mind flooded with memories from when they were a young pretty couple making young pretty plans. But the sadness was crossed with eddies of resentment.
He loaded his car, making three trips up the stairs and across the kitchen to the outside, avoiding any exchanges or eye contact while she sat there with her papers, fortified in her determination to live the rest of her life without him. Once she looked up and flashed him a smile, but instead of feeling gratified it made him all the more irritated. When he returned on his last run, she removed her glasses and slid a glass of sparkling water toward him. “Suddenly we’re cordial,” he said, tasting the sourness of his words.
“Just trying to be nice.”
He picked up the glass and took a sip. He knew every nuance of Dana’s emotional makeup. Something in her expression said there was another agenda.
“The news is full of the Farina murder. How’s the investigation going?”
He could tell that she had little genuine interest in the case. “Nothing solid yet.”
“The paper says she was taking night courses at Northeastern.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Did you know her?”
“Did I know her?” A worm slithered inside his chest.
“From your class.”
“She was taking courses in psychology, not criminal justice.”
“Such a shame. They said she was going to go to grad school in the fall.”
“Yeah.”
“Not that it makes any difference, but she was pretty.”
“She was also a stripper.” He mentioned that as if it explained something.
“A stripper?”
“I’m sure it’ll be all over the media soon.”
“I thought she was a fitness trainer.”
“She stripped on the side,” he said. “According to her family she wasn’t your average pole dancer. She was raised in a wealthy suburb of Chicago and went to private schools for girls then NYU. It’s where she started stripping.”
“Is that right?”
In spite of the subject matter, he felt some relief that he had caught her interest, that he could still share something with her. “It was fast, easy money. Later she moved to Boston, and because she was in good shape she worked at health clubs. When she decided to go back to school she started stripping again to pay her way.”
Dana nodded. “Sounds like she was reinventing herself.”
“Maybe so.” He guzzled down his drink. “I’ve got to go.” He moved to the door.
She got up and came over to him. “I need a favor.”
“Sure.”
“The cosmetic surgeon’s office called to say there was a last-minute cancellation. He can see me tomorrow morning.”
“What for?”
“It’s only a consultation. He’s Lanie Walker’s surgeon, and he’s quite famous.”
“You’re really getting serious about this.”
“Yeah, I am. I’m just wondering if you’d come with me. Are you free?”
Steve’s heart leapt up. He would have expected Lanie to accompany her. “What time?”
“Seven. He’s squeezing me in before he goes into surgery.”
“The guy starts early.”
“I guess he’s going on vacation in a few weeks and is making extra time.”
“And, no doubt, some traveling cash. Where’s his office?”
“Route Nine, Chestnut Hill.”
“That’ll work because I’ve got a unit meeting at nine.”
“I wouldn’t ask, but Lanie’s out of town.”
Steve felt his heart slump. “Oh. So you want me because you need a ride, not moral support.”
“Both.”
He didn’t believe her. “I’ll be by at six thirty.”
She could hear the flatness in his voice, but she disregarded it. “I appreciate that.”
He opened the door. “Is that what you’re doing—reinventing yourself?”
“I’m only going to inquire about a lid lift, maybe a nose job.”
“Uh-huh, then why aren’t you wearing your wedding ring?”
She glanced at her hand. “I took it off to take a shower.”
“Since when?”
“I always take my rings off when I shower.”
He nodded and he left, trying to recall if that was true.
14
Dana’s words hummed across his brain like a plucked wire. The message was loud and clear, and it had little to do with younger women getting the hot sales jobs. That was the cover story. Lanie Fucking Walker who was this side of surgical addiction had planted the idea that maybe it was time to turn over the proverbial new leaf: get a job that paid. Get away from kids who reminded you of the family you don’t have. And while you’re at it, get a new face.
She had hammered Dana with the makeover mentality that was spreading like the Asian flu. Nobody wanted to age naturally. Nobody liked being themselves anymore. Everybody wanted the quick fix:
But that was Steve’s cover story. And he knew it. Dana’s makeover went beyond her face. She was preparing herself a new life. And he was old skin.
It wasn’t because of Sylvia Nevins. It was the old commitment thing. Dana wanted kids and he wasn’t sure. It wasn’t that he didn’t like kids. Far from it. He feared fatherhood. And it wasn’t because fatherhood meant a loss of freedom, not being able to go out with his buddies or on dream vacations. Nor was it the financial constraints. Nor did he fear losing his identity—no longer being part of a couple, just SteveandDana. On the contrary, whenever they visited Dana’s sister, he saw how much life there was—people cooking, kids running around, the house a noisy mess. The place was alive, humming with people interacting, connecting to one another—and making him feel guilty that his own life was so boringly narcissistic.
He knew what lay beneath the trepidation—a realization that had come to him during his adolescence, something he had hoped to outgrow. But he couldn’t, because he was convinced that he could never dispel the fear that he’d turn out like his parents—people so self-absorbed, so pathologically malcontent that they were incapable of raising him without passing on their own damage. He had met Dana in college and loved her looks from the moment he clapped eyes on her. They began dating immediately, but it took him five years before he could commit to marriage. Then he woke up one morning a married man, thinking that it wasn’t so bad. But he dreaded the next expectation.
And when Dana began to press for children, he froze. In theory he wanted kids, but he never felt that he possessed the ability to secure a useful place in a child’s life, that he could make an irrevocable commitment to a son or daughter. That he could be a good father.
He knew it was unhealthy, but he had never been able to share those fears with Dana. He should have, but he simply could not get himself to open up, even when she had laid down the ultimatum last Thanksgiving. Instead of spewing out the vomit from his soul, he continued to clamp down. Then he became reckless with booze, and at
