could barely speak; she could barely speak. She practically moved into my apartment. Judy, more than anyone, got me through the funeral.
“Mary? What’s going on?”
I tell her the whole story, and that I think it was the same car that’s been following me. All she says, over and over, is, “Oh, my God. Oh, my God.” Her voice sounds faint and tinny on the other end of the line.
“Do you think he suffered?” she asks finally.
I remember Brent’s face and the agonized expression on it when the car plowed into him. There’s no reason to tell Judy that. “I don’t know.”
“Poor Brent. Poor, poor Brent. Oh, my God.”
The water shuts off in the shower. I hear Ned banging around in the bathroom.
“What are you doing at Ned’s?”
“I came here. I thought he did it.”
“So why are you still there? Brent is killed and you’re at Ned’s?”
“It’s not him, Judy.”
“I can’t believe you. What are you doing?”
I hear Ned scrubbing his teeth, humming to himself tunelessly.
“He’s been wonderful to me, Judy. He-”
“You’re fucking Ned Waters? Mary, is that what you’re doing?” She sounds angry.
“It’s not like-”
“You’re in danger, Mary! We don’t know anything about him. He has every reason to try and hurt you.”
Ned switches off the water in the bathroom, and I hear him walking toward the bedroom. His off-key hum has segued into an off-key march.H.M.S. Pinafore, as sung by a coyote.
“He’d never do that, Judy.”
“But Mary!”
Ned appears in the doorway to the bedroom, bundled up in a thick terry robe. His wet hair is spiky and uncombed; his beard is slightly stubbly. He balls up a damp towel and shoots it at a wicker hamper across the room. It goes in, barely, and he grins at me.
“Don’t worry, Jude. I’m fine.”
“Is he right there? You can’t talk, can you.”
“Not exactly.”
“I think you should get out of there.”
“I’m fine, Jude. You can call here if you need to. Whenever you need to.”
Ned sits down on the bed behind me. I feel his hands on my back, still warm from the shower.
“But what if it’s him?” Judy says.
“I’m fine. I really am.”
Ned massages my shoulders, pressing into them from behind. His touch is firm, insistent. I can feel the tightness in my muscles begin to disappear.
“You’re making a big mistake, Mary.”
“Believe me, I’m okay.”
He applies more pressure, and his fingers knead the top of my shoulders. I move my neck from side to side, and it loosens up.
“We’ll talk tonight. Look for me before the service.”
“Good. Take care.” I hang up. I wish she wouldn’t worry about me with Ned. My shoulders are warm and tingly underneath his hands.
“How does that feel?” Ned asks softly.
“Terrific.”
“So Judy’s worried about you.”
“Uh-huh.”
“She thinks I’m the bad guy.”
“Honestly, yes.”
“I thought so.”
“I’ll talk to her.”
“Therapy 101. You can’t control what people think.”
“Lawyering 101. Yes, you can.”
He laughs. “Close your eyes, sweetheart.”
I close my eyes and concentrate on the gentle kneading motion of his fingers on my shoulders.
“Let your head relax. Let it fall forward.”
So I do, like a rag doll, as his hands work their way to my neck. He takes it slow, inch by inch. It reminds me of the way he made love to me, in the darkness. He didn’t rush anything. He felt it, that’s why.
“Everything’s gonna be all right, Mary,” he says quietly.
I almost believe him.
19
That evening, I’m sitting between my parents and Ned at Brent’s memorial service. It’s at the Philadelphia Art Alliance, an elegant old building on Rittenhouse Square, not six blocks from where Brent was killed. Some of Brent’s friends put flowers on the sidewalk in front of the bank today, and his death was all over the news. They called it a “hit-and-run accident,” which to me is a contradiction in terms. But it doesn’t matter what the TV says. The only thing that matters is what the police say. I wonder if Lombardo will be here tonight.
I look around at the crowd, which appears to be growing larger by the minute, but I don’t see Lombardo. The service is full of friends from the nonintersecting circles of Brent’s life. There are his gay friends, the biggest group by far, as well as his fellow voice students, and a contingent from Stalling. Judy’s here with Kurt, and so are most of the secretaries from the office, sitting together in a teary clump that includes Delia, Annie Zirilli, and Stella. Even Stalling’s personnel manager is here, the one who gave Brent such a hard time about the tray. She eyes the gay men with contempt. Her expression says, I knew it.
Watching her, I remember what Brent said just last week. When I die, I want my ashes ground into the carpet at Stalling amp; Webb. He wasn’t kidding.
I look down at the program with his picture on the front. A smiling face in a black shirt, surrounded by a skinny black border. This should not be. He’s not supposed to die; he’s too young to be inside a skinny black border. He would have said, What’s wrong with this picture?
My mother touches my hand, and I give hers a perfunctory squeeze. I don’t want to feel anything tonight. I want to be numb.
The eulogies begin, and Brent’s voice coach is the first to speak. She’s a bosomy brunette, middle-aged and wearing lipstick that’s theatrically red. Brent once described her to me as robust; actually he said robusty. But she doesn’t look robust tonight: She looks broken. Her speaking voice, which has a remarkable timbre, sounds so grief-stricken I can’t bear to listen. I look around the room and spot Lombardo, sitting alone on one of the folding chairs against the wall. His hair is slicked down with water and he wears an ill-fitting black raincoat. He looks like an overgrown altar boy, not somebody smart enough to catch Brent’s killer. And maybe Mike’s.
“He had a fine voice, mind you,” the singing coach is saying. Her head is held high, her posture almost a dancer’s. “But Brent was never ambitious in music. He never entered any of the competitions I told him to, even when I got him the forms. He refused to do it. ‘I won’t go onStar Search, Margaret,’ he said to me. ‘Dance Fever,maybe. ButStar Search, never.’”
There’s laughter at this, and quiet sniffles.
“Brent studied because he loved music with all his heart. He sang because he loved to sing. It was an end in itself for him. I used to try to instill that in all my students, but I stopped after I met Brent. That was the lesson Brent taught me. You can’t teach joy.” She faces the audience in a dignified way, then steps away from the podium.
