The Last Night Out Read online

  But the day’s events brought back her suspicions on a completely different level. Michael had skulked in at five a.m. and awakened her from sleep – if you could call her restless tossing sleep. He apologized for being so late, explained that he had been winning big at the poker table, that it was in bad taste for a winner to walk away. Then he made love to her for the first time in months, nullifying her anger about his late arrival. All that mattered was that he had made love to her for the first time in ages.

  Her newfound happiness came crashing down when she witnessed his reaction to Angie’s death this morning. He had turned as white as the blinds on her kitchen windows, his hands shaking so visibly she feared he would miss his coffee cup. Hardly the hands of the surgeon who could take twenty years off a woman’s eyes. While there was no denying Angie’s death was an unexpected tragedy, Michael seemed inordinately disturbed by it. After all, Angie was her friend, not his. That’s when the unthinkable occurred to her. Could Angie have been coming between them? Had the breakup of Angie’s marriage pushed her to dabble in someone else’s?

  She was still pushing carrots into the baby’s mouth when she sensed him standing behind her. Michael had a most annoying habit of entering a room without announcing himself, and then saying or doing something that made her jump from her skin. Sure enough, a light touch on her shoulder caused her to jerk the spoon from the baby’s mouth. ‘I hate it when you sneak up on me like that,’ she said, turning to glare at him before returning her attention to the baby. ‘How’s the patient doing?’

  ‘She’ll be all right. Had to put in a couple of drains. Of course, lipo on Mrs Cavanaugh was a complete waste. She’s gonna eat herself back to fat in no time. Only this time the fat’s going to end up around her waist instead of her ass. Thank God they pay in advance.’ He wrapped his arms around her from behind, and she put down the jar of baby food and rotated toward him, burying her face in his chest.

  ‘Michael, why did you act so weird today when you heard about Angie’s death?’ she asked without looking up.

  His body tensed and he broke the hug. He grasped her by the upper arms more firmly than she was accustomed to and looked at her in a manner that frightened her. ‘What are you talking about? A friend of yours is murdered and you think I’m acting weird? As compared to what? It’s not like we get this kind of news every day.’

  ‘Oh God, Michael. You’re right,’ she apologized, not wanting to anger him. ‘I just get so afraid sometimes. You and the kids are everything to me and if anything ever happened …’

  He folded her back into the hug and held her tighter this time, rocking her gently back and forth. ‘Honey, a horrible, barbaric thing has happened. It’s understandable that you’re upset. But don’t read things into a situation that aren’t there.’

  Secure in her husband’s embrace, Carol Anne began to think maybe she was overreacting. But there was an unfamiliar timbre in his voice, an almost forced normalcy. A sense that something wasn’t right came over her, lingering after he went upstairs to get ready for dinner. She worked to suppress the feeling. This curly-haired character was the focal point of her existence, the only man she had ever loved, and nothing would ever change that. Her troubled thoughts overshadowed the grief she should have been feeling for her deceased friend.

  THIRTEEN

  13 Days Until

  The biggest hurdle after eating of the forbidden apple was facing Flynn when he arrived home from New York on Sunday afternoon. I’d begged off from picking him up at the airport, but couldn’t reasonably get out of going out to dinner with him that night. Since he left the choice of restaurant to me, I intentionally chose our favorite sushi restaurant so I wouldn’t have to sit across from him and look him in the eyes for an entire meal. I was afraid what his trusting blues might read in my cheating greens. Not yet ready for him to set foot in my apartment, I told him I would meet him outside the restaurant. The moment he turned the corner, casually dressed in his stonewashed jeans and cranberry Polo shirt, my eyes filled with tears. He hugged me, and I buried my head in his chest, unloading rivers of salt on Ralph Lauren’s pony, not truly sure which was prompting the tears more, my own behavior or Angie’s death. The entire time, he rubbed the back of my head with his smooth hand and kept repeating, ‘It’s OK, Mags. It’s OK.’

  When I regained control, I wiped my tears away and glanced at him briefly. Then my eyes went straight back to the sidewalk. ‘Welcome home,’ I said.

  Sitting side-by-side at the sushi bar, we talked about Angie’s death. I told him everything I knew about her murder, that Angie had most likely left her apartment after being dropped off by Suzanne and been killed some time after that. Luckily, he didn’t press me for any real details about the evening. The less said about that night the better. I had fibbed – if you could call it that – and told him Angie, Suzanne and I left The Overhang at the same time, but that we had taken separate cabs because Suzanne was taking Angie home. That statement left a gaping hole in my story since Angie lived closer to my Old Town apartment than Suzanne’s Lake Shore Drive penthouse, in which case it would have only made sense for me to escort Angie home instead of Suzanne. Flynn didn’t notice.

  But then Flynn wasn’t looking for holes in my story. There was no reason for him to distrust me. In an effort to lighten the mood and move the subject off Angie, he recapped his weekend in New York with his fraternity brothers, a weekend he said would take his liver at least a month to recover from. They had started out Friday night with drinks at Fanelli’s followed by steaks at Gallagher’s and ended the night in a roast at P.J. Clarkes. On Saturday night they’d dined in Hell’s Kitchen before the guys took him to a gentlemen’s club in a seedy Westside neighborhood.

  ‘You want to know what I was thinking while I was watching those girls at The Incubator,’ said Flynn, taking my hand. ‘I was thinking that they had nothing on you. I was wishing I was back here with you or that you were with me in New York.’

  ‘I wish I’d been in New York too,’ I echoed in all honesty. If I’d been in New York, none of this would have ever happened.

  I swiveled my chair sideways and studied his sweet face, the slope of his nose and his strong chin. I reminded myself how lucky I was, something my mother was always quick to remind me of as well. ‘There aren’t many men around like Flynn, especially for women in their thirties,’ she repeated, ad nauseam. ‘I told you you’d find someone if you lost that weight.’

  As if you had nothing to do with the weight, Mother, I wanted to say. A picture of sandy-haired, sleepy-eyed, rebellious Barry Metter found space in my brain and my stomach sank with a last bit of pain for my young self.

  I had fallen for Barry just as hard as Carol Anne had fallen for Michael, my uninitiated heart as vulnerable to first love as a native to colonial disease. He was older and smarter, saw the world through a different lens. He had radical beliefs and lofty ideals for solving world hunger and getting out of Vietnam before he made draft age. We met during winter of my Junior year and were inseparable all that spring and through the summer. And as young love in its rawest form would have it, he began pushing me to go all the way, telling me that if I really loved him, I would prove it. Being a good Catholic girl, I refused him that proof, but did permit him do things that would have appalled my parents.

  But then September drew near, and I was confronted with Barry leaving for Berkeley. I decided that proving my love might be the only way to keep him tied to me across the two thousand or so miles between Winnetka and California. Then, the perfect night presented itself. My parents were going to see La traviata downtown and not expected home until late. With my older sister already away at college and my younger sister spending the night with a friend, the house was mine.

  Barry climbed up the elm outside my bedroom so that none of the neighbors would see him come into the house. I waited at the window wearing the yellow negligee my parents had given me for Christmas. When he took me into his arms, we were Romeo and Juliet, two young lovers so
taken with each other the rest of the world failed to exist. Barry was gentle with me and I only felt the mildest discomfort as he pushed his way into the uncharted territory. He was atop me with the sheets pushed to the foot of my bed, when my bedroom door opened. Just my luck, the electricity had gone out at The Lyric and the opera had been cancelled.

  To this day, my mother’s shrieks still ring in my ears. She wanted to see him in prison for statutory. With Barry already eighteen and me only sixteen, there was a good chance she could have made it happen. Instead, Barry was banished from my life, and I was grounded for last weeks of the summer. Barry left for Berkeley without me even having a chance to say goodbye. I lay in my room crying for days afterwards, refusing to eat.

  Two weeks later, I donned my grey plaid uniform and went back to Immaculata for my senior year. In the weeks that followed I still wasn’t eating, had no taste for food, yet the waistband of my uniform started getting tighter. My mother confronted me with the truth before I had permitted myself to become fully aware of it. With my older sister away and my younger sister premenstrual, my mother and I were the only tampon consumers in the house. And when she noticed the seal on the box of Tampax under my bathroom sink remained unbroken, it didn’t take long for her to draw her conclusion.

  Before I knew it, the Catholic of all Catholics whisked me to her Jewish gynecologist for a D and C. What were my options? I was sixteen with an ex-boyfriend two thousand miles away. And when my mother’s mind was made up, like natural events such as a tornado, she was not a force to be challenged. I was a slave following orders. I did as I was told, studying the ceiling with my legs spread as my uterus was scraped clean. That night, still numb over the loss of Barry, and even more numb over the loss of his potential child, I started to eat again.

  Boy, did I ever start to eat. I buried myself in food to ease the pain. I ate like a glutton, hamburgers and chips and ice cream. I couldn’t get enough food. I kept eating until I’d put thirty pounds on my five-foot-three frame.

  I never saw Barry again. His father was transferred to California later that autumn, so there wasn’t even a chance of seeing him when he came home at semester break. Not that I would have wanted him to see him the way I looked then, blown up like the Hindenburg. In time the pain lessened, but that did nothing to lessen the thirty pounds. The weight stuck with a vengeance through the rest of high school, college, and afterwards. In part, I attributed my success at the Chicagoan on being overweight. My fat shielded me from any distracting interests, like a boyfriend, leaving me plenty of time to dedicate to a job I didn’t even like.

  Then, one day while waiting to make a sales call on an insurance agency that advertised in the Chicagoan, I started leafing through a trade magazine in the waiting room and came across a picture of Barry. He had won some award for being the top insurance producer in his county. His face was soft and flabby, his hairline had receded, and the smirk I had so loved had evolved into a white capped-tooth smile. The article mentioned how proud his wife and two children were of him. His rebellious streak had matured into bland conformity. At that moment, I realized that somewhere deep inside my consciousness had been a vision that we would be together again. That vision now evaporated.

  In the weeks that followed, I stopped overeating. Just like that. I stopped gorging on hamburgers and French fries and cookies and ice cream, and started eating wholesome foods like fruits and vegetables and fish. I started walking to work instead of driving or taking a taxi. I started doing sit-ups and push-ups. And pound by pound the weight melted off until one day I got on the scale and it read one hundred and ten pounds. My exact weight the summer I loved Barry.

  My exact weight the day I met Flynn.

  Every word I spoke the rest of the evening to Flynn was forced and contrived, like he was a stranger I couldn’t wait to get rid of. The irony was he was the same person I’d dropped at the airport on Thursday evening. I was the one who had changed, who had violated a trust, who was now the stranger. And as hard as I tried to act normal, normal was hard to find. An immense sense of relief passed over me when Flynn pulled up in front of my building to drop me off. But before I could get out of the car, he pointedly asked me if everything was all right. I blamed my odd behavior on Angie’s death, which was partially true. Then I bolted from his car and went up to my apartment, grateful that we weren’t living together yet, so I could be alone with my guilt.

  FOURTEEN

  Suzanne

  Vince sat on the edge of the bed watching her dress, the sheets draped across his spent penis. His stare was so intent that even as she pulled her black jersey dress over her head, she could feel his eyes on her. When she bent her arm to reach the zipper in the back, he jumped from the bed and pulled the zipper the length of the sheath in an almost religious manner. His eyes stayed riveted to her while she sat at her vanity, knotting her blonde hair into a perfect bun and applying a light coat of lipstick. When she slipped the heavy gold bracelet he had given her onto her wrist, he nodded with approval.

  Then her façade fell apart. She dropped her head to the back of her chair and let out a sigh. She pressed her eyes closed and held them tight, searching for peace in the dark behind her lids. There were no words to describe how much she dreaded this funeral. The wake had been painful enough: the morbidity of the funeral home, Angie’s weeping mother and broken father, her three brothers trying to stand tough, the grieving faces of family and friends, the pain exacerbated by the unanswered questions of who and why. The past days had been exceptionally hard on Suzanne, bringing back seething memories of Johnny’s death. She thought time had scarred over that wound, but Angie’s death had torn it wide open and the pain was fresh as ever.

  When she reopened her eyes, Vince was staring at her with concern. She forced a weak smile. ‘I better get going.’

  ‘Are you sure you’re all right? You look pale,’ he said, his voice fringed with new worry.

  She started to nod yes and then stopped, shaking her head from side to side in a very emphatic no. Fighting for control of her emotions, she sat down next to him on the bed that had been the source of sweet ecstasy only minutes earlier. ‘Oh, Vince. I just can’t stop feeling this is somehow my fault. I mean, I know it’s not, but I can’t help it. Every time I see Angie’s parents, this sense of culpability gets worse. I feel so responsible.’

  ‘But how could you be responsible?’ he soothed her. ‘You didn’t make Angie go back out.’

  ‘But I made her go home. You can’t understand.’

  ‘Help me to understand.’

  ‘It’s too difficult,’ she said.

  Vince wrapped a comforting arm around her. She squirmed out from under his arm and gave him a quick peck on the lips. The kiss was a far cry from her earlier needy kisses.

  ‘I don’t want to be late. Be sure to lock up when you leave,’ she reminded him.

  She let herself out of the apartment and took the elevator to the garage. As she inched into the morning traffic, she adjusted her grip on the steering wheel and the gold bracelet reflected the morning sun. She couldn’t help but smile at its simple beauty. Vince had presented the bracelet to her at one of their earlier lunches. She had turned it down at the time. Now she stared at it with the satisfaction of a cat on a warm car hood. Despite everything sad going on, the prize of possession could always elevate her mood.

  The lunches with Vince had started out innocently enough. For a solid month of Fridays, she joined him at a fine restaurant where they shared a fabulous meal washed down with expensive wine. His behavior was always that of perfect gentleman, rising when she approached the table, keeping himself at an appropriate distance at all times while they dined, a polite peck on the cheek when they parted ways at the end of the meal. Their conversations were seldom about business, but more about arts and sports and history. Sometimes they discussed politics, but since they were both conservative and were both fans of the current president, George Bush, each was preaching to the choir.

  He onl
y spoke about himself once. Emboldened by a third glass of wine, she had asked him how he had achieved his success. He told her of being born in Pittsburgh forty-two years before to elderly parents who died within months of each other, leaving him an orphan at age eight. For the eight years that followed, he had been handed off from relative to relative, months here, a year there, never having a room he could count on much less a place he called home.

  ‘But don’t feel sorry for me,’ he said upon seeing her pitying look. ‘My childhood made me who I am. It created a will in me to succeed, a will I might not have had if my life had been normal.’

  Wanting to be self-sufficient, he dropped out of high school at sixteen and took a job in construction where the pay was good and jobs were plentiful. He loved every aspect of the business, of creating something where there had previously been nothing. He enjoyed the danger and skill involved working high up in the sky. He appreciated the mathematical symmetry of the structures he worked on, how tons of steel and concrete could be integrated with miles of wire and plumbing to form magnificent structures. He loved battling the elements and solving problems.

  ‘I decided that what I wanted to do was own a company that would design and erect buildings. So I went to night school, got my GED, and started taking classes in architecture and engineering. My whole life was study and work, study and work.’