa to the couch. Beth was now fiddling with anold-fashioned afghan.
“Crocheting helps too,” she murmured,fingering soft wool strands of orange and peach. “I made this during the splitfrom Rob. It saved me from killing myself.”
“You told me.” Liddy put her mug next towhere she’d left her phone on the coffee table. “Gotta buy me some yarn.”
They fell silent for a long moment. Liddy juststared at her mug. Beth patted the afghan, then took another deep, consolingbreath. “But really, I gotta be fair,” she said slowly, catching Liddy’s lookand raising her hands. “No, it has to be said - the split from Rob only came aftermore of his screwing around. In retrospect, I would have been happy withthat once.”
“You don’t mean that.”
“Okay, maybe not when it happened and I wasso girly hurt, betrayed, crying and throwing things, but later I realized…thatfirst time had too much to do with my pride, and we healed after that –remember him bringing flowers, going all rose-nutty, filling every room and thebathroom with flowers?”
“Guilt. Overdoing it.”
“True. I knew it but like your standardchump it placated me – and made him feel off the hook and then he went back to histricks, and I just got sick of him – frankly stopped giving a damn, stopped tryingto love him. That’s what did it, the accumulation of…” Her voice trailed.
“Lies,” Liddy finished for her.
“Right, but multiple lies, deceptions,squirming like a spineless worm. Something else? Despite all the damn flowersand the gold bracelet Rob never said Sorry – not once, apology wasn’t in him. Whereasthis…” Beth shook her head, peered across to the fish for help. “I can’teven believe it. Paul has always seemed crazy about you. At the hospital he wasin such bad shape, terrified of losing you.”
Liddy looked to the fish too; frowned. “Whydo men cheat?”
A who-the-hell-knows gesture. “Becausethey’re wired that way? Or, they like to be bad? In Paul’s case, ‘cause Carl hadhis fun in the toy store and Paul wanted some too? He may have figured, no harmif no one knows, this little girl gets around anyway.”
Liddy’s cell phone buzzed. She just staredat it on the coffee table. Beth reached for it and checked the readout.
“Paul again. This makes his fourth call.”
“Ignore.”
“He doesn’t even know where you are.”
Liddy shook her head, back and forth. “Lyingby omission…big omission…is also lying.” Her voice was bitter. “He let me gothrough months of nightmares, lost sleep…never once tried to explain theaccident.”
Beth inhaled, solemn. “He was afraid you’d ‘runback into the traffic?’ That’s what he said?”
Nod.
“He may have meant it literally. Either wayhe was terrified of your reaction.” Beth touched Liddy’s arm. “Hey,” she said.“He’s frantic. You two had a bad fight, he doesn’t know where you are, and lasttime you got really upset you wound up spending four days in intensive care. Letme call him back at least, tell him you’re okay. Sleep here tonight. Sleep onthe whole thing…tomorrow you may feel different.” Beth tried to smile. “Thatsound okay? A chance for you both to simmer down?”
For long moments Liddy glared at her phone.
“Okay,” she finally said.
46
The Skype connectionwas bad. Twice it dropped, and when it came back the sound and image were distortedand the screen was red.
“Crappy connection, huh?” said the man inthe screen.
“Yes, sorry,” Kerri Blasco said. “Now Ihear you but you sound like Darth Vader.”
“You look yellow at my end.”
“Wait a sec? Our brilliant technician here isfixing cables. Old cables. Your taxpayer dollars at work.”
“Tell me about it.”
Jerry the tech guy made his adjustments, andthe thirtyish, sweet-faced man in his camouflage Air National Guard uniform cameinto focus.
“Ah, better.”
“You look better, too. You’re pretty.”
“You must be sleepy. I really appreciatethis, the hour’s ungodly where you are.”
He smiled and shrugged. “Four-thirty inKabul. We get up at five anyway. How can I help?”
Peter Dunn, his name was. He was a New YorkCity EMT and a sergeant volunteering his second tour of duty in Afghanistan. He’dbeen on some assignment and was finally, after nine days, reachable for Kerri. She’dalready emailed him her question: Did he by any chance remember the hit-and-runaccident on last June third, at three in the morning in front of 410 West 83rd?
He did. Emailed back that, in fact, theaccident still bothered him, still seemed weird, he’d never gotten it out of hismind. “Busy night, but some things you just remember,” he wrote. They’d made anappointment to Skype – by five local he’d have to roll – and now here theywere.
“I spoke to your partner Doug.” Kerri gavea quick smile of thanks to the tech leaving. She had her notebook out and herballpoint ready. “He only remembers the injury but used the same word you did –weird – about there being more to that accident. He couldn’t remember what.”
“Well,
