The Last Night Out Page 2

  He had awakened and dressed and was sitting at my kitchen table, flipping through a copy of the Chicagoan, his curls brushing the wire rims of his glasses. He looked up and his lips curved in an intimate smile, carving those dimpled parentheses back into his cheeks. He tipped his head down the hall towards the open bathroom door.

  ‘Do you mind?’ he asked.

  ‘Mind what?’

  ‘If I use your bathroom.’

  As the door closed behind him, my mind raced with possibilities. Surely, he wasn’t thinking of taking a shower. He needed to be gone, the sooner the better. The sound of a flush was followed by the sound of the tap running, and then, to my great relief, the door opened and he walked out. He came to me, still frozen in the middle of the living room, and bent to give me a kiss. I pulled away.

  Hurt clouded the brown eyes behind the wire-rimmed glasses. ‘I want you to know I really enjoyed being with you. I want to see you again,’ he stated.

  ‘What?’ The word came out a gasp. Was he kidding? Here was a man responsible for me betraying my fiancé, albeit with a little cooperation on my part, and he was asking me for a date? Where was the one-nighter who couldn’t get out the door fast enough? Who leaves saying, ‘I’ll call you,’ but never does. Where was that guy? ‘Are you crazy? You know I’m getting married.’

  ‘You might want to rethink that, Maggie. All I know is I’ve never met anyone like you, and I want to see you again.’

  ‘You don’t know me, and you haven’t met me. You met my drunken alter-ego last night and she’s leaving town. I’ve made a big mistake. I love someone very much and I am going to marry him and what I did was wrong, very wrong.’

  ‘You sure weren’t acting like it was wrong last night. Or this morning. You were an animal in there,’ he said, his eyes traveling down the hall to the bedroom door.

  His words struck a nerve. Not because they were cruel, but because they rang true. So perhaps I had crossed the line into the animal kingdom. The problem was now that animal was back in its cage, and it needed to be in its cage alone. I had to get rid of the carpenter quickly, and as smoothly as possible. I decided to try rationalizing with him.

  ‘Look, Steven. Last night, this morning, was fantastic. But that’s beside the point. I’ve made a mistake. I’ve done something terribly wrong and now I’m scared, scared of what I did, scared of you. Scared that my actions of one night will blow something that I’ve invested a year of my life into. My fiancé is more important to me than anyone in the world. He is a wonderful, caring man, and I don’t want to lose him. Because my libido clouded my brain, I’ve risked ruining everything. This can never, never happen again. You have to understand that.’

  He shook his head. ‘Maggie, you are making a big mistake if you go through with this wedding. The woman in that bed this morning sure wasn’t madly in love with someone else.’

  I wanted to scream, but I kept my cool. ‘That’s enough. I’d like you to leave now, please.’

  He crossed the room to my desk where he picked up a pen and scribbled something on the pad sitting on the polished surface. He turned back toward me. ‘This is the number for the job I’m working on. You can reach me there during the day.’

  I walked up behind him and tore the sheet of paper from the pad, crumpling it in my fist. ‘Don’t you get it? I’ll never call you.’ For emphasis I stormed to the door and threw it open, taking a position on the threshold with my arms crossed.

  ‘Then this is it?’

  ‘This is it.’

  Before leaving, he caught me by surprise, leaning down and brushing my lips gently with his. Then he stepped past me onto the landing. I shut the door behind him and turned the deadbolt, my ear pressed to the wood as his boots thumped down the flight of stairs. Relief flooded me upon hearing the entrance door squeak closed – as if that closure might shut out what had happened. Peeking from behind the white sheers in the living room, I watched him cross the street and climb into his truck. As he drove away, I hoped that he hadn’t noted my address so that he could never find me again.

  I went into the kitchen where a lonely bottle of Jameson sat on the counter beside two overturned shot glasses. More memory surfaced. His truck pulling up in front of my building. Inviting him in for one last drink seemed innocent enough. What could I have been thinking?

  ‘To marriage,’ I had toasted.

  ‘To marriage,’ he’d responded, drinking the whisky in one gulp before placing the empty shot glass face down on the counter. And then he had buried his face in the soft skin of my neck. The sensation of him had been both disarming and familiar. Any resolve I may have had melted as he kissed along my collarbone and unbuttoned my blouse, slipping a rough hand under my bra. My last recollection was of him leading me to the bedroom, and the two of us pulling at each other’s clothes. The rest was a blur.

  Except for this morning. That was no blur.

  I went back into the bedroom and stared at the scene of my transgression, wishing there was some cosmic way of turning back time, like hitting rewind on my VCR. The scrap of paper with his phone number was still clenched in my hand, and I hurled it into the wastebasket. I threw the windows open to clear the stale smell of lovemaking from the air and tore the sheets from the bed, shoving them into the washing machine. Then I showered in the hottest water I could stand, lathering myself over and over as if soap could wash him off me, thinking about Flynn the entire time and how hurt he would be if he ever found out about my unfaithfulness. But he could never find out. Never.

  As I stepped from the shower, my tormented thoughts turned to Angie and the call I had yet to make. I wrapped myself back in my terrycloth bathrobe and went into the living room, picking up the phone to dial a number so familiar that I could dial it with my eyes closed. Carol Anne’s chirpy hello rang out a minute later. Hers was the voice of yesterday, of ignorant bliss, the voice I trusted more than any other in the world. She was most likely sitting in her palatial kitchen making out her menus for the week and the grocery list to go along with it.

  ‘It’s me. I have some bad news.’ My words sounded bland in light of the bomb to be delivered. In a trembling voice, I told her of Angie’s death. There was an audible intake of breath, followed by utterances of disbelief.

  ‘This just isn’t possible,’ she lamented. ‘It can’t be true.’

  ‘I’m afraid it is.’

  ‘Murdered?’

  ‘That’s what Kelly told Suzanne.’

  ‘But I don’t understand. If Suzanne dropped her off at home, how did she get to the park? It doesn’t make any sense.’

  ‘Nothing makes any sense,’ I said, bursting into tears. ‘Carol Anne, there’s something else. Something else really bad has happened.’

  ‘Worse than Angie being murdered?’

  ‘Not worse, but bad.’ My voice dropped to a level usually reserved for the confessional. Then I realized this was one confession that couldn’t be delivered over the phone. It had to be delivered in person. ‘Carol Anne, can I come over?’

  ‘Of course,’ she said, tossing me a much needed lifeline.

  THREE

  Kelly

  Kelly Delaney climbed out of the squad car assigned to take her home and grunted an unconvincing thanks to the young cop behind the wheel. She let herself into the building’s courtyard, the gate banging shut as she trudged the eight steps down to her garden apartment. She opened the door to an impatient meow. The cat was unaccustomed to being left alone this long in the morning.

  ‘Hello, Tiz,’ she said, stepping inside and kicking off her shoes.

  The temperature in the small apartment was stifling, but after spending hours in the cold precinct in her damp running clothes, the heat was a welcome balm. For the cat’s benefit she opened the windows, pushing them up as far as the nails pounded into the frames would allow. Though the neighborhood was a good one, it was the city after all. She was sticky with dried sweat and really needed a shower, but bathing seemed too much of an effort, so she plopp
ed her grimy body onto the sofa. She was drained, both physically and emotionally. To call Angie’s murder devastating would be gross understatement, but bearing witness to the lifeless body of her longtime friend made the tragedy even more cutting. Even now Angie’s cold eyes glared from the front row of her memory, an image she knew she would carry the rest of her life. Another lousy burden in an already burdened life.

  Didn’t it figure, just when she was getting herself together and her life was headed in the right direction, things would turn on her. She shifted uneasily on the sofa and stared at the exposed pipes of the low ceiling. And to think the day had started out so well.

  She had awakened early with a clear head and a clean conscience. No blinding headache. No sour stomach or boozy-tasting mouth. No trying to remember how she got home. No wondering what she said or did or whom she had fucked. No coming to consciousness fully dressed and realizing she was missing her underpants. Still, it was nights like last night that were always the hardest, being around old friends who could drink when she couldn’t. That was when the temptation was the worst. But if last night served as a test, she had passed with flying colors. Not only did she not take a drink, she hadn’t even wanted one. Well, hardly anyhow.

  She kicked off the sheets and uncovered a ginger-colored ball of fur curled at her feet. A whiskered head unwound to give her a one-eyed stare. Discovered in a dumpster behind a Greek restaurant by a busboy taking out the trash, the cat had been near death when Kelly first saw her at the shelter, her coat matted with grease, her right eye blinded by bleach. A deliberate act or some unfortunate accident? One could never know. What Kelly did know was that when she saw the damaged creature quivering in the corner of its cage, she’d finally found something in more need of repair than herself.

  When she first brought the cat home, in a kind of Holly Golightly way, she wasn’t going to give the cat a name at all. But she had a change of heart after deciding she didn’t want to resemble the lost soul Ms Golightly any more than she already did. The cat was officially christened Tizzy, the name that one of the workers at the shelter had tacked onto her cage, a name Kelly felt summed up both of their existences.

  After taking a leisurely stretch, Tizzy jumped from the bed to the floor. Kelly swung her feet around and climbed out of the bed as well, stopping to fold it back into its day role as her sofa. She frowned as she fit the overstuffed rose-covered cushions into place. Flowered furniture wasn’t her style, especially pink-flowered furniture, but she’d bought the sleeper-sofa second-hand, and the most important thing was that the mattress was comfortable since there was no space for any more furniture in the tiny apartment. Things were cramped enough as it was, with a kitchen table that doubled as a desk and a chest of drawers squeezed between the closet and the entrance. She would have preferred larger living quarters, certainly something above ground, but with money tight and school expensive, it was the best she could do on her limited budget. The upside of the cramped apartment was the location. It was situated on a quiet street only blocks from Lincoln Park, making it the perfect location for a runner.

  The hardwood floor was cool beneath her feet as she padded past the corner kitchen into the bathroom. Brushing her teeth in front of the pedestal sink, she assessed the thirty-three-year-old face staring back from the mirror. Sure, it was prematurely wrinkled, but there was no getting around every one of those wrinkles was hard earned and then some. Luckily, her other features helped offset the damage and she remained pretty in a rough sort of way with the high angular cheekbones of a model, a mane of thick chestnut-colored hair remarkably free of gray, and deep-set welkin-blue eyes the color of the sky at dawn. And this morning, she noted gladly, those blue eyes were as clear as her head. No bloodshot roadmap. No glazed over glare.

  She finished up in the bathroom and went back into the other room to prepare for her morning run. After getting dressed and feeding the cat, she did some stretches, laced up her shoes, and headed out the door. Being in no particular hurry, she stopped for a minute at the top of the stairs to take in the early morning tranquility. The courtyard was library quiet, the only sound breaking the silence a robin chirping in the overhead linden tree. A random breeze brought the heavy scent of magnolias to her nose, resurrecting ancient childhood memories. This was her favorite time, the early morning, that short-lived gap between impersonal night and intrusive day. It was the only time when being alone in the city wasn’t such a bad thing.

  In consideration of her neighbors, she shut the gate quietly behind her before starting down the tree-lined street. She ran slowly at first, picking up the pace as she turned onto Armitage Avenue. Her feet leaped nimbly from curb to street and back as she made her way past sleeping condominium buildings and darkened boutiques and overpriced dry cleaners. The intersection at Clark Street was deserted, so she crossed against the light and headed into the park. Her legs felt exceptionally strong and she glanced down to admire her thigh muscles at work, expanding and contracting like well-oiled pistons beneath her nylon shorts. Toned and sleek, it hardly seemed possible that only a year before those same muscles had hung from her bones like deflated balloons.

  She skirted the shuttered zoo and arrived at the marked trail that ran the length of the park. She followed the course north, her legs carrying her effortlessly alongside the lagoon where the Lincoln Park Rowing Club was lowering its flat-bottomed boats into the water, beneath the crumbling Fullerton Avenue Bridge lined with hopeful Mexican fishermen, past Diversey Harbor, its slips newly swollen with boats back from dry dock. It was at the driving range she spotted the familiar hunched figure of Ralph ahead of her on the trail. Not quite firing on all cylinders, the old man walked the park end to end every single day, his pace only slightly affected by his age and a left leg a couple of inches shorter than the right. She called out as she neared him and he turned around, a gap-toothed smile crossing his dark face. He held out an arthritic claw, and she slowed enough to meet it with a friendly slap. He returned her slap with surprising strength.

  ‘Wow, Ralph, with a right like that you should be in the ring.’

  ‘Them days is gone, Missy,’ rasped a voice sandpapered by age. ‘Now you have a good one.’

  ‘You too,’ she tossed over her shoulder, resuming her previous pace. He shouted something behind her, but she had moved beyond earshot and his words died in the morning air. A minute later Belmont Harbor loomed into view, the luxury vessels mirrored in the still lake water like an Impressionist painting. Her untroubled mind veered off track upon spying the Dermabrasion floating placidly in its slip. One memory that remained painfully clear was the Sunday morning she singlehandedly downed a pitcher of Bloody Marys and fell off the cruiser in the middle of the lake, nearly leaving Carol Anne Niebaum a widow when Michael had to jump in to rescue her. No wonder she hadn’t been invited back since.

  Pulling shutters across that memory, she rounded the marina and entered into the adjacent patch of woods where her run was brought to a screeching halt by a police car blocking the path, its lights flaring electric blue in the pale morning light. Yellow crime-scene tape was stretched behind the vehicle, anchored by trees on either side of the trail. A large-bottomed policewoman was turning the runners back, her hands directing them towards the sidewalk on the other side of the woods. Despite the policewoman’s best efforts, a small group had gathered and was gaping at something on the other side of the yellow tape. Never one to pass up a car wreck, Kelly joined the crowd and sidled up to the barrier to see what was causing all the excitement. There was a tall thin policeman standing near the edge of the trees with his back to them, talking into his radio. A motionless figure covered in newspapers lay at his feet.

  Oh my God, is that a body?

  Probably some poor homeless bastard.

  Yeah, well, I’ve never seen shoes like that on a bag lady.

  Kelly pushed in for a better look, and what she saw turned her sweating body frigid. Jutting out from beneath the newspapers was a red stiletto attached to an
immobile foot. She recalled commenting on a similar pair of shoes the night before.

  How in hell do you walk on those suckers, Angie?

  Without giving consequence any thought, she ducked the crime-scene tape and ran to the body. The crowd gasped collectively as she dropped to her knees and started tearing the newspapers away until her worst fear was realized. Angie’s empty brown eyes stared at her from a whey-colored face, her raven-colored hair spread out like some cheap boudoir shot, her head at the angle of a doll with a broken neck. A grey tongue protruded from grey lips, frozen in some invective never to be heard.

  ‘No!’ she cried aloud, as a hand wrenched her to her feet with such force her shoulder was nearly dislocated.

  ‘What in hell are you doing?’ the thin cop snarled, holding her arm in a vise-like grip. His female counterpart had abandoned her post and was running toward them, her hand on her gun.

  ‘Let me go,’ said Kelly, twisting to break his grasp. ‘I know her. She’s my friend.’

  After suffering an agonizing lecture on not compromising a crime scene, she was taken to wait in the police car. Sitting alone in the growing heat, she bit back tears and dabbed her eyes with her sweaty shirt. Before long the park was swarming with squad cars, so many she wondered if any were left on the street. Photographers hovered over Angie’s body and forensics people scurried about the cordoned-off area, picking up God only knew what, and depositing it into plastic bags. She choked back an ironic laugh when an ambulance appeared – as if anyone could do shit for Angie now.

  Eventually, a couple of detectives came to speak to her. They wore street clothes, short-sleeved button-down shirts with damp armpits and wrinkled dress slacks. One of them was a short fireplug of a man whose salt-and-pepper hair was overrun with cowlicks. The other was a lumbering giant with a shaved head round as a melon. They flashed silver stars at her from cheap wallets and introduced themselves.